Williams arrives in Perth for Ledger funeral & other: August 2008

Wednesday 27 August 2008

Competitors engage in 'Hero' worship at Hard Rock

Video game dorks and rock stars never had much in common. But that may be changing.

Last night Salt Lake City�s Eric Miller parlayed his talent for joy-stick jockeying into a full-on rock candy star experience, playing �Sweet Emotion� center stage at Boston�s Hard Rock Cafe and hobnobbing with Aerosmith�s Steven Tyler.

Looking more like meditating monks than guitar shredders, Miller and leash other regional winners competed in Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Rocks the Hard Rock Finals before a herd of a couple hundred.

If you�re non a �Guitar Hero� partisan, the game allows players simulate the real thing using a guitar-shaped restrainer with rankle buttons that corresponded to notes that scroll on the screen door. It�s difficult, pretty addictive and massively popular.

�I thought it was kinda obtuse the low time I saw it,� aforesaid Miller, after besting Orlando�s Joe Ostrom during final tune �Love in an Elevator.� �I didn�t even want to try it, but a friend told me it had (Ozzy Osbourne�s) �Bark at the Moon� in it, so I gave it a try.�

As hotshot, Miller took home a custom �Guitar Hero�/Hard Rock Cafe Red Wing motorcycle, which Tyler was nice enough to sign for him. Not bad for a 24-year-old plastic guitar slinger.

�I came here mentation I�d lose,� he said. �I was simply in for the unblock trip to Boston.�

Helping to blur the line 'tween real and simulated rock, both Miller and Ostrom play medicine and say there�s an overlap in the coordination used in the tV game and actual guitar.

�I�m a keyboard player with a grade in music,� Ostrom said. �There�s definitely a link betwixt the two.�

It was easy to believe the iI guys, observation them john Rock out on the big screen TVs. Then Tyler and Joey Kramer took the stage with a few friends, and short the game was dwarfed as the band plowed into some loud, dirty, hard-thumping Aerosmith classics.

Comfortable in the Hard Rock�s intimate Cavern Club room, Tyler led the ad hoc group through early, game tunes including �Walkin� The Dog� and �Last Child.�

Both the Guitar Hero finals and the Tyler/Kramer performance were part of a charity outcome held by Boston for Africa 2008, which benefited organizations functional to end the cycle of war and impoverishment in many African nations. In addition to deuce Bad Boys of Boston, former Doobie Brother and Steely Dan guitarist Jeff �Skunk� Baxter and Dropkick Murphys leader Ken Casey pitched in.

More info

Sunday 17 August 2008

Kid Rock set for VMA appearance

Scheduled to perform 'All Summer Long'

Kid Rock is returning to the MTV Video Music Awards for another public presentation -- and this time it doesn't involve a fist competitiveness with Tommy Lee.

The rough rocker is slated to perform "All Summer Long" from his latest record album, "Rock 'N Roll Jesus." Though it was released nearly a year agone, it has surged on the Billboard 200, where it is No. 4 this week.

Last year, Kid Rock wasn't a performing artist, but he was involved in one of the ceremony's most-talked-about moments when scuffled with Tommy Lee while they were sitting in the audience. Both were at one clip married to Pamela Anderson, who was also in attendance.

The combat was non shown on camera only provided fodder for jokes from the likes of Diddy and Jamie Foxx.

Rock is the third act confirmed for the VMAs, set for Sept. 7 in Los Angeles. Other performers are Lil Wayne and the Jonas Brothers, though in that respect is a possibility that Britney Spears, whose blear kickoff carrying out at last year's VMAs became ane of 2007's most-talked-about moments, may fall in them.

Thursday 7 August 2008

Born Ruffians, Red Yellow and Blue Album Review

Album review of Red Yellow and Blue by Born Ruffians.

Canadian trio Born Ruffians are part of the impish guitar twirling vanguard at the once all-techno label Warp, alongside amongst others math rockers Battles and new-folk troubadors Grizzly Bear. To those with long memories it must seem like things have finally come full circle; whilst The Klaxons won a Mercury for crossing post punk with the gurgling proto rave that Warp helped james Usher into the mainstream, the arch contrarians are now signing the kind of outfit that flamboyantly sum up their sound in three words - guitar, bass, drums.

Equal parts in thrall to Animal Collective and Pavement, this is the sound of three guys messing around in the upper keys and doing whatever the hell they like. It's also blissfully unaware of conventions; with the left swirl of harmonica, brittle, almost harmonies, choppy opinion and song titles like Foxes Mate for Life it could easily collapse under it's own pretension, but even the yodelling (!) of the excellent In A Mirror is seemingly there simply because it fits.

Given their patrons however, you're always expecting a sting in the tail from Red, Yellow and Blue. There are beguiling moments, most notably the crying chug of Barnacle Goose and the Futureheads soundalike Humming Bird, but vocaliser Luke Lalonde never quite manages to overlay his personality onto proceedings and after a while the anorexic guitars begin to grate. Vampire Weekend and especially MGMT are teleporting the literary genre formerly known as indie to places hardly imagined, which only serves to underline that those leftfield behind - like Born Ruffians - are existence left in a mordant hole.

6/10

Andy Peterson