Andy James - War March

[Arm0r]

Certified guitar god.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYgnZU2HkiI

[|iR|Focalor]

Who the fuck says a lead guitarist needs a tremolo bridge? The times have changed. A lot of guys are opting to go whammy bar-less.

I can think of only a few guys who've ever used one really well in my opinion. But I can think of plenty who DO use it, and could honestly get away WITHOUT using it and it still wouldn't take much away from their songs.

I've always kinda viewed the whammy bar just like an effect pedal or something. When you use it, it really shouldn't be subtle. It should stand way out and by blindingly obvious. I kinda view ALL effect usage that way. I don't really have much use for subtle modulation effects. If you're gonna use it, make it big and lush, otherwise just go dry. Because once you throw drums and vocals and bass into a song, there's too much going on at that point to really pick it out and notice it. What's more important than subtle effects in one track of a song playback is what all the different instruments are doing to puzzle-piece themselves together perfectly to create an interesting sound.

That's kinda what I don't like about a lot of these guitarist solo artists. They focus too much on what the lead guitar is doing and neglect to pay enough attention to what they could do to make the rest of the song better. When all of the different parts are written and played thoughtfully, it all works to make every individual part sound better.

[|iR|Focalor]

Another thing... not really a huge fan of the rampant usage of two-hand tapping either. To me, getting in there and plucking the shit out of the note or gently plinking it has a lot more soul and character to it than all the mindless tapping that a lot of people are picking up again these days just for the wow-factor of it. It has almost no soul and emotion to it at all. It just sounds like a series of cold feelingless computer bleeps.

[quadz]

When you use it, it really shouldn't be subtle.

This is still one of my favorites, recorded in his backyard garden shed in 1984:

<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PvcFbpLyt_M/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PvcFbpLyt_M"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/PvcFbpLyt_M" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/PvcFbpLyt_M</a>

[fdrjk]

Another thing... not really a huge fan of the rampant usage of two-hand tapping either. To me, getting in there and plucking the shit out of the note or gently plinking it has a lot more soul and character to it than all the mindless tapping that a lot of people are picking up again these days just for the wow-factor of it. It has almost no soul and emotion to it at all.

That's kinda what I don't like about a lot of these guitarist solo artists. They focus too much on what the lead guitar is doing and neglect to pay enough attention to what they could do to make the rest of the song better.

+1. and most of those kinda solo guitar acts are instrumental, with pretty much all focus going to the guitarist. just seems like a bunch of wankery to me tbh. although i've never been a fan of that kind of music in the first place so...

[|iR|Focalor]

Some of those types of acts, the guitarist is just so fucking amazingly talented that it really doesn't matter who else is backing them up. Like Joe Satriani. I'm really not a fan of him anymore like I used to be back in the 90's, but that dude knows more shit about the guitar and how to play it than anyone else in the history of mankind. But still, it comes across to me more or less like audio pornography for other guitar players to listen to and jizz themselves with envy. They are often characterized by how unimaginative and buried in the background all of the rhythm guitar parts are, and it's impossible to tell whether it's an actual musician recording the track specifically for that song or it's just one of those royalty-free loops they bought on a disc in the pro-audio section at Guitar Center.

[|iR|Focalor]

Yeah, Steve Vai is another one that uses the bar well. He kinda learned from Satriani though I think. Was thinking Satriani was Vai's guitar teacher when they were growing up.

But in my opinion, the best whammy bar user in the history of history... Jeff Beck. No one really talks about him much anymore because his solo records were never hugely successful with lots of airplay. But that dude could do downright obscene, lascivious, and otherworldly things with six strings and a bent metal bar. Tom Morello ain't got a fucking thing on Jeff Beck.

[Arm0r]

Andy James - Ghosts to hell


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKhd2zHHjTg

This dude is just a different breed.

[Arm0r]

Andy James - Deadface Anthem


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-RcqjWw_lM

[|iR|Focalor]

The older I get, the lessed wowwed I get by this kinda music. I don't deny he's very talented to play what he plays that clean and fluid. And I'm not really one to call a particular style of music "crap" even if I don't like it. I hate 99.99% of rap, but it's still art I guess. Art is just art. There is no universal measure of "good" or "bad". There is only the opinion of the individual witnessing it. And to me, this kinda stuff just sounds very boring. He plays these crazy sweeping arpeggios and plays SHITLOADS of notes, but it sounds like robotic Nintendo music to me. It lacks a soulful human quality like how blues guitarists utilize bends and pauses between phrases to make their instrument sound a little like the human voice. Its just a one trick pony in my opinion. Speed used to impress me, but anyone can learn to play lots of notes really really fast. In my opinion, it's not always the notes you play that sound the most interesting. Sometimes its the notes you DON'T play, or how you bounce a little more unpredictably all over a particular scale rather than running through it note by note in order. Some of my favorite guitarists use sweep arpegs a good bit. Trey Azagthoth of Morbid Angel for example. But it's just one of many tools in his bag. He doesn't OVERuse it. And theres quite a few bands out there these days that DO overuse it and have basically codified their genre solely upon it. Like I said, to each his own, but to me... it limits the options of direction that a song can go as its being written, and it gets old to the ear too quickly.

Then again, I mentioned Morbid Angel, which is death metal. Screaming like you have stage 11 throat cancer in every song kinda also limits what you can do with a song. So what the fuck do I know.

[Arm0r]

I respectfully disagree.  I believe like anything in this world, what was done back then is dwarfed by what is possible now.  I believe we have some of the most imaginative musicians living today, and I don't say that with arrogance for my opinion or taste, I say that because like you said, everyone has their own opinion (or taste).   

Imagine Jimmi Hendrix seeing a video like this, imagine what would be possible today if he had lived longer than he did.  These are possibilities that are true to everything in the world, but I think I hold highest regard personally considering music.  It's a universal tool to experess a feeling.  You say this lacks soul but man....I definitely feel emotions when listening to the songs I've posted in this thread.  Taste is innate, no?  I hear something and get a feeling from it, no matter how the feeling derived in my taste, shouldn't it being a good feeling be enough?

I fucking love this music, and yea, I'm drunk. 

Cheers Focalor. 

[Arm0r]

Tell me this does nothing for you.  Give it a chance!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO7V9vNTiyE

[|iR|Focalor]

That was a dirty trick. You made me listen to a ballad. If I turn gay, it's all your fault, mister.

[Arm0r]

Hahahaha    Just think the lack of soul you think his style has resonated with me a little, went in the other direction, hah.

[|iR|Focalor]

I think I'm probably biased though. I used to be one of these big guitar player fanboys, but I've played it out too much over the years, and now I'm really only wowed by WHOLE BANDS of musicians who possess the right chemistry to make shit I think is cool.

To kinda give an example of what I mean... Kirk Windstein plays guitar and sings for Crowbar. I thought Crowbar was always pretty fucking cool, but when you mixed him in with guitarist Pepper Keenan from Corrosion of Conformity and drummer Jimmy Bower from EyeHateGod and vocalist Phil Anselmo from Pantera, you get a very unique chemistry in the sound of Down. They combine elements of metal, classic rock, progressive rock, jazz, and sometimes a few other strange things they dump into the mix. The part Kirk Windstein plays in Down's overall sound is HUGE. Without him, Down ain't the same band. But then again, without the rest of Down, Kirk Windstein's music ain't always as appealing to me.

Lynyrd Skynyrd was another band like that. Their shit was so good because the individual musicians had such a great chemistry, and all of them were great at their individual jobs. But once you took singer Ronnie Van Zant out of the band (because he died in a plane crash), they really couldn't write anything worth a shit anymore. They briefly reformed as The Rossington-Collins Band and had one so-so hit, but the rest was a little lame without Ronnie Van Zant writing the songs.

Edit: speaking of Lynyrd Skynyrd after post-Ronnie Van Zant, anybody else ever had this thought to themselves?