People We Think Are Bamas Part IV

Without delay, here is this week's PWTAB.

This week's bama: Dudes that Review Bands for Rock Magzines (DRBRMs)

Hey guy, what did you study in school?  Music Theory?  Oh, you didn't?  You went to journalism school and went to concerts and wrote about them for your school paper which came out once a week and like 4 people took seriously but most of the students just turned to the joke page where the faculty advisor would allow anything because he was all overly liberal and thought that free expression entailed a cartoon of the dean doing a beer bong hit with his pants around his ankles peeing on an alumni parade before a football game?

You're a bama bruh.  

'The album's first track desperately seeks some grounding in the synthetic pop of the hey-day of the genre but has an unkeptness that debilitates its' introspective and poignant lyrics.  The intense marksmanship of the haunting bass line provides a melodrama into the transience of the band's core epistemological quest at self discovery but sadly falls short of the grand decoverte.'

The first song has decent lyrics but isn't that good.  Wow.  You herb.  Who does that?  Seriously?

WTF.edu?  Hey maybe if I overly complicate my snooty prose, I'll get taken seriously even though there is a 90% chance I'm a failed musician that will sit around and talk seriously with my other bama chums (note: bamas have chums) about the insipid nature of the music industry and whine about the lack of great bands these days?

Hi, I'm part of the problem, nice to meet you too.  What's that?  Yeah, I am that guy that writes those snarky reviews of bands in magazines that 8 people read.  What's that?  No I know you can't judge art and as much as I like or dislike something I know there are just as many people out there who feel the exact opposite... no I know that makes me a bagadouche.

So, did you dig the article?

We sure did bama.  Talk to you never.

Rock Band vs Guitar Hero vs Video Games

Here's the World Series of 'crossover' video games: Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero.  

What's a crossover game?  Great question interested reader.  A crossover game is a video game that makes people who don't normally play video games, want to play.  It's the ultimate goal of tons of industries to achieve crossover.  When something moves from niche to pop culture, someone gets rich.

Example: Who's Tim Gunn?

You know don't you?  I know.  There is absolutely no reason you should know who this guy is.  

He doesn't do anything that affects a single person who would ever read this blog.  And yet, we can all spout off a catch phrase.

What's the point?  The point is, games like RB and GH, while fun, are really about something else.  They are about a bunch of fairweather, johnny-come-lately, casual fans sauntering into my dojo and telling me that fear exists.  Umm bruh?  Fear does not exist in this dojo.

So, while I enjoy playing some Rock Band with some friends in a social setting, I don't like what it stands for.  Gus Johnson's Whisper, like Gus Johnson himself, is a gamer.  I don't play video games with chicks in the room.  I don't want to play something that Julie can be decent at.  I sit alone in a dark, cool, and calm place trying to rescue princesses.  That's how I roll.  What's that?  Zelda is in trouble?  No problem.  I'm in because the cartridge is gold.

Huh?  Sephiroth is loose?  Lemme get a group together.

Does that tomb look raided to you?  Me neither.  I'll raid it with the hot chick that isn't crazy.

 

There are others like me.  You can call them old school.  You can call them dorks (GJW note: there is a difference between a dork and a nerd.  A nerd is good academically and follows the rules.  A dork is someone, like me, who can tell you things like this: Yoda uses a form of light saber combat called Ataru, the names of the next door neighbors on Alf were Trevor and Raquel Okmanek (sp), the 1987 Minnesota Twins batting order was most often 1-Dan Gladden 2-Greg Gagne 3-Kirby Puckett 4-Kent Hrbeck 5-Gary Gaetti 6-Roy Smalley 7-Tom Brunansky 8-Steve lombardozzi 9-Sal Butera/Tim Laudner.  No disrespect to Al Newman who got a ton of ABs as a platoon guy.).

We'll put on our smiley face and strum the guitar but we want you to see these games for what they are.  The game developers want casual fans.  Do we?  I just don't know.