Sleater-Kinney guitarist talks Rock Band

by Justin McElroy { Dec 1st 2007 at 8:00AM }

As a result of being asked to help with marketing for the game, Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein has spent plenty of time playing music, both on the road and with Rock Band. Over at Slate, the lead guitarist has written an entertaining piece that compares the experience of actual touring and being part of a digi-band in EA's new music game.

Unsurprisingly, Brownstein judges real touring to be the more rewarding experience, though she admits that Rock Band has it's perks. Namely, she hopes, it has the ability to inspire the next generation of real musicians, saying, "maybe by pretending to be in a band, there will be those who'll find the nerve to go beyond the game, and to take the brave leaps required to create something real."

Tags: ea, harmonix, mtv, rock-band, rockband

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

grantly @ Dec 1st 2007 8:05AM

I would like to add that her husband, director Lance Bangs, is in charge of filming indie bands playing Rock Band for an article on Vice Magazine's website. I think EA may have paid for the article. Perhaps this is why she likes the game?

muchmaligned @ Dec 1st 2007 10:38AM

Lance Bangs is married to Corin Tucker, not Carrie.

love this band. "One Beat" and "The Woods" are two of my all-time favorite albums.

TrenchyC @ Dec 1st 2007 8:07AM

It just never ends with Rock Band, does it? Is it really needed to have 3 Rock Band stories every day? I mean it's cool people enjoy it, but can we please get something new and no more posts about Rock Band unless it's actually important? Thank you.

Perhaps this is a CNET - Kane & Lynch situation, where EA and/or Harmonix have bribed you to talk about nothing Rock Band stories for the last 2-3 weeks. Just throwing that out there.

JimmyT @ Dec 1st 2007 8:40AM

Probably not a Kane & Lynch, but just geek chic. It's more hip to be down with small developer like Harmonix than it is to be down with big faceless Activision.

Of course, that's all BS since Harmonix is owned by Mtv which is owned by Viacom, one of the biggest media conglomerates out there.

copa @ Dec 1st 2007 11:49AM

Rock Band is phenomenal, and it delivers a gaming experience that is qualitatively different from the other stuff that is on the market.

It's great to get stories on popular first-person shooters. But when something like Wii Sports or Rock Band comes along, that changes the way people are playing games, I do want to read a lot of stories about how people are experiencing it.

GrossGreg @ Dec 1st 2007 9:08AM

What the Hell? This is just stupid...gamers have spent years fighting against the notion that games influence players' behavior.

This is like saying that after playing a game like GTA, "maybe by pretending to [shoot people], there will be those who'll find the nerve to go beyond the game, and to take the brave leaps required to create something real."

Mike B @ Dec 1st 2007 11:51AM

"maybe by pretending to [crush anthropomorphic turtles by leaping onto their backs], there will be those who'll find the nerve to go beyond the game, and to take the brave leaps required to create something real."

I second this - you know what motivates kids to become rockers - going to club shows. So this saturday, take a 2-hour time out from the video games and look for an all-ages show in a city near you. You'll have a ton of fun, and get to know all the neo-nazi kids by name (kidding, but they tend to like all-ages shows).