Friday Night Music
To take a break from China slaughtering innocents (hattip:HH), the saber rattling in Iran and MSM ignorance I chose to rock out tonight. I began the evening with Stratovarius and their "Visions" CD, a dose of Dream Theater and then on to my man Yngvie Malmsteen. I know my way around a fretboard pretty well and know a successful musician or two though I stick to "bedroom blues" acoustic now mostly. I love well played strings from the harp to the grand piano, Van Halen to Paginini, Bach and Flatt and Scruggs. Yngvie is a classicalley trained stringist who formed his own genre of heavy rock and is a huge influence in Europe's rockers today like Stratovarius. For new listeners I would recomend "Iquarus Dream Suite" an instrumental about the death of his cat, a beautiful piece. Oneday I will figure out how to link music here on the blog, techie call for help. I was lucky enough to see him live in the early days and I have still yet to lift my chin off the ground. I also got to see Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan on the same stage during DL Roth's "Eat'em and Smile "tour, unreal, I went back to acoustic, LOL.
I am going to raise some hackles now, I think the Beatles and the Rolling Bones are much over rated and John Lennon was just a spaced out drugged up hippy with a modicum of musical talent. I moved from the Kingston Trio and The Brothers Four to Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead, Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan adding their cuts as well.
I then discovered Al DiMeola , Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Ritchie Blackmore which lead to RJ Dio, Ozzy, Rush and Yes, Megadeth, Metallica and Iron Maiden and Stevie Ray Vaughn, Yngvie, Joe Satriani, Andres Segovia, Armik and Nickel Creek.
If you want to talk guitar music, let me know, I would love to oblige.
13 comments:
Ah, guitar music. I actually took a college course in Guitar. My instructer was a pretty well known jazz guitarist named Jerry Hahn. He authored a column on Jazz guitar in "Guitar Player" Magazine and he has recordeed some albums.
He couldn't sing a lick, though. I actually have 2 of his songs in my collection of homemade cd's.
By coincidence, He was married at the time to a High School classmate of mine.
Oh that was a "regular monthly column" in the magazine.
Hey send a copy if you can, Mark, always the collector of good guitar music that I am.
I gather you pick a bit yourself, Mark.
I KNEW YOU WERE A GUITAR PLAYER!!
Have you ever heard of Eric Johnson? If you haven't, check him out...
I, myself am a big Dream Theatre fan, along with Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert (check out old Racer X stuff, if you can find it,) DimeBag Darrell from Pantera (God rest his soul) and the Master, Stevie Ray Vaughan, (Who God called home, because the world did not deserve that kind of talent.)
You and I would get along great, Goat, if we lived close enough to hang out...
Oh, and I am, and have long been, a Rush fan (Both the band, and Limbaugh.)
I have some Racer X, McAlpine, M.Shenker and Ulrich Roth solo albums and don't forget Gary Moore. Funny all the metalheads from the 80s are largely conservative now. What part of Forida are you in? Being from B'ham I spent many a summer day on the panhandle as a certfied beach bum. I got to see SRV on New Years at the Fox in Atlanta, one of my top three all tied, awesome show, we lost him that year.
I live in the Tampa Bay Area, but I have extended family in the Panhandle, Niceville, and Navarre Beach to be exact. I love it up there.
About the old Metalheads being Conservatives...That's what happens when you grow up, Goat.
You learn what works, and what don't, and you run out of time and patience to waste on the things that don't work, so now you are a Conservative.
I met Paul Gilbert at a guitar seminar at Reliable Music in Charlotte NC in, musta been 1988 or '89. It was before the first Mr.Big album was released, but after it was recorded...
Absolutely the best guitar player I have ever encountered. Bar none.
He did a 45 minute game of "Name That Tune" or rather "Play That Tune" where we in the audience would call out the names of songs by other artists, and he would play the riff, and the most difficult portion of the solo, and 150 guitar players in 45 minutes never stumped him. He could recreate ANYTHING exactly, and he never stumbled once.
I wanted to go home, pile my crap in the yard, and set fire to it, and take up Chess, or Knitting or something.
But what I did was go home and PLAY. That one experience probably improved my playing by about as much progress as I would have made in 2 years at my normal pace of developement.
I don't have time now to play like I used to, so now I am as rusty as a Railroad Spike, but I still love it! I need to tighten up.
What kinda gear do you have now?
I am currently playing Ibanez electrics and accoustics, an ESP electric, and an Ovation accoustic that is so old that I think Christopher Columbus used to jam out with on the Mayflower.
I also have a Marshall Stack, (VS 100 R head), an old Fender m-80 half-stack and a couple of fender practice amps, along with various other assorted off the wall instruments. (Banjo, Carvin Lapsteel, ukeleles and such. I love diversity!!)
BC Rich electric, strat body, I bought from Bernie Rico at a NAMM convention, I used a Dean Markley, Fender Twin combo that gave a very elastic sound with unreal sustain. I have my fiddle still but no equipment. I also have a very beat up Alvarez acoustic. My best friend played all the LA clubs during that time. I generally lean toward Flamenco lately and new age bluegrass like Alison Krauss and Nickel Creek now as I am older and less hyper. I want to build my own acoustic as I know my way around a woodshop as well. I have a great connection to a luthier and supplies.
Awesome!
I always wanted to build my own Electric, but I have never gotten around to it...
And Nickel Creek is the Greatest!
Music doesn't get any prettier...
I played in a regional rock band for about 5 years or so, back before I got married and moved down here to South America.
I miss it terribly...
Cap'n, I can't play a song but I can pick up a guitar and make music for hours. I learned chords, progressions and scales and how they work together, I had no desire to play Smoke On The Water I wanted to be Yngvie or similar, alas I am not, LOL, fast fingers , no rhythm. I like complex music that commands indulgence in the beauty thus my dispisal of pop and hip hop. I relly don't like the Stone ,Beatles and am becoming very tired of the same LZ and PF songs constantly being played both put out far more than a half dozen songs and far better than the ones played on a regular basis.
Nickel Creek is footstomping hug your sweetheart goodtime music, a bunch of really talented kid folks.
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