WhistlinDixie

Don’t Copy Me!

By now, I’m sure that everyone has heard of Guitar Hero.  Prior to the latest release in the series, Guitar Hero III, the majority of the songs in the game were actually covers of the original versions of the songs.

When Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s was being produced, Activision approached The Romantics about using their 80s hit “What I Like About You” in the game.  The band gave Activision permission to use the song.  Activision recorded a cover of the song and went on to sell millions of copies of the game.  End of story, right?

Wrong.  After the game was released, The Romantics decided to sue Activision.  What could the possibly due them about?  After all, Activision had received permission from the band to cover the song.  It ends up that the band feels that Activision’s cover was too good and they felt that the cover infringed on its right to its own likeness. 

WTF?!  I would be happy that a good cover of my song was placed in a game that millions of children play.  After all, I would expect it to add to the group’s popularity among today’s youth who weren’t around in the 80s to listen to the song during its heyday.  I would only sue Activision if they did a crappy job on the cover that made me sound like I had no talent.  A musical defamation of sorts.  I wish that I could sue someone for making me look good.

Andy McKee

I happened upon a guitarist named Andy MeKee (via Nick Bradbury) recently. It is amazing what this guy can do. Here is a video of him playing the song Africa by Toto:

Here are some more videos of him playing some of his songs:

• Drifting
• Rylynn
• Into The Ocean
• Gates to Gnomeria

This guy is nothing short of amazing. All I can say is that his newest album, Dreamcatcher, just shot to the top of my to-buy list.

The Benefits of the Big City

Check out the concert lineup for this week: Garbage, Fall Out Boy, U2, Nine Inch Nails, System of a Down, ColdPlay. You’d be lucky to get just one of those tours to hit Columbus in a month at this time of year. The ColdPlay tickets I hear are going for $500 – $1000 a piece! One radio personality described it as diarrhea: it all builds up until it gets to the point where it all just comes out at once. A decent analogy, but pretty funny.

Ska!!!

Talk about bittersweet. Unfortunately, The Orange County Supertones, the premier Christian ska band out there, are calling it quits this year after nine years and six studio albums together. However, they are being nice enough to their fans (me included) to give them a farewell tour.

One of their stops on their tour is in Tipp City at The Avenue. This tour date (March 4) happens to fall during a three day weekend for me. I was already planning to go home, so what does another four hour round trip for a concert matter? For the Supertones, I really don’t care.

I’ve seen the ‘Tones in concert once before, during their tour to promote their album Loud and Clear in 1999 or 2000. It was at a small church somewhere around Pataskala. They were awesome.

This time around, they are traveling with The Wedding and Roper as opening acts. The Wedding is a new punk rock kinda sorta band that is releasing their first album this spring. Roper is a punk band fronted by former Five Iron Frenzy front man Reese Roper. I’ve listened to material from both bands on PureVolume, and The Wedding sounds pretty good. In my opinion, Roper sounds a little strange, but maybe it is just because I am disconnected from the whole Denver, Colorado punk rock scene.

Anyway, I am pumped, and I can’t wait the 20 days until the concert. Alright Supertones, let’s rock!