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Now that Phish is on sabbatical.........
From today's New York Post:
Elephant Band a Jumbo Hit
By Bill Hoffman
Meet the biggest thing in music - a pop group featuring five full-grown
elephants. The musical beasts, who live in a conservation center in
Thailand, have been trained to play percussion instruments, including the
xylophones and a harmonica. And they also play pretty mean trumpets.
The group, which has yet to be named, is the brainchild of Sanit Homnan, who
runs the center where the elephants live. Their fist album will be released
in the United States next year and will include their debut single, "Chang,
Chang, Chang," a popular Thai children's song. In English, it means
elephant, elephant, elephant.
Homnan says the elephants work very much as a team and aren't into hogging
the spotlight with solos. Two of the elephants play bamboo percussion
instruments by shaking them with their trunks, while two others bang on
giant xylophones, and another blows a specially designed giant harmonica.
Among their tunes are "Happy Birthday," and they may soon be able to do
numbers by the Beatles and the Spice Girls.
Proceeds from the record will help fund a milk bank for orphaned elephants
and other elephant-conservation programs around the world. The pachyderm
players will do a worldwide concert tour to promote their songs. The same
conservation group has already trained elephants to paint on giant canvases.
Several of those artworks have been sold to raise money for the center.