Rock Band

The recording industry may be struggling, but with a number of popular rock-concert-inspired games dominating Christmas wish lists this year, it seems there's no shortage of wannabe pop stars. While guitar and singing simulators of varying quality can be found everywhere, from Wal-Mart to RadioShack, two titles for the major video game systems, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Rock Band, are considered the best of the bunch. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Red Octane) Available on Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360. Rated T for teen audiences.

Kid-tested and parent-approved, Milkshake is no ordinary tasty treat. It is, in fact, a popular kids rock band, born out of Baltimore and evolved from the indie-rock band Love Riot. Singer Lisa Mathews and guitarist Mikel Gehl, both members of Love Riot, formed the kids rock band about five years ago after having children. The band, which plays a concert at Beth Tfiloh Congregation on Sunday, has just enough kid appeal and rock 'n' roll spunk to please everyone. Songs, often about child-and-parent love or about life from a kid's-eye-view, are delivered with a rocking, spirited and fun edge.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club -- A rock band with blues and folk roots, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club cites influences from Bob Dylan to Iggy Pop and the Stooges, the White Stripes to John Denver. With this original brand of rock, BRMC has toured all over the world and on Saturday, the band plays the 9:30 Club, 815 V St. N.W. in Washington. Doors open at 9 p.m., and tickets are $20. Call 202-393-0930 or go to tickets.com. Bloc Party -- Indie rock band Bloc Party became an overnight success in 2005 and has been riding the wave ever since.

Controls GUITAR HERO -- One of the game's biggest assets is its wireless Gibson controller. Although the version I played on the PlayStation 3 lost its connection from time to time (usually on long pauses), the aggravation was worth it to be able to rock out with reckless abandon and embarrass myself accordingly. ROCK BAND --One of the main quibbles with the overall outstanding Rock Band is the number of cords on the Xbox 360 version (the Playstation 3 has wireless guitars). The multiplayer feature (playing as a band)

Not since the rockumentary "This is Spinal Tap" have the life and times of a rock band been better documented than in "Still Crazy." The difference between the two movies, of course, is that Strange Fruit, the 1970s erstwhile super-group in "Still Crazy," is fictional, while Spinal Tap is a real band. Right?Actually, Spinal Tap and Strange Fruit would make a perfect fictional double-bill in the stadium tour of your dreams -- assuming your dreams run toward sweet, if slightly pretentious, poseurs whose idea of rock and roll runs to power chords, overwrought gestures and excruciatingly long, operatic yelps.

Deborah Henson-Conant plays the harp, but she's no angel.When she walked out on stage at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall yesterday afternoon for the first of several pops concerts with the Baltimore Symphony, conductor Marvin Hamlisch took a deep breath, wiped his brow, loosened his tie and asked about her dress -- which began at considerably less-than-shoulder altitude and ended in the middle of her black-stockinged thighs."

Updating something you've already written is like calling up an old girl friend you haven't spoken to in 15 years. What's left to say? Guess you could always ask about her little cat--he was a lovable kind.Or you could ask what music she listens to these days. "I really love Buck Cherry. They're awesome," says Rose Manfre, still the lead singer of Spitshine.And just like in the old days, we have no idea who or what Buck Cherry is. But Rose likes Buck Cherry, so it must be a rock band heard around these parts.

Ed Roland doesn't have much patience for people who only look before they leap to conclusions about Collective Soul.Because his band hails from Stockbridge, Ga., and boasts not one, not two, but three guitar players, many people in the music press have therefore deduced that Collective Soul is a Southern rock band. Therefore, the music Collective Soul plays is very much in the mold of such multi-guitar outfits as Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band.Guess again, says Roland."I think a lot of those people weren't listening to the records," says the singer and guitarist, over the phone from a tour stop in New York City.

Like any band, what the members of Cibo Matto want most is for their music to be listened to and understood. A simple desire, right?Trouble is, there's a certain confusion over just what kind of band Cibo Matto is, and that has left some potential listeners wary of checking the group out. (Cibo Matto opens for Luscious Jackson at the Recher Theatre in Towson this evening.)To begin with, there's the nationality issue. Because the band was formed by two expatriate Japanese, keyboardist/producer Yuka Honda and singer Miho Hatori, many Americans assume the New York-based combo is a Japanese rock band.

Kiss has its face paint. Marilyn Manson has his faux Satan look. You might not be familiar with the signature style of Baltimore rockers Stevie V. and the Heart Attackers.Surgical scrubs, booties and masks. Cardiologists by day, the jagged edge by night.OK, that's an exaggeration -- cardiologists by day and night, and every once in a while a rock band -- like this Saturday at the ninth annual Heartfest, an evening of dinner and dancing to benefit the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease.

FRIDAY "UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN": Diane Lane and Sandra Oh frolic in Tuscany as they overcome life's hardships and celebrate its rewards. This movie did for olive oil what "9 1/2 Weeks" did for everything else in the kitchen, except in a cleaner way. "Under the Tuscan Sun" screens at this week's Little Italy Open Air Film Festival, High and Stiles streets. The film starts at 9 p.m. Admission is free. Go to littleitalymd.com. BETTER THAN EZRA: The three-piece alternative rock band from New Orleans, which debuted in 1986 with "Deluxe" and released "Paper Empire" this year, comes to the Power Plant Live plaza, 24 Market Place, for a free show at 8 p.m. Gates open at 6 p.m. The show is for those ages 21 and older only.

For a reminder of the good old days, when rock 'n' roll was still something of a lark and four working-class blokes from Liverpool had just taken over the world, head to the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Saturday for a free showing of "A Hard Day's Night," the 1964 film that marked the Beatles as a pop-culture force to be reckoned with, regardless of the medium. Richard Lester's brilliantly sustained piece of comic anarchy stars John, Paul, George and Ringo as a rock band (what casting!) desperately trying to make it through a typically frenetic day, all the while keeping a watchful eye on Paul's "very clean" grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell)

BOB BOGLE, 75 Lead guitarist for the Ventures Bob Bogle, lead guitarist and co-founder of the rock band the Ventures, known for 1960s instrumental hits including "Walk, Don't Run," died Sunday in Tacoma, Wash. The cause of death was not disclosed. The band sold millions of albums and heavily influenced other rock guitarists. It was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. The hall's Web site hailed the Ventures as "the most successful instrumental combo in rock and roll history."

For his appearance this week with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Christopher O'Riley will perform works by 20th-century French composer Maurice Ravel and Radiohead, the British alternative rock band - a perfectly normal juxtaposition for this pianist. "There never was a plan," O'Riley says of his emergence from traditional classical artist to multimedia celebrity to crossover success story, acclaimed for brilliant arrangements of rock songs. "It was just a matter of willingness, and doing what I like doing, and playing what I like playing."

On the Web: * CollegeHumor.com, a popular comedy Web site devoted to the (cough) collegiate mind, has done it again. A series of viral videos on the site features a prank war between site front page editor Streeter Seidell and senior writer Amir Blumenfeld. In the last installment (in 2007), prankster Amir gave Streeter Yankee tickets for him and his girlfriend. Amir arranged it so the JumboTron had Streeter unknowingly proposing to his girlfriend (which subsequently added to the end of their relationship)

Franz Ferdinand [Domino] *** Franz Ferdinand might be the only rock band going that can make a tawdry little pickup line like "Kiss me where your eye won't meet me" into a recurring lyric that shows up in a wan acoustic ballad. The tension between eager warehouse-party groping and front man Alex Kapranos' cold shoulders is Franz Ferdinand's bread and butter, but it's never been more clear than on Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, the Scottish quartet's third LP. Tonight is the band's danciest record yet, but it's the kind of dancing you do after running into an ex at a club and need to prove you're having fun. "No You Girls," the band's best song since "Take Me Out," gets huge mileage from its swaggering chorus call of "You girls never know how you make a boy feel," and lead single "Ulysses" uses some nasty Moog stones to underscore walk-of-shame sentiments.

New network outpulls its old rival CW For the past three weeks, the upstart My Network TV has accomplished something that would have been considered unthinkable just two years ago. The network, quickly cobbled together by a group of Fox-owned local stations after the 2006 merger of the WB and UPN into the new CW left abandoned stations with nothing to put on the air, has averaged more prime-time viewers than the CW. My Network TV is the only one of...

Hometown: Baltimore Members: Justin Gilman, keyboards, guitars and vocals; Josh Gilman, drums and samples; Josh Beazell, guitar, vocals and keyboards; Jahan Hosseini, bass and vocals Founded: 2006 Style: experimental rock Influenced by : the Beatles, Radiohead, Tool, Mogwai, Bjork Notable: The band is wrapping up its first full-length album, which should come out in a month or two, Justin Gilman said. All of the band members are visual artists and put as much effort into their fliers, artwork and Web site as they do into their music.

Microsoft Xbox 360, also for Sony PlayStation 3, PS2, Nintendo Wii. Rated Teen. Retail $59.99; other versions $49.99 to $59.99 (game only)**** Guitar Hero was left playing catch-up last year when Rock Band introduced drums and vocals into the music-game mix. Well, consider Guitar Hero caught up, and then some. The Tour package includes an updated guitar (larger and with a touch-sensitive secondary fret pad), its own drum set (with three drum pads, a bass drum pedal and two "cymbals") and a microphone.

BOOKS 'More Information : Than You Require': John Hodgman - Apple's delightful personification of the PC - has written another bizarro almanac. It's your best source for info on mole men, hook-handed presidents and, of course, hobos! In stores Tuesday. You can also see him this Thursday at 7 p.m. at D.C.'s Politics & Prose bookstore. For more: politics-prose.com FILM 'Ready? OK!': Part of next weekend's Baltimore Women's Film Festival, Ready? OK! really wants to be Little Mr. Sunshine.