Get Played - Game and Tell: Guitar Hero with Zane Carney

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Nick and Matt are joined by return guest Zane Carney to talk all about the Guitar Hero series, a melted analogue pocket, the most streamed video game soundtracks and more! This month's We Play, You Play: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Check out Get Anime'd, our Patreon exclusive show on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored by Blue Chew. Let's talk about sex. Guys, remember the days when you were always ready to go? Now you can increase your performance and get that extra confidence in bed. Listen up. BlueChew.com. Blue Chew is a unique online service that delivers the same active ingredients as Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra, but in chewable tablets and at a fraction of the cost. You can take them anytime, day or night,

so you can plan ahead or be ready whenever an opportunity arises. The process is simple. Sign up at BlueChew.com, consult with one of their licensed medical providers, and once you're approved, you'll receive your prescription within days. The best part? It's all done online. So no visits to the doctor's office, no awkward conversations, and no waiting in line at the pharmacy. BlueChew's tablets are made in the USA and prepared and shipped direct to your door in a discreet package. Does it work? Don't think you need it? Try it free for a month and see. You could be missing out on the best sex of your life,

and they say there's nothing sexier than confidence, and Blue Chew can help give you confidence where it counts. Blue Chew wants to help you have better sex. Discover your options at bluechew.com. Chew it and do it. And we've got a special deal for our listeners. Try Blue Chew free when you use our promo code GETPLAY to check out. Just pay $5 shipping. That's bluechew.com, promo code GETPLAY to receive your first month free. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring the podcast. All right, look. Guitar Hero, we're bringing it back.

All right? Hell yeah. This is going to be huge. This is going to be great. But this is great for us, but even with Microsoft's muscle, we can't really, we're not bringing back all the songs.

We can't afford them. Yeah, we kind of ended up in licensing hell here with some of these. For instance, you know, Ace of Spades by Motorhead. That was just such a song people loved. Unfortunately, the Lemmy estate has said that we can't use it. So it's out, unfortunately. Yeah, no.

And the song Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult. Yeah, great track. Blue Oyster Cult said yeah, but the Godzilla estate said no. Yeah, I mean, because they had to license his rights. That was a whole thing. Fat Lip is out some 41 song. So Ozzy apparently vetoed both Iron Man from Black Sabbath and Bark at the Moon, his solo song.

Unfortunately, those are both out. Franz Ferdinand, they said take me off the list because they didn't want us to use take me out yeah and the donnas also said take it off meaning their song they said take it out yeah it was weird because like franz ferdinand was like take me off and the donnas were like take it out yeah we were like what is that they're like yeah we'll just we don't use our songs those ones are out and then they got mad at us because we were like well you guys should switch what you should switch what you said and they were like, what is that? They were like, yeah, we don't use our songs. Those ones are out, unfortunately. And then they got mad at us because we were like, well, you guys should switch what you said. You should switch what you said.

And they were like, why are you giving us shit? We're not going to be in your game anyway. We're definitely not going to be in it now. So, unfortunately, those are out. Killer Queen, you know, Queen had that movie. And a lot of the rights to their catalog actually went to the movie studio. So, we can't use that anymore. I got a confusing email from Judas Priest.

Because they said, you've got another thing coming and i was like okay well they're gonna send us a different song yes it was actually a cease and desist order exactly yeah so unfortunately we can't use their music uh incubus uh stellar unfortunately not gonna not gonna be a stellar fit for the show for the game but unfortunately it's not gonna be anymore no uh anymore. No. And then Helmet Unsung is unfortunately going to remain unsung in the new Guitar Hero reboot because we can't use it.

Yeah, we can't use it at all. it's just... What is Guitar Hero without these classic songs? Yeah, it's a big issue. And I've thought about it a lot, and here's the thing. We may not have gotten really the rights to any of the songs from the original Guitar Hero, but we got the rights to a new song that I think is going to blow everyone away.

Yeah, and I've actually done some... You okay? No, I'm just getting really emotional just thinking about it. I've done some testing on the song, and just some internal testing with the layout and how it plays in the game, and I think that this is maybe the hardest song we've ever put in the game ever, in both terms of difficulty in playing and it goes hard. Yeah, it makes a dragon force look like kitten force.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Through the fire and the flames, that's kid shit is what I'm talking about over here. Should we just play it? Here we go. It's too hard! It's too hard, I'm telling you! We jam on our plastic fretboards and activate our star power as we game and tell the Guitar Hero franchise, this week on Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played.

I'm Nick Weiger, along with Matt Abadaka. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Get Played. Matt, once again, Heather is not with us. She will be out for the next couple of weeks taking care of some stuff. Yeah. But we've got a great lineup of guests, including today, that are going to be accompanying us in her absence.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're pulling out all the stops. Pulling out all the stops. Not one stop remains. Is that a music thing? That's like an organ thing, pulling out all the stops of an organ? Let's ask our guest. Or is it like, could it also be like removing all the stop signs on a street.

On a train track or something. Yeah, so you can fucking just go for it. Just barrel on through, yeah. Oh, yeah, on a train track, pulling out all the stops, so we're just like making a direct route. It's an express line all of a sudden. That's interesting. It could have been a chicken and the egg situation, too. It could have been, you know, both at a certain point.

I'm going to search for some etymology right now. I mean, this is exactly what the listeners want. They're losing their minds. I know someone listening right now is screaming, it's from this. And we're the big dipshits. Okay. It was a pipe organ. It is removing all of the stops of a pipe organ.

And that regulates an instrument sound. I'm reading here from dictionary.com. The stop knobs on a pipe organ are used to regulate the instrument sound by selecting which set of pipes are active at a given time. Each pipe plays a note and the organ's pipes are arranged in sets. An organ might have 10 ranks. Okay, okay, okay, okay. To follow the stops is to pull every knob out so that air is allowed to blast through every rank as the organist plays, which creates a powerful blast of unfiltered sound. Hopefully not every knob, if you know what I mean.

Jesus Christ. Let's take it easy. Yeah, it's a holy place. It's the house of God. So, yeah, Heather's going to be out for the next couple of weeks. But we're going to keep plowing away here. We're going to continue to pull out all the stops. But we're going to keep plowing away here.

We're going to continue to pull out all the stops, including next week where we're going to be talking about Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty for our We Play, You Play. That's when we dedicate a whole episode to one game we're all playing. That's coming next Monday, October 30th. And I can say it right now, our guest is Sean Diston. He's going to join us. Confirmed. And guess what, Sean?

If you're listening to this, you better not back out. Yeah, we're going to look like real assholes if you cancel on us now. No, he was very excited to join us. Confirmed. And guess what, Sean? If you're listening to this, you better not back out. Yeah, we're going to look like real assholes if you cancel on us now. No, he was very excited to come on. We're thrilled to have him back on. That's right. And thrilled to have today's guest on. Return to the show,

our friend Zane Carney. Hi, Zane. Hey, guys. How you doing? Doing great. First time in person. Yeah, we just met. Yeah, that's true.

We had an embrace in the elevator. Yeah, it was awesome. I liked that. Is that true? Because I remember you've guested on, it's been a few years since you've had an embrace in the elevator. Yeah, it was awesome. I liked that. Is that true? Because I remember you've guested on, it's been a few years since you've been guesting on the show. Yeah, three times. But I guess it was all on Zoom. It was all virtual.

Because we have met in person at our friend's wedding. Exactly. Yeah, you weren't there. That's right. Oh, yeah. I guess I wasn't invited. Oops. Son of a.

Awkward. Yeah. That's okay. Yeah. You can't go to every wedding. Also, the of a. Awkward. Yeah. That's okay. Yeah. You can't go to every wedding. Also, the full stop thing, that is true. And it's weird because some of the stops are harmonic intervals in between the octaves. So you can pull out certain stops where you get all octaves, and then there's two or three

in the middle where it's like five-eighths of the octave. Very strange. Okay, well, let's get into it, Zane. Have you messed around with organs before? I have. You're getting your hands dirty in there. Yeah, I have a Farfisa E-type organ that I picked up on my actual street. I live in a suburban neighborhood.

Wow. Address is 440. But I picked it up because someone was getting rid of it from their house, and I just carted it back to my house. It was very actually heavy and stressful. But yeah, I have this organ that 85% to 90% works, and I use it on recordings. Wow.

Someone was just like, I don't want this organ anymore and like left it out with a garbage. Yeah, it kind of felt like, I hope it's okay I took it, but it felt like maybe someone died and they're like, oh, we don't need this crap anymore. Yeah, yeah, maybe case.

Really cool. I mean, it's- Best case scenario, somebody passed away and just left it out outside. Yeah, fingers crossed. But yeah, I play organ and I'm close friends with a guy named Charles Jones. He used to be my roommate.

He's like, for any listeners who listen to Andra Day or Joss Stone or Scary Pockets, Volf Peck, he sings with them. He plays with these people. Wow. He's like, in my opinion, the best organist alive right now. Wow. And so I've watched him work and been like, oh man, how do you know which stop to push in

for this one chord in this one part of the song? It's remarkable. What are those ones that are like, those like funny ones? Like the handheld? No.

The concertina? That they have like all the like, they have like, you know, like little things that are like, woo, woo.

Those are crazy. Those are awesome. What are those called? I don't know, but every time I see one, I'm like, woo, woo. Those are crazy. Those are awesome. What are those called? I don't know, but every time I see one, I'm like, this is... Why did they do that? You sounded like Otto lobbying for how to spend the Springfield Elementary budgets. You know those guitars that are like double guitars? Yeah.

One of those funny organs. They have gears on them and stuff, and then they make different kind of funny noises. Maybe they have a train whistle on it or something. Yeah. They have like, yeah, like gears on them and stuff. And then they make different kind of funny noises. Maybe they have like a train whistle on it or something. They're funny. Very funny. My knowledge of organs is like, you know, I've obviously seen the church organ. But like is like the digital versions, like a Roland or a, because I don't know if synths and organizers are in the same, or organs rather. I just took synthesizer and organ and made it into organizer.

That could be cool. Yeah, it's not a real portmanteau. Different word. But organs, like the synthier organs, are those kind of in the same, do they use the same principle or is it all electronic? Yeah, and I don't play piano that well or keyboards, but I have a lot of friends who play Nord, those like red keyboards. Okay. And Charles likes using them for the tone. This whole podcast is going to be about Charles Jones.

That's great. You know what? Zane, why don't you just get Charles in here? Yeah, I should. He would be the best guest. He's the best. I'm going to send this podcast to him and be like, I talked about you. But yeah, the thing is on the Nord, to change the stops,

you have to press this black button button on top that like scrolls through and cycles through which stops. So it's messy. He loves to just pull in and out and maybe we'll talk about it later, I guess now, I don't know, but, um, I'm doing this, uh, gig on October 30th. I don't know when this episode comes out, but, uh, yeah, we're my band, Evan and Zane, we're playing at Zebulon and this is a band I have with Evan Rachel Wood, her and me. That's cool. Yeah, my band, Evan and Zane, we're playing at Zebulon. And it's this band I have with Evan Rachel Wood. Oh, hell yeah. Her and me. That's cool.

And we do these theme-based shows. And this theme is Halloween. And our organist is Charles Jones. Wow. And he's truly the best. So we're spending like half our budget on renting an organ for him. Wow. Because it's just he needs to be on a real one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can't be a Nord. No offense to Nord, but yeah. But yeah, the digital stuff's interesting. I mean- CEO of Nord is a Patreon subscriber. Yeah, exactly. What would I do? I've been supporting you guys for the digital stuff's interesting. I mean- CEO of Nord is a Patreon subscriber. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What would I do? I've been supporting you guys for years. That's amazing. That's amazing. But yeah, no, him on an organ with like a three-stop organ where it goes between slow fast and then there's a middle stop and like a Leslie. It's a holy experience. We're giving him like eight solos during the night and he's opening for us for half an hour of just spooky Halloween music.

Wow. during the night and he's opening for us for half an hour of just spooky Halloween music. And he's part of the band for us so he wears skull makeup.

Like our entire band has skull makeup on. Yeah. Sorry. And so he'll just be this skull face dude on an organ for half an hour

opening the set. Yeah, he's the best. And that's cool. It's just like video games, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so video games. It's like,

because you know, you can change your outfit in video games. Yes, you can. Yeah, you can buy it for a fee. That's awesome. All right,

here's a, we have a lot of music-based video gaming to talk about. We're going to get to that in a second. But I'm just going to clunkily segue

into the question we always ask at the top of each show, Zane, which is, what are you playing? Oh, by the way, I was going to do

the Resident Evil voice. I forgot. I was going to do like, but then I thought I'd get in trouble if I interrupted. No, no, no. I don't think the Resident Evil merchant is here, so you're probably saying that you're unimpressed. Hey, guess what? I'm his brother. Larry. God damn joke. He gets all

the love. I'm a New Yorker. Shit. Yeah, man. We love him. Larry's a union pipe fitter. Yeah, yeah. Yahtzee. Hey, Local 1. Shit. Yeah, man. We love him. Larry's a union pipe fitter. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yahtzee. Hey, local one.

Broadway type stuff. I don't sell, I buy. I'm a seller. I'm a buyer. He's a shadow boy. He's a shadow boy. No, so yeah, I'm playing a couple things right now. I have in the studio right now a glow-in-the-dark analog pocket.

Yeah, it looks cool as hell. Yeah, and I brought a UV light to shine on it, but it wouldn't really show in this bright room. But, yeah, I don't know how many of these sold, like 500, 1,000? Yeah, it was sort of a more limited run, but yours seems to have some sort of issue. Oh, my God, I'm an idiot. So, yeah, I bought the thing. Unfortunately, I missed the actual window to buy. I woke up at 7.45 a.m.

I had my laptop and my cell phone or my computer. Sorry, guys. Let me make sure I tell you the truth on which one it was. I'm so sorry. This is going on the record. So I had two IP addresses or something looking, and at 7.59 a.m., after refreshing every second, it said, hey, no thanks.

You can't log in anymore. You're doing something sneaky. I'm like, well, then how do the scalpers do it? Yeah. So I scrambled and I tried it on my phone. It said, nope, same IP. I'm like, no, no, no. And then I went into Wi-Fi off and then logged in at 8.01 a.m. I don't know.

And then I clicked buy. It said, you have one minute left. You're going to get it. And then after the minute, it said, nope, you lost it. Oh, God. I called my friends. I'm like, I hate that I'm such an Analog fanboy, the company Analog. But I think I'm going to go on eBay and just see.

And it was not as much as I thought it would be. It was like with shipping and everything, $484. Okay. Too much money. But it would have been $300 from Analog with their crazy shipping. I'm like, okay. So I bought it. I got it a couple days later.

And then I had it underneath my LED light for an hour while I put the SD card in and stuff and then I went to my room like, it's not glowing at all and I researched, you gotta use incandescent lights and UV something or other, I was like, oh okay, well let's do the opposite of underneath an LED lamp for half an hour, let's put it on my headboard lamp

which is a GU10 50 watt little incandescent lamp the only one left in my house. Yeah. And I put it like a foot away, not realizing that's like really hot. So I melted. Oh my God. Right above the Game Boy Link cable and the USB-C like barely fits.

I can barely charge it. Oh my God. Yeah, that's what that, there's like kind of like a little deformed gash there. Yeah. Wow. It really burned. And then I went on Reddit to be like, hey guys, do you think this is still worth it? Can I sell it? Oh man, I got roasted on Reddit.

There were like 15,000 views of it, like 150 comments of people just like, oh man. There's this really funny comment right here. It says, one way to look at it is that you now have a completely one of a kind glow in the dark analog pocket. That is true. And two people reached out to buy it.

Oh, wow. And maybe after this podcast, it'll be worth $1,000. Yeah, there you go. Okay. We get a cut of that. Oh, yeah, you do. I first gave AG1 a try because I was tired of taking so many supplements every day and wanted a single solution that supports my entire body by filling in nutrient gaps daily. I need energy.

I wanted to simplify my morning routine with easy habits. Since drinking AG1, I've felt energized, strong, and nourished. Not only does AG1 deliver my daily dose of vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, and more, but it's a powerful, healthy habit that's also powerfully simple. It's just one scoop mixed in water once a day, every day. I've definitely tried a lot of supplements over the years, but taking multiple supplements and mixing and matching pills and powders every day isn't all that efficient and not always effective. This is why AG1 is a game changer. Just one daily scoop of AG1 covers my nutrient gaps and supports my

mental and physical health in just 60 seconds every morning. I noticed I needed more nutrient support than I used to, especially when I was running out of energy in the middle of the day. But AG1 covers my bases with high quality ingredients in pre and probiotics, adaptogens, antioxidants, and whole food source nutrients. I know with AG1, I'm giving my body high quality nutrition. Every batch of AG1 goes through a rigorous testing process, so you know it's safe. And AG1 ingredients are sourced for absorption, potency, and nutrient density. AG1 is a supplement I trust to provide the support my body needs daily, and that's why I'm excited to welcome them as a new partner.

If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five AG1 travel packs with your first purchase exclusively at drinkag1.com slash getplayed. That's drinkag1.com slash getplayed. Check it out. Hey, everyone. You know, you want to eat healthy. You want to eat well, but you don't want it to be a pain to prepare.

Well, let me tell you, eating better is easy with Factor's delicious ready-to-eat meals. Every fresh, never-frozen meal is chef-crafted, dietitian-approved, and ready to go in just two minutes. You'll have over 35 different options to choose from every week, including CalorieSmart, Protein Plus, and Keto. Also, there are more than 60 add-ons to help you stay fueled up and feeling good all day long. Fuel up fast with Factor's restaurant-quality meals that are ready to heat and eat wherever you are. No prep, no mess meals, so there's no prepping, cooking, or cleanup needed. Get as much or as little as you need by choosing your meals every week. Plus, you can pause or reschedule your deliveries anytime.

We've done the math. Factor is less expensive than takeout, and every meal is dietitian-approved to be nutritious and delicious. What are you waiting for? Head to factormeals.com slash getplayed50 and use code getplayed50 to get 50% off. That's code getplayed50 at factormeals.com slash getplayed50 to get 50% off. The mess-up part is, well, then two weeks later, freaking analog,

god dang it, this company. Yes. They're like, translucent Game Boys now are available. And that's actually why I got the glow in the dark. I wanted to somewhat get the feeling

of the first video game thing I ever purchased, which was the Game Boy Pocket, like the green, extreme green translucent one. Right, right, right. I got that when I was like 11 or 12 years old because I sold a bunch of wrapping paper,

which was a thing as a kid. Like from like a school catalog or something, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because there's no other way to get wrapping paper. So like this is like for the listeners that like don't have this now, they had these catalogs at school that you'd bring home and your parents would take it to work

because there was just no way to buy wrapping paper. Yeah, I wish we'd had that when I was a kid. I think I'm just too old for that. We sold magazine subscriptions at the time. You couldn't get magazines anywhere else. Newsstands didn't exist. I don't know if I ever mentioned this in the podcast, but the reason I know

Eva Anderson, who's been a multi-guest, is because I was on a TV show with her father called Dave's World, a CBS show back in the day. Soest yes it's because I was on a TV show with her father called Dave's World okay yes CBS show back in the day so before I played music I was like a a washed up child actor or whatever

but um you can start washed up you know I started that way too but um actually the first thing Harry ever said to me may he rest in peace he was like a second father to me

I miss him and love him um Harry Anderson great actor comedian and magician R.I.P first thing he ever said to me my mom and I walked onto the set, Studio 19 at CBS Radford,

and he said to my mom, I don't want this to be the biggest thing your kid ever does. He didn't stutter like I did, but I just stuttered. He was so nervous to meet me. No, no, he was like, yeah, he just wanted me to have a full life because a lot of child actors, it's challenging. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so, yeah, I brought up Eva

because I forgot. It's just fun to talk about Eva. So good at podcasts. What the hell was I talking about? You're doing great. I don't know, something about video games and glow-in-the-dark shit.

Yeah. Yeah, you guys know about gaming? I really have no idea why I brought her up, but I love her. I wish I could trace this right back to you. If you remember,

please stop anytime so we can talk about Eva but so you brought you brought that in with you they did release the translucent model afterwards that's why okay I brought it up

because the reason why I demolished every kid in my school with wrapping paper is I worked on a show so I went to all the cast members I went to the profs department oh yeah

I sold like 2,000 dollars for the freaking wallpaper or whatever wrapping paper and I got like 50 bucks for that. That's so funny. And so I was at my school and I won this little spinny wheel thing for 50 bucks for getting, selling all the wrapping paper. And my mom picked me up at Walter Reed, you know, junior high school. And she goes, all right, what do you want to do with this money? I'm like, I want to buy Pokemon. All right. This, this new game that just came out. So she's like, all right, let's go. So she bought

me the extreme green Game Boy. I bought Pokemon blue. And so when the glow in the dark pocket I want to buy Pokemon. All right, this new game that just came out. So she's like, all right, let's go. So she bought me the extreme green Game Boy. I bought Pokemon blue. And so when the glow in the dark pocket came out, I'm like, it's green. It's sort of like that memory.

Yeah. Freaking melted it, ruined it. And then two weeks later, hey, here's a green translucent Game Boy. Yeah. She bought that dude.

And I considered buying that too, but I woke up too late. Yeah, I know. I kind of, I wanted the translucent one because that sort of reminded me of my childhood as well, but. The purple one. Yeah, yeah. But I of, I wanted the translucent one because that sort of reminded me of my childhood as well.

The purple one? Yeah, yeah. But I have the black one and I was like, I don't even play this all the time. I shouldn't double dip on something, then I'll use it half as much as two now. Right. But I wish they had done that first.

I know, man. I would have gone with another color even. It wouldn't have had to have been the purple one. Sure, yeah. The orange one looks pretty slick, but, you know, very happy with my black one. I love my little analog pocket. I also, I was going to buy the red one for my brother.

He does not game at all, but he's a musician like I am, and the Nano Loop. I thought that would be fun for me to use. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I've always tried to, like, I know it's good to buy gifts for someone that they actually want,

but I have often bought gifts that, like, connect me it's good to buy gifts for someone that they actually want. Right, yeah. But I've often bought gifts that, like, connect me to my friend. Like, if you get into this, we'll both hang out and do it. It's never worked with my sister and brother. They do not care about gaming. I always have that same impulse. I'm always trying, I'm always thinking, like, do you think my fiance would, like, want a Switch? Right.

Or, no. Yeah, yeah. She's never, like, reached for my Switch before. Right. I will say this, though, the thing about playing the Pocket, it's become my most used device. Wow. Yeah, it's a great travel companion.

It's so easy to just take somewhere. Well, and also even at home, because I've been obsessed about, first it was software emulation when I was like 12 or so. I played Second Densetsu 3, because I was a huge Secret of Mana fan back when I was a kid. And yeah, I just love the emulators. Once hardware emulation came out and less lag, more color accuracy and frame rate accuracy. It was like really into that. But what I didn't really think about until recently was I don't have a CRT for a lot of reasons. It's like so big and all that.

Yeah. So I play on these widescreens. Well, there's always, you know, a pillar box. Yes. Yeah. I'm like, Oh, that it's great i sit at home and play retro games now because of the four by three ratio it feels more immersive and more like the old school days and it looks so nice and in fact as a kid i was obsessed with the sega nomad oh yeah i worked on this you know on the tv show and i was like always in the trailer and it's like i can't be at home with my sega this was the portable genesis it was like the most ambitious handheld ever made at the time. I guess the TurboGrafx-16

had the Turbo Express, which was the same principle, but just played. The idea back then of playing a full-scale console game in your hand was mind-blowing. It looks like it takes 40 batteries. Yeah, yeah.

But I have two of them at home and none of them work because the batteries stayed in so long that they like melt. They're like, I don't know, whatever that is, corrosion. Yeah. But yeah, every morning before rehearsing with Days World,

I would go to Starbucks with my mom after she dropped Revan Parasov at school and I'd play NHL 97 on my Nomad. And so it's also bringing back that experience of like, I played a lot of my console gaming on that Nomad as a kid. So I'm like, I'm going to play through Second Incessant 3 and finally finish it. I played through Mario Tennis for Game Boy Color when I was traveling recently.

Wow. I'm finally doing Pokemon Gold. Ooh, baby. I'm finally doing that. It rips. Who did you start with? Well, I was a big Cyndaquil kid when I was younger, but I've grown up and I've become a Totodile main. That's who I got.

I love him. I can't tell you. Is he a physical or a water or like a mixture? He's water, yeah, yeah. So he'll get, he's, I think, yeah, he's water, yeah. Because all he has is slash. I was like, what is he?

He's going to grow to get some water moves. They usually all kind of start with like normal move sets until they get, until they evolve a little further and then they can have more type-based attacks. Okay, I forgot, because I haven't played Pokemon in a while, but that was my freaking jam, dude.

Well, you also mentioned Mario Tennis, which I know we've talked about on the show extensively about your obsession with Mario. It's Mario Tennis Aces is the one you really like, right? Yeah, baby. But what did you think going back to Mario Tennis on the Game Boy Color? Yeah, it's not as fun. I don't know.

Mario Golf was more fun. I played through that as Boy Color. Yeah, it's not as fun. I don't know. Mario Golf was more fun. I played through that as well. But yeah, it's good. I mean, yeah, maybe I don't know the controls very well, but just having two buttons, it's like, what's going on? But then I was trying Mario Tennis. You can't go like this with your arms or anything like that. Right, you can't use your arms in space.

No, no, no, I can't. I hooked it up with a Kinect. I'm crazy like that, dude. I'm like the Imogen Heap of retro gaming. But see, you say that, you did that, and I was like, I'm ready to believe Zane. I 100% believe you. Yeah, I wish, man. But no, so yeah, there's also the Game Boy Advance versions of the game, which people

like the tennis and golf game for the Advance because it's more of an RPG, and then you're just playing the game. Like Stardew Valley, maybe? I don't know. Or there's a golf story game that's more of an RPG and then you're just playing like Stardew Valley maybe I don't know or there's a golf story that's more like an RPG also yeah that's what I meant to

say but so yeah I I'm not as into that as I maybe I think I've mentioned on the podcast before the reason I love JRPGs and they're my favorite format is because of

the strategy and thoughtfulness of trying to beat each battle and then the excitement of like in Super Mario RPG, like, oh my God, I found this weird hammer because I did this thing correctly and all that. Right.

So the storyline is actually not something I usually am there for. So when I put it on the pocket recently, I was like, oh, there's like so much story. I want to play some golf, dude. Yeah. So it's not exactly made for me, but I am excited about playing more advanced on the system,

but mostly it's the snes genesis and turbo graphics finally playing box adventure and stuff yeah things that were made for square pixels or four by three because the game boy advanced in that it introduces again the boxing i'm like yeah dude i'm trying to like feel immersed man so yeah trying to feel immersed in like the childhood i didn't have because i was a child actor you know yeah trying to go back trying to yeah reclaim the biggest thing. My bandmate Evan, the reason we connected

is she was the star of my old band Carney's music video. Okay, yeah. And on set, and it's like, she was like cool with her goth thing.

I was like a guitarist and the first thing she said was like, man, how do you feel about like Super Mario World? I'm like, what are you talking about?

How do I feel about it? Yeah, so she's like a super nerd as well and I realized we were both child actors. Something happens. Yeah. We're like stuck, like about it? Yeah, so she's like a super nerd as well and I realized we were both child actors. Something happens. Yeah. We're like stuck,

like really nostalgic. Yeah, sure. And so that's probably a big reason I have all the things and of course I'm gonna buy the freaking 64 that's coming out.

Oh, the analog, yeah, the analog 3D, yeah. That's happening. So I'm just, it's my one hobby that I burn money on. I don't really have money to burn,

but I foolishly do it with these retro things. It's tough with a company I burn money on. I don't really have money to burn, but I foolishly do it with these retro things. It's tough with a company like Analog, too, because every device they make looks stunning. I know. They make really cool stuff. There is an element of, like, because of its specialization. Like, I, and you know, whatever, I'm a little bit less particular about things being pixel perfect or, like, hey, I love gaming on a CRT, but like, that's not like, it's not a room for that. It's kind of set up. Um, so like, I do really like what, like, I like what analog is doing, but it just may not be for me, but, uh, but I, I love

that it's, uh, I love that they're, they're so dedicated to it. Totally. Well, also speaking of emulation though, um, I, I'm going to play Luigi's mansion one for the first time this Halloween. Oh, hell yeah. Don't get too scared. I know. And by the way, for those listening who are in the FBI, I owned the game, but I lost it on tour with someone. So I downloaded it because I had bought the game.

And I loaded it up on my OpenEMU or OpenEMU, whatever it's called. And I was like, whoa, this worked really fast. Like, there is a benefit of software emulation. Yeah. I don't have to wait in line at 6 a.m. online to get booted out. Yeah, yeah. I can just play it immediately. And I know that the FBI has a huge, it's probably our biggest demo. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, definitely, yeah. They're specifically just trying to sniff out any sort of, like, you know, three generations ago piracy. Downloading GameCube game is running Dolphin. but I'm, but have you played the other Luigi's Mansions? Yeah,

so Luigi's Mansion 3, I wish it hadn't come out when it did. It came out on Halloween three years ago. I'm like, I wanted to enjoy the season. Now I'm playing it

on November 1st. Like I, so I played it. I'm thinking turkey now. Nice try, Luigi. What is this, tryptophan?

You know what I'm saying, guys? Cool. But they, yeah, so I played that, and then I kind of waited a year to actually play through it the next Halloween, and I split my time between watching Hubie Halloween and playing Luigi Mansion 3. Honestly, that rips. That's really good. It was a tight one.

Good way to spend your time. Yeah, but now I also brought my 3DS. I have the Majora's Mask 3DS, And I'm one of those idiots that like, I didn't do what the completionist did where he bought every game. Did you hear about that? Yes, I heard about this. It took a year.

Yeah. But I did buy like 15 or 20. And the reason why I did is, and this is important to me, I'm not into emulation and ROMs because I'm like trying to get some deal. If they sold this stuff, I would buy it. I am the demographic.

100%. So I bought the games I wanted for the 3DS. I spent like 200 bucks on the classic ones I wanted. I don't want to set you down a path or anything like that.

And I know the FBI is listening, but you can hack a 3DS pretty easily. Oh, and Analog Pocket. And I'll talk off stream about that. We're on stream, right?

Yeah, people are, this is live right now. Man, I freaking love kick.com. But so, so yeah, I bought some games, and Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon's on there. Okay, yes. So, starting probably the night or tomorrow,

you know, 10 to 20 minutes before bed, I'm going to turn the lights down and play through that game. I haven't even thought about that. Playing a spooky game in the month of October. Like, not this year. I know we've done it in the past on this show. But I haven't played anything scary so far, because, you know,

in just a couple days, the scariest thing I'm going to be seeing is probably the Green Goblin himself. Talking about Spider-Man 2. Talking about Spider-Man 2. Oh, I gotta get a PS5. Yeah, yeah. You do. You'll have

plenty of opportunity when the Slim comes out later this year. Yeah. So, okay. So the analog pocket pretty much taking up your time right now. That is right now. Then the 3DS. And then there's something else I've been playing.

Oh, Octopath Traveler 2. Okay, because you're a big JRPG fan. Oh, huge, yeah. And I still got to beat Triangle Strategy. I mean, I love that stuff too. But what other game was I playing? Oh, recently,

my best friend, I'm going to keep like naming my best friends by full name, Greg Blum. Actually, he'll be happy because he loves the show. What's up, Blum?

Hi, Blum. Hey, Blum. But he and I were playing like Puyo Puyo. Remember the first week or two of the Switch they had Tetris Puyo Puyo? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we were just like playing that for hours. He's really good at Dr. Beatnik screen. Dr. Beatnik. What the hell is his name? Dr. Robotnik.

Yeah. Bean machine. Thank you. Thank you. It's not an easy one. They should do a ROM hack with beatniks. A beatnik version. And you don't ever win.

Cause they're also a piece for something. Yeah. And he's like, check out my mean beans. Yeah. Yeah. But so i'm doing that and then there's one other game um oh i'm probably going to play through super mario rpg when it comes out yeah i could that's that you know we're we're on we're recording this on mario wonder eve practically and it will be out by the time this episode releases and i'm like

kind of like how in advance of budgeting a little bit of time for that even though i've got no fucking time to play other games right now uh but r mario rpg the remake is like because i i do really like that original game and we did an episode about it earlier this year uh and uh i i'm i'm like uh it might be a review pending situation for me like Like if people are like, this is great, this is awesome, this is a really well done remaster, then I might just have to budget some time for it. But Octopath Traveler 2 is one, because I skipped one and it heard positive,

but kind of mixed things about one, and then everyone is just rapturous about two. They're like, two fixes everything that was an issue in one. What were people saying were the issues in one? Because I also love that. I think there was just like a lot of, the game seemed a little bit

bloated and uneven. I mean, that's what I remember from reading the impressions like a couple years ago or whatever. It kind of like had just a little bit,

it was a little overstuffed and kind of half-baked. And this one, it feels like it's just, it's just a lot more comprehensively, you know, realized.

It is so great. Also, I'm going to mention one more friend. Haha, Dashiell Anderson. I love mentioning him whenever I'm on the show. What's up, Dash? Why am I shouting everyone out? But anyway, I texted Dash when Octopath Traveler 1 came out

because he's a math teacher, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, hey, man, how many options are there in like this video game for permutations of classes and stuff like, are there a thousand or two thousand? He's like, oh, it's like, like almost indeterminate. Like it's like 10 to the 18 or some ridiculous number.

Wow. And then I started thinking, wait, how do video, how do they fit that much into a game? Cause don't they have to calculate the permutations? And Dash is like, no, no, no. Like the processor processes

whatever options are there. So it doesn't need to know what the output could be, which is why games glitch and stuff. I'm like, whoa. Anyway, yeah, that's, I don't know why I brought that up, but I love stuff like that. No, I love, that's great. That's awesome. It's crazy, the possibility. So yeah, with Octopath Traveler 2, there really isn't like a,

I mean, there are suggested combinations, but it's like, you really can do whatever you want. And I prefer that over an actual open world. And I've heard you talk about like linear actually feels same, same same but i love in that linear frankly it's kind of like jazz music like give me a structure and then i'll see what i do inside of it yeah versus you can write a song now i'm like oh i'm overwhelmed you want me to what no thanks yeah wait i'd be i'd be curious your your take on this this movie when it when it because it's it's only been out it was on theaters briefly and and i imagine it'll be out uh streaming at some point in the near future but there's a there's a jazz anime

that came out called blue giant that i saw a couple weeks ago we're slightly off topic here but i loved it cool and i'd be curious that someone like you who has like a like you know extensive knowledge of jazz and history with jazz what your reaction would be to it but it's basically just like three you know three youngsters in tokyo trying to make a go of being to it. But it's basically just like three youngsters in Tokyo trying to make a go of being a jazz trio. And it's just got this incredible score and a lot of tracks from John Coltrane and Sonny Stitt and stuff. I thought it was awesome.

For sure. Let me know what you think. I will, yeah. And Matt, you let me know, what are you playing? Well, you know, I'm still nose down in Cyberpunk 2077. I'm getting toward the end of Phantom Liberty just in time for next week. And so I've been really enjoying that. But, yeah, I mean, it's tough.

It's a tough week right now because I know that Super Mario Wonder comes out. I'm very excited about that. And then Spider-Man 2 is coming out. But I'm not going to get to start either of them until I'm done with Cyberpunk. But I know that of those two, I'm prioritizing Spider-Man. Yes. Because I love Spider-Man. Right.

And I love those games so much. And everyone's raving about this one. Is that like your top man? Of people with man? I think so. I think of heroes with man in it i within their name i think yes i would say spider-man's probably number one what about just among men just among men yeah i think spider-man is probably one of the best guys we got yeah i think i think absolutely i think if

you're gonna be like one of like if you're gonna like go ahead and have a sort of Mount Man more, it's definitely Spider-Man number one. I'd say maybe Batman number two. Okay. Michael Mann number three. Nice. Throw Amy Mann on there. Nice.

Okay, Michael Mann's off. Amy Mann's in. But yeah, I'm really excited to play spider-man i uh you know i just i can't i love i love swinging i love one two three four i love swinging around new york baby i'm really excited about that but um i mean i don't i don't have any new updates about cyberpunk really until we start talking next week so that's sort of it for me yeah i'm gonna be in the same boat as you uh matt which is that i which is that I've got cyberpunk going, and that's what I've been mainlining right now,

and I will save my impressions until next week when we talk about Phantom Liberty. By the way, I kept calling it The Phantom Liberty. Yeah. It's just Phantom Liberty. They Sean Parker'd it, yeah. They Sean Parker'd it. They dropped the the.

And also, if you want to do impressions any time, go ahead. If I want to do a Sean Parker? No, if you want to do any impressions, you said you'll save your impressions. I say let him rip. Oh, yeah. Well, here's my Sean Parker. You know what's cooler than a million dollars? A billion dollars.

Yeah. Anyway. I don't know if I know this. Sorry. Facebook movie, Social Network. Oh, I have not seen that. It's a great movie. No spoilers.

It's a great film. They don't cover all of it because it's old now. That's true. So they don't cover the decline of society in the film. Or MMA Zuckerberg. Yeah, that's right. So Cyberpunk 2077, Phantom Liberty, yeah, mainlining that. And Matt, I find myself in a situation I think you're in often

where I've got too many things going. I got that, I got Sea of Stars. Everyone loves me. I got Cocoon and Space Wreck on deck. I got the new case of the Golden Idol DLC, which I still want to play. And so I just sort of asked myself, what would Matt do?

And so I decided to reinstall Slay the Spire. Yes! You absolute animal. That's exactly what I would do. I would just be like, hmm, yeah, four games? Hmm, what about a fifth? I haven't even touched the separate ways Resident Evil 4 DLC. Yeah, I'm probably going to ignore that.

It looks cool, and I've heard positive things, but I just don't know if I'm going to budget time for it. But anyway, Slay the Spire, which I last played consistently at the end of 2019 and start of 2020. That was the last era I was really putting hours into it, but I really love it. It's this, you know, it's a deck-building roguelike. And, you know, I know I got in some taxonomical trouble for misclassifying all collectible card games as deck-building in the past, but this is actually a proper deck-builder.

You start off and each run you have a handful of standard hand of cards and then as you go you add more cards and you can thin your deck and kind of build what your play style is going to be. There's also a player character that has their own class and they all have their own bonuses. There's all sorts of things you get like

various artifacts and potions that enhance however you're playing. And it's just the sort of short session, no reflexes, roguelike that like really relaxes me. And like I can have moments of like, you know, of tension and frustration, but still it just kind of puts me into like a nice little flow state. And I really like this game and I kind of realized how much I missed it. And I should have just more sort of kept it in my regular stable of games. But yeah, I've just been having some fun just playing through some runs with it. And I also, it's now on Game Pass and apparently Apple Arcade

as well, but it's on Game Pass and I played, I put in, you know, the bulk of my hours on Switch. So I just installed it on PC through Game Pass. And so I was, I've been starting a fresh save and playing through that and like that's fun for a game you know really well that also has some additional you know some additional content versus when I last visited it but like for a game you know really well to just start from scratch

is like really gratifying at times so like I'm really enjoying it and I'm glad I'm playing it some more again and it kind of like I think it kind of works in concert versus like trying to play both Cyberpunk and Sea of Stars, these big long narrative RPGs. You just kind of can't play it,

keep them both in my brain at the same time. I kind of need either or. But this one I can kind of have going little tangents with. And I'm going to need you to apologize once again to the deck building

games community. Yeah, sorry. Sorry, everyone who's in a deck building games community for yeah sorry sorry everyone who's in a deck building you know my new year's resolution is to cut back on sugar and add more protein to my diet and stay on track with my fitness goals and magic spoon makes that easier and more delicious than ever growing up cereal is one of the best parts of being a kid. But as I got older, I had to watch out for sugar and empty carbs. And boy, let me tell you, I love cereal. So Magic Spoon has the amazing flavors you love, but high protein

and less sugar. I've been drinking protein shakes and powder for years, but finally found a delicious way to get my protein before and after workouts. With Magic Spoon, you can get a variety pack of four flavors, and they are cocoa, fruity, frosted, and peanut workouts. With Magic Spoon, you can get a variety pack of four flavors, and they are cocoa, fruity, frosted, and peanut butter. And something I like to do, folks, I like to mix them and match them. So I'm getting cocoa in my peanut butter, I'm getting fruity in my frosted. I'm going crazy over there with the Magic Spoon. And these packs have 0 grams of sugar, 13 to 14 grams of protein,

and 4 to 5 grams of net carbs. It's only 140 calories per serving, folks. It's high protein, has zero sugar, keto friendly, gluten free, grain free, and soy free. Like I said before, I love cereal. That combination of chocolate and peanut butter, incredible. I highly recommend mixing them up because you're going to have a blast.

Go to magicspoon.com slash getplayed to grab a variety pack and try it today. And be sure to use our promo code getplayed, that's G-E-T-P-L-A-Y-E-D, at checkout to save $5 off your order. And Magic Spoon is so confident in their product, it's backed with a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you don't like it for any reason,

they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember, start the new year off right with a delicious bowl of high-protein cereal at magicspoon.com slash getplayed and use code getplayed and use code getplayed to save five dollars off thank you magic spoon for sponsoring this episode all right let's move on to our main topic which is our game intel format about guitar hero back in the news a little bit partly because because of a weird Bobby Kotick.

I think it came from Kotick, the Activision CEO who, in a weird sort of internal event hosted by James Corden, talked about the future of the company and I think said that Guitar Hero was back on the menu. Activision, formerly acquired by Microsoft. That has gone through the EU and all other overseeing governing bodies have approved it. So yeah, we thought we'd kind of revisit this game, which I think was just such an impactful and like kind of

novelty, but it just hit at that perfect point where people were like ready for a game like this. And also it gave me intense nostalgia when I was thinking about this game again for in-person kind of party games, which I feel like have kind of gone by the wayside. Yeah, yeah.

This was a big one for me growing up because I don't play a musical instrument. I played the trumpet in a middle school band, but that didn't really carry over into other musicians because I was also not that interested in the trumpet, which now I do regret. But I wish I would have been a little more interested in it. But when I played this game for the first time,

it was at my friend's house. And we only had one controller, so we were just kind of passing it back and forth. That was still pretty fun. Right. But then Guitar Hero 2 rolls around i have then bought guitar hero on my own guitar hero 2 comes around i get it for my birthday with the pack-in controller now i have two guitars yes now it's now it's a party a year later i'm having i'm having people over all the

time just to play guitar here yeah sick did you get into rock band as well with the kit rock band was really really big as well um i have um i've moved with so many plastic instruments over the years and i did um uh i got rid of some and i really shouldn't have same dude um but i i got rid of the um because then i got the uh the full kit for um the guitar hero uh world tour which was then their version of rock band and which i didn't love as much but um but i i've i had so many instruments that i've now have like combinations i feel like wired was the way to go yeah once they became um wireless they were they were rough well it doesn't work for a rhythm game because you can't have those those you know frame delays.

It's the same sort of thing with fighting sticks. It's like that stuff that's maybe a little bit more, you can smooth over in a less twitch action game. But for a rhythm game, you need that precision. Yeah, for me, the big ones are the Donkey Konga bongos. It's just like, man, those are so fun. I get rid of way

too much shit. And then also the Samba de Amigo maracas. Oh, those are fun. Do you think they maybe floated the name Donkey Bongo? It's tough because Donkey Konga sounds better, even though they're bongos, because conga drums are a different sort of thing. So I understand why they did it. It's just interesting that they still felt like

we have to call the controller the bongos, or else that's just like, you know, that's just not accurate because they could have just called them the donkey congas and people would have been fine with it. Right, right. Yeah.

What about that Taiko drumming game? I loved that one. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was great. Yeah, I don't know if there was ever, there must have been a home version of that. Yeah. But I just remember that as an arcade game.

I'm pretty sure I played it at someone's house, but I think, I don't know where all my controllers went, but I'm pretty sure we had Beatles rock band. Taiko no Tatsujin. Yeah, I had Beatles rock band as well. But there's like so many iterations of Guitar Hero, and like Harmonix comes along and makes this game. They had a couple other rhythm games before,

but then like Guitar Hero was like their like, like this is this is our fucking thing like we did this this is like uh it put they put them on the map in a way and then they do guitar hero 2 guitar hero rocks the 80s and then are then never soft and activision take over from there right and they get worse from there. They become not as good. Yeah, we're just talking about an Activision acquisition, like sort of corporate merger a little bit ago. It's just like that's like the same thing happened with Tony Hawk, right?

Like, you know, just like these franchises get kind of taken away. And honestly, to some degree, even Call of Duty, Infinity Ward used to exclusively make that, and then they started handing off Call of Duty franchise, Call of Duty the franchise to different developers. Yeah, it is interesting how that's just a pattern of just absorbing the IP and then just farming it out to whoever because we've got to keep churning these things out annually. Because then they start to get silly. In Rock Band 3 Legends of Rock, they added guest guitarists. So Tom Morello is in the game, Slash is in the game, the devil himself.

Well, here's the thing. The people that they added are cool. That is good. But it just sort of takes you out of it a little bit. Yeah, right. Maybe they were just a little too early on this because I don't think Beatles Rock Band was out at this time, and the Beatles are represented in the Beatlesles rock band game so then they have these

guys in there then they bring in then they start to do um uh band like band themed guitar hero releases where the only thing on the on on the game is like uh like the guitar hero aerosmith was one that's the big one i remember, the Aerosmith one. And I don't know why I had that because I don't love Aerosmith. Well, I think what it is, though, is that because you love Guitar Hero, you're like, well, hey, this is the new one. Let's mess around with this. And even if you're not an Aerosmith fan, there are enough songs you know.

Well, here's the thing. Every single song of theirs is good. But I don't think I love them. But I've never been been like turn that aerosmith off oh yuck but i didn't get any of the other uh the band ones i got world tour and then i also had the one that was for the ds on tour which was actually really cool because yeah right the ds before, well, they don't have this functionality anymore because Nintendo wants you to have a separate thing for each. They don't want you to be able to play old games on new hardware. But the original versions of the DS had a slot for Game Boy Advance cartridges.

And so this little guitar fret grip that they had for the DS would fit into that. And then it also came with a guitar pick stylus that you would strum on the screen. What? And it was actually really fun. That's insane. Yeah. Let me pull up a video of it, actually. I did not know about that.

It's so fun. How did you see the screen while you were playing? So that's the best part. It's the two screens so on the one screen you have the um the you know the fretboard where the the notes are coming down and then the other screen is for swiping only that's cool yeah that's cool um what was the orientation of the ds when you had the the attachment you had to hold it um uh yeah you had to hold it sideways oh god that makes sense okay that makes sense. Okay, cool. Oh, so it was like, I mean, this is a weird way of saying it, but those shooter games where the screens, like, rotated?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like that? It was that orientation? It's sort of tall screen. I think it's called Tate Mode, and I don't know why. I had a Dreamcast shooter I got that was a shmup, and it was a vertically scrolling game, and it was a vertically scrolling game, and it had a mode where it would turn.

I remember taking my CRT TV in my dorm room and flipping it on its end so I could play it in that mode. It was really cool. That's cool. Yeah. Matt has brought up a little bit of video of the DS Guitar Hero. Got it. Amazing.

We're seeing it here. It's kind of— It works pretty good for what it is. Yeah, so you have... And you have like a... You're holding it in like a book orientation, like we were just saying. It's also kind of like, for any guitarists out there,

those grip machines where you try to like increase your grip strength. Oh, yeah. The four little buttons are like on the side, like that. That's cool. My brother had one of those. I never knew if it would actually work or not.

I should use those, man. I don't have very strong forearms. Dripping up to beat the shit out of you? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Wow. So, you know, one thing I didn't look, I really liked Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2, and that's basically where I fell off from the series, which I think is true of a lot of people.

I think probably their sales are similar. I never actually owned Rock Band, but I played a lot of Rock Band, just other people's places. And so I was pretty familiar with both Rock Band and Beatles Rock Band, but it really was Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2 that I kind of remember just hearing like, no, these games are actually awesome. It's about Guitar Hero 1 when it initially came out.

No, this game's actually awesome. It looks gimmicky and kind of dorky, but it's rad. And then picking it up and just like playing the shit out of it and trying to play through everything on like the hardest difficulty and just having the time of my life. But part of what was interesting about those games that I remember, I know Harmonix had another game called Frequency, which I never played, but had a good reputation, at least critically. It was kind of like the first,

I feel like, Western rhythm game, because these games were coming. It was like Parappa the Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy, which was a guitar sequel, which I played. And then there was Dance Dance Revolution, obviously. It feels like it was more of like a like a a japanese sort of of genre and then yeah this rock band comes in and completely uh you know blows the roof off the western market um but part but part of what i love about this game is like it is kind of like not trying to be cool at all like it wasn't like guitar hero came out it wasn't like kind of like it didn't think it was awesome. It had like this dorky little toy guitar you're playing around with. And then the tracks was basically all dad rock before the phrase dad rock

really even existed. Like there was nothing at all like, you know, edgy or current about it. It was just kind of like unapologetically what it was. And that was part of what was fun about it. But you're also like, you know, you see musicians on stage, and they're like sort of able to move with the guitar in like a way that looks cool, but you're playing guitar here, and you're standing completely still, just staring at the screen.

Right, right, right. Trying to make sure you're not like missing any of the notes. It's like as embarrassing to get walked in on playing Guitar Hero as it is to like be like jacking off. Like it doesn't look cool. It looks worse. Like jacking off is cooler. Yeah, super cool, man. I wonder if I got walked in playing Guitar Hero.

I remember, yeah, someone that I had a crush on who I ended up dating did like my mom let her in the house when I was playing video games. And she walked in without me. And I was like, oh, hey. I felt awful. That was back before video games were cool because now it's cool because everyone does it. Yeah, exactly. These games were also not a game you could stay up late and try to play secretly because

the button, which is what I would do. I would stay up so late just trying to master one of the more difficult songs or whatever. I would play it on mute. I would play with the TV on mute, just watching the screen. Oh, no way.

That's impressive. And try to just play along to it, and all you would hear was... Yeah, the controller's so loud. Just the click, click, click of the fret. But okay, so Zane, what was your first experience with Guitar Hero? And how into it were you at the time?

Not that much. I mean, honestly, all the history you guys just gave, I was like, oh, there were specific numbers for Guitar Hero and specific releases. But I guess it's because I have the modern mindset of like, oh, why can't you just buy one and then through the internet get whatever song you want? But that was before that, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I guess they had to release multiple ones. Yeah, you had to get a physical disc. I mean, it's the complete opposite of what's the VR one, I can't remember, Beat Saber. Beat Saber is exactly that model of like you're buying, I think the base game might even be free and then you're just buying tracks as you go.

Which is why it's surprising guitar here isn't a thing as much the past five,10 years. It would be perfect for that. But no, so I didn't really play it much and I was not notorious for this, but people assumed I'd be really good at it because I play guitar for listeners who, like I'm a guitarist. Yeah, they'd hand me the guitar, Hero Control.

I'm like, this is not a guitar. This is completely different technique. And I was okay at it. I was never great at Dance Dance Revolution it i was never great at dance dance revolution i was never great at any sort of a game like that um for some reason but also at that age do you know what year guitar here came out because it was like 2005 was the first okay so yeah every they basically had one every year until uh 2010 and then they would take a couple years off and do a new one yeah okay so i was 20 so yeah mean, I was already playing gigs as a guitarist,

so I didn't really, yeah, I wasn't thinking about that. I was gaming then, but it was like Halo two, Halo three, like that sort of stuff. Why would you want to come home after playing a show and pick up a guitar

controller? Right. You know, and also like, even in general, I, I hate to admit this, but I don't really listen to music that often because it is in my head when I'm working, I want to like listen to a podcast. Like I listen to you

guys or I'll, you know, uh, read a book or I don't read books. I play video games, but you know, but I can say that. Um, but yeah, so, uh, but I love the games and it was always fun to go to a friend's house. Also people would, uh, would enjoy the fact that they could destroy me in guitar. You're like, you know what she's saying, man. Yeah, sure, yeah. Yeah, it was fun. I don't know. But I didn't get that into it.

I was much more into Beatles rock band. Okay. Because I don't play drums. I mean, I play drums well enough to have played a musical at my high school, but it was Babes in Arms, which is like, ta-kit, ta-kit, ta-kit,

like simple two and four stuff. Yeah. But- I couldn't do it. You probably could. You probably could. But yeah could. I'd like to get back into rock band because I do love playing drums. When Guitar Hero was new

and it was first coming out, my biggest dream was I want to just look like I can play the guitar at all. And then, you know, obviously like people would be like, you know, you're not really playing guitar. And I would always be like, I know. Like, that's like, I know that's not how you play. It's like saying if you're playing FIFA, like, you know, that's not actually soccer.

It's like, yeah, I know. I understand like a simulation is an approximation of the real thing, but it's an experience. You're not really a wolf in the Octopath. No, I'm a hunter character. That's why I like video games. I'm pretending.

Yeah. But, like, so that obviously drums in like rock band or even the drums were more specific in the guitar hero world tour package because they actually had um it was it was four drums or it was three drums and two cymbals and i think that uh people were saying that was it was a better drum set uh to play on that was like more, it approximated that actual playing better. Yeah, I mean, it reaches a certain point where it's like you can only simulate it so far and like the drumming in, you know, I never actually played the Guitar Hero version, but in Rock Band, it is basically playing drums.

It's a simplified version of it, but it's it's the closest to uh you know to to an actual instrument of any of the any of the stuff they've got i guess i guess singing is its own thing but also i feel like the karaoke scoring on rock band was always pretty skewed it was really like there was nothing that had to do with like the actual the quality of your uh of your vocals it just had to do with like being at the right pitch. Oh, speaking of which, this is a little bit of a tangent, but when on the last Nintendo Direct they announced that that trombone game's coming, I'll be playing that.

That game is hilarious. It looks so funny. That's sort of the more modern version of this where I haven't tried it. Well, yeah, I haven't played it either. I watched some videos of it. It was big on Twitch, I feel like, when it it launched on pc and that feels like it was a little while ago now but yeah it's it's like that's been a sort of thing of just like leaning into kind of

the goofiness of it and yeah um which is its own thing but like i don't know there there was also such an intense novelty to rock to at least and going all the way back to guitar hero because that's the focus here to guitar hero one, because in addition to being like, yeah, this is this Western developed, uh, uh, rhythm game.

It also like had like rock music that we, that was popular in, in America and popular in the West. Yeah. As opposed to, I, Hey, I like a lot of the music and dance dance revolution,

but a lot of it is stuff that you don't recognize outside of the cabinet itself. You know, I haven't even heard any of this before. You want me to dance? Yeah, yeah. Also, to answer your question about the guitar,

I will say it did translate a good amount. It was just, for me, my personal upbringing musically is more classical and jazz, so most guitar players learn through either just watching a YouTube video

and placing the fingers where it says, or they'll read a fretboard chart where it just says, put these black dots where they are, or it's tablature. Okay. where it just says, put these black dots where they are, or it's tablature. Okay.

I don't do like any of those things. I read sheet music, which now sounds like douchey, like I'm bragging, but that's the way that my mind works is that it makes more sense on sheet music. Yeah. Also, because I played oboe for seven years,

like I can still say- Wow, a fellow double reed. No, I played bassoon. What the hell are you talking about? Dude, I'm having- Oh, wait, what the? Oh, fuck you. Yes. It's the same thing. Yeah, there's- No, no, you played the bassoon. What the hell are you talking about? Dude, I'm having- Oh, wait. What the- Oh, fuck you. Yes.

It's the same thing. Yeah, there's- No, no, you played the bassoon. Dude, I'm actually doing- I don't want to tangent too much, but I'm doing a thing that maybe we'll talk about at the end. Like, what are you up to?

But I'm currently orchestrating 20 pieces for a 30-piece orchestra. Wow. Yeah, for this Evan and Zane gig coming up in January in LA, or in Glendale. But I told the guy, I'm like,

hey, can I choose the 30 piece? He's like, yeah. I was like, I think I want like two bassoons and two oboes. He's like, that's way too many for 30 pieces. I'm like, just trust me.

I'm a double replayer. I think it's going to be a really cool sound. Like Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine, like focusing on the woodwinds and all that. Sure.

So you say 30 piece and I'm thinking McNuggets. Yeah, baby. Wait, so how many, what's going to be the clarinet and flute count then? Probably what's going to end up happening is I'm going to get one bassoon, and maybe two oboes because I want an English horn in there. Oh, that's fine.

Maybe Nick dusts off his old bassoon. I dare you. I dare you. People at this show, is that Weiger? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you playing? I'm playing the bassoon, buddy. So sharp. But, yeah,? I'm playing the bassoon, buddy. So sharp. But yeah, so I'm going to, oh, so that's my background.

So because of that, it was tough watching the game. I do a much better job playing the actual guitar solo than translating. That being said, one thing we learned specifically in jazz is there are specific exercises to work on finger independence. Because when you're playing like cowboy chords around a campfire your fingers are often at the same time but when you're playing jazz you're like first and index or middle finger and first finger have to take care of walking bass lines and they alternate while your pinky and ring and sometimes middle finger are doing chords and if you're like tal farlow you're doing that plus a

melody on top so developing that finger independence like oh like, oh, that's the green, that's the red. I mean, it's obviously simplified, but I did have a quick time, like I'm not going to mess up which button. It was pretty immediate. But what was hard for me was a lot of the times when I was playing easy mode, I wasn't playing every pitch being heard.

Yeah, oh sure. The whole note. And then there's like 16 notes happening. So I was like, I'd almost rather play the hard version, but then I couldn't keep up. So I was stuck in like, you know, a man without a land type thing. I was like, I don't know. Both of these are too hard for my brain.

Yeah. I think one of the best things Guitar Hero did for me outside of socially is that it improved my air guitar space work in improv scenes. Oh, sure. It's like, okay, that's sort of what that looks like, right? I was like, I can do that. Okay. Red, yellow, green.

I can do all that. I do want to make a note about Guitar Hero 5 in particular because after World Tour, it all sort of just kind of like blends together. Like I don't really remember anything about 5 other than kurt cobain is a unlockable character in the game oh man and that is cursed that is so that's horrible it felt so because then you can have him playing other songs like more contemporary songs and then

coming out with the whatever voice is in the you know the sound alike um that they that they hired for the game right and it doesn't it it feels, that's a bad vibe. That's not good. Yeah, Kurt Cobain playing Fallout boy. It just does not really stick up. But it was purely cosmetic, right? It's just like, oh, you're now pretending you're a Kurt. Yes.

But what would have been cool is if you unlocked Jimi Hendrix, you have more grace room to hit a note to get it perfect because he's so good. Oh, interesting. That would have been cool. It actually meant something to unlock a character. Yeah, it's not, they didn't import their stats. Oh, interesting. That would have been cool. It actually meant something to unlock a character. Yeah, yeah. It's not, they didn't import their stats.

Right, their stats. It was just, yeah, just aesthetic. But then, yeah, Warriors of Rock was the last one, which is, you know, everything after World Tour

is the rock band focus where they're just kind of doing all that kind of same stuff. But like for some, I don't know what it was. It didn't, it, Activision fucked it up and it didn't feel a hundred percent right.

And this, like you called it out exactly that it has the same sort of like effect that like the Activision Tony Hawk games did before this new one or, you know, the remake or whatever, because they like imported the code from the originals to give it this, like, crunchier sort of feeling or whatever. But these last ones all feel kind of bad,

and then it kind of just goes away for five years, and then Guitar Hero Live comes out, and that's sort of more of what you're talking about, where, like, it has, like, a sort of live library of songs that you can pick from and play to um but they changed the they changed the whole guitar for guitar here alive it has like three buttons and the way it has like then each button has like an up and down sort of thing that you can do and like it's not what people used to and it failed it like failed miserably yeah i wonder if the move is to go back to, you know, because with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

1 and 2, which is a really great package, which we covered on the show, and Matt, you and I both, you know, knowing that game, I thought we're really happy with, you know, our return trip to it. But, you know, they just, like you said, you know, the Neversoft developed those games. They just took the existing game and they had Vicarious Visions, who are kind of masters of remastering, do this complete graphical overhaul. And I wonder if it's almost just time to do that with Guitar Hero 1. I just like go back to or release Guitar Hero 1 and 2 and just like,

hey, here's the here's an improved version of the peripheral. And here is the those games that you really like the nostalgia for. And then also, now those are set up so that you can continue to download additional tracks that work in the exact same way on that original feeling controller, and so you can play this game in perpetuity. But it doesn't try to... I think part of the issue with World Tour and with all their subsequent versions is they just tried to tweak it too much. They tried to make too many adjustments.

And whether it was by extremely conscious and conscientious design choice or whether it was a happy accident or some combination of the two, Guitar Hero 1 and 2 kind of hit that sweet spot of it's not exactly the experience of playing guitar, but it feels enough like it that it's accessible to everybody. Yeah, for sure. And yeah, they just, I wonder if there's just an idea of going back to that. Let's talk about the music in Guitar Hero a little bit. And Zane, I know this is part of why we wanted to have you on to talk about it. this is part of why we wanted to have you on to talk about it. Because like, like I said, I feel like the music there, like I like all these tracks, but they weren't it didn't feel like it was anything was trying too hard. But like the tracks that stand out to me are one I thought just like as far as in terms of the early tracks, like I love rock and roll was just like such a great

guitar hero track. And then also the other one, like in the more advanced side, like Bark at the Moon, the Ozzy song, that's one that stuck out with me. Matt, did you have any tracks in particular that stuck out with you from the guitar heroes? Well, yeah, I was talking with Zane about this, actually. I sent a list of like what are considered the hardest ones. And those are always the ones that really like stick out. Like, yeah, yeah. I mean, some of the earlier ones for me, like in Rock Band 2, this came out right at a time, and it was the only time, I think, that the band Wolfmother was super popular. Oh, sure. And their song Woman is one of the early tracks in the game,

and I loved playing that a lot. Yeah, that was fun. That's an early song in there for me, but I really loved, I'm not even an 80s music guy, but I really loved Guitar Hero Rocks the 80s. It had some really solid bangers in that one. The Oingo Boingo track, Only a Lad is in there, and it's so fun to play on that game.

It's so, so good. And that's the last Harmonix one, so that one does feel in line with 1 and 2, and I would actually option that one to be included in the in this proposed remaster um that we're doing but yeah obviously like through the fire and the flames by dragon force oh sure one of the hardest songs in the game in any of the games um the the devil went down to georgia is in uh rock in guitar hero 3 which i didn't know yes you never got you never

got to meet the devil. You never got to dance to the devil in the pale moonlight, did you? He's in the game, and his name is Lou, and that is funny. That is funny. It's good. Wow.

But won by Metallica. I know you're a big Metallica guy. Oh, sure, yeah, I am. But my friends, my friend that had Guitar hero first was a guitar player and he was like uh like uh he loved metal and he would just like like smoke us all the time like he was good at the game and at guitar and i could barely do the game uh at first but then uh i became super obsessed with the game and like i wasn't't like a, I have to clear this on Expert or whatever,

but like, I could never do any of the last songs that I mentioned on Expert. Any of the easy ones? Yeah, sure. Forget about it. Yeah.

But, Jordan by Buckethead is another one too. And also, like I remember even though I was a teenager when these games came out, I remember thinking

that Buckethead was like a scary guy. Yeah. I'm like kind of afraid of Buckethead, I think. Do we still not know who he is? I should know whether or not. We know who he is, right? I think he's one of the Daft Punk guys.

That's amazing. I wish that's true. I wish. No, I don't. Has Buckethead never been doxxed? I forget if we know who he is, but he's truly. Wikipedia says Brian Patrick Carroll. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. So there's a legal name. It's like John Carroll Lynch is what I was thinking of. You know what? Maybe he was always known, but as like a 12-year-old on the school campus, I'm like, dude, I never know who he is. And nobody knows who he is. Yeah, exactly.

But because he's so good at guitar and you don't know what his face looks like. Also, you can unlock Luigi and Yoshi in Super Bowl. Okay. All right, I'll just play the game for a thousand hours I'm looking at him right now And I don't think I've quite shaken this feeling I do think I am afraid of bucket heads He's a little scary Yeah, a little scary, oh yeah

Yeah, cartoony But Zane You brought your guitar here in studio I did And I don't know if Maybe some of these songs aren't as hard as we think they are Well, the rest of the podcast If you guys want to listen here in studio. I did. Yep. And I don't know if I'm just going to maybe some of these songs aren't as hard

as we think they are. Well, the rest of the podcast, if you guys want to listen, I'm going to play through all the solos top to bottom. Is there one? I mean, is there like

a song in particular where you're like, I could do that one? Well, so I listen I like listen to the songs a little bit. I didn't have as much time to like learn them.

I would have actually learned pieces of these solos had I had a little more. I didn't have as much time to learn them. I would have actually learned pieces of these solos had I had a little more time. But I wrote down, I scored them, what's actually hard out of five stars. And I also put a thing next to it of how many hours it would take me to learn it. How long to learn, yeah.

Because in Evan and Zane, that band I was talking about, we did a theme, we do theme shows, and she picked birds, or we called it aves. And the two days before our gig, it was a stream she's like hey can you learn freebird i was like well yeah i mean but i was like two days away i don't know if i i'm like busy with other stuff she all right well no no worries but if you can and then about three hours before she came over to sound check at my streaming studio on twitch i learned freebird live wow and i think there's a video on youtube that i put up of like me learning freebird in like 60 minutes or whatever I had time for, but I was reading it on a chart too.

So I didn't memorize it. But so I, and also I've learned so many solos and I've, I've done my own. So yeah, I put down for each song that you told me about how long I think it would take me personally, but what does that mean to anyone? Yeah. Um, but I thought, well, Zane's really good. I don't know. See?

Yeah, see? Um, but no, there, I wrote down like five things about what makes a solo hard and okay and i thought that might be fun to very please yeah because it translates differently on a controller right um so whenever i'm learning a solo or learning any piece that's like challenging i i feel like there are five variables so one of them is speed obviously like is this too fast to play which is not the same as tempo like there can be a song that's, you know, real slow down here, and the guitar is like doing all this stuff. And that's a lot of speed, but the song's slow.

So the speed of the right hand has to go in. And the benefit of the controller versus a real guitar is you're just, you know, paddling up and down with your right hand. You don't have to change strings. Whereas on guitar, it's a little out of tune. But when you're going up that scale, I'm switching from one string to another,

to another, to another, to another, to another. So when you're doing alternate picking across strings, which is truly one of my Achilles heels on guitar, it's hard to keep that right hand going. Yeah, and for everybody at home, there's six strings on this thing. Six strings, yeah, exactly. That's like, it seems obvious, but I think that's a really important point

because it's like, yeah, it's a thing I don't ever, I realized I never really thought about when I was playing guitar. It was like, yeah, you just are strumming the one thing. Exactly, and so like if I'm doing a Django Reinhardt thing, like that sort of thing, if I'm on one string, that's easy because the right hand is just on this one string, just like the controller of thing. If I'm on one string, like that's easy. Cause the right hand is just on this one string, just like the controller for guitar.

If I'm going at that tempo, like, like alternate picking, there are a lot of guys who can do that. That's just my one Achilles heel. Yeah. But I can, I can do economy picking or that would sound really bad,

but like that tempo, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

If you're using a economy picking, which is where you don't actually attack each string, you just like hammer on, that's a little easier. So yeah, Guitar Hero is like kind of the easiest you can have from the right hand. But still, speed's important, especially with the left hand on the controller. The distance between pitches, every instrument has its own unique challenge. Like when you play trumpet, freaking having to change partials, that's really hard. Actually, the biggest problem for me was that I had braces when I was playing

and it was like very, very hard. That's rough. But on guitar, it's switching strings generally. Because like you can sweep on a guitar as long as the strings are next to each other. But if you're going between strings, whether that sort of stuff, you really have to alternate pick.

You can't hammer on or pull off so one of these songs that you sent me i'm like oh god that there's there's one song that's by far the hardest yeah what you said because of that um but then can we just and i'm sorry i don't mean to make you over explain but can can you just uh talk through like what hammering on means or somebody maybe doesn't know great good question at all and it happens in guitar hero too because you can like pick once and then you do that with your left hand. You go between those two squares. So hammering on is you pick the note with the right hand. So this part, my right hand's hitting the pick. And then instead of hitting this note with the pick again, like that, I hit the first note and then I just slam my left hand

finger down really hard on the fretboard. And so it creates that pitch without me having to actually pick it with my right hand. Pulling off the inverse where I start on the fretboard. And so it creates that pitch without me having to actually pick it with my right hand. Pulling off the inverse where I start on this top note. And then when I go down to this note below it, instead of picking it, I pull my index or my ring finger away from the fretboard. So it's like, it's like picking it as though it was a pick. And so you're playing the lower pitch again without having to attack it with the right hand. I'm watching your hands right now. And I'm just like, I'm never going to learn how to do that.

There are a few different techniques. So that's the third part of what makes a solo hard to me is how many novel techniques are there? Like, are you tapping, which I'm not great at? Like, when you hear an eruption, everything I'm doing is pulling off. So I'm not actually picking with my right hand. If you can imagine as a listener, my right hand is on the fretboard. I'm not attacking with the pick and I just hit it really hard. I tap it down, pull off both fingers. So this whole thing, whatever. I don't even know the notes I was trying to hit, but whatever. So is there tapping? Well,

a lot of people like myself don't really practice tapping. So that might make it harder on a real guitar. Are there pinch harmonics, which is like that song Spiderwebs, you know? Oh, yeah. What is it? It's hard doing an acoustic, but where is it? I'm so bad at pinch harmonics. See? There.

I'm so bad at this. Like, other than I'm a great guitar, but anyway. So long story. Are there pinch harmonicsics are there harp harmonics which is where you pick a note on the fretboard like say third fret you go up an octave

like 12 frets and then you pinch it with your index finger and thumb like that so that sounds like a harp kind of is that a technique

are we sweep picking which is where you take your pick and you literally sweep it across the strings like you're not individually picking and this is like a frank ambali technique or any metal guy as they're sweet picking as their alternate picking so on guitar it's like which one of those techniques are being used it makes it hard so you might hear a song that's like and it's like wow that's so fast and hard the audience applauds it's like the easiest thing

i've played today so far right the right hand's just going fast but i'm on one string it's not like some novel technique yeah um almost done here okay the fourth thing is is it motif bass like am i continually hearing the same repetitive melody or is it like a melody bass thing where the notes keep changing so if it's motif based, maybe my solo in G minor might be like. That was mostly a motif. Then I did it again, then I came back to it. What if my solo was like this instead of melody

bass everything that happened there was completely unique so that's a lot harder on you know when you're learning a solo um and then the last thing is It's kind of like to put them in video game terms. It's kind of like, if it's like, okay, there's a really simple attack pattern here. I know I've got to like, you know, like they're going to do these few things in sequence and maybe change up the order versus like, hey, here's an enemy that's got like 18 different attacks

and they're going to come out randomly. I have no idea. And they just have to be prepared for everything. That is so smart. Yeah, you're smart. No, also, I'm like rushing through all these things. So sorry to the listener. You're doing great.

Can I ask you a stupid question? I'm just listening because it's fascinating. How does Tom Morello make his guitar sound like a computer? Okay, that's actually legitimate. It's called the Digitech Whammy pedal. Okay. There's an analog version and there's now a digital version. But it's a pedal where you hit the note and then you push up on the pedal

and it goes up an octave or up two octaves and it sweeps through it. I use that, I have two of those. I freaking love that pedal. Although whenever you use it, it's like, oh, you're Tom Morello. It's like he's like the guy that does it. I've seen him do it.

It's like a magic trick. I'm like, what are you doing actually? It's insane. But the thing you said too about input things of what might be harder, it makes me think of like the Shoryuken in Street Fighter, like forward, down, diagonal. That's hard for me to hit. Whereas E. Honda's like fast hand, just tap A.

That's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? 100%. Yeah. But so the last thing that would make a solo hard is, is it composed or improvised? So a lot of times when you hear Freebird or you hear these songs, and these solos are so amazing for sure,

So a lot of times when you hear Freebird or you hear these songs, and these solos are so amazing for sure, but there's a reason why people say jazz is the, generally people say jazz is the hardest music to play. Because you have to come off the top of the head, like you guys do when you do improv comedy. That is so hard and might even just involve gifting, you know? It's actually really easy. Yeah. For you guys. It's kind of like the easiest thing in the world. It probably is.

My secret is I don't do comedy. Yeah, if you say whatever you want and don't care if it's funny, you can just say anything. That is fair. But so bands like Polifi or Animals as Leaders or Covet, this stuff is really challenging. But as long as you just spend a couple days learning it, you're good. Whereas I've heard guys like that who are incredible and girls like that who are great composers, but they can't really improvise. So that is kind of the final stop on the guitar solo, uh, you know, train, uh, train. Yeah, sure. Yeah. A lot of those stops on that train. But, um, so any who, uh, so what I did is when I listened to these songs that you said, and like through the fire and flames was

one of them, you said devil went down to Georgia. You said Jordan, that's hard, Raining Blood, Eruption, and Sudden Death and One. So I wrote all these down. The hardest one by far to actually play on a real guitar is Jordan. Wow. By far. It's because it's by the scariest living man bucket head.

But dude, I wrote down on all these, this would probably take me two to four. For example, Devil Went Down to Georgia would probably take about two to four hours. I wrote down for to georgia would probably take about two to four hours i wrote down for jordan i'm like one to three days wow yeah because there are techniques personally i'd have to learn that i haven't really done um like hammer off pull off tapping straight into picking etc yeah and then a lot of the melodies are just like it reminds me if i can use a jazz comparison of the charlie parker omni book oh sure you read through charlie parker's solos and it's just the I can use a jazz comparison of the Charlie Parker Omnibook.

Oh, sure. You read through Charlie Parker's solos and it's just the notes, there is a logic, but like it's a lot of accidentals and chromaticism and stuff. So, and chromaticism for the listeners is like when you play, if instead of doing that, I went, I'm playing kind of the same melody,

but dancing around every note that was part of it. So like, that's hard to read. And Jordan's just like, some of these melodies are, they're not like, they're like, like, I don't even know what they are, but it's just like, what? It's not like the normal order you would play notes. To really dumb it down.

And you can't really put it into your random access memory. Like you have to process every eighth note. Yeah. Versus if you're like doing a motif, if I have a song that's like really fast and I'm like,

some little, whatever the melody is, I'm like, oh, I can ram that because I know this is coming. And then again, but what if that same amount of rhythm was like,

like, I'm just joking here. I'm like, I don't know, random notes. That takes more to think about. Yes. And Jordan's full of that. It's that, I mean, like, and it's interesting you mentioned Charlie Parker because I guess he's kind of the same category

as just like a virtuoso jazz saxophonist. But the, but like Bucketethead and Joe Satriani is the other guitarist I think about who their whole thing is just technical mastery. And Steve Vai. And they're just like that's their

edge. They're going to do things that other people can't do. And so that kind of makes sense I guess that a Buckethead track would have like a lot of that, that just like uniqueness and novelty to it that makes it particularly challenging. Totally. But the weird thing is too, though,

I feel like you were saying Raining Blood is really hard on Guitar Hero. And I wrote down like out of five stars, I wrote down one star and I said, that would take me about 15 to 20 minutes to learn. Wow. And I was like, it's interesting because the right hand speed is fast.

Yeah. But the melody's repetitive and it's, you know, it's a pretty, you know, simple melody to play. Also, I feel kind of bad saying it because at one of the Evan and Zane shows,

Kerry King came to see the show. Wow. Oh, that's cool. And backstage I was like, what is happening here? This is crazy, dude. So I hope if he hears this, he's not like,

mine was actually harder. Put his hand on your, put your hand on his shoulders like, actually, that song's not that hard. Right. But his musicality and his tone is so good.

Yeah. Well, cause also there, there's maybe an element. I remember from a, from a metal drummer, I knew that like saying that, that,

you know, Slayer and Raining Bud and in particular was like really hard, but I think that might've, it might've been also like just so much on the drummer there, right? Cause he's doing his left

and right foot double bass drum. Yeah. Yeah. That is like a lot of stamina and stuff. But even with that, like I have friends that are just like the craziest jazz drummers. And when, when you see what they're doing,

even metal guys are like, okay, that's a different level. Cause you're doing what I did for four bars with my, but you're coming up with it on the spot. And then while you're doing that, you're playing like a song, go groove with your right hand.

Like, what are you doing? Yeah, sure. So yeah, I mean, the jazz guys still do take the cake as far as like, oh my God, that's impossible. But yeah, I mean, some of these things, I actually might not be able to learn for like a week or two or more because I'd have to truly learn that technique.

Like you heard me totally butcher a pinch harmonic, which is like the first thing you learn when you're 12. But I didn't focus on that. I focused on pitch creation and how harmony makes me feel versus right-hand technique. So I'm not really, you know, people for some reason do think I have, you know, technique and stuff, but that's never been my focus. It's always been the emotional connection to making people feel a certain way. And that usually takes place in the left hand, the combination of harmony and the groove element versus like the, the,

how challenging is it to play? So I don't know. Is there, here's a question and maybe you can't answer this. Are, were there any of these that were particularly like more fun to tackle than others? Well,

as far as learning them, like as a solo, had I done that, I wish I had, I will say eruptions when I, I should learn one day. Yeah. I really should.

Because it's just so iconic, dude. I've like been here my whole life. All their songs are like such showstoppers. Yeah. You could go to, if you went to a Van Halen concert, it's like you got the best, greatest hits CD concert ever.

Right, right. That's so fun. And Sammy Hagar might have been railing a groupie under the stage. Right, exactly. Like you said in his book, My Life railing a groupie under the stage. Right, exactly. Like you said in his book, My Life in Red. Little Cabo Wabo.

Yeah, right. Actually, I just saw Queen in New York last week with my brother and Brian May. Oh, it was so awesome. That's cool. But yeah, so-

Wait, who sings with Queen these days? Adam Lambert. Oh, that's awesome. Oh, he killed it. Wow. How lucky did they get that this guy- That Adam exists and can do it. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, it was sick. That's such a, that, how lucky did they get? Uh, you know, uh,

Adam exists and can do it. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's amazing. Yeah. It was sick. And also he did some really cool stuff that I feel like Freddie would have done

where he alive today, like being more allowed to express his fluidity. He was allowed to just do it. And it was like, Oh, this is totally what would have happened on stage. And you know, 2020 was so cool.

It was amazing. Um, is he still doing the, Oh no, they actually had like a hologram of Freddie do that. Oh, cool. Or like a, happened on stage in you know 2020 with him so cool it was amazing um is he still doing the hey oh no they actually had a like a hologram of freddy do that oh cool or like a like some sort of projection or something but yeah he did it for the audience and it was awesome that's fun yeah but yeah guitar it's interesting i mean if guitar here you said it's coming back out they are going to do that's they they sort of floated it like they're sort of like i will buy that in in a way

that they were sort of like hey this merger is this merger is fine uh guitar hero's coming back uh right that's fine we want that right yeah we're not destroying yeah yeah yeah i would like them i would love it to be back um because my biggest the thing that i want the most from guitar hero is i want to get rid of all my old ones that are all, I've dusted them off pretty recently and played some rock band in Guitar Hero with some friends and they all work fine, but they're 15 years, it's like they're over 10 years old, some of them. God, no, they are all like 15 years old at this point.

So they're shitty now. But I'd like there to be a nice new version that I can get and replace all the shitty ones that I have and just be gone with them. That'd be really nice. That would be fun, like having a really excellent guitar hero player play it on the controller.

Like a song like, what was the first one you told me about that was really hard? Oh, Through the Fire and the Flames. Yes. And then have someone like me, like a guitar player,

play the second part live on a real guitar. That's really cool. I would watch that at a concert. I would watch someone pull out a Guitar Hero and do it.

You know what we haven't even talked about? Just even speaking of the controller right now, people using the Guitar Hero controller to do impossible things in other games.

Yeah, I do. I never get tired of seeing that on Twitch. People using dance pads and Guitar Hero controller to do impossible things in other games. Yeah, I do. I never get tired of seeing that on Twitch. People using dance pads and Guitar Hero guitars and various other peripherals. To defeat Melania in Elden Ring

they used the Guitar Hero controller. I love that. You know what though? I should get a Guitar Hero controller and convert it to use on the Analog Pocket and Analoop or something like that.

Oh yeah. And play, yeah, like a key guitar-y kind of vibe. That's really fun, yeah. Because there's like, I don't know, it's yeah, like a key guitar-y kind of vibe. That's really fun. Yeah, because like, there's like, I don't know, it's interesting that like,

because it just is a controller. I'm sure it has more practical uses than just plugging it into a PlayStation 2. Right. But I do, I would love it to come back. I don't know if I need a full on rock band resurgence. No,

I think they, I think they should take, they should take a, again, the Tony Hawk's part, you know, one and two approach, two approach and just sort of have a streamlined, like, let's go back to basics. Let's recapture what we liked about the original game, and let's just release it in an upscaled format. I was trying to look for the exact news peg for why we were covering this, and so I just looked for Bobby Kotick news articles. And all the headlines are great because they're like, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said to leave in December.

Here's what to know about his controversies. Xbox creators has Activision sale will torment Bobby Kotick. Hopefully we never see Bobby Kotick again. Karma is a bitch. Original Xbox creator talks Activision takeover. Yeah. So basically, like everyone just, oh, yeah. And then I think the one that has some info on it.

At Activision's internal meeting, inexplicably hosted by James Corden, Bobby Akotick promises a new dimension of emotional connection powered by AI. But at a certain point within this this this weird press conference, he said, this is the quote, the reemergence of Guitar Hero and other things would not be possible without the different types of resources. And so, you know, just the endless possibilities for the future that are just incredibly exciting. I guess it just it just straight goes to how desperate the fan base is for any sort of news that they latched onto that specific yeah but he but he is leaving open the door and i think like with mike or you know microsoft seems to be decently savvy in terms of you know what they choose to focus on so i could see them being like hey you know guitar hero is a thing that we have as an ip that we have that we can exploit now yeah i will say i just thought while you were talking it would because wireless controllers are so easy to connect now to these systems, I'm guessing they'd be wireless, it would be cool to have a Guitar Hero game

that had an actual playable element, not necessarily an RPG, but where you use the regular controller to go somewhere and do something, and then you pick up the guitar once you're at the gig. Yeah, that'd be cool. Like a Red Dead Redemption. I don't know. I would play it.

Busker, the video game. Yeah, exactly. Troubadour, the video game. Dude, I would totally play that. Also, we didn't bring up Rocksmith. I would play it. Busker, the video game. Yeah, exactly. Troubadour, the video game. Dude, I would totally play that. But also, we didn't bring up Rocksmith. Rocksmith, yeah. Oh, yes. I mean, that's...

And Rocksmith was, I think, delisted, or is being delisted this month, actually. Oh, wow. There's a, well, because there's Rocksmith Plus, I think, which is the Ubisoft live service thing where it has songs that you can play to and you can play any guitar

and track your progress like that. You can use that to actually learn, but people don't like the subscription model of that, but there's a 2014 version of Rocksmith that everybody is like, this has all the songs on it

and you could do the same thing, but they're taking it off of, uh, off of online, uh, stores, um, pretty soon.

And for anyone who doesn't, who isn't familiar with Rocksmith, it's basically a guitar, but it uses an actual guitar and people use it to actually learn how to play. Right. Yeah. It's interesting. I've never seen that option has been available to me for quite some time and I have never even considered doing that.

Yeah. I could be a freaking virtual, I could be Buckethead Jr. over here. Hells yes. It is interesting, but I am reflecting right now. I just like to sit here and reflect. Yeah,

this is your safe space. Thank you. No, but like reflecting on why I haven't played this game much. I already, I guess we talked about it because you're playing music

for a living and coming home and not wanting to play, but also the idea. I'm not going to we talked about it because you're playing music for a living and coming home and not wanting to play. Yeah. Also the idea- I'm not going to play podcast to video game. Exactly.

Exactly. That's right. I probably would play that. Yeah. But so like I, yeah, playing, what was I trying to say

about the guitar? Oh, when someone's like, oh, I'm going in the mirror and practicing my air guitar having fun. For me personally,

I grew up with the nerdiest thing. Like obviously playing video games was nerdy back in the day. It's not anymore. But so was jazz guitar back in the day and practicing my air guitar having fun for me personally i grew up with the nerdiest thing like obviously playing video games was nerdy back in the day it's not anymore but so was jazz guitar back in the day like sure yeah yeah but so i didn't focus on playing music to to have fun or or be cool i was like obsessed with the pitches and what was going on with harmony and all that stuff so for that reason i guess also guitar here i didn't play it as much because it didn't even scratch the adage of like, how do I look? I probably look stupid when I play guitar on stage. Actually, I've seen video. I know I look weird.

I lift my left leg up a lot. I don't know what that's about. And I make bad faces like most guitarists do. Yeah. But that's more entertaining than, because you're putting on a show. You're doing a performance. Accidentally.

Right? So if I went to a concert and everybody was standing completely still. Which does happen now. But that is a thing. I know, it's hilarious. It's like, come on. Put on a concert and everybody was standing completely still. Which does happen now. But that is a thing. I know, it's hilarious. It's like, come on, put on a little. But don't do too much of it.

Yeah, just write just how I like it. I'm not asking everybody to be Mick Jagger or something. Yeah, I could probably stand and do more performing on stage. Yeah, it's hilarious. Any final thoughts on Guitar Hero? I do hope it's return. Uh, doesn't involve a, yeah, that would be a bummer. I mean, look, I, I, I did have a lot of fun with guitar hero. Maybe it, maybe there's a, maybe it doesn't come back and maybe it just kind of had its

moment, but I really did enjoy its moment when it was in the, yeah, yeah. I, it's, it's going to be hard to justify not getting it if they do come back because I didn't try Guitar Hero Live because I didn't like how the guitar looked so if they went back to classic went back to basics it'd be hard to not say yeah

I think regardless of what they do I think like the big thing for me and a big part of why this why it worked so well is the single playerplayer experience had really clear progression. And that's kind of the thing. When I messed around with Beat Saber, I find it overwhelming because there's so many tracks to choose from. I don't really know how to gauge.

I know some of this is spelled out, but for me, it's tough for me to gauge the difficulty level of everything. And I always thought with Kataria, you were just kind of sent down a lane of do these tracks to this threshold of this order and then move on. And in Beat Saber,

you're worried about falling off that little ledge. It's true. Yeah, right. Well, also, the progression of like, oh, there's more audience and they're clapping more.

That was the incentive. Yeah, yeah, I'm with that. Well, guys, how about a segment? I love it. Okay, so this one, this is our chart segment pixel chart. This is our worst segment transition ever.

I was going to say something, but I didn't know if I was allowed. How about a segment? I love it. Five seconds of dead air. Oh, man. Well, see, now I have to leave in the dead air. Yeah. Okay, so this is our segment pixel chart. Okay, so this is our segment, Pixel Chart.

Where I have a list of... I have a chart of sorts here, and you guys need to name the top five in this chart. And the theme of this chart is most streamed video game soundtracks, okay? Most streamed video game soundtracks. Okay? Most streamed video game soundtracks. Interesting. I thought that'd be sort of an interesting data point. Cool. And this is going to be hard to...

Are these pulled from Spotify? Where are these pulled from? These are all... The data is from Spotify. This was aggregated from a website. But these would be... These are tracks that are on Spotify. Yes, that's right.

And you could, I mean, the thing, I texted Nick earlier. I think I accidentally made an impossible segment. Yeah, you didn't tell me the category. No. But hearing this now, yeah, it sounds possible, but we'll just, we'll see how we do here. I guess just then start, see if you can name a video game, and then I'll tell you if it's on the list. Are these, but here's the question.

Are these like scores, or do these include ones that have a bunch of different like pop songs and rock songs? That is a great question. It is scores. Okay, so these are scores. Okay, got it. I mean, the first one that comes to mind, Bing, Bing, checking in, is Donkey Kong Country.

Is that up there? Donkey Kong Country is not on here. And I will say, just to give everybody a little bit more, or narrow the playing field a little bit, I would say the top 10 of these are all within the last 10 to 15 years. The Witcher. Yeah. The Witcher's not on here,

but that's not a bad guess. Okay, so we're talking like big AAA, widely played games. Yes. That does make me think of Red Dead Redemption 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 is number five. Wow. With 117,199,242 plays as of September of 2003.

Oh, man. Wow. I have another guess. Composer made 80 cents. Yeah, exactly. I have another guess that I know is not right, but I feel like this should get some love is Undertale. That's a great score.

Undertale, not on the list, but a great, great score. I hadn't played that game until we played it for the podcast back in the day. And I did really like it, but it's kind of like grown in my over time. I think about it more and more. I particularly think about that soundtrack by Toby Fox. It's just like, oh, it's really great. I really love that guy, the little skeleton guy. Oh, Sans?

I love him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have other scores that I wish would be on there. I don't want to be wrong, though. I'm just thinking big games in the relatively recent past. I'm going to say Skyrim. Skyrim is also on the list. Number two.

Number two. Number two on our list. How about God of War? God of War 2018 is number seven in the top ten there. I'm surprised I got one. A killer guess. As you notice, and as you guys know, to be true, I only play retro video games mostly, so I'm going to suck at this.

I got one. Nice. Not a bad guess, though. You're doing really good. Great guess. All right, let's see. What else is big in recent memory? I mean, boy, is there a...

We've played all of these games. Yeah, I'm sure we've played all of these games yeah i'm sure we played all this is is there a halo on there halo is not on here yeah but not a bad that's like a good like it should be i bet you would be number 11 man the dorian mode am i right guys that's the melody and that thing is the story i think think, I'm pretty sure. Whatever. People love that mode. Everybody loves that mode. Love that mode. Classic mode. Play-Doh love that mode.

Incredible mode. That's right. The best. Let me think. Okay, let's see. Can I think of other games? Give me a hint here. Maybe the first entry in a series

is also on this list. First entry in a series is it's not just Red Dead Redemption. It is, number eight. Okay. 64 million streams. Would Assassin's Creed be in there because it's such a massive game? Assassin's Creed is not on there.

I would say one of the games on here is maybe the biggest game. Oh, Minecraft? Oh, that's a great guess. Not a bad guess, but that is not correct. Well, but this is, like when you say that, it makes me think of

Grand Theft Auto Online, so I'd say Grand Theft Auto 5, but I feel like that's like, I guess that has some scoring. It's number one. Oh, what? It might be, I mean, here's the thing.

It might be, some of these might be scores. Some of these might be like the album that granted auto five. You know, maybe they're listening to Laszlo radio or whatever. Right. I don't know what to do. That's amazing.

Brain is fucking goo. What else would do? Is there are there any Nintendo first party games on there? Shockingly, no Nintendo games. Well, that could be. But that could also be a Spotify thing. Maybe just Nintendo games or D-List. That feels like the kind of thing they would do.

That's true. And then maybe also like the user base of maybe that people love Spotify aren't really, maybe they're not Nintendo people. And also like Mario Tennis Aces, that freaking two-minute song that just doesn't stop looping. I don't want to hear that ever again. Yeah. Although I do wish that Dire, Dire Docks was on there, some Super Mario 64. Get some Dire, Dire Docs on Spotify.

It'll be my wrapped. I'll take a, this one's not going to be on there, but I'll guess it because it's a great score. Persona 5. It is not on there. I will give you this hint. Yeah, please. We have, of the top 10, we have, I think, four more. Okay.

And two of them are a series. Okay. Or in a series, you know, or what am I trying to say? They're in the same franchise. They're in the same franchise. Yes, yes. That is one clue. Okay, so there's probably a big franchise that I'm not.

Are they Call of Duty games? There might be one of those on here. Really? I'll just guess Modern Warfare. Modern Warfare is number 10. 50 million plays. What the heck is the score like in that? I've never heard of it.

I know people just really trying to feel like... I want to feel like I'm at war right now. Yeah. I will say this score is definitely not on there either, but shout out to Peter McDonald, one of my favorite composers. Psychonauts 2 was ridiculous, man. Oh, my God. Not on here, but...

Yeah, no way that's on there. If this was like a list of taste... Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That would be was ridiculous, man. Oh, my God. Not on here, but... Yeah, no way that's on there. If this was like a list of taste... Yeah, exactly, exactly. That would be on there, man. Is there a... Just trying to think of, again, big games. Is there a Fortnite on there? Fortnite on here.

The rest are all... I'm surprised by no Minecraft. I would have thought Minecraft would have been on there. I know. On another list that I had, there was more Minecraft, but it was like broken down by song rather than

the album. Are any of these, are these all Western developed games? I would, I, hmm, I would say yes

and I would say that, hmm, one of them is not. So no Final Fantasies or anything? No Final Fantasy, they're all

single player experiences. Single player games and not like a world of Warcraft. Can I just look at your screen and then guess? Oh yeah. I don't got this, man. Wait, is one of them part of a franchise we already named?

Because Red Dead 1 and 2 were on there. There's a yet unnamed franchise. Oh, okay. Unnamed franchise. Alex, our engineer, just said FIFA and no, Alex. Amazing. FIFA's a good guess. It's not a bad guess.

It's the kind of thing that would be on there. Give us some more hints. I'm going to be here all day. I would say three of the games on here we've talked about quite a bit and I would consider them to be three of our favorite games.

Not Cyberpunk? Not Cyberpunk. Oh, wait. Oh, Disco League. No, but that's a great guess too. Great soundtrack. Our favorite games? Big games that are favorites?

In the top. As a fan of the show. At least in the top 15. Why am I having trouble thinking of this? I should know this, too. I should know this more than you guys do, because you're living it, but I'm like, I love the show,

so I should... It's hard to know what we say on here. Not a Shadow of the Colossus. That can't be. That's too niche. No, no. And it's also Japanese developed, which we've already talked about.

There's, you know. No Blizzard games. No Blizzard games. These are all like AAA single player story. Take them one at a time and give us a hint from one at a time. Okay. Let's go from, let's go number nine. Okay.

Okay. This was the sequel to a game that came out in the very early pandemic. Oh, Last of Us Part II. Last of Us Part II is number nine on this list with 57 million plays. And then Last of Us is in there? Is number three on our list. Oh, that makes so much sense. Why couldn't I think of that?

One of these I think you're not going to – I don't know if you played this, Nick. Maybe you did, and I don't remember. you're not going to, I don't know if you played this, Nick. Maybe you did, and I don't remember, but this was the sort of midquel to this, and the sequel comes out on Friday.

Oh, I want to do another bad joke answer. Please. Doki Doki Panic, Super Mario 2. This is Doki Doki Panic. Marvel's Spider-Man. Yeah, this is Spider-Man Miles Morales. Oh, the Miles Morales soundtrack,

specifically. Wow, okay. And then number four. Is that the hymn? Number four, we've covered on this show, I think, at least three times. Oh, I got it. Wait, no. It's not.

Was it during Code Jember? Was it during November? Oh, Death Stranding. It is Death Stranding. Death Stranding is that high. Yeah, number four on the list. People love low roar. That's right.

Wow. I'm shocked that Death Stranding is that high. It's high. It's 137,811,743 plays as of September of 2023. That's going to be 735. I'm going to listen to that. You're going to give them two. Yeah, you're welcome. So that's our pixel chart. It's going from one to be 735. I'm a listener. You're going to give them two. Yeah, you're welcome.

And that's our pixel chart. It's going from one to 10 right here. Grand Theft Auto V, Skyrim, The Last of Us, Death Stranding, Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider-Man, Miles Morales, God of War 2018, Red Dead Redemption, The Last of Us 2, and Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Yeah, that makes sense. As a musician, disappointingly, that makes sense. No, not that the music

isn't good they're all amazing I'm guessing I've never heard any of them but yeah it makes sense when something's popular you pay attention to it yeah

I'd say of the games featured on here the Last of Us soundtracks are always really great or the scores in those games

are fantastic and the Death Stranding soundtrack is incredible great soundtrack and Red Dead Redemption 2 that D'Angelo song we talked about it oh nice

I just feel like man freaking Celeste and Undertale and like oh yeah I like Beth Travolta that was a crazy score oh man

but yeah that makes sense because they're such popular games of course people want to hear their popular stuff I'm not a jaded musician I'm good I love it

I'm sure they're amazing scores I need to check all those out. Yeah, they're all great. And that was Pixel Chart. And that was this week's Get Played. Wow.

Shout out to Alex Gonzalez, our engineer. Dead Air Alex G on Twitter and Instagram. Also check out our paywall show, Get Animated, where we, along with Heather, who's still with us on the Patreon feed, is watching Cyberpunk Edgerunners on Netflix. It's available only at patreon.com

slash getplay. That's right. And this week we'll be talking about episodes 7 and 8 of Cyberpunk Edgerunners. So catch up and join us

over there on Patreon. Great show with some great music. Some great, great tunes. And Zane, is there anything you'd like to plug?

Zane Carney, our guest. Zane, what a delight to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I actually do have some fun stuff coming up with that band I was talking about, Evan and Zane, is there anything you'd like to play? Zane Carney, our guest. Zane, what a delight to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I actually do have some fun stuff coming up

with that band I was talking about, Evan and Zane. So we're playing October 30th at Zebulon in LA, if you guys want to come. Wow, that's awesome. We're playing there, and then we're doing a little mini tour November 2nd through 9th. We're doing Long Island on the 3rd.

We're doing New York City 5th and 6th, and then Connecticut, our first show there on the 7th. And we do different themes in each show pretty much. Cool. So we're playing New York City 5th and 6th and then Connecticut our first show there on the 7th and we do different themes in each show pretty much so like we're playing OK Computer then we're playing Psychedelia is the name

of the set then Dream is the set then Halloween but then on January 5th in Glendale, California we're doing that big orchestra show which I'm currently

arranging and orchestrating really cool yeah some fun stuff coming up there and I'm actually going to be streaming it on Twitch the creation of the

orchestration and arrangements oh that's awesome I haven't streamed in like two months but I'm actually going to be streaming it on Twitch, the creation of the orchestration and arrangements. Oh, that's awesome. I haven't streamed in like two months, but I'm starting like tomorrow. And it'll be just like eight hour days of me composing and stuff. Shout out your Twitch channel. Oh yeah, twitch.tv slash Zane Carney. So I would love to see you guys over there

in the next couple months. And you've done Music Theory of Gaming over there as well in the past. That's right, which we brought to this show. Yeah,.com country stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's going to be fun. But man, I love being on your guys' show.

This is, I get to finally talk. I'm loving you. This was a blast. It was so good to have you here in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's going to be fun. But man, I love being on your guys' show. I get to finally talk. It's good having you. This was a blast. It was so good to have you here in person. Thank you, yeah. Yeah, thanks for making time for us. Oh, yeah. But you know.

You actually, you know what got played? The dang guitar. Wow. Guitar, you got played. Had to pick it up. That was great.