11/19/08

Not a rock star, but trying to be

Apparently I make a much better lead guitarist than a singer. At least, according to a Playstation game.

This weekend some friends and I plugged in the game “Rock Band” and saw if we have the chops, fingers and rhythm to play. We did alright, but don’t expect us to start packing any arenas.

At first I was the singer which seems pretty silly in retrospect. I was passable my one year in choir and generally don’t maintain too high of standards on the karaoke circuit. It doesn’t help that my octave is confined to the bass range. Falsettos come out as screeches.

But there I was with the microphone trying to stumble my way through “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It was so bad the game even flashed a big ‘failed’ graphic behind my digital version. But the cool thing about “Rock Band” is your bandmates can rescue the whole performance by thrashing their guitars around or  going nuts on the drums.

The game requires instruments as controllers. There are adjustable drums and plastic guitars which kind of give players a feel for the music they’re making. The guitars, though, seem like they’re built for hobbits or at least people whose fingers fit into most bowling balls. The keys on the neck of the guitar are a little close together and the whole thing is comical when a big guy dwarfs the thing.

But I didn’t get demoted to guitar until later. My singing stumbled through songs like “Creep” by Radiohead and “In Bloom” by Nirvana. (The game is geared toward the twenty- and thirty-year-olds who remember bands like Weezer and the Foo Fighters a little more fondly than older folks.) I held on to my singing spot with an impressive performance of “I Think I’m Paranoid” by Garbage which I was rather amazed by because I’ve only heard the song a few times, the most memorable being in concert. But soon after that my singing sputtered and my friend, Sarah, took over.

I got a guitar and our band kept rolling through the game. You build up fans by playing in small shows and gradually open up more venues in more cities. Depending on your performances, you can earn things like roadies, a van, a PR firm and other rock star requirements.

Our band kept building up to a seven-song set that just about exhausted us. (We played about six hours Sunday afternoon.) We were a little distracted because along the way we opened up “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult and just had to play it. I’m looking forward to rocking out more on the game and its sequel. Maybe it’ll come with a cowbell.