We talk about this every year when we get close to Rockfest, and especially after the lineup is announced. By in large people are excited to see whoever is playing but there’s always a faction of people that think the line-up sucks and it’s because we didn’t think to invite anyone better. This happens every year. One year we had something like Disturbed, Godsmack and System of a Down. System’s biggest hit at the time was “Sugar” and most rock fans hadn’t ever heard of them, Disturbed has “Down with the Sickness” and Godsmack had that song on the Navy commercials. That year we got calls saying, “Phhht. System of a what? Why don’t you guys just get Metallica or something?” As if we hadn’t thought of that. Do you know what it takes to get Metallica to play a show? What you need is 1) an ass-load of cash, 2) some luck that their tour schedule and routing can accommodate your show and 3) even more money. We don’t have any of those because CBS is about as tight as a nun’s pucker on ice-bath night and living in Portland our show is always an inconvenience for any act. What you need is a tour like Ozzfest already rolling through the area that you can poach from, which is what we always did in the past. Well, I have good news for you dudes out there looking to crap on us for whoever we get for Rockfest this year: Ozzfest has secured Metallica to play on the main stage this year. That’s part one of the good news. Part two is that you’ll still get to bitch at us for not getting Metallica at Rockfest because not only can we still not afford to pay them, but Ozzfest likely won’t be anywhere close to Portland. It appears that Ozzfest will be two weekend long shows with Ozzy headlining one night and Metallica headlining the other. One city that has been rumored for some time is Houston. It’s doubtful that they’ll choose Portland or Seattle for the other date, but there’s an outside possibility that it could be at the Gorge. Again, I doubt it because they can make a lot more money some place like Chicago or LA.  

Everyone is jumping on the Guitar Hero bandwagon, trying to get their tunes on the game. I think it has something to do with Myrock, airing daily at 11pm here on the Cort and Fatboy show. That’s because ever since Guitar Hero came along, the number of Guitar Hero songs requested by 16-year-old has dramatically increased so everyone know that they’re guaranteed to make some serious cash off their back catalogue by getting their song on the game.

Def Leppard is one of those bands. They recently announced that they’d have three songs in the new Guitar Hero IV, which isn’t exactly accurate. The three songs will be downloadable for Guitar Hero III, not on the new game, and not on the game proper. And while you may have fun playing two of those songs (“Rock of Ages” and “Photograph”) the third will sit unplayed until you sell your game system in a few years for the Lawn Mower Man 360, or whatever the next gen gaming system is. That’s because the third song is new. It’s called “Nine Lives” and features vocals from Tim McGraw. Yeah, the country guy.  

This is the first time any band has used videogame downloadable content as a way to getting their new music out first.