My Gadget, Game & Gizmo Obsession

This could be the weekend where we learn the entirety of the Rock Band 3 on-disc setlist.

First, from @RockBand on twitter:

Yowza! What a day! We announced that Filter, Foreigner, The B-52s, Marilyn Manson and Tears for Fears are all coming on the #RB3 disc! And Def Leppard of course!

Next we have a ‘rumored’ leaked partial setlist, supposedly from a beta tester, a leak which could be legitimate as it does contain most of the bands mentioned above.   Here are the tracks:

• Amy Winehouse – “Rehab”
• Anthrax – “Caught In A Mosh”
• Avenged Sevenfold – “Beast and The Harlot”
• Bob Marley and The Wailers – “Get Up, Stand Up”
• David Bowie – Space Oddity”
• Devo – “Whip It”
• Faith No More – “Midlife Crisis”
• Filter – “Hey Man, Nice Shot”
• HIM – “Killing Loneliness”
• Marilyn Manson – ‘The Beautiful People”
• Queens Of The Stone Age – “No One Knows”
• Rammstein – “Du Hast”
• Slipknot – “Before I Forget”
• Steve Miller Band – “Fly Like An Eagle”
• Tears For Fears – “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”
• Tegan and Sara – “The Con”
• The B52′s – “Rock Lobster”
• The Beach Boys – “Good Vibrations”
• The Police – “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”
• The Ramones – “I Wanna Be Sedated”
• The Smiths – “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before”
• Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – “I Need To Know”
• Warren Zevon – “Werewolves Of London”

If these are in fact confirmed and part of RB3, then altogether we may know 50 of the 83 songs, and also 3 pre-order DLC tracks.  Furthermore, you may have noticed that the leaked list does not mention which songs from Foreigner, Def Leppard (both confirmed today), Ministry or Rush (from earlier rumors) are included, leaving potentially 29 more unconfirmed artists and tracks.    It would appear that Josh Homme’s vocals are now featured on two tracks, appearing with his bands Queens of the Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures, which is also features Rock Band super-alumni Dave Grohl.

I was definitely not expecting to see Bob Marley or The Beach Boys, there certainly is not a lot of Reggae or 60′s Surf Rock in the game to date.  I was also surprised to see Amy Winehouse, but given the popularity of Lady Gaga’s DLC I guess there is room for her music.  Putting aside the sad character that Ms. Winehouse has become in the media, the song sounds like it would be fun to perform in the game.  I think it’s great to see more tracks from the Police and David Bowie, it will be their third appearance each in a Rock Band game.  Hopefully this is confirmed and we will get to enjoy all of this great music when the game arrives in October.

Just a quick update today to inform you of the latest happenings with Rock Band DLC.  We have old school punk rock, metalcore, and some.. latin rock?

Songs available on Tuesday, July 20, 2010

• The Stooges – “1969”
• The Stooges – “I Wanna Be Your Dog”
• The Stooges – “No Fun”
• Bad Religion – “New Dark Ages”
• Bad Religion – “No Control”

Straight to my complaint:  I love the Stooges but missing from the pack is their mega-hit “Search and Destroy“; hopefully this is rectified in the future – perhaps even on the RB3 disc.  The song is featured in the gunfight scene in one of the best films of the decade.  “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog” is a legendary punk rock song that shines a bright spotlight on everything that is great about Iggy Pop.  To be certain, “Passenger” is my second favourite song from Lego: Rock Band, I’ll take all the Iggy I can get (Thank-you very much Harmonix).

Bad Religion is another band I was a major fan of in my high-school years, and as much as I love their past DLC hit “Sorrow”, I cringe when it shows up in my quickplay setlist– the song is definitely a workout and one of the harder ones to maintain a good streak.  I can just barely finish the song on expert drums, and this has tainted me slightly against buying more BR DLC.  If I was to pick my favourite 10 Bad Religion songs, “No Control” would be on that list.  What I find interesting about the two new tracks is that you can really hear the difference that 20 years made with the band’s overall sound and the production quality of the music.  “New Dark Ages” has a much more mature and deep sound when compared with the relative simplistic sound of  “No Control”.  To me, this earlier sound is what defines the band, on top of their always policitically-charged lyrics.  Bad Religion always stood for something, their music typically holds much deeper meanings, which for punk bands of that era (late 80′s – early 90′s) was certainly out of the ordinary.  I suspect that there is going to be a BR track on the Rock Band 3 disc, PURELY because of the history of these things happening in ’3′s’ and 7′s’ with respect to adding music to the game, and personally I’m hoping for “Stranger than Fiction” or another track from “No Control”.

Songs available on Tuesday, July 27, 2010

• Avenged Sevenfold – “Nightmare”
• Avenged Sevenfold – “Scream”
• Avenged Sevenfold – “Seize the Day”
• Juanes – “Yerbatero”
• Juanes – “A Dios le Pido”
• Juanes – “Fíjate Bien”
• Juanes – “Gotas de Agua Dulce”
• Juanes – “Mala Gente”
• Juanes – “La Camisa Negra”

That’s 9 songs!  Suck it Guitar Hero!  Avenged Sevenfold is one of Shawn’s favourites – I can’t say I’m a big fan of their music, other than what I’ve already seen and heard in Rock Band.  “Scream” is one of their bigger hits, so fans of the band should be pleased to be getting an old favourite along side a track from their forthcoming album.  They recently endured a tragedy when drummer “The Rev” was found dead of an accidental overdose in December 2009, however they were able to move forward and finish the new album with the help from one of the world’s most respected drummers, Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater.

Juanes!  Not much to say about latin-rocker Juanes, except that you may have heard that one of his songs has already been confirmed for Rock Band 3.    I’m a bit surprised to see such a large selection from this artist, but there is plenty of room for foreign speaking acts in the game.  I just hope that we don’t have to learn Portuguese just to get through the upcoming Endless Setlist III on vocals.

This update of the greatest Rock Band tribute station, gets us up to date with all regular DLC through May 25, 2010. With this latest installment, we get a blistering load of metal, including Pantera’s Great Southern Trendkill album, Judas Priest’s British Steel Live Album, Deftones, P.O.D., plus more Grateful Dead, The Smithereens, and a few others.

Please tell all your music and Rock Band friends about the blog and our Rock Band Station.

Direct link to Rock Band Station on Slacker.com

Come here, come here, come here!  The Vines are coming to Rock Band on Tuesday, July 13 with a 5-pack of songs.  As Shawn tweeted on Wednesday, Microsoft spilled the beans again and Harmonix filled in the gaps today with their press release.

Available on Tuesday, July 13, 2010:

• The Vines – “Get Out”
• The Vines – “He’s a Rocker”
• The Vines – “Orange Amber”
• The Vines – “Outtathaway”
• The Vines – “Ride”
• Sweet Billy Pilgrim – “Future Perfect Tense”

If you didn’t know, The Vines are a very large part of the broody aussie-alt-rock scene that was includes bands like Jet, Silverchair and Wolfmother (coincidentally all bands that feature music in Rock Band).   They are possibly best known for the commercial that sold a billion i-Pods.

Don’t forget that “Get Free” was announced for Rock Band 3, and since Harmonix does things in 3′s and 6′s, these five tracks will probably represent all of the Vines that we can expect for a long time.  In total, we are receiving two tracks from their debut album “Highly Evolved”, one from their second “Winning Days” and three tracks from their 2008 album “Melodia”.  The difference in sound from the former to the latter is like night and day – The Vines have definitely ‘grown’ (couldn’t resist) their talents in the studio, but have since failed to eclipse the fame they received with “Highly Evolved”.  Too many bands end up peaking with their first commercial success, which is a real shame, especially in this case – the Vines were once hailed as the second coming of Nirvana.

I’m definitely picking up “Ride” and “Outtathaway!” to compliment “Get Free” when RB3 drops in the fall, but I’m going to pass on their new music, after listening to the songs I’m not particularly excited or attached to any of those tracks.   Still, overall an awesome week for DLC.

OH yeah there’s also these guys.  Sweet Billy Pilgrim’s song “Future Perfect Tense” takes you on a fantastic musical journey and is a nice counterpoint to the strummy, alt-rock of The Vines.   If you played me this song before today I would have assumed it was a track for RBN, as this band is fairly obscure (they performed on an episode of “The IT Crowd” on the BBC) and almost completely unheard of in North America.

We already have confirmation on 22 tracks that will be included with Rock Band 3 this fall.   RockBandAide has posted a screenshot from the International Trailer which show the following tracks in the song selection screen:

• Blood, Sweat, & Tears - Spinning Wheel
• Chicago – 25 or 6 to 4
• Faith No More – Midlife Crisis
• INXS - Need You Tonight
• T.Rex – 20th Century Boy
• YES - Roundabout

Earlier in the month, canadian retailer Gamestop let customers know that by pre-ordering Rock Band 3, they would receive the following tracks as DLC (presumably via a redeemable code):

• Talking Heads – “Burning Down the House”
• Deftones - “My Own Summer”
• New Order – “Blue Monday”

The site does not go into detail about when the tracks will be available – as you recall with Rock Band 2, fans waited for months until the ‘bonus tracks’ were released.   Hopefully these are made available on the same date as the retail release (as in the “All You Need is Love” DLC when Beatles: Rock Band came out).

There is a lot to be excited about with what has been revealed thus far.   “Roundabout” and “25 or 6 to 4” are both 70′s prog-rock classics, “Burning Down the House” was conspicuously absent from last year’s Talking Heads DLC and is destined to be a party favourite.  Here’s the video from 1UP that contains the aforementioned setlist sequence.

CCR has finally come to Rock Band!  Available on July 6, 2010, Harmonix has announced a 12-track pack of greatest hits from the legendary Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Available on Tuesday, July 6, 2010:

• Creedence Clearwater Revival – Travelin’ Band
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Run Through the Jungle
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Green River
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Lookin’ Out My Back Door
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Who’ll Stop the Rain
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Proud Mary
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - I Heard It Through the Grapevine
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Born on the Bayou
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Down on the Corner
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Up Around the Bend

This is a very exciting move by Harmonix, since their announcement that Rock Band 3 DLC will not be backward-compatible as of it’s release, there has been a fairly large portion of the fan-base that very vocally announced they were ‘abstaining’ from buying any further ‘legacy’ DLC.  I think this pack is very similar to the Queen and Iron Maiden packs from last year, instead of getting full albums from these bands, they opt to go with a “Best Of” compilation pack.   This does not even rule out the possibility of full albums, as you recall, new No Doubt DLC was updated this spring and included tracks to complete the full “Tragic Kingdom” album.  This one will be priced at 1600 points for the entire pack, and I see no reason at all to go with single tracks.

I’m sure DLC enthusiasts are already on their way to deleting the cover version of “Fortunate Son” that was released in February of 2008.  It’s great that after two years of waiting we can finally enjoy the original, studio version as it was originally recorded.  Unfortunately by eliminating one cover song, they have added another cover song in it’s place.  I’m referring to CCR’s rendition of Barrett Strong’s “Grapevine”.  The song “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” from CCR’s 1970 album “Cosmo’s Factory” is an 11 and a half minute jam session, from when the band was at their commercial and creative peak.  The song was not made into a single until well into the 70′s, long after the team of John and Tom Fogerty, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford went their separate ways.

I make a general rule at work to host a party when ever a new rhythm game gets released. Sometimes, we just have music game parties just for the hell of it too.  Last summer, I organized a dual release party on 09.09.09, where we had The Beatles: Rock Band in one room and Guitar Hero 5 in another.

Earlier this month, on 06.09.10 to be exact, I hosted a Green Day: Rock Band release party at work. In one room, which we will call the main stage, we had Green Day: Rock Band splattered across five giant projectors. It was a bit overkill, but that’s how we roll. In the other room, which we will the 2nd stage, we had one giant screen projector setup with Rock Band 2, and about 600 songs.

These parties generally bring out the plastic rockers from work, and this event was no exception. On the main stage, we had it set up with guitar, bass, and 3 vocals. We were shy one set of drums so, unfortunately there wasn’t a chance to let people realize how insane the drums for many early Green Day songs really was. Though, the vocal harmonies were a big hit, and people are really looking forward to that feature in Rock Band 3. Over all, many of the early Green Day songs were requested, and people were looking for more Insomniac and Warning songs. For me, I love American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, so no complaints on the set list from me.

Stage 2 was a different vibe entirely. It was more comfortable, since everyone has been playing Rock Band 2 for about two years now (and we’ve had it at several parties). This room has the traditional Rock Band set up, vocals, guitar, bass, and drums. I even set up the Rock Band Stage Kit for some lighting effects. For fear of a visit from the local fire department, I opted not to turn on the fog machine. Some favorite songs that jump out to me were Poker Face, The Great Southern Trendkill (see video), and Foreplay/Long Time.

Of course, both setups had No Fail Mode on to increase the party/fun factor without the bummer of someone killing the buzz by being booed off the stage.

Over all, our 2+ hour event was a success with a couple dozen of our closest coworkers joining in the fun. I expect we will have a couple more of these throughout the summer.

Everyone is looking forward to the 7 person band of Rock Band 3, which I expect we will have a release party of that in early November.

Check out the small gallery below.

Harmonix has announced next Tuesday’s DLC, six tracks from a little group called Nickelback.  July 1 is our national holiday, “Canada Day” (real creative name I know),  and now you can celebrate the day off with some generic canadian rock and roll… and it does not get more generic than this.

Available on June 29, 2010:

• Nickelback – “Burn It to the Ground”
• Nickelback – “Figured You Out”
• Nickelback – “Never Again”
• Nickelback – “Photograph”
• Nickelback – “Rockstar”
• Nickelback – “This Afternoon”

It has finally happened.  They put Nickelback in your Rock Band!  I’ll point out that Nickelback is the most hated band in rock music today.   40% of the band’s Wikipedia page is dedicated to criticism of the band.  There are hundreds of parodies of the band on YouTube.  This one in particular is really good.  Recently, a pickle was found to be more popular than the lead singer, Chad Kroeger.

I think the important thing to do on days like this is to make sure that we are criticizing the band for their horrible music, not Harmonix.  Adding Nickelback to Rock Band makes sense for the game and Harmonix.   If you don’t like their music, then vote with your wallet, and buy something else instead.  However this does feel like some kind of sick punishment after several solid weeks of great DLC, to be given back-to-back disappointments of Miley Cyrus and now Nickelback.

Next week’s predictions:  The summer looks pretty bleak for new music according to metacritic.  I’ll go with one from the wish list, a 6-pack of RUSH in support of their new bio-pic, Rush – Beyond the Lighted Stage, in stores on June 29th, from director Sam Dunn of “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey” and “Iron Maiden: Flight 666″.

It’s rapid fire update time for our custom Slacker Radio Rock Band station. This is the second update this week, getting us into the DLC  for May.

INCLUDES ALL SONGS THRU 5/4/10.
NEW:
Serj Tankian x2
Smash Mouth – “All-Star”
The Used x3
Coheed and Cambria x3
Siouxsie & The Banshees – “Peek-a-Boo”
Supergrass – “Sun Hits the Sky”
Violent Femmes – “American Music”
Flyleaf – “Again”
Silverchair – “Tomorrow”
Busted – “Thunderbirds Are Go!”
No Doubt – Tragic Kingdom: The Deep Cuts
Orianthi – “According to You”

Direct link to Rock Band Station on Slacker.com

It’s been three months since I updated our custom Slacker Radio Rock Band station. Does anyone other than me care? Not sure. Well anyway, I’ve added about 30 songs today catching us up to the second week of April.

INCLUDES ALL SONGS THRU 4/13/10.
NEW:
3 Doors Down – “It’s Not My Time”
Mute Math – “Control”
The Subways x2
X x4
Ace Frehley – “Outer Space”
Carrie Underwood – “All-American Girl”
OneRepublic – “Stop & Stare”
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Axis: Bold as Love (album)
Anberlin – “Feel Good Drag”
Hawk Nelson – “Live Life Loud”
Skillet – “Monster”
Superchick – “Stand in the Rain”
Switchfoot – “Meant to Live”
Thousand Foot Krutch – “Fire It Up”

Direct link to Rock Band Station on Slacker.com