Riffs? Yeah! Can U dig it?

The Guardian's music blog has a v. v. interesting article called School of rock: Reappraising the riff, on riffage. It's a little bit descriptive, a little bit how-to, and in the great British tradition ends with a breathtaking insult at the end.

There's little point excerpting it, so if you can indeed dig it, why not read the whole thing? Learn how the Devil's Interval and syncopation make riffs great.

The title of this piece comes from Pop Will Eat Itself's Can U Dig It? I'm going to quote them here because lyric sites are so spyware and ad-ridden it's not worth sending you there for the (otherwise persuasive) benefit of not being issued with a DMC take-down order myself.

We dig TV we dig remote control,
We dig the Furry Freak Brothers and the Twilight Zone,
We dig Marvel and D.C., we dig Run-DMC,
We dig Renegade Soundwave and AC/DC
(Can U dig it?)
Bruce Wayne auf weidersehn, Dirty Harry, Make my day,
Terminator, hit the north, Alan Moore knows the score,
Riffs? Yeah! Can U dig it?
Riffs? Yeah! Can U dig it?
We dig Optimus Prime and not Galvetron,
We dig The Leader of the Pack and the Do-Ron-Ron,
Spinderella and Bruce Lee, Good, Bad and the Ugly,
V for Vendetta and Into the Groovy.
(Can U dig it?)

Click on the pic below for a stompin' YouTube video of same, with bonus extra unadvertised track.



Lovely riff, what? I know all the words to that song and I sing it out loud in my car when it jukeboxes itself to the front of the shuffle queue. How many of its pop culture references do YOU still remember, loyal readers?

After Zeppelin, PWEI are probably my favorite band. (Off to listen to their verson of Love Missile F1-11)