Spike Jones

"I was fortunate enough to attend a performance of Igor Stravinsky conducting his own composition, The Firebird Suite, at the Shrine Auditorium, and Stravinsky was wearing a new pair of patent leather pumps, and every time he would go up to hit a down stroke, the pumps would squeak. So the beats of the orchestra were accompanied by the "ckckckc ckckck" sound, and I could hardly restrain myself from cracking up, and several people around me were also giggling into their hands. Of course, some of the pseudos who had come out just to be seen thought the great Stravinsky had done it again, and invented an entirely new form of percussion, but I thought, if you could plan these kinds of musical mistakes, substituting sound effects for notes and the like, maybe it would get a few laughs. So we made some home recordings and shopped them around, and I have never seen such enthusiastic reaction from the record companies. It seems Decca wanted us to sign with Capitol, and Capitol wanted us to sign with Victor, and Victor finally signed us just to get us out of their office."

From The Spike Jones Story