Yamaha Portasound PSS-380

When the Annoyance Theater closed on Clark in the summer of 2000, a clearing house of props, wigs, and various madness was left to rummage through by its company members. One of my prized acquisitions from this dark day is a Yamaha Portasound PSS-380 portable keyboard. Used in the 90’s for performances of Tippi: Portrait of a Virgin and That Darned Antichrist to name two, the Yamaha would keep me company while I waited six years for The Annoyance to reopen.

The PSS-380 has 100 voices and 100 rhythms. Some of the preset sounds it offers: ICE BLOCK, INSECT, and GOLF. It features a digital synthesizer so you can manipulate each voice's SPECTRUM, MODULATION, ATTACK, DECAY, RELEASE and VIBRATIO. You can create some truly idiotic sounds with this little machine. Think 1912 ICE CREAM TRUCK, DARTH VADER'S DOORBELL, and SEX FROGS.

It is covered in a paint-like blood from an unknown triumph during Annoyance's salad days. Over the course of this decade it has acquired foam pads from a bike helmet, a Hamburglar sticker, and an old building pass from 980 N Michigan dated January 18, 2001. I use duct tape to keep the batteries from falling out, though sometimes this does not always work.

In 2001 a website taught me how to play piano. I used the half-sized keys of the Yamaha to clunk out broken chords. A lot of my earliest stabs at songwriting occurred on this thing, with titles like “Larfy,” “The Unexpected Death of The Performance Art Couple,” and “I'm Going To Kill You.” It would be used on the recordings of “Earthquake,” “Hatchet,” and “Misery Tomb” by Let’s Get Out of This Terrible Sandwich Shop. The built-in demonstration song gave birth to the awful “Baseball Cards Are Going to Make Me Rich.” It was also used in the worst sketch comedy show I have been a part of, Teenage Sports Parade Goes To College, where the CIRCUS BAND rhythm provided the basis for a showtune entitled "The Mayor of Jizz Heights."

The Yamaha has accompanied me on several road trips and bike rides in the US. It has even been to Canada and Mexico. On a sub-zero night in Chicago I was riding my bike down Logan Boulevard with the keyboard in my bag. I hit a patch of ice and wiped out. When I got up the RHYTHM&BLUES 1 beat was playing out of my bag. I let it play the for rest of the cold, bruised ride home.

I also used this keyboard to perform improvised songs with Rod Ben Zeev on the underground CTA stops in the Loop. We had three types of songs: rock, ballad, and weird. Rod would get a suggestion from the people waiting for their train (something like "spatula" or "doctor/patient" but usually along the lines of "You guys aren't funny" and "You suck"), and we would sing about that. The songs lasted about 60 seconds and we would repeat the suggestion in unison for a hilarious climax. At the end of the rock songs I would throw the keyboard in the air and catch it. For the ballads, Rod performed a sultry rap that received puzzled giggles. If things were going poorly we improvised a "weird" song, which consisted of the strange SAFARI beat that was impossible to sing to. Rod would shout out words randomly until the train came. If we were lucky we made enough money to cover the fare we had already paid.

One afternoon at the Jackson Blue Line stop a lady in a purple jogging suit approached us with a dollar.

"Can you guys sing a song for mother? She passed recently."

Oh no. I didn't think this was a good idea. We were doing a version of comedy, and I'm not sure this subject would be right for-

"Sure!" said Rod with his trademark enormous smile.

So I pushed POP BALLAD 2 and reluctantly went into a ballad. Rod shouted the woman's dead mother's name several times. Then he went into his slow jams rap, and mentioned how beautiful the dead woman was and how he wanted to get with her dead mother.

The woman walked up to us during the song.

"If I had known you were going to do that I wouldn't have given you my dollar."

It was the last time the Yamaha would be used on CTA property.

This keyboard is a workhorse. One of the speakers seems to have melted, affecting the sound in no way. 3 of the keys (lowest A, lower E, upper G) are broken but can work if you play them up between the black keys. The last time it was used on stage I threw it in the air and chose not to catch it. It acts like nothing happened.

The Yamaha Portasound PSS-380 now resides in the van, and I play it when work does not call. Most recently “Prom Sniffles” was composed and demo’ed using this keyboard. It’s a little piece of stupid magic this thing.