Zep retains the undisputed heavyweight title for not jumping on the bandwagon. From Wired.
Despite the success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, you won’t see Led Zeppelin’s iconic tunes pop up in either game any time soon, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The band, specifically Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, is not comfortable giving gaming companies access to the group’s master recordings — a necessary step in adding the band to any game.
They are NOT going to tour, you do NOT hear their songs on iPod commercials and now, unlike every other major rock act, Zep is NOT interested n cashing in on Guitar Hero.
Good for you, Jimmy and Co. You don’t need the money. And, every time you turn down one of these offers it just makes you music more valuable. Touring is one thing; I think they will eventually put something together. The rest, is just stuff that lowers the overall integrity for cash.
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Tags: guitar hero, jimmy page, Led Zeppelin, rock band
pat darnell wrote,
Step away from the guitar….
Link | July 8th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Pribek wrote,
Anything you play can and will be used against you…..
Link | July 8th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Sans Direction wrote,
I posted this elsewhere, but I thought I should bring it here, too.
Word is that there’s tons of radio telescope data from the 50s and 60s out there, written to the kind of tapes you associate with computers from watching movies about computers in the 70s and early 80s. The big tape drives that stand as tall as a man.
And, according to what I heard in the 90s, the tapes were not holding up too well. If you wanted to get a small piece of data off one of the tapes, you had better be prepared to pay for the reading and archiving of that whole tape, because when they’re done with one read, all the data part will be in a pile of iron oxide dust on the floor.
Jimmy says he’s uncomfortable with others messing with the masters. There might be all kinds of Lefsetz-compliant reasons why this is good for his career. In one of Ashley Kahn’s books, either on Kind of Blue or Love Supreme, he wrote about seeing the master tapes and some of the original photos from the session, how it was a rare thing and the record company treated them almost like holy objects. (Makes me think Love Supreme….) I treasure both more than Led Zep II, but I can see from Jimmy’s position why he’d hold his works so dear.
Sans Direction’s last blog post..I Think I Got A Bootleg
Link | July 9th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Pribek wrote,
There are a number of procedures involved in dealing with master tapes. A lot of times you have to bake them and/or do some physical splicing.
You have to have a real tape guy and, there aren’t a whole lot of them around.
I doubt that what Jimmy is talking about is actually handing tape over to the game people. The music has to be re-mastered for the game, EQd and leveled to assure continuity. And, I’ve noticed that Guitar Hero tracks often have an entirely different sound than the original tracks. Superfluous hyper lows, compression and overall delay type things going on there.
So, I think he is concerned about the integrity of his vision rather than enhancing his career. But, by holding to his integrity, it in turn enhances the value of the tracks.
Link | July 9th, 2008 at 11:36 am