Tuesday, December 7, 2010

"blingdomepiece" joins the band!

Last week we had a great session, with talented multi-instrumentalist "blingdomepiece" (of Score Hero fame) joining the band. If you've been following the band's history, the 3 Macas were alternatively joined by Trapper (1st band name: 3 Macas and a Trapper), some random people (2nd band name: 3 Macas and a Random Guest), DMan (3rd band name: 3 Macas and a Reject), Sylvie (no name change for historical reasons), and now Chrissy and blingdomepiece.

It was also a special session as blingdomepiece brought over one of the rare new Mustangs (Pro Guitar). We each tried this new instrument at various points during the night and I have to say that it is an amazing addition to the Rock Band platform. I can't wait to get my own and slowly learn to play a real guitar.

With a new member, we no longer will have to have both Bongoo and Raikan do multiple instruments. This will free up someone to concentrate solely on harmonies. We'll be rotating instruments for now for variety, but eventually settle on 1 or 2 core lineups. For example, it could be:

Bongoo: Pro Guitar or Harmonies (red)
Phoenix: Pro Drums
Raikan: Pro Keys\Bass and Harmonies (blue)
blingdomepiece: Pro Guitar or Harmonies (red)
Chrissy: Harmonies (brown)

Note: We will not be playing in "All Instruments Mode" because we want the Harmonies scores to count. We'll opt to remove Pro Keys or Bass, depending on the song. Hopefully this "bug" will be fixed in Rock Band 4...

Highlights:
- Stars breakdown: Didn't keep track, mix of 3s and 4s
- Our 1st ever song with a Pro Guitar was "20th Century Boy"
- We played DLC for the 1st time in RB3 (a few "The Doors" songs)
- We were at the last section for the "Road Challenges". After we finish this mode, we'll spend our time in Quickplay playing new DLC and our worst on-disk songs by stars, rank, etc...
- The beers of the week were "Blanche du Paradis" (Dieu du Ciel) and "Espresso Stout" (Dark Star)

Thursday, December 2, 2010

"The Police" indeed

Last week, we only played 7 songs due to starting later than usual (Raikan has amazing board games), plus an odd moment when Chrissy came down the stairs and said, "Bongoo, the police is at the door for you!"

It turned out the neighbour was quite particular about warning her if we infringe a bit on her always empty parking space and she called the neighborhood's security service (not the real police, phew). The car was duly moved and a lenghty chat between herself and Raikan resolved the misunderstanding.

Highlights:
- Stars breakdown for the 7 songs: 4 stars (4), 3 stars (3, for "China Grove", "Crosstown Traffic", "Fly Like an Eagle")
- Raikan continues his tradition of messing with the look of Bongoo's character (normal look is "extreme metal"), choosing some truly odd combinations, including a really horrendous purple v-neck shirt...
- We have to restart "The Killing Moon" 3 times, finally passing it when we were about 1 nanosecond from dying (not an exaggeration)
- Trapper helped us with a few songs on keyboard\bass when Phoenix had to leave earlier than usual
- We finish the session with 17 unplayed RB3 songs
- While waiting for Raikan to come back from his talk with the neighbour, we entered Bongoo's real first name in Google (ex: type "(name) is " without clicking Enter), and Google suggested that he was "gay for robots", "gay", "mad for fish", "a douche"... Hmm, quite funny considering I'm a well-mannered (I hope) straight vegetarian! :)

Happy Robot Sounds

Two weeks ago, we played 25 songs, also in the "Road Challenges" section. We ended the session with 22 unplayed RB3 songs, 15 of which are without keys.

We got an odd "Happy Robot Sound" all of a sudden 3 times during the session. Someone joked that it sounded as if C3PO petted R2D2 in the right way... I also heard this at my place so it must be a RB3 glitch on the PS3 and not an issue with Raikan's sound system.

Highlights:
- Stars breakdown for the 25 songs: 4 stars (17), 3 stars (8)
- Raikan's funniest wah-wah keyboard moment was during "Whip It"
- We get our 1st FCs in RB3: 1 for Raikan on Pro Keys, 1 for the triple vocalists

Junior Chicken Sauce

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog...

Three weeks ago we continued our RB3 journey, playing 23 songs in the "Road Challenges" section. It was our 2nd week with Raikan valiantly attempting to play "Pro Keys" on Expert (doing an amazing job overall)!

Highlights:
- Stars breakdown for the 23 songs: Gold stars (2), 5 stars (2), 4 stars (12), 3 stars (7, for "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", "25 or 6 to 4", "Break On Through (To the Other Side)", "Good Vibrations (Live)" , "I Need to Know", "Dead End Friends and "Llama")
- Raikan's funniest wah-wah keyboard moment was during "Killing"
- One "Road Challenge" set tells us that we "Need to Know" a "Centerfold" in order to "Kill(ing) Loneliness"
- It's hard to "Imagine" that there's an on-disk song without guitar...
- Raikan gets 2* for his 40% notes hit Expert Pro Keys performance of "Don't Stand So Close to Me"... ;)
- The "Road Challenge" sets throw us "Werewolves of London" twice in a row. At least it allowed us to get better at the song and get 5*
- We somehow got "2 of 22 Triples" when only Raikan and Bongoo were on vocals for "The Look" (must be the talkies)
- Hilarity ensued when Phoenix added "Junior Chicken Sauce" as random words to the the beat of "Killing Loneliness"