Yank Blog

From the Hardford Advocate, Middletown Internet Animator David Lovelace Teams Up With Weird Al Yankovic

Here’s a great interview with David Lovelace, who is best know for creating the internet sensation Retarded Animal Babies, and one of the music video animators that Al enlisted for the new album. The article goes into the living room as well as the history of the goatee-sporting 36-year-old. Read the interview on how he didn’t believe it was really Al at first:

“Jay Levy sent me an e-mail asking if I’d be interested in doing some animation for Weird Al. I didn’t believe it at first. I wrote back and wrote, ‘F*** you, stop yanking my chain,’” Lovelace said. Levey persisted despite Lovelace’s disbelief. “He wrote me back and said he was for real.”

Oh yeah, there might be some language in there that’s not suitable for children. If you’re an innocent virtuous soul, the preceding paragraph should not have been read. Ah well, what can you do? Anyway, here’s my favorite quote from the article:

“I was confident that if I worked closely enough with him, he would somehow be able to produce a piece of animation that didn’t feature exposed genitalia,” Yankovic said.

You know, I think Al said something similar when he worked with Florence Henderson.

(stylus photo provided by aiyaz)

Tuesday is going to be busy. First, there’s the release of the new album, Straight Outta Lynwood, well for the folks in the US anyway, sorry Tennessee…er, Canada, then at the Virgin Megastore in Hollywood, Al will be signing copies of the album (you DID sign up on Upcoming.org didn’t you?). Now, we find out that our pal Al will be taking over the 80s channel on XM radio at 7PM Eastern Time. Think of it as Al-Tv but for radio. If you don’t have XM, just find a friend who does, and if you have no friends because you’re too White & Nerdy, and that’s probably the case, then you can just use your mental powers to tune into the satellite feed and listen that way. Don’t blame us though if it just sounds like a dolphin crying from a birdcage that’s submerged in a pool filled with mercury. You have to work through your own issues.
Oh and if THAT’S not enough for Tuesday, don’t forget it’s laundry day and you need to pick up your room, you slob.

Al will be calling KITS Live 105 in San Fransisco at around 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 20, for another radio interview. You can listen online at Live105.com. (You’ll need to do a simple registration to listen online.)

In a somewhat related topic to yesterday’s news, ITWorld.com has an in-depth interview with Al on file sharing

Where does Weird Al stand on the file-sharing debate?

“I don’t really take a firm stand on either side of the issue,” he wrote.” It’s a grey area for me, and besides, only a Sith deals in absolutes.”

…

He appreciates the positive promotional aspects of P-to-P (peer-to-peer) Web sites. However, Weird Al also feels that people who get their music exclusively from such channels instead of in ways that directly benefit artists “are not taking the moral high road, and I don’t really condone or support that.”

and on his MySpace page:

Weird Al designed and maintains his MySpace page himself. “I’m pretty decent at Photoshop, and I know just enough HTML to be dangerous,” he wrote. “And I did, in fact, personally add every single one of the 47,000+ friends on that site (although I’m sure there’s a bot or something that could have done that just as well).”

and about his previous tech-savvy songs:

“I don’t think we ever heard anything officially from Intel, but eBay was actually thrilled with the parody – their CEO Meg Whitman flew me out to Florida so that I could perform the song at a major eBay corporate function,” he wrote. “If I’d had my wits about me, I probably would have hit them up to finance a music video for the song!”

Ah nuts, we could’ve had an “actual” video for Poodle Hat.  Ah well.

You’ll have to change your plans slightly for tonight. Here’s the latest news from Al’s MySpace:

Premiere cancelled

I’m very sorry to say that the AOL “First View” Premiere of the “White & Nerdy” video has been cancelled.

Apparently, the video has already leaked online, and AOL doesn’t feel comfortable doing a “World Premiere” promotion for a video that a number of people have seen already. (I can understand songs leaking, but a video? How’d THAT happen?)

Anyway, it’s really a bummer… it would have been great promotion for the album… but hey, life goes on.

So…

I’ll be uploading the video to this page shortly. Tell your friends!

So, yes, you’ll still be seeing the video tonight. You’ll just have to tune into Al’s MySpace exclusively to see it.

Edit: It’s on AOL after all, just no fanfare. Watch it here.

According to thatoneguy, Al is going to be on The Smiley Morning Show on WZPL, Indy’s adult top 40 radio station, tomorrow (Monday 9/18/06) to promote the new album! Not in Indy? You can listen at WZPL’s site.

The tradition continues! Next weekend (Sept. 24-25), Al will be the very special in-studio guest on the Dr. Demento Show. Al usually gives an interview and premieres new songs on the show, so expect to hear lots of great tunes from Straight Outta Lynwood!! If you don’t get the Dr. Demento Show in your area, you can listen to the show on DrDemento.com for only $2.00 per listen.

(Bonus: On this weekend’s show you’ll hear “Jerry Springer,” “You’re Pitiful” and “Don’t Download This Song”)

This just in from Al’s Myspace:

WORLD PREMIERE!
THE VIDEO FOR “WHITE & NERDY” WILL DEBUT ON AOL.COM
THIS MONDAY NIGHT AT 9PM PACIFIC TIME, MIDNIGHT EASTERN!

Hooray!!!  Can hardly wait! And from his myspace blog:

NOTE: Just so there’s no confusion… You do NOT have to have AOL to be able to see the video. You just need to go to the AOL website, and there it will be… patiently waiting for you.

Also, VH1 will start airing the video on Wednesday – it will begin in “large rotation” (which I’m told is about 20 plays a week).

Go to his blog and let him know what you think of the video.

Gonna try something new here…

To all the lucky, lucky fans who will be going to the autograph signing at the Virgin Megastore in Hollywood on September 26th, take lots of pictures, like, as many candid shots as you can. Get shots of the store outside, get shots of the people waiting in line, get shots of the signing area before Al arrives, etc… Then, if you don’t have one already, get yourself a nice Flickr account (they’re free!) and upload all your photos from the day for the world to see. But how can you share with the other Al fans that amazingly awesome pic you got of Al picking his nose? Easy! Just add this super special tag to them…

upcoming:event=107089

What the heck is THAT and what would this accomplish??? Well quite simply, with that code Flickr can automatically link to and add your pictures to this Upcoming.org event listing for the in-store signing. Upcoming.org is a free site where people can keep track of nearby events, have discussions, share pictures, etc… So this seems like an excellent way of sharing your uber-cool Al experience with the world.

Note: The free Flickr account does limit you to uploading only 20MB worth of pictures every month. Fortunately, the limit does reset itself on the midnight of the first of every month. So get in as much as you can before Sept 30th, then when it’s Oct 1st, you’ll have another 20MB to upload. Yay!

Hope to see some great photos from YOU! Maybe I’ll feature some of them here (with permission of course).

Looks like Houston rapper and winner of MTV’s Best Rap Video award Chamillionaire has become a huge fan of Weird Al, too. First he just couldn’t wait to proudly feature “White and Nerdy” on his own MySpace page, and now gives major kudos to him in an interview:

“He’s actually rapping pretty good on it, it’s crazy…He’s Grammy-nominated, man. He goes platinum. It’s really an honor when he does that. I remember when he redid Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad.’ Weird Al is not gonna do a parody of your song if you’re not doing it big. You gotta be a big dog. He shot the video, and people will see it pretty soon. It’s crazy.”

“He’s spittin’ just like Krayzie Bone on the second verse…It’s actually very funny if you listen to what he’s saying. The way Krayzie is harmonizing, he does the same thing. It surprised me. I didn’t know he could rap like that.”

Definitely nice to hear another artist give respect to Al for his attention to details, be honored at being a parody subject, and just plain enjoy his singing abilities.

See you at the next Al concert, Chamillionaire! I’ll bring the toy lightsabers, you bring the Yoda mask, k?