$5, 11pm @ The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, 307 w. 26th, Manhattan
mc chris doesn't like being called nerdcore, and I think that's fine, because -core is surely the most pretentious of all suffixes. mc will perform his new album for the first time at this show, so if you're a fan of, erm, raps about predominately nerdy subject matter (good), you'll want to be able to say, "I was there."
Free trash talking and a Guitar Hero tournie, after the jump...
FREE! 7:30 @ Union Hall, 702 Union Street, Brooklyn
Billed as a "useless lecture series", this monthly event is less expensive than Grad School and almost as likely to get you a job. Four nerds will talk about their experiences in waste managements, and no that's not a euphemism for the mafia. Expect to see some freegans wearing clothes made out of bottlecaps, and hope they play this song at least once:
FREE! 7pm @ The Apple Store Soho, 103 Prince Street, Manhattan
Hey remember that game people used to play before Rock Band? Me neither. JUST KIDDING, Guitar Hero will always be Geekanerd's first love as far as pretend-guitar games go. Entrance to this tournie is first come first served, the prize is a gift card for five free songs at the iTunes Store. Wait, what? Are you serious? Apple, you can't shell out more than $5 dollars in prize money for your own in-store events? This is a bad sign people, dump your stock ASAP...
No Thursday this week! Know something good happening on April 10th? Leave it in the comments or use the email link in the sidebar.
With the start of April comes many burnt blogosphere offerings, but the gem of the day was a nerdlicious new song from MC Chris. He'd been advertising an exclusive preview track from his upcoming album, though given the April 1st release date it seemed unlikely he'd be putting up anything legit. He ended up unleashing a song that won't be on the album, or presumably any other album since the backing track consists almost entirely of samples from the greatest Danny Elfman theme of all time...
UPDATE: Aw man, it got taken off YouTube! Oh well. You can still get it off Chris's MySpace, see the link below.
Awesome. It's available to download for free on mc chris's myspace. Annotated lyrics after the jump....
The following lyrics were posted by MC himself on the MC Chris forums and YouTube. Most of the references should make sense to anyone who counts themselves as a fan of the film, but I added a few annotations for some of the more obscure lines.
im deathly pale bad breath bad teeth hate the sand and the sun never see me at the beach i'll stick with goth chicks transfixed on death that wear black britches i insist on nice breasts
i sleep in a grave lived through the black plague actually that's all my fault but dont wiki that k? green hair downstairs boogers farts and phlegm that's my stock in trade see me startin trends
black and white striped suit or a blood red tux got jack on my hat in japan it's a must (1) i can change shapes do pranks and disguises bioexorcist im the best in a cirisis
parents wanted me to clean up like my brother (2) boss used to say i didnt work well with others now im independent and my methods are effective say my name three times if you want to get connected
beetlejuice beetlejuice one two three i like a little lady name lydia deetz her demeanor is depressed i confess that's sweet dont try to deny she's my bride to be
hey kmart shoppers there's a sale on my services im here to help there's no need for your nervousness i'll eat what u wanna eat swallow what u say (3) relieve you of your living that are ruining your day
have you read the handbook for the recently deceased it's too thick like my dick when i think of little deetz she's the key to my release from this model existence coffin lining's confining and i want out this instant
me and the dragster of doom we're the baddest of dudes (4) we hit the inferno room where the ladies get nude but we're eternally screwed so i become a bridegroom and get lovely lydia to lip synch an i do
i must move the maitlands out of my way give'm zipperlips pitch a plate on their face say hello to hammer hands say goodbye to goulet and then off to fla where my review drew raves (5)
shrimp glove face plant we like cassettes not 8 track clown face much like the one you'll see in dark knight being dead kinda sucks the afterlife's no fun to us im the name that people trust the juice that comes from beetleguts
(1) Kay, we're starting off slow because I actually don't really know what the hell he's talking about here. Possibly refers to the Beetlejuice stage show in Universal Studios Japan?
(2) Reference to Beetlejuice's Parents an episode of the Saturday Morning Cartoon show in which it's revealed that BJ's parents are conservative squares.
(3) Refers Beetlejuice's advertising jingle for his bioexorcism service; "I'll eat anything you want me to eat, I'll swallow anything you want me to swallow, come on down I'll....chew on a dog!" Perhaps the film's finest moment.
(4) Another reference to the cartoon, the Dragster of Doom (or Doomie) was Beetlejuice's sidekick from the second season on.
(5) Beetlejuice's Rockin' Graveyard Revue used to be a live show at Universal Studios Florida, but it's gone now, along with the amazing Back to the Future Ride. Kids today have to settle for some seriously tame bullshit based on The Mummy and Twister.
Geek rap stalwart MC Chris is having a you-make-the-video contest for his new ode to the ladies, Nrrrd Girl. If the lyrics touch your heart (and they will) and you feel you can further illuminate the song's meaning with your video/animation mastery, enter the contest by February 29th for a chance to....what exactly? It's not clear, but probably the honor of having made an official MC Chris video, and possibly something else. There's no prize like a su-prize!
In related news, Chris will be a guest on Comic Book Club at the People's Improv Theater in NYC this Tuesday, January 22nd. He'll talk comics with the CBC hosts and classic comic artist Jim Starlin, and do a song or two to seal the deal. Tickets are surprisingly still available, only five bucks plus a dollar service charge.
In the wild west of user-generated new media, fan-made video contests have been embraced by a lot of mainstream artists in recent years. The winning entries vary widely in originality and profesionalism, but one tends to get what one pays for.
After the jump, we review high-profile winners and evaluate what it takes to give away your filmmaking talents for no royalties or monetary payment whatsoever. Take that, striking writers! Kurt Nishimura won the infamous Decemberist Video Contest, one of the first challenges that promised the prize of a broadcast debut. Fans were challenged to build a video around footage of the band playing in front of a green screen, an idea Stephen Colbert contends was shamelessly stolen from his own Green Screen Challenge. The controversy culminated in a guitar battle between the Decemberist guy and Mr. Colbert, the humor of which was somewhat diminished when the Decemberists guy performed a yawner of a solo, which there's really no excuse for in the age of Guitar Hero. You might have gotten away with that in like, the 90s, but post-2005 nerds have been re-educated in the ways of the shred.
The winning video is something of a snooze itself, with a simple storyline stretched thin over the song's near four minute runtime. However, Nishimura did come up with the rather ingenious idea of encasing the pre-existing footage within a television set inside the world of the video, allowing total freedom to develop a storyline with original footage without having to use cutaways to get back to the band. More kudos for the muted cinematography, which makes everything feel a bit more professional, despite limited locations and not so polished actors.
By the way, here's the winner of the Colbert Contest, which can always use a second viewing.
From a pool of around 100 entries, Incubus selected both a Grand Prize Winner and a Band/Fan Pick. Wait, so who chose the Grand Prize Winner, the record company? Ooh, I hate those guys! The Grand Prize went to a film schoolie rape nightmare/fantasy with a generous helping of After Effects filters. The fan/band pick by Carlos Oliveira featured no band footage but instead a super emo-cartoon. Again, the problem here is a good idea stretched out to interminable lengths, achieved in case by having the characters move around verrrry slowly. But the art itself grabs you, and the story has a nice mix of literal lyric interpretation and angsty big eyed cartoons people. This entry did end up getting broadcast after all, though with cuts of the band interspliced. It's actually an improvement, and does a lot to improve the pacing issues.
Original Version
Broadcast Version
Bjork fans got the chance to create a video for Innocence, off the phenomenal Volta EP. The winning entry (chosen out of a whopping 500 submissions) was by Fred & Annabelle of France. Now THIS is a video. Perhaps there was a higher incentive for serious artists to submit their work, since Bjork has a rich history of groundbreaking music videos by the likes of Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham. This video fits snugly into that proud lineage, even including some familiar bear and robot imagery. The breadth of CG techniques on display here sometimes venture a tiny bit into demo territory, they come on so abruptly, but over all the images match the feel of the music perfectly. Also, please note this video features not footage of Bjork, but a computer generated Bjork. Amazing stuff.
Here's Levi Ahmu's winning video for the Smashing Pumpkins song, Tarantula. When did they get back together? Chosen from a mere 60-something entries, this is another After Effects party that looks like Ray of Light meets some of the newer iPod Commercials, with some disaster porn thrown in about 1:45 in. At least it's relatively short.
You may notice all of these winners heavily feature band members. This is due to the fact that these are all commercially distributed artists, and music videos are basically commercials in one form or another. MC Chris, however, is self-distributing his new album, so I'd guess the pressure to advertise his image may not be necessary for the win. You never know though, there's little Chris cartoons all over his merch. I'm guess there will be a lot of flash cartoon entries, given the web savviness and abundance of time I'd expect his fan base to have.
Personal Epilogue:
I'm entertaining the idea of pulling a Nrrrd Girl video together myself. I only heard the song a few days ago while aimlessly browsing my way further into late night depression, and the song helped put me in better spirits. Lyrics like "She might seem shy in person, it's no lie/She's always nervous/But the verdict is she's worth it/She gets crap but don't deserve it" and "She's romantic, known to panic/With anxiety attacks/Literary, it's so scary/Reading Brontes back to back/" really hit home, because some of those qualities hit home personally, and others remind me of the kind of girl I fall for. The whole thing got me a little choked up, and maybe a reaction like that is worth mining for video ideas.
