“Jim!” says the Nephew. “Get ready! This song gets faster coming up.”
“Um, Andrew?” says Jim, without looking away from the TV. “It’s Free Bird. I was listening to this before your mother was born.”
That was last night – the three of us, up ‘til nearly midnight playing Guitar Hero.
I am not a musical person. I appreciate music. And I can dance like a motherfucker.
But when it comes to instruments – even the crappy plastic Guitar Hero guitar – you might as well give it to Gromit to play. It’ll sound about the same, except I probably won’t sniff and lick it so much.
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Have you played yet?
It’s a blast. You’re listening to classic rock songs. You’re “playing” classic rock songs. And if you get good, you can even begin to incorporate some of the more classic rock star moves.
How’d you do, Hedy?
Again, I am not musically inclined.
Jim and Andrew suffered through my rendition of Heart Shaped Box six times before I finally made it through without the greasy-haired rocker on the screen hanging her head in shame to the sound of an angry boo-filled stadium.
But that was only after I stopped trying to “play” the song and started trying to “play” the game.
Remember Centipede? It’s my all-time favorite video game.
Back when games didn’t have sixteen bazillion buttons for you to slap/jump/kick/rip the alien’s head off and cheats to download from the Internet.
Centipede. A marvelously simple game. You shoot with one button. You move with the other.
Guitar Hero is like Centipede put to music.
These colorful disc-looking things representing music notes fly at you. You shoot them.
And if you manage to shoot all of them, Dead! by My Chemical Romance sounds like it ought to, and not like three cats fighting over a Fender Stratocaster made of cat-nip.
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Watching Andrew zip through Killing In The Name and Billion Dollar Baby and Psychobilly Freakout, we now know the real answer when we ask him what he’s been up to and he says, in typical 15-year-old fashion “Nothing.”
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Sniff and Lick It. That’ll be the name of my band. If I ever have one.
Band names that make you laugh? What would the name of your band be? What was your favorite video game growing up?
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I am listening to: Hed’s Guitar Hero Mix
I am reading: Neil Steinberg in the Sun-Times
And I am: Rockin’ out
5 months ago
2 comments:
Hedy, Hedy,
Centipede? I'm older than you are and started with Space Invaders, moved to Pacman and ended my reign of marginal ability to play computer games with Centipede.
At a point, I had a brief reunion with the genre with some game, the name of which escapes me, that had bricks that you could explode, and if you got the puck, if that's what it's called, up to the top so it attacked the bricks from their upper side, watch out.
Now you're telling me that there's a game that will not only embarrass me visually, but aurally?
Dude, Guitar Hero rules. I was totally hooked after successfully jamming through Aerosmith's Last Child the first try. At our age (you can't be THAT much older than me) it's only embarrassing if you care what others think. :)
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