Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

I should note there that the "current state of the guitar" is largely STILL due to corporate manipulation. Right now, corporate America thinks it's cool to be a disheaveled, listless, zhombified, skanky punk. Talented musicianship doesn't fit that image. You have to have a shorter skirt, a tighter tank top and LOTS of freakin tatoos. That fits the grunge/post-grunge image well. And none of that image breeds phenominal talent. It breeds gutter values and methamphetamine addicts.

The fact is, there are still all of those guitar heros from the 80' around and throwbacks like me are still patronizing them, as well as the youth of today who can recognize talent and are drawn to it. They are the future and talent is still around. You just don't hear much of it on the radio or see it on the TV.

The talent went underground! LOL! How ironic...

P.S. Just go to You Tube and type in "guitar" if you want to see talent. Corporate America might not get it, but there are thousands upon thousands of mind-blowing players out there. I'm watching a little Japanese girl play Paganini's Caprice No. 24 on her classical guitar right now (I'll give her some time to mature and give it that sould quality that masters such as John Williams and Manuel Barrueco do). Yesterday I was watching classic footage of John Sykes, Uli Jon Roth, Gary Moore, and Allan Holdsworth. The guitar is alive and well on You Tube!


Dang... check this fat guy's rendition of Paganini's Caprice No. 5 on steel string guitar. WOW! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e9n-vjZGok&mode=related&search=


Did someone clone Yngwie? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HdeDjmwOUo&mode=related&search=
 
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Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

I remember the Yngwie deal. I had been playing for about two years and had progressed rapidly (practicing 8 hours a day will do that). My first guitar hero was Randy Rhoads. After I had learned all of his stuff I was looking for something more. So I found Akira Takasaki of Loudness. That was cool. But there will still something "lacking" for me. And one day my brother, who'd been on a school trip to a bigger city, comes home with Yngwie's "Rising Force" album. I put it on and didn't pick up my jaw off the floor for the entire night. I stayed up all night listening to it. And then I spent the next several years working on mastering everything Yngwie put out on record. (Well... I dunno if I "mastered" it, but I could play it note-for-note close to speed.) I was never the same again.

I miss the pop bands of the 80's. Pop was GOOD then. I still listen to Journey, Survivor and Peter Cetera. In fact, Peter Cetera's "One Good Woman" is considered my me new wife and I to be "our" song.

I remember wearing-out Queensryche's "Warning" and "Rage For Order" for several years. And we were waiting for their next release. And waiting and waiting. And then my brother comes home with "Operation: Mindcrime" and I was freakin blown away. Just like with the Yngwie thing for guitar, QR for songwriting just put my jaw on the floor.
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Dude that is like my parallel life or something!

Except my friend would introduce the albums for me. Crazy!

I totally agree that i learned the stuff by ear as well and told my students to try and do it that way cause you spend way more time learning stuff by ear and therefore get the whole feel of what the guitarist was feeling and doing. Totally different than bam doing it by tab, which is wrong MANY times, especially with the difficult stuff.
i totally deystroyed so many tape players with rewinding playing forwarding. Lol !!
I actually took a recorder from my dad that was for interview type **** with a small cassette and a 1/2 speed thingy. so i slowed down some of the stuff to learn it. But it was like an octave down, so i still had more work to do. Now 'Transcribe' does it all!

Some of the coolest times were listening to "Defenders of the Faith" stoned while in a car on a good stereo, and listening to it back to back TWICE, with jaws dropping from the coolness factor.
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

tone? said:
Dude that is like my parallel life or something!

Except my friend would introduce the albums for me. Crazy!
Click to expand...

Hilarious man. I suspect there were a lot of us doing stuff like that. I grew-up in Montana and Wyoming, so I was like the solitary "Yngwie guy" or something, because most people up here didn't get it. After digesting the neo-classical thing, I took an affinity to classical music and started transcribing Bach violin concertos for the electric. And then I bought a classical guitar and started learning that stuff by ear. I learned Antonio Lauro's "Danza Venezolano" and some other cool classical guitar tunes like that. So I decided to major in Classical Guitar Performance at Montana State University. Christopher Parkening was the head of the department at the time, but only did Master Classes. I played my version of Venezolano for my instructor and told him that I learned it by ear. He was pretty impressed, but made me learn to read music and got me the sheet music for it. I was pretty much dead-on with my version, but it was good to learn to read anyways. I did that for two years and then decided that a music degree was worthless unless I wanted to teach for a living (and I didn't).

Those were some amazing years for me. I eventually had to stop emulating others so much and do my own thing. I was in a recording studio right after that and was laying down some tracks for a band. And the producer said, "that's nice, but can you do something that doesn't sound like Yngwie". LOL! That's when I started to work more on shaping my own sound. For the past 17 years or so I've just been doing my own thing. I don't learn the riffs of others any more unless I'm going to teach them to someone. I just put on CD's that are in the vein of whatever mood I'm in that day and improvise over them. I try to get my students up to speed with their knowledge of the modes and then try to steer them to work on phrasing so they can find their own voice. But what I've found with many players of today is that they don't have the patience to spend their formative years copping licks of great players. And you almost HAVE to do that in the beginning to get your technique nailed down, before you find your voice. Why not stand on the shoulders of giants to reach your goals and find your voice? Many young players of today just don't get that. And yet, I've seen more than enough videos on You Tube to prove to me than many do get that. So there is hope...
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

Imp said:
holy hell. i gotta start getting fat or something, cos nothing else has worked so far! that sounds awesome!
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Well... I'm gettin' pretty fat (12 years at a desk as a network admin will do that to ya) and yet, I sure as hell can't play that on my steel string (and not my electric either).

It's pretty awesome and just goes to show that no matter how good you are, someone else is always better. It's taken me a LOT of years to let-go of the whole guitar competition thing. I've allowed that competetive spirit in me to drive my progression. But I'm now learning that the ONLY thing I can be "the best" at in this world is being ME. And so, after many years of playing in other people's bands and recording their projects, I'm finally working on my own and hope to have a CD done later this year and a live band gigging it by next summer. I'm tired of doing other people's stuff and chasing my tail. Time to be comfortable in my own skin and run that up the flag pole and see who salutes it. ;)
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

ahhh, the memories..... I still have the receipt from 1979 when my mom bought me a Memphis LP copy (cherry sunburst) and a Univox amp (had clipping and reverb) I did the best I could with it for awhile, but it just wasn't cutting it.. First thing I realized was PU's were not all the same, so I installed a gibson PAF in my lowly Memphis. I was closer, but not close enough, then I started talking to older players. The MXR Distortion+ was the next purchase and sufficed for awhile. A MXR 6-band Eq was added later plus a few toys like a Small Stone, a Ibanez Delay and a MXR Micro-amp. My lowly 112 Univox was nowhere near loud enough, so I upgraded to a Kasino Club amp that was borrowed from a friend. (only a chassis, but it worked through the Univox speaker....briefly) I was always the kid who had the most "rigged" setup, but it usually worked. Marshall stacks were the "ultimate", but about as affordable for my 14 yr. old "budget" as a private jet... The Dist+ was replaced with a EH Big Muff, but I was still way outclassed by most of my "peers" and their wealthy parents...:irate:

In 1981, I landed my dream job of working at a music store, and on topic with the original thread, there wasn't much mid "level" gear to be had... We had Peavey and more Peavey, and some lesser "amps"..(Stage and Randall..) :( Guitar wise, the only "mid level" guitar we had was a Yamaha, so it was either "entry-level" or Gibson being about $1,000 apart. There actually were some other brands available, but who actually bought an Ovation electric???? Carvin's started gaining popularity, but it was Ibanez that nailed the "mid-upper" market. It didn't take long to learn that although Ibanez was considered "inferior", they made some hellacious guitars which rivaled, if were not better, than Gibson. That year I saw the very first ad for the "new' Ibanez DestroyerII..(you know where this is going..) and it was love at first sight! But it would be a couple more years before that dream came true. In the meantime, I was "cleaning" the shop when I stumbled across some old relics up in the "lofts". I found a BF Showman and a Brown Bassman with the matching 215. After being informed that neither worked and I should toss them into the dumpster, I decided to keep them instead... I had no clue what they were, but the Showman worked for a little while, so it became my main amp. It quit and I tried to figure out why, but to no avail... so it went into the shop. (my tech skills at age 14 weren't that great) I got it back and it was/is has always been the loudest amp I have ever owned... I figured if some "beat-up" old Fender could sound this good, every amp after it would be an improvement... made sense at the time... Eventually had a 412, a 410 and a 215 cab (which I still have!) It wasn't a Marshall, but I had a stack and 1/2.... woohoo! My distorted tone, like I really ever used a clean tone.., was still not all there. When the Marshall Lead 12 came out, the idea came to me that a line out (which the first versions didn't have) into my Fender would work.... and it did quite well for about 6 yrs. Eventually, I decided a real amp was in order, so I started looking at Mesa's heavily. In 1988, if you had a Mesa, you were it!!!!!!!!!! I could never get one to sound like I wanted (still can't), but I eventually went to see Metallica on the RTL tour and Kirk played through a Marshall 2205/2210 (i didn't get that close) and THAT was the tone I was after.... Tried a couple out and ordered mine in Jun. 1989... $2,400for the whole stack and never looked back

Oh, by this time I had my first Ibanez DII and had just traded the Brown Bassman w/cab (mentioned earlier) for my second Ibanez DII. As luck would have it, the previous owner had installed an original double cream SD Duncan Distortion and it became my favorite. I now have 7 1981-1984 Ibanez DII's, a 1956 LP Junior, a 1989 Gibson Explorer and a 1987 Gibson EDS-1275 all with SD SH-6's in the bridge.. :)

...oh and a few more Marshall's too!!

You played what you had, and you might be amazed to know what we learned when we had no other choice's. No flanger???... run your palm down the neck while you're playing, works everytime

Fwiw...

Jeff Seal
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

tone? said:
Almost forgot, back then we spent little time talking about equipment and more time playing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I remember Vinnie Moore saying in Guitar Player recently that back then he barely even thought about tone. That's one really cool development about the last few years: people are realising that music is a hearing art and really paying attention to their sound and learning about recording.

I think we tend to forget how many people had terrible sounds back then. There will always be 'notes' players and 'tone' players, but the lines blur a bit more nowadays.
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

Hot _Grits said:
Yours would be a striker series. I had a grey striker series 100st, which was basically a baretta with a ply body.

Focus series: MIJ by ESP
'American' series: Assembled in the US out of ESP parts
Striker series: MIK
Click to expand...

I bought a Black 1987/88 Striker 100st last year for $99... it has a new Dimarzio and an Ibanez Edge on it.... i figured the Dimarzio alone was worth the $100 Canadian, never mind the Ibanez Edge trem someone stuck on it... plus it was a special grand opening sale for the store so they gave me a Crybaby baseball hat free and 10 packs of store brand strings for $20....

This Striker reminds me of the metallic blue 300st i had in 1987.. i thought that guitar was the cats a$$ when i was 17... when i was 19 i tried to strip the body and re-paint it white and only then did i find out it was ply... what a shock that was!!!

I originally was going to strip all the aftermarket parts off this old 100st and sell off the rest for parts.... but i may keep axe after all just to remind me of the POS i used to call my main axe... I use a 99 MIM Standard a hell of a lot these days and at least it's a piece of poplar... a lot better of an axe then my Kramer was

I never did get an American Kramer.... always wanted one... never could afford it and still can't...
 
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Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

You played what you had, and you might be amazed to know what we learned when we had no other choice's. No flanger???... run your palm down the neck while you're playing, works everytime
Click to expand...

Funny you mention that. Thats how i used to play Unchained and THOUGHT it was played like that! lol
Not too many resources back then as us Project managers would call it.

There is such an obsession over tone now that is crazy. Yeah we would try and FORCE the sounds we heard outta our fingers. I never remember talking with my guitar buddy about " he is using a celestion, thats why you arent getting his tone" or " he is playing an alder bodied super strat with blah blah bridge and i need to get that to have his tone." None of that talk. Instead we would sit around and 'LISTEN' to the music, (no screens to stare at) and talk about what we thought the player is actually feeling while he is playing it. I remember my friend talking to me telling me " more important to copping the notes is to cop the 'feel' first.
This is so important to playing. if you put 10 people to play the same note progression they will all sound different. and that is what we were trying to do. Fine tune our fingers.
And i cant stress the learning by ear thing enough. It has major advantages. We spent so so much time analyzing the song. NOT the tone. the way the player bent the notes, the way he attacked the strings.
It was totally 'playing' centered. where nowadays it is gear centered. Makes sense though in the consumer society we live in.
Then we would talk about how a player has a certain finger vibrato he uses, now we talk about the bridge he uses.


Then we would talk about his background and roots of playing and how it contributes to his overall 'sound' ( there was no such word as 'tone' back then, hence why i named my username that. Nowadays we will talk about types of strings the guy uses, for days! lol
Then we would talk about the run in spanish fly where it isnt all picked and how it contributes to the sound and feel of the run. You know right before the arpeggio on the 12th fret in the beginning. Now we talk about pickup output.
Then we talked about creating the most intense solo, and now we say the SONG is more important ( yeah right! lol)
Then we never missed a headbangers ball to see the newest gun come out and blow our minds, now we will ponder for days and months about weather to clear coat with nitro or poly so we dont ruin the tone of our guitar!


WTF???
 
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Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

tone? said:
Funny you mention that. Thats how i used to play Unchained and THOUGHT it was played like that! lol
Not too many resources back then as us Project managers would call it.

There is such an obsession over tone now that is crazy. Yeah we would try and FORCE the sounds we heard outta our fingers. I never remember talking with my guitar buddy about " he is using a celestion, thats why you arent getting his tone" or " he is playing an alder bodied super strat with blah blah bridge and i need to get that to have his tone." None of that talk. Instead we would sit around and 'LISTEN' to the music, (no screens to stare at) and talk about what we thought the player is actually feeling while he is playing it. I remember my friend talking to me telling me " more important to copping the notes is to cop the 'feel' first.
This is so important to playing. if you put 10 people to play the same note progression they will all sound different. and that is what we were trying to do. Fine tune our fingers.
And i cant stress the learning by ear thing enough. It has major advantages. We spent so so much time analyzing the song. NOT the tone. the way the player bent the notes, the way he attacked the strings.
It was totally 'playing' centered. where nowadays it is gear centered. Makes sense though in the consumer society we live in.
Then we would talk about how a player has a certain finger vibrato he uses, now we talk about the bridge he uses.


Then we would talk about his background and roots of playing and how it contributes to his overall 'sound' ( there was no such word as 'tone' back then, hence why i named my username that. Nowadays we will talk about types of strings the guy uses, for days! lol
Then we would talk about the run in spanish fly where it isnt all picked and how it contributes to the sound and feel of the run. You know right before the arpeggio on the 12th fret in the beginning. Now we talk about pickup output.
Then we talked about creating the most intense solo, and now we say the SONG is more important ( yeah right! lol)
Then we never missed a headbangers ball to see the newest gun come out and blow our minds, now we will ponder for days and months about weather to clear coat with nitro or poly so we dont ruin the tone of our guitar!


WTF???
Click to expand...


I used to play Unchained like that too.... run my palm mutted down the strings over the pickups!!! still love that playing trick..
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

Red_Label said:
Could certainly be part of it.

I always saw it as a bunch of disenfrachised, urban "kids" who were tired of the slick, corporate hair-metal that had been shoved down their throats for the better part of a decade. And I could certainly understand that. But it was the fact that somehow a band that didn't even sound good in the garage (Nirvana) became an icon. Many of us players who'd spent hours every single day woodshedding to be good enough to "make it" felt apalled at such mediocrity.
Click to expand...

The issue is that you can't quantify what makes good art, and music is art.

Great chops alone do not make art.

It's always been the bane of those that spent every waking hour learning the mechanics of the instrument that someone with three chords can put together something that will make a broader connection to the world.

Red_Label said:
I should note there that the "current state of the guitar" is largely STILL due to corporate manipulation. Right now, corporate America thinks it's cool to be a disheaveled, listless, zhombified, skanky punk. Talented musicianship doesn't fit that image. You have to have a shorter skirt, a tighter tank top and LOTS of freakin tatoos. That fits the grunge/post-grunge image well. And none of that image breeds phenominal talent. It breeds gutter values and methamphetamine addicts.
Click to expand...

If you honestly believe that this is the case then likely you're still looking in media outlets that ceased to be relevant fifteen years ago for something new and fresh.

I spent all morning rocking out to Lamb Of God. Those cats can play, man. The drummer is insane and they have riffs that are just astoundingly heavy and they're as tight as I've heard a metal band can be.

....you won't hear about them on the radio or on MTV. I wouldn't have heard of them had I not been turned onto them by a guy I worked with and then caught them on the Comcast Metal Music channel. It's not a media outlet I would ever think to look for new music but sure enough, it's there.

As you get older alot of folks lose the ability to move to the newer media outlets but also the ability to allow themselves the freedom to re-define the aesthetics of what is good playing and good music. For the most part music did not peak in 1989 with Skid Row, the listener did!

If you really want to see a visualization of this mindset rent Napoleon Dynamite and pay attention to the Uncle Rico character. He's a guy that just stopped moving on at a certain point in time and refuses to acknowledge it in great part.
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

Skarekrough said:
The issue is that you can't quantify what makes good art, and music is art.

Great chops alone do not make art.

It's always been the bane of those that spent every waking hour learning the mechanics of the instrument that someone with three chords can put together something that will make a broader connection to the world.



If you honestly believe that this is the case then likely you're still looking in media outlets that ceased to be relevant fifteen years ago for something new and fresh.

I spent all morning rocking out to Lamb Of God. Those cats can play, man. The drummer is insane and they have riffs that are just astoundingly heavy and they're as tight as I've heard a metal band can be.

....you won't hear about them on the radio or on MTV. I wouldn't have heard of them had I not been turned onto them by a guy I worked with and then caught them on the Comcast Metal Music channel. It's not a media outlet I would ever think to look for new music but sure enough, it's there.

As you get older alot of folks lose the ability to move to the newer media outlets but also the ability to allow themselves the freedom to re-define the aesthetics of what is good playing and good music. For the most part music did not peak in 1989 with Skid Row, the listener did!

If you really want to see a visualization of this mindset rent Napoleon Dynamite and pay attention to the Uncle Rico character. He's a guy that just stopped moving on at a certain point in time and refuses to acknowledge it in great part.
Click to expand...


I will agree with some of what you say, and disagree with much.

I have Napoleon Dynamite on DVD. My kids love it. Uncle Rico is a goof. There are those of us from the 80's who lament that talent has taken a back seat to image, but that doesn't make us all mullet-sporting, Joe Dirt types. In fact, talent doesn't mean jack squat these days. Case in point: your mention of Lamb of God. The players are okay players. They are not monster guitar gods. The "vocalist" is horrible. If that qualifies as "moving on", then yes... I'm Uncle Rico. You can paint it anyway you like, but most of us know real talent when it drops our jaws and that hasn't happend much in the mainstream since 1990. At least during the 80's most big name vocalists could sing well and most players could play very well. That is anything but the case today...

BTW... I wasn't talking about songwriting either. I generally separate that from prodigious instrumental musicianship. There are very few virtuoso players who are great popular song writers as well. One's priorities as a musician become limited by the amount of time one has to spend honing their craft (and it must be said, one's interest in connecting with the masses). And there are some good songwriters around today. I wouldn't say that Lamb of God is a member of that club though... lol


BTW... my first real exposure to Lamb of God was on Conan O'Brian's show. That's not exactly "underground".
 
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Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

Back in the mid 80's I had 2 guitars. A 1968 SG Standard and in '87 I bought my first Strat. I was playing thru a ReverbaRocket until I bout the Strat and I bought a Jazz Chorus. I used a Pro Co Rat with a Boss Super Overdrive to get a good drive tone. I also had a phaser and a Crybaby. I eventually replaced the Jazz Chorus with my Super Reverb. I still have all the gear except the phaser, the Rat and the Jazz Chorus~
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

I've been YouTubing a bunch of boutique amp videos lately to try to get a better handle on some of the differences. A friend's music shop used to get most of the good stuff in there, but that's dried up now. So I'm left with sound and video samples. But it's a mixed bag because I'm amazed at the number of mediocre players who own Diezel, Bogner, Matchless, etc. And it's their checkbook, so more power to them. But the problem is that at least half of your tone is in your hands. So it's not really a fair thing to judge a high quality tube amp by it's sound in unskilled hands. Back in my day we had to make our tone with our hands, and a Tube Screamer into a JCM800. And though there are a lot more great amps out there these days... it's still hard to beat that combination...
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

tone? said:
You dont think that the 80's rocked??

These guys didnt have any special tone or chops, but it was a totally cool band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIX6B2tcezA
Click to expand...

Yup. Queensryche were my favorite band of the 80's... PERIOD. If they hadn't started being so lame after Empire they'd probably still be there. My favorite metal band by far for the past several years are very QR'ish and they are called Kamelot. Whereas QR stopped putting-out awesome releases, Kamelot seems to be just hitting their stride. Their last album, called The Black Halo is VERY reminiscent of QR during Mindcrime phase. In fact, their new CD "Ghost Opera" is coming-out next week. I don't expect it to be as good as The Black Halo, Karma, or Epica though. But maybe I'll be surprized. If you like QR and haven't checked these guys out, do yourself a favor and give them a listen. They single-handedly restored my faith in prog metal after so many lame albums from QR and Dream Theater since the late 90's.
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

Red_Label said:
I will agree with some of what you say, and disagree with much.

I have Napoleon Dynamite on DVD. My kids love it. Uncle Rico is a goof. There are those of us from the 80's who lament that talent has taken a back seat to image, but that doesn't make us all mullet-sporting, Joe Dirt types. In fact, talent doesn't mean jack squat these days. Case in point: your mention of Lamb of God. The players are okay players. They are not monster guitar gods. The "vocalist" is horrible. If that qualifies as "moving on", then yes... I'm Uncle Rico.
Click to expand...

Well...so be it...

unclerico.jpg
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

Red_Label said:
Yup. Queensryche were my favorite band of the 80's... PERIOD. If they hadn't started being so lame after Empire they'd probably still be there. My favorite metal band by far for the past several years are very QR'ish and they are called Kamelot. Whereas QR stopped putting-out awesome releases, Kamelot seems to be just hitting their stride. Their last album, called The Black Halo is VERY reminiscent of QR during Mindcrime phase. In fact, their new CD "Ghost Opera" is coming-out next week. I don't expect it to be as good as The Black Halo, Karma, or Epica though. But maybe I'll be surprized. If you like QR and haven't checked these guys out, do yourself a favor and give them a listen. They single-handedly restored my faith in prog metal after so many lame albums from QR and Dream Theater since the late 90's.
Click to expand...
Start listening to some of the new metal. I would trade a million Guns and Roses for one Lamb Of God, or The Haunted. About four years ago I went through a metal reawakening. I by no means thought metal was dead, I just stopped listening. Then I realized my friends were starting to listen to adult contemporary like John Mayer, Dave Mathews and country. It was then I decided I didn't want to be the guy driving around with a cd collection that was last weeks banner ad on CDNOW. So when some skinny little dude with Ja Rule blasting from his Honda gives this fat bald dude with a beard a queer look at the stoplight I hit him with some Black Label.
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

idsnowdog said:
Start listening to some of the new metal. I would trade a million Guns and Roses for one Lamb Of God, or The Haunted. About four years ago I went through a metal reawakening. I by no means thought metal was dead, I just stopped listening. Then I realized my friends were starting to listen to adult contemporary like John Mayer, Dave Mathews and country. It was then I decided I didn't want to be the guy driving around with a cd collection that was last weeks banner ad on CDNOW. So when some skinny little dude with Ja Rule blasting from his Honda gives this fat bald dude with a beard a queer look at the stoplight I hit him with some Black Label.
Click to expand...

I have an Uncle that has some great taste in music.

He was a Dead-head for a long while. He saw Hendrix a few times, Aerosmith when they were starting out, the Yardbirds with Page and I swear he saw the Allmans a hundred times and most of them with Duane....

He doesn't consider Zeppelin music because he classifies Plant's vocals as "screaming" and according to him "that isn't singing."

He failed to evolve musically. He's a good guy, but musically the world passed him by.
 
Re: Hey, guys who were playing in the 80's....

Red_Label said:
As a songwriter, I understand that music is an art and therefor is subjective and open to many differen interpretations as to what is of value and what is good. I can deal with that. But as a guitar player and instrumental musician, the state of guitar for the past decade+ has been generally appaling. At least when you turned on the radio or video channel in the 80's and saw the current top 100 bands you saw guitar players who were of phenominal talent. That just isn't so now. There are a select FEW nu-metal guitarists who are "pretty good". But coming from the 80's with guys like Vai, Yngwie, Holdsworth, Bettencourt, Sykes, Gary Moore, Van Halen, etc... "pretty good" just doesn't cut it. ;)
Click to expand...

Grunge just had their own crappy poster child in nirvana, just as you had poison. I think that Kim Thayil of Soundgarden and Jerry Cantrell were pretty awesome guitarists of the 'grunge' movement. Pearl Jam has put out some pretty good stuff, definitly some jams that most people would never look into because they didn't like 'evenflow'. I liked Robert DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots. Brad Nowell of Sublime. I think there are always good guitarists out there, I think maybe it was just easier to access it when it was being shoved down your throat. I followed a link on here recently to a youtube video of a band called Muse performing. Some of the vocals I could have done without, but the guitar was totally inventive and very skilled as well. John Frusciante's playing on Californication and Stadium Arcadium is totally amazing, and in concert he's phenomenal.
 
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