Oh daaaaaamn, Rock Band

[spatch]

000. When you go to the store to buy Rock Band, you make everyone jealous. The ne'er-do-wells sitting in the comfy chairs at Best Buy playing Madden stopped when I stepped by to pick up the big box. "Oh, daaaamn, Rock Band!" they all said, hopping up and down with excitement. "It's Rock Band Day," I proclaimed, staggering towards the checkout with one (1) big box and one (1) extra guitar box and one (1) XBox 360 hard drive balanced on top. The cabbie who took me home, for crying out loud, got all "Oh daaaamn, Rock Band!" when he saw what I was putting in the back of the car. "I'm gonna get that for my Wii!" he said, which made me glad to think that people are tipping him well enough that he's gone and gotten a Wii. I think the downstairs neighbors are excited, too.

001. Drums on Easy are more fun than anything you can do without violating obscenity laws. Medium is okay too but Easy teaches you the finer art of the foot pedal and hitting eighth notes with it and stuff.

010. The Fender Stratocaster is a beautiful looking device. But the strum bar is mushy and I don't know if it's a product defect, but it doesn't like registering too many sixteenth notes in a row. Or sometimes it doesn't even like recognizing three eighth notes in a row. Needless to say this makes playing the bass quite difficult. I shall have to do some experimenting. It also really doesn't like being tilted up to kick in to Overdrive. I've heard some folks have found the way to fix this is to point the neck down when you're starting the game in an attempt to "calibrate" the position sensor. I also welcome any other bits of advice y'all may have.

The Gibson Xplorer, which Activision made for GH3, is clicky and hasn't had nearly as many downstrum problems and hits Overdrive most of the time, but its scale is smaller than the Strat's and so the neck is wee tiny. Hrumph. Some folks just can never be pleased. Good thing I'm getting the hang of the drums.

011. I can understand the logic behind keeping one character to one role -- your singer can't moonlight as a drummer, and you can't have a guitarist and drummer with the same name -- but the whole "band leader" thing is counterintuitive to our happy shared collective.

I mean, example here: Tonight, Chris, Carolyn and I were all playing in The Bacon Sandwiches (with or without an umlaut over any of the vowels; your choice.) My guitarist Dale Liverstuss had founded the band. Chris' guy Shade was the other guitarist, and Carolyn had a vocalist. No problem. We started Band World Tour and made it to I think Seattle.

But then we wanted to switch around. I wanted to play drums and bring in Martha Ramone, the pirate drummer. We had to start a new band because I was giving up Dale Liverstuss, and Chris wanted to keep playing Shade. Hey, maybe Dale was working on his solo career and couldn't make this tour. You never know. But Dale is the Bacon Sandwiches, apparently, so the lead guitar and vocalist had to go find another group to be a part of. I dunno. Does this make sense to you? If so, call 1-800-YER-ON-CRACK.

100. The downloadable stuff is good, good, good. And in June, they'll be releasing the Pixies' "Doolittle" in its entirety. Next week Judas Priest's "Screaming for Vengeance" will be the first full album download. The Cars' self-titled album will show up in May, and then in June, yeah. Fortunately, I'll have some money again by then.

101. Mountain Dew Various Colored Fruity Caffeinated Beverages truly are rock juice.

110. I played one game online but the game wasn't calibrated right for the new display I put it on and I felt kinda silly. I also need a headset so I can go "OH OKAY THAT'S HOW I'M SUPPOSED TO DO THINGS, THANKS." But again, that'll come once we have money again. We kinda stripped the Money Tree bare today for quite some time.

111. ROCK BAND ROCK BAND ROCK BAND ROCK BAND.

Comments

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

I think that the umlaut should go over the W.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Especially when they go on tour in Wales.

[cursethedark.livejournal.com]

I have spent a ridiculous amount of money on DLC for Rock Band. Seriously. I could probably buy at least one other game, maybe two, with what I've got. I want to say that by now, I've doubled the total number of songs.

I highly recommend the packs for David Bowie, the Grateful Dead, the Police...and My Sharona. Oh, and "Action" by Sweet is pretty awesome too. And the Skynyrd songs, and...ah, hell.

Also: where did you hear this about the full albums? All I've heard is that they're eventually planning on releasing The Who's "Who's Next", and later, Nirvana's "Nevermind."

[spatch]

The news about the full albums came out yesterday, actually. Saw the news on Kotaku. There was no word though on where the Who and Nirvana DLC is at. The Willy Whiners certainly ask a lot about it. It's reaching WoW whining proportions over there.

I got all the Bowie, Police and Metallica stuff, some of the Dead, My Sharona (yes, it's indeed one of the best songs to play ever), Brass in Pocket, all the Ramones stuff and the Clash that went with it in the punk packs, and then I ran out of points and ain't no way am I buying any more points for quite some time ok

[cursethedark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I keep telling myself that. Doesn't seem to work.

Of course, I live in a small town and have very few financial responsibilities, so it's OK for me.

Yeah, those punk packs are great too. Teenage Lobotomy!

Oh, did you get Still Alive? It's free. Or at least, it was. Hopefully it still is.

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

Yay! Can't wait!

[lindito.livejournal.com]

"I'm gonna get that for my Wii!" he said, which made me glad to think that people are tipping him well enough that he's gone and gotten a Wii.


i had that exact same thought.

[tcb.livejournal.com]

When you go to the store to buy Rock Band, you make everyone jealous.

*laugh* My experience buying Rock Band? There we were, down in NY visiting goat's folks, and her brother had brought up their PS3. Everyone was jonesing, so at 7:45 we drove down to White Plains, where he dropped me off at the entrance of Circuit City at 7:58 (they closed at 8), where I ran in, and grabbed the huge box, and went to the counter. "Need your fix, eh?" the clerk said. We got home, and much rocking out was had.

the whole "band leader" thing is counterintuitive to our happy shared collective

I agree. It sucks that in order to switch people around, you've got to start a whole new band, starting from scratch, on all the basic songs, in the basic venues. I've lost track of how many times I've been in Battle of the Vans.

The downloadable stuff is good, good, good.

No shit! Quite a racket! (To which I'll happily play into..) When we won the Sound Guy, I went and bought the Police pack, Roam, and Ride the Lightning :)

ROCK BAND ROCK BAND ROCK BAND ROCK BAND

The sad thing? Liz' brother still has their PS3, and we've got a box of Rock Band in the basement.

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

I've said for awhile that if I ever started a metal band I'd call it the gratuitous umlauts. (Pronounced the Gratoooooitous ooooomlauts, of course.)

Rock band is so much fun.

[amandaruth2001.livejournal.com]

I never really had any desire to get Rock Ban or GH until you said, "Doolittle." Wow.

[spatch]

Wave of Mutilation is actually in the original Rock Band lineup, so I dunno what they'll do for the album content.

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

Tax Return:

I'm thinking

- 1 Xbox 360 refurb, w/20GB HD for $239 <-- is this a good deal?
http://www.irepairsquad.com/p-337-microsoft-xbox-360-premium-game-system-console.aspx

- 1 Rock Band box set, maybe found on craigslist for cheapola

- hours of fun fun fun

- unpaid bills I could have used that money for

Yes?

[spatch]

Considering I bought my 360 used with no HD for $200 (you can buy the HD separately for $99 retail) then yeah, I guess. Do you get any games with it?

You may not find any used Rock Band sets around; I'd be surprised. However the full thing (one guitar, drums, mic) costs $169.00 and was worth it.
And if you get XBox Live Gold, we can play songs together on the INTAR WEBS.


Rock is forever, but it's better than bills.

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

It doesn't come with games, no...

I don't understand this Xbox gold/silver/whatever shit.

[hermitgeecko.livejournal.com]

Slade, not Shade. Otherwise, you're dead on. :)

[elkabong.livejournal.com]

I'll never play GH or Rock band - I know that the instant I get a bad score on something I actually know how to play I'll Elvis the entire setup.

[lediva.livejournal.com]

I have two headsets currently, you're welcome to borrow one of them until you manage to pick one up yourself.

[grumqa.livejournal.com]

The Phantom Stranger says: Screaming For Vengeance is the best Judas Priest album.