Guitar Hero

The Six Most Uncomfortable Lyrics In Songs Kids Like

Since the dawn of pop music, there has always been a dissonance between the music kids listen to and the content of the lyrics within. This can make an adult cringe when a child enjoys a song with an inappropriate lyric, especially one he or she does not understand. Here are the six most uncomfortab ... More >>

Rock Band DLC Shuts Down: How A Geek Sport Briefly Became A Party Phenomenon

Rock Band is over. Well--kind of over. It's been "over" in the people-who-wouldn't-otherwise-touch-a-Playstation-caring-about-it sense since a few months after Beatles Rock Band came out, but now it's "over" inasmuch as after April 2, when "American Pie" will be released (nice timing), developer Har ... More >>

No, Playing Guitar While Singing 'Renegade' Isn't Karaoke

Karaoke can be a dangerous endeavor. What can you sing that won't make friends shun you? How can you go balls-out during your next performance? Each week in "Ask a Karaoke Host," RFT Music writer and professional karaoke host Allison Babka answers your burning questions about maximizing your melodio ... More >>

Between the Rock of Snark and the Hard Place of Crap: Two Meditations On Negativity In Music

Art and life co-habitate, informing, imitating, and enriching each other constantly. Each week in Better Living Through Music, RFT Music writer Ryan Wasoba explores this symbiotic relationship. 1. I saw The Wall this weekend for the first time, at the Wildey Theater in Edwardsville. I've always bee ... More >>

Music Is Not A Sport

Art and life co-habitate, informing, imitating, and enriching each other constantly. Each week in Better Living Through Music, RFT Music writer Ryan Wasoba explores this symbiotic relationship. Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen is kicking ass in the Olympics, and doing it efficiently as to minimize drag i ... More >>

The Six Best Effect-Enhanced Guitar Solos

Ever since prehistoric man hit a stick and a rock together and thought "I bet that would sound sweet through a delay pedal," musicians have craved new sonic avenues for their instruments. Here are the six best effect-enhanced guitar solos, including the time in which each solo begins. Let us know wh ... More >>

Music Games Decline to Rage Against the Censorship Machine

Censorship is one of music's longer running conflicts, a struggle where the desire for marketability often trumps creative freedom. That's been the case for every music video game in existence, titles that constantly walk the aforementioned tightrope. One of the more challenging songs to appear in ... More >>

The Glee Treatment: "Fuck That Shit" and Five Other Rejections From Bands

Regardless of what anybody thinks about the actual program, there's no disputing that Glee has become an absolute juggernaut in the music industry. As of October 2011, songs from the show have been downloaded 36 million times. And during that same time period, 11 million physical albums that have be ... More >>

Ten Music Game DLC Releases That Stirred Up Controversy

It's not hyperbole to say that downloadable content sparked a huge revolution in console video gaming. Expansions prolonged replay value of many titles, especially music games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero. The Rock Band franchise in particular has produced an impressive amount of downloadable ... More >>

Rock Band Blitz Takes Music Game Genre Back to Basics

Recent music games have become opulent affairs, pulling out all the artistic stops to capture gamers' attention spans. The Beatles: Rock Band for instance was a beautiful visualization of the legendary group's music, complete with dazzling virtual representations of the Fab Four. And various iterati ... More >>

The Best of Covers of Mario Paint, Unlikely Video Game Composition Forefather

Mario is a versatile video game character. In his long career in the digital world, Mario raced go-karts, fought adversaries in hand-to-hand combat and even got kidnapped to teach kids about geography. Yet Nintendo's plumber extraordinaire may have inadvertently been a trailblazer in the realm of v ... More >>

Rock Band Delivers its Most Requested Song Ever: "Never Gonna Give You Up"! No, Seriously.

Any DJ, cover band or organ grinder can attest to how touchy people can get when a requested song isn't played. The blowback can be even more harsh when the musical entity in question is Harmonix, the creator of the Rock Band video game franchise. Even though music gaming experienced some discerni ... More >>

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

8 p.m. Tuesday, May 31. The Old Rock House, 1200 South Seventh Street.

Celebrity living has its downside in Somewhere

From party girl to Oscar winner, Sofia Coppola's journey to Somewhere

10 Things to Do This Saturday if You Don't Celebrate Christmas

RFT layout editor Kholood Eid contributed to this post. image via​In case you've been living under a rock, you probably know that this Saturday is Christmas Day, a time for joy and family and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. But what if you are joyless or family-less or see no reason to ... More >>

How Defunct Columbia Band Audio Ammunition Came to Appear on Rock Band

In addition to being a blast to play at parties, music video games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero are a great marketing tool for bands. They allow artists to expose their work to new audiences -- and, in some cases, highlight the intricacies of their songs. And with the advent of the Rock Band Ne ... More >>

Ronnie's Kids

Today, "amnesty" is a dirty word. So what happened to the immigrants given a fresh start by Reagan in 1986?

Blitzen Trapper

8 p.m. Monday, June 21. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue.

Pale Divine: What Have They Been Up to in 2009?

In this week's paper, the members of Pale Divine were kind enough to indulge questions about their favorite cover songs -- you see, their second-annual reunion show tonight at the Pageant will feature them doing two sets and tons of old covers. But the band's been quite busy in the last year since w ... More >>

KSHE Klassics -- A YouTube Compendium (Part 1)

​In this week's issue, Annie Zaleski heralds the arrival of In Concert: KSHE and 40 Years of Rock in St. Louis, a scrapbook of the area's latter-day music history. Reading "Raised on Radio" put a few of us locals in a nostalgic state of mind, inspiring an e-mail frenzy of the KSHE Klassics o ... More >>

Review Setlists: Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson at GCS Ballpark, Thursday, July 2

Everything looked bad but the weather. I crawled through traffic in parts of Cahokia and Sauget that will never make a John Mellencamp small town video. I stared at the lines snaking around the GCS Ballpark half an hour before show time. I forked out $10 for the pleasure of later waiting an hour to ... More >>

Spotted: Aerosmith's Joe Perry -- In Front of the RFT's Offices

Sometime this afternoon, a big huge bus parked itself outside the RFT's offices on Delmar. Emblazoned on the side of the vehicle in fiery colors were logos for Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, a painted caricature of guitarist Joe Perry and his website, JoePerry.com. We're so conditioned to weird things in t ... More >>

Aerosmith

7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 10. Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, 14141 Riverport Drive, Maryland Heights.

The Curse of Alternative Nostalgia and the Class of '93: A Response to the Chicago Sun-Times' Article

The Chicago Sun-Times’ blog recently published an interesting piece by noted music critic Jim DeRogatis, in which he attempts to prove that ‘90s Alternative Nation darlings (and specifically Chicago acts Urge Overkill, Veruca Salt, Liz Phair and Smashing Pumpkins) resemble the baby-boomer acts t ... More >>

I Need a Hero: In honor of Smashing Pumpkins' twentieth anniversary, a list of Billy Corgan's top ten guitar heroes

St. Louis Video: The Beatles, 1966

Interview: Kai Huang, CEO of RedOctane, a.k.a. The Company Behind Guitar Hero

Last Night: Guitar Hero at the Tin Can, St. Louis

Guitar Hero and Rock Band give new meaning to "rock and roll excess"

Guinness writes the book on gaming, but doesn't shatter any records

B-Sides catches up with Lou ex-pat Black Spade and finds out how Black Moutain manages to rock so hard

Gaming for Good

Axes to Grind

The Guitar Hero frenzy careens toward overkill.

Almost Famous

It's never been easier to start your own (fake) band.

Shred Cred

You wanted the best — you got the best: Guitar Hero III.

Daily Web Crawl

Punk is Finally, Truly, Absolutely, Completely Dead

Prepare for Burnination!

Jazzercise

B-Sides covers, well, the covers repertoire of the Bad Plus and learns about Todd Mosby's newfangled imratgitar.

Encore Performance

Don't fret. Guitar Hero II kills the opening act.

Puddle of Fun

LocoRoco is the perfect one-night stand.

Beat Down

This DJ simulator is nothing to rave about.

The Slip

Wednesday, March 29 at 9 p.m. Cicero's (6691 Delmar Boulevard, University City).

Guitar Hero

Guitar Hero cranks rhythm-gaming up to 11.