Disco Horror

Choosing your ringtone, like choosing your wife, or your first murder victim, or the dude you would have sex with if you were gay (John Goodman) is one of the most important choices you can make. The fact is, so much of what people think about you is based on your ringtone: if you use the default ringtone, it means you’re old and out of touch with modern technology (maybe you are Amish, or my grandparents). If you choose the song “Seasons of Love” from the musical Rent, it means you’re gay, or maybe fat. If your ringtone is a hit song from the 80s, such as “Touch Myself” by the Divynils, it means you’re annoying. If your phone plays a rap song when it rings, it probably means something complex about race, class and popular culture in America, or maybe that you think “Magic Stick” by 50 Cent says something pretty meaningful about your life.

For a long time I owned a Nokia phone originally manufactured out of ivory and whale fat by Alexander Graham Bell. It was not a ringtone-friendly phone. I answered that phone to a ringtone called “Sticks” that sounded like this:

DIT

DIT

DIT
DITDITDITDITDITDIT.

I liked “Sticks” because it made me feel like I was in the Nature Company store (RIP), and also because everyone I knew was really weirded out by it. “Change your ringtone, Max,” they’d say, “or we won’t hang out with you anymore.” I never changed my ringtone, and guess who’s laughing now? I certainly am, and probably none of them are, though I don’t know, because they stopped hanging out with me.

I now own an iPhone, given to me personally by Steve Jobs (engraved on the back it says: “Max, I love Disco Horror — Steve Jobs”). I’ve gone through a lot of ringtones on this phone–an exciting one called “Crickets,” that sounds, excitingly, like crickets; a snippet of the song “My President is Black,” by Young Jeezy, that helps remind me what color Young Jeezy’s president, and Lamborghini, are. But recently I’ve settled on one that really speaks to me: “You Make Loving Fun” by Trailmix.

I hope my Fleetwood Mac fandom is well-enough documented on the pages of this storied blog that my appreciation for a 4×4 edit/mix of the Rumors classic is not particularly surprising. The Mac, being hip in that impossible-to-tell-why way, have received their fair share of classic mixes–Arthur Baker’s mix of “Big Love” being, you know, like, the greatest use of pianos, in any song, I guess, ever?–but I think this Trailmix version is pretty easily one of the best. None of Lindsey’s rad guitar work is cut; it just soars over the churning beat & distorted bass while Stevie’s [NOTE: CHRISTINE] vocals echo in the distance; the slow-down chorus gets cut right the fuck out in favor of more of that pulsing rhythm & wonky guitar. Really the only problem with using this as my ringtone is that I just want to dance to it instead of answer the phone.

But I do know this: when my phone rings, everyone around me thinks I’m fuckin’ rad. “There,” they say, “is a dude who knows how to choose a ringtone.” I don’t want to suggest that you copy me, but know that if you make this your ringtone, you will probably have sex within twenty-four hours. Enjoy.

Cross-posted at Mind Grapes