The Hopp Stop

Netgear, one of the major players in corporate and home networking, has acquired Infrant. Readers of this blog will know that I have a ReadyNAS NV+ network-attached storage device. While the device itself is great, Infrant’s service and support leave much to be desired. Hopefully Netgear’s resources will resolve the problem.

Vanessa and her boyfriend Joe are the newest additions to the Guitar Hero fan club, as they played a few hot licks last night. Joe’s a guitarist in a SF band, the Dont’s, so it was cool to see an actual musician playing. I also managed to pass a song on the Hard level and in the process won $2.25 off Vanessa, the Vogeleina and Jon.

On that note, here are a few Guitar Hero links. I’ve mentioned to folks before that there will be new songs to download as time passes; here’s a potential list of the next ones up. Cowboys from Hell, anyone? FHM has a moderately amusing compendium of top YouTube Guitar Hero rockers. It’s mostly impressive to see how fast some of them can play on Expert. I found this set of tips in video and text to be useful for taking my rocking to the next level. Ars Technica has a good review of the 360 version of the game.

And finally, an Ars commentary on a Newsweek column about whether Guitar Hero is cheating–does its shortcut to a little of the fun that real guitarists experience take away from the real musicians? My take on that is a no. It’s pretty obvious that you’re playing a game on what is ultimately a modified game controller. You need to hit button combinations at the right time to make the music flow, with an often arbitrary link to the fingerwork of the real guitarist. On the other side of the situation, do real guitarists think that the game cheapens their work and the talent and effort necessary to succeed? I hope not and doubt it, just as I don’t think that race car drives think that racing video games used with wheel and pedal sets diminish the talent required to be a successful race car driver.

Gaelen and I went to see Sloan play at the Independent on Monday night. I haven’t seen them since they played at an 89X summer party at the Phoenix Center in Pontiac, Michigan back in high school, probably 1995 or 1996. My interest ebbed with Navy Blues and Between the Bridges, but the last couple albums are really great.

The show more than lived up to expectations and was one of the best performances I have seen in a long time. The band is very tight, as you’d expect for a group that has had the same lineup for maybe 15 years. You’d have to consider them real pros out there, guys who have decided to make a life of their relatively successfull indie pop existence, and you could see that in the way that there were no down songs and the mix was tight. Their power pop music holds up great live. Also, the bassist/kinda lead singer and the lead guitarist both cracked me up with their stage antics, especially the lead singer. Though I don’t expect that a band will amuse me in that way–it’s about the music–it was great to see how much fun everyone was having up there. I think these guys would enjoy playing “Strutter” and wailing on the whammy bar in Guitar Hero.

My only wishes would have been to hear some more tunes off Action Pact, such as Rest of My Life (my fave), and more songs from the lead guitarist and less from the drummer/guitarist. A couple notes on that: first, the bassist also plays drums, when the drummer is playing guitar and singing; the rhythm guitarist switches over to bass for those songs. Interesting. And they each seem to sing their own songs, with everyone else doing those great backing/harmonizing vocals.