Mostly Semantics

So it’s Christmas, and I realize that no one actually talked about how awesome Rock Band is. I spent most of the time from when I got it three weeks ago attempting to unlock all the songs by singing, which is done. I had to get my guitar replaced (thanks EA for putting out crappily produced guitars, although the new one works just fine for now, so cheers to EA for a responsible replacement policy) and have finally set up my drum kit (it takes up a lot of space in my small apartment).

So I’ve made up my band, Kicking Telefission, with the four members: Ginagasaki (singer), Natomic (guitar), Desdimona (bass), and Joshakti (drums). And I’ve been spending time giving them the right costumes, some of which have been easier than others. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m a far better singer than I am able to hit buttons at the right time. So only Ginagasaki is right where I want her to be, costume-wise, with a leather fur-lined jacket, pixie pants, glasses, and anime buns (all in purple). Natomic is currently a blue Doctor Who clone with a pompadour (as close as I could get to being me, unless I pick the emover the Maestro wants me to grow), Desdimona is a schoolgirl in green, and Joshakti will eventually be an enormous Indian in a red soldier’s uniform and a kilt. The problem with all this is that I have to get far better at drumming than I currently am to get Joshakti right. I can play guitar acceptably, and as already stated I’m actually good enough at singing, but my drumming will go very well for a while, but then there’s a relatively complicated drumming part, and I fall apart.

Anyway, enough about my playing dressup. On to the nerdy reasons for the names: Ginagasaki is the sister of Tinagasaki, the first name officially come up with for Rock Band when Tina was suggested as a name, but I mistyped the n, and the PS3 recommended “nagasaki” when I typed the “n” and “a”. I liked it so much, I decided to keep it, and just made the slight change. And the rest were me trying to fit the other names with that same Actual-name-merged-with-something-to-do-with-nuclear-weapons theme. Dimona is near where the Israeli nuclear facility is and Shakti (besides being the Hindu word for sacred power, specifically the divine feminine, although some consider it the power of male deities) is the codename for the Indian nuclear test in 1998. So with all four band members being all atomic energy-ish, I needed the name, which came about through an original name Nuclear Ninja with a logo of a ninja over a fallout sign, but I went with the “We need a name that’s witty at first, but that seems less funny each time you hear it” thing and merged fission with Wilco’s Kicking Television to come up with the name, and the logo is a blue flame over a green rounded corner box. If anyone has a better name for any of the band members or the band, I am able to change it.

To the game! It’s immensely fun to figure out how to play the rhythm on any instrument, or figure out how to sing the melody for a particularly tricky piece of music. It is however, very difficult to set up the mic so that I can sing and play guitar at the same time without a microphone stand. Trying to attach it to the guitar strap sort of worked, but it didn’t work well enough for me to make sure every note was picked up. So I’ve been trying to get better at the drums, and I can do the slower songs on easy with no problems at all, but the faster songs generally lead to me either flailing around or just missing many, many notes.

But the best thing, and, truly, the thing that makes Rock Band infinitely better than Guitar Heros I, II, or III is that the music is so much better (and by better, I mean, songs I don’t hate with a burning white passion). Sure, there’s Rush, Coheed and Cambria, and Fall out Boy, but the rest of the songs are at least acceptable to completely frickin’ awesome (well, Run to the Hills’s lyrics are pretty darn absurd, but the chorus is fun to sing). And with the extra Bowie, Punk, Police, and the other songs I’ve downloaded (Buddy Holly! My Iron Lung! My Sharona! Fortunate Son! Bang a Gong! Cherry Bomb! Brass in Pocket!), the setlist just keeps getting better. Attempting to be A.C. Newman was just something I did in my head with my iPod, but now I can massacre his lyrics out loud with people watching!

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