Bite your Lip and Grimace

WHAT IS GRIMACE? It’s a question that arises time and time again, usually at parties, or at a diner, or at 4 a.m. after a long night of gigging. Anyone with a television who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s was bombarded with McDonald’s commercials, sandwiched in between all the kids’ shows.

To the best of my memory here’s what I’ve gathered:

In the beginning, there was Ronald McDonald; Czar of McDonaldland. Like the band Kiss, as a youth, I wished he would just take off the stupid makeup! Not because I wanted to see who he was, but because of one simple fact: CLOWNS AREN’T FUNNY. It might have worked for the clown off Romper Room and Bozo, but not for someone peddling burgers.

Mayor McCheese: I have a lot of respect for Mayor McCheese. It just goes to show that even with a huge birth defect – a hamburger for a head! – you can still overcome adversity, achieve greatness, and become Mayor. Obviously, Mayor Marion Barry patterned his life after Mayor McCheese.

The Policeman-Burger-Guy: There was a policeman with the same hamburger-type head. His name was Chief BIG MAC and he was the chief of Mcdonaldland police. You don’t see much of him anymore. Last I heard, he was fudging evidence in the O.J. Simpson trial…

Captain Crook: was a pirate and is similar in appearance to the famed Captain Hook from Peter Pan. Unlike the Hamburglar (below), this villain spent his time trying to steal Filet-O-Fish sandwiches from citizens of McDonaldland while avoiding being caught by Big Mac.

Hamburglar: His face changed from the 70’s to the 80s. Either McDonald’s changed his face because he was scaring small children, or the Hamburglar had intense plastic surgery so he couldn’t be recognized in a line-up. Not the brightest guy — most thieves steal money, not burgers, but to each his own…

The Fry Guys: From what I remember about them, they looked like mold spores with eyes and legs. They would drop down from the sky (with fishing line) and steal some poor schmuck’s french fries.

Birdie: represents Chicken McNuggets. We think…? Oh, the marketing genius…and the most stupid of all characters. Birdie was a cannibal bird, but then again, all birds are cannibals.

And, of course, the reason for this blog: GRIMACE!!!!

What the HECK is Grimace? According to dictionary.com, “grimace” means, “a sharp contortion of the face, expressive of pain, contempt, or disgust.” McDonald’s own web site gives a brief insight into Grimace. They state, “Grimace is a big, loving, fuzzy purple fellow who is Ronald McDonald’s best friend. He’s sure Ronald is the world’s ultimate authority on everything. While Grimace loves all McDonald’s foods, he’s absolutely crazy about milkshakes. Grimace is very enthusiastic and eager to try new things. His joyous spirit helps everyone overlook the fact he’s a little slow and clumsy sometimes.”

I remember Grimace as sort of an evil character, who used to steal milkshakes from everyone. But I guess McDonald’s decided to tone Grimace’s deeds down a little bit because between Hamburglar, the Fry guys, Captain Crook and Grimace, crime was running rampant in the ‘McHood.

After drinking too many milkshakes, most people probably would resemble Grimace. But where was he from? And what were his thoughts, dreams, and secrets? If he was evil, why did he change and what provoked the change? What was the catalyst for change from leading a life of crime to a benign, steroid-inflated pre-Barney lookalike?

Too Cool to Be Hip

You see them at shows.

They are the kids in the noisy patterns, with eighties themes. Their T-shirts are emblazoned with ironic, nonsensical phrases. They have hairstyles that can only be described as androgynous that include combinations of messy shag cuts and asymmetric side-swept bangs. They are probably tattooed, maybe gay. They read Black Book, Nylon, and the Styles section of the New York Times and complain often. The drink coffee by the tub, smoke cigarettes, and drink PBR. They listen to bands that you’ve never heard of or claim to be in a band and they’re so called band rehearsals consist of drinking PBR smoking cigarettes and choosing outfits for next show that their band will never get to play.  They have tools that they comminucate with such as ipods and cell phones and they seem to always be IM-ing each other all day and text-messaging each all night. It seems like that have tuned everything that isn’t in their world out.

They are the ones that think that they are being “special” and “unique” for liking some underground bullshit no one else cares about. They look down on people who don’t know anything about “indie culture”, because that’s the only thing they know anything about. They are the “effortless cool” with an urban bohemian look complete with keffiyeh / shemagh (also known as an Arabic scarf). Their style is exemplified in Urban Outfitters and American Apparel ads which cater to them specifically.

 They are a subculture of men and women in their 20’s and 30’s that are a year or two out of college. They are into independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, art and indie rock that claim to dislike all that is mainstream, which is usually reflected in their taste of music and how quickly they’ll shun a group the moment they end up on a soundtrack, TV commercial / show or on the radio; unless they were listening to that group “before they hit it big”.

The have a dislike for everything corporate but will have no problem working at Starbucks, Gap or Pottery Barn or living off parent’s money and spend a great deal of it to look like they don’t have any.

They are hipsters and they are not like *our generation. Formerly hostile subcultures — yesteryear’s punks and hippies and snowboarders  do not now welcome the hipsters.

Question is: How to you market your music to this truly “blank genration”?  One answer: If you can’t beat them, join them.

Product seeding is a cheap way to advertise and it’s what we use to market on-line.  It’s similar to celebrity endorsements, evangelist marketing, or grassroots/ viral way of planting a product so that it can be seen by important or influential people. An example of product seeding would be getting a celebrity to wear a certain hat or to hold a particular drink when being photographed or interviewed. Product seeding also can be done in smaller ways online, such as visiting forums, tweeting,  updating statuses on facebook and myspace, IMing, texting, and other forms of on-line viral marketing to get your music out.

Knowing the technology within this realm of marketing your music is something that you have to teach yourself and stay on top of.  Something as simple as using a small feature of YOUTUBE to get your music out can even help you build a following without people even knowing the wiser that they are being marketed to.  As an example, my youngest son and I were in the computer room and he proudly told me that the video that he posted for his “band” has recieved over 12,000 hits. How can this be, I thought to myself, they are a kid band, never have played out before and spend all the time in our garage arguing with each other.  His “band” consist of two other kids that can barely play their instruments and have never played out before, although I will admit, they are eager.  The video is simple, they set up a camera in our garage where they practice and recorded themselves covering “Smells like Teen Spirit”—poor light, white walls, junk in the corner of the garage, piled up boxes, no effects, no nothing, no flashy lights or cuts—Just a very, very simple one-shot video of  3 kids playing a song—and over 12,000 hits compared to my band’s video, where it was professionally shot, has editing, effects, nice lighting and shot in aa cool location and yet had only recieved  652 hits. Here’s the kicker, we posted BOTH band videos up about the same time. I asked him how he managed to get 12,000 hits so fast (within a few months). His reply? Lyrics. Apparently, people troll youtube and other video sites and look for videos with lyrics in them. He told me that people “like to know what the singer is singing and learn the lyrics”. So I paid him to type in the lyrics to our song on our video and repost it. The outcome? Within a few short weeks we had 1,357 hits on the same video. Lesson learned? Always look at the small features that appilcations and websites offer and use them to thier fullest extent.

Word -of-mouth is very important with product seeding, that should go without saying; but we also rely on texting, IMing and updating social websites statuses as much as possible without being annoying and asking our friends to resend. Blogging as well as leaving replies on blogs is another effective way to get the music out. We use blogger.com and blogged.com (as well as WordPress.com) to keep an on-line journal of the band’s moves and happenings–not to mention myspace, facebook, twitter and other social networking websites.

In short, we use what hipsters use to get our music out. And we’re learning more everyday, the list of product seeding with today’s technology could go on, and on, and on, and on. Since we use the “tools” of the hipster market, does that make us hipsters or just hip?

DIY: Build your own cigar box resonator.

I’ve always wanted to create my own instrument, you know; build my own guitar, design my own bass, re- build a piano to my specs but I lacked the time, tools and talent for woodworking so I put the idea in the back of my mind in the “one of these days…” department of my brain.

I came across an interesting link last week on how to build your own cigar box guitar. The website is here: http://cigarboxguitars.com/workshops/How_To_Build_A_CBG.php.

I decided to take my cigar box guitar a level higher. I thought to myself why not a cigar box resonator? (i.e. also known as a dobro) and went out and for a few bucks bought a few things:

1.) cigar box $4.00 (I actually bought 5 of them at $4.00 each but I’m only adding up the cost for THIS resonator)

2.) Stick of Poplar wood 3 feet by 2″ X 1.5″. Cost= $2.16

3.) 3 Gibson guitar tuning heads: $15.00

4.) 3 metal plates $5.23 ( which are actually commercial shower drains, the type you find in a gym. Any Home Depot carries them.)

Total cost: $26.39 (under $30.00)
Total project time: About 4 hours (not including 24 hour dry time)

Below are the steps that I took in creating the cigar box resonator, some of the pictures didn’t come out very good, but you get the idea of what went into building it:

Get a box for the body and a stick for the neck

Sand down the neck, drill 3 holes for the guitar headstock tuners

Cut a hole in the box for the neck to be placed in.

Place the neck in the body.

Use clamps to grip down, I used some Gorilla glue to seat the neck to the body and let it dry overnight.

Make sure to let it dry overnight to seat the neck in the body

Since this is a RESONATOR, I decided to cut three holes in my cigar box for the resonator plates. The holes aren’t pretty, but that’s okay, because they’ll be covered up by the plates. I also sanded down the cigar box.

I whittled the neck down and re-sanded it so the tuners would fit snugly.

I stained the whole project

I created a bridge and nut out of scrap wood, sanded and stained it.

I put the tuners on, the bridge and nut in place and….

then I put the resonators in and strung it up………Finished!!!! Project complete!

I’m sure that I MIGHT be playing this out every once in a while once I get the structure and progressions and tunings right, it might take me a lil’ while, so don’t expect to see me out slinging this thing at every show until I get it down pat.

Okay, now the BIG question is….how does it sound? Well to find out, I created a sample that you can listen to by clicking below. BUT be forewarned, before clicking on the track…..REMEMBER that this is a very basic THREE (3) STRINGED homemade instrument and my first one at that and that I still don’t really know how to play it and need to fiddle around with it before I learn all the tunings and keys. In other words, listen to it with a very open mind. It’s a very rough test run and recording of my cigar box resonator.

Click or copy & paste in your browser to listen:
http://www.thebottlebabies.com/billy/cigarboxresonator_test.mp3