Archive for January 2010
The Natural Solution To Lack Of Musical Talent
I talk about the Riff Raters iPhone app because I want to help build this awesomely profound community of talented musicians. I love music, in all its many wondrous shapes and forms. Yet, tragically, I do not play an instrument. Call it a lack of patience, maybe a lack of discipline. Maybe the resonating sounds from string, wood, brass, tin cans, shells and even a didgeridoo are better appreciated by some people like me, who take pleasure in the talent it takes to turn inanimate objects into gratifying vibrations for the soul, even though I should have no talent myself.
I do not care whether it’s Reggae, Punk Rock, real Jazz, R&B, Classical, or old fashioned Rock and Roll. However, these are just names. All these crazy classifications…Post Hardcore, Post Modern, Emo. We put all this music into these categories, which nobody can really remember or classify anyway. Can you?
Thus, being subject to merely rating and commenting on fantastic musicians uploading their musical tweets to Riff Raters, I have stumbled upon a solution for a different sound for myself to upload to the app.
I must, however, preface this first. See, I haven’t seen more than five minute doses of the sun for over a month. It’s not that I don’t go outside. I’m a surfer by nature for chrissake. This incessant rain, clouds and fog have been permeating the landscape for possibly the last two months. Every single day.
So, now I understand the musical and maybe even hallucinatory raw sounds that come from the Seattle music scene. Thus, after watching a documentary about the nations’ National Parks, and being mesmerized by a deep seated need to break away from computers, advertising, cell phones, I found my solution in nature.
My riff, will be recording the hum of the natural world of waterfalls, wind blowing through trees, birds and the overall beauty of being in solitude. It’s a marriage of technology and nature. I’ll record my scenic riff, upload and then soak in the refreshing air and sounds that lack all the technology in the wild. Invigorated, and inspired by a solution to lack of musical talent, if only for a 20 second tweet. I’ll return to work.
Because, when the sun finally comes out and dries up all this rain, I’ll be left with the stimulating words of John Muir, “Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
Conan Nude? Play Music Instead!
It’s almost comical, even absurdly ludicrous. Have you seen it? The NBC feud, fiasco drama being played out in the media? It almost seems staged. Why does this whole quarrel seem to be such a problem for NBC? Innovation I say. Or, lack thereof. Rather than actually putting up exhilarating, moving content, we are mindlessly subjected to theatrical and quite possibly fabricated infighting just to improve TV ratings. Besides TV producers, does anyone give a crap about Neilsen ratings? As if our minds need to stare off anymore absent, like we just smoked a pound of dope and found a few fries missing from our Happy Meal.
This is exactly why music is so innovatively thought provoking, rebellious and soulful at the same time. Because no matter how maniacally depressed you are seeing as Wall Street is in the tank because some Broker can’t afford to buy his sixth Tesla this year, and Brett Farve might retire…again…, you can still listen and play music.
What’s more innovative and cool and so genuinely, technologically organic than creating awesome, thought provoking and harmonious reverberation for the masses? Speaking of ratings, you can record and upload your ingenious musical creations to the Riff Raters iPhone app and show your true innovation with artistic flair. An entire community can ponder the philosophical meaning behind your work. Is your riff meant to be defiantly punk rock, like listening to Henry Rollins when he was in Black Flag? Or, is your riff poignant and emotional or mesmerizing like listening to Angel by Massive Attack?
Whatever your creation, music is innovative, what else is your late night entertainment alternative? You can listen to Conan talking about posing nude. Yay!
It Is Now OK To Sing And Play Music to Your iPhone!
You’ve been caught red handed! You have been caught with your utterly baby soft, $700, and five million thread count Egyptian cotton sheets draped around you like some Primordial Greek God. An hour spent in the bathroom perfecting your eyeliner and makeup, like Billie Joe Armstrong; enough hairspray to perfect every delicate hair and punch an even bigger hole in the ozone layer.
You’re so ready! You can make the entire band Poison cry in shame and…YES, you’ve concocted the perfect rock star. You are now so perfectly equipped, all except for the shoes. You must ditch your shoes in favor of the socks. The socks are a must so that you may perfect your stage presence by skating across the linoleum floor; left arm outstretched pointing your index finger at the crowd. But watch out for the dining room table. There is no room for accidents here.
Strolling up to your makeshift stage, the myriad millions of pixels dancing on your GIANT overly priced, flat screen, wall mounted television come into form. You hear the crowd chanting your name and you no longer feel like the tiny amoeba in this thing called life, waiting to get stepped on by AIG and your bankrupt State. Your inner consciousness is calling out to you.
Except there is one problem. You’ve been caught playing Guitar Hero to avatars on a screen instead of playing a real guitar and really singing into your iPhone on Riff Raters. Real people listening, real fans! But it’s all ok to do. Really! You can sing and play music to your iPhone. Why? Because nobody can see you in your $700 cotton sheets, with your makeup and your hair looking like you stuck your finger in the wall socket. Oh, and those socks. You accidentally grabbed the striped five-fingered socks. Whoops!
Why You Don’t Have To Be “Cool” To Rock!
What happens when the world of music, entertainment, social media collide like a cataclysmic transformation of sound waves? What behold the future of music? Out of the chaos a community of talented musicians, singers, DJ’s and trumpeters are born and discovered on the Riff Raters iPhone app. The talented geeky music student becomes rock god. The average Joe becomes cooler than the Jonas Brothers. Oh wait? Wrong choice of words… that’s not hard to do. Because you don’t have to grow your hair into a lion’s mane and growl like 80’s and 90’s James Hetfield to be cool, or play re-hashed Southern Rock a-la Creed and every copycat band since.
So, let me make one simple humble musical request. Get out there and rap, play, sing, dance and pound those drums so loud and universally awesome the heavens nod in approval and Osama stains his britches. An original riff, a fantastic body quivering meditative burst of your soul.
It doesn’t matter whether you went to band camp, tour every garage in your community, or stand on the shiny milk crate in your room singing to a carrot stick (crap, I gave myself away). Pour your heart out. The technology is there. Join Riff Raters and share your “cool” with the world!
Check out Riff Raters: www.riffraters.com
Join the Riff Raters community on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Riff-Raters/311970795194
The Guide To Becoming A Rock God After Doomsday!
The iPhone Guide To Becoming A Rock God After Doomsday!
The Apocalypse is coming in two years you know. At least according to Hollywood, the world will look like fiery garbage heap of destruction and mayhem. It’ll be like the worst hangover you ever had…if you survive. You’ll wake up and all you’ll have is that darn iPhone sitting in your hand telling you that you don’t have any phone service. At least you won’t have to call AT&T customer service anymore.
When your hopes are dashed, there’s no more Facebook, Twitter or WordPress and you’re feeling blue and kind of like you’ve been in a 10 round fight with Mike Tyson. You somehow discover there is a lone cell phone tower in your area providing Internet service to your iPhone.
What do you do? You pop on the App Store and download Riff Raters…because we all know Steve Jobs, MacBooks , Apple and of course cockroaches will still be in operation well after doomsday, like a roving gang, fighting off Bill Gates, Microsoft and Google from gathering information on what’s left of you, the cockroaches and anyone else lucky enough to survive. The next step is to grab that s***ty old guitar and play music. The music of the apocalypse. Play it LOUD. Music that would make Jim Morrison jump out of his grave and have a drink with you. The music the Record Labels and Simon Cowell (because we know he’ll survive too) won’t let you play because you are actually talented.
So, when all is lost, you can play awesome music, find survivors on Riff Raters and be the musical Rock God of the apocalypse.
Can a few seconds of music excite your soul? Or does it want to make you scream?
Can a few seconds of music excite your soul? Or does it want to make you scream?
I love music. Music can change my moods like Paris Hilton changing shoes. I can go from an amped up coffee fueled, excitable, cell phone addled, people looking at me like I’m crazy to a state of zen filled bliss Buddha like trance in a matter of no time. All it takes is the right music.
Or the wrong music!
Take the songs in commercials for instance. Tireless commercial jingles that send you to find the nearest wall to bang your head against, screaming NO!!! Please make it stop!. These advertising agencies pay so called professional musicians to create or mix jingles that you’ll remember. Oh, I’ll remember them alright. It’s called branding in marketing circles. It gets stuck in your head so badly that it’s like someone peeled back your skull and cattle branded your brain. I’ll take almost any riff off the Riff Raters iPhone app for a commercial jingle any day. This is where these ad agencies should look for talent.
What’s my biggest fear? It’s that I’ll have that Geico commercial jingle with the money and whacky eyeballs, that were probably made in China, stuck in my head if the so-called impending apocalypse comes in 2012. No, that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that I’d the only survivor and the only things that still exist are a radio playing that dumb jingle and worthless money and eyeballs starting at me. Whew, maybe it was just a bad dream. Time to listen to some T.S.O.L. to get that jingle out of my head.
Thank you and goodnight!
Nothing Brings The World Together Like Music!
Nothing Brings The World Together Like Music
Can you feel it? The bursting sound of world-wide claustrophobia. The feeling of a need to break open, run, scream, grab and instrument and play music! A sense of reverberation in our ears. Sounds that soothe our tepid, terrorist, war, fear and politically correct riddled souls.
Music, that’s the sound. A sound that can bring the world together. Maybe even open the eyes of those music hating, distorters of all that is common sense, hiding in the mountains halfway around the world. We can show them how it’s really done. We can play music through gigantic speakers in the sky. Like a giant iPod docking station blasting Bob Marley from space. We can sing and dance and show just how much we can enjoy life, this world, even our differences.
We can mend our chipped and worn fences with technology. With an iPhone app, Riff Raters we can jam a few seconds of bliss, playing tunes and sharing them together. A sense of community blasting through the airwaves. Nobody has to be an overpaid Hollywood singer or guitarist. The world can perform, tune in, talk. It doesn’t matter what religion you believe in, what color you are, whether you’re a fetus in the belly of life, singing in the womb or can barely move without assistance out of your rocking chair.
Community, music, singing and dancing together as one community on a giant spherical ball of salt water and rock.
Join the Riff Raters Facebook Fan Page
Riffers It’s Time To Obliterate The Pop Music Computerized Phenom With Tech!
Riffers It’s Time To Obliterate The Pop Music Computerized Phenom With Tech!
Riff Raters fans and musicians! It’s time. It is now time to obliterate this pop music computerized lip synching three chord mess. It is time to open up the eyes of the world to musicians who cram music into their brains like a Harvard student the day before a final. Talented, raw core sounds. Delightful in the real sound of instruments. The sound not covered up by a million dollar computerized robot in a booth.
Does anybody remember those days in music? The days where talent abounded? Computers weren’t around to cover up the raw sounds of a pick strumming the strings. The days before lip synching in front of millions of gum chewing, withered vampire obsessed tennie boppers.
Talented artists from before gave rise to cult followings. Music that is still enjoyable today in its raw form. Pure, free flowing artists like Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Dylan, Patsy Klein and The Man in Black all the way to early punk music and real R&B. No, there were no bouncy, bubbly Lady Gaga digitized fireworks. Man, this was music, this was talent, mistakes, spontaneous eruptions of sound, the scratching of un-manipulated recorded sound and all.
Awww, the beauty of raw and unadulterated talent waiting to be discovered. Not some Simon Cowell choice to cater to a massively palatable target market. This is Riff Raters. Raw, awesome, talent. Chords strumming, people singing, making real sound.
So, go Riffers. Go find your cult following. Get your riffs and your talent out there. Obliterate this digital pop craze with smart phone technology. I’m listening.
20 Seconds Of Fame And One Hit Wonder’s On An iPhone App
20 Seconds Of Fame And One Hit Wonder’s On An iPhone App
My friends and I always wanted to be rock stars. The adoring crowds, screaming fans, groupies. Heck, we would have settled for a one-hit wonder and a small following. We’d be jumping up and down doing cartwheels at something resembling the radio airplay of any Ricky Martin song. But us, no…not us… we’d be as cool as P.O.D.
The problem is… I can’t play guitar, nor any instrument for that matter. Well, I might be able to play a few bar chords and finger pick a few notes. But for my friends and me, our rock band dreams are just that….dreams. I would imagine for many of us that is the case. Yet, fame and one hit wonders are still possible.
While helping out with the Riff Raters, iPhone app. I’ve contemplated recording my 20 second tweet of fame, if only to see what kind of poor ratings I would get. Maybe it would motivate me to actually be patient and learn how to play. If I got good, I could be my own rock star and have fans too. I might not hear my new fans screaming up on my milk crate for a concert stage. Groupies might not be knocking on my door.
Yet, for other riffers on the Riff Raters app who actually have talent as opposed to myself, that dream is entirely possible. With YouTube, Facebook and other social media tools, the next rock star could be found on the Riff Raters iPhone app. And when that happens, I will live my rock star dreams vicariously through him or her.
Riff Raters is an iPhone app that lets musicians record and share their riffs with the world. Listeners rate and comment on the music they hear, helping to determine which riffs make the Top 25. Find Riff Raters in the App Store for $1.99.
