X-Nico

unusual facts about Riff-Raff



Action Force

Action Force characters have appeared as limited edition toys and comic characters as part of the International G.I. Joe Convention, under the name Special Action Force or SAF (a riff on the SAS; not to be confused with the Philippines' real-life Special Action Force).

And Your Bird Can Sing

Jack Black used its opening riff for inspiration in a fight against Satan at each show of the Tenacious D 2006-2007 Tour.

Blues Magoos

The group's biggest song, "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet", whose Vox Continental organ riff bears an uncanny resemblance to the 1962 hit by Ricky Nelson, "Summertime" (Deep Purple also used this riff in their hit "Black Night"), was released as a single in 1967 (albeit from their 1966 album), with "Gotta Get Away" as the b-side.

Boris the Spider

Subsequent to A Quick One, the central riff appears again as an encore to The Who's rendition of Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King recorded during the sessions for The Who Sell Out, but Entwistle sings "Radio London" instead.

Borkum Riff

Today, Borkum Riff is also sold in India, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Spain, New Zealand, Japan, France, Italy, Germany as well as in several other markets around the world.

Brett Leigh

Leigh began his career on the Broadway stage, playing the roles of "Riff" and "Action" in the musical West Side Story and "Tommy Djilas" in the The Music Man.

Chitty Chitty Death Bang

In addition to the regular cast, guest stars included actor and comedian Patrick Bristow, animator, executive producer, animation director, storyboard artist and producer Butch Hartman (who played Mr. Weed, Peter's boss, and various other characters), writer Gary Janetti who played the Demon and Riff), actor John O'Hurley (who played the Cult Leader), and Waylon Jennings (who played himself).

Custard Pie

The lyrics to the riff-heavy song pay homage to the blues songs of the Robert Johnson era; specifically "Drop Down Mama" by Sleepy John Estes, "Shake 'Em On Down" by Bukka White, and "I Want Some Of Your Pie" by Blind Boy Fuller.

Did My Time

James "Munky" Shaffer had written the main riff and was playing it every day, and producer Michael Beinhorn couldn't stand it.

Eric Lott

Bob Dylan is widely reported to have taken the title of his album Love and Theft from that of Lott's book; Lott, in turn, considered his own title "a riff on" Leslie Fiedler's Love and Death in the American Novel.

Evil Ways

Alex Gimeno samples the riff from Evil Ways in his track "Funky Bikini" from his musical project titled Ursula 1000.

Exchangeable image file format

The Exif specification describes the RIFF file format used for WAV audio files, and defines a number of tags for storing meta information such as artist, copyright, creation date, and more in these files.

From Bauhaus to Our House

Wolfe bluntly lays out his thesis in the introduction to From Bauhaus to Our House with a riff on the patriotic song "America the Beautiful"

Gerhard Raff

Raff donates all revenues and royalties from his lectures and publications to charitable causes, especially, but not exclusively, in the field of preservation of sites of historical interest, e.g. for a pilgrim's hostel on the Way of St. James at La Faba or for the restoration of Ulm Minster.

Hello Stranger

The arrangement by Riley Hampton - then working with Etta James - featured a signature organ riff provided by keyboardist John Young.

Hello, I Love You

In the liner notes to The Doors Box set, Robby Krieger has denied the allegations that the song's musical structure was stolen from Ray Davies, where a riff similar to it is featured in the Kinks "All Day and All of the Night".

Homer Banks

One of his Minit recordings, "(Ain't That) A Lot of Love", provided the basic riff later used by the Spencer Davis Group on their hit "Gimme Some Lovin'".

Huffin

Aside from that, all instruments play the melody together, as was done for the first riff, including John Marshall furiously beating out the timing on drums and cymbals, bringing the music to a sustained climax.

I Go to Rio

The melody of the opening piano riff of the song has been re-used by Chocolate in "Ritmo de la noche", well as Mystic/The Sacados and Safri Duo's cover versions, and Coldplay in "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall".

I Pity the Fool

Bowie later used this guitar riff in two different songs, first on "The Supermen" from 1971 and second on "Dead Man Walking" from 1997.

Inside My Love

The guitar riff was sampled for The Rubberbandits' 2011 single "I Wanna Fight Your Father", with a more prominent feature of the riff in the Irish version "Ba Mhaith Liom Bruíon le d'Athair".

K9.5: The Tail-Wag Tour

The player can help five characters, Ella, Gershwyn, Maxine, Riff, and Theo get ready for a concert by programming lights, cameras, and the backdrop projector while learning about parts of speech and grammar.

Kit and the Outlaws

Their music was typical of the era, using familiar riffs, not unlike those used by more well-known bands such as The Rumours, The Weeds, or The Vibrations.

Leon Collins

Leon and three of his students, Clara Brosnaham "CB" Hetherington, Dianne Walker and Pamela Raff opened the Leon Collins Dance Studio Inc.

Lightning to the Nations

In 2008, the Japanese metal magazine Burrn! rated this album as the third best riff album of all time, behind Black Sabbath's Master of Reality and Slayer's Reign in Blood.

Me Wise Magic

Its artwork features a stylized image of Buddha, reflecting the song's lyrics, (specifically the lyric: "a Buddhist riff for your inner ear.") "Me Wise Magic" became an instant radio hit - Van Halen's third #1 hit with Roth - and twelfth of a record-setting 14 Billboard #1s during the 1980s and 1990s.

Mighty Wings

Although unconfirmed by official sources, "Mighty Wings" beginning riff and guitar arrangement served as base for the composition of Ken's stage theme in the video-game Street Fighter II.

Nightswimming

Bassist Mike Mills recalled he was playing a piano riff at John Keane's studio in the band's hometown of Athens, Georgia.

No One Can Do It Better

Most of the songs were influenced and sampled from funk artists such as Marvin Gaye, Parliament, and Funkadelic, but one track in particular was influenced by other genres, "Beautiful But Deadly", a rock-hip hop track, influenced by Run-D.M.C. with a heavy guitar riff throughout the song (it borrows from Funkadelic's Cosmic Slop).

Norman Goldman

The show uses the opening riff to Canadian rock band Rush's "The Spirit of Radio" as its intro.

Nothing to Gein

Because the number nine is a lunar number, McDonough felt that the riff would fit the song's lyrics, which referred to serial killer and grave robber Ed Gein, whose actions McDonough associated with nighttime activity.

Pest of the West

Aspects of the musical cues used in the high noon duel between SpongeBuck and Dead Eye Plankton was from Sergio Leone's 1968 Spaghetti Western film Once Upon a Time in the West, complete with Ennio Morricone's harmonica riff used for the Charles Bronson character.

Releasing the Demons

The riff of this song is frequently used by conservative radio talk show host Michael Smerconish as bumper music at the end of on-air segments.

Rocket Queen

Slash stated in his autobiography that he and Duff McKagan wrote the main riff to "Rocket Queen" when they first got together in the short-lived band Road Crew with Steven Adler, prior to Slash and Adler joining Hollywood Rose.

Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley, Quebec

As the hometown of producer Franklin Raff, pastoral Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley is frequently depicted on G. Gordon Liddy's syndicated talk radio show as an otherworldly, Franco-Catholic redoubt in a predominantly Anglo-Loyalist region of Quebec.

Sanjati

The other song that is significant on this album is the song "Ti znaš" which has an opening guitar riff almost identical to U2's "Bad".

Scott Gorham

In June 2013, he won the Riff Lord Award at the Metal Hammer Golden Gods awards for his work on the album.

Shot by Both Sides

A very similar guitar riff would shortly be used in the song "Lipstick" by Devoto's former band Buzzcocks, released as a b-side in November 1978; Devoto received a co-writing credit for "Lipstick".

Slip Inside This House

It is a good précis of the Elevators' style, containing most of their common elements—the electric jug of Tommy Hall, an insistent repetitive fuzz guitar riff, and impassioned vocals by Roky Erickson.

The P.M.R.C. Can Suck on This

The track "Shut Up Already" borrows a riff from the Led Zeppelin song "Living Loving Maid", while the Liberal Animation version ended with a riff from "Black Dog".

The Simpsons Theme

Several versions of the saxophone solo riff, ostensibly played by character Lisa Simpson in the animated sequence, have been created over the course of the series.

Tinman

It is rumored that the original bootleg recording of "Eighteen Strings" contained a sample of the riff from "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, and that the usage of the sample was disallowed, therefore the guitar riff in "Eighteen Strings" was reproduced for commercial release.

Today Today

The theme music to the show was the opening riff to the song "She Says What She Means" by Canadian band Sloan

Too Drunk to Fuck

The song features a heavy surf rock/garage rock riff from guitarist East Bay Ray and satirical lyrics from Jello Biafra that paint a trenchant picture of an outrageous, moronic party.

War Is All We Know

This track puts emphasis on the thrash metal style GWAR had been developing for about 5 years previous to Beyond Hell and features fast paced riffing by Balsac the Jaws of Death and Flattus Maximus as well as barked vocals by Oderus Urungus.

Widow Wake My Mind

According to Goodman, the song opens with a funk-inspired jangly guitar riff and drops into a bass guitar and keyboard section, accompanying Billy Corgan's nasal singing.


see also

Over at the Frankenstein Place

On the Rocky Horror Picture Show DVD commentary with Richard O'Brien (Riff-Raff) and Patricia Quinn (Magenta), O'Brien confessed being extremely nervous during the opening of the Rocky Horror Show.

The Riff Raff Element

The Riff Raff Element was a 1990s British television series written by Debbie Horsfield and directed by Jeremy Ancock, who also directed Dressing for Breakfast and episodes of The Bill and Bergerac.