Nerdcore Rising (2008)

It's a newbie, but since we're all a bit nerdy in here I thought I'd share.

Nerdcore is a relatively new music phenomenon that attempts to usurp the style of hip-hop and infuse it with the substance of nerdiness. Songs about mathematics, video games, internet porn addiction, role-playing games, etc. are the standard.

Nerdcore Rising documents the first American tour of Damian Hess (AKA MC Frontalot) and his band. Damian is widely acknowledged as the father of the Nerdcore movement and considering the fact that he is credited with legitimizing a brand of music that started as a joke he takes the practice pretty seriously. His band is something of a combination of Devo, De La Sol, The Minutemen and Kraftwerk. The road footage of the tour is not your typical get-drunk-and-party-like-a-rock-star fare. These guys give it their all on stage and then head back to the Motel 6 to complain about road fatigue and lower-back pain. After all, they are a bunch of nonathletic nerds, not rap stars.

Things come to a head when some members of the crowd cry racism in the face of Frontalot's efforts to bridge the culture gap. Interestingly enough he has seasoned supporters that rise to his defense including: Al Yankovic, Jello Biafra and even famed Hip-Hop producer Prince Paul (Who claims that Frontalot's efforts are more creative and honest than most modern mainstream rappers). Either way, Frontalot is a web sensation and his fans seem to adore the fact that he speaks their language.

If you're a nerd (and if you just stopped to consider the idea then you know you are) it might give you a kick.

The Wilhelm Scream

Sound designers are nerds, and so are we for creating this blog and reading it. So whether or not you are already in the loop this should seem somewhat familial.

In the 1950's a Gary Cooper film titled Distant Drums was in production. In it, a minor character named Wilhelm was to wallow in the water and be bitten by an alligator, screaming with agony. As is usually the case the on-set recording of the scream wasn't dramatic enough so the studio employed an additional dialogue recording session to beef it up. In the sound room a single take was recorded of a series of six screams (by an arguably anonymous voice actor). Among these six takes was the now famous sound-effect known as "The Wilhelm Scream."

At some point the scream was found in the Warner Bros. sound effect library and became a sort of badge of honor among sound designers. No matter how unfitting or inappropriate it was for the the scene it was considered a right of passage to use the sound effect in the project at hand.





Nowadays the joke has become Tarantino-style passe'. Apparently too much of a good regurgitated thing can get annoying. Even among nerdy sound editors that have been in on the joke for decades. And us?