"Guitar Hero" Makers Plan "DJ Hero," Cross-Platform Mash-Ups

The makers of Guitar Hero have a new music game in the works, as DJ Hero might finally hit shelves next summer after two years of development. As the name suggests, DJ Hero feature a simplified plastic scratch deck instead of a mini plastic guitar to hit prompted cues. Whereas users follow a guitar's neck on the screen for what notes to play, DJ will forecast its moves using the half-arc of a vinyl record on the screen. Part of the game's long delay to stores — besides the inherent difficulties in getting the rights to sample-heavy hip-hop tracks — now appears to be Activision's plan on making DJ playable with Guitar Hero gear, allowing users to create mash-ups between the rap and rock genres, which hopefully means playing along to the OJayZis mixtape is within our grasp.

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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