The School Of Rock Band Conspiracy

With my extra time off today, due to being let out of work early, I immediately went home and played more Guitar Hero. Inspired thusly, I watched my DVD of School Of Rock, and I noticed a strange coincidence. A line from Jack Black explains to the children their new project is called... "insert dramatic pause" ...Rock Band. Why does this matter? A little game that came out yesterday called... Rock Band. Connecting the dots begins now.

School Of Rock was made by Paramount Pictures, a subsidary of Viacom. Rock Band was produced by Harmonix, the original makers of Guitar Hero. Harmonix was recently purchased by MTV (you know, Music Television, the channel that only showed videos in the 80s) after they split from Red Octane, the makers of the official guitar peripherals. Neversoft picked up the Guitar Hero franchise and Rock Band becomes the true spiritual successor to the series. Why am I pointing any of this out? Because Viacom also owns MTV. So an off-hand piece of dialog from School Of Rock just happens to appear as the name of a video game about a rock band, both of which have connections to MTV. I don't believe in coincidence. I have a hunch that the game's name is a "tip of the hat" to the movie, since you can only truly appreciate the game as a group, not just solo.

Having more or less mastered Easy (getting 5 stars on all the songs) I moved on to Medium this week. There is a huge gap in difficulty here. Not only do you have to use four (4) Fret Buttons instead of three (3), but the on-screen fret board comes flying at you like a race track and chords are everywhere. Did any of the groups in the game ever think their greatest hits would cause tendonitis or carpel tunnel to Rock Fans immitating their moves with a plastic guitar? I curse Heart for that damn baseline in Baracuda. And Eric Clapton just wanted to make some riffs impossible just because he can do them for real. I'm betting it would be easier to play Black Magic Woman on a real guitar than with the game set to Expert.

I'm always thinking of the future and I wonder what advances in Rhythm Gaming will come of this. I don't expect DDR to mix with Karaoke Revolution, even though I think Milli Vanilli would put on a mean demo if Vanilli were still alive. In the next Rock Band (or clone to come out) I'd like to see a keyboard/synth. Even better if it is the "portable" one you wear like a guitar. Then we could really play Police tracks, or anything from the 80s. I'd also like the guitars weigh a little more, too.

Enough Rock for today. As a geek I love lists of things. I found a Sci-Fi site that maintains top 100, and sometimes 200, lists of TV shows, Movies, and Books. Just the kind of thing I think geeks ought to know. I would treat it as a "To Do" list of media to familiarize yourself with. Anyway, what geek doesn't like Sci-Fi. Watch lots of movies, eat lots of Turkey, have a happy Thanks Giving and see you next broadcast.