Crank It Up To Eleven! 12.23.08: The Other Side

Posted by Sandeep Murali on 12.23.2008

We return after a three week sabbatical to discuss more stuff people love to hate about. Hint: This involves cheap plastics and dreadlocks.




Hello boys ‘n girls and welcome back to the show that rocks your Tuesdays. First up, I want to apologize for the prolonged absence of this column from it's scheduled timeslot. two days after i posted my last column, my laptop started acting funny and progressively got worse as the days went by. Several hair-pullingly frustrating days later, I managed to back my data up and send it off to the service center. Well, those fine lads took their sweet time putting it back together and now three weeks later, it's back. Replete with supposedly replaced parts in places where I wouldn't bother looking.


But hey, at least I didn't have to pay for it. Yay warranty!

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The other side:

This week, I've decided to play devil's advocate to a couple of items that the majority of music fans have more or less the same opinion on:

Red Yellow Red Palm mute! Yellow Yellow green Whammy!

...or something like that.


Yes, I'm talking about the (in)famous Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Any news item related to the two on any website vaguely associated with music always end up getting the same reaction: "Pick a REAL guitar up, asshole"! As someone who's continuously teaching himself to play a "Real" six string, I see the point. Those plastocrap input devices offer an experience nowhere close to playing the real thing. If you wanna make music of your own, they offer nothing of value.



Or do they?



One of the biggest challenges a budding guitarist faces is dexterity of the fretting hand. If you're aiming to play at a decent speed, you need to train your fingers to be where they need to be, without second guessing each move. Now practicing scales with a metronome is the tried and tested workaround for this, but if you've ever tried the method, you know it gets old real fast. It's real easy to get disheartened early into the learning curve and that's exactly what happens to most people when they realize that the pentatonic box pattern they have been practicing is quite some distance away
from the "Crazy Train" solo.




Which is where these games step in.



Armed with a fresh copy of Guitar Hero/ Rock Band, these rookies have a fair chance of training their fingers to move with speed and accuracy, and the fact that they do this to match their favorite songs make it worth their while! Zakk Wylde may have spent 16 hrs a day practicing when he was a kid, but most people are not that patient. They want instant results and these games, IMO make their life a wee bit easier in that regard. Still not convinced? I know a few PROFESSIONAL guitarists who use Guitar Hero / Rock Band as dexterity exercises. So there.



No, they won't teach you to do a B.B. King vibrato. But they're not just stupid video games either.






And we're not done! There's another advantage to these games that is often overlooked. A fair part of the target audience these games enjoy were born after most of the featured bands peaked. I wouldn't be surprised if a number of them were oblivious to the existence of say, Aerosmith before the Guitar Hero special came out. Chances are, the kid bought it out of peer pressure/ "coolness" factor that is associated with owning limited editions/ sheer curiosity. But the fact remains, he/ she is suddenly introduced to the catalog of a rock 'n roll legend they were hitherto oblivious of. If they enjoyed playing the game, there's a very good chance that they'd pick up an actual CD or two of the band. Now isn't that a good thing?


Anything that introduces the current generation to good music from way back when gets a pass in my books. I request you do the same.

But not all artists are happy with the business side of it, are they?

Axl Rose isn't, for starters. Yes, everybody's favorite target is back in the news blaming Activision for Including the G'nR songs "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Welcome to the Jungle" in Guitar Hero and promoting them with Slash's image in the associated artwork. This latter part is very important, as you will see later. I read through the reactions to this matter posted online and most of them are on the lines of "Attention whore" and "Hungry for money" and similar stuff.



But think about it from his side:


Whether you like it or not, the Guns 'n Roses name is registered under Axl's name. And with it, he owns the rights to their entire catalog. As much as he is at odds with Slash, he never denied him permission to perform these songs live. Simply because the songs had a significant amount of creative input from Slash and it's only fair that Slash gets to exhibit the fruits of his labor.



But the situation at hand is slightly different.


Is it fair for you to sell a product: say a software program, you helped to create as a part of a company, a decade after you quit; and that too without permission from your former employer? Same difference. The two songs in question are known the world over as "Guns 'n Roses songs. Not as Slash solo performances. (Or Axl performances, for that matter). Slash, as a performer hasn't been associated with the GnR name in over a decade. Slash gets to perform the songs in what can loosely be termed as "Portfolio use". That doesn't mean he can use them any way he wants.


It's easy to be blinded by the hatred one feels towards certain matters. But more often than not, there's more to it than eyes can see. And both subjects we dealt with today are standing proof of this.

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Never say goodbye:

If I may continue in the G'nR vein of things, I'd like to tell everyone who calls Chinese Democracy an Axl solo effort that they are seriously mistaken. One listen of the title track is enough to let the Buckethead influence sink in. The the licks that one hear in the song are trademark Buckethead. And I can assure you, those are in there because Buckethead came up with them and not because Axl asked him to play something Axl came up with. Furthermore, the fact that Buckethead's contributions remain in the album long after he left the band undeniably shows that Axl values inputs from his co-workers.



There was a lot more I wanted to talk about this week (given the three week absence and such); but with my birthday looming on the horizon, that stuff will have to wait for another day.



So Happy Birthday to me and see y'all next Tuesday.