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

Here’s something I have not written much about before, likely because the site hasn’t focused on this obsession.  But, let’s start a new category and see if there’s interest from our readers. I had the opportunity to pick up some drum sticks last week and jam with a couple guitarists from my town.

Our two hour impromptu jam at one of the guitarists studio, who we will call SuRGe, was reminiscent of a garage band I used to jam with two years ago.  That band was Sorry About Your Dog from Charlotte, NC. Those guys were a group of I.T. pros and closet musicians, who played some common party classics (a lot from the mid-90s). I helped out on drums and vocals, when their permanent players weren’t available. Maybe, you could call me a scab.

These guys I jammed with this past week, nearly have identical taste in songs.  Plus, many of the songs are also in Rock Band.  Needless to say, I knew the drum parts to most of the songs shouted out during our jam session, and we jumped right in and did a decent job knocking them out.

Here’s an example of what we played:

You May Be Right
The Break Up Song
Just What I Needed
Jenny 867-5309
Wild Flower
Bad Case of Lovin’ You
Should I Stay Or Should I Go
American Girl
Basket Case
Welcome to Paradise
Your Love
When I Come Around
Saw Her Standing There
My Best Friends Girl
Don’t Do Me Like That
Dirty Deeds

You might agree, lots of party songs.  You’ll see from the photos, that I may appear to be not so enthralled by what we were playing.  At least, that was my wife’s impression when she saw the photos.  Actually, I knew the songs drum parts so well, that I was mentally trying to figure out the vocal harmonies while we played. So, in the photo’s you see the outcome of my brain in action….not a pretty sight, I guess.

Well, after two hours, the three of us agreed that we jelled together and plan to put together a list of songs to play next time. I’ve already warned them about my love for metal and prog rock, so let’s see how my suggestions play out.  The songs we played were all pretty basic for drums, which also probably plays into my lack of excitement in photos. Though, they were good for a pick up jam session.

I’m thinking of testing the waters with classic prog rock of Kansas and Styx, maybe working our way up to Dream Theater.  I’d be up for it, though I may be alone on that one.  Keeping with the theme of songs, but adding a little difficulty, I’ll throw in Boston as a suggestion.

P.S. – The T-Shirt I’m wearing.  I’ll give Twitter shout outs to the first person to comment where it’s from.  HINT: It’s gaming conference related.

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

Ok, every game blogger has written a review for Green Day: Rock Band already. So, why should I? Well, I’m pretty sure I will have a different spin on it, plus I will definitely focus on some different aspects of the game.

Opening Cinematic

Let’s start at the very beginning, the start up video when you pop in the disc. Lot’s of red and black imagery with bizarre looking characters, grenade explosions, and a make-out scene. My first take ,”boy that was short.” And then, “this is going to scare the sh** out of my kids”. I’m underwhelmed by that opening. It’s not very vibrant, it’s short, and not very welcoming…of course it is reflecting the dark lyrics of Green Days songs, so I suppose it’s fitting.  Though, it does not hold a candle to The Beatles: Rock Band opening cinematic.

Rock Band Stage Kit

I have very bad news here.  Just like with The Beatles: Rock Band, the light/fog capabilities on the Xbox 360 Rock Band Stage Kit do not work with Green Day: Rock Band. This (to me) is a HUGE disappointment. Especially since Harmonix was trying to recreate the live Green Day experience in this game. Why would they not include the lighting effects of this device?

Drumming

Drummers out there, you will struggle on many Green Day songs…and other songs will be a breeze. Needless to say most of you will play through this once and come back again to perfect it. It follows the traditional Rock Band 4-lane drumming, so it’s still the very familiar and comfortable format…though you will have some lightening fast hi-hats and fills.

Vocals

The 3 part harmonies are wonderful. Keep in mind, I love singing Green Day during drunken karaoke outings…so this is fitting territory to me. Even the 6 songs previously released for Rock Band DLC, have been updated with 3-part harmonies. It’s done well, and very fun to sing with others in the same room.

If you want to lower Billie Joe’s vocals to hear your own, you have to pause the game and select “Lower Vocals” from a menu, just like The Beatles: Rock Band. That’s unfortunate, where Rock Band 2 would allow the vocalist to lower/raise vocals during game play.

Set List

I’m super biased. American Idiot, Bullet In A Bible, and 21st Century Breakdown are three of my most listened to CD’s over the past five years. Oddly enough, after Insomniac came out in 1995, I stopped buying Green Day albums until Idiot came out.  The on disc set list, for me, is the best Rock Band on disc set list to date. Now, you know my bias…I will move on.

Pre/Post Song Visualizations

There are three venues. With each venue, there appears to only have one or two pre-song and post-song visualizations. The visualizations get old fast, watching Tre stand on his drum throne. I’m wishing those visuals were more varied.

Online

Playing Xbox Live last night, I saw about 15 people on my friends list playing. I played with some, and searched for players as well.  Match making was fine.  There were times when no one was available for match making…I’m hoping it’s just because the game is new and not many were online yet. I did have a couple players disconnect mid song, and the old typical issues still exist. If a player gets disconnected, you slowly fail out of the song…versus my suggestions to drop that player and continue on.

Extras

I have seen some of the photos that are unlockable. The photos are cool, but the text to go with them sucks.  The text just says “Photo unlocked by achieving 3 or 5 stars in XXXXX song”.  Instead of The Beatles: Rock Band where unlocked photos would have contextual info about the photos origin. I haven’t unlocked any videos yet, but am looking forward to them. I haven’t played any challenges yet, but I know there are full album challenges which I can’t wait to try out and hope the song transition visualizations are more varied.

Overall

I love the set list, I love the graphics, I love the harmonies. I love the speed and menuing. It’s a lot like TB:RB with Green Day in place. The export capabilities and hints of more DLC continue to add future life. For $50-$60 (depending where/when you buy), it basically is the cost of DLC with added capabilities. If you love Rock Band and like/love Green Day, it’s a must have.

I am disappointed with a few things, most notably the lack of Stage Kit support.  I will get over it, as I enjoy the music above all else.

It’s the re-return of THIS WEEK IN ROCK BAND! Life has been busy, the blog has been suffering. Thanks to Simon for keeping up with some posts. Due to too much Rock Band news right now, I need to do a TWIRB. Green Day demo is live, Lost fans get some Drive Shaft, Pantera will ruin us all. So, here goes THIS WEEK IN ROCK BAND!

Green Day: Rock Band Demo on Xbox Live

While checking my Twitter updates this morning I stumbled on the Xbox Live Marketplace account which mentioned, Green Day: Rock Band Demo.  So, I dug into it to find as of today the is a two song demo of the game available right now to Xbox Live Gold members.  It’s about 300MB, so it’s relatively small.

I have queued up the download and will be checking it out whenever I get out of work tonight.

If you have an Xbox Live Gold account, you can queue up the demo here.

If you haven’t pre-ordered the game, Amazon is now (finally) offering release day shipping, plus $20 off your next game and $5 of Amazon MP3s.  Pretty sweet deal! It’s the best deal there is. Pre-order Green Day: Rock Band for Xbox 360, PS3, or Wii here.

Pantera is now on Rock Band

Read Simon’s post from last week about the Pantera announcement, for all the details.  From my point of view, Pantera was one of the most influential bands of my teens and twenties. I was a drummer and singer in various bands, and most all would at some point use a Pantera song to warm up during practices. I had seen the band live many times, and shed a tear the morning after Dimebag Daryl was killed.

As of today, Pantera’s final great album (IMO) is available for Rock Band. I could only be happier, if Harmonix and Pantera would release their three preceding albums too. So, if you are like me, get this album now, and I will see you on Xbox Live tonight to sweat and scream the intensity of The Great Southern Trendkill.

It’s Dharma Time

Lost fans, stop crying and get ready to rock! Charlie Pace’s band Drive Shaft showed up in the Rock Band Network yesterday with their fictional hit, You All Everybody. Yes, I picked it up last night for a measly 80 MS Points ($1).  Yes, I played as Charlie on expert bass. Yes, I took heroine. Yes, I was a real rock star for a few minutes (in my living room by myself). Yes, it was well worth it.

If you are craving some more Lost in your life, or just want to add another cheap song to your Rock Band library, here’s the link to queue up You All Everybody.

With that, what’s NWIRB?  NEXT WEEK IN ROCK BAND!

• More Green Day: Rock Band announcements as we lead up to June 8.
• We wait in anticipation of the June 15 announcement of Rock Band 3 at E3.

After some quick fixes, comments are back available to all readers.  We are using a plugin called CAPTCHA, which most of you will be familiar with. It displays a random image of letters and numbers, and you will need to type that into a text box to get your comment submitted.

Currently, the layout is a bit sloppy, but gets the job done.  I will work to get it better integrated, but need to have this implemented for now. 

I was gettign upwards to 100 spam comments a day, linking to malware, porn, and other junk. In an effort to protect our readers, this is something that will help keep us a bit more secure at www.MyGGGo.com.

Let me know if you are experiencing any problems.

Hi readers.  Just a quick note. Comments are currently offline, but will be back soon. Thanks to regular writer (Simon) for clueing my into the sites broken Comments section.

I’m looking into this and hope to have comments back online soon.  I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s the scoop. Green Day stopped by Jimmy Fallon. They talk about a few things. Tre sucks at Rock Band. American Idiot is now on Broadway. Tre may have lost the masters to a never released Green Day album. The Beatles get a mention. Plus, they talk mud slinging at Woodstock 94.

I’m typing this on the BlackBerry, so it will be quick and dirty.

PAX East officially begins tomorrow in Boston. Unofficially, the nerds are already taking over the city. Keep an open ear for PAX related events around the city. They are beginning today (Thursday). There will be unofficial events throughout the weekend. Look at my earlier PAX posts highlighting some of these events.

Now, about Boston weather. It’s beautiful right now (but in the low 40s). Looks like this is the best it’s going to get this weekend. Expect cold rain, snow flakes, and high 30s. Sorry newcomers, it was in the 70s just a couple days ago. That’s Boston weather.

Let me know if you are attending PAX East and your thoughts of our city, so far.