thread for discussion of guitarists i have only heard of because i read guitar magazines in the late 90s

Austin is correct. You can kinda admire the craft but there is no fuckin way I will like sit down and LISTEN to this as if it were music.

Any more than I would, like, watch Olympic pole vaulting. Yes, you're skilled. Good for you.

But no, I don't care about this activity, so I won't spend my limited leisure time consuming recordings of it.

Would 100% prefer to hear the Eagles or Billy Joel or Phil Collins or whatever, for the thousandth time, than check out an allegedly "amazing" guitar player who is very skilled but who has yet to elicit emotions from someone other than guitar nerds, thxbye

Any more than I would, like, watch Olympic pole vaulting. Yes, you're skilled. Good for you.

I mean, call me back if Steve Vai puts on a cute little pair of shorts and starts flying through the air.

Oh cool Sund4r, I haven't watched any of her stuff but I think she lives in my town and is friends with some friends.

Re: Vai, he's not even triggering the drum parts with his feet, lame.

I feel like Tosin Abasi is one of the contemporary equivalents of these guys - monstrous guitarist, but I cannot bring myself to listen to his music
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, April 5, 2022 9:39 PM (two days ago)

A few years ago, I went to see Buke & Gase at a venue in Minneapolis called the Skyway, and one of the opening acts was Animals As Leaders (who I got really into after seeing live). After the show, my first thought was “This was a show totally curated for this very thread! Too bad we no longer have the music media landscape of the 90s.”

I’m imagining Guitar World giving us a 2-page photo essay featuring the Aron(e)’s titular buke and gase, with Wolf Marshall explaining how he had to invent the nomenclature to describe the transcription of the 'gase' part for “No Land”; then after a brief article by whomever would function as today's version of John Petrucci (I dont know, maybe HH Hendrix from Liturgy?), we’d find a double-interview feature where Deafheaven's Kerry McCoy and H.E.R. get all anarchic with Animals as Leaders’ string-savants* Tosin and Javier Reyes.

*Actual term used in a review of a Dream Theater album!

https://www.guitarworld.com/tag/tosin-abasi

https://www.guitarworld.com/author/tosin-abasi

The way you know a wanky shredder has made it these days is that they have their own NeuralDSP guitar modeling plugin

https://neuraldsp.com/plugins/archetype-abasi
https://neuraldsp.com/plugins/archetype-plini

https://www.guitarworld.com/tag/tosin-abasi

https://www.guitarworld.com/author/tosin-abasi

― And liberty she pirouette (Sund4r), Thursday, April 7, 2022 7:32 PM (one hour ago)

HOLY APEIROPHOBIA!

The Vai thing is cool tbh. More like Jeff Beck than Yngwie.

― And liberty she pirouette (Sund4r), Wednesday, April 6, 2022 1:52 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

i legit enjoyed the vai video haha, it is pretty cool! i know nothing about guitarists or shred but i mean it's just so baroque in its dweebiness, and vai is 61 years old!!!! what's not to love lol.

i guess that guitar must miraculously not be that heavy because otherwise i'm not sure how his back could handle it

and vai is 61 years old!!!! what's not to love lol.

― the cat needs to start paying for its own cbd (map), Thursday, April 7, 2022 7:17 PM

HE DOES JAZZ HANDS MULTIPLE TIMES

Yeah if these guys are gonna do this stuff they might as well lean into the ridiculousness and make it fun, not that's it's gonna, y'know, sound any better

Occasionally if I go down a bit of a gearhead wormhole on youtube I start getting recommendations for this Ichika Nito/Tim Henson type shit which is I guess the millennial evolution of this stuff, lots of clever harmonics and insanely skilful jumping around the fretboard, but also completely joyless and pedantic

lean into the ridiculousness and make it fun

Unfortunately, for many technically-skilled musicians this translates as "ape Zappa".

Animals as Leaders is totally Dream Theater for the youtube generation, I hate it

its unlistenable

Anyone else think Vai looks kinda like Corey Feldman in that clip?

I tried listening to a bunch of these albums. Honestly I would like a lot of them if the drums sounded better. I really wanted this one to be good:

https://i.discogs.com/u_oRG-VzAZvbBDLLAtnJaWbLazRtojbrG6odVYroUQ4/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE3MjEy/ODYtMTQ2NzEyMzIw/My05MzQxLmpwZWc.jpeg

I remember that one, damn

They would have way more strings now

Yeah, my friend's family's record store stocked that one when I was in high school.

Their second one sounds marginally better. I loved that all that Shrapnel records stuff in the nineties when I was fifteen and a young aspiring metal guitar player. Anyone remember Greg Howe? He went the fusion way and is still pretty active. His album Tilt, which he made with Ritchie Kotzen who by then was also trying to get away from just shredding, features some insane soloing if you're into the ten thousand notes per second thing - which I kind of still am.

One lesser talked about but also very revered in shred guitar circles is the album Truth in Shredding by Frank Gambale, Brett Garsed and Shawn Lane (the most shreddy of all shredders).

I know way too much about this stuff.

The "lean into it and make it fun" schtick can descend into bacon territory pretty quickly, although I have a soft spot for Batio.

Speaking of Kotzen, I was just checking out The Winery Dogs, which is his trio with Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy. The downsides are the godawful band name, the trips into blues-rock territory. Kotzen's vocals - which waver between budget Chris Cornell and Sammy Hagar - could be better sometimes, could be worse. But I think their hard rock numbers are pretty fun, and use their combined virtuosities to complement the songs. Serviceable hard rock with pyrotechnics for flavor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SoTgZjokLU

lol at the slow mo shred shot at 1:37.

honestly i enjoy that song more than anything on the last mastodon album lol

dat bass face @ 1:21

haha wow, you're not kidding re: cornell aping.

that is like, recognizable as a song though. it has parts and a melody and generally makes sense.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51CdjpPYIFL._UXNaN_FMjpg_QL85_.jpg

Next level

"Can you show me on the doll where rock touched you?"

kinda love this yngwie fender video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj5FDmQ1Qfw
love that he has a collection of m/l the exact same guitar

I thing Ygngwie's passion for his whole deal is sometimes misread as condescension when he's just geeked. he's also legendarily hard to deal with but I love to hear him talk shop and yes "here's my strat collection. you have to be a fiend to tell them apart" is amazing and when he talks about his sound at the end...that rules

Pretty sure that’s Fabio

That's an awesome interview. I don't listen to Yngwie often but when I'm in the mood for that kind of thing, there's no one better. Perpetual Flame, the album he made in 2008 with Ripper Owens on vocals, is a really good late-career release.