Paperless

I read a lot of Bob Lefsetz. The man is the first to comment on just about everything music-related. If there's something he likes that isn't music, he'll relate it to music. Everything from the state of the music industry to youtube hits are covered in the Lefsetz Letter.

Lately, he's been commenting a lot on the push to go paperless. This is a push being made in the ticketing industry to eliminate scalpers and those like them. Because of scalpers, real fans aren't getting tickets to gigs they want to see because of the ridiculous resale on the tickets. To think of ticket scalping as an industry seems bizarre, but it's reality.

There are people on both sides. On one hand, there are people who recognize this problem and want it stopped. On the other, there are people who want a physical ticket. Before the onslaught of Lefsetz's commentaries, I was one of the physical ticket people, but now I'm on the fence, leaning towards paperless.

A lot of my hesitation was just rooted in not being as familiar with the paperless system.

But paperless is no new thing. Years ago there were these things called checks. Suddenly you could pay large sums with a single note. I'm not sure of the exact progression, but eventually came debit and credit cards - a piece of plastic removing the need for any paper.

If you've ever held a couple thousand dollars cash in your hands, it feels great. But holy crap do you have to have balls to go outside with that in your pocket.

Paper is not security. Paper is easily lost and difficult to track. Ever lose a credit card? Yeah, that can go downhill fast, but you can call and cancel it and usually work things out. Ever lose even $10? You can't call the mint and have them fix things. Your human error has shafted you out of $10. Though people shouldn't trust themselves with credit cards, people trust paper even less.

Even school papers are increasingly not paper. I've had classes where I would post papers in blogs and, for other classes, I've emailed papers to my professors. The first time a teacher or prof loses your paper, you've lost trust in the system.

Even the age of paper reading is going out. Between blogs, online journals, and online news, nearly every reading facet is covered. But wait - ebooks and all of that cover not only novels, but also text books. The paper book is going extinct - ask the book store down the street. Oh wait, they just closed.

So with less and less paper exchange, this causes some problems for artists. All of this was stirred by a gig I played over the weekend. A girl really wanted to buy my CD, but had no cash. She had a credit card and had money, just not paper money.

Well that left me screwed. Sure, she could buy my album on itunes and I could collect pennies on the dollar, but then what's it worth to either of us?

She had a credit card, though. If only I had a credit card reader. Yeah, if only I had another electronic gizmo to remember to bring to shows. If only... For a bigger band, that's a viable solution - for me, that's just a hassle.

I offered it to her for free because she was a musician too and I can relate to being broke. Screw it - I'll take the hit. It's not like I don't have another 700 copies of my ambitiously pressed album...

Then on Monday I was reading some more Lefsetz. The guy is a genius. Aside from that, he briefly mentioned square cards. If he didn't provide a link, I would've been absolutely clueless. Basically, it's a smart-phone credit card reader. Like any credit carding deal - it'll cost like 3%, but the payoff for such a small device is amazing. It fits in your pocket - so it could go wherever you would want it to. Too bad I don't have an iPhone/iPad/android  ...another day.

This isn't about my personal phone, though. This is about the small solo artist and how they're finally able to catch up to paperless. Everyone's got smart phones nowadays. The square card reader is free too, so there's no excuse.

As it turns out, the girl from the show paid me with a check... Certainly not the ending to this post that would make any logical sense. Yeah, I had a confused look on my face too.

MMC15 - Part 4.1

Many of you may recall that I had a series of posts in February on the Millennium Music Conference in Harrisburg (see: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). It recently occurred to me that I did not finish all of the posts I had intended to from that. Though it's overdue to the point of just letting it go, there's still a wealth of knowledge I pulled from the conference that I think is worth sharing.

Part 4 of this MMC15 series is on the last session that I attended. Jason Rubal, the owner of Seventh Wave Studio, spoke for this one. They've got their name on some 250,000 records - just to put things in prospective. Jason was real down-to-earth and seemed to know what was up with music and how it's been changing throughout the last few years. It was definitely my favorite and I've got a crap ton of notes from it - so get ready (this one section will be broken down over a few posts).

As was the case with the other MMC15 posts, I'll throw some comments in after things. I'll sign each one (-ab) just to avert confusion because there are tons of lists and whatnot here.


Mistakes Musicians Make - Jason Rubal


4 kinds of musicians:

1. Pro - make it happen no matter what 
2. Feelers - need something for it to happen
3. Excuse Makers - always have something to blame
4. Suck - act pro, but suck

• Being pro is the only way to make it
• I'd put myself somewhere between feelers and pro. While I can deliver musically 95% of the time, I still lack the audience skills to round the show out every time. -ab

You need to find fans for life - your "niche"

Types of music:

1. Song - tell a story
2. Music - based on an expression of music
3. Entertainment - weird

• Don't mix types! (goes along with finding your niche)
• Being firmly rooted in the "music" type, I often times will criticize the song and entertainment side of things for their lack of musicality. I've been getting better at looking at the lyrical content over the musicality of the "song" genre, but still can't get over the entertainment stuff. However, Jason made a great point: we don't understand them and we probably don't want to. -ab

Types of Records:

1. Fans - for people who want to purchase and listen to you
1. Albums made for the fans are intended to solidify your "sound" and to give people something they're familiar with. It would make sense to me that this would also lead to more profit. -ab
2. Artist - for yourself, as an artist
1. Albums made for yourself I would generally think of as less marketable. If I'm releasing albums as "Alex Brubaker" and one album is this pretty guitar stuff and then the next is profane rap, then you'll confuse the heck out of your fans. A lesser extreme is seen when artists change their sound and their fans get upset. Unless you've gotten those "fan for life" types, you'll never be able to carry a following. -ab
3. Industry - for the industry. These are dead.
1. The industry has caved in on itself. Major labels have tried to hold tie down the creativity in music and it's no longer having the upper hand. The success of that horrid youtube video, Friday, has shown that labels aren't needed. That leaves the choice of your album down to being for the fans or being for yourself. -ab

The music industry is doing great - how the industry perceives bands is the problem

• I think I would say that the problem is how "the industry" is defined is the problem. Since any Rebecca Black can release something, industry has just expanded too rapidly to be able to be redefined. -ab

Do not assume the way that you hear music is how everyone else hears it

• Being in the "music" category of type of music is the hardest because of this. Pop music is a step away from making my ears bleed and I can't fathom how others listen to it. However, I'll listen to a death metal band while sleeping on the beach and be perfectly content and relaxed. There's no way I'll stop being critical of ...everything, but to realize that not everyone senses the same is a good place to start at understanding people -ab
• The key is to find out how your fans hear music.

Show Review: Kyle Rictor

The thing about B-Sides is that it is never lacking in musical quality. Sure, the Union can be an acoustical nightmare, but the artists and bands are always top notch. Looking back at life, it's hard to remember what it was like in high school, without something like B-Sides. I guess I still went to maybe one gig every two or three weeks, but here at school I've averaged more than one gig a week. If you think about it, that's nuts.

So anyway, this is about this week's B-Sides artist: Kyle Rictor. Though we've got a reputation with B-Sides, Nashville tends to have a bit of a bigger one when it comes to music. That's why it's really no surprise that Rictor has settled himself there. It's a hub for musical ideas and the Kyle and his tunes are very much a product of the environment. Despite having a full band on his recorded material, his music was in its raw form, he and his wife, Kelsey, singing while he played guitar.

Seeing a singer/songwriter, I, admittedly, sat down with a closed mind. I'm cynical and judgmental and that's just how it is. Not that all singer/songwriters are bad, but there are an overwhelming number of them that are ...lacking. After I settled into my seat, I began to absorb the experience and I realized that Rictor was not just another singer/songwriter just droning on in monotony.

The first thing that really stood out about Rictor was how he mentioned, on stage, that he considered himself, "more of a songwriter than an entertainer." Being a guitarist who would look at it more from an artistic point of view, I've never really gotten the whole entertainment thing quite like the rest of the world, so hearing this from Rictor, while others would raise flags, I was intrigued. He went on to explain how, for him, it's about the art of constructing a song and placing meaning into everything.

From there, he went on to pair most of the songs in his set with a story. Part of music is communication and part of communication is perception. Though Rictor didn't write story-based songs, he placed his songs into context with his stories, directing our perception. A lot of being able to connect with an artist is being able to understand where they're coming from and how they perceive their own music. Rictor drew the connection perfectly. He was candid and honest and so were his songs. 

The song that stood out the most was a song about his cigarette addiction (unfortunately it doesn't look like it's been recorded). He recognized it as something that was killing him and dragging him down. Without the background on the song, the song sounds like it's about a love affair and to him, that's the impact it was having on his life. His use of imagery on this song and the rest just painted the picture perfectly.

All of this said and I've said nothing of the sound. (That seems a bit silly for a review of a concert, but the personality and character on stage really made the biggest impression.) Musically, it was solid. Nothing over the top, but it seemed to steer away from simple chord progressions enough to hold my attention. On top of the guitar were the vocals. Kyle's got a great voice - good range, good feel, etc. Kelsey, though she didn't sing in every song, added a smooth soothing texture to the slight rasp in Kyle's voice. The two were perfect compliments of each other.

As far as a live show goes, this was one of the most real performances I've seen in a while. It was calm, collected, and very down to earth. You really can't ask for much more.

EDIT (03/28/11)---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The song I mentioned liking so much is up as a demo! Check out Little Miss Nicotine here.

Guitars in Video Games

A few years back there was this craze - Guitar Hero. All the kiddies loved it because you could pretend to be a rock star, playing your plastic guitar just like the pros. The disillusioned youth of America were sure they had what it took to jam with the best of them.

Guitar hero was a sensation. Building off of the Dance Dance Revolution style of play, it was top of the food chain. Then someone had the bright idea called Rock Band. It took the same concepts and applied it to a whole rock band of instruments. Now you had drums and vocals! The drums and vocals of this game were a lot better at actually being applicable to real life, so we'll give them some credit. Anyone could've taken a cheap electronic drum set and a crappy little mic and added them to the game, but they did it first and they did it well.

Again, we had another sensation. However, there was always this key element to the games - a cheap plastic "guitar" toy. Not long ago I saw some actual progress on that end of things. The Kitara - I mentioned a while back in my Technology and Innovation in Music post. However, this doesn't appear to be a game - and they cost between $850-2500. Another non-game idea is Fretlight, a guitar with light up frets to help you learn to play.

These things are missing the game aspect that many have made bank on. Not that they aren't good ideas - I mean, the kitara blows my mind and I would love to play around with one sometime. They just aren't really competing with the cheap plastic crap that's out there making real money (well, not so much money now...)

Then yesterday, I came across Ubisoft's Rocksmith. This is a game that you use a REAL guitar with. You plug it in and play the Guitar Hero game with a REAL instrument (you can use any guitar you own  ...a game for real guitarists!). Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and all the rest, I couldn't get into. A plastic guitar is not fun. This, on the other hand, is genius. I'm sure tons of people have thought of it, but these guys did it. Though it's not out yet, I feel like it'll be a hit.

This is for both the novice and the experienced guitarist. The only real negative thing I see is that there are already like a million kids who "play" guitar. I'm all about not having more people suck at guitar and then tell their friends that they are a "guitar hero." However, I could see this being a great tool for real guitarists and the actual aspiring guitarist. Like the guy in the video says, this is an alternative to tableture - in game form. I hated looking up tabs and struggling through them way back when. It's frustrating. This would make that fun and I think a lot of people could benefit from this.

Thoughts?

Spring Break Playlist

This past week I was on spring break. Due to money and an ill-fated promise to go on a trip with friends from school, I went to Daytona Beach, Florida instead of snowboarding in Colorado. It definitely wasn’t the snowboarding trip that I would have otherwise gone on, but it was a good time to just relax and chill at the beach.

Unfortunately, being Daytona Beach during spring break, you can’t just go to the beach and just relax. Everything is loud and in-your-face from the pushy shop owners to belligerent drunk college kids. Far too often this loudness is paired with music.

And this is, of course, from the selection of music that I like the least. These are the pop-hits, the club mixes, and …well that describes all of them. Though there are a few gems out there that are genuinely good at what they’re doing, the genre has got the monotony thing down to a science. Once you’ve heard one, you’ve heard nearly all of them.

Naturally, I felt out of place. Rather than raise my glass and lower my musical standards, I decided to put together my own spring break playlist. I’m an album kinda guy, so these are full albums – stuff I listened to while laying out at the beach or back in the room when the other music gets to be too much.

By no means are these full album reviews. They’re basically just my rationale behind listening to them and a few comments on the band and/or the album. If you're in search of new tunes, you can make it your goal to follow my playlist through this coming week.

Monday:

This Time It’s War: Terror Plots

• I’ve been following these guys for years now. The first time I saw them was with August Burns Red in high school, before ABR got big. This past year, TTIW finally released a full length album, Terror Plots. This album is heavy, technical, and a great way to get pumped about getting some sun.

Tuesday:

MGMT: Oracular Spectacular

• This is me meeting mainstream. It’s a weird feeling to realize that other people have heard of what I’m listening to. However, I’ll stand firmly behind a handful of such bands that I deem worthy. These guys are one such band. They’ve got a nice relaxing vibe that’s perfect for lying by the ocean, yet have enough variety to hold my attention. They’ve got a lighter sounding orchestral pop/rock going on and I like it …even if other people do too.

Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s: Buzzard

• My first encounter with Margot was in the radio station with Ryan Faus. Freshman through fall of junior year, we had what was probably one of the best radio shows at WVMM. Despite having an extremely eclectic playlist, everything flowed as a continuous and coherent stream of consciousness. Anyway, so we found these guys and were blown away. The only other band that’s come close to that sort of impact has been Phantods, who I might just have on the list later this week. So after we discovered them, we found that they were coming to B-Sides. It was glorious. They’re a 7 or 8 piece collection of extremely talented musicians whose genius is realized first in their song writing, but then further realized through their attention to minuscule details. I think Animal/Not Animal is still my favorite album from them, but Buzzard was just released and I’m seeing it slowly grow on me.

Between The Buried And Me: Colors

• The choice here was in direct response to too much rap music in the room. I couldn’t take it. Between The Buried And Me is math metal, progressive metal, and genre-mash slurry of awesomeness. I’m not big into their self-titled, but everything else I could listen to 24/7. They’re one of those bands that will have a full length with 5 songs on it… I’m real into the idea that songs can have more development than a single verse chorus deal. These guys build vocal compositions around musical compositions with a technical palate that textures each song to be its own, freestanding entity, yet flow through the album seamlessly and beautifully.

Wednesday:

Phantogram: Eyelid Movies

• Phantogram is an electronica duo. They played a B-Sides a while back and were quite excellent excellent. On one hand, they were something completely different for me. On the other, it’s just really interesting. Spacey female vocals compliment the fuzzy bass lines and gritty guitar rather harmoniously. In addition to being awesome, I also just heard them at American Eagle the other day at the mall. It was a neat experience.

Thursday:

Nosaj Thing: Drift

• Ryan introduced me to this guy last year. Again, it’s electronica. Completely different, though. Phantogram is more rock sampling and Nosaj Thing is predominately electronic. The real experience, however, is in his live show. I’ve only gotten to see videos, but his whole music show is coupled with a light show synced to the music. It’s done really artfully. Anyway, this was a nice album to relax and read to, soaking up some sun.

Sublime: Sublime

• So back in my video game days, there was this game, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX. I was pretty great at it and played it frequently. Consequently, I ended up liking the soundtrack a lot. It included stuff like Ozzy, A Tribe Called Quest, and Sublime. Though those days are long behind me, I had an urge to listen to the soundtrack a while back, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and downloaded a few of the albums that the songs came from. Sublime was one such album, with the track, Doin Time. Sublime is a 90s surf punk/rock/ska band …or something like that. Basically, all that to say that they’ve got some great beachy tunes that, though normally crass, go down smooth here in Daytona.

65daysofstatic: Unreleased/Unreleasable, Volume 2: How I F*ed Off All My Friends

• Here’s yet another electronica band. However, these guys normally infuse math rock and monologue samples. And I say “normally” for a reason. Their two Unreleased/Unreleasable albums are not the norm. They’re what would better be known as glitch electronica. It’s a lot of pop hit samples mixed with 65days flair – distorted guitars, drum machine beats, etc. Then all of this combined with the glitch aspect. If you’re unfamiliar with glitch music, just think of everything that could go wrong with a cd/record/etc. Skips, pitch shifting, tempo altering, and a host of other glitches are intentionally introduced into the spliced together samples. It’s intense stuff and most people will hate it. Perhaps that has something to do with the album title? Anyway, I’m into obscure music and this pretty well epitomizes that. And yes, this was to read, relax, and sleep. Check them out.

Friday:

mewithoutyou: Brother, Sister

• This may be one of the greatest albums of all time. Lots of people can’t get into the more spoken word/poetry vocals, but if you can, this album is brilliant. You could say they’re just an indie rock band, but they go way beyond that with how they arrange their ideas and structure their songs. Brother, Sister is, in my opinion, their best album. It’s edgy, dynamic, and has some of the most vivid imagery that you’ll ever hear in a comprehensive album.

Saturday:

The Mars Volta: Scabdates

• Experimental psychedelic rock. It’s loosely constructed, jazzy, and free-flowing. There are also some glitch type elements. Of the albums of theirs that I have, Scabdates seems to embody all of these things the best. I could see where lots of people would freak out and not know how to interpret what’s going on through the album, but if you can absorb the textures and set aside everything you think you know about music, this album will blow your mind.

Kaki King: Junior

• The first time I heard this album I didn’t like it. My first taste of King’s music was her music video for Playing With Pink Noise. It’s percussive fingerstyle – the stuff I do. This album, however, isn’t much percussive fingerstyle at all. After listening to it without that expectation, however, it’s another brilliant album by Kaki. In this album, she’s exploring more of her singer/songwriter side, developing herself as somewhat of an indie genius. Of what I’ve heard of Kaki, she’s not the most pleasant person and really hasn’t enjoyed most of her touring bands. This album embraces that attitude, being rather rough around the edges at times. Though following her on twitter, it appears as though this tour is actually working out for her and she is actually having a great time.

Listening to Music You Don't Like

Rather unfortunately, subjectivity is at the heart of music appreciation. There are plenty of guidelines to what makes good music and there are even ways to study how "good" music is.

That's what music theory is, after all. You learn rules, analyze compositions, and determine what is "good" and what is "bad."

Then there are also ways of analyzing lyrical content to determine how good lyrics are. This can be judged by things like who the audience is, what the purpose of the song is, etc.

But there are always exceptions. There are things that seem to follow no rules. These things are either seen as genius or garbage. Lou Reed's, Metal Machine Music, or John Cage's, 4:33, are perfect examples. They are genius, but follow nothing conventional.

But someone else hates Metal Machine Music because they "don't get it." Instead, they like the parallel fifths in power chord progressions in radio rock. And to them ...that is good music.

I like a rather large variety of music. However, I loath country and americana and most things related. It's the vocals - I just can't get into it. Country music makes me feel ill at times and causes me to freak out. Some people don't like mayonnaise or don't like snakes. I don't like country music.

Unfortunately, this week's B-Sides was folksy with a little hint of country/americana thrown in the mix - Joe Whyte. Initially I was going to just leave, but I decided to stay. Part of me just wanted to talk to some friends, I guess.

So in between bits and pieces of conversation, I tried to tune out the band. It didn't work.

After I gave up on trying to tune them out, I decided to listen for the purpose of analysis. Despite the simple song structure that I generally despise, I came to determine that, if I were to like that kind of music, I would like this band. I saw some of the things that listeners of that genre listen for and hear in the music that they like.

It was like listening to the radio. I could hear why someone could like it, without liking it myself. From that standpoint, it was very interesting. I started paying attention to how individual notes were utilized and where predictable could be seen as "catchy."

This didn't make me dislike the music less. I still don't like the entire genre. However, it was a rare glimpse into what those people may think while listening to music. And what people are thinking when they hear music is how the subjective gets wrapped back into this. To be able to understand all angles of such subjectivity, I wouldn't say is important, but feel that it is probably a useful tool.

On this note, I would encourage people to get out of their comfort zone into some place that terrifies you. Go to a metal show or out to see a string quartet and figure out what it is that makes people like it and what sets it apart. By no means do I ever want to see another country-esque act again, but I feel like I was able to get more out of the situation by thinking more along those lines.

-Alex

To Play or to Organize

Organizing more of these First Friday events has made me realize how much I enjoy just getting to see people play. First Fridays at Messiah is about the students and the musicians who want to get out there and play, but haven't been able to. Consequently, unless someone drops out at the last minute, I don't play at them.

I love this opportunity. It's one Friday night a month, but it's also one of the busiest in terms of the arts. The idea of a First Friday is definitely not a new one - I didn't make this up. The idea came after I had participated in many First Fridays elsewhere.

Thankfully First Fridays are more active over the summer, when school's not in session, so I can still participate in others then. But I'm graduating... I want to keep helping with Messiah's First Fridays to see it off to a good start, but if I were to, in the future, organize First Fridays, they probably wouldn't be at a school. And so they would probably run year-round or something to that extent. And so I would indefinitely not play First Fridays.

It's an interesting problem, one I seem to get myself into far too often. I want to do all of these things for the community and for other musicians, but also want to keep playing out myself.

I've also toyed with the idea of someday having a house concert venue. Again, that would likely limit how often I could play.

Maybe there are other platforms that enable organizing, exposing, and playing. I don't know. ustream "festivals" seem to cater to that, but they're not in front of a live audience...

There's got to be some solution that I just haven't thought up. Anyone in a similar position or have any insight?

First Fridays In The Swinging Bridge

As you may know, I'm involved with organizing First Fridays at Messiah. It's pretty much just me running the show.

My basic idea was that there needed to be a larger music community within the kids at Messiah. Since I have a ton of equipment, I just decided to go out and buy some lights and, in that, be able to throw little DIY First Friday events.

Back in September there were maybe like 10-20 people throughout the night  ...including musicians. Last month, February, we had around 40 at once with at least 70 throughout the night. This was an attentive audience, standing or sitting on the floor because of a lack of seating. It was great.

I had asked a friend of mine to write up an article about it in the school paper, The Swinging Bridge, to further publicize the event. I ended up with a half page article with pictures, including a half page picture of myself on another page. Not bad.

You can check out the article HERE.



*I would like to note that there is a slight change that needs to be made to the article. The radio station mentioned should be the college station, WVMM, not Philly-based, WXPN.

Free Bird ...seriously??

Have you ever thought about how many musicians there have been throughout the years? I mean, right now on Reverbnation there are about 61000 bands/artists. Despite reverbnation being an extremely useful tool, there are tons of artists who have never even heard of it. If myspace would have done its job, there'd be accurate statistics from that, but I haven't even logged into my music account in like 4 months.

So let's say that there are 61000 bands at any given time. The average life expectancy for a band is ...4 years? Few bands last much longer and tons of bands fizzle out after the first year. Then at 61000 bands per 4 years, in the past 12 years, we can estimate that there have been 183000 bands. That takes us back to 1999 - before I was even playing guitar!

Now these are strictly hypothetical numbers, understand. But of those 183000 bands from the past 12 years, how many have made any sort of billboard list? A small fraction. And of those, who do you remember and still listen to?

The truth of the matter is that at least since I've been alive and have had interest in music, the stuff to hit it big hasn't been more than a collection of one hit wonders. Sure, a few artists survive and you'll see their names again from time to time. Some people may even become devout fans and follow the acts career until its untimely demise. But don't bank on it.

These songs are meant to be replaced. They're about fast money. How often is fast money good money? People win the lottery and a few years later they're filing for bankruptcy. People sell lots of cocaine and they make fast money  ...but they're involved in some sketchy stuff. Really, fast money is nothing that has built careers. It's been a means of momentary recognition and then a steep drop-off.

Looking back at hits from over the years you'll see great bands like Led Zeppelin and Michael Jackson. Yes, they had "hits" but there is still a large portion of their fans who know every song on the album. When albums leave impressions, people are changed. A single song has seldom done anything but gotten a quick buck.

What then causes music to stick around? There are tons of theories out there. I've got my own and I'm sure you have yours as well, but that is for another time.

The real question that I'm getting at is: why is yelling out "Free Bird" at a concert still something considered cool? At B-Sides last night, I had the pleasure of seeing the Joy Ike Duo. However, after every song, the boys on the couch behind me would scream "free bird." I recall hearing someone (likely the same people) yell that last week at B-Sides. When I played at Pint's in Harrisburg a few weeks back - I heard the same thing.

What the heck? I recall hearing it for the first time maybe like 6 years ago and the origin is from a Skynyrd album from 1976. How does a tradition like that carry on? The kids behind me couldn't have been older than 20. They definitely weren't around in '76 and have probably never heard of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

I understand how songs like Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" has made a comeback in recent years, but how does stuff like yelling "Free Bird" live on? Better yet, why do people still think that it's funny?

This is something that has apparently been ingrained into peoples DNA? If someone ever figures out how to do that, we're all pretty much screwed.

-Alex