Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....
Totally agree that this thread is cool.
On that note, yes there was good and bad. You could get vintage gear cheap back then, but who the heck was that much of a visionary?
Guitars are kinda mixed as well. there was never near of a selection as there is now, but some of the MIJ guitars of then are built as good as USA ones now. My Ibanez RoadstarII with Floyd is as good as the Satriani models now. IMHO.
Lots of cheese but lots of cool stuff as well.Then people were constantly trying to top Van halen and make the next revoloutionary guitar design. Now things are too focused on vintage, but have been making improvments lately. I Just remember digging all the color options then, body designs, whacked out Floyd type bridges.
Plus things were really new then. The Shred thing had NOT been done yet, so it was peaking then. Very exciting time. Before Malmsteen.........there was no Malmsteen. Kids now listen to him and think " so he plays a million notes a minute, who cares?". But then when he came out we all just let our jaws drop. Even more with Halen.
Very very exciting time.
The chicks were cool in leather and digging Priest. When the pretty boy look got outta hand, yes it did get silly. But over all it was cool.
There was ALOT more emotional music made then i think. Has anyone compared the amount of slow/love songs of then compared to now???!! i keep saying this and no one listens. There are like NO slow songs anymore. Its like emotion has died or something. I personally liked the emotional cheesy stuff.
SS then was horrible. I remember that we would just upgrade our SS combos then. From Crate to Carlsbro, to Peavey to finally Marshall. But i must admit those Marshall SS that were supposed to sound like JCM800 sounded damn good. ALWAYS needed a distortion pedal in front tho.
saddly now since that hard time of having no gear i've gone the other way... now i have way too much
I somehow enjoyed playing through all that crap more than i do now. Maybe it has to do with me being in my youth back then.. I just remember learning to play stuff like Rock and roll Rebel and feeling like God.
It must have to do with the Testosterone. I felt so good playing then. More of a romantic dreamy time then. Artists like DIO, Ozzy ( we always tried to find hidden meaning in Ozzys lyrics!), then we had all the pop stuff out like survivor, Ah Ha, Peter Cetera, it was still uplifting stuff. Music now is too focused on reality i think. WHo gives a **** about reallity? we live it all day. I liked the fantasy/Romantic part of music then. The grunge thing was horrible. Like all of a sudden people were yelling at you, " Life sucks, so get rid of all that pretty hair and beam back to reallity which is dirt and grime". I didnt like that at all.
Also we waited for new albums to come out then ( yes records for those who dont know) and actually buy them. i really think that the internet does NOT make it better for us with all the music readily available at out fingertips. It just makes everything a little blah. If you make less of an effort to get it/buy it, it doesnt feel as good i think. I still remember getting the new Ozzy Tribute record before school and drooling over it. It was so so cool. Now we would just download it in seconds and be tough critics to it. Not appreciate anything.
Now things are trying to get a bit more upbeat, but not near the uplifting feeling from 80's tunes. Just dig em out and listen to them. I guarantee you will feel better in no time.
