why do 80s heroes forget how to solo

[mentoneman]

What happened to these guys ?? shouldn't they be 10-20 years better than a pete thorn or a chubtone or an andy wood? not even close.

Um. My name NEEDS to be capitalized mentoneman. Thank you. Your disrespect will not be tolerated. I'll see you at NAMM. Don't make me pull some Portagee on Portagee crime.

What are you doing, including my (uncapitalized) name with Pete and Andy's name? I'm some dad, sitting in my studio after the whole family goes to sleep trying to get something done here and there. Those other guys are freaking pros.

By the way, I didn't really hear much of anything from you after I sent you my CD. I figured you thought it sucked.

no suckage at all bronado. tone and shredski aplenty!

the song structures were a bit loopy/shrapnel-y which tends to be the case with most guitar albums when there is no true "band" behind the axeman and understandably so; who wants to spend the time to program humanistic drum and bass parts unless your name is shawn lane and you can track/play drum parts on your keyboard better than most drummers can drum?

but solid solo vehicles nonetheless.

see you at the show portagee.

 

[ctoddrun]

Well, if you get positive reinforcement no matter how badly you play, it won't matter and you won't care either. I saw VH twice on the 2007 roth tour - they played KC and I went there, then they added a show in Tulsa and I went there too. Eddie was fucked up on the KC show and nearly fell a few times. He played eruption sloppy as hell, I could go to a guitar center at midnight and find a dozen preteens that could play it better.

People didn't care. They were going NUTS. It was eddie. It was terrible. But everyone at the show was cheering and freaking out like it was '78 and he was king of the world.

How many guitarists would actually work towards becoming a better musician when every time you let loose a beer fart you get put up on people's shoulders like you scored the winning touchdown? Not many. Add to that substance abuse problems...

On a local level, how many times have we (the non-pros) walked off of the stage to be greeted by people telling you how great it sounded even though you KNOW you sucked it up that night?

I think your post is dead on. Complacency seems to be the rule when it comes to our hero's glory days.

 

[mixohoytian]

Eddie can still do it...if he writes some cool riffs w/ Dave...
a killer solo can not save a crap tune...



Uli Roth I was actually really looking forward to his new stuff, but it just has nothing compared to his prologue to the symphonic legends


seems he used up all his melody in the prologue...
then when the body of his work came, none of it sounded memorable

Nuno still kicks ass in the chops AND riffs department

 

[mentoneman]

i just heard the new satch cd at GC yesterday and there were a whole lot of notes without much being said.

these guys used to make powerful musical things happen with their solos and now it's just a numbers game.

"if i move my fingers rapidly and hit a decent percentage of notes per flurry, my fans will still think i shred."

 

[Anonymous]

i just heard the new satch cd at GC yesterday and there were a whole lot of notes without much being said.

these guys used to make powerful musical things happen with their solos and now it's just a numbers game.

"if i move my fingers rapidly and hit a decent percentage of notes per flurry, my fans will still think i shred."

i've heard the new Satch album twice now and there is some interesting stuff in there, but it doesn't hold me like some of his older recordings...

 

[Anonymous]

Well...I was never an 80's hero ( I was kind of a big deal in my little town though...lol!) but.....I could play a hell of alot better,faster and more cleanly than I can now. Age, A bit of arthritis in the hands and such have taken their toll. I won't rag or bitch about any of my hero's slowing down or botching a note or two every now and then. Better to have "been" than " A never was"

 

[supersonic]

Since the grunge era guitar musicianship has lost its' way. Now we have a generation of youngters bought up on listening to and playing dull, compressed and technically perfect recordings. Most guitar heros grew up on playing with the feel and fire of the 60s' and 70s'. Drums have no groove and the guitar solo got lost somewhere.

 

[Zachman]

that mr big vid rocked!
angus kept it simple and still rocks.

i purposely left a few names off of the list for a reason

nuno impressed me at that NAMM reunion a few years ago. still has chops, but cocky guys like that get buried in yes men and pretty soon they start thinking their armpit farts are worthy of tracking.

i haven't heard the blackmore's knights but i cannot imagine he's making any major musical statements dressed like peter pan and traipsing through knottingham forrest jamming on zither with maid marrian,

and uli may have imbibed one to many cups of shroom tea gazing into his anhk-encrusted crystal ball channeling hendrix to make music familiar to those dwelling in the milky way constellation. and i'd rather hear alan greenspan sing.

schenker still seems to be able to fan away the dead neuron fog long enough to blaze.

OMG... I think I now have an abdominal hernia in need of surgery, due to hysterical laughter.

Here he is singing, "CaaaaaaaaaaaaSSSSSSSSSST Away your chains", and "Hell CAT---- Hell Cat"

THAT was AWESOME

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

I think Lynch has "good" and bad days.. of course, when I say "good" , I mean days where he more or less stays in key. I try to give him credit but damn, does the guy never listen to his own recordings? He suffers from Yngwie-itis. He more or less remembers the shape of his solos and then just goes to town with anything and everything in between. Unfortunately, Yngwie stays in key and gets away with it, Lynch with all his diminished $hit goes all over the place and has to refind his place on the fretboard. More and more he is playing like a messy Hendrix and Hendrix was pretty messy inside the pentatonic box! Can you imagine if he had been into legato and used his pinky !? For the most part I would say it is split. Marty Friedman, Gilbert, Demartini (still incredible phrasing wise) Nuno can all still play. Shenker when sober still rips it up. Then there are the VH's and Blackmore's.. brutal in most cases. I personally think Lynch's cleaner playing and more blues based stuff is most interesting these days. He also has to get rid of Oni Logan singing.. that guy was trash on the wicked sensation tour and he can't hit any notes now. If it weren't for the drumming and the bass, that band would be horrible to watch live.

 

[sandman]

I think Lynch has "good" and bad days.. of course, when I say "good" , I mean days where he more or less stays in key. I try to give him credit but damn, does the guy never listen to his own recordings? He suffers from Yngwie-itis. He more or less remembers the shape of his solos and then just goes to town with anything and everything in between. Unfortunately, Yngwie stays in key and gets away with it, Lynch with all his diminished $hit goes all over the place and has to refind his place on the fretboard. More and more he is playing like a messy Hendrix and Hendrix was pretty messy inside the pentatonic box! Can you imagine if he had been into legato and used his pinky !? For the most part I would say it is split. Marty Friedman, Gilbert, Demartini (still incredible phrasing wise) Nuno can all still play. Shenker when sober still rips it up. Then there are the VH's and Blackmore's.. brutal in most cases. I personally think Lynch's cleaner playing and more blues based stuff is most interesting these days. He also has to get rid of Oni Logan singing.. that guy was trash on the wicked sensation tour and he can't hit any notes now. If it weren't for the drumming and the bass, that band would be horrible to watch live.

I agree with you on Lynch's cleaner playing and bluesy stuff...something different about it that I like. He is the reason I started playing guitar years ago....regardless of what avenues he takes nowadays...I still have my old stuff to listen to !

 

[Shark Diver]

This happens to most. Might as well be talking about Brett Farve...

 

[mentoneman]

This happens to most. Might as well be talking about Brett Farve...

farve gets hit by big black guys over and over again. his body was bound to fail eventually. guitar players just need to practice and not get wasted to keep their minds and hands sharp.

to prove a point

im a tv cameraman/producer and an av director at a church. not a musician making a living playing the guitar. i have not been playing much gtr at all lately. in fact i had been in a really bad routine of only playing on the weekends when i pay live. which amounts to 1-3 hours per week. zero practice. then when september hit and i started traveling that dropped to zero gtr time for two week stretches.

so this is me at my rusty zenith rolling out of bed in cali, still on louisiana time in my mind, with a few sips of coffee in me.
i set up my rig in the livingroom the night before and got too tired to play...

it's not even close to shawn lane warp speed magic and coordination clams here and there but not totally tragic.

to me there is absolutely no excuse for a pro to show up and flail out of key, have crappy meter, can't bend to pitch, bad tone, when that is what you do for a living.

 

[Digital Jams]

Agree and cool vid Pat!

 

[rupe]

This happens to most. Might as well be talking about Brett Farve...

farve gets hit by big black guys over and over again. his body was bound to fail eventually. guitar players just need to practice and not get wasted to keep their minds and hands sharp.

to prove a point

im a tv cameraman/producer and an av director at a church. not a musician making a living playing the guitar. i have not been playing much gtr at all lately. in fact i had been in a really bad routine of only playing on the weekends when i pay live. which amounts to 1-3 hours per week. zero practice. then when september hit and i started traveling that dropped to zero gtr time for two week stretches.

so this is me at my rusty zenith rolling out of bed in cali, still on louisiana time in my mind, with a few sips of coffee in me.
i set up my rig in the livingroom the night before and got too tired to play...

it's not even close to shawn lane warp speed magic and coordination clams here and there but not totally tragic.

to me there is absolutely no excuse for a pro to show up and flail out of key, have crappy meter, can't bend to pitch, bad tone, when that is what you do for a living.

 

[mentoneman]

Agree and cool vid Pat!

thanks-
as much as i hammer vai for his stage persona, the guy obviously still loves the guitar and keeps his skill sharp, and has a finger on the pulse of reality trying to make his fans happy. i'm not fond of his songs but that's just personal preference.

gilbert and timmons and guthrie crush in the rock idiom. totally impressive technically and relevant to today's sophisticated shred audience. having said that i'm not finding myself humming any of their instrumental tunes in my head, nor could i tell you what the songs are named.

yngwie still shreds technically but it's like listening to a treadmill. he's good enough to maybe branch out from the same phrygian bubbling cauldron licks he always plays. it's not even a signature style he's maintaining for his fans anymore it's just an excuse to not grow and mature. the symphony thing was an admirable ambitious undertaking but came across like an arrogant rocker with enough money to pull it off trying to jam sloppily to a classical record.

i still think eddie can pull off another great album. he has it in him. especially the chemistry with roth. but if all i ever saw of vh was that last tour with roth i'd think he was one of the worst players of all time.

 

[axemeaquestion]

back when we were trying to make 5 mistakes instead of 10 per song VH and YJM and Lynch were sprinting across stadium stages playing things we could only dream of flawlessly from start to finish. Every song had it's own signature identity.

What happened to these guys ?? shouldn't they be 10-20 years better than a pete thorn or a chubtone or an andy wood? not even close.

I look at jeff beck and he may not be sweep picking math rock but at least he still has a unique vocabulary and takes risks.
Gambale and holdsworth are proof you can still shred when you're old
Gary Moore is a 80s monster that still burns. Nuno.

I just listened to previews of yngwies new cd on iTunes and it was like a bad dream from 89.
vh wrote songs and played solos in 78 that still get my blood racing but nothing good since 5150 in 86, except maybe those two Roth songs. That pentathlon thing he does in hot for teacher is like on every solo and getting lamer each time.

they don't play from the heart anymore they just crank out a predictable autopilot product and seem to be taking advantage of fan loyalty

You've got a helluva nerve criticizing a player that some other poster might like. Also, you didn't post a clip of your own playing, so how can we assume your criticism is valid?

 

[Zachman]

back when we were trying to make 5 mistakes instead of 10 per song VH and YJM and Lynch were sprinting across stadium stages playing things we could only dream of flawlessly from start to finish. Every song had it's own signature identity.

What happened to these guys ?? shouldn't they be 10-20 years better than a pete thorn or a chubtone or an andy wood? not even close.

I look at jeff beck and he may not be sweep picking math rock but at least he still has a unique vocabulary and takes risks.
Gambale and holdsworth are proof you can still shred when you're old
Gary Moore is a 80s monster that still burns. Nuno.

I just listened to previews of yngwies new cd on iTunes and it was like a bad dream from 89.
vh wrote songs and played solos in 78 that still get my blood racing but nothing good since 5150 in 86, except maybe those two Roth songs. That pentathlon thing he does in hot for teacher is like on every solo and getting lamer each time.

they don't play from the heart anymore they just crank out a predictable autopilot product and seem to be taking advantage of fan loyalty

You've got a helluva nerve criticizing a player that some other poster might like. Also, you didn't post a clip of your own playing, so how can we assume your criticism is valid?

Check out two posts above yours... The clip... which is supposedly not posted.

 

[Digital Jams]

back when we were trying to make 5 mistakes instead of 10 per song VH and YJM and Lynch were sprinting across stadium stages playing things we could only dream of flawlessly from start to finish. Every song had it's own signature identity.

What happened to these guys ?? shouldn't they be 10-20 years better than a pete thorn or a chubtone or an andy wood? not even close.

I look at jeff beck and he may not be sweep picking math rock but at least he still has a unique vocabulary and takes risks.
Gambale and holdsworth are proof you can still shred when you're old
Gary Moore is a 80s monster that still burns. Nuno.

I just listened to previews of yngwies new cd on iTunes and it was like a bad dream from 89.
vh wrote songs and played solos in 78 that still get my blood racing but nothing good since 5150 in 86, except maybe those two Roth songs. That pentathlon thing he does in hot for teacher is like on every solo and getting lamer each time.

they don't play from the heart anymore they just crank out a predictable autopilot product and seem to be taking advantage of fan loyalty

You've got a helluva nerve criticizing a player that some other poster might like. Also, you didn't post a clip of your own playing, so how can we assume your criticism is valid?

LMAO!!!!!

You bow before the keeper of legendary tone n00b!

Pat is to guitar what the Library of Congress is to American history and you ask for a clip?!?!?!?!?



Forgive him Pat for he has sinned

 

[mixohoytian]

i just heard the new satch cd at GC yesterday and there were a whole lot of notes without much being said.

these guys used to make powerful musical things happen with their solos and now it's just a numbers game.

"if i move my fingers rapidly and hit a decent percentage of notes per flurry, my fans will still think i shred."

I think the answer is clear

songs matter
shred does not

 

[Zachman]

My tribute to 70's/80's guitar...

Sound Check