Mott the Hoople
“All the Young Dudes”

(and yes, that is David Bowie on the saxophone- who also wrote the song for the band)

For those fortunate  enough to be going to see the reunited Mott The Hoople (yeah, I’m jealous Rog!) I will be living vicariously through you. It’s on the wrong side of The Big Pond for me, and as much as I would love to be there, the timing is just…off.

But if there are others among you suffering the same fate as mine, this announcement from the Ian Hunter list should make your day:

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YOUR EXCLUSIVE OPPORTUNITY TO PRE-ORDER THE LIVE CD OF THE REUNION GIG OF THE YEAR!

October 1st sees the live return of one of the best loved Rock & Roll bands of all time: Mott The Hoople. It has been 40 years since this highly influential band formed in 1969, and over 35 years since the original line-up has played together. It is with great pleasure that Concert Live announces that they are recording the band at the Hammersmith Apollo on the 1st October to create an instant CD for fans to take home straight after the show.

This limited edition live CD is the ONLY recording of the Mott The Hoople reunion show. Presented in bespoke artwork, this is an exclusive 3 CD set featuring songs from their classic albums, Mott The Hoople, All The Young Dudes, Mott and many more. Concert Live will be recording the band’s show on the 1st October, selling this live CD directly at this show and at the following 4 dates the band are playing at the Hammersmith Apollo.

Pre-order this live CD for collection at concert or to be posted to you directly after the show. Order now to avoid disappointment!
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Life just got a little sweeter this morning.

Best wishes go out to Dale Griffin (Buffin) who will be at all the shows, but health issues may prevent him from playing full sets. Fear not – Mott fan and Pretenders legend Martin Chambers will be on hand to pinch-hit as needed. October is really going to be Rocktober this year.

Official Mott The Hoople site

Fan-based Hunter/Mott site – great stuff!

My original Mott Reunion essay

Mott Reunion Blogspot - longtime fan living a dream.

Berlino, 1976. David Bowie e Iggy Pop girano in macchina sulla Kurfustendamm, quando incontrano uno spacciatore che doveva averli fregati. I due sfondano il retro della sua macchina, poi fanno marcia indietro, e lo fanno ancora. Per cinque-dieci minuti. Più tardi si ritroveranno a girare in tondo nel parcheggio sotterraneo del loro hotel sfiorando i 160 all’ora fino a quando finirà la benzina. È da questo fatto folle che nasce Always Crashing In The Same Car, il brano più famoso di Low, l’album che ha inaugurato la trilogia berlinese di David Bowie. Ed è così che si apre il libro di Thomas Jerome Seabrook, Bowie: La trilogia berlinese. È significativo per capire l’abisso in cui era sprofondato Bowie alla metà degli anni 70. Seabrook parte da lontano, dalla “morte in diretta” di Ziggy Stardust, avvenuta il 3 luglio del 1973 all’Hammersmith Odeon di Londra. Il successo  “glam rock” di Bowie continua con altri due dischi che ne proseguono lo stile, Alladin Sane e Diamond Dogs. Il tour che segue, da Diamond Dogs Tour si trasforma in Philly Dogs Tour, anticipando il cambiamento del disco successivo, Young Americans, che si sposta verso il “plastic soul”, un soul bianco e funky influenzato dal “philly sound” nato a Philadelphia. Ma quel tour è importante anche per la foto di copertina di David Live, album dal vivo che ne documenta i concerti. “Sembravo appena uscito da una tomba” dichiarò l’artista in seguito. Sono anni in cui l’uso di cocaina lo porterà a una paranoia sempre crescente, testimoniate dalle interviste deliranti su UFO, civiltà Maya e Nazismo, per il quale stava iniziando a nutrire un interesse morboso.

Per capire il Bowie dell’epoca basta il film L’uomo che cadde sulla terra di Nicolas Roeg: nella parte di un alieno paranoico e corrotto Bowie recita se stesso, tanto che il regista rigira una scena con Bowie in una limousine che aveva visto in Cracked Actor, un documentario sulla sua vita dell’anno precedente, girato a Los Angeles dove Bowie si era trasferito, e viveva mangiando solo latte e peperoni, nel suo appartamento in cui disegnava pentacoli sulle tapparelle e riceveva partite di coca e groupies. In queste condizioni registra comunque uno dei suoi capolavori, Station To Station, un ponte tra il plastic soul di Young Americans e la sua trilogia berlinese, in cui sul soul tornano a inserirsi rock, sperimentazioni elettroniche e la sua nuova voce da crooner.

Proprio durante la tappa losangelina del tour di Station To Station, a Bowie viene presentato lo scrittore Christopher Isherwood, che negli anni Trenta visse a Berlino. Bowie comincia a tempestare l’autore di domande su Berlino, sull’atmosfera di decadenza e libertà artistica, ed è in quei momenti che matura la decisione di trasferirsi in quella città. Lasciare Los Angeles non significa automaticamente liberarsi dalla droga. Bowie è in uno stato mentale ancora instabile, e durante il tour europeo di Station To Station, al confine con la Russia viene beccato con dei libri su Goebbels e Speer, il primo architetto del Terzo Reich (disse che stava preparando un film su Goebbels). Ma gli incidenti non finiscono qui: dalle interviste in cui si definisce “unica alternativa al premier in Inghilterra” e auspica per questa “grandi benefici da un leader fascista”, alla famosa foto alla Victoria Station di Londra in cui sembra faccia  il saluto nazista. In realtà sembra sia stato immortalato solamente proprio mentre stendeva il braccio. Secondo l’autore del libro si tratta di dichiarazioni fatte da un uomo in uno stato mentale alterato, affascinato da alcuni aspetti del nazismo, come la ricerca del Santo Graal e dalla capacità di controllare i media, ma certo non da aspetti come l’antisemitismo e i campi di concentramento. Passioni comunque passeggere di un uomo che voleva sempre reinventare se stesso e sarebbe rinato artisticamente come uomo anonimo in una zona povera di una città devastata dalla guerra e divisa in due.

Non tutti sanno che la trilogia berlinese non inizia a Berlino, ma a Chateau d’Herouville, un castello in Francia, dove Bowie inizia a lavorare a The Idiot, il disco di Iggy Pop (che proprio lì incontra la ragazza che gli ispirerà il testo di China Girl, poi ripresa da Bowie nel suo fortunato Let’s Dance) che ha in sé molti dei suoni di Low, il primo disco “berlinese” di Bowie. Di cui la prima parte fu registrata proprio in Francia, con il modus operandi già usato per The Idiot: Bowie metteva insieme alcuni musicisti e registrava in breve tempo la parte ritmica delle canzoni; poi lavorava con calma alle sovra incisioni melodiche, e solo alla fine aggiungeva la voce, spesso improvvisando i testi al microfono. È un periodo in cui Bowie si sta liberando dei suoi fantasmi, e anche del suo scrivere basandosi su personaggi, cercando di essere se stesso. Così spesso i testi sono ermetici, e canzoni come Speed Of Glass e A New Career In A New Town rimangono strumentali perché non arrivano idee per il testo, mentre tutta la facciata b di Low nasce proprio come strumentale. È qui che si sente l’influenza delle band tedesche del momento – Can, Neu!, Kraftwerk, e si respira l’atmosfera di Berlino: Weeping Wall evoca il muro di Berlino con la sua tristezza. È in questa seconda metà che si sente l’apporto di Brian Eno che, a differenza di quanto si crede, non è il produttore del disco (è Tony Visconti), ma ha un apporto piuttosto sporadico, occupandosi di tastiere e sintetizzatori (Warszawa e Art Decade sono in gran parte opera sua).

Avrà una parte molto più importante in Heroes, il vero album berlinese della trilogia, l’unico concepito completamente a Berlino. Insieme a Eno, un’altra presenza fondamentale per il capolavoro di Bowie è Robert Fripp, chitarrista dei King Crimson, che arriva a Berlino una sera e riparte la mattina dopo, dopo aver registrato tutte le sue parti in sei ore, spesso senza ascoltare i brani su cui avrebbe suonato. Eno, grazie all’EMS, un sintetizzatore che stava in una valigetta 24 ore, processava in diretta i suoni di Fripp, creando suoni che sembrano usciti da tutto tranne che da una chitarra. Un esempio è il suono della title-track del disco. Il disco viene registrato nella sala più grande degli Hansa Studios di Berlino, la “Hall By The Wall”, ex sala da ballo dell’epoca di Weimar, usata poi dai nazisti per ricevimenti: dalle sue finestre si potevano vedere i militari armati che facevano la guardia al Muro. E proprio guardando una coppia abbracciarsi all’ombra del muro (il produttore Tony Visconti e la cantante Antonia Maass) Bowie dà alla luce il testo di Heroes. Non un inno all’ottimismo, ma l’illusione di una storia che potrebbe durare solo un giorno. Il verso “possiamo essere noi, per sempre” ispira anche il nuovo non-look di Bowie, in semplici jeans e maglietta, dopo le maschere che avevano caratterizzato la prima metà dei suoi anni Settanta. Sarà questa la sua immagine nel tour che seguirà.

Dai viaggi di questo tour e da un viaggio in Kenya effettuato nasceranno alcuni dei brani di Lodger. Che viene definito come il terzo album della trilogia berlinese solo per gli schemi della critica musicale, per il fatto che è prodotto dallo stesso team dei primi due. Ma non c’è niente di berlinese: né i luoghi – è stato registrato tra Montreux, Svizzera, e New York – né i suoni, con aperture al mondo visitato da Bowie nell’ultimo anno. Così Yassassin è una miscela di musica turca e reggae, mentre African Night Flight anticipa l’etno-beat che negli anni Ottanta sarà proseguito da Eno con David Byrne e poi da Peter Gabriel e Paul Simon. Move On invece nasce da un nastro di All The Young Dudes suonato al contrario. Se la prima parte del disco è incentrata sul viaggio, la seconda è una lettura dell’apatia e del consumismo occidentale (DJ è una satira sulla celebrità, Red Money parla dell’onere della responsabilità, Repetition di violenza domestica)- Il ruolo di Eno qui si fa più importante – suona anche drum machine e impartisce indicazioni ai musicisti – ma tra lui e Bowie le cose non vanno lisce come prima, e la loro collaborazione finisce qui. Non ci sarà nel disco successivo, quello Scary Monsters che molti considerano l’ultimo grande disco di Bowie, famoso per il video di Ashes To Ashes (girato da David Mallet, la cui collaborazione con Bowie iniziò proprio con i video di Lodger), un ponte tra la trilogia berlinese e il Bowie pop degli anni Ottanta. Low, Heroes e Lodger hanno influenzato decine di artisti che sarebbero venuti. Ma guai a incasellarli in un genere. Disse bene la casa discografica, che nel 1977 lanciò Heroes con questa frase.  C’è la Old Wave. C’è la New Wave. E poi c’è David Bowie.

Man hører tit, at alder ikke er nogen hindring, og er der en person dette udtryk gælder for, så må det da netop være Ian Hunter. Denne engelske musiker, som jeg har fulgt siden de tidlige 1970′ere, har nu i en alder af 70 år atter valgt at kaste sig ud på det dybe vand og give sig i kast med både ny og gammel musik.

Således kan vi se frem til albumet ”Man Overboard” allerede i næste måned (den 21. juli), hvorpå Ian Hunter præsenterer 11 nye sange. Dette album, der er hans 13. udgivelse siden solodebut’en tilbage i 1975, udkommer kun to år efter det flot anmeldte album ”Shrunken Heads”. Med valget af Andy York som producer, samt stort set samme hold af musikere, synes det nye album at køre videre på gamle kendte dyder. Vi kan altså endnu engang forvente en god samling sange af klassisk rock ‘n’ roll, der trækker på den amerikanske rocktradition (Dylan, Springsteen m.fl.) , blandet med et par af de ballader, som Hunter er mesteren udi.

Dette efterår venter flere hektiske oplevelser for Ian Hunter, når han genforenes med de gamle venner i bandet Mott The Hoople, for at  markere bandets 40 års jubilæum! Mott the Hoople var i starten af 1970′erne et såkaldt engelsk pubrock band, der ovenpå en del lp-udgivelser, der ikke gjorde sig særligt kommercielt bemærket , var tæt på at forblive en parentes i britisk musikhistorie. En fan af bandet, en ung David Bowie, revitaliserede dog deres karriere, da han tilbød dem sin egen komposition “All The Young Dudes“. Sangen blev netop én af dette årtis helt store succeser, og placerede Mott The Hoople som en af Glamrock-tidens helt store aktører.

En kuriøs ting, som adskilte Ian Hunter fra mange andre af tidens rockstjerner var, at han i 1974 udgav bogen ”Diary Of A Rock And Roll Star”, som på en befriende uglamourøs måde beskrev livet som musiker på turné i Amerika i 1972. Denne bog fik allerede dengang stor opmærksomhed, og anses stadig som værende en af de bedste bøger om musik(livet), der nogensinde er skrevet. Men ingen tvivl om, at det nok mere er musikken, Ian Hunter ønsker at blive husket for, her hvor han tager hul på de næste kapitler af hans i forvejen lange og flotte karriere.

/Olsen

Hace poco conseguí el soundtrack de la película de Juno, y bueno, creo que la canción que  más me llama la atención es la de All the young dudes con Mott The Hoople y pues la estuve poniendo de vez en cuando hasta que por asares de destino conseguí también un disco de David Bowie (Best of the David Bowie 1969 – 1974) lo cuál al estarlo escuchando me sorprendí a escuchar la misma canción anteriormente mencionada, entonces me dio curiosidad y empecé a investigar un poco más sobre la canción, ya saben, en google y wikipedia se consigue mucha información, entonces encontré varias cosas algo interesantes.

La canción la compuso David Bowie para el grupo Mott The Hoople y les pidió que no se separarán (sí, se estaban separando), por allá de principios de los 70’s. Ellos grabaron un nuevo disco el cuál produjo Bowie y en el que además llegó a tocar el saxofón. El albúm se llamó cómo el titulo de la canción.

Además en el año 2004 se úbico en la posición #253 de las mejores 500 canciones de todos los tiempos de la revista Rolling Stone, en la que descubrí que Bowie tiene nada menos que 5 canciones dentro de la lista, no cualquiera tiene más de 1 canción en la lista.

La canción trata sobre los diferentes tipos de adolescentes que se han perdido en el camino, tal vez por tener ideas un poco inmaduras todavía.

El video tiene dos canciones, “All the young dudes” y “Jean Genie” de David Bowie acompañado de Billy Corgan.

The first thing I do on the morning after a particularly eventful evening is sit down at my desk, hit the space bar to snap my computer out of hibernation and take a look at what is on the screen.  I find the remnants of any drunken, pre-pass out computer noodling a good place to start when you a trying to piece together a night that may have evaded your short term memory.  Here is what I awoke to today:

Firefox, four tabs open: George Starostin’s page on The Band; YouTube video of Bob Dylan performing “When I Paint My Masterpiece” on the 1976 Hard Rain tour; Gmail “Sent Folder” showing I dropped a line to almost everyone I know with a  link to the aforementioned YouTube video (with time stamps beginning around 5:15 AM and stretching to about half past 6); and of course this here WordPress dashboard editor filled with illegible sentence fragments about substance abuse and B-Sides.

iTunes: Playlist featuring three copies of Cahoots set to repeat.

My night began at the Hornets/Clippers game and made its way to Grits and F&M’s, so I could probably tender a few guesses about my state of mind by the time I made it home, but I will never know for sure what prompted a marathon exhibition and examination of one of the most under-appreciated albums of the last 50 years.  Suffice it to say, though, that I am eternally grateful.  Cahoots is fucking awesome.

In almost every review of this album, especially contemporary reviews that have the benefit of hindsight and historical context, there is at least one remark about the irony of the choice of Cahoots for the title.  “Cahoots” implies a sort of mischievously cunning partnership, yet by the time this album was recorded, the whole outfit was practically hulking up for a full-out cage match over “Chest Fever” royalties.  And as far as I can tell, this discord seems to be the only contributing factor to the round rejection of this album, which many peg as The Band’s weakest offering.

So if you feel the need to set the record up for a disappointing self-fulfilling prophecy, it will surely comply.  If you want to call Cahoots 45 minutes of uninspired, formulaic, overwrought attempts at recapturing the majestic glory of Music From Big Pink and it’s eponymous follow up, you will have plenty of mainstream media confederates to back you up.  Anyone with a working set of ear holes can recognize that this is no Music From Big Pink.

But I think the very fact that the performances on this record were clearly phoned in by almost everyone involved (I say “almost everyone” because, to this day, I refuse to say nary a negative word about the venerable Levon Helms) makes the finished product all the more impressive.  Tales of the epic dissension among the ranks of The Band are a dime a dozen, but I am always skeptical about how much hyperbole goes into any Behind The Music-type tale about a group of talented musicians struggling with their own limitation in the harsh face of stardom.

However, the presence of “When I Paint My Masterpiece” on this album – a song penned by Bob Dylan but bequeathed to The Band for it’s first appearance on a commercially available studio recording – makes me think that, in this particular case, not only were the rumors about Robbie Robertson’s greed and megalomania true, but the situation may have been more dire than anyone thought.  I can’t help but wonder if Bob Dylan’s motivation for passing along that gem was in any way similar to that of David Bowie when he offered “All The Young Dudes” to Mott The Hoople around the same time.

See, Bowie was a huge fan of Mott and heard through the grapevine that the group was on the verge of throwing in the towel.  To convince them to stay together, Bowie dropped off the lyrics and music for “All The Young Dudes,” a unmatched masterpiece of proto-glam beauty, and let the boys of Mott The Hoople knock it out of the park.

Was Dylan’s offering of “When I Paint My Masterpiece” – a song as perfectly composed as “All The Young Dudes” and just as likely to be a hit for the original artist if he choose to keep it for himself – a last ditch effort to create some goodwill among the members of a band that was at the end of it’s rope?

Say what you will about whether or not Cahoots represents the best The Band could offer at the point in time in which it was made (I am sure we can all agree it was probably was not), but if you try to tell me that “Volcano” would have been out of place on The Band or that “Shootout in Chinatown” wouldn’t have blended right in to Stage Fright I will tell you that you are an idiot.  Hell, if you threw an unexpected, soulful breakdown in between the second and third verses of “Where Do We Go From Here,” that shit would be a dead ringer for any number of tracks on Music From Big Pink.  And don’t even get me started on the piano coda of “Smoke Signal.”

So let’s put any ideas that this album is at all subpar to bed right now.  That being said, I get it.  I sucks when you get the feeling that someone is dogging it – whether it be Richard Manuel coming up flat on a chorus or Manny Ramierez breaking into a home run trot on what turns out to just be a long double – but if The Band can crank out something like Cahoots when they obviously don’t have their head in the game and are possibly on the verge of extinction, it should disappoint you only because it is clear they are capable of so much better, not because what you are listening to still happens to be pretty fucking good.

STAINES  RIVERSIDE CLUB
Fri 7th November 2008

When resting, the average adult human heart beats at about 70 bpm (males) and 75 bpm (females). I am telling you this because at the Staines Riverside Club on Friday 7th November the average pulse rate had easily exceeded 150 bpm by the end of the Cry Wolf session. This is a minor miracle considering that the average age of the audience was (to be honest) sixty plus and hearts that old don’t fibrillate easily. Those cranky bones and bad backs were sorely tested by these hard rockin’ boys who belted out the beat.  So how did this bunch of long haired neer-do-wells manage to get those blue-rinsed girlies a-squealing with delight and those groaning grandads swivelling their replacement hips?

The story of this band is so familiar to anyone who has watched and enjoyed any of those mockumentary style musical comedies like ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ or ‘The Blues Brothers’.

The Wolf first cried in 1997. But, just like Tap and Jake and Elwood, the history of this band goes way-back. Way, way back. Their not-so-unique story starts in black and white. It starts in those sunny days when thin girls used to wear short-shorts, when blue jeans would swing and when Georgie Best could bend it. The band we know as Blackfoot Sue began their story in Birmingham in the early sixties. Gary Farmer and his identical twin brothers Tom and David Farmer met Eddie Golga and started a modern beat band, forking out for second-hand guitars and drums  and struggling to earn a crust by playing rock n roll around the pubs and clubs of the West Midlands.

After working hard to learn their craft, the group moved to the bright lights and the glittering paving stones of Putney, South West London. Here they shared a house with other strange artistic people/creatures including a mad cat called ‘Blackfoot’. By the early seventies the guys were known  as ‘The Gift’ and playing around the London scene. For various reasons,they migrated North across the Thames to Hounslow, West London- where they have more or less settled to this day.

In Hounslow they were regulars at the Windsor castle pub (they later called it the ‘Star Wars’ pub because of all the weird alien life-forms seen in the bar.) And it was at about this time that they started gigging as Blackfoot Sioux (simultaneously working as ‘The Gift’ to maximise bookings) They came up with a barnstorming anthem ‘Standing in the Road’ which they belted out at each of their shows. It is this song for which they are best known and it became a huge, huge success. They recorded the song and issued it on the Jam label- now using the newly spelt name Blackfoot Sue. After appearing on TOTP they instantly became every teen girls favourite pin-up.

The boys then carried on successfully recording and touring as Blackfoot Sue right up till the end of the era – circa 1975.  After a short spell as the entity ‘Blackfoot’ (without the Sue) the brothers (they lost Eddie along the way) decided to rebrand and reinvent themselves as a blue-eyed soul act called ‘Liner’. They had always loved the Motown sound and they knew that they could pull it off. Their vocal talents were not to be sniffed at. The twin brother’s voices are so similar that, to this day, they have a unique ability to sound as if they are a single singer multi-tracked. David takes the  slightly higher part. The harmonies are splendid.

After playing as the sweet soul sensation ‘Liner’ the band once again transmogrified itself back into a rock band – now calling themselves ‘Spoiler’ {also The Spoilers} and embarked on a very successful tour with Manfred Mann in 1986. In the mid 1990’s the band briefly revived as Blackfoot Sue before evolving into the hard working band we now know as Cry Wolf. Cry Wolf are thought of as a bit of a bikers band- I think because the logo looks great on the back of a Harley…and so they started to rely on some of the more ‘heavy’ rocker hits that the Angels love…AC/DC, ZZ Top that sort of thing.

The band now play with the awesome lead guitarist Pars Evrenos from Texas. At Staines Riverside Club Pars looked like a grand wizard of the strings with his long bible-black hair flowing down to his waist and always an explicit look of concentration on his face as he gently squeezed just one more exquisitely high note from his guitar.

The band are very tight and their accomplished vocal work places them in a different league to most other ‘pub rockers’.  The sounds are multi-layered and multi-faceted. I especially liked the fact that the band are able to put their own live interpretation onto a song without changing it completely. At Staines we enjoyed a note-perfect ‘All The Young Dudes’ but Pars gave the tune that extra push at the end, lifting the whole experience to a slightly higher place. Similarly, Pars’s superb solo on Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’ lifted and elated the audience and polished off a superb first half.

In the second half of the show, Cry Wolf rocked the world. First off, I noticed that a few old rockers got up and started to jive to a Black Sabbath number. Then, as the band started to really move hearts and minds (playing a Def Leppard cover)  I counted 16 people dancing. Dancing! In Staines Riverside club!  I ask you?

The band also played plenty of ‘newer’ songs (all covers, mind, not one Blackfoot Sue song in their 2008 repertoire) like ‘Song 2’ (Blur) and ‘How You Remind Me’ (Nickelback) .

All said, this was an excellent evening of musical entertainment from a band that has been there, seen it, done it and they have obviously got the T shirt!

And my pulse is still racing….

© Neil_Mach
Nov 2008

Links:

http://www.myspace.com/crywolfrockuk

http://www.myspace.com/garycrywolf

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When word came out that this book, Ian Hunter’s Diary Of A Rock And Roll Star (titled Reflections Of A Rock And Roll Star here in the States), would be published in 1974 I literally haunted books stores, record stores and head shops for several months until I finally came across a copy either at (faulty memory here) Camelot Music in Akron or Arsenic & Old Lace in Akron. I read it several times over the ensuing months and next several years and it took a proud slot in my library at the time.

The book was originally published in 1974 and Ian Hunter chronicles Mott The Hoople’s November-December 1972 tour of the United States right after All The Young Dudes LP was released. It’s an inside look at touring and the rock ‘n roll lifestyle in 1972 and Hunter…ahem…rolls away the stone and leaves everything exposed that entails life on the rock ‘n roll road. It was critically acclaimed.

Unfortunately by the end of the decade it was gone, loaned to an acquaintance to never be seen again despite having loaned it to over a dozen people in the preceding years (Mott The Hoople were big time in Orrville, OH back then, especially from 1972-1975).

Yet again, this game came out during my hiatus and has already been reviewed by a ton of magazines and the like. It’s considerably shorter and easier than other Guitar Hero games, and your only hope of liking the game depends on how much you like Aerosmith. Dur de dur. So with that being said, this post is going to be a combination of my take on the game and a take on the Wii version of the game.

Nobody’s Fault

First of all, a little about my Guitar Hero ability, to get some perspective on how easy the game is. I’m stuck on the last tier of Guitar Hero III (Raining Blood, Number of the Beast, One, Cliffs of Dover) on Hard, and just started Expert and so far can play through the first few tiers without much difficulty. Picking up Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, I decided to start out on Hard and hope that I wouldn’t get stuck. I think I got through without failing a song once, though a few restarts were necessary. I’ve started playing on Expert and haven’t gotten too far, but it’s more a result of a lack of free time than genuine difficulty. The vast majority of the songs aren’t too challenging (I got 100% on Dream On on Hard on my first try, and that’s the second last encore), and so far moving up from Hard to Expert hasn’t proved too difficult (the video above is on Expert, and I can only find one or two parts that differ at all from Hard, though I haven’t actually played that far yet).

As for the song list, it’s half Aerosmith, half other bands. Obviously, you’re only even going to consider buying this game if you like Aerosmith. I only have their O, Yeah! Ultimate Aerosmith Hits greatest hits album and I’ve heard Rocks, and that was enough for me to enjoy the track list, arguably more than Guitar Hero III’s track list. But that’s mostly a personal call. For me, I found that I liked most of the Aerosmith songs, and the game only got dull during the other songs like “Dream Police” or “All The Young Dudes”, which aren’t similar to Aerosmith by any stretch of the imagination and scream “POWER BALLAD!!!!” a little too loudly for me. Only four songs are covers and another four Aerosmith songs are re-recordings (by Aerosmith, don’t worry), including “Dream On” and “Mama Kin”, the latter of which has the “smoking tea” line edited down to “smokin’”, which kinda throws off the song musically, because it’s obvious there’s another word there.

Like Guitar Hero III, the animated story parts are incredibly lame, but are fortunately only at the beginning and end. Instead, there are brief interviews with the band in between tiers where they talk about the part of the band’s history the game loosely covers (it ignores the druggy stuff and break-up, but that’s understandable), though these are only worth seeing once.

Unfortunately, the band from Guitar Hero III makes a return as well, and are just as hideous as they were last time. There’s also a second guitarist added to make the band match five people like Aerosmith, and she’s just as ugly and jerky as the other characters, even if she does garner some diversity points. Another complaint is that buying guitars in the game seems kind of spotty, since I’ve bought a few that it won’t let me use.

It’s worth noting that, unlike GH III, there is no co-op career mode, which is lame. And some of the motion-cap is a little creepy, since it varies from Joe Perry’s mouth barely moving like he overdosed on botox to Steven Tyler’s mouth moving so loosely it looks like his lower jaw is in danger of falling off.

Also, the game has both the original and Run-DMC versions of “Walk This Way”:

Walk This Way

As far as the Wii version goes, I’m sure Wii owners will be happy to hear that they didn’t get shafted this time. The game is in stereo, there are a ton of special guitars I suspect weren’t in Wii’s GH III, and a few other additions, like extra animations for star power that I think were left out for the Wii version of GH III.

I’m not sure it’s the same for all versions, but the Wii version, graphically, looks rushed and pretty bad. There have been times where the crowd or band would be heavily pixilated, making the background look worse than N64 quality.

By far the biggest complaint against the game would have to be the price, especially for the Wii version. Paying $50 for the game is kind a stretch by itself, but a $100 game/guitar controller set is not only more expense than Guitar Hero III, even when it was new, but still too expensive, especially when you consider that the controller in the Wii version isn’t even wireless and doesn’t really have any excuse to cost as much as the PS3 and 360 versions.

Overall, it’s a pretty fun game, as long as you like Aerosmith, but it’s also worth waiting for the price to come down.

Billy Corgan was one of the guests to take the stage with Bowie at the latter’s 50 birthday show that was held at Madison Square Garden on January 19, 1997.

Ayer pude ver Juno. Hace unos días el blogeador nos habló de ella. Desde que vi ese post me dije tres cosas: 1.- Le debía un post a Ellen Page desde que la descubrí en X-Men III 2.- Tengo que hablar sobre el temazo del vídeo 3.- Esta peli hay que verla.  Finalmente decidí posponer lo primero y lo segundo a lo tercero.

Pues bien, ha llegado el momento:

Ellen Page

Como os he dicho, desde que vi a esta chica en X-Men III, pensé: “esta chica apunta maneras, habrá que seguirle de cerca”. Desde que he visto esta peli, puedo reafirmarme en que esta chica va a llegar muy lejos. Está nominada a la mejor actriz en los Oscar 2008. No he visto las películas de las otras cuatro nominadas, pero tengo claro que la noche del 24 de febrero apoyaré a Ellen, como está mandao.

All The Young Dudes

All the Young Dudes es una canción que escribió David Bowie para unos amigos suyos, los Mott The Hopple, el grupo de Ian Hunter, amigos todos ellos de Queen. Aunque ellos la popularizaron al ser los primeros en grabarla y publicarla en 1972, Bowie también la comenzó a cantar después. Yo la descubrí gracias a que la tocaron todos juntos en el concierto de homenaje a Freddie Mercury en 1992.

Juno

A ver por dónde empiezo. Es muy buena. Una bonita historia, real como la vida misma, con pinceladas dramáticas, muchos puntos cómicos, y buenas interpretaciones (la he visto en versión original). Además, tiene un buena banda sonora, con el punto culmen de All The Young Dudes. Por si fuera poco, la tía es una friqui de la música, y sabe de guitarras (la escena en que descubre la habitaciones con las guitarras no tiene precio). Aún así, el final me ha dejado un poco… no sé, no me lo esperaba así, y creo que es muy mejorable.

Está nominada en los Oscar 2008 a Mejor Película, Mejor Guión Original, Mejor Director (Jason Reitman) y Mejor Actriz (Ellen Page, como hemos comentado antes). Lo tienen complicado, aunque yo creo el Oscar a Mejor Guión Original se lo deberían dar. Lo tendrá que pelear con Michael Clayton, otro peliculón que vi en Navidad.

This is Bruce Dickinson playing All The Young Dudes, made famous by Mott The Hoople and written for them by David Bowie. Dickinson recorded a cover of this song for his first solo album: Tattooed Millionaire.