Loading… Aerosmith on Guitar Hero, Spore

Aerosmith Gets Own Guitar Hero

A rumor that began several months ago has been proven true, as Activision unveiled plans to release an entirely Aerosmith-based Guitar Hero sometime in June of this year.

The aptly titled Guitar Hero: Aerosmith will feature many FM radio staples of the last 30 years, including “Sweet Emotion,” “Love in an Elevator,” and the Armageddon soundtrack tear-jerker, “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” Great! Maybe? Despite the fact that Aerosmith has sold hundreds of millions of records and has some hot, Guitar Hero-worthy licks in its library, are people so hungry for anything Guitar Hero that they will gobble this one up too? I tend to doubt it, but I guess we’ll see.

In the meantime, I’ll let Steven Tyler’s nonsensical quote (or more likely, the quote Activision wrote and Tyler’s management approved after a fleeting glance) about the game try to convince you to drop some quid on this one:

“Any band that can go from ‘Don’t Want to Miss A Thing’ (Aerosmith’s #1 smash hit) to the ass-kicking ‘Sweet Emotion,’ to the cheekiness of ‘Love in an Elevator,’ to the classic ballad ‘Dream On,’ shows why Activision chose us to headline this game based on the diversity of the Aerosmith catalog. Not only is songwriting a bitch, but then it goes and has puppies.”

Right-O! And to commemorate this momentous, puppy-bearing bitch, Activision will release “Dream On” as a free Xbox Live and PlayStation Network download between February 16-18. So get to downloading! Cacacacacacooooow!

Netflix to Consoles?

A few techy blogger types have deduced this week that a recent Netflix plug-in for Windows Vista is heralding the coming of the popular movie rental company’s services to the Xbox 360 as well as the PS3.

While this is entirely a rumor at the moment, the company has apparently been polling its customers to see if such a service would appeal to them.

We’d bet this comes to fruition before the year is out. One more nail in the coffin of brick and mortar!

Spore Gets Release Date

Will Wright’s Spore has been high on gamers’ lists for a couple of years now, and it isn’t even out yet.

Wright, the creator of SimCity and The Sims, and his company, Maxis, have continually pushed back development of the title, which allows you to create a “spore” creature that must dominate the primordial ooze, eventually evolving into a space-faring civilization of humanoids. With innumerable creature combinations possible, what you end up with will almost certainly be different from what everyone else ends up with, the crux of what makes the game so damn alluring.

But as of this week, a concrete date has been set for by what all accounts could very well be the most interesting game released this year (or ever?)–September 7, 2008.

Different versions of Spore will be available for PC, Mac, Nintendo DS, and mobile phones at launch, and we imagine Xbox 360 and PS3 sometime in ’09, though that has not been confirmed.

Raudive “Needles (Steve Bug Remix)”

House and techno producer Oliver Ho has worked under his Raudive guise for the last couple of years, using it to explore the darker, more experimental sides of electronic music. Taken from the brand new Poker Flat compilation Dead Man’s Hand, this track sees label boss Steve Bug turning the acid-flavored “Needles” into a snappy dancefloor number, driven by pianos, synths, and hi-hats.

Raudive – Needles (Steve Bug Remix)

Cheb i Sabbah Devotion

DJ/producer Cheb i Sabbah is the most recognizable force in America’s contribution to Eastern-inspired electronica: recognizable enough to become a victim of his own success. Sabbah’s trademark sound of Indian and North African classical music restaged within atmospheric dance music has become a cliché. But for Devotion, Cheb i Sabbah heads his critics off at the pass by returning to South Asia, site of his most successful inspirations. His resultant collaborators–devotional singers such as Rana Singh and Anup Jalota–keep Devotion more “global” than “beats,” and in doing so, making it more palatable to both listeners and dancers, who recognize that South Asian rhythms need little enhancement to make the floor shake.

Del tha Funkee Homosapien 11th Hour

As anticipated as the new season of Lost, Del’s fourth full-length comes from alt.rap powerhouse Def Jux, yet 11th Hour features none of the label’s usual suspects, and apart from one track by Opio, Del’s Hiero brethren are conspicuously absent as well. So it’s pretty much Del’s baby–luckily, everyone’s favorite funky Homo sapien has been boning up on music theory these past eight years, resulting in a tighter, more focused sound. As a lyricist, Del’s potential has always been scary; now that he’s firmed up his production chops, it’s downright devastating–fewer quizzical non-sequiturs, more “Naked Fonk.” Already a legend, on 11th Hour, Del takes a bold step toward complete mastery of the hip-hop art form.

Azzido da Bass Dooms Night Remixes

Crookers made my 2007 come alive with their infectious, well-produced madness and their great ideas never stop. Their spaghetti-western take on “Dooms Night,” a track originally from 2000, is amazing. But Azzido himself delivers an even more breathtaking mix that doesn’t so much update the classic but offers up a whole new track instead. One of the tracks that’ll make my Best of 2008!

YACHT Preps Tour Dates

YACHT may never top that 2007 show in Portland, when he played on a water vessel of the same name, but Jona Bechtolt will nonetheless resume life as a road warrior this March. The renaissance man of indie rock (if you could even label his pop-meets-electronic programming such) will be traveling North America with Oakland-based rap rockers WHY? and New York’s Vampire Weekend, making the obligatory SXSW appearances, and generally stirring up mayhem with his hyperactive live shows. Last time around, Bechtolt was kind enough to keep fans updated with a tour diary that included videos. Let’s hope he has something similar in the works this time around.

Watch YACHT on XLR8R TV.

03/05/08 Santa Fe, NM: College of Santa Fe
03/07/08 Los Angeles, CA: Natural History Museum #
03/12/08 Austin, TX: Emo’s Main Room
03/13/08 Austin, TX: Wave Rooftop
03/14/08 Austin, TX: Urban Outfitters
03/19/08 San Diego, CA: The Casbah*
03/20/08 Los Angeles, CA: El Rey*
03/22/08 San Francisco, CA: The Independent*
03/23/08 San Francisco, CA: The Rickshaw Stop*
03/25/08 Portland, OR: Doug Fir Lounge*
03/26/08 Seattle, WA: Neumos*
03/27/08 Vancouver, BC: Richards on Richards*
03/29/08 Missoula, MT: Badlander*
03/30/08 Boise, ID: Neurolux*
03/31/08 Salt Lake City, UT: Kilby Court*
04/01/08 Denver, CO: Bluebird Theater*
04/03/08 Minneapolis, MN: TBA*
04/04/08 Madison, WI: High Noon*
04/05/08 Milwaukee, WI: Turner Hall*
04/06/08 Chicago, IL: Metro*
04/16/08 Brooklyn, NY: Studio B
04/17/08 Annadale-on-Hudson, NY: Bard College
04/19/08 Purchase, NY: SUNY Purchase

# = w/ WHY?
* = w/ Vampire Weekend

Photo by Sarah Meadows.

No Kids “The Beaches All Closed”

Come Into My House marks the first release for No Kids, the Vancouver, Canada trio of multi-instrumentalists who combine crisp, sharp programming and sweeping orchestral arrangements. In the words of Owen Ashworth (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone), the album, set for release on February 19, “turns the mundane into cinemascopic musical extravaganza.”

No Kids – The Beaches All Closed

Bruno Pronsato Why Can’t We Be Like Us

Over the last few years, Berlin-based producer Bruno Pronsato has issued several leftfield-techno 12s on discerning labels (Telegraph, Perlon, et al) while maintaining rigorous quality control. With this second full-length, Pronsato reaffirms that his music is worth the serious headphone scrutiny one devotes to a Pierre Henry or Eric Dolphy LP. Why Can’t We Be Like Us will also please the world’s more adventurous selectors, but its nine tracks are far from facile DJ tools. Pronsato labored prodigiously over the compositional elements and tones while constructing rhythms that are as labyrinthine as they are danceable. The acute attention to detail and psychedelic properties of the disc’s production elevate it to the rarefied heights of Villalobos’ best work.

Digital Music: Past and Future

Radiohead’s self-issued, internet-first, pay-as-you-wish release of In Rainbows is perhaps the best-selling digital album ever, according to unofficial early sales figures. But the stunt’s revolutionary appeal was tarnished when it was revealed that the files were released at a sub-par bit rate.

It would be interesting to hear what Dr. Jürgen Herre would have to say about such a fanatical debate over bit rate, as he’s probably been involved in a few during his career. As Chief Scientist for Media Activities at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen, Germany, Herre is as clued-in to the history of the MP3 as his title suggests. Since joining the Institute in 1989, he has worked in the lab where MP3 technology was developed and finalized just 15 years ago. He remembers the jury-rigged devices used to test the technology in its infancy, and has seen the nascent format perfected, popularized, and retooled into multi-channel surround MP3 technology. Here recently spoke to XLR8R about the format’s creation and continued development.

XLR8R: What was the original reason for developing the MP3 format?

Jürgen Herre: At the time, people were looking for data reduction schemes for digital audio. The Eureka 147 project, which started in 1987, was underway, which was meant to develop digital audio broadcasting for European radio systems, and you needed a lot of space to carry all the frequencies. People started to compete to solve that problem. Also, broadcast reporters wanted to convey live sounds over broadband, so we wanted to find out how to squeeze high-quality sound through a digital telephone line.

Describe the tests that you were running.

At the time, tests couldn’t be done on computers because they didn’t have enough processing power to decode the audio in real time. We had to set up our own hardware boxes containing digital-audio interfaces, circuit boards, and processors, and then had to digitally connect a CD player into that box. The first time we transferred music, it took five signal processors. We would, of course, also test the format with certain songs to see if it accurately reproduced audio. There’s a difference between nice music (which we’d like to listen to) and critical music that is very hard to capture in high quality. We looked for tracks with castanets, triangle, soft voices, peace pipes, and things like that. We ended up using a Suzanne Vega acappella of “Tom’s Diner” quite a bit.

What do you and the other scientists think about the continued popularity of the MP3?

It’s a great experience to see that it’s not just something people would use in a niche, professional market.

How do you feel about music piracy?

We’ve never been supportive of music piracy. With the increasing popularity of MP3s, we’ve been investing quite a lot into projects to make digital music more secure. We’ve worked on one of the very first systems that can digitally encrypt and decrypt audio content for people who pay. We’ve done quite a bit more with digital-audio watermarks.

What new projects are you working on?

A team here is working on an interactive audio format. The listener would be able to manipulate different instruments [within a song]. You could boost the bass drum or maybe cover the voice to do karaoke. It gives the user a chance to make a favorite mix and reposition things.

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