My God...This Tone!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter angelspade
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jabps said:
The sad thing is...where is this mother******?

One of the baddest dudes to sling a guitar and he's MIA for how long now?

Ain't any of us getting younger.
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So he was actually the first guy that was contacted for what became the Winery Dogs. It was supposed to be Sykes / Sheehan / Portnoy but apparently Sykes couldn't get out of his own way and the other two got tired of waiting and hit up Kotzen instead. I love Kotzen but that would've been something else....
 
SpiderWars said:
Here's Olsen on that (timestamped)
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In reality Coverdale cut his own throat by kicking Sykes out.

Yeah '87 was massive, huge follow up tour opening for Motley, then a long headlining tour on their own but they went from 8 mill sold on '87 to 1 million sold on Slip and then pretty much the end of WS.

As for Slip - Vandenberg back then was one of my favorite guitarists, and I think some of the tunes on Slip are really good that he wrote, but Vai killed that album for me. I still can rarely listen to it because of Vai. And as much as I loved Adrian's neo-classical leanings to his solo's, I mean some of his playing on his solo albums is brilliant, he doesn't have any hot rodded blues based leaning in his playing which that music needs. So even if he had played on the Slip album, I really don't think it would have mattered.

Blue Murder is brilliant, nothing I don't like about it but let's be honest, an amalgam of those songs with Coverdale would have been even more epic.

Coverdale should have shelved his ego because really IMO this was about control. Of which David didn't want to give up or even share. Had he kept Sykes (and I'm sure Sykes had his own ego issues) they probably keep that band active and successful for several more albums well through out the 90's even with grunge coming in because that music transcended your standard LA hair metal.
 
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jabps said:
In reality Coverdale cut his own throat by kicking Sykes out.

Yeah '87 was massive, huge follow up tour opening for Motley, then a long headlining tour on their own but they went from 8 mill sold on '87 to 1 million sold on Slip and then pretty much the end of WS.

As for Slip - Vandenberg back then was one of my favorite guitarists, and I think some of the tunes on Slip are really good that he wrote, but Vai killed that album for me. I still can rarely listen to it because of Vai. And as much as I loved Adrian's neo-classical leanings to his solo's, I mean some of his playing on his solo albums is brilliant, he doesn't have any hot rodded blues based leaning in his playing which that music needs. So even if he had played on the Slip album, I really don't think it would have mattered.

Blue Murder is brilliant, nothing I don't like about it but let's be honest, an amalgam of those songs with Coverdale would have been even more epic.

Coverdale should have shelved his ego because really IMO this was about control. Of which David didn't want to give up or even share. Had he kept Sykes (and I'm sure Sykes had his own ego issues) they probably keep that band active and successful for several more albums well through out the 90's even with grunge coming in because that music transcended your standard LA hair metal.
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Agreed... good post !
 
jabps said:
In reality Coverdale cut his own throat by kicking Sykes out.

Yeah '87 was massive, huge follow up tour opening for Motley, then a long headlining tour on their own but they went from 8 mill sold on '87 to 1 million sold on Slip and then pretty much the end of WS.

As for Slip - Vandenberg back then was one of my favorite guitarists, and I think some of the tunes on Slip are really good that he wrote, but Vai killed that album for me. I still can rarely listen to it because of Vai. And as much as I loved Adrian's neo-classical leanings to his solo's, I mean some of his playing on his solo albums is brilliant, he doesn't have any hot rodded blues based leaning in his playing which that music needs. So even if he had played on the Slip album, I really don't think it would have mattered.

Blue Murder is brilliant, nothing I don't like about it but let's be honest, an amalgam of those songs with Coverdale would have been even more epic.

Coverdale should have shelved his ego because really IMO this was about control. Of which David didn't want to give up or even share. Had he kept Sykes (and I'm sure Sykes had his own ego issues) they probably keep that band active and successful for several more albums well through out the 90's even with grunge coming in because that music transcended your standard LA hair metal.
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100%
 
jabps said:
In reality Coverdale cut his own throat by kicking Sykes out.

Yeah '87 was massive, huge follow up tour opening for Motley, then a long headlining tour on their own but they went from 8 mill sold on '87 to 1 million sold on Slip and then pretty much the end of WS.

As for Slip - Vandenberg back then was one of my favorite guitarists, and I think some of the tunes on Slip are really good that he wrote, but Vai killed that album for me. I still can rarely listen to it because of Vai. And as much as I loved Adrian's neo-classical leanings to his solo's, I mean some of his playing on his solo albums is brilliant, he doesn't have any hot rodded blues based leaning in his playing which that music needs. So even if he had played on the Slip album, I really don't think it would have mattered.

Blue Murder is brilliant, nothing I don't like about it but let's be honest, an amalgam of those songs with Coverdale would have been even more epic.

Coverdale should have shelved his ego because really IMO this was about control. Of which David didn't want to give up or even share. Had he kept Sykes (and I'm sure Sykes had his own ego issues) they probably keep that band active and successful for several more albums well through out the 90's even with grunge coming in because that music transcended your standard LA hair metal.
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Very detailed analysis.

Some additional opinion:
The last punch for hard rock/ metal era was coming from MTV. They decided to change rock/metal era to RnB and Hip Hop shit. Why? Because is easier to create money with this style. You dont need performing musicians/songwriters, You dont need live band and all complicated gear systems to making good show.
Now is enough one Macbook, some dancing peoples and one attractive singer. Good singing is not requirement, because of Autotune. Of course, the “music” is created with pc by peoples, who dont play any musical instrument.
The Poseur creating “music” with PC is called “Producer”.
 
It is a good tone but I disagree about you saying it's not dated sounding, cause it kinda is. But everyone loves that 80's sounding shit around here so...

That's the thing about Mark III's, they're good amps and all but it's very hard to take that hair metal vibe out of them, they kinda sound dated IMO. I guess it's because so many people were using Mesa Marks, Studio pre-amps and Quads back in those days that we just associate that sound with the 80's I guess??
 
angelspade said:
I'm sure there's been more than a few Sykes threads around here over the years....But I just heard this isolated track for the first time tonight. Obviously the playing is amazing...But the tones are just outrageous. And the high gain rhythm tones sound surprisingly current. The middle section at 3:58 is just so crunchy and thick in all the right ways.

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Fuck yes!!
 
* velcro-fly * said:
but apparently Sykes couldn't get out of his own way and the other two got tired of waiting...
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Actually, not true at all. Sykes, MP and Sheehan agreed to have Bob Rock to produce the album . Bob said he would do it but he wasn't available for two months. They all agreed to wait. A short time later MP decided he didn't want to wait for Bob. Sykes disagreed and wanted to wait for Bob. Sykes was baffled at MP's sudden change of direction and wasn't about to let the drummer tell him what to do--so they parted ways.
 
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I can hardly figure out why Coverdale didn't like having a guy like John Sykes in his band. For the first 6 years, Whitesnake looked like this and no one was competing with Coverdale for the ladies or anyone else's attention:

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Then all of a sudden he has a guy who is 8 years younger and looks like this in HIS band:

johnsykesjpg.jpeg


And this new guy can play like a fiend, has a monstrous guitar tone, is a killer songwriter, has great stage presence and is a great singer too? Yeah, I have no idea why Coverdale wanted him out of his band ASAP. LOL
 
Drew said:
Actually, not true at all. Sykes, MP and Sheehan agreed to have Bob Rock to produce the album . Bob said he would do it but he wasn't available for two months. They all agreed to wait. A short time later MP decided he didn't want to wait for Bob. Sykes disagreed and wanted to wait for Bob. Sykes was baffled at MP's sudden change of direction and wasn't about to let the drummer tell him what to do--so they parted ways.
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Makes more sense
 
LOVE the Blue Murder album and tones. Pity that 'Sex Child' lyrics are cringey as hell though.
 
jabps said:
Yep. Love it. Saw that tour live, they were opening for Quiet Riot.
Also something I've done since the 80's to control noise and feedback as well. Still do to this day as I've never used a gate. Why I always get a chuckle out of people that struggle finding the right gate, just use your volume knob and a mute (tuner) switch.
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That double bill played here in Oakland but I passed on that and went to the Sacramento show with Dio headlining , Whitesnake and Y&T . Talk about a night of raging guitars
 
I didn't know John Sykes and Neil Murray were fired from the band till I saw the Still Of The Night video. I saw the video and said "WTF is this" lol
 
glpg80 said:
One added detail was that it was a jcm800 combo tracked through a 4x12 cabinet that was recorded. To this day no one knows what speakers were in the cabinet. I have a feeling it was old school 75’s but could have been greenbacks. I wish I knew what was in the cabinet
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Thought I read he has a large collection of JCM 800 cabs loaded with 65s. He used to search them out.
 
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