Note to Steve Vai...

[Red_Label]

I know what you mean. I would never try and cop his licks, just listen to his esoteric shenanigans and enjoy it. What I like about Tal is she holds her own in the band. Christ, your drummer is Vinnie Colaiuta. I think she might be Australian, which is nice too. And yes, she knows how to center a guitar strap...

Indeed she does man!

And I totally agree with everything else you said. And yes, she's an Aussie. An amazing "kid" all around.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

You probably never should have taken the Alcatrazz gig....

So you think Steve would have been a "success" had he not taken that gig? Yes, we can only wonder where he would have gotten to if not for that ill fated detour that completely derailed his career.

probably because he still would have done everything else he went on to do... most people don't know who Alcatraz is or know that he even played in the band. Talk about confusion..

 

[Ventura]

You must be completely amazing...

Concur aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd concur.

For the love of all that is sacred man, Vai's one of the "untouchables" in the realm of guitar players. Doesn't matter if you like him or not, you can't dis "The Vai".

 

[kasperjensen]

I think you can call yourself a success if you have made that much money playing widdly widdly guitar.

 

[ejecta]

You must be completely amazing...

Concur aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd concur.

For the love of all that is sacred man, Vai's one of the "untouchables" in the realm of guitar players. Doesn't matter if you like him or not, you can't dis "The Vai".

You can when you are the untouchable Pat aka Mentosman who has evidently gathered consensus from far superior players who think it's cool to bag on another successful guitar player just because they don't like his style or tastes.

 

[mentoneman]

You must be completely amazing...

Concur aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd concur.

For the love of all that is sacred man, Vai's one of the "untouchables" in the realm of guitar players. Doesn't matter if you like him or not, you can't dis "The Vai".

You can when you are the untouchable Pat aka Mentosman who has evidently gathered consensus from far superior players who think it's cool to bag on another successful guitar player just because they don't like his style or tastes.

for a guy who claims he doesn't care about my opinions you sure seem to be behaving to the contrary

you can object all you want my opinion is my opinion, littered with satire if you couldn't discern that already, and none of the videos posted, here which i watched, changes that. he's always hula dancing on stage at a sausage festival. that creeps me out.

ejecta go for a jog or spend some time with family you need a break from thinking about my posts on this thread. i put together a PA and ran sound for a fundraiser last night and got to hang out with landon donovan.

what interesting thing did you do?

 

[ejecta]

You must be completely amazing...

Concur aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd concur.

For the love of all that is sacred man, Vai's one of the "untouchables" in the realm of guitar players. Doesn't matter if you like him or not, you can't dis "The Vai".

You can when you are the untouchable Pat aka Mentosman who has evidently gathered consensus from far superior players who think it's cool to bag on another successful guitar player just because they don't like his style or tastes.

for a guy who claims he doesn't care about my opinions you sure seem to be behaving to the contrary

you can object all you want my opinion is my opinion, littered with satire if you couldn't discern that already, and none of the videos posted, here which i watched, changes that. he's always hula dancing on stage at a sausage festival. that creeps me out.

ejecta go for a jog or spend some time with family you need a break from thinking about my posts on this thread. i put together a PA and ran sound for a fundraiser last night and got to hang out with landon donovan.

what interesting thing did you do?

I'll say again and repeat what Bob has said as well. I could care less what your opinion is of Vai. What I took exception to is pompous attitude to say people who do like him have some kind of musical impairment or lack of knowledge. Total BS and a dickish attitude that you have put on display here many times.

To your bragging about running PA for a fundraiser.... no one cares and bragging about is also is a pretty pompous thing to do.

To answer your question...

I worked on a song with my kids that we are writing about my brother who we lost last year. So yeah go stick your fat pompous head up your ass.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

Maybe we should shut this thread down... nothing good can come of it.. much like Vai's next instrumental album

 

[sjk]

Maybe we should shut this thread down... nothing good can come of it.. much like Vai's next instrumental album

Nah, it's gotten too good to shut it down.
While I have never been a fan outside of being a very newly started guitar playing young teen watching and marveling over his playing on Crossroads but I can appreciate what he has done as an artist.
I can see a lot of your points as somewhat valid and was initially offput by your thread thinking you meant that Vai had gotten this far in his career by fooling everyone but you and a few select others
He does use far too many tricks and gimmicks in his playing far too frequently imho.

 

[RG955TT]

Really, a bunch of bedroom and closet "rock stars"??? dissing on Vai? Really? Wow, some of you really need to take a moment for self assessment. Jesus, I mean you don't have to like what he does or dig his style but is still very popular and has legions of fans and many guitar players have taken something away from what he's done. I mean when Roth had to pick the baddest guitarist to do his post VH album he picked Vai....He has done and still does what most of us could only dream to have done, made a great career from playing rock guitar and doing it his own crazy way too. I'm sure Zappa saw nothing in him either when he called him his Italian Virtuoso. Some of you really have huge balls to be so critical...what have you done???? Yeah that's what I thought..... NOTHING!!!!!!

 

[JerEvil]

for the record i consider graham bonnett's vocal performances on a par with eavesdropping in on a heated phone conversation between charles neslon riley and gilbert gilbert godfried, so any alcatrazz song is fabulously uprooted the instant that ear rapist cracks his pie hole, but as for the guitar playing and tone, alcatrazz w/yngwie was a life changing record i played until the grooves wore smooth. an amply hairy pair of mastodon testicles heaving to and fro in slow motion across the pre ice age volcanic tundra, compared to vai's discarded fly pubes on cold chicken nuggets happy meal. he disturbed my peace for sure. i think i listened to that album once or twice front to back and never listened again. utter disappointment.

So nailed it.

If Bonnett was on a forum everything would be in caps. Obviously no-one told him about, a)Dynamics and b) He can't sing as high as he thinks he can.

Never enjoyed Vai's playing or tone that much. Some great moments from the 80's but he would get tiresome. Does he have skill and technique, hell yes, but please display it out of eye and earshot for me.

This sums up Vai for me as well. Same with Satch. Great ABILITY but nothing about their playing style compels me to listen beyond a few minutes at a time.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

Really, a bunch of bedroom and closet "rock stars"??? dissing on Vai? Really? Wow, some of you really need to take a moment for self assessment. Jesus, I mean you don't have to like what he does or dig his style but is still very popular and has legions of fans and many guitar players have taken something away from what he's done. I mean when Roth had to pick the baddest guitarist to do his post VH album he picked Vai....He has done and still does what most of us could only dream to have done, made a great career from playing rock guitar and doing it his own crazy way too. I'm sure Zappa saw nothing in him either when he called him his Italian Virtuoso. Some of you really have huge balls to be so critical...what have you done???? Yeah that's what I thought..... NOTHING!!!!!!

Yawn. The usual you have no right to comment on a Bonified legend. I got news for you, we shit on athletes all the time when compared to their peers. This is no different. Deal with it. I play men's league hockey and still shit on pros from my living room sofa. So what? My assessment stands as does everyone else's when they have an opinion. Zappa had great skill but I also didn't care for his phrasing or playing. There is no untouchable in art ... Or sport for that matter.

 

[ejecta]

Really, a bunch of bedroom and closet "rock stars"??? dissing on Vai? Really? Wow, some of you really need to take a moment for self assessment. Jesus, I mean you don't have to like what he does or dig his style but is still very popular and has legions of fans and many guitar players have taken something away from what he's done. I mean when Roth had to pick the baddest guitarist to do his post VH album he picked Vai....He has done and still does what most of us could only dream to have done, made a great career from playing rock guitar and doing it his own crazy way too. I'm sure Zappa saw nothing in him either when he called him his Italian Virtuoso. Some of you really have huge balls to be so critical...what have you done???? Yeah that's what I thought..... NOTHING!!!!!!

Yawn. The usual you have no right to comment on a Bonified legend. I got news for you, we shit on athletes all the time when compared to their peers. This is no different. Deal with it. I play men's league hockey and still shit on pros from my living room sofa. So what? My assessment stands as does everyone else's when they have an opinion. Zappa had great skill but I also didn't care for his phrasing or playing. There is no untouchable in art ... Or sport for that matter.

Nice analogy fail. I know some of you look at art forms such as music as a competition but art is not a competition. Music being good or not is totally a subjective thing but there is nothing subjective about sports. You either score or not. You either win or lose. If you score or win a lot you are good if you don't you're not.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

Really, a bunch of bedroom and closet "rock stars"??? dissing on Vai? Really? Wow, some of you really need to take a moment for self assessment. Jesus, I mean you don't have to like what he does or dig his style but is still very popular and has legions of fans and many guitar players have taken something away from what he's done. I mean when Roth had to pick the baddest guitarist to do his post VH album he picked Vai....He has done and still does what most of us could only dream to have done, made a great career from playing rock guitar and doing it his own crazy way too. I'm sure Zappa saw nothing in him either when he called him his Italian Virtuoso. Some of you really have huge balls to be so critical...what have you done???? Yeah that's what I thought..... NOTHING!!!!!!

Yawn. The usual you have no right to comment on a Bonified legend. I got news for you, we shit on athletes all the time when compared to their peers. This is no different. Deal with it. I play men's league hockey and still shit on pros from my living room sofa. So what? My assessment stands as does everyone else's when they have an opinion. Zappa had great skill but I also didn't care for his phrasing or playing. There is no untouchable in art ... Or sport for that matter.

Nice analogy fail. I know some of you look at art forms such as music as a competition but art is not a competition. Music being good or not is totally a subjective thing but there is nothing subjective about sports. You either score or not. You either win or lose. If you score or win a lot you are good if you don't you're not.

Fair enough, vai totally failed to score with Alcatraz but went on to put a few in the net in some of his other projects. Thanks for making that so easy!

 

[ejecta]

Really, a bunch of bedroom and closet "rock stars"??? dissing on Vai? Really? Wow, some of you really need to take a moment for self assessment. Jesus, I mean you don't have to like what he does or dig his style but is still very popular and has legions of fans and many guitar players have taken something away from what he's done. I mean when Roth had to pick the baddest guitarist to do his post VH album he picked Vai....He has done and still does what most of us could only dream to have done, made a great career from playing rock guitar and doing it his own crazy way too. I'm sure Zappa saw nothing in him either when he called him his Italian Virtuoso. Some of you really have huge balls to be so critical...what have you done???? Yeah that's what I thought..... NOTHING!!!!!!

Yawn. The usual you have no right to comment on a Bonified legend. I got news for you, we shit on athletes all the time when compared to their peers. This is no different. Deal with it. I play men's league hockey and still shit on pros from my living room sofa. So what? My assessment stands as does everyone else's when they have an opinion. Zappa had great skill but I also didn't care for his phrasing or playing. There is no untouchable in art ... Or sport for that matter.

Nice analogy fail. I know some of you look at art forms such as music as a competition but art is not a competition. Music being good or not is totally a subjective thing but there is nothing subjective about sports. You either score or not. You either win or lose. If you score or win a lot you are good if you don't you're not.

Fair enough, vai totally failed to score with Alcatraz but went on to put a few in the net in some of his other projects. Thanks for making that so easy!

The idea that Vai failed to "score" with Alcatraz and went on to "put some in the net" is totally subjective.

 

[RevDrucifer]

Just out of curiosity, what exactly is a "gimmick" when it comes to guitar playing?

I can see make-up being a gimmick, or crazy masks or what have you....but someone's actual playing? Like the notes and techniques they choose to play them can be gimmicky?

 

[messenger]

I think they mean sweep picking the same patterns on various songs

 

[RevDrucifer]

I think they mean sweep picking the same patterns on various songs

We all can't be so lucky to rely on fingertapping pentatonics to make a career for us!

 

[messenger]

I think they mean sweep picking the same patterns on various songs

We all can't be so lucky to rely on fingertapping pentatonics to make a career for us!

Don't forget whammy bar divebombs

 

[Badronald]

I still get a kick out of the title to this thread. "Note to Steve Vai...".

Hilarious. What a joke.