Maldroid

Last updated
Maldroid
Origin Oakland, California, USA
Years active2006 – 2008
Labels Fuzz
Website Official website
MembersRyan Divine – vocals
Todd Godley – guitar, vocals
A.J. Riot – keyboard, vocals
Jerry "Prince J" Yamashita – keyboards
Sean "The Talented Mr." Shippley – bass guitar
Brandon Bradshaw – drums
Past membersJohnny Genius – guitar
Patti Botox – guitar
Mike O'Millions – drums
Hugo Barrientos Jr – drums
Chris Swimley – drums

Maldroid was an electropop band based in Oakland, California. They gained fame for winning YouTube's first music contest, "The Youtube Underground", for their music video "He Said, She Said".

Electropop is a music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Usually, it is described as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre has seen a revival of popularity and major influence since the 2000s.

Oakland, California City in California, United States

Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port city, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the San Francisco Bay Area, the eighth most populated city in California, and the 45th largest city in the United States. With a population of 432,897 as of 2019, it serves as a trade center for the San Francisco Bay Area; its Port of Oakland is the busiest port in the San Francisco Bay, the entirety of Northern California, and the fifth busiest in the United States of America. An act to incorporate the city was passed on May 4, 1852, and incorporation was later approved on March 25, 1854, which officially made Oakland a city. Oakland is a charter city.

YouTube video-sharing service owned by Google

YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. Three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—created the service in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion; YouTube now operates as one of Google's subsidiaries.

Contents

History

Maldroid was founded in 2006 by lead singer Ryan Hayford, who used the stage name Ryan Divine. [1] Born and raised in Santa Cruz, Divine founded Maldroid in March 2006, picking musicians he had worked with from defunct Bay Area bands Solemite, Soundboy, and The K.G.B. [1] [2] The band made its first EP Malfunction later that year produced by guitarist Johnny Genius. Divine and Genius had both worked as music producers for other Bay Area bands. [2]

Santa Cruz, California City in California, United States

Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California. As of 2018 the U.S. Census Bureau estimated Santa Cruz's population at 64,725.

Extended play musical recording longer than a single, but shorter than a full album

An extended play record, often referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single, but is usually unqualified as an album or LP. Contemporary EPs generally contain a minimum of three tracks and maximum of six tracks, and are considered "less expensive and time-consuming" for an artist to produce than an album. An EP originally referred to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play (SP) and LP, but it is now applied to mid-length CDs and downloads as well.

Divine said the name "Maldroid" comes from the term for a "malfunctioning robot":

We're so technology-based that I feel like we've become robots, doing the same thing day in and day out. We're the bad droid, the black sheep, and we're going to break out of that conformity. [3]

— Ryan Divine

"He Said, She Said" video

Their first video, "He Said, She Said" is a combination of simulated live performance, background subway scenes from the BART rail system, and graphic novel-style cartoons hand-animated over the course of several months by Divine. [4] The video was inspired by "Take On Me", a popular 1985 song and video by the Norwegian band a-ha. [3] The live portion was surreptitiously filmed on borrowed cameras in abandoned warehouses. Divine said he "begged, stole, and cheated" to get his hands on a camera to produce the video. [5]

Bay Area Rapid Transit Railway system in California, USA

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit public transportation system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. The heavy rail elevated and subway system connects San Francisco and Oakland with urban and suburban areas in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Mateo counties. BART serves 48 stations along six routes on 112 miles (180 km) of rapid transit lines, including a ten-mile spur line in eastern Contra Costa County which utilizes diesel multiple-unit trains and a 3.2-mile (5.1 km) automated guideway transit line to the Oakland International Airport. With an average of 423,000 weekday passengers and 124.2 million annual passengers in fiscal year 2017, BART is the fifth-busiest heavy rail rapid transit system in the United States.

Graphic novel book with primarily comics contents

A graphic novel is a book made up of comics content. Although the word "novel" normally refers to long fictional works, the term "graphic novel" is applied broadly and includes fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work. It is distinguished from the term "comic book", which is generally used for comics periodicals.

Take On Me 1984 single by A-ha

"Take On Me" is a song by Norwegian synthpop band A-ha, first released in 1984. The self-composed original version was produced by Tony Mansfield, and remixed by John Ratcliff. The second version was produced by Alan Tarney for the group's debut studio album Hunting High and Low (1985). The song combines synthpop with a varied instrumentation that includes acoustic guitars, keyboards and drums.

The single became popular on local San Francisco modern rock station Live 105,[ citation needed ] after which the video went on to win YouTube's first-ever music contest, "The Youtube Underground". [4] Winning the contest earned the band an appearance on Good Morning America [6] [3] and interest from various record labels.[ citation needed ] Before the contest, Maldroid had never played together in public. [1]

San Francisco Consolidated city-county in California, US

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a city in, and the cultural, commercial, and financial center of, Northern California. San Francisco is the 13th-most populous city in the United States, and the fourth-most populous in California, with 883,305 residents as of 2018. It covers an area of about 46.89 square miles (121.4 km2), mostly at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, making it the second-most densely populated large US city, and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. San Francisco is also part of the fifth-most populous primary statistical area in the United States, the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area.

Modern rock is rock music made between the late 1970s to present day. Some radio stations use this term to distinguish themselves from classic rock, which is based in 1960s–1980s rock music.

Maldroid's first three videos are all animations created by lead singer Ryan Divine. Their EP was produced at a cost of $50, which the band claims was spent mostly on food and alcohol, at a studio where two band members work. [7] The "Heck No" video is stop-motion animated on a Lite-Brite art toy, and took six months to create. [5] In the "You Can Have It All" video, Divine takes apart a bluescreen jigsaw puzzle, which is played backwards.

Lite-Brite

Lite-Brite is a toy that was originally marketed in 1967. It consists of a light box with small colored plastic pegs that fit into a panel and illuminate to create a lit picture, by either using one of the included templates or creating a "freeform" image on a blank sheet of black paper. There are eight peg colors: red, blue, orange, white (clear/colorless), green, yellow, pink, and violet (purple).

Chroma key Compositing technique

Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual effects/post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on color hues. The technique has been used in many fields to remove a background from the subject of a photo or video – particularly the newscasting, motion picture, and video game industries. A color range in the foreground footage is made transparent, allowing separately filmed background footage or a static image to be inserted into the scene. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production. This technique is also referred to as color keying, colour-separation overlay, or by various terms for specific color-related variants such as green screen, and blue screen – chroma keying can be done with backgrounds of any color that are uniform and distinct, but green and blue backgrounds are more commonly used because they differ most distinctly in hue from most human skin colors. No part of the subject being filmed or photographed may duplicate the color used as the backing.

Jigsaw puzzle tiling puzzle

A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of often oddly shaped interlocking and tessellating pieces. Each piece usually has a small part of a picture on it; when complete, a jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture. In some cases, more advanced types have appeared on the market, such as spherical jigsaws and puzzles showing optical illusions.

Post rise

In 2007 Maldroid was signed to a recording contract with the San Francisco record label Fuzz Artists, Inc.[ citation needed ]

After winning a local band contest held by radio station Live 105, [8] Maldroid opened at the "Not So Silent Night" concert in December 2007. The concert included bands Paramore, Spoon, Jimmy Eat World, Angels & Airwaves, and Modest Mouse.

Maldroid played Every Thursday Night In August and September at the Stork Club in Oakland, California

Audio engineer Reto Peter (Green Day, The Network, Modest Mouse) provided sound engineering and mixing on two Maldroid songs released in 2007. [9]

Maldroid will embark on their first nationwide tour(April 15-May 30) with Oakland's own The Phenomenauts and former Fueled by Ramen artist The A.K.A.s.

Maldroid goes through a massive line-up change. With the departure of both guitarists, Johnny Genius and Todd Brown, Maldroid brings ex River City Rebels guitar player Patti Botox in to the fold. Now with a 5-man line-up Maldroid begins recording their follow up record. New songs such as "Almost Pleasureable", "Get To You" and "Murder at The Disco" show a significant change in style.[ who? ]

Maldroid will embark on their fourth tour of their short career in October 2009 with Portland's Punk Group.

Todd Brown returns to his original spot as lead guitar player.

Discography

Albums

Singles

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Seltenrich, Nate (February 14, 2007). "Video Made the Radio Star". East Bay Express . Retrieved June 19, 2018.
  2. 1 2 Salapuddin, Robbie (June 15, 2006). "Oakland's Maldroid are YouTube famous". theowlmag.com. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 Chun, Kimberly (October 29, 2007). "Where It's At". oaklandmagazine.com. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
  4. 1 2 Grady, Barbara (December 1, 2006). "Oakland rock band is a hit on YouTube". eastbaytimes.com. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
  5. 1 2 Frederick Levy (3 June 2008). 15 Minutes of Fame: Becoming A Star In The Youtube Revolution. DK Publishing. pp. 116–118. ISBN   978-1-4362-4323-0.
  6. ↑ "Maldroid on Good Morning America". dailymotion. Retrieved June 19, 2018.
  7. ↑ Garofoli, Joe (January 13, 2007). "Oakland band shows how to make it in YouTube age". SFGate . Retrieved June 18, 2018.
  8. ↑ "Live 105 'Not So Silent Night' (NSSN) 2007". Live 105 . 2007. Archived from the original on December 6, 2007. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Discography - Reto Peter - Smalltune Music". smalltunemusic.com. Retrieved June 20, 2018. 2007 - Maldroid "He Said, She Said", Engineering. 2007 - Maldroid "Wanna Touch Remix", Mix.
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