Udderbot

As I was playing at the Music Under New York spot at the Grand Central Station’s Shuttle, a guy named Jacob stop to listen. It turned out that he is a busker himself and he plays…a bottle with a rubber glove attached… It’s called an ‘udderbot’. He told me he just finished playing down the hall, at Grand Central. He said he also plays a bit of musical saw, too. He owns two Mussehl & Westphal musical saws.
The udderbot is made of a bottle (with cut out bottom) which act as a resonator and a rubber glove. The glove is filled with water. One plays the Udderbot by blowing over the rim of the bottle. Squeezing the gloves alters the pitch. It’s like a modified jug-band: instead of a few people blowing into one jug each, one person can play the whole song on one jug! Ingenious.

Jacob told me he had his bottle confiscated at the airport once, because the bottom of his bottle is cut off and the edge was considered too sharp by the airport authorities.
And what does a bottle with a rubber glove attached to it sound like? Well, actually, kind of like a musical saw…

Photographer: © Aaron Porter

A lady told me that she saw me on TV last night on the MSG channel.
A guy I usually see at Times Square said ‘hi’. He seems a bit mentally disabled, but he is very friendly and has a great memory. He was telling a girl standing near by how my saw has no teeth on account of the ticket I got from an undercover police woman who said it was a weapon.