Can’t talk. Too busy playing Guitar Hero III.

(several failed attempts at Slayer’s “Raining Blood” on Easy difficulty later…)

The Guitar Hero series trends heavily towards a mix of classic rock and 80s metal/hard rock standards. There’s a sprinkling of 90s alt-rock singles and present-day hits as well, but generally it’s the broad crowd-pleasers that get centre stage. It’s kinda hard to argue with this logic—one go-through of Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” or “Paint it Black” by the Stones should put a smile on most people’s faces—but it does mean surprises are few and far between. But Harmonix, and now Neversoft with the third iteration of the game, have thrown wildcards into the rhythm game’s repertoire. For example, Harmonix are big fans of synthpop band Freezepop, as they’ve thrown the band into Frequency, Amplitude, and the first two Guitar Hero games. The last part is especially notable, considering Freezepop doesn’t use guitars—or any traditional instruments, for that matter. It turns out that one of Freezepop’s members is also the music director for Harmonix; this also explains how Freezepop songs get into the games before they appear on an album.

Slightly less bizarre but perhaps more exciting is the inclusion of a Sonic Youth song in the latest Guitar Hero game. Sure, “Kool Thing” is about as close to a hit as anything Sonic Youth has done, and it does feature Chuck D’s memorable interlude with Kim Gordon. But it’s still a Sonic Youth song, and therefore slightly odd company against a backdrop of songs by Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine and the Beastie Boys. Me, I would’ve preferred “Pattern Recognition,” but I guess you can’t have it all.

Lest anyone forget, there’s yet another guitar rhythm game coming soon: Harmonix will release Rock Band in about a month, adding a microphone, bass guitar and drum set to the mix. Looking at the tracklist for Rock Band brings even more surprises: “Wave of Mutilation” by the Pixies, “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and “Electric Version” by the New Pornographers (!) are among the songs that made the cut. Now you too can live the dream of singing like Karen O or Carl Newman. Whod’ve thunk?

My knowledge of punks—real ones, not the fake-o alternative punks that listened to Sum 41, or the even newer punks that listen to [fill in whatever the kids listen to these days here]—is limited, but contrary to popular belief I’ve always known them to be rather lovely people. A good friend of mine had a younger sister who went through a punk phase, and she told me all about the crazy old punk dudes at the big festivals she’d been to, doing some dance whose name escapes me at the moment and generally acting pretty goofy for a bunch of punks.

And then there was the S.N.F.U. show I found myself at on a whim one drunken night in Vancouver, surrounded by some of the nicest moshers and crowdsurfers I’ve ever met—a big change from the 15-year-olds at the Pretty Girls Make Graves show who were far more adept at using their elbows for weapons. Finally there was the Henry Rollins “lecture” I went to a couple of days ago, wherein he related to the audience a great story about playing a show for the reunited Ruts in front of a crowd of former punks out to pay tribute to a beloved band of their youth—people who had since become investment bankers and lawyers, but still attempting to do right by the punk spirit.

With all of that in mind, Tullycraft’s first track off their imminent new release, Every Scene Needs a Center, makes a certain kind of sense to me. I mean, yes, there’s plenty of filthy epithets, concert brutality and macho posturing involved, but at the same time I can’t get the image of introspective, romantic punks writing goofy love songs. Maybe it’s because of the Weakerthans, a rather literate band born as an offshoot of veteran Canadian punk band Propagandhi. John K. Samson is my shining example of an old punk learning new tricks, and learning them extremely well.

As for the goofiness, maybe that’s more a Tullycraft thing than a punk thing, but that too fits. Tullycraft’s brand of quirky, snarky, clever-and-a-half twee pop might be a bit too old school to gain wide acceptance nowadays, but for those in the know their hooks still hit the spot. “The Punks Are Writing Love Songs” reminds me a bit of old favourite “Josie” (”They’ve got a space and they play good stuff / Josie says that it’s not quite punk / she’ll let us know when it’s punk enough”), right down to the female backing vocals—now a permanent fixture thanks to the addition of Jenny Mears to the band’s lineup in 2005. Every Scene Needs a Center is out on Tuesday.

or, a Defense of Eight Arms to Hold You

At the time, it seemed like a horrible idea, especially to a kid who’d just discovered Veruca Salt’s first album, American Thighs, a couple of months earlier. The dynamic duo of Gordon and Post were storming back with a second album—but recorded in Hawaii (?) with uber-producer Bob Rock at the helm. This was not exactly an ideal setup for sophomore success, so my fifteen-year-old brain thought at the time.

Bob Rock’s previous credits include Metallica, AC/DC and Motley Crue, all bands far removed from Veruca Salt’s origins as a female-fronted diamond-in-the-rough grunge-pop band. What unholy terrors could the man have unleashed? But in retrospect, maybe the move wasn’t so bizarre—Veruca Salt had found itself teetering back and forth between indie stardom and all-out major label success before. American Thighs spent about 10 days as part of of the catalog of pseudo-indie record label Caroline before Geffen snapped up the rights to the album and signed a new contract with the band. Perhaps in a bid to reclaim some street cred, Veruca Salt asked Steve Albini to perform his magic on the between-albums EP Blow It Out Your Ass, It’s Veruca Salt. The result was harder, faster, stronger—basically the old Veruca Salt with the volume knob turned to 11 and most of the poppier flourishes left on the cutting room floor (so basically an Albini record, then). But of course, as an EP, Blow It Out Your Ass would never serve as anything more than an evolutionary footnote for the band no matter what direction they chose; apparently they decided Metallica was more to their tastes than PJ Harvey.

So we have 1997’s Eight Arms to Hold You, an even heavier-sounding album that retains the ponderous pace of heavy metal without the earthquake-inducing power chords. Instead there’s a sort of cheerful hard rock chug through most of the album that, in hindsight, wasn’t as much of a departure as I originally thought listening to it. But make no mistake: there’s no “Spiderman ‘79″ or “Celebrate You” or “Fly” on this album. Without much variety in tempo or attitude, Eight Arms to Hold You is left largely to stand on the merits of its individual songs, which means on first glance the album was largely a failure.

But with the passage of time comes perspective, and Eight Arms to Hold You reaps a lot of benefits as a result. For one, we know what comes afterwards: Nina Gordon leaves the band, Resolver turns into a big mess, and Veruca Salt becomes something of a non-entity. Meanwhile Gordon embarks on a new solo career as a Paula Cole impersonator, and ends up being best known for a cover of NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton.” Imagine if Tori Amos’ catalog was so poor that she was best known for her cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” So in that light, Eight Arms to Hold You doesn’t look bad at all.

Along the same lines, the music industry as a whole and alternative rock in particular evolved towards a harder sound as well. What once sounded like stylistic excesses now pale in comparison to the likes of Limp Bizkit, Nickelback and Puddle of Mudd, and the innate pop character of some of the songs shines through brighter as a result. Take “Awesome,” a song that’s bounced around in my head for the past decade—no mean feat, that. Behind the chugging hard rock guitars and the glossy production lies a song that begs you to sing along. The vague resemblance to parts of “Victrola” from American Thighs doesn’t hurt, either.

Maybe “Awesome” and Eight Arms to Hold You are representative of a turning point in my own personal music history, just before alt-rock radio went to shit and I discovered the likes of Sleater-Kinney and Stereolab. Sure, I suppose my appreciation is all nostalgia at this point, but everyone’s got to have their guilty affections, right?

It’s been a while since Pandora went black to anyone outside the United States due to copyright concerns—a relatively new trend, enforcing copyright by reintroducing national borders to the internet—so even though they continue to send me e-mail, I haven’t actually been able to listen to their service in a very long time. This is mainly due to my laziness in setting up access to an American proxy (take that, RIAA!) so don’t worry about sending me tips on how to get around the geographical block.

In any case, even from when I was listening to Pandora, I’d found a number of songs worth holding on to. Whereas a couple of years ago I’d have to just wait for the radio DJ to ID the song and write down whatever I heard (The Dismemberment Planet, anyone?), now it was relatively easy to look up a band and find their music within seconds of hearing the first notes of their song. Alas, with 142 songs from two months of Pandora patronage, finding out what you want to research is harder than it sounds. But Consonant was always near the top of the list, on the basis of one song with a quirky name and chorus: “John Coltrane’s ‘My Favorite Things’.”

Turns out the Boston band has a fair amount of back story. Clint Conley, the man behind Consonant’s curtain, just so happens to be the bassist for legendary Boston post-punk band Mission of Burma. I’ve heard of the band but never their music; this is not surprising, since the band broke up about a year after I was born. It also means I’ve missed out on decades worth of anticipation of side projects and solo careers. Anyone who was waiting for Conley to resurface after the band dissolved waited a long time: Consonant was Conley’s first major music project since Mission of Burma, leaving nothing but a nineteen-year period of mostly silence. (Take that, Kevin Shields fans.)

Interesting, then, that “John Coltrane’s ‘My Favorite Things’” should sound very much like a product of 2002—it’s pretty straightforward melodic indie rock, the kind of thing that wouldn’t sound out of place on the college rock charts just before the likes of Interpol and Bloc Party made it big. My favorite thing about the song has to be the chorus, where Conley manages to juggle words and syllables that don’t sound as though they ought to fit with the music at all, but end up finding proper homes in the nooks and crannies of the slightly unorthodox chord progressions. It’s more fun to sing along to than your usual chorus, with the words threatening to trip over each other at any moment.

Consonant released another album in 2003, Love and Affection, but in 2004 Mission of Burma became a semi-ongoing concern once more, and have released two albums in that time. The corresponding lack of Consonant material implies Conley has other things on his mind these days. Perhaps it’s just as well, as shortly after Consonant shifted to harder material in 2003, the entire “melodic indie rock” thing fell apart entirely, to be replaced by the corporate indie rock landscape of the present day.

Among the pile of CD releases last week was an odd and potentially interesting reissue for anyone who is currently (or is about to become) a Viva Voce fan: a 2-disc re-release of the band’s first two albums, Lovers, Lead the Way! and The Heat Can Melt Your Brain, featuring a ton of extra b-sides and bonus tracks. It’s a value-packed release and a great companion to last year’s excellent Get Yr Blood Sucked Out, but a quick look at the band’s discography may have you scratching your head a bit—weren’t these albums released only a couple of years ago?

I bought The Heat Can Melt Your Brain back in 2005, after seeing them open for Sleater-Kinney in Vancouver, but a lot can happen in two years. In this case, the album apparently went out of print, along with Lovers. With the 70s-influenced acid rock of Get Yr Blood Sucked Out winning Anita and Kevin Robinson quite a few accolades, leaving their earlier albums unavailable would be a crying shame. Luckily for those of you that missed out on the Robinsons’ early career, you now get to reap the rewards.

This sort of reissue isn’t all that uncommon, actually; popular California duo Mates of State (who also happen to be a married couple, like Viva Voce) moved to Polyvinyl and re-released their first album, My Solo Project, because they’d managed to practically sell out their entire pressing. And just looking at last week, Viva Voce wasn’t the only indie band to put out a re-release; Enon’s first album, Believo!, also got the reissue treatment.

(P.S. Sorry for the erratic posting schedule as of late. I blame Valve and the new Half-Life 2 package that came out on Tuesday. Especially the end of Portal (spoilers).)