I hope you all are subscribing to Rare Magazine. If you really want to get to know Austin, this magazine is full of great idea starters of great places to go, new and old.
The new issue is out this week and I give my REAL take on the iphone. Here is what I wrote for the March issue about Guitar Hero.
This is the perfect opportunity to try to reach out to the musicians of Austin, since this is the music issue. YOUR ENTIRE BEING AS A MUSICIAN IS BEING THREATENED. IT COULD ALL COME CRASHING DOWN, and I know why. Musicians need to unite and fight this one common enemy. It’s not the sound ordinance, it’s not the fact that you can’t get insurance, your biggest single enemy in the world is… Guitar Hero 3!
I imagine by now that most of the world knows what Guitar Hero is, except for the real musicians who are out there making REAL music, with REAL guitars in REAL bars talking to REAL chicks!
Everybody else is at home, pretending to be rock stars, playing this new video game which looks and feels like a fisherprice toy. The notes come at you on an on screen guitar fret, and you mash on one of your four buttons along with music, by matching the button with the same colored button. It let’s you imagine your reading musical notes and playing classic rock songs, but really it’s a combination of Frogger and Bop the Weasel. The computer makes it sound as if you are an amazing guitarist. The players, or posers, are led to believe that they can rock. It even goes so far in the game description to say “Battle against some of the greatest legends to ever shred on a guitar and become one yourself.” I have news for them, they can’t shred. They never will. As a life dedicated musician, you should be insulted.
You should hear Guitar Hero players talk. They talk about how they “Rock” and “kick ass.” It’s an insulting joke on real musicians like you that have dedicated your lives to music. Some Hero players, after some villiage idiot button mashing, are seriously considering starting a band. I tell them it’s fine as long as they are going to take the Barbie Dream Car to their next gig at Legoland.
Thinking you can actually play the guitar from experience at Guitar Hero is the equivalent of thinking you can fly the space shuttle because you grew up on the Asteroids video game. Perhaps you are qualified to perform brain surgery because you could removed the wrench on the board game Operation.
If you haven’t encountered a Hero nut yet, you will. They are completely insane. They will talk about how they rocked it so hard they were asked to do an encore. They will reminisce about specific songs they have mastered, where their tour bus is heading and songs they have managed to unlock such as, “China Grove” or “American Woman”.
Guitar Hero goes for the jugular on all the predictable, iconic, classic rock anthems. Try sharing a living space with a Hero player as they repeat some of these classics:
Smoke on the Water
Sweet Child O’ Mine
You Really Got Me
Crazy Train
In-A-Godda-Da-Vida
Don’t Fear the Reaper
Since you’re a REAL musician, you’ll want to throw up when the amateurs mimic the Angus Young scoot, make silly faces like Eddie Van Halen or throw their “made in China” guitar behind their head as if they are Jimi Hendrix. It’s disgusting. Picture a guy playing it with a cigarette hanging off his lip like Keith Richards. He doesn’t look cool, he looks like a douche bag… and friends that are cheering him on from the recliner are just as ridiculous. I kid you not, a friend of mine couldn’t go to work the next day from trying to do the Pete Townsend move the night before.
You are a very talented musician who I respect very much; here is why you need to put a stop to the Hero hype. People who used to love and support local music are now staying at home in their underwear, playing against a guy online who is in his respective living room, completely naked. They are taking turns playing “Rockin in the Free World” or “Wake up Little Susie” and swapping high fives with their assclown friends. These people used to love and support you as you perform your art and now they are doing the Chuck Berry duck walk on empty pizza boxes every evening.
The absolutely, most annoying thing about Guitar Hero is the wami bar abuse. It’s rampant. Hero players can’t leave the wami bar alone. Watching them molest the wami will make you want to rip it off and jam it in their head.
Did you know that Guitar Hero competitions are starting to make their way into clubs, taking money out of your pocket and food off of your plate? You have to get your gig money back before they spend it all on Stevie Ray Vaughn hats and Slash wigs. Money they used to spend on your band t-shirt is now going towards a ZZ Top beard so they can nail “Sharp Dressed Man” in a competition at the bar you used to play every Wednesday night. If you every hear anybody going on and on about how wonderful this game is, I want you to break your real guitar over their moronic head. They don’t know anything about music, they never will. For God sake, leave it up to musicians, especially in Austin, The Live Music Capital of the World. Guitar Hero is to music as vel-cro shoes, elastic pants and clip on ties are to clothing, easier to use, but kind of sad.
It gets worse. Have you heard of Rock Band? It’s not just guitar players who have lost all cred in the public. Drummers, bass players, keyboard players, you’re next! Let’s all quit encouraging these Jackholes! Stop the music abuse… now!
Kim Iversen
