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Reality Show Recap: Dot Dot Dot Expire on “The Next Great American Band,” Episode Eight

Sixty Great American Reality Minutes in Three Sentences: Emo-goth fashion disasters Dot Dot Dot are sent home in favor of Denver And The Mile High Orchestra—presumably because Dot Dot Dot fans are too busy sinning on a Friday night to compete with all the Christian youth groups playing ping-pong, eating pizza and hitting the phone lines for Denver. The remaining bands played the hits of this week’s great American—er, British—songwriters, Queen! And now that there’s only four bands, the producers have to struggle to pad a full hour, so all the bands got to play original songs in the final half-hour (or so we think, since we, like everyone else, turned it off after they announced which band went home). Best Great American Band: Pickin’ and winnin’ Clark Brothers took Dicko’s advice and added a rhythm section (including a barely audible bass player and a flat-haired, bandana-clad drummer who looks like he was fired from Dot Dot Dot). Their cover of Queen’s “These Are The Days Of Our Lives” was a mandolin-tweaked rave up featuring not one, but two, fiery fiddle solos. We also caught the Clark Brothers original song and the lyrics to their “back to the farm” song were really, really stupid. “Daddy was a preacher, swingin’ that old Bible belt.” Did you guys steal that one from Mad magazine? Anyway, everyone was bowled away by their bigger-than-life performance as per usual, but Dicko thought the lyrics made it a “crap song.” Worst Great American Band: Light Of Doom, apparently trying to capture some of Queen’s sense of theatrical bombast (or the Blue Man Group’s sense of theatrical bombast), come out playing the “We Will Rock You” beat on what appear to be four Japanese koto drums. It might have been pretty great if they had actually put some oomph behind it instead of just gently tapping a meek little “boom boom thwack” with some soft mallets. Oh, and totally botching the harmonies. And awkwardly trying to put on their guitars. And turning the rest of the song into ill

Published: 2007-12-11
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News

Picture: Hot Issue Hits and Misses: Queens of the Stone Age and Tego Calderon

Rock Band: A First Look at the Biggest Thing Since Guitar Hero

The breakout hit of this year’s E3 video game conference is clearly Rock Band, which is essentially a four-person version of Guitar Hero. MTV Games is publishing the title, and its music-industry muscle has helped get Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Rush, Foo Fighters and the Hives on board. Metallica is making its entire catalog available for the next-gen karaoke treatment, and the game’s creators say that new music will be released every week as soon as the game launches in the fall. Even entire albums will be offered — first up is the Who’s Who’s Next. So what better way to celebrate this fusing of truly excellent bands with truly excellent game developers than with an intimate live concert, which took place last night in the cozy space that is L.A.’s Troubadour. (For more on the party and a first look at how Rock Band actually works, read on.) Though blogosphere rumors abounded that Slash would get up on stage and perform, the mystery musical guests turned out to be Eagles of Death Metal and Queens of the Stone Age, both of whom performed tight sets for an audience that included mostly video game journalists and bloggers, Xbox 360 execs and the typical assortment of B- and C-list Young Hollywood celebs like Scott Caan. The Queens ran through 40-minute set that ranged from “Hit of the Summer” and “Little Sister” to the new “Sick, Sick, Sick” off Era Vulgaris. Naturally, players will be able to get all of these songs and more when Rock Band comes out this fall. The game works like this: Each person takes an instrument in the form of a plastic video game controller shaped like a guitar, bass, drums and mic, respectively. When the music starts, each member of the band has to press certain buttons on the controllers (or sing correctly) in time with ever-changing symbols on the screen — typical Karaoke Revolution-meets-Guitar Hero gameplay style, only ingeniously designed to work with four instruments at once. Developed by Harmonix Systems, the same company behind the o

Published: 2007-07-13
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News