Guitar Queer-O

Ethan sent me a gift of this episode of South Park on iTunes. I watched it this morning and laughed out loud. It’s available on South Park’s website, but happily they allow embedding so here it is for all of you.

The entire show is available right now on YouTube in three parts if you want to see the whole thing.

#My Music

Comments (Archived):

  1. Rex Hammock

    This is hilarious, Fred. The 17-year-old in my house is an incredible mandolin/fiddle player (after over a decade of lessons and practice) who seems way more proud of his Guitar Hero virtuosity than his talent with real stringed instruments. I think it’s not about the music — it’s about the competition. Go figure. (I’m equally amazed that he now has an encyclopedic knowledge of every song and artist that was popular during my teens and twenties — way more than I know.)

    1. fredwilson

      the game dynamic is very powerful. we look for it in our investments as well.

    2. Ethan Bauley

      This 17 year old needs to find a milieu where his chops are getting pushed by players *better than he is*…that’s the best way to progress musically.Or, keep shooting for “superstar power”…we all know what happens when you reach one million points 😉

  2. Josef

    “Guitars are for old people” heh…

    1. fredwilson

      yeah, i loved that line

  3. charlie crystle

    The real Guitar Hero III guitar (a ton of it) was played by Steve Ouimette (http://www.steveouimette.com/), who used Theo Hartman’s Germanium Fuzz pedal for a lot of the tracks. (http://www.hartmanelectroni…).Theo left his architectural design job at Jamba Juice (he designed the first 5 NYC stores) to raise his kids, write music, and build pedals using new but vintage parts. The word of mouth has been great. I have 3 of his pedals, and they are really amazing. If you’re into vintage sounds–full rich analog–add a Hartman to your rig.Theo’s a friend, btw, and really talented; designing a pedal with Steve Stevens now and programming in Assembler to do it. Nuts. But I think he’s a great example of a new wave of home-based entrepreneurs who choose lifestyle, family, and passion over the corporate thang. Check it out.

  4. Ethan Bauley

    I was especially geeked by this because I had written a pretty long meditation on Guitar Hero’s “dorkification of our culture” on my blog a few weeks before this episode came out:Rock Band, ne Guitar Hero”There are many sides of the issue, including the fact that Guitar Hero does make musical *collaboration* easier, which is a good thing.(You know, Trey Parker et al don’t shoot the episodes until the preceding week…I’m sure they’re biting.)I also followed that post up, after playing some more Guitar Hero, here.They could have said, “stop hating on Guitar Hero/taking music so seriously”, but they didn’t…I was most happy at the end of the episode, when they definitively came down on my side, politically: practicing Guitar Hero is just insanely lame.;-)

  5. Pierre

    As someone who has actually been involved in the creative process of more than a few hit albums I have to be honest… I love Guitar Hero!You would think I would hate it just like all of the music snobs, but no. That game allows kids who would otherwise be playing Madden or Halo 9 the ability to feel what it’s like to have a crowd root for you and also, as was previously said, feel the magic that comes from “making music” with others. That has to have good longterm effects. Especially as more actual music creation “games” are made for these super powerful gaming systems that are also connected to the cloud. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the competitiveness that can come from that scenario. Kids might use real guitars, or they may use midi guitars, keys and drums, but whatever happens they WILL be making music that is new and fresh. It may not be made the way it used to be in studios, but hey, that’s called evolution, or maybe a revolution… and this one definitely will not be televised.Anyhoo, great episode Fred, I got a good laugh out of the “real guitars are for old people” line. It’s amazing that Trey and Matt have stayed on top of their game for so long.

  6. Aruni S. Gunasegaram

    That is funny and sad at the same time! The ‘real guitars are for old people’ could be replaced with many things that indicate the changing times. I guess with the Wii kids can say real tennis, real golf, real bowling is for old people too! 🙂