| Joystiq interviews Rob Kay of Harmonix
In our second interview from the Develop Conference in Brighton this week, Jen and I sat down with Rob Kay of Harmonix. Rob was project lead on the cult classic Guitar Hero, a game which is part of a new wave of hyper accessible games that is all about catching the mindset of the mainstream, as well as addicting millions of hardcore gamers. We talked with Rob about song licensing, Konami's recent "Guitar Revolution" trademark and the possibility of a Trombone Hero.You talked about clones of Guitar Hero in your seminar. Specifically you talked about how other companies are being inspired by the premise of games like Guitar Hero. I don't know if you heard about Konami trademarking a Guitar Revolution game?Yeah, I read that on the internet. To give Konami props, they started this whole instrument simulation in games thing when they did games like GuitarFreaks which they released in Japan.
Loner Clapton
Guitar hero Eric Clapton has become a reclusive loner. He dreams of being buried next to his five-year-old son, who died in 1991 after falling from his New York apartment, according to a former lover. Clapton's son, Conor, died after falling from the 53rd floor of a Manhattan apartment building. The boy's death inspired Clapton's Grammy-winning hit, Tears in Heaven. His former partner, Lory Del Santo, told the New York Daily News that Clapton now kept to himself and “lives in silence". “He doesn't do anything ever," she said. “You have to wait in the shadow and be there somehow and understand his world." Del Santo said Conor died after a housekeeper had opened a window in their apartment. “Suddenly, the baby ran, just to have a run," Del Santo said. “He went in this room, opened the door. And the housekeeper saw him going through, he forgot about the window.
Bangles busy with albums and tours
The Bangles have always had good taste in the songs they've recorded that were written by others, a fact they reconfirmed with the title track of their 2003 reunion album, "Doll Revolution."
They had most of the album already recorded -- the band paid for it by touring first -- when Elvis Costello offered them "Tear Off Your Own Head (It's a Doll Revolution)," a song he'd written for a television pilot he developed about a -- what else? -- girl group.
Before "Tear Off Your Own Head," however, The Bangles took both Simon and Garfunkel's "Hazy Shade of Winter" and Prince's "Manic Monday" to No. 2 on Billboard's top 40 singles charts in the '80s. Their first album, 1984's "All Over the Place," featured "Going Down to Liverpool," a hard-edged pop song written by Katrina and the Waves guitarist Kimberley Rew, and 1986's "Different Light" featured their more-than-credible version of Big Star's "September Gurls."
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