Guitar Hero

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Love and Robots in Death and the Powers: The Robots' Opera

In Tod Machover's new opera, Death and the Powers , high technology meets high anxiety
A third of the way through the opera Death and the Powers: the Robots' Opera , the leading man becomes a machine.
By CHRIS DAHLEN | March 18, 2011

Soundgarden | Telephantasm

A&M Records (2010)
Aside from an unfortunate crop of John Graham art making the cover look like one of those three-wolf-moon T-shirts, Telephantasm is a solid retrospective for a Seattle metal band who got wrapped up in flannel.
By MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER | October 05, 2010

Review: Green Day: Rock Band

Repeat, repeat
Activision has pumped out rhythm games centered on a single band — Aerosmith, Metallica, and Van Halen have all had their own Guitar Hero . Harmonix has offered only The Beatles: Rock Band . Until now.
By MADDY MYERS | June 24, 2010

Greatest video-game tragedies of the last decade

Zeroes from the Aughts
Here are some of our favorite anti-victories of the past 10 years, in rough chronological order.
By LASER ORGY | January 20, 2010

Sexiest video-game studs of 2009

The cream of the crop
Video-game characters get more realistic all the time - and by more realistic, we mean sexier. This year offered a plethora of digital delights and graphical innovations, and although developers don't cater to their straight female and gay male audience nearly as much as they could, we still had no shortage of contenders for this list.
By MADDY MYERS | December 18, 2009

The Big Hurt: 10-year glitch

The Big Hurt: A major decade for music — minus the music
It boggles the mind that as recently as a decade ago, if you wanted to hear "Knockin' da Boots" by H-Town (and you did, believe me), you'd have to perform a primitive prayer ritual: you'd call some creepy guy with a really deep voice and beg him to play it, then wait by your radio for an hour in the hope that he'd answer your plea.
By DAVID THORPE | December 15, 2009

Tech Support

Stereo equipment is so passé. This year's unnecessarily awesome gadgets will stir coffee and turn T-shirts into guitars.
"Lo! Men have become the tools of their tools." So wrote Henry David Thoreau, a long time ago, in Walden .
By MIKE MILIARD | December 08, 2009

Review: DJ Hero

Hit the decks in DJ Hero
Shortly after DJ Hero ’s release, a couple of craiglist ads popped up from gamers claiming they’ll plug in and play the game at your party for $75 — all you have to provide is the TV and the speakers.
By MADDY MYERS | November 12, 2009

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Review: Couples Retreat

Couples (and everyone else), retreat.
This movie has the power to make any date feel as endless and soul-sucking as the lifetime’s worth of defective, hateful marriages that doom the film’s protagonists.
By SHAULA CLARK | October 14, 2009

By | January 01, 0001

Game Review: The Beatles: Rock Band

Don't meet the Beatles — be them
Can we agree that the music-game market is saturated? To stand out in this crowd, you'd need something special. You'd need the Beatles.
By MITCH KRPATA | September 09, 2009

Review: It Might Get Loud

Davis Guggenheim films his essay on the electric guitar
Some guitar teachers will tell you there’s a right way and a wrong way to play the guitar. But Davis Guggenheim’s rousing new documentary, It Might Get Loud, reminds us that that’s not true at all.
By MIKE MILIARD | August 27, 2009

Players only

A peek inside the world of Harmonix
Jessica Smith has spent years booking death-metal shows around Boston. On top of loads of meat-and-potatoes nights at O'Brien's in Allston and Dee Dee's in Quincy, two of her shows — Origin and Malevolent Creation — actually sold out the Middle East upstairs.
By MATT PARISH | August 24, 2009

The Big Hurt: Broken bones and stripper poles

The Big Hurt: Music news in brief
Only a few weeks ago, I was making fun of Aerosmith for their inability to present Aerosmith in their Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Presents Aerosmith tour.
By DAVID THORPE | August 18, 2009

The Big Hurt: MJ murder mystery, Aerosmith injuries

Music News in Brief
Much as I hate to bring up Michael Jackson again, I was intrigued by sister La Toya's allegations that he was knocked off for his publishing assets.
By DAVID THORPE | July 22, 2009

Review: Guitar Hero: Smash Hits

Guitar Hero does its greatest hits
When evaluating a new Guitar Hero — or any music-related game — it helps to picture a Venh Diagram consisting of three circles: "Good Songs," "Challenging Songs," and "Songs that are fun to play on plastic instruments."
By RYAN STEWART | July 13, 2009

By | January 01, 0001

Guitartyrs?

Some unsung Brit guitar heroes
From the late '70s to the late '80s, Anglophile guitar rock went through a strange period of adjustment following the Year Zero history eradication brought on by capital-P Punk and its subsequent slaying of the Guitar Hero.
By DAN BROCKMAN | June 23, 2009

Revival of the fittest

The deep, dark Americana of the Low Anthem
While we all snoozed on eggnog during the 2007 holidays, Jeff Prystowsky and the rest of the Low Anthem were shacked up in a rickety old house on Block Island, a deserted little hamlet full of empty summer cottages off the coast of Rhode Island.
By MATT PARISH | June 08, 2009

Review: Buckethead, Wolff at Asylum

Buckethead and Wolf, live at Asylum on May 27, 2009
Little is known about the masked maniac called Buckethead. According to his mythology, he was raised in a chicken coop next door to a drive-in theater, and the bucket he wears on his head contains cursed chicken bones that give him his supernatural guitar-shredding powers.
By DAN CLARK | June 03, 2009

Inventing the Future

At MIT's fabled Media Lab, some will change the world with robots and computers, others with . . . Wii guitars
Has Boston found the new Eric Clapton? A shimmying, face-contorting successor to Yngwie Malmsteen? Not exactly.
By ABIGAIL JONES | May 13, 2009

Into the darkness

Riding shotgun on Route .44's lonesome highway
The new release from Route .44, This is My America (Blue Radio Records), provides further insight into lead singer Ian "Lefty" Lacombe's affinity for the dark side, as the enigmatic southpaw guitarist delves even deeper than on the acclaimed 2'07 debut, Worthless Lessons .
By CHRIS CONTI | May 05, 2009