Category Archives: Rock Band

BFI LFF 2010: It’s Kind of a Funny Story / Submarine

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Regular readers will roll their eyes as I once again make note of my long-standing antipathy towards the coming-of-age genre, which often strikes me as a lazy excuse for writer/directors to throw a patronising sequence of crowd-pleasing cliches together and call it a day. Most cinematic teenagers are as horribly boring as I was at that age, and no amount of comical lasciviousness, bad luck, and antagonistic authority figures are going to make that journey from innocence to worldliness any more interesting or relevant than the million others who have graced our screens. People may complain about The Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for treating trivial teen anguish as if it was the end of the world, but at least John Hughes came up with some ways to make this pubescent angst wry enough for older viewers while treating adolescent worries with the same gravitas as those teens do. There are a few great coming-of-age movies that mean a whole lot to me, and are made with love by talented people, but they’re in the minority as far as I’m concerned. Most other movies about kids are just chaff: wank fantasies for self-absorbed, creatively-blocked phonies who know they don’t have to expend any real energy to generate a response in the viewer. There is not enough ill-tempered disdain in my body to properly convey my annoyance with the genre.

Perhaps Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s It’s Kind Of A Funny Story was doomed to fall foul of my ire, but even beyond my prejudices it is a shoddy movie, the kind of Sundance-audience-pandering tripe that personifies the worst of the US independent scene with an extra dose of insensitivity thanks to its romanticised view of mental illness. The tragedy is that in the midst of the rubble stands Zach Galafianakis, whose charismatic and thoughtful performance is entirely at odds with the depressing obviousness of Fleck and Boden’s storytelling. His presence is the one thing preventing this ingratiating failure from being consigned to the nearest memory hole.

IKoaFS concerns Craig (Keir Gilchrist), a teenager feeling overwhelmed by the pressures of his life and in love with the unobtainable hot girl, who checks himself into a psychiatric hospital after his suicidal feelings threaten to take over. Through a series of ridiculous contrivances he is admitted and made to stay in the adult wing of the hospital, meaning he is forced to interact with all kinds of charming and kooky patients whose wisdom and insight allow Craig to blossom and come out of his shell, as well as get the even hotter hot girl (Emma Roberts) who is in there because of some issues with self-harm but IT’S OKAY FOLKS it’s not too bad she cheers up thanks to her nerdy new boyfriend DON’T LET THE SCARS GET YOU DOWN!

Disclaimer: Though I liked Ryan Fleck’s work on In Treatment, his much-vaunted drug-PSA Half Nelson left me cold, despite a trio of exceptional performances. The main character’s arc — from teacher to drug addict living a depraved life in a tidy crack house — rang entirely false, the kind of cautionary tale written by someone whose most shocking experience with drugs is a few tokes on a spliff at college and too much ‘tussin that one time. It felt like a high-school drama production, extrapolating a situation out from knowledge learned third-hand, and therefore filled with unconvincing notes. At least it had terrific work from Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie and Shareeka Epps: IkoaFS wastes Lauren Graham, Jim Gaffigan, Viola Davis, Jeremy Davies (a Solaris reunion!) and especially Galafianakis, who deserves any of the awards I suspect he will win even if that success somehow validates the rest of the movie.

Not that most people will notice: Fleck/Boden do everything short of draw a bath for the audience to get them to like their movie. It’s based on a YA novel and so it’s likely a lot of the sharp edges of such a situation were absent from the source material (I haven’t read it, so I accept I could be wrong), but even so there is nothing daring or troubling or real here, just a fantasy where mental illness is just a way of looking at the world with fresh eyes, teenage pain is easily resolved with a kiss from the right person (and not that “slutty” girl he thought he loved because eww, right?), and anything really dark happens offscreen. For example, the ultimate fate of Galafianakis’ character Bobby is hinted at strongly but isn’t shown, because who wants to harsh the audience’s mellow? It’s the most craven directorial decision of the year, an insult to anyone who suffers from real mental illness, or who knows someone suffering. Yes, it’s commendable for anyone to point out that while mental illness is debilitating it is also not something to be scared of, and rehabilitation is possible with the correct care. However, nothing in IKofFS leads me to believe the choices made here were in order to illuminate the plight of mentally-ill people. They’re just kooky and a bit down, right? Yay fun times in the psych ward! I had to leave the screening as the credits rolled for fear of marring the subsequent Q&A with some choice words for Fleck.

The poor choices made here are legion. Beyond the “One Flew Over Sesame Street” tone of genial eccentricity, the wall-to-wall contrivance and the insulting lack of respect for the audience, the lowpoint of the movie is probably the Under Pressure karaoke scene, in which our hero is hectored by his fellow mental patients to participate in musical therapy, singing the lead vocal to Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie while the rest of the patients enthusiastically play out of tune around him. Rather than show the haphazard rendition, Fleck/Boden switches the soundtrack to the original recording and concocts a kitsch fantasia, a stage on which the characters cavort in Glam Rock gear, miming to an obnoxiously edited version of the song. Even worse, when it’s over he cuts back to the hospital and the ecstatic reaction of the patients to Craig’s vocal effort, which we didn’t get to see. It’s an act of sheer directorial cowardice to switch to a “dream sequence” at that moment – plus we don’t really get to experience Craig’s moment of catharsis – but it didn’t matter. The audience we saw it with were utterly delighted and responded with sheer joy. Job done, I suppose. ::kicks Rock Band microphone across the room::

But hey, what do you care, dear reader? I hate coming-of-age movies so I’m biased, right? Think on this: Richard Ayoade’s directorial debut, Submarine, is another coming-of-age movie where the protagonist pines for the hot girl and is overwhelmed by the stresses of adolescence, but is on the opposite end of the awesomeness-bogusness spectrum. Whereas Fleck/Boden’s bland fantasy mollycoddles the audience with empty emotion-calories, Ayoade’s adaptation of Joe Dunthorne’s novel is spiky, unpredictable, and willing to test the audience’s sympathy for its characters. Also, Fleck/Boden’s washed-out and flat visuals don’t stand a chance next to Ayoade’s vibrant visual style, a mixture of retro and modern film styles that display an intuitive understanding of cinema. Fleck/Boden’s nearest visual comparison point is Grey’s Anatomy, except less adventurous, while Ayoade is comfortable throwing in a pitch-perfect reference to The 400 Blows as if it ain’t no thing. Game, set and match.

That makes it sound as if Submarine is some self-conscious exercise in film-school masturbation, but nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a vibrant and lovable debut, thoroughly entertaining yet slightly troubling. Perhaps that’s a subjective response: the tale of pretentious teen Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) and his love for Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige) chimed uncomfortably with memories of my own teenage years. Not to say I went through anything too similar: I didn’t have to watch as my parents flirted with the idea of divorce, and I certainly didn’t have an enemy as eccentric as Paddy Considine’s psychic charlatan Graham Purvis, but Ayoade’s feel for the era is spot on, as is his ability to portray the gulf between a teenager’s arrogant assumption that he or she knows best and the reality of his or her obliviousness to the complicated nature of the world.

His superb cast helps. Roberts and Paige are wonderful as the confused teenage couple, deftly handling the light and dark moments of a fraught relationship while not being afraid to be realistically unlikeable at times. Jordana in particular can be a real monster, but Oliver does awful things too, often for recognisably human reasons. Despite this I couldn’t help but root for them both to stay the course: I can’t remember the last time I felt so emotionally invested in an onscreen relationship, though again this could have been a subjective reaction stirred by Ayoade’s perfectly judged recreation of this youthful mind-set.

Or maybe it was his ability to capture powerful moments of ecstatic, innocent happiness. It’s Kind of a Funny Story featured obligatory scenes of teenagers running through the halls of a mental institution to denote their love and exuberance: a visual that didn’t really work as the cramped, pastel-coloured halls convey anything like joy, though they’re also not depressing enough to act as some kind of satirical counterpoint. Following the conventions of the genre, Ayoade has to give us the “Joy Run” as well, but his version plucked my heart from my chest and bounced it around like a basketball. It’s a Super-8 film of the young couple racing through an abandoned funfair, setting off fireworks and lighting their way with flares. It’s a show-stopping moment, one that made me ache for my younger days: an emotion I rarely feel.

Warp Films are on a roll this year. They produced Shane Meadows’ This is England ‘ 81 for Channel Four, as well as Chris Morris’ excellent Four Lions, and now they’ve generously set Ayoade on the road to directorial stardom. I happily admit much of my emotional reaction to Submarine was due to that very specific emotional response – a strange tightening in my chest, half angst and half glee, borne of recognition – that might not happen for anyone else. Still, Ayoade deserves praise for adding such sour and realistic notes to what otherwise could have been an exercise in stylised nostalgic frippery. Combine that with his unique visual style, his facility with young actors, and some superb musical choices, and it’s probable Submarine will appeal to more than just the odd blogger who was extremely pretentious in his youth. I’m even tempted to name it my favourite British film of the year so far. Despite all of that competition, obviously. [/sarcasm tag to denote sarcasm]

Emulate The Blessed DJ

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For the first time in a couple of years, it seems we’ve taken a break from music gaming. With much of our spare time used up on TV shows that are failing to live up to their potential, attending the London Film Festival and having to brave the mosh-pit-simulator that is Leicester Square, or tweeting until 2 in the morning, we’ve not spent much time on Rock Band. Even The Beatles: Rock Band — a game I’ve been going on about for a while — only got a few hours of play, partially because we’ve not had a chance to use the extra mics we bought, and partially because while it’s been fun learning more about the band, it’s been less fun playing Paul’s songs.

macca

He seems to be a kickass bass player, but his songs are the worst kind of mawkish tripe. I mean, Hello Goodbye has nineteen actual words in it (not counting the three nonsense words at the end), repeated over and over again in combinations of varying meaning but persistent insignificance. This Spitting Image sketch once struck me as cruel, but no longer:

Luckily, with other songs, The Beatles: Rock Band has done exactly what I had hoped: given me a better understanding of the appeal of the Fab Four. The unbearable repetition of their songs on the radio during my childhood was enough to create a mental block between me and the band, but that Rock Band magic has worked again, with the interaction between the player and the song breaking down that mental barrier so that I can finally get “into” the songs to experience their beautiful structure. McCartney’s bass lines are surprisingly complex, Ringo’s drumming occasionally much stronger than myth would have have it, and the songs by Lennon and Harrison are all inspiring and complex. Simultaneously playing guitar and singing on Here Comes the Sun is guaranteed to cheer me up.

And yet we’ve let it gather dust for now, and even Rock Band itself has been played infrequently. This, despite the recent DLC addition of ten Queen songs, including Under Pressure and Somebody To Love (my two favourite Queen tracks), a Raconteurs track-pack, and The Metal by Tenacious D (previously on Guitar Hero 3 but now given full Rock Band attention). This busy-ness — plus lack of funds — means I’ve paid little attention to the forthcoming release of Activision’s DJ Hero, which is expensive, potentially time-consuming, and based on dance music. As I have little interest in dance music or culture, this indifference was inevitable, but the real killing blow was the baffling gameplay videos (here’s one)…

…and the perplexing turntable peripheral. The actual experience of using the peripheral and seeing your actions keep the song going are not adequately conveyed by the information given out thus far. The Rock Band and Guitar Hero controllers are pretty self-explanatory. Strum, hit and bellow, and the lights on the screen do the happy thing yay. In contrast, how does that turntable controller enable you to do the things on the screen? It made no sense to me. Until today.

controller

An impulsive trip to my local branch of Game paid off nicely this morning. The turntable controller had been set-up with a demo of DJ Hero, and no one else in the shop seemed even slightly interested. Maybe it was that alienating peripheral, with its peculiar buttons and knobs. Whereas my first try at Guitar Hero 2 had been intuitive, here I had to go through a series of tutorials hosted by Grandmaster Flash which quickly explained the basics of the game with enormous enthusiasm. Following that were three easy game tracks: Marvin Gaye – “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” vs. Gorillaz – “Feel Good Inc.”, Gwen Stefani – “Hollaback Girl” vs. Rick James – “Give It To Me”, and Black Eyed Peas – “Boom Boom Pow” vs. Benny Benassi – “Satisfaction”. Either the songs got easier as I went along, or the learning curve has been worked out well, as I went from three stars on track one to four on track two and five on the last one. In Easy mode there is no cross-fading or complicated scratching. You just push the buttons when necessary and half-ass the scratching. Simple.

Well, simple-ish. The scratching is not as easy as I’d hoped. For a start you’re supposed to let go of the button as soon as the scratching symbols have passed through the active area on screen, but if you’re holding the button and using that for leverage you can’t let go without the turntable getting away from you: disastrous if another scratch symbol is coming up. The other problem is caused by physics. Scratching while holding down the green button is easy enough as it is at the edge of the circular turntable, but the blue button is nearer the center, so it’s harder to push and pull the circle around, thanks to Pi or some other geometry thing. My struggles with Blue Scratching rocked the display around enough to attract the unhappy-seeming attentions of the shop owner. This was not good: he is so grizzled and rugged that I suspect he is actually the Authentic Battle Damage version of some other guy.

screenshot

Even more annoying, the cross-fader switch has three positions, but the default position in the middle is very tough to hit. There is a slight click when you get it into position, but when swiping back and forth quickly, it’s easy to go too far without feeling that tactile reminder. I suspect this is something that will become second nature in time, but on advanced levels, with rapid cross-fader spikes zipping around, there will be many points lost, and much frustration added. A stronger bit of feedback from the controller would have really helped. I would also have liked to know what the purpose of the middle “effects” button is. As far as I could tell it was there to send out the odd “ZORB!” sound when pushed. The effects dial allows you to change the effect, so for a while there I was sending out a series of ear-scritching “PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW” sounds that made the entire shop’s energy turn against me. It was much more fun during the third song, where pressing the middle button makes an androidal lady intone “Sat-is. Fack. Shun” over and over again. No one seemed to mind that as much.

Other than choosing lasers over booms, the basic tutorial didn’t give a hint as to what the effects dial does, but apparently you use this in the same way you use the Whammy Bar on a Rock Band/Guitar Hero controller, to “customise” the sound on screen. As with Rock Band and Guitar Hero, all this pointless distortion does is ruin the song, and from what I can tell from other tutorials posted on YouTube, it doesn’t even serve a purpose with charging up the “Euphoria” bar. Maybe it does and we’re not privvy to that info just yet, but the Whammy Bar at least allows you to gain more Star Power / Overdrive points if you rattle it around as hard as you can, further ruining the song you’re playing.

screenshot2

As for Euphoria, it doubles multipliers just like with the rock games, but it doesn’t generate the sense of satisfaction you get in the rock games. Star Power or Overdrive are triggered by the Guitar Neck Tilt Move, the Drum Fill Move, or the Eccentric Microphone Scat Singing Move, which effectively — and entertainingly — mimic the show-off actions of a typical rock douche. Triggering this score multiplying mode by just pushing a button lacks that translation of action and effect that makes Rock Band and Guitar Hero feel even more like a replication of the live music experience. That said, how could DJ Hero trigger Euphoria otherwise? Have you wave a Wii-mote style Glowstick peripheral over your head? Require you to chew on an E peripheral? There’s no easy way around it, I guess.

Though the display had a guitar controller hooked up to it for the DJ Hero/Guitar Hero mash-up game mode, there was no one around to play it with. The shop owner was too busy giving me stinkeye, and the four kids who congregated behind me to watch as I demolished Benny Benassi’s infectious monstrosity looked too scared of the flashing lights and raving avatars to join in. (It was definitely the game that scared them. Not me. Honest.) I guess that co-op mode would be a lot of fun, and would probably be the thing that tips me over into buying the game, but I note that the only other party gameplay modes are just using multiple turntables to battle against each other. That made sense back in the days when the only peripherals around were guitars, so you could have boring face-offs in Guitar Hero 3 (no amount of complicated Snapped String weaponry could make that mode any less of a failure), but here it shows up the biggest problem with DJ Hero: it might be a great solo player game, and it might be an even more entertaining turntable/guitar co-op game, but it will never be able to replicate that amazing four-player co-op that makes Rock Band the best party game in the world.

rockband2

It has been proven again and again that if you get a large enough group of people into a room and start playing Rock Band at midday, you will still be going at midnight with only the occasional break to eat Pringles. DJ Hero isn’t going to have that, and it isn’t going to have that instant click of cognitive understanding that Guitar Hero and Rock Band has. Once you get going on DJ Hero, it’s enormous fun. The demo I played was way way way too short, and I’m sure I would’ve stayed there all day if I’d had the chance. It even made me tap my foot, which is a big deal for someone as dance-averse as me, no counting that Megadog/Eat Static gig I went to that very very nearly converted me to rave culture because it was so fucking out-of-the-body AWESOME to the extent that even to this day I’m convinced someone slipped me a mickey early in the night and had a right old laugh watching me stomp around the dance-floor like a malfunctioning Cyberman. However, I’m not sure that’s enough. When I win the lottery, I’ll get it. Until then, maybe I should go and practice Fat Bottomed Girls, now that I’ve paid for it an’ all.

More Change is Good (Part One)

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Couple of quick things I wanted to mention on here. First, and most important of all, is the arrival on planet Earth of the very first Shades of Caruso baby! I try not to use this blog as a place to talk about personal real life things (except for a few exceptions which I kinda regret), but how could I not talk about this? It’s extremely exciting.

Sometime SoC contributor Masticator (now renamed masticateur as a consequence of the Great WordPress Migration of the other week) and the lovely Masticatrix have announced the birth of baby Alice on Tuesday night. There were many details given to me by masticateur but I sadly didn’t take them all in with 100% certainty as I was too busy going “ZOMG” and “XOMG” and “¬~^^^G|!!”, so please forgive the dearth of information. Masticateur did say Alice was the best baby ever, and I believe he was telling the truth.

My best wishes — and those of daisyhellcakes (the SoC Blogger Formerly Known As Canyon) — go to NewMom, NewDad, and NewPersonAlice. We can’t wait to meet her, and teach her how to play Rock Band.

Hello WordPress, Got Room For One More?

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Wow, the dashboard is so pretty. It’s like Functionality Porn in here…

First, an explanation of what the hell is going on for anyone showing up here for the first time. Shades of Caruso has been going for a couple of years now, during which time we have criticised Slumdog Millionaire and Mike Leigh, praised Michael Emerson and Kung Fu Panda, obsessed about Rock Band, and listened to Seth Lakeman, Jens Lekman, and Animal Collective. As the over-used phrase would have it, good times. Nevertheless, in its previous incarnation Shades of Caruso was in a rigid — and ugly — Blogger template. So, as of today, we (we being contributors Canyon and Masticator as well as me, Admiral Neck) are going to be trying out a WordPress format for a while. I’ve transferred our previous blogposts over, but some of them didn’t seem to work properly. Consider the old blog an archive, which we shall refer to from time to time, and consider this blog to be in a state of constructiony-flux.

And yes, even though we’ve not said it on this new blog, we still support James “Sawyer” Ford.

Now, time to go on and on about The Shield, Lost, and the woeful Torchwood. Business as usual, it seems.

Rock Band Wish List #5: The New Pornographers

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The Beatles: Rock Band‘s imminent release means I’m neglecting Rock Band II, which could well be a first for me. It doesn’t help that three days ago I downloaded Drop7 to my iPhone and am now hallucinating numbers like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind.


Nevertheless, as addictive as that game is (it’s like crack and heroin got spliced in a telepod with a heap of bacon bits), it’s not going to feature Here Comes The Sun, so it will have to take a backseat soon. As I’ve said before, I’m not the biggest Beatles fan, which makes my enthusiasm for this game all the more surprising. I’m so eager that I’ve decided against buying Batman: Arkham Asylum, instead saving those pounds so that I can belt out Back in the USSR a week from now. The Batman-loving part of my brain is very angry at the Rock-Band-loving part of my brain.

Until the day TB:RB comes out, or is superseded by potential follow-ups such as The Rolling Stones: Rock Band, The Beach Boys: Rock Band, Radiohead: Rock Band, or Dewey Cox: Rock Band…

…I can still keep wishing on a star for new Rock Band DLC. The recent additions to the library have been superb: ten Spinal Tap tracks, an assortment of Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac songs, and the one Kaiser Chiefs single I like (I Predict a Riot, predictably). Even better than that, tomorrow will see the release of a five song Talking Heads pack, comprising Girlfriend Is Better, And She Was, Take Me To The River, Crosseyed and Painless, and Once in a Lifetime. All we need now is a Big Suit peripheral, and it’s gonna be Stop-Making-Sense-HQ up in this bitch.


Of course, filling this blog with wishes is one very unreliable way to get my favourite songs on the game. The Rock Band website, however, is just fantastic, linking with the game and allowing you to make requests for future Rock Band songs on your own home page. Of course, I really doubt that my exhortations will be heeded, just as they probably won’t here, either, but it’s a lovely feature, as is the photo gallery, which allows you to create photos of your band members. Here is the full roster of The Vic Mackeyz, with (left to right) Daisy Hellcakes, McJoggah, Jen Sanity, and George Murderer:


Sadly, I am currently unable to rescue our Oscar night band — Illitaritt Natzys — from Rock Band I obscurity. Shame that. Also a shame I won’t be able to customise the Beatles line-up in TB:RB, otherwise I’d have Stuart Sutcliffe, Pete Best, Yoko Ono, and Will Oldham (for variety).

Anyway, what do I want on Rock Band now? One song occupied my head completely during a recent trip to the States. From Electric Version — an album I listened to after falling for the title track in Rock Band, aptly enough — it’s The Laws Have Changed, which is a strong contender for Greatest Pop Song Ever Recorded. (And yes, that is indeed Nicki “Cally from Battlestar Galactica” Clyne going mental in the video.

And then Harmonix can follow it up with all of Neko Case’s magnificent album Middle Cyclone. For my forthcoming birthday. Thanks in advance, chaps.

Rock Band Wish List #4: I Am PWNed by Activision

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Like Orly Taitz in the grip of another craziness-burp on national TV, I’ve gone on about Rock Band with off-putting regularity over recent months, which makes me feel bad after Canyon was kind enough to buy me Guitar Hero World Tour for Christmas. For the record, I think Neversoft have done a terrific job of taking over the Guitar Hero brand from Harmonix, though their note-placements on some tracks are kinda weird, especially on Guitar Hero III. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it can ruin a song. That said, I think their Medium level is more of a challenge, which is nice for me at my current skill level (bored by Rock Band Medium, taxed almost too much by Rock Band Hard), and there are some innovations on Guitar Hero World Tour that Harmonix should seriously consider adopting. Having a five-second pause after you restart a level is a brilliant move (how many times have I had to pause a Rock Band level and then missed six notes when I pressed Resume?), and I found their noteless Beginners level very useful for getting used to the drums. Also, the Music Studio is a superb addition, and though I’ve not had enough time to really give it a workout, even just a cursory attempt shows how much depth it has. My kudos to all involved. I’m sure they will all appreciate my fragrant and robust kudos.


Still, Rock Band is my religion music game of choice. The interface is cleaner, the flow of the note-placements is far smoother, and the songs available for download are incredible. At least one guest to our house has been converted to the Rock Band cause after seeing the awe-inspiring selection. Guitar Hero‘s selection is deeply disappointing, apart from the odd highlight: Born to Run and My Lucky Day by The Boss, an Eagles of Death Metal pack containing Cherry Cola, lots of Jimi. That’s fine, but some of their selections are utterly overshadowed by Rock Band. Example: You can get Debaser and Monkey Gone To Heaven, but with Rock Band you can get all of Doolittle. Rock Band FTW. Even so, I know I’ll be getting Guitar Hero 5, because the song selection is genuinely surprising, and has given the franchise a shot in the arm. The final list was released last week, and some inspired choices have made me very excited.

  • 3 Doors Down – “Kryptonite”
  • A Perfect Circle – “Judith”
  • AFI – “Medicate”
  • Arctic Monkeys – “Brianstorm”
  • Attack! Attack! UK – “You And Me”
  • Band Of Horses – “Cigarettes, Wedding Bands”
  • Beastie Boys – “Gratitude”
  • Beck – “Gamma Ray”
  • Billy Idol – “Dancing With Myself”
  • Billy Squier – “Lonely Is The Night”
  • Blink-182 – “The Rock Show”
  • Blur – “Song 2″
  • Bob Dylan – “All Along The Watchtower”
  • Bon Jovi – “You Give Love A Bad Name”
  • Brand New – “Sowing Season (Yeah)”
  • The Bronx – “Six Days A Week”
  • Bush – “Comedown”
  • Children Of Bodom – “Done With Everything, Die For Nothing”
  • Coldplay – “In My Place”
  • Darker My Love – “Blue Day”
  • Darkest Hour – “Demon(s)”
  • David Bowie – “Fame”
  • Deep Purple – “Woman From Tokyo (’99 Remix)”
  • The Derek Trucks Band – “Younk Funk”
  • Dire Straits – “Sultans Of Swing”
  • The Duke Spirit – “Send A Little Love Token”
  • Duran Duran – “Hungry Like The Wolf”
  • Eagles Of Death Metal – “Wannabe In L.A.”
  • Elliott Smith – “L.A.”
  • Elton John – “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)”
  • Face To Face – “Disconnected”
  • Garbage – “Only Happy When It Rains”
  • Gorillaz – “Feel Good Inc.”
  • Gov’t Mule – “Streamline Woman”
  • Grand Funk Railroad – “We’re An American Band”
  • Iggy Pop – “Lust For Life (Live)”
  • Iron Maiden – “2 Minutes To Midnight”
  • Jeff Beck – “Scatterbrain (Live)”
  • Jimmy Eat World – “Bleed American”
  • John Mellencamp – “Hurts So Good”
  • Johnny Cash – “Ring Of Fire”
  • Kaiser Chiefs – “Never Miss A Beat”
  • King Crimson – “21st Century Schizoid Man”
  • Kings Of Leon – “Sex On Fire”
  • Kiss – “Shout It Out Loud”
  • Love and Rockets – “Mirror People”
  • Megadeth – “Sweating Bullets”
  • Motley Crue – “Looks That Kill”
  • Muse – “Plug In Baby”
  • My Morning Jacket – “One Big Holiday”
  • Nirvana – “Lithium (Live)”
  • Nirvana – “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
  • No Doubt – “Ex-Girlfriend”
  • Peter Frampton – “Do You Feel Like We Do? (Live)”
  • The Police – “So Lonely”
  • Public Enemy Featuring Zakk Wylde – “Bring the Noise 20XX”
  • Queen & David Bowie – “Under Pressure”
  • Queens Of The Stone Age – “Make It Wit Chu”
  • Rammstein – “Du Hast”
  • The Rolling Stones – “Sympathy For The Devil”
  • Rose Hill Drive – “Sneak Out”
  • Rush – “The Spirit Of Radio (Live)”
  • Santana – “No One To Depend On (Live)”
  • Scars On Broadway – “They Say”
  • Screaming Trees – “Nearly Lost You”
  • Smashing Pumpkins – “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”
  • Sonic Youth – “Incinerate”
  • Spacehog – “In The Meantime”
  • Stevie Wonder – “Superstition”
  • Sublime – “What I Got”
  • Sunny Day Real Estate – “Seven”
  • T. Rex – “20th Century Boy”
  • The Killers – “All The Pretty Faces”
  • The Raconteurs – “Steady As She Goes”
  • The Sword – “Maiden, Mother & Crone”
  • Thin Lizzy – “Jailbreak”
  • Thrice – “Deadbolt”
  • Tom Petty – “Runnin’ Down A Dream”
  • Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “American Girl”
  • TV On The Radio – “Wolf Like Me”
  • Vampire Weekend – “A-Punk”
  • Weezer – “Why Bother?”
  • The White Stripes – “Blue Orchid”
  • Wild Cherry – “Play That Funky Music”
  • Wolfmother – “Back Round”

Of course, while that’s a tasty list, Rock Band has already stolen some of the thunder by releasing some of those songs as download content. Over the last year, we have downloaded Nearly Lost You by Screaming Trees, Wolf Like Me by TV On The Radio and Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon, and The Rock Show by Blink-182 came out last week (how long until we get all of Dude Ranch or Enema of the State, sans stupid “comedy” tracks?). Many more of these songs will become available soon, I’m sure. Still, hats off to Activision for making Guitar Hero more inclusive than it has been in the past. As I’ve always maintained, these games can do more than rock out. They can bring different genres of popular music into the fold, and Guitar Hero 5 is definitely doing that.


I cannot even begin to express my joy at seeing Stevie Wonder represented in a game so often determined to plough a very boring pure rock format. It makes me wonder if there’s any way to get all of Talking Book into the game or, even better, all of Innervisions (my favourite Stevie album). Indie nerds everywhere must be psyched at the appearances by Band of Horses — with a track from their incredibly moving sophomore album — and Elliott Smith. Actually, someone questioned the inclusion of the latter on the AV Club, worrying that Smith’s family have become lax in holding onto the rights of his songs. To be honest, while that commenter has a point, I’d hope his family gets a chance to profit from his songwriting genius in a way he never really got a chance to. It’s not because I’m eager to “play” one of his songs. Honest.


Other highly anticipated tracks in that list (for me, at least) include Bullet With Butterfly Wings by the Pumpkins¹ and Incinerate by Sonic Youth (the highlight of their last Geffen album Rather Ripped), but the songs that inspired the title of this Wish List post are Plug In Baby by Muse, Blue Orchid by The White Stripes, and A-Punk by Vampire Weekend. Muse are a band with a sound that usually makes me want to remove my skin and stamp on it, I hate it that much. Nevertheless, Plug In Baby is a madness-inspiring rock anthem I am unable to resist, even if I were to use protective enchantments from ancient Cimmeria, and had planned a Wish List entry about it. I’d even found the video out and everything. Here it is. It’s a monster song.

I’m not sure I would have picked those songs by The Stripes and The Weekend – I’d plump for Seven Nation Army and Oxford Comma – but I’m thrilled anyway, especially by Blue Orchid. So far the only Jack White songs available are his Bond theme with Alicia Keys (and it’s great fun to play), some Raconteurs stuff, and three songs from the Dead Weather album Horehound. Treat You Like A Mother is like Bohemian Rhapsody re-written and performed by a sleazy old tramp who has broken into your house and hides under the stairs with his collection of doll hair, and thus is one of the greatest songs of our time. The other two are excessively boring. That’s why we need primo Jack White music in our music games, thank you. Preferably White Stripes stuff. What with The White Stripes being the best band in the world, and all. Just sayin’.


So, where next for the Wish List? As a lazy way to maintain the blog while I work on other stuff (by which I do not mean using Twitter to bitch about bad movies), I intend to keep going, especially because — in these days where laziness and stress battle it out for dominion of my soul — the game that once was just a pastime has now become a passion, so much so that I will almost certainly be buying DJ Hero even though dance music doesn’t excite me as much as a well-gamified bit of Silversun Pickups². More than that, I see further scope for expansion of the songs available for download, branching out into unexpected genres. More on this as the year progresses.

¹ This song was included because eleven out of ten rock fans polled expressed a wish to whine the lyric “Despite all my rage I’m still just a rat in a cage” in a voice that sounds just like an angry rat in a cage. A bald angry rat in a cage. A bald angry rat in a cage wearing an ELO t-shirt and being chased around said cage by Courtney Love.

² That said, DJ Shadow worked on the mixes, the song list includes Herbie Hancock’s Rockit (!!!!), and you can play the game as Grandmaster Flash or DJ Jazzy Jeff. If that doesn’t make you want to play the game, well, fair enough. But it should make you want to play the game.

Rock Band Wish List #3: Phoenix

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A lot of the songs I want made available as Rock Band download tracks appeal to me as possible challenges, probably because many of the tracks I looked forward to most have turned out to be depressingly easy. That’s not the worst problem in the world, but just as some gamified songs have revealed levels of songcraft that I hadn’t fully appreciated, simple songs make some of my heroes seem like charlatans. This is a mistake on my part, as Nirvana’s talent often lay in the oppressive atmosphere and visceral impact of their sound, not in intricacy. Only when repurposed for acoustic did their songs become nuanced. When in their raw form, they were often a barrage of sounds, which is not as much fun to play, though still great to listen to. (N.B. I’m not just picking on Nirvana because I’m impatient for a future release of Lithium, Come As You Are, and Smells Like Teen Spirit, plus all of In Utero. Not at all.)


Nevertheless, when I spend precious Space Dollars (© Warren Ellis) I want the songs to tax me. That’s probably why I play Blue Sky by The Allman Brothers Band so much. That enormous solo is pure joy from start to finish. A lot of Nothing’s Shocking by Jane’s Addiction is a test of dexterity, and my current favourite purchase is Texas Flood by Stevie Ray Vaughan, where all of the guitar tracks are difficult to finger-annihilatingly hard. Coughing up the big bucks for that whole album is the smartest frivolous purchase I’ve made in a while.

And then there are the songs I want just because they are outrageous fun. We recently fell in love with Green Day’s Know Your Enemy after seeing them play some blistering versions of it on The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien and Saturday Night Live. This would definitely have been on the Wish List, but we don’t need to now that the imminent release as part of a three song track pack has been announced. And this excitement from someone who never took Green Day seriously? That’s how much fun that song is. So, with that sorted out to our satisfaction, I’m exhorting Harmonix and MTV Games to make 1901 by Phoenix available as soon as possible.


I never got the appeal of Gallic popsters Phoenix before, but their latest album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, is undeniably the album of the summer. It’s a multi-hook pile-up on the joy highway, and I’m begging all readers to chase it down immediately. Just like previous summer albums from my past, like I Should Coco, Ill Communication, and Dig Your Own Hole, it feels like it’s made of pure sunshine, and 1901 is the track that immediately caught my ear on first listen. Buy that album and you get a free suntan just by standing in front of your speakers. It’s that good. Here’s 1901 as a taster.

Gamify this immediately, gaming people, and I’ll be playing it as often as other grin-inducing uplift-providers as Nine in the Afternoon by Panic At The Disco, Use It by The New Pornographers, and Dead on Arrival by Fall Out Boy. And that’s a promise.

Rock Band Wish List #2: Soundgarden

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While playing a quick Rock Band session yesterday (quick because ZOMG hot weather), we were randomly thrown the downloaded track Jesus Christ Pose by Soundgarden. As a grunge fan who still thinks Converse All Stars are the only acceptable form of footwear in anything but the most arctic of climates, it was great fun, but it struck me that Soundgarden songs are particularly challenging, and the game could stand to have a few more of them. Matt Cameron’s drumming is often complex and unpredictable, and keeping up with Chris Cornell’s vocals would challenge any singer ¹. Kim Thayil’s guitar work can often be deceptively intricate, but from time to time he would just flat out rock the fucking fuck out, and though I’ve been enjoying some of the mellower songs in the game, more rocking in Rock Band is always welcome.


Rock Band has already irked me by gamifying (dibs on that word) a mere four Soundgarden tracks: the staggering Jesus Christ Pose, Black Hole Sun and Spoonman from Superunknown (two songs I’m cool on), and Pretty Noose from that album no one bought. I’m tempted to say that this Wish List entry should be dedicated to sending a desperate plea to Harmonix and A&M to make it up to me by gamifying all of Superunknown. Oh to be able to play My Wave and The Day I Tried To Live! Instead, I’ll make a case for Gun, from Louder Than Love. Here is the track on Last.fm, and here is a video of Soundgarden performing it live.

Nice to see that Soundgarden can rock a fucking joint down in person. My only previous experience of them performing live was at the Reading festival in 1995, where they half-assed it out of a prior obligation and seriously damaged my opinion of them. Any Soundgarden fans who think I’m lying should know SoC contributor Masticator was also there (though we didn’t know each other at the time), and he knows what I’m talking about.

So why make a case for Gun and not Rusty Cage, or Fresh Tendrils, or even that Audioslave track with the Vanishing Point homage in the video? Simply because it starts slow, and gets faster. That’s all, but anyone who has played I Get By by Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives will know that the device of starting slow and getting faster is not just fun but a terrific challenge to your sense of rhythm. Still, even at its most frenetic, I Get By is not that difficult, but Gun, with its howling vocals and insane shredding from Thayil at his shreddiest, could be as big a mountain to climb as Aerosmith’s Train Kept A-Rollin’ or Abnormality’s Visions ². Harmonix would do well to chase up this suggestion immediately.

Or make all of Superunknown available. Whichever is easiest.

¹ I once suggested that he was easily a better vocalist than Eddie Vedder and was mocked for it at enormous, psyche-scar-inducing length, but Cornell has more range and power than old Grumbly Boots.

² AKA And Now Your Fingers Will Bleed And Snap Off.

Rock Band Wish List #1: The Who

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Do you know how incredible Rock Band is? Today, despite great pain in my hand caused by an ongoing medical condition that is minor and nothing to worry about, I felt the need to bust out some jams on my little plastic controller, just like Jimi would have wanted me to. Late in the game, while playing in Tour Mode with my band Vampure, and my legendary guitarist George Murderer, I chose to play Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who, Pleasure (Pleasure) by Bang Camaro, and I Get By by Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives. Should have been a nice leisurely challenge in Medium (the level I still feel most comfortable with), but like an idiot with a death wish I accidentally selected Hard. Twelve hectic minutes later, not only did I prevail with respectable scores, but I also felt the pain in my hand lessen. It still hurt, but it was better than it had been before, even though my thumb had been slamming against the plectrum switch throughout.

That’s how incredible Rock Band is. It heals the sick. Recognise.

Anyway, because I blog infrequently nowadays (blame bureaucracy and the economy), here’s a piss-easy way to link-blog: The Rock Band Wish List! It’s just videos of songs I like and want to see appear on Rock Band. Not exactly taxing. First up is A Quick One While He’s Away by The Who. A recent rewatch of Rushmore brought this to my attention, and it’s perfect for the game, especially now that Harmonix have figured out how to do harmonies. Those duelling phrases would be a lot of fun.

Even better, once Project Natal is installed in all our homes, we could get extra points for mimicking Pete Townshend’s windmills and Keith Moon’s mugging at the camera. Warning: Playing this song under those conditions might be so much fun that the rest of your life will be a letdown.

In additional Rock Band news, Wikipedia states that, among forthcoming downloads, there will be an Anvil trackpack, What’s My Age Again by Blink-182, Would? by Alice in Chains, Rock Your Socks by Tenacious D, and, most amazingly, The Gambler by Kenny Rogers and ABC by The Jackson Five. That leads me to a point I wanted to make in my previous post about The Beatles: Rock Band game, that Harmonix are willing to expand past metal and rock and embrace other genres, certainly moreso than Neversoft and the post-Harmonix Guitar Hero series. There was a Funk track pack released for Rock Band download a while back, and they’ve even had a bunch of Spongebob Squarepants songs too. There’s so much scope for expansion of the game, something I hope to come back to in the future of this new linkblog feature.

Miracles Do Happen

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Many a drink or chat or pop culture discussion has been ruined, by me, with my admission that I’m not too keen on The Beatles. Such a statement appears to be like some kind of neuron-stripping destructo-meme, so virulent and so dangerous to those who experience it that it has the effect of instantly atrophying all parts of the brain not devoted to the reflexive and deafening defense of the lovable Scouse quartet from criticism by heretics. Even when I admit I like about half of Revolver, and think Tomorrow Never Knows is one of the most incredible pieces of music in the entire 20th Century, this is not enough. “But… but… you have to admit they are the most important popular artists of the 20th Century!” Well, I don’t really, as I think you could make a case for Elvis or Dylan, but fine, if it makes you happy, The Beatles are the most important popular artists of the 20th Century, and I still don’t have any urge to listen to their music.

Or at least, I didn’t until today. There were so many great games and projects announced at E3, including such inevitably-to-be-owned-by-me things as BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, Bungie’s Halo: Reach and Halo 3: ODST, the inevitable by-products of the seriously mindblowing Project Natal, the pure joy that will be Super Mario Galaxy 2, Alan Wake (a very welcome kind of reserved horror game after enduring the incredibly nasty — and incredibly entertaining — Dead Space), the baffling Metroid: Other M, and Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2. And yet, I find myself most excited about a game I figured I would buy daisyhellcakes as a birthday present and not bother with myself. Consider myself surprised.


What was it that triggered my sudden overwhelming, concentration-wrecking enthusiasm for a game revolving around a band I care so little about? Marketing, baby. Stunningly well-designed marketing. First, this gameplay trailer shows ten of the forty-five songs available on the original disc.

Though I’ve never been a big fan of the band, I do love the iconography, and am fully aware of the progression the band took, and how their sound evolved. Seeing that captured within the game thrills me, as does the inclusion of Taxman — which transcends its whiny origins to be a fun track — and Here Comes The Sun. I’m very much a George fan. Oh yes. That song gives me chills. As does this other trailer, which is beyond belief.

Recently we saw Julie Taymor’s Across The Universe, and I’m not sure who was more disgusted by it. Daisyhellcakes is a huge Beatles fan, and was horrified at the dreadful reimagining of those songs, especially when the juxtaposition of the songs and images was so completely wrong. She almost completely lost it when Happiness Is A Warm Gun was played over a hallucinogenic scene with one character suffering PTSD in a military hospital after being wounded in ‘Nam, man.


My main gripe with it is that I’m not crazy about the songs anyway, but I’d much rather hear the original band sing them than Jim “Wet” Sturgess, or Bono, who makes I Am The Walrus even more unappealing than I already find it. In addition to that is the awful shoe-horning of Beatles song characters into the Hair-inspired narrative. When Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood are introduced as Jude and Lucy, I had to be restrained from turning the hellish thing off. There was much gnashing of teeth when a character called Prudence gets depressed and locks herself in a closet, which naturally means the other characters have to sing a song to coax her out. That song? Eleanor Rigby, of course. (This is a lie.)

The second trailer shown above does what Richard Lester once did, and what Taymor (and writers Dick Clement and Ian LeFrenais, on a really really off day) completely failed to do: capture the essence of the Beatlesniverse. They had a public persona that remains appealing even after all these years, four scallywags running through life with pure joy fuelling them. They also created a weird inner space of imagery and mood, with their interest in psychedelia manifesting as that sinister and candy-coloured alternate universe of Blue Meanies, Buddhist and Hindi imagery, and swooning surrealism. Across The Universe tried to get at this and failed. That short trailer nailed it, and did something else; addressed the enormousness of what The Beatles were, and what they achieved. I came over all emotional when I saw it.


So yes, I cannot wait to play the game. The new peripherals, shown above, are not essential, but I’m a little in love with the drums, even though I doubt Ringo’s drumming will pose the same challenge that mimicking Jimmy Chamberlin or Keith Moon has in the recent past. Even more interesting, the vocal game has been expanded to include harmonies. I’ve long wanted to get a mic stand so I can sing and play guitar at the same time, and now I see that you can play this with three mics as well as the other instruments. Imagine playing this as a four-player game, but with one drum, two guitars and three mics. Even more exciting is the knowledge that some bands that I’ve had no time for in the past have become firm favourites now that I’ve experienced their songs from “inside” via Rock Band and Guitar Hero. I expect the same thing to happen here. Ninth September 2009. It’s scribbled on my calendar, and I’m ready to finally join the only band bigger than The Beatles: their enormous, hyper-passionate fanbase.