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A demo version or demo of a song (shortened from the word "demonstration") is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists. Musicians often use demos as quick sketches to share with bandmates or arrangers; in other cases a songwriter might make a demo to send to artists in hopes of having the song professionally recorded, or a music publisher may need a simple recording for publishing or copyright purposes.

Many unsigned bands and artists record demos in order to obtain a recording contract. These demos are usually sent to record labels in hopes that the artist will be signed onto the label's roster and allowed to record a full-length album in a professional recording studio. However, large record labels usually ignore unsolicited demos that are sent to them by mail; artists generally must be more creative about getting the demos into the hands of the people who make decisions for the record company.

Songwriters' and publishers' demos are recorded with minimal instrumentation - usually just an acoustic guitar or piano, and the vocalist. Both Elton John and Donovan gained studio experience early in their careers by recording publishers' demos for other artists, since their managers also handled music publishing.

Many signed bands and artists record demos of new songs before recording an album. The demos may allow the artist to provide sketches for sharing ideas with bandmates, or to explore several alternate versions of a song, or to quickly record many proto-songs before deciding which ones merit further development. Most demos often include one or two songs, often no more.

Demos are typically recorded on relatively crude equipment such as "boom box" cassette recorders, small four-track or eight-track machines, or on personal computers with software such as Audacity, but sometimes they capture the feeling or intent of the artist better than the final version of the song, after the input of managers, producers and sound engineers. Lou Reed sought out a studio in the late 1980s to record his New York album, where the polished sound would satisfy him as much as that of the rough cassettes he'd been making at home. (The B-side to the album's single was actually a transferred home tape.)^{[citation needed]}

Demo recordings are seldom heard by the public, although some artists do eventually release rough demos in rarities compilation albums or box sets. Other demo versions have been unofficially released as bootleg recordings, such as The Beatles' The Beatles Bootleg Demos. Several artists have eventually made official releases of demo versions of their songs as albums or companion pieces to albums. The event of a demo tape appearing on eBay has happened in the past, with the recordings being leaked onto the internet.

In more underground forms of music, such as noise music, black metal or punk, demos are often distributed by bands to fans as self-releases, or sold at a very low price.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Collection of Demo Covers
• Music From the Demo Scene

Look up demo or demo- in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Demo may refer to:

• Demonstration (teaching)
• Product demonstration, a sales or marketing presentation
• Exhibition game or demo, a sporting event with no competitive value to any competitor
• Demolition, the destruction of buildings and other structures

Computing and technology[link]

• Demo (computer programming), a non-interactive multimedia presentation
• Game demo, a freely-distributed version of a video game
• Technology demo, a prototype version of a technology product
• Demo mode, a feature found in consumer electronics

Music[link]

• Demo (music), a song recorded for reference rather than release
• Demo 2004, a 2004 demo by Year of No Light
• Demo (Miss May I album) (2008)

Other uses[link]

• DEMO, a proposed experimental nuclear fusion reactor
• Demo (comics), a comic book series by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan
• DEMOs, a business process design methodology by Jan Dietz
• Demo, a daughter of Celeus and Metaneira
• Demo, an annual conference held by Network World

See also[link]

• Demoware, software that users can test in a limited fashion before buying
• Demo #2, a Neutral Milk Hotel demo tape
• Demos (disambiguation)
• Democrat (disambiguation)
• Demographic
• Demolition (disambiguation)
• Demonstration (disambiguation)
• Demoscene, collectively, the digital artists who create demos

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

The word asshole, a variant of arsehole, which is still prevalent in British and Australian English, is a vulgar to describe the anus, often pejoratively used to refer to people.

History[link]

The word arse in English derives from the Germanic root *arsaz, which originated from the Proto-Indo-European root *ors — meaning buttocks or backside.^[1] The combined form arsehole is first attested from 1500 in its literal use to refer to the anus. The metaphorical use of the word to refer to the worst place in a region, e.g., "the arsehole of the world") is first attested in print in 1865; the use to refer to a contemptible person is first attested in 1933.^[2] In the ninth chapter of his 1945 autobiography, Black Boy, Richard Wright quotes a snippet of verse that uses the term: "All these white folks dressed so fine / Their ass-holes smell just like mine ...". Its first appearance as an insult term in a newspaper indexed by Google News is in 1965.^[3] As with other vulgarities, these uses of the word may have been common in oral speech for some time before their first print appearances. By the 1970s, Hustler magazine featured people they did not like as "Asshole of the Month."^[4] In 1972, Jonathan Richman's Modern Lovers recorded his song "Pablo Picasso," which includes the line "Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole."

Until the early 1990s, the word was considered one of a number of words that could not be uttered on commercial television in the United States. Comedian Andrew Dice Clay caused a major shock when he uttered the word during a televised MTV awards show in 1989.^[5] However, there were PG-13 and R rated films in the 1980s that featured use of the word, such as the R-rated The Terminator (1984), the PG-13-rated National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), and the PG-rated Back to the Future (1985). By 1994, however, vulgarity had become more acceptable, and the word was featured in dialog on the long-running television series NYPD Blue, though it has yet to become anything close to commonplace on network TV. In some broadcast edits (such as the syndication airings of South Park), the word is partially bleeped out — ironically, as "assh—", with the profane half of the word intact.

Semantics[link]

The word is mainly used as a vulgarity, generally to describe people who are viewed as stupid or incompetent or detestable.^[6]

This word or its literal translation is found in colloquial speech in a number of cultures (in both English and other languages).^[7] This is because it describes an organ of elimination that is considered a taboo region (since it belongs to the intimate parts) of the body in many societies.^[8]

The English word ass (meaning donkey, a cognate of its zoological name Equus asinus) may also be used as a term of contempt, referring to a silly or stupid person. In the United States, and, to a lesser degree, in Canada, the words arse and ass have become synonymous; however, in the rest of the English-speaking world, ass still only refers to the donkey, rather than the arse (buttocks). It is worth noting that speakers of some varieties of English "drop their Rs" before consonants, leading to a pronunciation of arse that is quite similar to ass.^[9]

Political usage[link]

In 2000, during a Labor Day event, then candidate George W. Bush made an off-hand remark to his running mate, Dick Cheney, that New York Times reporter Adam Clymer was a "major league asshole." The gaffe was caught on microphone and led to a political advertisement chiding Bush for "using expletives ... in front of a crowd of families," produced for Democratic opponent Al Gore.^[10]

In February 2004, American media reported that during a rally of supporters, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called Bush "an asshole" for believing his aides in supporting a coup against Chavez in 2002.^[11] The word in the original Spanish was "pendejo", and in news coverage the word was widely, though incorrectly, translated as "asshole"; the meaning of the word varies substantially in Latin America, and in Venezuela its meaning is closer to "fool".^[12] The following year, in September, Nightline host Ted Koppel said to Chavez on national television, "I'm going to perhaps shock you a little, but these are your words. You called President Bush an asshole," to which Chavez replied, "I've said various things about him. I don't know if I actually used that word."^[13]

See also[link]

• Arse
• The No Asshole Rule
• Sexual Slang
• Profanity

References[link]

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (April 2010)

Chad Price is best known for being the lead singer for the pop-punk band All and alt-country band Drag the River.

He joined ALL in 1993 as the band's third singer, after Dave Smalley and Scott Reynolds. He has appeared on the four most recent studio albums, as well as one live album. He is officially still a member of the band, although Scott Reynolds has been joining the band on live dates.

In 1996, while still active with ALL, Price formed Drag the River with Jon Snodgrass. Drag the River announced a break in 2007,^[1] although they were together again by 2008.

On October 29, 2009, Price released his first solo record Smile Sweet Face.^[2]

Discography[link]

With All[link]

• "Guilty" single (1993)
• Breaking Things (1993)
• Pummel (1995)
• Mass Nerder (1998)
• All (Best of album) (1999)
• Problematic (2000)
• Live Plus One (2001)

With Drag the River[link]

• Hobo's Demo's (2000)
• Closed' (2002)
• Live at the Starlight (2002)
• at the Green Door LP (2003)
• Chicken Demo's (2004)
• Hey Buddies... (2004)
• Live at the Starlight/at the Green Door (double cd repress) (2000)
• ...a way with women 7 inch (2004)
• A Shame - Beautiful & Damned 7 inch (space mix) (2004)
• It's Crazy (2006)
• You Can't Live This Way (2008)
• Bad At Breaking Up (2009)
• 2010 Demons (2010)

Solo[link]

• Smile Sweet Face (2009)

Miscellaneous[link]

• Sang backup vocals on The Ataris Look Forward To Failure EP
• Sang backup vocals on Rise Against's album Revolutions per Minute
• Sang backup vocals on Rise Against's album The Sufferer and the Witness
• Sang backup vocals on Rise Against's album Endgame

References[link]

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