RIFF MARKET

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YYES! It's the (day after the) FIFTH DAY of Spiderriffmas hosted by your man The Real Spiderfang, and I will give the beeper number for the guy who used to play Code-man on Step By Step to the first person who can correctly guess what my true love gave to me today, the fifth day of Spiderriffmas. What's that?!

FIVE GOLDEN LINKS!

That's right, I've joined Linkpasser. It's a social bookmarking website, the best of the internet picked by your friends. So while I was in bed this morning switching out my road wheels for something more all-terrain--let me tell you, that pint of Sahadis babaganush, that six-pack of microbrew I pick up from this guy parked behind the adult book store on Hoyt, these are all-organic food stuffs lover, no preservatives, no antibiotics in the feed, and let me tell you, they do not deliver themselves--while I was in bed pumping tire, my main girl Wife Huckabee was up on the internet, passing links to your boy FANG, sliding up and down the world wide web like Zap on a joust pole. Lycos.com, we takin over!

Each contributor to the 12 Days of Spiderriffmas was told: OK I'll let you jump on a record, but listen Kite Runner! You got 35 minutes max. Because I do not want no Bonfire of the Vanitas like last year. So the only rule was: Thou shalt not write more than 35 minutes--capito?

This week I got some serious names lined up. I got my man Curtis Hanson, Don Pollyanna's supposed to holler like Wednesday, plus I got my own Spiderriff I'm working on, it's called GENESIS. Sonic CD, holler! Game Genie, get your paper up! FANG

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YEAR IN RIFFS: ROB DUBBIN
All Of Us Over Here At EMI Just Downloaded Your New Album

After last year's burnout I played 2007 pretty safe, a strategy reflected in a year-end list that is 90% albums from bands I have liked for a very long time. For example, Carl Newman appears to have perfected a frighteningly effective awesome-generating algorithm. I picture him being in acquisition talks with the usual suspects.

Anyway: rather than riff on music, I will instead share a memo I accidentally received from EMI Music CEO Eric Nicoli in the early morning hours of October 11th. This is the sort of thing that happens when your email address is one letter off from Phil Selway's. See you next year!

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From: Eric Nicoli, CEO, EMI Music
To: Radiohead
Subject: LP7

Well, it's 12:05am on 10/11, and all of us over here at EMI just downloaded your new album. Really great. Very exciting. We hope you understand our decision, in keeping with our business model, not to pay for "In Rainbows," and instead to bill you for the time it took for the transfer to complete.

In case you're wondering, no I haven't listened to any songs yet. Stings, doesn't it? Are you starting to realize just what a huge mistake you've made?

Well, it's about to get worse. Because if I know Radiohead, and I think I do, what you guys really care about is money. And I'm about to listen to your album for the first time and list, track by track and right off the top of my head, a few of the improvements our supposedly obsolete company would have made.

Here we go:

1) 15 Step - Okay - I'm picturing a commercial, for a car, a powerful car, like the 2008 Dodge Caravan. We're driving in the Caravan, me and all of you guys, over some rocks, and then it turns out that the rocks are Red Rocks, and we all get out and throw on this massive jam, and obviously Dave Matthews Band is also there, because they live there full-time because it's prime fiddle-altitude. You guys do a mashup of this song and "Two Step" called "Seventeen Step" or "Thirty Step" or however - I mean you guys are the math geniuses. Speaking of math: I'm thinking eighty-five a pop for tickets, fifteen dollar service charge, plus eight dollar handling charge, plus tax, plus rock-repainting charge. Next!

2) Bodysnatchers - So "Young Folks" was kind of the soundtrack to 2007, right? Three series premieres, ten commercials, the music video for "Young Folks." Well I know Peter, Bjorn, and John personally, and let me tell you, right now they could call their band Peter, Bjorn, John, and Money. I'm thinking we do the same thing with this track, right after we overdub some whistling into the chorus. Wherever the chorus is.

3) Nude - In terms of a music video, I'm thinking shot-for-shot remake of TKA's "Louder than Love." How comfortable are you guys with turtlenecks and mimed dry-fucking?

4) Weird Fishes/Arpeggi - This one seems ripe for merchandising. I'm going to riff off your lyrics here: "In the deepest ocean..." live five teenage cartoon fishes! The theme song, which obviously we'd let you guys write, could go something like:

"Hey hey we're the Weird Fishes
Fighting crime in the ocean
Maybe you didn't think there was crime in the ocean
Well that's how good we are at fighting it
Everyone transform!"

Then they transform into tiny undersea Dodge Caravans, the official van of fighting crime. Also the fish would be based on your appearances, since I think we can all agree that Colin Greenwood already looks like a flounder.

5) All I Need - Didn't really vibe to this one. Kept expecting a rap verse.

6) Faust Arp - Here's where things get totally viral. We put the entire album in stores, right? On a CD? But when people buy it, they find that we've LEFT THIS SONG OUT. If they wanna surf the Arp, they're going to have to upload a sweet youtube vid of themselves asking for it! Then we charge them another five dollars.

7) Reckoner - This would be a for-sure number one hit, like an "Elevation" level jock jam, if you replaced all the lyrics with the ones from "Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye."

8) House of Cards - Rename it "House of Coffee" and bam! Starbucks tie-in. We also have a script kicking around for a sequel to "Akeelah and the Bee," called "Akeelah and the Creep." Creep's on this album, right?

9) Jigsaw Falling Into Place - We can get a million dollars a month to use the first seven seconds of this song in a Chase commercial that repeats on constant loop whenever someone gets into a taxi. These are the kinds of moves that turn songs into art. Money art.

10) Videotape - Campaign song for Sony Blu-Ray. I know how much you guys like irony.

11) No secret track? Is this career suicide?

Good luck on your sinking ship,

Eric

97 S'FANGS

Labels: year-in-riffs-2007