You've encountered them at every concert: The Chatty Cathie, The Beer Whoo Crew, The Unauthorized T-Shirt Guy, The Other Lead Singer, and of course the dreaded Makeout Couple. As much a part of any concert as the band itself, these prototypical concert goers shape our concert experiences. Steve Weinberger, extreme concert goer and author of No Air Guitar Allowed, knows this better than anyone, having attended over 1,000 concerts and counting. He has been interviewed on countless radio stations across the country and on national television.
Essays explore the influence of art in twentieth-century American culture, including jazz, basketball, professional wrestling, magic, gambling, entrepreneurship, series television and automotive design.
Four Guitars (more or less) is part memoir and part exposition of the modern handmade acoustic guitar. Like so many baby boomers the author took up playing the guitar again after several decades only to discover the instrument all over again but with a deeper and richer appreciation than in his youth. This book chronicles the relearning to play music but really discovering the guitar for the first time. In searching for the variations in guitars caused by different combinations of musical woods the author embarks on a series of guitar tastings among guitar players that reveal more than expected. The lessons learned go beyond the melody and tempo lessons to more subtle appreciation of the relationships between players and their instruments, the beauty and character of hand crafted instruments and the luthiers that build them. In the end the book is an appreciation of the guitar in general and the relationship with four guitars (more or less) in particular.
“Make Air, Not War” is the personal motto of Dan Crane, the musician who decided to put his “there” guitar aside and reinvent himself as Björn Türoque: the take-no-prisoners future of competitive air guitar. Jeopardizing love and livelihood to join the ruthless international circuit of the World Air Guitar Championships, Björn Türoque (pronounced “b-yorn too-RAWK”) began a three-year odyssey to secure what was rightfully his (and America’s!)—the air guitar world crown. To Air is Human is the riotous tale of one man’s journey through a world of wheelchair-bound Christian air rockers, spandex-jumpsuit fittings, Finnish stunt wolves, catatonic ‘80s guitar heroes, air groupies, Aireoke™, Air Supply, dry-ice injuries, and ultimately, good vs. evil (in the form of Björn’s rival pretender to the air guitar throne). But it is also a sincere and penetrating account of the pursuit of an elusive, intangible, and perhaps nonexistent goal: to achieve “airness”—that is, when air guitar transcends the “real” art that it imitates and becomes an art form in and of itself. “Björn Türoque is so good that people with real guitars now have contests to see who can do the best imitation of his air guitar imitation.”—Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and The Tipping Point
In ways both mundane and sensational, listening can be an expressive act, enabling people to stage consumption as a public practice -- what author Byrd McDaniel calls "spectacular listening." With a range of compelling ethnographic case studies, McDaniel investigates a broad shift in contemporary listening norms and the stakes for listeners with disabilities. He reveals how listening-as-performance can be an opportunity for play, as well as a critical practice that exposes ableism in music institutions, technologies, and discourse.
In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.
Like Moses delivering forth the Ten Commandments, Chunklet magazine presents you with The Rock Bible—the complete rules for living an authentic life of rock ’n’ roll. Here are hundreds of wise and witty guidelines for Drummers: “If you’re one of those drummers who sets up at the front of the stage, back the hell up. You are the goalies of rock; play your position.” Singers: “When you feel like stage-diving, first make sure the people in the front like your music enough to catch you.” Guitarists: “No one’s looking at your guitar strap. Don’t ever spend more than the cost of an average meal on something that can be replaced by a particularly hearty piece of string.” Keyboardists: “There’s only one person who will look more ridiculous and offensive in leather pants than the lead singer: the keyboard player.” Onstage Antics: “Being wasted onstage works for only about 5 percent of bands, and yours isn’t one of them.” Fans: “Fans that dress like the band are just asking to be pummeled. If you want to be in the band that badly, you might as well bring your gear to the show and play along from the audience.” And unholy words on much, much more.
Whether social, cultural, or individual, the act of imagination always derives from a pre-existing context. For example, we can conjure an alien's scream from previously heard wildlife recordings or mentally rehearse a piece of music while waiting for a train. This process is no less true for the role of imagination in sonic events and artifacts. Many existing works on sonic imagination tend to discuss musical imagination through terms like compositional creativity or performance technique. In this two-volume Handbook, contributors shift the focus of imagination away from the visual by addressing the topic of sonic imagination and expanding the field beyond musical compositional creativity and performance technique into other aural arenas where the imagination holds similar power. Topics covered include auditory imagery and the neurology of sonic imagination; aural hallucination and illusion; use of metaphor in the recording studio; the projection of acoustic imagination in architectural design; and the design of sound artifacts for cinema and computer games.
A hilarious illustrated book for adults, the authors document not only the history and health benefits of air guitar, but also teach readers how they can become rock legends in only four easy lessons.
