Fan Fare
Entertainment behind the scenes
Soundgarden the real Warriors of Rock at Hollywood show
Reunited rockers Soundgarden took time out from rehearsals in Seattle to play a corporate gig in Hollywood on Monday, the band’s fourth show since it announced an end to its 13-year hiatus on New Year’s Eve.
Singer Chris Cornell (pictured at left), guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Matt Cameron whipped up a mosh pit with old favorites like “Rusty Cage,” “Spoonman” and “Outshined” during their 50-minute set on the Paramount Pictures lot. Apart from a grin exchanged between Cornell and Thayil towards the end, the studious quartet barely interacted. Cornell’s occasional comments were muffled by the sound system.
The occasion was the launch of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, the sixth entry in Activision’s videogame series. Among the tracks on the game is the new Soundgarden tune “Black Rain,” which the band premiered Monday. The tune also appears on a newly released hits package called “Telephantasm.”
Notwithstanding its Seattle roots and close identification with the “grunge” rock era of the early ’90s, Soundgarden performed in a replica of the defunct Manhattan punk-rock venue CBGB’s. With Los Angeles baking in record temperatures earlier in the day, the narrow venue certainly evoked memories of its dank progenitor.
Soundgarden played its first reunion gig in April in a Seattle club, and warmed up for its Aug. 8 concert at Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival with a theater show three nights earlier. There’s still no word on any tour plans.
(photo: Fernanda Ezabella)
Jimmy Page, Jack White vexed by music videogames
Videogames like Rock Band and Guitar Hero may be one of the few bright lights in the flailing music industry, but real-life guitar heroes like Jimmy Page and Jack White are unimpressed.
“If you start with the first track on the first (self-titled Led Zeppelin) album, “Good Times Bad Times,” and you think of the drum part that John Bonham did there, how many drummers in the world can actually play that? Let alone Dad on a Christmas morning? There might be a lot of alcohol to be consumed over Christmas, he still ain’t gonna get it,” Led Zeppelin founder Page told journalists at a Beverly Hills news conference on Friday.
Added White, the frontman for the White Stripes: “I do know it’s depressing to have a label come and tell you that this is how kids are learning about music and experiencing music. That’s like the only outlet now, that you have to put it in a videogame to get it in front of them. That’s a little sad. But I don’t like to tell people what format that they get things in … But I do think there’s a loss of romance.”
The duo, along with U2 axeman the Edge, co-star in the feature documentary “It Might Get Loud,” which opens in New York and Los Angeles on Aug. 14. The film, from Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”), depicts each rocker’s romance with his guitar, and climaxes on a Hollywood soundstage where they jam and swap war stories.
“There are a lot of great guitar players who are virtuosos who can be note-perfect and can play extraordinary ways, but only a few I think that are searchers,” Guggenheim said of his casting choices. “We were just trying to find three really fascinating people who are still searching, and still trying to tell their story.”
The Edge is rehearsing for U2′s upcoming world tour, so he was unable to attend the press event. Asked whether the film might inspire more-formal collaborations between Page and White, both were cagey.
i guess what makes me sad is that there is nothing like playing a real instrument and exploring the sounds you can make. i have tried guitar hero and it’s fine as entertainment, and maybe it could help left hand coordination on the frets for people learning guitar ‘properly’… but of course it’s nothing like the physicality and struggle of trying to master an instrument and make it your own.
truth is though many people who use these computer games are doing it for fun, not to learn an instrument, the two are completely different areas. with any luck it might inspire people to try instruments for real
