No, you juvenile degenerates, not "Rock Band" the game. I'm mean "rock band" as in "people who get together and play music"... and... well... rock band the game, but more on that later.
The Beatles just had their 9-9-09 launch of their remastered discs and their Rock Band game. I ordered the remastered boxed set from Amazon and they said they can't ship it for 3 more weeks. So, I've cancelled the order for now and will cruise Costco and Sam's Club today to see what's available.
Last night, saw Heart in concert. For a bunch of 50-somethings, they're amazing. Okay, the two sisters are amazing. The rest of the band is a bunch of younger road warriors that they put together as the most recent incarnation of Heart. One thing I noticed: the biggest difference between these road warriors and your garden variety cover band that plays at bars and parties is that the road warriors have an unbelievable rhythm section. The difference in the caliber of all the players is pretty obvious, but when it comes to bass and drums, the contrast is really, really vivid, in my opinion.
Which brings me to Rock Band. My son has Guitar Hero for the Wii. I didn't know until he told me the other night that the reason he never plays it is that he only has one guitar controller for it. So, he can't play it with his friends. He's not the kind of kid who plays video games by himself. He's just too social. He'll throw a baseball against a wall for a couple of hours, but won't waste hours on video games. I'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible. However, I might spring for another game controller for him. Especially if I can get one of the Stratocaster ones. It would at least reinforce how utterly cool a stratocaster really is.
Some of you who know me already know that I rail against the utter stupidit of people spending hours upon hours playing fake guitars in a manner that doesn't remotely approximate making music. If today's kids spent that sort of time playing actual guitars, we'd be raising an entire generation of Jimi Hendrixes and Jimmy Pages. Instead, we just continue to raise entire generations of fat dimwits who lack the life-skills to work at McDonalds because they fried their farging brains on video games for a decade and a half before graduating High School.
[/grumpy old man mode]
The other heartbreaking thing to me is that electric guitars are more affordable now than they ever were when I was a kid. When I was a youngster in the late 70s / early 80s, a standard Stratocaster (just called "a stratocaster" back then) cost about $450. Today, they've moved production of standard strats to Mexico. You can buy brand-new ones for $399 at everyday retail prices. I've played American strats of my era and Mexican Strats of the modern era and the mexicasters are better, period. (I actually have two of them.) Better sound, quality and playability. Adjusted for inflation, the $450 Strats of my childhood would be over a grand, today. (Which is about what the modern American Strats go for.)
Now, we also didn't have e-bay back then. So, you can't get the SCREAMIN' deals today that you could get on used stuff back then. A friend of mine once got a Gibson SG and a Peavey 250 watt combo amp for $250. I bought a 1959-ish Gretsch Chet Atkins for $160, once.
For most of my childhood, despite doing things like skipping lunch and saving my money for years on end, I couldn't afford a decent guitar. (Or ANY guitar, decent or otherwise.) I was lucky that my buddy, Stu, had a guitar that he'd let me play, and he knew enough about playing that he could teach me quite a bit. It wasn't until I graduated High School and got a job that I could afford decent instruments.
Not only that, but finding music to play was a chore. If one person knew a song, it spread through the neighborhood like wildfire. There weren't all these guitar magazines filled with tab transcriptions of rock songs back then. You had Mel Bay books with songs like, "Oats and Peas and Barley Grow". Kids today can get note-for-note transcriptions of every song Hendrix ever played! Not to mention youtube videos where people post how things are played.
So, for kids to be growing up in an era when the affordability of guitars is better than ever, and accessibility on how to play is better than ever, and instead be wasting their time, gaining no skills at all, playing a guitar-ish game just galls me.
[/grumpy old man mode off]
The bright side to all this is that my son is showing an interest in drums. I won't force him to play an instrument. However, I'll make it available to him to learn one and take lessons as he pleases. Every time somebody pronounces rock bands as totally irrelevant to young people, an act like the Jonas Brothers comes along and proves to the world, yet again, that a teenage boy is at the height of his powers if he's playing a guitar in a band.
I've been doing some researching and it turns out that in expert mode, these games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are actually showing kids something analogous to the real drum parts of the songs. The basic plastic kits made for the games are basically like toys. However, there's an aftermarket drum kit called an Ion Rocker made by Alesis that is like an inexpensive electronic drum kit. Finally, you can buy converter boxes that let you connect your Roland V-drums, or Yamaha DTX kit to those video games and then you're playing actual drums (okay, actual "electronic" drums).
If he shows an interest, I can easily see making the trip to Dave's Drum Depot in Toledo to get him lessons and some real skins.
So, mission for today is to see if I can get the Beatles Boxed Set, a PS3 (it allows the most drums and cymbals for Rock Band of any of the platforms), the Beatles limited edition premium bundle (which includes a fake plastic Hofner bass controller), and a 3 cymbal expansion pack.
I'll gauge Logan's interest and if he really shows some interest, I'll be setting him up with some V-drums here, soon. Of course, they're for him... you know... wouldn't spend that kind of money just because I'd like them, too. That'd be extravagant and self-indulgent.
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