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Nails In Your Coffin
New member
crankyrayhanky":38hkot2u said:Dude, our clique had a meeting last night. Good news...we all decided that Nails- while potentially grating- is now permitted to join the other non-A7X threads in intelligent discussion. Despite your CC & Mars love, I vouched for you based on your passion for original music
You'll be a pledge for awhile until you earn your keep.
YAY! Lemme just jump right up and throw myself a party! I'm gonna party like it's 1999!

Seriously, dude, I don't have any love for C.C. DeVille, I simply said his solos were memorable. That doesn't imply they were technical wonders, it implies they fit the songs and sounded good in the songs. As for Mick Mars, as mentioned prior, the guy can play some acoustic and will surprise a lot of people. I don't think Mick's the best guitarist on the planet, but I respect him for what he's contributed to his genre of music. I've never heard a solo in a Motley Crue song that didn't fit the song. No, he never wowed anyone, but his playing is a case of "less is more."
While we're at it, want me to get started on Kerry King? Don't get me wrong, I love Slayer, but Kerry King has gotta be one of the worst guitarists in music. His solos (if that's what you wanna call'em...) make my ears bleed and my cats hide under furniture. I'm just gonna say it...I'd rather listen to a shit-ass Synyster Gates solo than one from Kerry King.

As for originality, we're all going to take a page from the sound of our guitar heroes, but when someone goes out and deliberately attempts to achieve that hero's sound, it's just not cool. I could never understand why the fuck anyone would wanna emulate someone else's creations, and I still don't. Why spend all the time practicing just so you can sound like someone else?

It may come as a surprise (smell the sarcasm...) but I'm not a great guitar player, but I have been playing long enough to know a good guitarist from a bad one, and a player with technical aptitude from one without. I've had opportunities to learn all the basic dumb shit like "Smoke on the Water," Stairway to Heaven," blah blah blah, but quite honestly, I've never held any interest in learning anyone else's shit. IMO, once you start playing somebody else's shit, you're gonna start to sound just like him/her. I have no interest whatsoever in taking pages from anyone else's book in my playing. IMO, the biggest insult someone could possibly give a musician (I wouldn't even consider myself a musician...) is, "Hey, that sounds just like _______."
There are two schools of thinking on learning other peoples' shit. Some teachers will tell you the best way to learn is by playing other peoples' shit, as it helps to develop the musical "vocabulary," while the other one will tell you it's better to explore on your own. For me, I choose to explore on my own.
So, what's with the hate for Synyster Gates? It's not a hate for Synyster Gates, it's a hate for his playing, or lack thereof. Guys like Synyster Gates, Zacky Vengeance, and the rest of that genre have no aspirations to improve their playing or technique. They have no intentions of furthering their musical vocabulary or developing a better skill set, they're perfectly content with floundering just where they are now, with just enough skill to slide by. Listen to an Avenged Sevenfold record from seven years ago, then listen to their current one, and there is absolutely no substantial improvement in technique or creativity. Listen to a lot of the old-school artists and with each record, you can hear an improvement or something new you didn't hear on the last one.