Rivers Cuomo is selling more than 86 hours of unreleased demos as part of a class project
Aux Features Music
Rivers Cuomo is a coder now. In a new interview with TechCrunch, the Weezer frontman sounds delighted to discuss his new hobby, which has resulted in both a tour management app, Drivetimes, and an online market filled with literally thousands of demo recordings. A mishmash of fully-realized songs, bare-bones sketches, and other scraps, they encompass the songwriter’s work between 1976 and 2015. The market was created as part of an online programming class.
“The coding part wasn’t easy, but for everyone else, it’s a couple of clicks and you’ve got all this music, and it’s a cheap price, and there’s no middleman,” he told TechCrunch. “And there’s just something, it feels so good when it’s directly from me to the audience.”
There’s nine individual demo collections, each priced at $9, that range between 90 minutes and (gulp) 38 hours. “Too many thoughts in my head,” read the liner notes of the latter, which were born from the Everything Will Be Alright In The End years. One collection pre-dates Weezer. Another, titled The Black Room, aligns with the crisis of confidence Cuomo suffered following the initial backlash that met Pinkerton. Others center around the various LPs leading up to 2016's self-titled “White” album. If that all sounds a bit much, there’s also a Best Of The Demos compilation that runs a tight 82 minutes.
There’s so much material that Cuomo would appreciate it you’d alert him to stuff that “shouldn’t [be] in a given bundle or shouldn’t released at all.” He adds, “Also, please let me know if there’s anything I wouldn’t want public in all the voice notes. I never thought I would be releasing those. I don’t know what’s in them. Thank you.” And, because the music’s tied to Dropbox folders, Cuomo says he’ll be able to add even more files after they’ve been purchased. “That means you can re-download the bundle, or the specific files, and get additional content as I discover it,” he writes. “Very cool.”
We agree. Very cool. Also very cool? According to TechCrunch, Cuomo has two albums completed, as well as two more in the works. Weezer’s last LP was their self-titled “Black” album.
Get downloadin’, and watch a trailer for Cuomo’s Drivetimes app while you’re at it. It’s kind of adorable.
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14 Comments
Jokes on us, turns out it’s just hundreds of versions of their cover of “Africa” and a brief aside in to the rest of Toto’s library.
…….SPOILERS!!!/s
Bonus track: Cuomo’s covers of his extensive Adam Ant collection.
you joke but right before “Africa” they did a cover of “Rosanna” and it… actually kinda slaps?
…nah
My great-grandfather used to listen to Weezer back in the ‘90’s. They were considered important, and stuff.
I thought that Weezer guy died in the plane crash with the Big Bopper.
John Lennon selflessly took several bullets that we’re meant for him
I’m surprised Cuomo hasn’t attempted a cover of “Peggy Sue ”.
Look, should I throw some money at this? Probably not. But I really loved when they were in production on Maladroit and they were releasing demos and updated recordings daily. It was a level of access and insight into putting an album together that I’ve never seen before or since, and IT WAS COMPLETELY FREE. Right on weezer.com. It still blows my mind, and I might buy a pack or two just for that nostalgia.
Tired: Following a rock star’s Twitter.Wired: Following a rock star’s GitHub.
He probably won’t get 300 mill like Dylan
Any excuse to post this classic, I’ll take
“please let me know if there’s anything I wouldn’t want public in all the voice notes… I don’t know what’s in them.”I’m sure if there’s anything objectionable in there, the internet will quietly have a one on one to tell him to remove it, rather than make a big deal about it.