Does This Sound Right To You?

Artrockers,

Tink, Tunk, Pank, Snikt, Sniff, Skree, Kretch, Thunk, Sniff, Thunk, Crakk!, Skshh, Womp. Wham!, Whunk!!, Crunch Crunch Crunch, Kerank, Whunk! Klick, Blam.

I've just been reading the latest Wolverine. It's a banger. Above are all the sound effect words from it. I'm particularly keen on Whunk! Skshh is the sound of Wolverine walking down a scree slope, Thunk is the sound of a crucifix being slammed onto a desk. Snikt, well you all know that that's the sound of Wolverine's claws emerging from his knuckles.

Nice to see Wham! Is still up there, via Lichtenstein and George Michael. Wham! Has legs.
I can't see Kretch being around in 50 years time and Tunk is, apparently, the sound of a door opening. As to Kretch, well that's the sound of a stone man clenching his fist, needless to say.

I used to do sound effects for films. I knew that if I wanted a Crunch Crunch Crunch I'd have to get a foley artist to walk up and down in the gravel trap. If I wanted Tink I'd tap a wineglass etc.

But the most amazing work I ever did in that area was on wildlife shows. Hear that lion eating the dead zebra? It's actually a middle aged guy eating a grapefruit. Most of the sounds in these programmes are false, created in a studio by humans. All those wonderful BBC nature shows, you can believe your eyes, but not your ears. The sound is a liar.

Plomph. That's the sound my arse makes as it hits an armchair each time the latest mag heads off to the printers. My arse has just made that noise. Kerching is, of course, the sound the till makes when you buy it next week.

Struuum, will be the sound at Green Man this weekend, accompanied by the odd Fiddly Dee no doubt. Next weekend is Reading.
Can you predict which sounds will feature there?

I can.

Tom Artrocker