Gearfuse

Love him or hate him (you’ll be able to guess which side of the spectrum I’m on by the end of this post), Bono has some slick style. U2 launched their 360 tour last night in Barcelona and Bono appeared in a jacket affixed with fricken’ laser beams attached while performing the song “Ultra Violet (Light My Way).”

Now, I usually don’t like to get mixed up in politics and I’m certainly not a humanitarian, but how many starving Africans do you think the cost of that Moritz Waldemeyer-designed jacket could feed? Come on, Bono, you fucking tax-dodging Irish hypocrite. Told ya you’d be able to guess. Check out a video after the jump.

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In other words, this is a rock made for the kitchen. Embrace your instinctive caveman nature and just bash and grind the living hell out of your food. It might not be as rugged as just grabbing a big rock from the wild, but it’s surely more manly than using a porcelain mortar and pestle.

For $43 you could do worse than buying a tool of our evolutionary past. No instruction manual is needed. Your animalistic instincts will put two and two together. Rock = smash.

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Hendrix and Morrison are long gone in body, but their souls live on through their music, eternally playing through radios and iPods across the planet. Not to mention cassettes. There are still plenty of people who rely on the dead technology of cassette tapes to jam out to their old favorites. But listening to music is only a fraction of what can be done with these ancient musical artifacts.

If you have enough time on your hands and enough patience to win a staring contest versus a dead man then cassette art is a clever way at resurrecting the classic musicians of yore, as seen through the Ghost in the Machine project by Flickr user iri5. This awesome Flickr’er took the time to recreate Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison using nothing but ripped-out tape from inside of a cassette. The Hendrix piece is decidedly more awesome in our opinion, but really, come on, it’s Jimi! Plus it doesn’t hurt that Hendrix’s nappy hair was more fitting for such a project. Check out Morrison after that jump. (more…)

So here’s the deal: since 2003, the US Army has been effectively torturing detainees at Guantanamo with scare tactics and other jazz. One of the tactics is to blast music and rock and roll at prisoners “to create fear, disorient … and prolong capture shock.” Everything was peachy keen until this year, when several musicians teamed up to protest the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Artists like Massive Attack and Tom Morello are trying to create awareness for this issue.

One prisoner says he to listen to Dr. Dre and Eminem for 20 days.. Listening to rap for a few weeks doesn’t sound too bad to me. For Ryan, it’d most certainly be torture.

Straight out of Hell and right under your Christmas tree is this hotter than Hell KISS-themed I-Dog. Who rocks harder than KISS? That’s right: no one. The dog sports Gene Simmons’ Demon face paint, but also shows some love to Paul Stanley with stars for the Star Child.

It plays back music via a built-in speaker and also puts on an electronic light show, all for just 30 bucks. If this dog was a real supporter of KISS, it’d drop the sassy light show and get to work on some pyrotechnics.

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It’s Friday and you know what that means: Ryan is menstruating again.

We’re currently locked in a heated battle over IM on who reigns supreme in the world of music: Metallica or Judas Priest. It all started when I told Ryan that anything Metallica did in the 1980s was harder than Judas Priest or any other band, including but not limited to, Iron Maiden. I’m talking about some heavy shit here. We’re talking albums like Master of Puppets, …and Justice for All and Ride The Lightning. Chugging guitars, pounding drums and James Hetfield belting out rough vocals at metal fans across the globe. Their fucking name is Metallica, for crying out loud!

Now Ryan’s argument. He says: “While Metallica’s band members were still feuding over who would play bass in their high school battle of the bands, Judas Priest had already begun touring across England in the early ’70s. Vince seems to think that due to Rob Halford’s sexual orientation, Judas Priest is incapable of rocking hard (Not true!) Clearly he’s missed out on such songs as Blood Red Skies and Beyond The Realms of Death. It was the ’80s which brought Judas into the mainstream, but the late ’70s is when they truly shined. Metallica’s Lars was busy crying about Napster and the music industry while Judas was winning a lawsuit over a fan who thought that Judas’ metal was so rockin‘ that the music was asking him to literally go ‘Beyond The Realms Of Death’.”

Whatever. Our points have been made. After the jump, a music video for Metallica’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and a video for Judas Priest’s “So and So.” Watch them both and then leave us a comment, letting us know who’s better. This one is your call.

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The time has finally come – Dr. Pepper owes me a drink. Wait, what’s this? Vince is telling me that I’m not getting my Dr. Pepper until Chinese Democracy is actually released. This pirated copy you see before you doesn’t count. Man, that sucks!

At least it’s got every every track from the album, so we won’t miss out on any of the long-awaited attempts from Axl Rose to regain the sound he had back in ‘87. This V0 retail rip of the album is making its way around the popular BitTorrent sites like What.cd and Waffles.fm. Today is a good day to be a GNR fan. After the jump, .log files galore.

I noticed the .log file shows the ripper’s name in it. David. Axl is coming for you, David.

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Remember Kevin Cogill? He’s the Guns N’ Roses fan that leaked Chinese Democracy songs early and now is paying big time for it. His favorite band hates him and to top it all off he’s facing five years jail time just for promoting Guns N’ Roses’ latest album.

Now Kevin has agreed to a plea bargain in the case and last month, his charge dropped from a felony to a misdemeanor. Right now, he’s only looking at a year jail time, but it’s all going to come down to the judge’s decision. If that judge isn’t Axl Rose, Kevin is in the clear. Otherwise, be prepared to hear some real lousy singing from both ends of the courtroom.

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Originally people thought that the Beatles would make an appearance in the latest Rock Band game. It turns out that MTV Networks announced a deal with the Beatles’ record label, Apple Corps, to create a Beatles-branded music video game. The same developers behind Rock Band will be making the game, apart from its already successful Rock Band franchise.

“The project is a fun idea which broadens the appeal of The Beatles and their music. I like people having the opportunity to get to know the music from the inside out,” Sir Paul McCartney said.

I’m thinking something like Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, except without the suck. It’s even been approved by Yoko Ono Lennon, herself. So, you know it’s going to be good.
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Yes! Even more Guitar Hero guitars that, much like the players, try desperately hard to be the real thing. This time around, Logitech is releasing the gorgeous Wireless Guitar Controller Premiere Edition for $250. Screw spending the $250 on a real guitar. Real guitars are for old people.

As far as fake guitars go, this thing leaves all the other guitar controllers in the dust. The body of the controller is solid, the neck is made of real wood, the frets and tuning peg handles are metal and the fingerboard is rosewood. It’s also on par with the Rock Band guitar controller in terms of a quiet strum bar. You’ll find this guitar more intricate than that Gibson Les Paul you never learned how to play. It’s compatible with the Playstation 2 and Playstation 3 versions of Guitar Hero titles.

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