• XBox 360 - September 14th
• PS3 - October 19th
• Wii - November 18th

Hang in there virtual rockers. It seems far away now, but it’ll go by quicker than Rush trying to play Tom Sawyer on expert:

(Image found at Hexus.net)

• AC/DC - “Let There Be Rock” (Finally, AC EFFING DC!!!)
• Bob Dylan - “Tangled Up In Blue” (DYLAN!)
• Bon Jovi - “Livin’ on A Prayer” (my voice is going hoarse just thinking about how many times I’m going to sing this…)
• Guns N’ Roses - “Shackler’s Revenge” (from Chinese Democracy! Does this mean it’s actually coming out?)
• Metallica - “Battery” (Kick. Ass.)
• Modest Mouse - “Float On” (A little love for indie rock)
• Motörhead - “Ace of Spades” (LEMMY!)
• The Offspring - “Come Out & Play (Keep ‘Em Seperated)”
• Pearl Jam - “Alive” (Only “Yellow Ledbetter” would be better, but nobody knows the words)
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - “Give it Away” (Finally a good RHCP song)
• Survivor - “Eye of the Tiger” (Extra points if you put on American Flag shorts while you play…)

In addition to the asskicking tracklist, more details have surfaced about the instruments. You’ll be able to use your original Rock Band instruments with the new version, but naturally there are new toys to play with.

First there’s the new wireless Fender Strat guitar:

And the slightly over-the-top premium drum kit from Ion:

Some other fun facts:

• All your Dowloaded Content from the original Rock Band will work in the sequel
• There’s no studio to create your own songs like in Guitar Hero World Tour
• The interface is largely the same, with only a few minor visual tweaks

Rock Band 2 comes out in September for XBOX 360, and later in the year for Wii and PS3.

via StereoGum, Weekend Gamer, IGN, and NY Times.

Jeremy Bernstein and Adam Widoff form the basis of Stoney Clove Lane, and they bring an interesting mix of styles to the band. The end result is a mash of rock, folk, and funk that sounds familiar, but not in any way you can put your finger on. It’s kind of like what you would get if Bootsy Collins replaced Rick Danko in The Band. Or put banjos into P-Funk. Or something like that.

Earlier this year the band released their third album, Stay With Me on Woodstock Music Works. It’s a lean and mean offering, trimmed of all unnecessary ornamentation.

“Crawl”

The opener from Stay With Me shows some of the funk in Stoney Clove Lane.

“Chasing Rainbows”
This song epitomizes Stoney Clove Lane’s ability to sound familiar, yet with no obvious reference point. I’ve listened to this song about 10 times now, and while I like it, it’s driving me a little crazy that I can’t figure out who it sounds like.

Videos
Believe it or not I couldn’t find a single Stoney Clove Lane video. If anyone has one please leave a link in the comments or drop me a line.

Links
Buy Stay With Me
Official Site
MySpace
Woodstock Music Works

You may remember Metallica.  They’re that band that used to kick serious ass, then got really lame and bitter.  Well now they’re trying not to be so bitter (though they’re still lame…).  Billboard is reporting that Activision is going to release an edition of Guitar Hero featuring the band, much like the soon-to-be-released Aerosmith edition.  Metallica has had several songs included in various editions of Guitar Hero and Rock Band already, but this new version would focus on their music, and ostensibly music of other bands they choose to include.

Despite the fact that I really haven’t enjoyed or appreciated anything Metallica’s done in about 12 years, I’m pretty psyched about this.  If they get the majority of the good songs from Kill ‘Em All through Metallica (the black album) it should kick ass.  But let’s just all pretend St. Anger never happened, please?

The official title is Guitar Hero: World Tour and it’s due out October 27th. From the feature list it looks like they’ve taken everything from Rock Band and improved on it, plus added some stuff. Kick ass!

Watch the preview, then we’ll discuss:

More video, pictures, and a full feature list after the jump.

So what features do we get? Check out this list:

• Additional instruments: bass, vocals, and drums!
• All tracks by the real bands, no covers!
• All the instruments are wireless, even the drums!
• Eight player “Battle of the Bands” mode!
• Customizable avatars, guitars, and logos!
• Downloadable content for Wii!
• And the biggie: The Music Studio lets you create, edit, and share your own music!!!

That’s right virtual rockers, you can now create your own songs and share them with your friends! Check out this pictures that show you what the Music Studio looks like, plus how you can customize your character and gear:

The major hardware advancement in Guitar Hero: World Tour is definitely the drums. They take the concept from Rock Band and one-up it by moving the cymbals into a more realistic position. The drums are also velocity-sensitive, so the harder you hit them the louder the sound. This should come in handy when recording your own songs. Here’s a good look at what the drum set looks like:

And here’s a video preview of what the drums have to offer:

So now that you’re completely psyched to get a hold of this amazing game, what’s it going to cost? The full band kit, with guitar, microphone, drum set, and game will retail for $189.99. The guitar kit is $99.99 and will get you just the guitar and game. Finally, if you only want the game (assuming older guitars work with the new game), you can get that for $59.99 (or $49.99 on Wii and PS2).

Here’s the press release:

ACTIVISION UNVEILS GUITAR HERO® WORLD TOUR – THE DEFINITIVE ROCK & ROLL MUSIC VIDEOGAMING EXPERIENCE

New State of the Art Wireless Instruments

Innovative Music Studio Lets Players Compose, Record, Edit and Share Music

Biggest Selection of On-Disc Music with All Master Tracks

Robust New Eight-Player “Battle of the Bands” Mode

First Game Ever in the Guitar Hero® Franchise to Allow In-Game Downloadable Content on Wii

Santa Monica, CA – May 22, 2008 – When the house lights go down this fall, a new generation of axe shredders, drummers and fearless frontmen will come together and rock with Activision, Inc.’s (Nasdaq: ATVI) Guitar Hero® World Tour. The latest installment from the #1 best-selling video game franchise of 2007, Guitar Hero World Tour will transform music gaming by marrying Guitar Hero’s® exhilarating guitar gameplay, with a cooperative band experience that combines the most advanced wireless instruments with revolutionary new online and offline gameplay modes. The game will feature a slick newly redesigned guitar, a genuine electronic drum kit and a microphone, as well as an innovative Music Studio music creator that lets players compose, record, edit and share their own rock and roll anthems, along with online Band Career and 8-player “Battle of the Bands.”

Delivering the largest on-disc set list in a music-rhythm game to-date, Guitar Hero World Tour is comprised entirely of master recordings from some of the greatest classic and modern rock bands of all-time including Van Halen, Linkin Park, The Eagles, Sublime and many more. Additionally, the game will offer significantly more localized downloadable music than ever before on all of the next-generation consoles. Budding rock stars will also be given creative license to fully customize everything from their characters’ appearance and instruments to their band’s logo and album covers.

In addition to a newly designed more responsive guitar controller and microphone, Guitar Hero World Tour will deliver the most realistic drum experience ever in a video game with an authentic electronic drum kit. Featuring three drum pads, two raised cymbals and a bass kick pedal, the drum controller combines larger and quieter, velocity-sensitive drum heads with soft rubber construction to deliver authentic bounce back and is easy to set up, move, break down and store.

“Guitar Hero has set the standard for music-based gaming and with Guitar Hero World Tour and the game’s groundbreaking Music Studio, we are once again delivering unprecedented innovation that has the potential to revolutionize consumer generated music, much in the same way that video sharing hubs have driven user generated video,” said Dusty Welch, Head of Publishing for RedOctane. “With the introduction of our advanced high-quality new wireless instruments, in-depth customization options and advanced online functionality, the game enables music fans and gamers globally to share in the most social and expressive music experience ever.”

Guitar Hero World Tour delivers more ways to play than ever before. Virtual musicians can live out their rock and roll fantasies by playing either a single instrument, or any combination of instruments, in addition to the full band experience. In addition to all of the online gameplay modes from Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock, Guitar Hero World Tour introduces Battle of the Bands mode which allows eight players to join online and challenge each other band-to-band to determine who is the best of the best. In the Band modes, up to four players can jam together, online or off, as they progress through the game, and in single-player Career Mode, players can jam on any of the instruments in branching venue progression enabling them to rock out in the order of their choice.

The game’s innovative new Music Studio lets players express their musical creativity by giving them access to a full compliment of tools to create digital music from scratch, utilizing all of the instruments, and then play their compositions in the game. Music creators will also be able to share their recordings with their friends online through GHTunes™ where other gamers can download their unique compositions and play them.

Guitar Hero World Tour is being developed by Neversoft Entertainment for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system. The Wii™ version is being developed by Vicarious Visions. The PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system version is being developed by Budcat. The game is not yet rated by the ESRB.

via Engadget (twice), G4TV, Kotaku, and GameTrailers

I don’t even want to know how long this took to setup. It’s cool though, so props to the crazy dude who took the time.

Great job Jonathan. Though next time try to get better than 95% on the vocals…

Turns out Conan’s not a bad guitar player. Keep on Rockin’ in the Writer-Free World Conan!

Flickr user Eva Funderburgh has posted pictures along with instructions on how to make your own pixel cookies. Turns out the real secret is in standard Play Doh tools…

Check out all the pictures and instructions

NOTsoNOISY, a Swiss design company, used their time to create stop-motion videos of old school video games, using humans as the pixels. The description doesn’t do it justice, so just watch:

Tetris

Oddly captivating, isn’t it? I love the fact that someone’s doing the music a capella. Need more? NOTsoNOISY has done other games:

Space Invaders

Pole Position