On December 8th, 1980, Beatle John Lennon was shot and killed outside the entrance of the Dakota apartment, in New York City. His influence and significances don’t require any explanation.

On December 8th, 2004,  Pantera/ Damageplan guitarist Dimebag Darrell was shot on stage during a live performance; a most grisly scene. Dime was one of the most influential metal guitarists of the last thirty years. His significance was even greater during the 1990’s because he continued to play lengthy guitar solos, even when they weren’t in style. He carried the torch for the current generation of shredders.

When I realized that both of these men were murdered on the same day 24 years apart, I felt it was fitting to write a piece on fallen musicians in their honor. I have been planning on writing this for some time, but I didn’t know what I was going to say until I sat down to write.

So many exceptional musicians have died far too young.

Duane Allman lead guitarist for the Allman Brothers (1971), John Bonham drummer for Led Zeppelin (1980), Jeff Buckley (1997), Cliff Burton bassist for Metallica (1987), Kurt Cobain vocalist & guitarist for Nirvana (1994), Jim Croce (1973), Bobby Darin (1973), Jimi Hendrix (1970), Buddy Holly (1959), Robert Johnson (1938), Janis Joplin (1970), Phil Lynott bassist and vocalist for Thin Lizzy (1986), Freddie Mercury vocalist for Queen (1991), Keith Moon drummer for The Who (1978), Jim Morrison guitarist and vocalist for The Doors (1971), Berry Oakley bassist for the Allman Brothers (1972), Randy Rhodes guitarist of Quiet Riot & Ozzy Osbourne (1982), Stevie Ray Vaughan (1990), Allen Woody bassist for Gov’t Mule & the Allman Brothers, and most of the original members of Lynyrd Skynyrd come to mind, but there are many many more.

Randy Rhodes lived a clean life and died at 25.

These people died young, many of them before they hit the peak of their career. Guys like Duane Allman, Cliff Burton, Jimi Hendrix, SRV, and Randy Rhodes were so ahead of their time. Their innovations still impact music today. Nevertheless, I can’t help but imagine what they would have done with the rest of their lives. The bright side is that they will forever live on through their recordings, and in the hearts and minds of those who have been touched by their music.

The more I think about it, as sad as it is that so many talented musicians died prematurely, it’s amazing how many have lived and continue to live long lives… many in spite of their lifestyles.

I read Eric Clapton’s autobiography when it came out two years ago, and the book read like a combination music history/ twelve step program pitch pamphlet. With all of the shit that Clapton did to his body, the man is still alive and on stage; and he’s not alone.

BB King is well touring well into his 80’s, and Buddy Guy is 73 (going on 50). Greg Allman managed to escape what seemed like certain death. He was a partial influence for the song “That Smell,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd; the chorus was written about him:

Ooh, ooh that smell
Can’t you smell that smell?
Ooh, ooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you.

I’m shocked that all of the guys from Aerosmith are alive (although I wish Steven Tyler was in better shape). And all of the longtime members of Pink Floyd have lived long lives (Pianist Richard Wright passed away last year at age 65).

I could go on forever with this. So many more incredible musicians have continued to live, create, and entertain than those who have died.

In honor of Lennon and Dime, I am choosing to focus on those who have survived them.

It’s easy to fixate on tragedy.

Death is a story, life isn’t.

Brilliant stuff coming from xkcd today:

(xkcd)

The MythBusters website offers a ton of quizzes to test your ability to determine fact from fiction.

Here are some geeky ones worth a few minutes of your day.

Computer Myths

Going Green Myths

Music Myths

Tech Myths

A ton more are available on their website.

One of my favorite advocacy groups, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a new website called Copyright Watch. The site allows users to see the latest news in copyright law. The effort is to inform the general public about the threat that looming copyright laws poses to individual freedom, and maintaining an open Internet.

In other related news, here’s a quote from BoingBoing for you… I can’t improve upon their words:

“Two US Senators, Bernie Sanders (I-VI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), have written to the US Trade Representative demanding that the text of the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement be made public. This is the treaty that allows for criminal sanctions against noncommercial file-sharers, demands border-searches of laptop hard-drives and personal media players and phones for pirated material, requires ISPs to spy on their users, and gives movie and record companies the right to take whole households off the Internet with unsubstantiated allegations of piracy.”*

This secret copyright treaty is pretty black and white to me; we must crush it. The consequences of this treaty are unimaginably dreadful.

For more information you can visit the following links:

The Geek Whisperer: Scary Secret Copyright Treaty: From Music to Purses, This is Bad News

Copyright Watch

The Electronic Frontier Foundation

* BoingBoing: Two US senators demand publication of secret copyright treaty

I just got home from seeing Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Brett Dennen, and Sean Bones at Terminal 5 in New York City.

Grace Potter rocking out

Sean Bones

Sean Bones opened strong enough. He played in a fairly unique pop-rock/ reggae style that successfully held my attention through a thirty minute set. He had a couple songs that were strong enough that I considered buying his CD, but ultimately decided that I probably wouldn’t listen to it.

He’s really young, and pretty talented. If he can find a way to write songs that are a bit easier to distinguish from one another, he could do big things.

Last thought on Mr. Bones… his bassist needs to chill-out with all of the hopping on one foot, it was seriously distracting.

Speaking of distracting…

Brett Dennen

Brett Dennen played his brand of folksy pop/ acoustic pop for a little over an hour, and I found the experience rather painful. Brett’s albums never excited me, but I really was trying to give him a chance.

As it turned out, the biggest problem with his performance wasn’t really his music, but his stage presence. There’s no reason to beat around the bush… Brett comes across as one strange dude. The six foot five, bare foot vocalist/ guitarist danced through his set in the most unbelievably awkward fashion. I couldn’t look at him without laughing, and I wasn’t alone. All six people in my immediate vicinity felt the same way. There was a lot of awkward gyrating.

His band was really talented, but even during their solos Brett’s constant dancing detracted from their work.

The second half of his set he lost the audience. The roar of side conversations overpowered the music.

I won’t be seeing him again.

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals

Thirty seconds into their Grace Potter & the Nocturnals’ set, I completely forgot about the first two acts; they killed.

Grace & Co. were my reason for going. I’ve been following them for about two years, and had high expectations. They annihilated my expectations by the third song.

They are serious musicians, and they play in a number of different styles. Blues, rock, jam, and soul are in any combination are all fair game for Grace and her band. Not only are they supremely talented, but Grace has an excellent stage presence, and is really easy on the eyes… come to think of it, no one minded the gyrating when she was on stage.

They played a number of unreleased songs that will appear on their next album Medicine, due out in Spring 2010. Every song they played was good, but Oasis stood out in a major way. The duel guitar melodies in Oasis were incendiary, to steal a phrase from Almost Famous.

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals are talented, inventive, and fun. I wish there were more emerging bands like that.

The encore kicked off with Jefferson Airplane’s psychedelic anthem, White Rabbit. It was great, just like everything else they did, but the stage lighting was pretty trippy; props to the lighting guy.

The night concluded with a long jam on the seriously soulful Nothing But Water. Clearly they blew the audience away because as I walked up 56th Street on my way to Penn Station, I was singing the lyrics, and so was everyone else. The song was haunting on its own, but imagine hearing person after person sauntering through Hells Kitchen quietly singing:

Take me down to the river
Take me down to the lake
Yes, we’ll all go together
We’re gonna do it for the good Lord’s sake

It was the strangest departure from a concert that I have ever had, and it served to illustrate the power of the performance.

This show is pretty early in her touring schedule. If she will be coming through your area, I strongly recommend you see her.

You can find Grace Potter & the Nocturnals’ albums and touring schedules on their website.

To followup yesterday’s post, Copyright, teh Internets & the Future, here’s a bit on the secret international copyright treaty known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

ACTA is an international copyright treaty that is being negotiated in secret; although a lot of details have been leaked. The sections regarding the Internet are obscenely draconian; three strikes and you lose your right to connect to the Internet for a year. If this passes, I want that applied to major media conglomerates as well. Three misuses of intellectual property and the whole company loses it’s connection.

This video explains the treaty as it exists today, it’s origins, and it’s potential impact. This isn’t the best video, but it does the job. You are on the Internet, and you are reading a blog, so this treaty will harm you. You should watch the video, don’t be ignorant on this issue.

Make no mistake about it, ACTA will impact everyone. We all handle intellectual property on a daily basis, and current copyright law just doesn’t make sense in a post-Internet world (see yesterday’s post for more on that).

How can the US Government participate in secret negotiations for a treaty that will directly impact so many American’s? This isn’t some right wing thing pro business thing, this is the Obama Administration (not that I care for either side, but some of you do).

Current copyright law turns everyone into a criminal.

Kill ACTA. Reform copyright law.

Copyright law has fascinated me since high school. I read a lot about it, I understand it (fairly well), I have a lot of informed opinions on it, but I have never been able to articulate my ideas on the subject in the way that I am confident.

Fortunately, law professor and Creative Commons founder Larry Lessig does it for me. His presentation perfectly explains Copyright law, then he breaks it down in ways that make so much sense. So much more sense then I could ever make. Not only that, the presentation uses PowerPoint in fun ways.

This isn’t short, but if you have any curiosity or interest in Copyright law and how it impacts you, watch this video. If you don’t have a lot of time, watch the first twelve minutes, and the last five; you won’t regret it.

“No Doubt” is suing Band Hero (and Guitar Hero) maker Activision over their appearance in the game (GameSpy).

Allegedly, the band’s contract with Activision dictates that the band member’s avatars can only be used on their own songs, but they are fully playable characters in the game. This means that players can appear as say, Gwen Stefani on any song in the game.

Apparently this is damaging to the members of “No Doubt.”

Someone screwed up badly, and only time will tell who it was. Either…

1. “No Doubt’s” lawyers dropped the ball or…
2. Activision breached their contract.

I don’t know how it actually went down, but either way, this is pathetic.

At the end of the day, I don’t see how the members of “No Doubt” are actually damaged and deserving of financial reward on account of this, but I’m sure their lawyers would be happy to explain why I’m wrong. By the same token, Activision needs to get their shit together and make sure that the artists that they put in their games understand, and are happy with their role within it, as the very same thing happened with Guitar Hero 5, and their use of Kurt Cobain.

Speaking of the late Mr. Cobain…

Cobain’s wife Courtney Love complained that the ability for players to use Cobain on any song in the game, including a lot of pop and electro-crap that he probably would hate was damaging to his legacy. Normally I would agree. Cobain was a revolutionary figure in music, popular culture, hell, culture in general. Having him play a song like “Play That Funky Music” is degrading. Then I saw this commercial for Nicktoons that is set to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Sorry, I can’t embed this one, but it’s worth watching).*

I’m sure that the same lawyer who approved the deal with Activision over Cobain’s appearance along with the song “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in Guitar Hero 5, had to approve the deal with Nicktoons as well. I can’t imagine that Cobain would have liked that commercial.

So, “No Doubt” & Courtney Love, let’s cut this shit out. Everyone got paid and these games introduce the music of “No Doubt” and Nirvana to a younger generation. Everyone is making money, and that’s all that you folks really want at this point.

* That commercial really does break my heart.

The Yankees win! Now onto relevant stuff.

The Premise

In Brütal Legend, you play as the greatest roadie in the world, Eddie Riggs (Jack Black). Riggs is killed while saving his wussy band’s pathetic guitarist after he does something stupid on stage. Instead of dying, Riggs is transported back in time to the World of Metal where he takes on the small task of saving the human race with the power of his metal.

The Basic Game Mechanics

Riggs is armed with two axes. The first axe (the chopping kind) is used for melee combat, while the second axe (the musical kind) is used to electrocute, blow away, and explode enemies… in the World of Metal, guitars can do that kind of shit. However, that’s just the tip of the mechanics iceberg. You also have an awesome car, “the Deuce” (as in the Deuce (not douche) from Bruce Springsteen’s song “Blinded By the Light”).

Finally, there is an entirely unique portion of the game, and that’s a real-time strategy (RTS) component. Riggs leads his army, the forces of heavy metal into battle against the likes of General Lionwhyte’s (Rob Halford of Judas Priest fame) glam metal army.

The game is part sandbox/ hack & slash, and part hack & slash/ real-time strategy. The combination works well.

The Good

There is a lot to love about this game; especially if you enjoy metal… but I believe that you don’t need to enjoy the music to have a good time playing this game.

First, the game is hilarious. The dialog is brilliant and well-crafted.

Sample dialog from the opening scenes:

Eddie: “I can fix anything, except that” (in reference to his band’s awful music)

Roadie: “Metal is dead”

Eddie: “Ever feel like you were born in the wrong time, like you should have been born earlier… when the music was real?”

Roadie: “Like the 70’s?”

Eddie: “Earlier… like the early 70’s.”

The voice acting is great. Metal legends like Ozzy Osbourne (who is unusually coherent), Lemmy Kilmister (or as I like to call him, “the fucking man”), Lita Ford, and the aforementioned Rob Halford all lend their legendary voices and faces to the game. They are joined by other actors like Tim Curry (the Tim Curry), and Brian Posehn.

The World of Metal is gorgeous. It looks exactly like what heavy metal world look like if the music and album covers became a functional reality. The landscape, people, weapons, buildings, cars, men, women (especially the women), and even the creatures all look like they could grace a stage or album cover.

The story is oddly compelling, and pays such a loving tribute to the often misunderstood musical genre.

My favorite part of the game was visiting the location known as “the Wall of Sound.” Guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen play with a wall of amps behind them… the Wall of Sound is a cliff of amps.

While returning from the Wall of Sound, Riggs & Co. are attacked by a flock of seagulls; the joke was so subtle I had to pause the game to cackle (if you don’t get it, click this link & this one, but this link is at risk to your ears).

The subtle, and inside metal jokes were superb.

The use of the music was wonderful, especially in certain areas of the game where the music was deliberately selected. The getaway scene where you are speeding in the Deuce, avoiding the onslaught of some big and ugly monsters is set to Dragonforce’s shredfest, “Through the Fire and Flames” (I can’t help but speed in real life when this song is blasting in my car, so I was happy to race to it in-game). During one critical story moment, Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mr. Crowley” struck me as particularly beautiful and powerful.

Throughout the game, music constantly plays through the stereo in the Deuce. The selection is broad and generally good. I was especially pleased to hear song’s like Motörhead’s “We Are the Road Crew,” and a pair of songs by Racer X.

The driving and combat was intuitive, and the RTS components were easy to control after I got the hang of it; fortunately the learning curve was pretty shallow on the RTS battles.

The Not So Good

Brütal Legend gets everything almost perfect, but it could have used some polish. For example…

• Riggs often gets stuck on things like rocks – a jump button would have fixed that
• Riggs dies in water – I’m so tired of characters dying in water (especially when you see them swim in the during cinematic sequences of the game without dying)
• A mini-map while driving the Deuce would have saved me from constantly pausing to check the damn map
• Cinematic scenes, particularly at the beginning and end of the game cut to load screens in odd places; this yanked me out of the narrative
• A lack of instructional cues – There are things throughout the game that aren’t explained and you have to discover them for yourself (how do you a free serpent statues, or disabling songs that you don’t enjoy [I can't stand industrial metal], among many other key features

None of these ruin the game by any stretch of the imagination, but an extra month or two in development would have gone a long way.

The Ugly

I’m not completely sold that this belongs in the “Ugly” category, but I need to put something here, and this bothered me the most about Brütal Legend…

It was too easy, even on the Brütal difficulty level.

Once I got the hang of the RTS system, and discovered that the old Starcraft Zerg rush technique worked insanely well, I destroyed the computer without any resistance.

The Bottom-line

This is a great game, and well worth your time and money; if only for the humor, story, and music. Brütal Legend is a breath of fresh air, and a truly original experience in an ocean of sequels and rehashed game mechanics. There are so many great things about this game that I couldn’t even get into all of them. I guess you will just have to play and discover them for yourself.

I have been taking guitar lessons with a guy named Billy Roues for the last few years. Aside from being a great teacher, exceptional guitarist, and all around good guy, he is also puts on one hell of a show. He performs with a number of different bands that span quite a few genres, and I go to see him play whenever I have time.

Last weekend he played at the Turning Point in Piermont, NY (near where I grew up) with his band, the UpSouth Twisters. Whenever Billy plays, he mashes genres, techniques, and styles into a sound that is uniquely his own (and he has a few of them). He plays with his brother and bassist/ blues harp extraordinaire Muddy Roues; accordion wizard Kenny Margolis (if you don’t like the accordion, watch Kenny, he will change your mind); master of the washboard Boris Kinberg; and the difficult to see, but easy to hear Billy Rankin on drums. The UpSouth Twisters play an fun combination of Cajun zydeco, rockabilly, and blues that is easy to love.

They play mostly original material during their shows, but they always cut loose on their cover of Canned Heat’s “Going Up the Country.” Their rendition is stunning, and as far as I’m concerned, blows the original out of the water. To prove it to you, I recorded their last performance. The audio isn’t perfect, and the video didn’t quite capture the power of their performance, but it certainly gets the point across.

You can purchase their CDs or see their tour dates on their website: www.upsouthtwisters.com

If you get a chance, go see them live; they are really worth it.