Author: Thomas Scott McKenzie

Get ready to unleash your inner Weird Al Yankovic and sign up for the Roland U.S. V-Accordion Festival!

This headbanging event will be held in Los Angeles (home to the Van Halen, Motley Crue, Ratt, and other well-known accordion-influenced bands) on Saturday, September 18. Aspiring accordion artists can submit application videos until July 15.

If that dusty old thing you found in Grandpa Hertzel’s attic isn’t cutting it anymore, you can pick up a snazzy new Roland V-Accordion. The company features 14 models, ranging in price from about $1,300 to $3,600. You can even rock a threatening instrument like the white-with-tribal-accents Fr-1b accordion pictured here.

Don’t forget, guitar virtuoso Steve Vai started his musical career as an accordion player. So add some waltz machines into your gadget arsenal.

As more and more musicians and entertainers discover ways to use iPhone apps to reach their fans, we see an increasing amount of gadgets and games. Some of them are good, some of them are ehh.

Earlier this year, the Brooklyn-based rock-rap group Shinobi Ninja launched a fun and amusing game called “Brooklyn to Babylon: Shinobi Ninja Attacks!” The game takes music and video and presents it in an eight-bit videogame world. As you play the game, you can earn rewards of more music, more videos, and more goodies. Plus, you get to take on Jersey Shore douchebags in the game, providing hours of family fun.

The app also features GPS tracking capability at concerts so the band can located and reward fans who rock the game.

There is a lite version of the game available from the iTunes App Store and a more loaded version for $1.99.