Walmart Rockstars
June 5, 2015 3:45 PM Subscribe
How in the hell they got that thing in tune...gah...it has steel strings which no toy WalMart guitar would EVER have. It's staged...hey, we are an awesome thing....and a little lover boy.
posted by Benway at 4:09 PM on June 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Benway at 4:09 PM on June 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
These guys look really really high. And i've seen some truly, profoundly high people in my time. They look like, vibrating levels of stoned.
posted by emptythought at 4:13 PM on June 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by emptythought at 4:13 PM on June 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
So this is what they're going to use to replace the "Celine Dion and Justin Beiber" on the in-store music? I approve.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:39 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:39 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
emptythought: "These guys look really really high. And i've seen some truly, profoundly high people in my time. They look like, vibrating levels of stoned."
And what behaviour leads to an awesome Stevie Ray performance at Walmart at 2:30 a.m. exactly?
posted by Samizdata at 4:40 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
And what behaviour leads to an awesome Stevie Ray performance at Walmart at 2:30 a.m. exactly?
posted by Samizdata at 4:40 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
I ever I get rich, I'm going to sponsor a series of public service announcements with the ubiquity of the "Click-it or Ticket" ads with the message, "For the love of Christ people, turn your goddamned phone!"
posted by ob1quixote at 4:40 PM on June 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 4:40 PM on June 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
He can learn to make that sound come from that instrument and still not know to turn his phone the right way... the brain is an amazing thing.
posted by Cosine at 4:49 PM on June 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by Cosine at 4:49 PM on June 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
Just listen to that sustain.
posted by i_have_a_computer at 4:53 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by i_have_a_computer at 4:53 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Disappointed he used the phrase 'I'm not going to rape you' in the follow up vid asking for money to download his tracks
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:20 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:20 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
You dinosaurs need to quit complaining and start watching videos on your phone, the way nature intended.
posted by dirtdirt at 6:07 PM on June 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by dirtdirt at 6:07 PM on June 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
Point being, fight the real evil: videos shot in vertical mode and then letterboxed into a teeny weeny strip of video in between two black bars.
posted by dirtdirt at 6:10 PM on June 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by dirtdirt at 6:10 PM on June 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
"For the love of Christ people, turn your goddamned phone!"
There is a time and a place for the vertical orientation. One of the Shia LaBeouf videos from yesterday wouldn't work as well as it does if it were horizontal.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:12 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
There is a time and a place for the vertical orientation. One of the Shia LaBeouf videos from yesterday wouldn't work as well as it does if it were horizontal.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:12 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
These guys look really really high
especially sidekick guy
posted by thelonius at 6:31 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
especially sidekick guy
posted by thelonius at 6:31 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
why don't they make phones default to horizontal no matter which way you hold the phone? thats my billion dollar app
posted by shockingbluamp at 6:36 PM on June 5, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by shockingbluamp at 6:36 PM on June 5, 2015 [6 favorites]
It's no Bangles cover with electric rake, but pretty dang impressive nonetheless.
posted by batfish at 7:03 PM on June 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by batfish at 7:03 PM on June 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
Solution: phone that records in 1:1 ratio and then intelligently crops the footage based on where the action is regardless of orientation.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:05 PM on June 5, 2015
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:05 PM on June 5, 2015
why's it even have to be a rectangle? why not a heart or a saturn?
posted by SharkParty at 7:08 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by SharkParty at 7:08 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Dude, Lightning McQueen always gets all the Barbies.
does this sort of thing happen at every Walmart in the middle of the night? Because it should.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:18 PM on June 5, 2015
does this sort of thing happen at every Walmart in the middle of the night? Because it should.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:18 PM on June 5, 2015
If I could sing like even slightly like that, I wouldn't ever stop. :)
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:26 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:26 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Get over it, people. Or view it on your mobile and settle down. Kids today!
posted by Bovine Love at 7:28 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Bovine Love at 7:28 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
How in the hell they got that thing in tune...gah...it has steel strings which no toy WalMart guitar would EVER have. It's staged...hey, we are an awesome thing....and a little lover boy.
Actually, I worked at Wal Mart, and some of the student guitars they offered DID have steel strings. Being a player myself, I had the chance to tune up a few for parents who wanted to be sure their little snowflakes had it playable right out of the box. It took a couple of hours of regular string-stretching and re-tuning to get them to hold their tuning well enough, but rest assured...the strings were steel.
posted by Quasimike at 8:07 PM on June 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
Actually, I worked at Wal Mart, and some of the student guitars they offered DID have steel strings. Being a player myself, I had the chance to tune up a few for parents who wanted to be sure their little snowflakes had it playable right out of the box. It took a couple of hours of regular string-stretching and re-tuning to get them to hold their tuning well enough, but rest assured...the strings were steel.
posted by Quasimike at 8:07 PM on June 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
Point being, fight the real evil: videos shot in vertical mode and then letterboxed into a teeny weeny strip of video in between two black bars.
As I mistakenly posted in another thread, Very nice, but I am sure it is only a matter of time until the first feature film is released in 16x9 portrait.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:24 PM on June 5, 2015
As I mistakenly posted in another thread, Very nice, but I am sure it is only a matter of time until the first feature film is released in 16x9 portrait.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:24 PM on June 5, 2015
OK. Two fronts on which I will fight -
How in the hell they got that thing in tune...gah...it has steel strings which no toy WalMart guitar would EVER have. It's staged...hey, we are an awesome thing....and a little lover boy.
We got our daughter a Little Mermaid version of this guitar from WalMart for her fourth christmas, because she wanted a toy guitar. It's got two nylon strings and four metal strings. As in, real, no-kidding coiled metal strings that, when you run your finger up one of them, it goes, "vvvvvvwip!" The instrument has tuning pegs that work. It is shockingly well put together for a $25 toy.
You dinosaurs need to quit complaining and start watching videos on your phone, the way nature intended.
Absolutely this. As a photographer, I love love love love vertical shots. We no longer have to watch motion pictures on a television or movie screen, and we usually don't. Vertical-oriented movies are a valid choice in this day and age - Youtube is sadly behind the times with the black bars on either side.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:39 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
How in the hell they got that thing in tune...gah...it has steel strings which no toy WalMart guitar would EVER have. It's staged...hey, we are an awesome thing....and a little lover boy.
We got our daughter a Little Mermaid version of this guitar from WalMart for her fourth christmas, because she wanted a toy guitar. It's got two nylon strings and four metal strings. As in, real, no-kidding coiled metal strings that, when you run your finger up one of them, it goes, "vvvvvvwip!" The instrument has tuning pegs that work. It is shockingly well put together for a $25 toy.
You dinosaurs need to quit complaining and start watching videos on your phone, the way nature intended.
Absolutely this. As a photographer, I love love love love vertical shots. We no longer have to watch motion pictures on a television or movie screen, and we usually don't. Vertical-oriented movies are a valid choice in this day and age - Youtube is sadly behind the times with the black bars on either side.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:39 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
You dinosaurs need to quit complaining and start watching videos on your phone, the way nature intended.
I do, and I turn my phone sideways to watch them, like any sane person. It's not the black bars that bother me, it's the orientation.
posted by VTX at 7:06 AM on June 6, 2015
I do, and I turn my phone sideways to watch them, like any sane person. It's not the black bars that bother me, it's the orientation.
posted by VTX at 7:06 AM on June 6, 2015
Are we back full-circle where "rock" means "blues"? I mean that's where it started, but seemed to somehow end up at thrasher metal or something.
Still getting used to the notion that "heavy metal" was a term coined to describe Led Zeppelin of all things.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 7:59 AM on June 6, 2015
Still getting used to the notion that "heavy metal" was a term coined to describe Led Zeppelin of all things.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 7:59 AM on June 6, 2015
Not all players can do a good guitar, but a good guitar player can do any guitar.
Rock on Clay!
posted by mule98J at 9:27 AM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
Rock on Clay!
posted by mule98J at 9:27 AM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
There are indeed rare occasions that portrait video is a good choice. However, like ignoring the rule of thirds or any other rule of thumb in life, if you aren't aware of why you have an exception on your hands you should be filming in fucking landscape!
Most action moves horizontally, your field of vision is wider than it is tall, and most display devices deal better with landscape, so quit arguing and just do it!
posted by wierdo at 2:40 PM on June 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Most action moves horizontally, your field of vision is wider than it is tall, and most display devices deal better with landscape, so quit arguing and just do it!
posted by wierdo at 2:40 PM on June 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Maybe you should accept that tech has moved on, and most people operate their phones in vertical, and that in an environment with flexible windows, like, oh, I dunno, a computer, it doesn't matter much whether it's in portrait or landscape. One is not a more valid artistic choice than another.
Actually, I take that back - when you are filming a human being from the waist up, that's called a what? A portrait. There is no reason why you should be restricted to "stills only" for that.
This is almost as annoying as HDR hate. It's a knee-jerk reaction to new tech, trying to apply old rules and familiar image conventions to new artistic tools, with a sensibility largely fostered upon us by the limitations of the old technology.
No, complaining about a phone video's portrait orientation does not make one seem knowledgeable or even very clever. It makes one seem tediously out of touch.
posted by Slap*Happy at 2:40 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
Actually, I take that back - when you are filming a human being from the waist up, that's called a what? A portrait. There is no reason why you should be restricted to "stills only" for that.
This is almost as annoying as HDR hate. It's a knee-jerk reaction to new tech, trying to apply old rules and familiar image conventions to new artistic tools, with a sensibility largely fostered upon us by the limitations of the old technology.
No, complaining about a phone video's portrait orientation does not make one seem knowledgeable or even very clever. It makes one seem tediously out of touch.
posted by Slap*Happy at 2:40 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
That was amazing, and proof that a proper musician can get music out of anything*. And seeing the roots of what he was playing was when guitarists started out as children with a piece of string on a tin box and still invented a totally new genre that turned out to be the truly original, seminal, globally influential North American cultural artefact, well, nice performance.
I wish being baked made me half as good at anything. An eighth as good, hell, a twentieth!
* A piece of string, a leaf, a rubber stamp etc.
posted by glasseyes at 3:38 AM on June 8, 2015
I wish being baked made me half as good at anything. An eighth as good, hell, a twentieth!
* A piece of string, a leaf, a rubber stamp etc.
posted by glasseyes at 3:38 AM on June 8, 2015
Technology may have moved on, but the physical experience of the analog world around us has not. Just to pick one example, many videos of police misconduct failed to capture significant information about what was happening because the person filming filmed in portrait.
As I said, if there is a reason for it, feel free to use vertical video, but in most cases it is simply the wrong choice due both to biology and the nature of the world around us. There is a reason filmmakers kept going wider and not taller.
Your complaint, Slap*Happy, seems to be kneejerkish, given that most everyone on this thread who has made that complaint has acknowledged that there are in fact times when vertical video is a better choice. It appears that you're complaining about complaining in precisely the way you are berating others for doing.
posted by wierdo at 12:31 PM on June 9, 2015
As I said, if there is a reason for it, feel free to use vertical video, but in most cases it is simply the wrong choice due both to biology and the nature of the world around us. There is a reason filmmakers kept going wider and not taller.
Your complaint, Slap*Happy, seems to be kneejerkish, given that most everyone on this thread who has made that complaint has acknowledged that there are in fact times when vertical video is a better choice. It appears that you're complaining about complaining in precisely the way you are berating others for doing.
posted by wierdo at 12:31 PM on June 9, 2015
Yeah, but in this case, where the video in question is actually, no-kidding filming a portrait, you and they were still complaining. Portrait mode videos are becoming the standard, landscape mode only when the circumstances demand it. Railing against this blindly seems to be an in-group/out-group demarcation, where "real" videographers and "advanced" cellphone users always, under all circumstances, hold the phone side-wise when taking a video. It's dimestore elitism, made even more annoying by its cheapness. HDR photos are a valid and appropriate artistic choice. Instagram "old timey" filters are a valid and appropriate artistic choice. Landscape mode videos are an appropriate and artistic choice, and portrait mode videos are made because it's more comfortable and convenient for the often amateur videographer.
I guess what I'm saying is, accommodate yourself to portrait mode videos, as they're the new default, otherwise more and more of your energies will be devoted to proclaiming how ignorant and terrible the film-maker is for using their equipment in the way that the manufacturer intended. Kick-start an android phone where the sensor is mounted at 90ยบ if it bugs you so much, see if it takes off on the market.
posted by Slap*Happy at 4:10 PM on June 9, 2015
I guess what I'm saying is, accommodate yourself to portrait mode videos, as they're the new default, otherwise more and more of your energies will be devoted to proclaiming how ignorant and terrible the film-maker is for using their equipment in the way that the manufacturer intended. Kick-start an android phone where the sensor is mounted at 90ยบ if it bugs you so much, see if it takes off on the market.
posted by Slap*Happy at 4:10 PM on June 9, 2015
When things and people stop moving mostly horizontally and start moving mostly vertically, vertical video being the default will make sense. Until then, people are simply wasting resolution on unimportant things.
posted by wierdo at 7:42 PM on June 9, 2015
posted by wierdo at 7:42 PM on June 9, 2015
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posted by jim in austin at 4:07 PM on June 5, 2015 [7 favorites]