Q #2 Mona, do you know what else I think is absolutely adorable about…

[Jacki Hopper]

OmahaMike, another great Q…looking forward to what Mona has to say, and I do agree with your thoughts of Mona’s natural talent , percussion and drumwise, quite evident 🙂

[Howard]

Good question Mike. You have a good ear, unlike hearing impaired me. I couldn’t pick anything up in that video. However, I believe Mona makes the type of sound you may be referring to in their 2007 concert recording of ‘I Will’, about 27 seconds in.

[Michael Triba]

Thanks Jacki and Howard!

Howard, to me the “I Will” sound is more like a clucking or a human substitute for maracas or something.  (I heard it at the :23 mark.)  I don’t know though; I’m not a percussion expert, and thus my Q #2 to Mona.  Personally, I’m a piano/keyboard guy.

How damaged is your hearing, buddy?  (For some reason I survived The Who concert in the 7th row a few years ago with my hearing intact.)

A couple years ago I bought a great set of $100 headphones (I best not advertise brands here) and they really enhance music.  For many songs it is like I am hearing them for the very first time.

Ha ha, you are like an MLT table of contents / index / encyclopedia rolled into one; lol!

So, what does “chunder” mean?  Not plunder or thunder?  Maybe my hearing is not that good after all!!!  😉

[Jung Roe]

I was also blown away by Mona in Twist and Shout.  She really shines in that video.  The best of Ringo and John Lennon all rolled up in one there.  John said he nearly injured himself.singing the screaming part in that song, but Mona pulled it off so wonderfully all while drumming so perfectly.  When I saw that performance I knew Mona is an incredible talented powerhouse just like big Sis Lisa!

[Howard]

Spot on Jung. Looks like she is really enjoying herself too, once her talents were finally highlighted in that concert. I’d love to see much more of Mona’s drumming but not likely unfortunately with their live band set up!

[Howard]

Well Mike, I managed to catch that sound you are referring to when I listened again to ‘Maxwell’s  Silver Hammer’ tonight. Yes, it would be nice to know how they come up with these ideas. They are very talented indeed!

As for ‘chunder’, I guess you could call it colloquial Australian. Back in the seventies and eighties Australia had a reputation for having a drinking culture. In fact in the eighties, our then 23rd Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, had been immortalised by the Guinness Book of Records in 1954 for sculling 2 1⁄2 imperial pints (1.4 l) – equivalent to a yard of ale – from a sconce pot in 11 seconds as part of a college penalty. In his memoirs, Hawke suggested that this single feat may have contributed to his political success more than any other, by endearing him to an electorate with a strong beer culture. This record was at the same English Hotel where President Bill Clinton smoked a joint.

To chunder is to ‘spew’ or to vomit. Possibly a shortening of Chunder Loo, rhyming slang for spew (said to be derived from the cartoon character “Chunder Loo of Akim Foo”, drawn by Norman Lindsay for a series of boot-polish advertisements in the early 1900s). Norman Lindsay was an Australian artist, etcher, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeller, and an accomplished amateur boxer.

Chorus 2 of the Men At Work song ‘Down Under’ has the alternate line, ‘Where beer does flow and men chunder’. The regular meaning of the word “chunder” is to become sick because of the sea. This matches the previous use of the word “plunder”, as if men were pirates.

Well I’ve probably bored you enough with Australian political and ‘cultural’ history for now so I’ll leave it there!

[Michael Triba]

Ha ha Howard!  I never cease to be amazed!  I never guessed that vomit would be a topic here, but I guessed I did ask, eh?.  I should have just Googled it; lol!  Thanks for the illuminating details though!  😉

Glad you could hear Mona’s percussion sounds with her voice.  Did it take headphones and lip-reading to do it?

Well, I best do other stuff today.  I had an unexpected day off work today, and do not want to spend the entire day here and on FB.  Later!

[Howard]

I have a great pair of Bluetooth headphones but wasn’t using them. I’d been looking at the twins sitting at the bottom of the stairs instead of the separate view a couple of seconds later where the ‘clicking’ is easily identifiable. I hope you guys aren’t taking my evaluations of different suggestions too personally. I know I can become very passionate about all things MonaLisa sometimes. Like you, I do quite care about them. They are very special!

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Mike!

I’m glad you liked our beatboxing addition to Maxwell’s Silver Hammer!

We already had the guitars recorded for that song when we decided to add some “percussion” later on. We were talking through different ideas and “singing” them out loud while listening to the track when we eventually decided to just record them like that. It sounded cool and saved us the hassle of setting up the drum kit too, which was a bonus 😉

Lisa and I do a lot of “describing of musical instrument parts” by singing them when we’re in the studio or practising. “Can you do a boom-da-boom-pagadaga-pow fill there?”

Our first drum teacher might have instilled that in us, he always talked like that.

As to how I/we come up with our ideas? Playing around, listening carefully and trying things out I would say.

Thanks!

[Michael Triba]

Hi there sweet little Mona!

Thanks so much for your thoughtful and insightful answer!  Beatboxing is what you young folks call that, eh?  I’ll have to write that new word down to remember it.  😉

Having to set up a drum kit, Mona?  Don’t you have a great recital hall in your house set up just for drumming and another one for strumming?

I am really intrigued as to how the brains of the Wagner Four work.  I think you all have connected synapses that most of us can only dream about.  Is uber-creative even a word to describe it?

Could you do me a favor?  Could you and Lisa compose an original song where you sing 3 octaves of a piano and Lisa sings all the strings of a cello?  I would truly love that and I know all my fellow fans would as well.

Please tell your older sister that I will have Q #3 prepared for her this Friday.  I need to make it more difficult than Q #1 because she aced that one too easily.  But I don’t want her to lose sleep over a question I have not thought about yet.  She needs her naps.

P.S. Contrary to public opinion I am not really testing the two of you with my 26 questions.  But if I was, you too aced your first quiz!  😉

Thank you dear!  <3

 

[Francis Chamness]

While my guitar gently weeps, too.

And, don’t forget the washboard .

Mona and Lisa are both amazing. The combined talent of them and their parents is off any chart I can think of, and that’s why I place them in the number one spot of all bands I have ever heard .

MonaLisa-Twins are number one!

????????????❤

[Michael Triba]

I pretty much concur my friend!  And that is why one musicologist I once knew likened the zeal of their fans to Beatlemania!  🙂