Thank you, sweet baby Jesus.

Gimmick or no, I totally eat up that nostalgia train. In other news, I need to work on my mixed metaphors.

More Homework.

Click play. Close eyes.

Punch screen. Flip out.

Homework.

Please set volume to somewhere between Face-Melting and Shoe-Blasting.

Be back in a minute. Promise.

Haven’t gone anywhere, physically or metaphorically…

It’s been a busy week, but I’m still here.
Q: When did Metal get awesome again?

A: When everybody found their parent’s old Black Sabbath and / or older sibling’s Melvins Records.

Example 1: The Sword (which, for the record, is the best band name, like ever).

Example 2: Wolfmother (which, for the record, is the second best band name ever).

Example 3: Valient Thorr (which, for the record, is the best use of METAL BEARDS)

Metal. Take it from an ex-dice rolling cape wearer, it’s not just for cape wearing dice rollers anymore.

My long lost life…

Sometimes I get desperately nostalgic. As horrible as my awkward junior high and high school years were, I miss that time when the biggest bands were sloppy, angry, and arty. There was a magic to the post Nirvana pop music landscape; for many, that magic was visualized by Mtv.

Cliche’ or not, I’m gonna talk about it one day, and the heart breaking digression into madness and lowest-common-denominator sleaze (as opposed to the wonderful and important musical madness and sleaze) that started in ‘92 with the Real World. But in the mean time, I suggest that all check out Steve Hyden’s head-shaking article over at the AV Club; I don’t agree with everything he says, but he certainly has some good points, especially from a business perspective. After all this time, ripping the music out of Mtv still hurts.

Rock and Technology, 1.5

So I bought Guitar Hero 2.

I had been thinking about it so much since I played it the first time, I just needed to go ahead and get it. In many ways this is the perfect game for me: Excellent party game, can play it just a few minutes at a time, and all about the rock and roll.

Most surprising was the game’s almost magical ability to make people want to learn it. The night I bought it, a bunch of friends (most of whom had a passing interest in video games at best) came over to have a gander (I had talked about it so much).

Guitar Hero has a short but steep learning curve. The first time you pick up the little plastic guitar (guitar player or not) it seems like those dots are flying down the screen at lighting speed; both hands simply refuse to work together. It’s enough to scare away anybody that didn’t already spend money on it, especially those who aren’t really into video games. That scariness is all but squashed out by three things:

1. This game is filled with great songs that are fun to play.

2. When looking at the song list, pretty much everybody had a ‘I love that song’ moment, so they had a song they already knew and were excited about playing.

3. After fumbling for around for 2 or 3 songs, everyone ‘got it,’ to the point that they could keep up and have fun.

For Bliss ‘the’ song was ‘Salvation’ by Rancid. Bob and Steph were both surprised to find ‘Possum Kingdom’ by the Toadies. Brian really wanted to try ‘Killing in the Name’ by Rage Against the Machine. Kevin somehow made it through ‘Jessica’ by the Allman Brothers on the first try. Joe and I have decided to do a cover of ‘Surrender’ by Cheap Trick after playing the song a few times. Personally, I went straight for ‘War Pigs.’

But nearly every song is fun to play, and most are tracks you will recognize once you hear them. I was doing pretty well one play through and unlocked a hidden song, but I had to play it (and pass it) to keep it. When I saw ‘Shout at the Devil,’ I flipped out. It didn’t matter that I had never played the song (and I was already playing medium difficulty, which was kicking my butt), I have known that song for years. The play is so organic that I was able to just lay into it; of course I couldn’t help dancing and striking poses, the toy guitar my personal Ouija board to Mick Mars.

We had so much fun trading off the guitar and watching friends rock out. But it got even better when Metal Mike graced us with a second guitar so two could play guitar and bass on the same song. Kevin was jonesing to try out the bass, so of course I insisted that we play a Primus song. Since the song separates the guitar (and bass) tracks from the rest of the song, when you mess up a part, it doesn’t play the audio. This means if one player is messing up, the other player does not have their part for musical reference, thus making the song harder to play; just like a real band, playing a song successfully depends just as much on playing off of the other instruments as it does knowing what you are playing (seeing the little dots, in this case). This game would be pretty much impossible without sound (and absolutely no fun to boot).

I’m super stoked about what games like this could mean for rock appreciation in general. Just like playing an instrument or playing in a band, an interactive experience like this draws fans further into the music, increasing people’s understanding of nuance and musical mechanics. There is a real understanding of structure that comes with playing these songs: a driving punk song like ‘Search and Destroy’ plays completely different to the weird rhythmic bouncing of Primus or Rage Against the Machine.

Time spent learning these songs can also make fans out of the formerly indifferent. There are plenty of bands on this list that I had either never heard of or didn’t care about before. I know I’m late to the dance, but Wolfmother is awesome. Ditto for The Sword, which has to be the best name for a rock band ever.

For those curious, I’ve made a Rhapsody playlist with all of the main songs (not the hidden ones) in the order that the game presents them to you (ie, the order of difficulty). You’ll only be able to check out 30 second clips; if ya wanna hear more, come over this weekend rock out with me.

Rock and Technology, Part 1

Here’s a foregone conclusion for ya: Technology changes the ways in which we create and consume art. For all it’s consumerist flaws, think about, say, art appreciation before cameras, and before presses that could print those photographs. How many of us have made it to the Louvre? How many of us can afford to? Advances in media technology are at their most valuable when exposure to singular masterpieces can be extended to many in an accessible form.

I’m far from an expert in this field, but I have been thinking about technology and music quite a bit lately. There have been so many significant changes to the music industry over the past decade that (I believe) we are on the verge of a major shakeup of the industry.

But I’m not going to talk about that today. Today I’m going to talk about video games.

‘Guitar Hero‘ and the yet-to-be-released ‘Rock Band.’

When I first heard of Guitar Hero, I thought it was a cool idea for people that didn’t already play an instrument, and that it wouldn’t be very popular since you have to buy a special guitar controller to go with it. A few million copies and a sequel later, I was eating my words on the popularity thing, but still didn’t bother trying out the game.

Last weekend, my buddy Piper hosted the second annual Video Game Olympics, where ten to fifteen friends get together and compete in a variety of games, mostly old school so friends of all skill levels can have fun. One of the events this year was Guitar Hero 2, and since both Bill and Kenan had guitars, we could play two players at the same time. Before recording my scores for the competition, I thought I’d at least learn how to play first, so I picked up the mini Gibson Explorer (all the guitars in the game are Gibson or Epiphone) and scrolled through the song list to find a cool track to play.

Here is what I was expecting: 1) lots of crappy new bands with new records coming out and 2) a handful of big hair rock hits with wicked solos. Again I was totally wrong.

This song list is totally awesome. There were only two of those terrible new bands (My Chemical Romance and Avenged Sevenfold). Sure, they have a few predictable tracks, but even then these are songs you would have a blast playing. I mean who doesn’t want to play ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ or ‘Free Bird’? Nearly everything else, however, showed that the developers have equal amounts of rock knowledge and taste, as well as a healthy dose of not-taking-yourself-too-seriously fun. Black Sabbath might be a predictable choice, but ‘War Pigs‘? Inspired. Is there a crazier guitar song than Rush’s ‘YYZ‘? From Maiden’s ‘The Trooper‘ to ‘Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo’ the big classic rock and metal songs are all great choices, and fun to play from beginning to end.

But the list really shines in the less obvious choices. Here are just a few of the totally unexpected, but totally awesome songs:

‘Search and Destroy‘ – Iggy Pop and the Stooges

‘Can’t You Hear Me Knockin” – The Rolling Stones

‘Tattooed Love Boys‘ – The Pretenders

‘Psychobilly Freakout‘ – Reverend Horton Heat

‘Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight‘ – Spinal Tap

My point here is not to shill the game (though it is pretty awesome). The Guitar Hero series has become very popular, and I can’t help thinking about the number of younger people who are going to be exposed to great rock that otherwise wouldn’t have been marketed to them.

It’s rare when songs and bands get second chances after fading once. I’m sure nobody thought too much about Radiohead between their ‘Creep’ success and the release of ‘The Bends.’ Black Sabbath (and Ozzy’s solo career) made a huge comeback after Beavis and Butthead made ‘Iron Man’ into an unlikely hit. These instances are exceedingly rare.

I was listing to a podcast a while back where it was suggested that video game soundtracks could be the new movie soundtracks. There was a time when the soundtracks to films contained well chosen, and many times exclusive songs written for the movie. While this is sort of common in indie films now, I remember big budget movies in the 90s, (The Crow and Singles for example) that had well crafted soundtracks which frequently contained original singles, and charted high on their own. This hardly seems the case now a days, where every music track of a sizable movie is inserted for marketing purposes.

The interaction with the songs brings yet another layer of engagement. Playing one of these games certainly won’t teach you how to play guitar (though it will increase your manual dexterity and rhythm) but it does make you feel like you are playing the song. The game is arranged in such a way that the player does feel like they are playing chords and runs, to the point that the solos are note for note on some of the hardest difficulty levels. Learning to play an instrument increases one’s appreciation of music; the game has a strangely analogous effect.

The team that made Guitar Hero no longer has access to the name (the owner of the name was bought by another company). Bad idea. Even though another company is coming out with Guitar Hero 3, The original developer (Harmonix, a weird collection of computer and music grads from MIT) was quickly snapped up by Mtv’s newish games division. Being the crazy geniuses that they are, Harmonix next game will instantly make Guitar Hero obsolete. ‘Rock Band’ features support for two guitar controllers, a karaoke mic that measures pitch and timbre, and a drum controller, complete with four pads and a kick petal. Unlike the guitars, that drum controller will teach you how to play drums; the mechanics are identical. How awesome will it be to play that with 3 other friends?

They have also outdone themselves with the song list. I mean, they have a Pixies song in there for God’s sake. I can’t wait.

Hilly Kristal 1931-2007

It’s supremely sad that Crystal had to see his legendary club, CBGBs, closed last year. Such is the blindness of capitalism that such an important cultural landmark could be demolished to make way for some corporate high rise. Then again, it seems a strangely appropriate end to the legendary club.

When Crystal opened the club in ‘73, New York was a completely different place than it is today. It’s almost funny that visitors consider NYC rough; the city is a virtual tourist paradise compared with with the crime riddled, riot torn streets of the 70s. Movies like ‘The Warriors‘ and ‘Escape from New York‘ reflect the feel if not the reality of the darkness and violence that permeated all but the richest sections.

Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of art and glamor, but this was a city of vice and dirt, not glitz and fantasy. This is the city of the New York Dolls, not Gary Glitter. CBGBs was the right place at the right time, ground zero for punk in the U.S.

The caliber of artists that set up shop in the early days of CBGBs was totally unprecedented. No one, of course, could have guessed how important the likes of Television, Patti Smith, Blondie, and The Ramones would turn out to be, but this cross section (all labeled punk at one point in time) shows just how important that empty room was to the future of rock and roll.

So shed a tear for Kristal and his tenacity. Shed a tear that he has to close down his club 5 months after being diagnosed with cancer, and 10 months before his death. Shed a tear for CBGBs, which will probably be remembered by the next generation of kids as a retro logo on a purposefully ‘distressed’ t shirt from Target. And shed a tear for the old New York, a place of filth and wonder, where important things happened everyday.

Ramones. Blondie. Talking Heads. Patti Smith. Television (couldn’t find footage from the club). I don’t know where or when, but lets hope that this sort of magic can be captured again.

Hope you had a good Labor Day.

Please remember why we had the day off.

See you tomorrow.

Judgment Night. Part 2.

5. Slayer / Ice T

Oh lord. What they don’t tell you is that this one track is actually a medley of Exploited songs, which given Slayer’s thrash punk roots isn’t too surprising. Neither is it surprising that Ice T would be up for it, given his metal tenancies with his other project, Body Count. What is surprising is how difficult it is to tell Ice T’s vocals apart from Tom Araya’s. Other than some weathered grit from Araya and T’s subtle lisp, they sound really really similar. Also, there is no hip hop here at all. It’s a death metal band covering a thrash punk band.

Winner: Ice T, for liking metal enough not to force any hip hop in there.

6. Faith No More / Boo-Ya T.R.I.B.E.

Now I don’t have a clue who Boo-Ya Tribe, excuse me, T.R.I.B.E. is. Their rapping seems fine. At first glance, the song seems to be in line with most of the others on the record: heavy rhythmic rock with rapping over top. Then the chorus comes. See, with these other rock groups, the execs could probably get away with asking their lead singer to step back for a song. But this is Mike Patton we are talking about here. Mike Patton absolutely must make his presence felt in one way, shape, or form. This form? How about Mike doing his best ghost impression? Well that’s not all! Act now and you’ll receive scat-screaming into a distortion pedal free of charge.

Also, I would pay for someone to edit some sweet battle axes into the hands of everyone in the video. There are so many thick harry dudes in this video, it’s like two bands worth of singing Conan villains.

Winner: Mike Patton, for single handedly (throated-ly?) transforming this otherwise unremarkable mashup into, well, a goofy Hammer horror Mike Patton song. It’s like Vincent Price is tip-toeing though the background. Dood is the only non-jazz singer to be able to get away with scatting.

7. Sonic Youth / Cypress Hill

Pop culture paydirt! Like the the Teenage Fanclub/DeLa Soul track (and another coming up) I imagine the brass that put this together had no idea what to do with either of these groups. The Hill just had their first hit (see link above), and were big fans of rock and metal instrumentation in their own stuff, hence their appearance twice on this soundtrack. Sonic Youth had put out two immensely important records on Geffen. What happens when you put two creative but diverse artists in a room together? They smoke alot of pot, apparently (the track is called ‘I Love Mary Jane’). I guess this isn’t too surprising, considering 75% of Cypress Hill’s songs are about pot. But against all odds, the song works; The Youth lay down a rolling, bass heavy beat, Moore punctuating those beats with a spacey high little riff. Even Kim Gordon’s raspy whisper fits the spooky laziness of the track. Come to think of it, this sound very similar to something DJ Muggs would have spun anyway. Of course you’ll either love or have B-Real’s ridiculous nose rapping; no mistaking Cypress hill here.

Winner: Sonic Youth, for totally catering to their partner while sounding like themselves. And lets face it, you know they got the hook up; The Hill probably knows all the best smoke. So the real winner was probably their drug dealer.

8. Mudhoney / Sir Mix-a-Lot

I with I knew how to type the vomiting / gurgling noises that are bubbling up my esophagus. Mudhoney was just having another alcohol fueled jam session when nosy neighbor and instant pop culture joke Mix-a-Lot brings his microphone and dookie rope chainz over to play. I imagine that the execs lured Mudhoney into a studio full of instruments by dangling hotdogs and Colt 45 over the door, but little did they know that a trashy one hit wonder was hiding one sound booth over, ready to rap over what ever happened after they figured out there were guitars behind the hotdogs. Here is a clip, but please, be careful.

Winner: I Dunno. Hotdogs? Hotdogs are good.

9. Dinosaur Jr. / Del the Funky Homosapien

This is it, this is the other awesome track on this record that I’ve been hinting about since #2. So maybe it’s not actually ‘awesome,’ per say, but it is Dinosaur Jr. and Del on the same track, that is like awesome on some karmic level. As in, “there must be a God, if Del and Jr. can end up in the same room at some point in history.” The track itself is just fine, even if no effort was put in by either party. Should we even expect effort from these two? Part of both of these guys appeal is their slacker genus. So yea, Dinosaur Jr. plays a Dinosaur Jr. song, and Del spins his silly/awesome rhymes over J Mascis’ incessant soloing. It’s more like a music nerd’s fever dream than a good song, but I for one and glad that it exists. It’s called Missing Link (terrible pun intended).

10. Therapy?/Fatal

Know who Therapy? is (yes, the question mark is part of their band name)? Northern Irish goatee-metal. Real grindy. I had a brief fan-ship when I was 15; I had found out about them from the Black Sabbath tribute album. That fandom peaked and dropped when I bought a therapy t-shirt in London that disintegrated by the end of the night. They were ok I guess. Funny thing is, they could be so popular now if they were a new band; the have that whole pop metal thing going on. Know who Fatal is? Neither do I, nor can I find any information on them. This track fails to inspire curiosity in either.

Winner: Whatever.

11. Pearl Jam / Cypress Hill

Cypress Hill, part 2. Seriously, there could be any band playing backup here, it’s so generic. This track could have easily been Cannibal Corpse / Cypress Hill or Foghat / Cypress Hill or Petra / Cypress Hill and nobody would have been the wiser. The Hill, however, works pretty well with rock instrumentation; until the chorus, that is. Sen Dog feels compelled to grunt out “Real thing” like he’s in the middle of the real number 2 thing. It’s just dumb. Throw in those terrible cheesy record scratches from the Run D.M.C. track, and you have one stupid song. B-Real, the lone interesting thing here, seems like he is trying desperately to escape the song, only to have his path constantly blocked by Universal executives dressed as knotty trees.

Winner: Did Peal Jam even show up? Cypress Hill, by forfeit.

If I would have gotten my hands on this disc back in 93, I would have been pretty disappointed. It’s hardly metal enough for 14 year old me, except for that Slayer /Ice T track. Now-a-days, however, I couldn’t be more happy for this big label experiment / corporate cluelessness. Big labels are constantly grasping at straws when it comes to figuring out what is going to be popular; that’s the danger of treating art like a business. At the end of the day, the Judgment Night soundtrack is one of those rare pop culture nuggets that anybody that considers themselves a music fan should hear at some point.