Local Musician Turns to Ringtones for Artistic Outlet

OK, the truth is, it’s me. I’m the local musician who is making ringtones. So, this is a shameless self promotion…forgive me. You are still reading this post, and I thank you for that.

I’ve been making music for a while. My mom taught me guitar when I was 13, then I got my first electric guitar at 15. I was in a “thrash” band in high school in San Antonio, then write songs for my girlfriend (now wife since 1994) in college, performed in a bunch of coffee shops in San Marcos, Wichita Falls and College Station way back in the early 90s.

Then I started making dance music, got signed to a label in 1997, put out three albums under the name “antidote”.

After that contract ended, I kept making techno and Drum & Bass music, as well as some break beat and Trip Hop. Lots of drums and weird sounds. The names of my projects have been ADVRS, Boom Boom Butterfly, Deathbed Antics, Uncle Jojo and The Hug That Lasts Forever…among others. You can find some of that on the music page on my business site.

I’ve made a couple of albums with my daughter (then 3 years old – now 6), and use them in projects all the time. In fact, my oldest daughter will be featured in a ringtone in the next few weeks. She’s a great little singer and has great ideas of her own.

Now I live in College Station, working out of my house as a Graphic Designer (websites, logos, brochures and stuff). I love it here.

Here’s the ringtone site:

[WeeklyRingtone.wordpress.com]

The ringtones are in MP3 format, so you’ll have to figure out if your phone can play MP3 ringtones…most of them can nowadays. Some of the ringtones are in a “song” format…with a sung message of some sort. For example, one that’s up on the site right now says, “It’s my phone…mine’s the one that’s ringing…it’s mine..over here.” That one is in a Radiohead-ish style…very dramatic and sad.

I like thinking about different situations where the phone might go off where it might be inapropriate or annoying or whatever.

Some are softer…better for using as a wakeup alarm or a text message ring.

I’ve got lots of them in the plans. I test them on my phone first, and then post them at least once a week, sometimes more than that. I’ve even set up a wap site so people can download them directly to their phone. (http://tagtag.com/weeklyringtone)

I’ve got another one that says, “Oh, No…I forgot to turn my ringer off.” Kind of a hook-ey rock tune. I think that’s going to be funny if that one goes off during some important meeting or at church or something.

The site is a wordpress blog, so it’s easily accessible, and easy to navigate. I’ve even written a couple of articles about how to upload them to your phone and other ringtone artists who are doing the same thing I am. I hope to see the trend of musicians turning to making ringtones as an art form. The tones that come on the phones are usually so lame. There might be a couple packaged on the phone that are good…but I thought I could add to the volume of ringtones out there. I’m not into clips of radio music.

Well, so the site is weeklyringtone.wordpress.com. Check it out. Change your ringtone…weekly even…for free.

I hope that some day, maybe getting bananas at HEB, that I hear one of my own ringtones coming out of someone’s pocket. That would be cool.

Truth is, I hope that more artists turn to ringtones as a venue for their musical talent. It’s fun, and a challenge, to make a 15-30 second song. You’ve got to be quick in getting your musical idea across. And it has to be small enough for people to download and not fill up their phones hard drive, loud enough for people to hear and just the right amount of “annoying”.

Thanks for listening.

jorge