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How To Add Instant Energy to a Song: The Magic Beat
Years ago, I was listening to the radio when "Toxic" by Britney Spears came on. At the time I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about admitting I was into a Top 40 pop song, but with "Toxic" it was a different story—I loved it and felt no shame about that fact. There are many great things here: check out that funky-as-shit bass line, the chunky guitar part and how the chords in the chorus build tension with that chromatic descending progression the first time (forgive a few music theory terms here), then release with the incredibly satisfying flat-six-to-five the second time, for example.
But for me the infectiousness of "Toxic" comes down to one primary element, the backbone of the whole song: a rhythm I’ve come to call the Magic Beat.
You're Doing It Wrong: Manliness
I remember it like it was yesterday: The Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” came on TV, I saw those ladies rocking out and said, matter-of-factly and with all the conviction a 7-year-old can have, “Girls can’t play guitar.” My mom and sister set me straight very quickly, but it’s indicative of something in men that starts in us extremely young and then gets so ingrained that it winds up feeling like an objective truth by the time we’re adults.
7 Very Good Reasons Why You Might Want to Get an Apple Watch
Full disclosure: I use some Apple products. I like my iPhone just fine, I’ve used iMacs as my primary computer for almost 15 years, and I have an ancient iPad that barely works and essentially serves as a museum piece showing what a status symbol used to look like all the way back in 2010. So my opinion might be slightly colored by my enjoyment of many Apple products.
The Blurred Lines of Music Lawsuits
I got into a much more intense conversation than I usually allow myself to get into on Facebook recently over the Marvin Gaye vs. Pharrell/Robin Thicke copyright infringement lawsuit. I had similar conversations about the Sam Smith vs. Tom Petty controversy as well as an incident involving Lady Gaga (more on that later).
I care about this stuff because one of these cases sets up a worrisome precedent for musicians everywhere. Here's my detailed take on all three.
15 Signs You're Overly-Addicted to Reading Online Lists
You clicked on this link.
Buzzfeed comes up in your browser’s suggested sites.
You click on “20 Things You Realize When You’re In Your Twenties” just in case there’s something you didn’t know you were supposed to be thinking at this age and you really don’t want to be the only not thinking it.
Say I Ain't Old
The other day I heard “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer on the radio twice. It’s a song that I never skip over when it comes on; I very distinctly remember getting the Blue Album as a kid—it was the first thing I bought after I upgraded to a boombox with a CD player in it.
That was 20 years ago. That figure by itself is crazy to me, only because I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since I was in sixth grade. But it got me to thinking about a much more interesting fact regarding the history of rock music.
My First Book
I'm really excited to announce the release of my first-ever book! Who Murdered The Delivery Boy? is a collection of my Of The Fittest comics, and it's now available to order online.
This was a labor of love (and of patience, since I've never had any experience making a book before) and I'm very happy with how it turned out.
Live Music is my Drug of Choice (The Eternal Pursuit of the Sweet Spot)
Some things are meant to exist in a single moment, then never again. It's easy to forget that in the world of instant gratification, social oversharing and permanent documentation we live in. I'm grateful for the ability to capture memories and chronicle the stories of our lives, and I use it to my advantage daily. But that makes us readily able to forget what doesn't need to be broadcast to a bevy of followers and what should be actually, genuinely over when it's done.
Advice to My 13-Year-Old Self
I once proposed that in addition to Throwback Thursdays and Flashback Fridays, we add Wistful Wednesdays, dedicated to looking back on moments of your life with deep, soul-crushing regret.
Art Defined for the Non-Pretentious, Aggressively Realistic, Grounded Human
I talk about art a lot in this blog, but it wasn't until fairly recently that I stopped having a genuine aversion to using the word to describe anything other than paintings hung in museums. Every time I heard someone talk about art or being an artist, they just sounded pretentious to me. Stop acting high and mighty, like you're changing the world because being an artist is such an important and interesting thing, I would say to myself regularly in between writing rock songs and blog posts that obviously weren't "high art." The worst was when someone claimed they had created art when it just looked to me like they were being intentionally eccentric or opaque. I just didn't get it, and I distanced myself from the term accordingly.
A Tale Of Two Albums
Why I Play Guitar
Guitar was not my first choice of instruments. It wasn't even my second. But it became clear that it was the right choice for me.
A Risky Life
I’ve had many conversations with creative friends regarding the life we have chosen to live, a life that seems unnatural compared to what is widely accepted as “normal” and which provides no shortage of discomfort, uncertainty and risk. The fact is that many people who have the artistic itch willingly and knowingly enter into a life path that causes a great deal of stress. Stress from not knowing when your next paycheck will be. Stress from sickness and injury when you have poor insurance coverage, or none at all. Stress from not feeling capable of leading the life modern society has bred most of us to believe we are supposed to live, or from not even wanting to live that life in the first place and possibly feeling slightly alienated or even ostracized from a social structure that finds that to be odd.
Bareburger Jingle
El Condor Pasa
No One Cares, and That's OK
Look: I know there are people who are genuinely interested and excited when I come out with new music, a new comic or a new blog post. Most of them are friends and family, but no matter who they are, I’m delighted that someone out there can enjoy the things I love to make.
Just F#%*ing Do It
A lot of people, myself included, seem to lack motivation sometimes.
They procrastinate, make excuses, waste time, feel the need to find inspirational quotes online to spur them forward. (And by "they" I mean "me," obviously.)
I say screw that.
You’re Doing It Wrong: Do What You Love
We’ve all seen our fair share of reality singing competitions over the past ten years or so, for better or for worse. There are many different personality types on these shows, but there’s one in particular that started bothering me: the person who truly believes that the world owes it to them to make them famous, because their voice is a golden gift that everyone on Earth deserves to hear since it will change life as we know it for the better. The audition is life-or-death, because music is what they love most in the world and they couldn’t imagine doing anything else.