Category: Bazaar News

(LifeWire) — Jess Hu is a child care provider from Brooklyn, New York, but for 20 hours a week, she’s a rock star. That’s how much she estimates she plays the video game “Rock Band.”

“It’s like a part-time job,” says Hu, 27. “I gave up sleep.”

“Rock Band” has joined “Guitar Hero” as the must-have video game and become another way for wannabe rockers to live their dream.

“Rock Band,” released in the United States on November 20 by MTV Games and Electronic Arts, takes up to four players at a time: a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer and a lead singer.

The performance simulator enables players to look and sound like the real deal — so much so that “Rock Band” devotees are posting videos of themselves on YouTube, talking about faux concert triumphs in online forums and storming bar-hosted “Rock Band” festivals.

Haven’t heard of the band Something Ridiculous? They are legends in their time, which would be Sunday nights at the Living Room Lounge in Brooklyn. That’s “Rock Band” Night. Hu and fellow members Alex Hedquist, 25, Darce Grillo, 19, Saori Tsujimoto, 21, and E. Pena, 21, even made their own T-shirts.

“When you do ‘Guitar Hero,‘ you’re like a comedian — on your own,” said Living Room Lounge bartender Gerard Grillo, who brings the game to the bar on Sundays and projects it onto a large screen. “Now you have three other people to act foolish with.”

Karaoke’s successor

Bar nights devoted to music games are popping up from Brooklyn to the Bay Area. “Guitar Hero” Night at the Living Room Lounge brought in 60 people on Sunday nights, estimates Darce Grillo, the bartender’s son; with “Rock Band,” it’s about 80.

Arshan Sadri, a restaurant worker, slips into a showbiz alter ego as soon as he straps on the stringless guitar replica, urging three strangers to join hands and yell, “Let’s go, band!”

“You’re forming a fake band — that’s what you do,” says Sadri, calling the game “the best part of karaoke, adding in a drummer and guitars.”

Players at the Lounge shred on electric anthems such as the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” and Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

Or, at least, they appear to play.

Guitarists press colored notes on the neck of the “instrument” to correspond with the colored bars descending on the video monitor. They press a strum key with the other hand to “hit” the note before it disappears.

Drummers pound in syncopation with a color code, and singers perform with a real microphone as the words stream across the screen, their voices blending with the real artists’. They pat the microphone to simulate a tambourine.

Tsujimoto of Something Ridiculous said “Rock Band” demands a degree of dexterity similar to “Dance Dance Revolution,” in which participants match dance steps with flashing colored lights.

“Rock Band” doesn’t quite put one onstage at Madison Square Garden. Computer-generated characters do the prancing and preening. Players can choose from among such archetypes as the muscular punk, the earthy babe and the mop-topped pretty boy. Strong performances earn bands a classier virtual tour bus and better venues in the video game.

Something for everyone

The fantasy is all some need. The newly hooked Mary Tchamkina, 24, says it fulfills her long-held dream of being able to play the drums. She had never tried a video game before “Rock Band.”

Others like that the game begs for participation in a social setting — in the living room or garage with friends, or at a bar with strangers. Even though bands can compete, the vibe has been more communal than cutthroat at the Living Room Lounge.

“It’s all about fun as long as people are feeling it,” Darce Grillo says. “If you compete, you don’t have fun.”

Roy Tumminia, a 25-year-old Staten Island sanitation worker, plays “Rock Band” with colleagues between garbage runs. Jared Fletcher, Tchamkina’s boyfriend, used “Rock Band” in his apartment as a perk when advertising for a prospective roommate.

The explosion of virtual performance is “bringing a whole new crowd into the rock scene,” says Tumminia.

“Rock Band” and its “Guitar Hero” forebears are attracting non-gamers as well, says Brian Crecente, editor of the gaming blog Kotaku.com and a judge at the Spike TV Video Game Awards. He hosted a charity event in Denver where “Rock Band” was the featured entertainer.

“It’s so big because it gives people a chance who do not have musical talent to play like they have musical talent,” Crecente says. “It tricks you into thinking you’re pulling off that amazing solo.” E-mail to a friend

LifeWire provides original and syndicated lifestyle content to Web publishers. Ron Dicker is a New York-based freelance writer who covered sports for The New York Times from 1996 to 2005.

All About Video Games • Guitar Hero

The celebration of American Independence Day has never been small, subdued, or quiet. From sea to shining sea, the Fourth of July is illuminated with colorful displays in major cities, small towns, and backyards. The fireworks that burst in the sky on the Fourth of July have come a long way in the millennia since they were first created.

The history of pyrotechnics began around 2000 years ago, when a Chinese alchemist accidentally developed gunpowder by mixing sulphur, charcoal, and saltpeter. Even in its early form, huo yao (“fire chemical”) was used to make loud noises for celebrations and to scare away spirits. A monk named Li Tian is often credited with inventing firecrackers about 1000 years ago by stuffing huo yao into a bamboo tube.

It’s unclear who brought gunpowder to Europe—some credit Marco Polo with introducing fireworks to the continent, while others argue Europeans first encountered gunpowder earlier via the Crusaders. Europeans used gunpowder in weaponry, but also deployed fireworks in various festivals and celebrations; they were notably featured in King Henry VII’s 1486 wedding. Italians developed the pyrotechnic shows we’re used to seeing in the 1830s, and even today, many of the major American pyrotechnic companies are run by families of Italian ancestry, such as Fireworks by Grucci and Zambelli Fireworks Internationale.

Fireworks came to the New World with the European settlers; a popular legend claims Captain John Smith lit them in the Jamestown colony. And after the British colonists broke free from the king’s rule, fireworks became a traditional part of Independence Day events.

Today, fireworks are a unifying factor in the many ways America honors the Fourth of July. John Adams would be pleased: On July 3, 1776—the day after the Founding Fathers finished the final draft of the Declaration of Independence—Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, about the momentous occasion (though he predicted the wrong date for the holiday that would commemorate American independence):

“The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

Adams may have gotten the date wrong, but he was right about the festivities. Independence Day’s first anniversary was celebrated with the pomp and circumstance we would recognize today—complete with fireworks. As the Virginia Gazette reported, people Philadelphia set the sky ablaze on July 4, 1777:

“The evening was closed with the ringing of bells, and at night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks, which began and concluded with thirteen rockets on the commons, and the city was beautifully illuminated. Every thing was conducted with the greatest order and decorum, and the face of joy and gladness was universal. Thus may the 4th of July, that glorious and ever memorable day, be celebrated through America, by the sons of freedom, from age to age till time shall be no more.”

The War of 1812 brought more fireworks traditions to Independence Day celebrations. Francis Scott Key wrote a poem entitled “Defence of Fort McHenry” while watching a battle rage in 1814. It was later set to the tune of a drinking song, retitled “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and became the U.S. national anthem. The lines “the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air” reinforce the use of fireworks in patriotic displays. Another composition, “The 1812 Overture,” has been co-opted to use in public fireworks displays, although the tune was written by Tchaikovsky about Napoleon’s unsuccessful invasion of Russia.

The fiery festivities continued. By the early 20th century, the revelry had become so rambunctious it prompted one Pennsylvania lawyer to begin advocating for safer celebrations. Rather than light dangerous fireworks, Charles Pennypacker wanted people to enjoy more low-key activities. “The price of five skyrockets will buy a hammock, whose swing delights youth and old age in all lands,” he encouraged (Pennypacker also suggested people go for a trolley ride or bake a “cake with deviled eggs”). Overtime, various cities and states passed laws either regulating or outright banning the use of fireworks.

Several states now allow fireworks, though restrictions vary. Today, Americans continue to host private celebrations in their yards (unless they live in Massachusetts), or gather together to watch their town or city’s explosive displays on the Fourth of July.

A version of this story originally ran in 2007; it has been updated for 2023.