11 Guitar Hero Custom Guitars APR Author: Dap1 Synthesis homie John LaCroix designed a custom Guitar Hero guitar controller, for Activision and Red Bull, that is being sold for charity on eBay right now. Its a dope controller. It comes with full LED lighting effects built in that light up when played. If you haven’t heard, a ton of brands, artists and media personalities have created custom guitars (for PS2) to raise money for MusiCares. Check out the eBay online store to find guitars designed by the likes of Armor For Sleep, Mototek-Ducati, Buckcherry, My Chemical Romance, Danny Masterson, New Era Cap, Dashboard Confessional, Nickelback, designer Missy Broome, Paul Frank Industries, Hot Hot Heat, Quiksilver, Jack Black and Kyle Gass (Tenacious-D), the Rocket Summer, Jack’s Mannequin, the Spill Canvas, John LaCroix, Suicide Girls, Kelly Slater, Sureshot, Martin Bros. Bikes, Tony Hawk, Metalocalypse, Will Rhoten-Decade Clothing, Mister Cartoon and The Films. Sportvision, CBS using FreezeCam on NFL telecasts By ERIC FISHER Staff writer Published November 12, 2007 : Page 04 Sportvision, a company best known for its sports TV innovations such as the yellow first-down line, has struck a multiyear deal with CBS Sports to employ its technology for the network’s lead NFL game each week. The agreement, which commenced with the widely watched matchup earlier this month between New England and Indianapolis, includes Sportvision’s new FreezeCam. That technology seamlessly merges high-resolution, wide- angle still camera images with TV replays to show broader perspectives on the formation and execution of specific plays. FreezeCam is not entirely unlike Eye Vision, another high-profile visual element CBS developed six years ago with Sportvision rival PVI, but FreezeCam provides its images at a far lower cost and is not focused on 360-degree imaging. Since the advent of the first-down line in the late 1990s, CBS has been aligned with PVI. With CBS’s AFC-led broadcasts showing significant ratings Sportvision aims for “a digital record strength among all NFL coverage, working with the network represented a of every single event in sports.” major priority for Sportvision. The CBS deal also arrives in a period of expansion and change for Sportvision. The company is beginning to develop coaching-oriented products to expand its profile beyond consumer-facing TV products. Among the emerging initiatives is to use Sportvision’s wealth of data generated through its digital technologies in Major League Baseball and NASCAR to create analytical tools. “Generally speaking, we have a goal to have a digital record of every single event in sports, and with our multiyear relationships with baseball and NASCAR, we’re getting there,” said Hank Adams, Sportvision chief executive. The company’s GameDay MLB product, which includes its Pitch f/x technology in partnership with MLB Advanced Media, is up for a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award, as is its Race View offering on NASCAR.com. BY CARLY CARIOLI On a rainy Saturday in late post-hardcore band whose line-up included producer September, the Explosion are Brian McTernan. "It’s an anthem," he adds of "Here I Am." "If we do our job, I spending 12 hours filming the most think it’s a song that’s going to be on the radio, it’s going to be in important two minutes and 47 commercials." seconds of their career. But the video for "Here I Am," the first But it isn’t just the Explosion who’re at a crossroads. Virgin Records has single from the band’s major-label seen its market share shrink over the past several years. Recent high-profile debut, , may be even releases by Lenny Kravitz, Courtney Love, and Janet Jackson have stiffed, more significant than that: whether and that plus two larger snafus — the expensive and unremunerative it succeeds may determine free-agent signings of Mariah Carey and Robbie Williams — has threatened whether there’s a future for Virgin the company’s financial stability. When the Explosion signed to Virgin, the Records. On a set erected inside label’s parent company, EMI, had recently dropped 400 bands from its I'M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP, MR. the Lansdowne Street club Axis, LACROIX: the Explosion have a lot to win roster. Now Virgin has decided to bank everything on its ability to break a the band members lounge in front or lose with 'Here I Am,' but their label has single band. This past summer, the label axed its radio-promotions of a white backdrop, bathed in a even more at stake. department and brought in Bill Carroll. While at Vagrant Records, Carroll cocoon of light. Around 11 a.m., the had helped break Dashboard Confessional on radio; he then moved to director, John LaCroix, a veteran of Elektra, where he broke Jet. When he arrived at Virgin, he perused the roster the Boston hardcore band 10 Yard and decided the Explosion would be his next focus. Fight, gives them a quick pep talk and rolls film. As the band pretend to play their instruments, frontman Million Dollar Matt Hock karaokes the chorus: "Bill’s main thing is that he does one band: he did Dashboard, then he did Jet, "Here I am, here I am, here I am/I’m back at the crossroads again/Let me and now he’s going to do the Explosion," says Explosion manager Rama stand, let me stand, let me stand/On top of the mountain again." Mayo. "And then the radio department, which is the main focus of any major label, suddenly was saying, ‘Hey, it’s all about the Explosion. This is what Although "Here I Am" represents a new sound for the Explosion (their old we’re going to do.’ It literally changed everything for us overnight." songs were fast, loud, and snotty; this one is mid-tempo, polished, and catchy), the track’s message is not far from that of their 2000 debut, Indeed, the Explosion have become the label’s priority: Virgin has pushed (Jade Tree). The song announces itself with the sense that other albums off its release schedule; assembled an internal "Team something important has been misplaced — on , that something was Explosion" strike force comprising department heads and assistants at all nothing less than punk’s heart and soul — while manifesting a determination branches of the company to oversee an unprecedented marketing campaign; to retrieve it at all costs. and curtailed its efforts to promote its other rock albums to radio stations in order to clear the way for "Here I Am." "There’s enough competition at radio Like much of , "Here I Am" is also infused with the anxiety of a stations already," says Wolter. "We’re up against Green Day, Good band who’re being groomed for stardom. For the moment, the Explosion are Charlotte, the Offspring. You go to a radio station and they’ve got a stack of on top of the world, but they’re well aware how quickly they might come 30 CDs that they’re choosing from. We’ve removed one of the stacks." crashing down. There’s a long history of vital Boston punk bands — DMZ in the ‘70s, Gang Green in the ‘80s, Cave In just two years ago — who’ve No one will say publicly that Virgin needs the Explosion to have a hit in order signed to major labels only to release watered-down discs that failed to for the label to survive, but privately several sources close to the label have reach a wider audience. Guitarist Sam Cave is aware of the precedent. acknowledged that, in the words of one, "Virgin is counting on this record." "Yeah, it’s scary. We taking a risk, but we’re pretty young and we’re David Munns, the chairman and CEO of EMI Recorded Music North gonna survive. I definitely think there’s much scarier things in life." America, has been with EMI off and on since 1971; he had a hand in signing the Sex Pistols, and in 2002, he returned as part of a new management team David Wolter, Virgin’s senior director of A&R, doesn’t think they have that charged with turning the company around. Earlier this year, he closed his much to worry about: "I think ‘Here I Am’ is a monstrous hit." Wolter earned pep talk at the annual Virgin Records retreat in New York by quoting the the Explosion’s confidence because, while at Hollywood Records in the lyrics to "Here I Am." "He turned it into the Virgin fight song: ‘Here I am, I’m 1990s, he signed the hardcore group Into Another and the proto-emo band back at the crossroads again,’" says Mayo. "Like, ‘Virgin: We need to have a Seaweed. And while at Giant Records, he signed Miltown, a Boston successful year, we need to break a band.’ " page 1 http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/music/cellars/multi_1/documents/04171679.asp BY CARLY CARIOLI spent shooting the Explosion on the off. "My job is that sometimes I’m the band’s best friend and sometimes I’m floor at Axis, technicians scurry to their worst enemy." But by the end of 2003, Cave says the members were turn the room around so they can pulling their hair out. "It’s frustrating when it takes that long to do a record. shoot the band performing — You can’t do a tour because you’re recording demos, and you can’t generate plugged-in this time — on the much income." "We thought we were ready [to make an album] the first club’s stage before a small couple months," says bassist Damian Genuardi, "but there was a point audience of 25 or 30 fans and where we had growing pains.