Feedback And Distortion

Here's a video for the first single off the new SNEW album that I recently produced entitled "Feedback And Distortion" (the name of the album is "We Do What We Want"). It's a pretty fun piece with a lot of people playing air guitar (including your truly and a lot of readers), but it has serious side to it that you can easily overlook.

Curtis DonVito is a great rock lyricist, almost along the lines of Bruce Springsteen in that every word has a purpose and a meaning that goes beyond the obvious. In this case, it's a reaction to the Guitar Hero craze that's thankfully dying down a bit. For a while, gamers thought they were musicians just because they could play the game well, a thought that generally draws the ire of real musicians (especially guitar players).

The good thing about the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games is that they enticed kids into playing a real instrument as evidenced by the entry level guitar package sales that have soared. It's also introduced an entire generation to some of the best classic rock, causing a rebirth of sorts of guitar bands like Aerosmith, The Stones and The Who.

Enjoy the video!

The Beatles: Rock Band Introduction At E3

Yesterday Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr introduced the new Beatles: Rock Band game at the E3 gaming conference in Los Angeles. While I've been hard on Rock Band and it's players in past posts, I must admit that this looks pretty cool. Plus, there's empirical evidence everywhere that the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games have actually driven kids to learn to play instruments, which is a good thing culturally and musically.

Enjoy this sample of the game (the graphics are great!).

Beatles Sign Game Deal?

Apple Corp (The Beatles record label), MTV and game maker Harmonix announced that it will release The Beatles: Rock Band game on September 9th. This is unbelievable on several fronts:

1) The Beatles are still not on iTunes, yet they signed a game deal.

2) Can you believe that the toughest-to-license band in the world signed a game deal in the first place?

I can't even imagine the amount of money they'll be receiving from this, but I bet it's larger than the GDP of a small country.

I've railed against Guitar Hero and Rock Band for a long time now (certainly in numerous posts here), but I'm beginning to think that I'm wrong. My thought was that, with all the time that kids are spending on the games instead of learning to play a real instrument, they were hurting the music business in the long term. I've recently found empirical evidence to the contrary though. Several guitar and music teachers have told me that the number of students starting lessons have increased and they directly attribute it to these games.

It's good to be wrong about something yet have some great consequences come of it. I'm glad to be wrong in my opinions all day long if that's the case.