(from www.rushisaband.com)

When I was stuck in Olympia WA last week, the saving grace of our stay was our gracious host Kirk Leonnard and his girlfriend Amy, and their guest room devoted to their Xbox 360, and more specifically, Rock Band. It was there that Kirty South and I found solace, singing and plucking our depression away to the likes of the Beastie Boys, The Marshall Tucker Band and Black Sabbath. We also discussed woman-repellent music including Canadian arena rock champions, Rush. Oh! If only we had access to the tracks that will be made available tomorrow. We would have driven poor Amy completely bonkers.

From B|W|R Public Relations:

Harmonix and MTV Games announced today additional Rush tracks will be available at the Rock Band™ Music Store catalog of downloadable content. On July 8th, air drummers and guitarists will rejoice when direct from the Rush Masters Vault the exclusive Rock Band versions of “Closer To The Heart” and “Working Man (Vault Edition)” (featuring never released alternative guitar solo) are made available for $1.99 per track (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft). Rush now have 5 songs available for Rock Band including cover versions of “Tom Sawyer,” “Limelight” and “Working Man,” almost a full-set by prog rock standards!

Also available are two amazing tracks from six-time Grammy® winning, multi-platinum funk rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers. “Snow ((Hey Oh))” and “Tell Me Baby” from their critically acclaimed ninth studio double album Stadium Arcadium will be available for $1.99 per track (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox LIVE Marketplace).

Release date: Tuesday, July 8, 2008 (Xbox LIVE Marketplace)
Thursday, July 10, 2008 (PLAYSTATION®Store)

Tracks:
From the RUSH Masters Vault:
“Closer To The Heart”
” Man (Vault Edition)”

Hot Chili Peppers
” ((Hey Oh))”
“Tell Me Baby”

(All tracks utilize the original master recordings)

Price: 1.99 (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox LIVE Marketplace) per track
Locations: LIVE Marketplace and PLAYSTATION®Network

** Dates for Rock Band game tracks are tentative and subject to change **

Who knew Jay-Z could play the guitar? Or cover Wonderwall? Do you dig it or hate it? I think he kinda skimped on the lyrics & the actual guitar playing.. but he looks good with it I guess.

So this weekend when I was hungover as fuck I was flipping through the music section of Comcast On-Demand passing on the typical pop shite when I came across something that struck me as highly improbable, a clip of Buckethead playing at some place called “The Cactus Club.” Buckethead is, of course, the former guitarist for post-Slash Guns N’ Roses, as well as a storied solo artist and co-conspirator of everyone from Bill Laswell to Les Claypool. He is probably best known for the fact that he wears a chicken bucket and a Kabuki looking mask at ALL TIMES (in fact, he lost a potential gig playing for Ozzy Osbourne because he wouldn’t take his bucket off). I of course, hit play and expected to see Buckethead doing his thing at some random 500-seat club in somewhere or another USA, but the clip turned out to be of a young Buckethead playing in someone’s backyard, from the recetly released and aptly-named Young Buckethead DVD. If you play guitar you will probably want to quit after watching if, and if you don’t play guitar you’ll probably never want to start. But if you still think you have what it takes after watching the clip, your next stop should be the legendary “Lesson” with an older but equally as weird Buckethead here.

For the second year in a row, Playboy and C3 put on a late night party at SXSW, and for the second year in a row, I was lucky enough to attend.

While last year, the party was housed in a giant warehouse-type thing in the middle of nowhere, this year’s event was right downtown at a giant warehouse-type thing at the corner of 3rd and San Jacinto. The line circled the block and even the media entrance was swarmed by 11 PM.

Inside, there seemed to be a new adventure tucked into every corner: free barbecue; free drinks; a room full of Port-A-Potties that also housed a Rock Band hooked up to a television the the back of a car and a well lit area with a backdrop for crucial drunken photo seshes. The people were fascinating to watch:

• There was a surly red-headed bartender. She admonished people for taking too long to order their drinks; allowed her “regulars” to skip in head of the line; and when a particularly douche-y party goer knocked over her stack of plastic cups, she fixed him with a steely glare and lectured, “Really dude? Really?” Yeah, dude. Really? One day I’m going to marry that girl.
• There was a couple–or just two like souls who found each other in an instance of pure serendipity–who boogied toward the back entrance. He was dressed in a low-cut, V-neck, red velour with white racing stripes. His humongous, curly hair was accented by a white headband, and his face wore one of the sweeter ironic moustaches I’ve seen during the trip. She was wearing skin-tight striped hot pants that could barely contain her luscious booty. Their choreography consisted of moves that my have been stolen from the Torrance Community Dance Group, and they were pretty darn fabulous.
• And I think I saw Elijah Wood.

There were bands, too. The Heavy played some songs, and they were kind of whatever. MGMT gave me a headache, but not in an awesome High on Fire sort of way. Justice started off at a throbbing cacophony and just started cranking shit louder and louder until brains started frying. That’s when shit really started going off. Moby played a DJ set, but I missed it (I’m kind of bummed about it now since we’re totally bros now), and by the time I got back (around 3:45 AM), the venue (slowly clearing out) was pumped so thick full of smoke (and I was so pumped thick full of whiskey) that my eyes started tearing. Cutting through the haze was difficult, but there were a ton of people on stage, how many, and who was actually DJing, I couldn’t tell. It looked like a lot, and they were back lit, which made it kind of creepy.

Luckily, they were still serving whiskey, and back by the photo sesh area, a woman with sweet guns (in addition to other things) interviewed Spencer. Swag included: a wristband, guitar pick, free magazine and a couple other things I’m not allowed to mention because they may be incriminating. Good time had? Oh yeah.

Valerie Bertinelli is currently drinking Eddie Van Halen’s Milkshake. Bertinelli recently broke her silence regarding the couple’s divorce and admitted that they split because they were both somewhat busy cheating on each other.

The Van Halen / Bertinelli divorce was finalized in December (just in time for Xmas) after 26 years of marriage.
“I cheated — He claims to this day that I cheated first, but I don’t know. I don’t know about the timing.” She’ll be detailing guitar solos, cheating, cocaine usage, hooking up with Steven Spielberg, being super hot back in the day, that other chick from One Day at a Time and Oprah (and her continued quest from world wide domination).

When asked she choose to divulge such personal details at this stage of her life Bertinelli said “I just figured, if they’re going to watch me lose 40 pounds and I’m going to be embarrassed that way, and there’s going to be fat-ass pictures of me with my butt hanging out in Hawaii, I thought, ‘Why not let the inner me out, too?’ Because the inner me is, I hope, prettier than the outer me.”

Did I mention she wrote a book too? I’m sure she’ll be plugging that as well…

Maybe the news of the Oprah appearance is why that show at the John Paul Jones Arena got cancelled… fuck it - might as well Jump:

Sometimes people send cool shit to Synthesis for review. A few weeks ago we got to play around with the Centerfold Guitar by DeVillian guitar company out of Sweden.

It’s a hand made guitar that folds in half for easy transport. It’s also a heavy devil and industrial as fukk. VideoMatt took some footage of me giving it the once over.