Fans of Activision’s Guitar Hero game can master enough songs to unlock the likeness of Kurt Cobain to help them shred on songs that are way beneath Nirvana. Granted, Nirvana tunes weren’t exactly complex symphonies but do you think Cobain really wanted to be seen jamming on Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name?” Kurt’s sense of irony notwithstanding, me neither. And Krist Novaselic and Dave Grohl (Kurt’s bandmates in the seminal band) agree.

“This is a statement regarding Nirvana, Guitar Hero and the likeness of the late Kurt Cobain.

We want people to know that we are dismayed and very disappointed in the way a facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game. The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate – we have no control whatsoever in that area.While we were aware of Kurt’s image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn’t know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in “re-locking” Kurt’s character so that this won’t continue in the future.

It’s hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists’ music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he deserves better.

Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl

[The Boston Herald]

I mentioned Bon Jovi specifically for a reason. The Widow Love’s lawyer has also released a statement declaring that the New Jersey rockers’ songs are way beneath even Kurt’s videogame likeness to have to play.

Love’s lawyer told us, “Activision is exploiting Kurt’s image in a manner anathema to the very essence of his music, spirit and essence.

I along with Ms. Cobain hope those who love Kurt’s music strongly voice their sentiments to Activision and demand his image not be debased by singing the songs of Bon Jovi.

[TMZ]

Players on all gaming platforms for Guitar Hero 5 can unlock Kurt’s avatar when they reach the Nirvana songs. The other dismaying aspect of this for all Nirvana defenders against cheesiness is that once Cobain is unlocked, you can have him jumping around like an idiot while performing other people’s songs. Picture Kurt Cobain grrrl-powering around acting like Gwen Stefani singing “Just A Girl”.

Novoseloc and Grohl have been pretty strict on how Nirvana’s tunes are marketed and such, much to Cobain’s widow Courtney Love’s dismay. They have one thing in common, though. Disdain for Activision. Courtney’s official statement comes after she’s made plenty of batsh*t crazy tweets about the matter, including comparing playing the game with Kurt’s avatar to necrophilia and rape of her family. Love most recently tweeted that she met with the nerds over at Activision and was fairly blunt about how she felt about her dead husband’s likeness.

@sheruinsyou i think g hero is vile due to this “partner” he demanded i consider it i met with them i told them their avatar was a joke

im really grossed out that the people who forced me to do a “deal Memo:” withthese assholes at activision would lie well wait for my esq.

@sway5150 oh thank you and the rest of you, thois has really hurt and embarassed my teenager, he looks goofy and gross and he wasnt.

[CourtneyLover79]

If you get a chance, subscribe to Courtney’s Tweets for a pretty interesting look at a woman on the edge. She types everything that is on her mind. Love apparently signed off on this, so the blame lies at her door. I feel for Frances Bean, though. Bad enough that her dad died in that manner and now he’s lame fodder for video games.

Courtney Love, the insane too-skinny pill addict who once posed for a photo in which she cradled a dead look-alike of her deceased husband, Kurt Cobain, has compared users playing with the new Guitar Hero avatar of Kurt to committing “necrophilai” [sic] and to “raping me and my family mother in law child” whatever that means exactly. You can read some of her tweets on the matter if you have a high enough tolerance for crazy. Love is apparently in a dispute with her dead husband’s ex Nirvana bandmates over their decision to license Kurt’s image for use in the popular home video game. Idolator breaks down the controversy and explains Love’s confused outrage:

Were you kind of cheesed off when you found out that the Kurt Cobain avatar in the forthcoming installment of Guitar Hero would be able to sing songs by the likes of Bon Jovi and Bush? Well, it turns out that Kurt’s widow Courtney Love is none too pleased about the development either, as evidenced by a string of Tweets she sent earlier today that complained about this appropriation of her husband’s license.

It all started when rock journo Everett True got cranky about the Kurt-Guitar Hero synergy on his blog a few hours ago, calling Love and Dave Grohl—who he blamed for this fully—”F*cking corporate c*ck-sucking memory-destroying fret-wanking MTV-supporting fame-chasing money-grabbing grave-turning publicity-loving vacuous spoiled jaded cunting rock wh*res.”. He mentioned Love by tweet-ID while linking to this blog post on Twitter, and she fired back over a series of 140-character missives:

“when did @everetttrue get bitter, i own my rage but im not yet bitter, and if you think for one second from the lunchbox and now this..NO”

“the goddammed Lunchbox was it for me i get crucified over Converse shoes i didnt approve and stood it, then spy a lunchbox and nowGHERO?NO!!”

“btw @everetttrue Jack f’ing White your personal god is doing Ghero, do you think they told me that this mf*cking avatar’s(badenuff)”featur”

“yeah Jack WHite,Dylan,Petty,Kings of Leon, i dragged my ass and never signed of on the avatar, let alone this f*cking”feature”i have NO say”

“correction i do have say, theres been 4 breaches of a very strict contract, eg i was forced by lying bankerlawyers to sell some publishing,”

“wich forces me to lose some power, the loser bully who put money in the bank commissioned illegally a child and then stole every pennydid it”

“and @everetttrue he did it in breach of contract if you had listened to my ranting raving “bizarre”etc youd see that i speak only the truth”

There were also a few gratuitous Dave Grohl insults, just ’cause. I guess what she’s trying to say is that she didn’t sign off on this, and her being crucified in the blogosphere is off the mark? Let’s see what the folks at CLTranslated think:
“i may have been forced by some lying lawyers to sell some publishing, but i never signed off on this guitar hero thing. breach of contract!”

[From Idolator]

Oooh I’m so glad that Idolator included that link to CLTranslated! I’ve never heard of it before, but it’s a Twitter account with the tagline “Basically, I translate Courtney Love’s tweets into plain English for the rest of the world.” Even with a human filter, Love’s tweets still don’t follow any kind of order or make much sense.

Courtney also got all up in arms a couple of years ago about some Doc Martens ads that featured Kurt and other rock stars of late as angels. At that time Courtney actually had a publicist who was able to issue a very coherent statement about how his client wasn’t informed about the use of her late husband’s image. Celebrity Tweet tells us that Love is the most second most prolific celebrity tweeter of the day and has penned a whopping 91 tweets and counting so far today. She’s behind Tila Tequila in her lame attempt to make #Chargers Suck a trending topic, though. Tequila has posted 141 tweets so far. So who’s crazier? As JayBird has said many times before, someone should unplug Courtney Love’s Internet. I would include Tila Tequila in that statement, but I kind of like how she’s incriminating herself in whatever case she would have had against Shawne Merriman.

Courtney Love is shown out in NY on 8/31/09. Credit: ANDERSON/VILA/bauergriffinonline.com. Screenshot from Guitar Hero thanks to Idolator.

Driven by a misquoted Rolling Stone interview, false rumors have been circulating that John Mayer called fans of the wildly popular videogame, Guitar Hero, “Fake Wannabes.” While some websites are using the quote as attributed to Mayer, no such quote could be found in the interview.

Here is how Mayer responded when asked about playing guitar hero:

“I don’t ever want to be the kind of guy who rails against whatever progress has taken place. But Guitar Hero was devised to bring the guitar-playing experience to the masses without them having to put anything into it. And having done both, there’s nothing like really playing guitar. I mean, what would you rather drive, a Ferrari or one of those amusement-park cars on a track?”

[From Rolling Stone.com]

Clearly Mayer recognizes the fun in playing Guitar Hero, but is pointing out that the investment in practicing real guitar leads to a whole different experience. Guitar Hero is a game, playing guitar well is an art from. Mayer’s take here seems fair enough: don’t confuse a game that simulates an experience with the real thing.

Mayer does not, like some websites are reporting, dis fans of the game by calling them posers or wannabees. But maybe he should have. While playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band can be a great party game, we all know a guy who has a few too many beers and monopolizes the TV for hours, convinced that tapping colored buttons on a plastic toy in time to a cartoon is his ticket to rock stardom. You know the guy we are talking about. And if he puts on a mask and coveralls to play Slipknot’s “Before I Forget,” Celebitchy recommends intense psychotherapy.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Here’s John Mayer getting pulled over on Tuesday for driving with expired tags on his car and no license plates, thanks to WENN.