2020 has altered the course of just about everyone's life, and Rivers Cuomo is no exception.
He was originally supposed to spend the year touring with his Weezer bandmates on the back of the band's shred-tastic, hard-rocking Van Weezer album. Then COVID hit, taking with it all the year's touring plans, and even the band's plans for Van Weezer, which remains unreleased (we'll have to wait until May 2021, pending any further delays).
With newfound time on his hands, Cuomo has apparently taken the time to enroll in a "web programming class” via online non-profit learning platform edX.
Now, as part of his final class project, he has created a web market page containing an incredible 2,655 previously unheard demos.
Spanning decades, and both Cuomo and Weezer's discographies, the demos are separated into chronologically ordered bundles that are each available for the flat rate of $9. Cuomo even provides short previews and explanations of some of the demo packages, which can be listened to before any purchase is made.
It should be noted however, that the collections vary wildly in length. The shortest – a master session of Gravity Will Bring You Down – is just over 15 minutes, while Alone XI: The EWBAITE Years – features a whopping 1113 demos and runs at over 38 hours and 25 minutes.
Cuomo warns buyers on the site that some demos may have “silence," be “wildly inappropriate” or might just be “me rambling, talking, making sounds."
He also added that, remarkably, he may yet uncover more demos in his archives in the future, and that buyers will receive additional content should more demos be discovered.
“On the bright side, I realized I can add files to the dropbox folders after they’ve gone on sale,” Cuomo said.
“That means you can re-download the bundle, or the specific files, and get additional content as I discover it. Very cool.”
To check out Cuomo's demos, stop by Riverscuomo.com.
