Whats the story behind the Ecstatic Tambourine Orchestra?
I think it began in Greensboro, North Carolina, when I was on tour in 2006. My bandmate had to go home ill, and I had two shows left to do. I had one song I did with my foot on the tambourine, and I had a couple of extra tambourines with me that I’d brought along for whatever reason, and I think I was feeling lonely, so I passed them out to the audience — I think that’s where it started. Here in Portland, for a couple of years, I’d been asked to do lots of shows, and I took the opportunity most of the time in 2005 and 2006 to do improvised jams with large ensembles. Juxtapose those two approaches, and you get a lot of people playing percussion instruments together. I just think it sounds really great. It’s like gospel music or something, you know? Getting on a plane with a bag of tambourines is really fun… but it’s been an interesting cultural measurement system. In Paris, people will be sitting there, and they’re enraptured by the show and very attentive, but they’ll sit with a tamb
