Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

Learning To Live – Dream Theater – Classic Song To Be Re-Discovered

It’s the music that makes Learning To Live a classic.

If I had to recommend one song to a new Dream Theater fan that typified the progressive rock leanings of the band, then that song would be Learning To Live. Learning To Live was released on the 1992, Images and Words album. The song is that good, that Dream Theater even rewrote it and called it Breaking All Illusions. That version was released on A Dramatic Turn of Events in 2011.

The Kevin Moore keyboard intro kicks things off with a wicked 15/8 time signature. This same passage re-appears and this time it is played over alternating time signatures, starting off with 14/8 for 2 bars, then 13/8 for one bar and back to 14/8 for another bar. Then it goes back to 13/8, 14/8, 13/8, 7/8.

In between you get a very metal like passage in the vein of Immigrant Song from Led Zeppelin, that moves between 7/4,6/4,4/4 and 5/8 time signatures over F#m, C#m and Em root notes. It doesn’t sound forced. It is very fluent like.

The verse is unbelievable. Myung holds it all together with an unbelievable groove over a 7/4 and 6/4 time signature, that is supplemented by Kevin Moore’s choir like voicing’s outlining the Em9, Cmaj9, Amadd9 and Em9 chords. Myung paraphrases the novel Atlas Shrugged from Ayn Rand.

There was no time for pain, no energy for anger
The sightlessness of hatred slips away
Walking through winter streets alone, He stops and take a breath
With confidence and self-control

I look at the world and see no understanding
I’m waiting to find some sense of strength
I’m begging you from the bottom of my heart to show me understanding

Petrucci and Portnoy build the song nicely into the chorus. Petrucci begins with normal volume swells, while Portnoy locks in with Myung. As Petrucci’s guitar gets busier with harmonics, chords and arpeggios, Portnoy’s drumming becomes busier.

The second verse has an unbelievable progressive groove that keeps within the 7/4 and 6/4 time signature of the first verse. This time it’s all power chords and its heavy as hell. Chugging along on an E5 power cord, Petrucci enhances the riffs by chucking in B5, Bflat5 and F power chords, utilising the devil triton to maximum effect.

The 90s bring new questions
New solutions to be found
I fell in love to be let down

Then when you think they are going to go into the Chorus again, they go into a bridge part with a simple 4/4 groove and then the instrumental break starts. Petrucci is now playing what Moore played in the intro.

The flamenco passage at 5.30 kicks things off. From 6.30 it gets progressive and then the woo ohh ohhs kick in and Petrucci takes over at 7.10 in one of the most heartfelt solos Petrucci has laid to tape. Those bends remind me of Dave Gilmour in Comfortably Numb.

The whole Wait For Sleep segment that begins at 7.30 and ends at 9.35 includes brilliant jazz bluesy solos from both Moore and Petrucci and the main piano riff from Wait For Sleep. It then segues back in to the Chorus.

The way that your heart beats
Makes all the difference in learning to live

Just when you think the song is over, the outro kicks in, again led by an unbelievably groovy and very funky Myung bass line. Then Petrucci joins in with the Natural Harmonics and then the monk style voices take over. As a listener I just sit back with the head phones and allow myself to be taken away. A brilliant song and a brilliant piece of work.

Mike Portnoy has gone on record saying how much he hated working with the producer David Prater and the use of drum midi triggers. Portnoy feared that the triggers would make the album sound dated and seen as another generic hard rock album.

One thing is certain. The album still sounds fresh and current in 2013 as it did back in 1992. As Rush’s 2112 laid the groundwork for what was to come for Rush, Images and Words did the same for Dream Theater.

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Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Dream Theater has a listening party and forgot to invite any fans.

The future and the present is all about going direct to the people who will pay for what you do.

Dream Theater just had a listening party for their new self-titled album and who did they have in attendance? The answer should be their FANS. They should have done the work via their website (which is still showing A Dramatic Turn Of Events graphics – another dumb decision so close to the new album coming out) or on Facebook to identify fans in the local area that should have been there.

Instead they had the people that will not pay for the music there. The usual media suspects and reporters. They surrounded themselves with people that will not write a negative review about them because this is the year 2013 that we live in and everyone wants to be a member of the club. Everyone wants to be invited back and everyone wants to be liked. Has anyone purchased a Dream Theater album because Billboard Magazine rated it highly or poorly or from a Village Voice review? The answer would be a definite NO. Why? Dream Theater built their career outside of the mainstream. It was the mainstream that came knocking on the door for Dream Theater and they let them in.

This is where Dream Theater missed an opportunity to go directly to their fans. They are marketing this album the old way. Yes they are using online blogs and so forth, however they are still not going direct to their fans. Remember back in 1991, Metallica had arena sized listening parties for their fans before the release of the Black album. This is where Dream Theater could have gone in deep with their fan base. This is where Dream Theater could truly CONNECT with them and find out what it is they love about the band. This is where the album could have marketed.

I am a Dream Theater fan and I am negative about the way they are missing out on so many opportunities to connect with fans in the current climate. The webisodes updates have been really lame without any hint of how the new music will sound like.

Don’t get me wrong, I will be purchasing the deluxe edition of the album as I have always done and so will thousands of other fans. The difference here is I believe Dream Theater can sell in the millions, if only they shift their thinking and stop missing opportunities to connect direct to fans.

Remember The Blackening from Machine Head. It has been heralded as the best metal album of the first decade. They also had a listening party in the studio before the album came out with their fans. After that, they went on a three year victory lap touring behind it.

Dream Theater needs to shift their thinking.

In the meantime, go check out the great new song from Trivium called Brave This Storm.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

A Small Amount of Too Much with Dream Theater, Bon Jovi and Metallica

“A small amount of too much spoils the whole thing.”

Ever had a feeling when you are at a gig, hearing the songs you like, enjoying the moment and then you just don’t want to hear anymore, you are looking at your watch, thinking that you should leave to go home. That is the quirky relationship between the rock n roll show and its fans. Depending on the band, sometimes 90 minutes is enough and 2 hours is too much.

I watched Dream Theater in Australia on the Systematic Chaos tour and they played for three hours (with an intermission of about 10 minutes in between). For some reason that was just perfect, however when I saw them again on the Black Clouds and Silver Linings Tour, they played just over 2 hours and it was too much. Put that down to the two things, hitting the same market too quickly and the flow of the set list.

The 2009 show took place almost 12 months since the 2008 show. Remember the quote, a small amount of too much spoils the whole thing. I remember them doing Solitary Shell with extended solos. It is not the strongest song in the Dream Theater catalogue, so what happens when you take a song that isn’t your best and make it longer? You get a yawn fest, a toilet break or a beer/smoke break.

Jon Bon Jovi has a big X on his name for treating Bon Jovi fans to a Kings of Suburbia beach party. A 2 hour show, where 1 hour was spent playing cover songs. Nice one. It’s obvious that Jon Bon Jovi didn’t get the memo. The fans want Richie Sambora back and they want him back now. Otherwise, change the name of the concert experience to Jon Bon Jovi and the Kings of Suburbia. Another point to note, a lot of the Bon Jovi memorabilia has the image of Jon Bon Jovi only. Sure, the band is called Bon Jovi, however as far as I am aware it still is a band. So where are the other members of the band on the memorabilia.

Richie Sambora was the person that Jon Bon Jovi could count on, regardless of what Jon says in the media. Richie was the one who was always there when Jon decided he wanted to be a rock star again. Richie always took a step back when Jon wanted to be a sitcom star or a movie star. Richie was the one that delivered a signature riff or a signature song, because the fact is Jon Bon Jovi cant.

FACT: it was Richie Sambora that wrote the majority of the music on Livin On A Prayer, and he was the one that went into bat for the song, when Jon wanted it off the album.

Go on YouTube and give Richie’s new song a listen. It’s called Come Back As Me. Who do you think Richie is referencing, when he sings, “What do you want me to say, I gave you everything I could give, but everything just wasn’t enough, so I just let live and live”. This is the kind of music an artist creates when they are not thinking about how many copies the song will sell. It is honest and heartfelt. Immediately, it makes a connection.

The song is a hundred times better than the songs that came out on What About Now. Since Richie only has five song writing credits on this album, you might as well call What About Now a Jon Bon Jovi solo album. Billy Falcon and John Shanks wrote the majority of the songs with Jon Bon Jovi.

Remember a small amount of too much spoils the whole thing.

Do we need a live album from Metallica of songs? They can call it a soundtrack or whatever they like. It’s still a live album. Remember that they released four DVD packages of Live Concerts during the Death Magnetic tour, as well as the Six Feet Down Under EP’s plus all the stuff they release on Live Metallica.

Do we need a Man Of Steel sequel that is going to include Batman? What a stupid decision. The thought of having Superman and Batman in the same movie is ridiculous to me. What the hell can Batman offer over Superman? Superman is the super man whereas Batman is just a bloke with gadgets.

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Undeniable Greatness with Metallica and Dream Theater

You are a teenager and starting a band. What do you have that could bring you untold fame and riches?

Life is your art right. It forms the basis of the songs that you write. The personal experiences from your life form the themes. So the saying goes, you need to have lived to create everlasting art. So if your definition of success depends upon becoming a household name in the quickest time possible, you’re going to waste a lot of time being frustrated.

The winners that win, do so because they outlast the competition. Metallica isn’t on top at the moment because they were better than everybody else. The same goes for Motley Crue. Both bands outlasted their competition.

What happened to Raven, the band that Metallica opened up for before Kill Em All was released? Even though bands like Slayer, Exodus and Anthrax are still around, they have never done the numbers that Metallica has done.

Anthrax had too many changes and they didn’t have that singer in Belladonna and Bush that could relate to the audience. Exodus didn’t really rate, while Slayer and Megadeth forged out a sustainable career on the back of the Metallica steam train.

Metallica
The best work for me is Ride The Lightning. For others it is Master of Puppets. For others it is the Black album. For this case study, let’s use the sales statistic, so that would mean the Black album is their best work.

The Black album was written in 1990 and released in 1991. James Hetfield, the main song writing force in the band was 27 years old in 1990. Lars Ulrich was also 27. Bob Rock, the producer was 36. The point here is that the people involved in the creation of this masterpiece have lived and experienced.

James, Lars and Kirk Hammet lived through a bus crash, which claimed the life of their band mate and main musical muse Cliff Burton.

Bob Rock by 1991 had worked on numerous big sellers, so he knew what it took to get the best out of the band. Watch the Classic Albums documentary and see how Bob Rock pushed Kirk Hammet to record that classic guitar solo in The Unforgiven.

Some say that Metallica sold out with the Black album, however it is as brutal as all the other Metallica albums that came before it. For all the haters, I dare them to point to any other album as heavy as the Black album that was riding high on the charts.

Forget about the single cuts like Enter Sandman, Sad But True, Wherever I May Roam and Nothing Else Matters. You need to dig deeper to hear the quality. Through The Never is a classic cut from the Master of Puppets era, as well as My Friend of Misery (that has similarities to the Orion breakdown). The best songs by far on the Black album is Holier Than Thou and The God That Failed. While one is classic speed metal in the Judas Priest vein, The God That Failed is the mainstreams introduction to groove metal, a term that Pantera would make famous with A Vulgar Display of Power.

The Black album desensitised everyone and set a standard of heaviness for bands like Korn, White Zombie, Disturbed, Alice In Chains, Rage Against The Machine, Tool, Nine Inch Nails and Ministry to step in and desensitise us some more. It opened the door to bands like Pantera to enter the mainstream.

Dream Theater
The breakthrough album for Dream Theater is Images and Words. Petrucci, Myung and Moore wrote it between the ages of 22 and 24 during the dark days of the vocalist search. The album came out when they were 25 years old. Another Day was written about John Petrucci’s father, who was diagnosed with cancer. Take The Time was written as their struggle at finding a new vocalist and always having to start from scratch when they failed. The music was more mature and better orchestrated. Personality sells. When Dream Theater released Images and Words, they didn’t bland their material to make it more relatable.

Then just when you thought that Dream Theater would go all mainstream, they shook things up again with Metropolis II. In the same way that 2112 from Rush laid the groundwork for what was to come for Rush, Metropolis II did the same thing for Dream Theater. It returned their core Images and Words audience and introduced the band to a large seventies era progressive rock fan base.

The next breakthrough album for Dream Theater was the heavy Train Of Thought. If there was any casual metal fan that was sitting on the sideline, this album made them commit. Of course Dream Theater always had metal styles in their music, however Train of Thought was all metal.

The recent promotion on the new Dream Theater album has the usual spin about Grammy nominated band and so on. Yep getting nominated is cool, however it doesn’t ensure long term success. Dream Theater built themselves away from the mainstream. They figured out what worked for them and what didn’t away from the mainstream, until they became so good it was undeniable. That is what will sell the band over and over again. That undeniable greatness.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy

Where are the new Classic Rock heroes?

The main classic rock bands were all about individuality. The Eagles, Boston, Styx, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Rush, Bad Company, Foreigner, Aerosmith and Cheap Trick all had a unique sound. 

The Eighties gave us Metallica, Motley Crue, Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, U2, Duran Duran, AC/DC, Journey, Whitesnake, Van Halen (and yes i know that some of these bands formed in the seventies), Aerosmith again and Foreigner.

Look at the list, Metallica played fast speed metal that was labelled thrash, Motley Crue played a hybrid version of pop, punk, rock and metal. Van Halen wrote the book on the nuclear band, Guns N Roses rewrote the seventies classic rock period with a dash of punk and Def Leppard merged Queen, with Bowie with Mott The Hoople with their NWOBM leanings into a pop rock format. Each band spawned thousands of imitators.

Today, all the young bands want to be a member of the same club. Metalcore is one club that is completing suicide on itself. Each year, thousands of bands come out that sound the same as the original bands that came before it.

Modern Rock is another genre that is suffering from over saturation. Where is the uniqueness. The reason why Imagine Dragons are at the top of the food chain is that they had that uniqueness that separated them from the pack.

What is the difference between Pop Evil, Young Guns, You Me At Six, The New Black, The Maine, Tango Down, Smile Empty Soul, Red Line Chemistry, Redlight King, Pillar, Plan Three, Projected, Nonpoint, Three Doors Down, My Darkest Days, Rev Theory, Three Days Grace, Eye Empire, Egypt Central, Emphatic and so on? Absolutely nothing is the answer.

All the young uns want is to be a member of the club however individuality is the key to creating everlasting art. Don’t shun your individuality. Dream Theater stayed true to themselves at a time when grunge, industrial and nu metal ruled the mainstream. Tool came through on their terms and in the words of Frank Sinatra, they did it their way.

Today’s world has everybody Tweeting and Facebooking just to be liked. Where is the edge of the Classic Rock era?

Dave Mustaine and Ted Nugent have an opinion and everyone has a knee-jerk reaction to it.

Rolling Stone is coping a lot of flak for their cover of the Boston Bomber. What did the outburst of David Draiman or Nikki Sixx or any other celebrity that wanted to join the anti-Rolling Stone club do to change the matter? Nothing.

If anything they brought more attention to the Rolling Stone article. It’s the Streisand Effect all over again. However at least they are going out there and stating an opinion. Did anyone come out and say that the Rolling Stone cover was cool?

Magazines like artists live in the culture of being paid right now. Do the people that work for Rolling Stone magazine care if the magazine is still around in 12 months’ time? Of course not. They will dust themselves off and get another job.

Everybody’s got their own agenda. When I read a tweet or a post from a celebrity, I evaluate where they are coming from as opposed to accepting it as truth. Has anyone seen a news story that says piracy doesn’t hurt sales?

A lot of research has come out from various Universities that support this argument. Instead we get the RIAA/MPAA piracy stats banded about on major television, with no information as to where those numbers come from. Why? The major televisions are owned by the giant copyright monopoly organisations.

Another important distinction from today’s artists and the Classic Rock era artists is that no one can say no to the money. Rush could have recorded a mainstream radio friendly album in 1976 just to please the record label. Instead they recorded 2112, an album that set up a very lucrative future for Rush and an album that made the record label very nervous when they heard it. As guitarist Alex Lifeson has stated in numerous interviews, 2112 set up a career for Rush.

Egypt Central wanted to be a member of the Modern Rock club and have disbanded. Three Days Grace were a member of the Modern Rock club and lost their vocalist with the parting words that the recording industry just want hits and push artists to write songs in that vein. My Darkest Days and Rev Theory are all modern rockers and they have lost their lead guitarists, which are normally significant songwriters.

Remember, individuality is the key. How good is Machine Head, since they broke away from following the trends that the label used to push on them. Since 2003, they have gone from strength to strength. 

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A to Z of Making It, Alternate Reality, Music, My Stories

Revisionist History when it comes to Metallica

Kill Em All, Metallica’s first album is celebrating 30 years this month. It was released in July 25, 1983. At the time of its release it didn’t really set the world on fire, however if you look at the reviews and praises the album is getting now, it is like the album came out and created a movement called thrash metal right off the bat.

Let’s put into context the lifespan of Kill Em All. It came out on July 25, 1983. By February 1984, seven months since Kill Em All was released, Metallica was in the studio, writing and recording the Ride The Lightning album. The victory lap of Kill Em All was seven months. That’s it. If the band wanted to have a career, they needed to get back into the studio and record a new album.

Of course when the 1991 Black album exploded, new fans started to dig deep and purchase the bands older material. It is for this reason that the bands older catalogue from Kill Em All to Justice started to get RIAA certifications.

Kill Em All finally reached U.S sales of 3 million units in 1999. That pales in comparison to the Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets albums which have moved over 6 million units in the U.S alone by 2012. The ..And Justice for All album has moved over 8 million copies in the U.S and the Metallica black album is pushing close to 17 million units sold in the U.S alone by the close of 2012.

As a Metallica fan, the Kill Em All album is not a bad album. It is a product of its time and its era. However in 1983, heavy metal and hard rock music was becoming a force to be reckoned with. So by 1983 standards, Kill Em All was up against some hard competition.

Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and Def Leppard had break through albums with Shout At The Devil, You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll and Pyromania.

Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss and Dio had new bands and you can call their 1983 releases as comeback albums. Bark At The Moon showcases Jake E.Lee, Lick It Up showcased Vinnie Vincent and Holy Diver showcases Vivian Campbell. In relation to Dio he was continuing his upward trajectory that started with Rainbow, then continued with Black Sabbath and now with his solo band.

ZZ Top hit the mainstream with Eliminator.

Iron Maiden followed up the breakthrough success of their 1982 album, The Number of The Beast with Piece of Mind.

Quiet Riot had a number one album on the back of the Randy Rhoads back story and connection with the band, a cover of Slade’s – Cum on Feel The Noize and a catchy original called Bang Your Head, which was perfect for the time.

Judas Priest was also riding high on the charts and selling well from a 1982 release called Screaming For Vengeance.

Going back to Metallica, the RNR history is written by the winners. Since Metallica is now inducted into the Hall of Fame, everyone that can put fingers to letters on a keyboard is rewriting their back story. Bands like Quiet Riot will be written out. Artists like Vinnie Vincent and Jake E.Lee will be forgotten by the clueless revisionists. The impact of other bands will be diminished because Metallica won.

Is anyone talking about Judas Priest and their impact to the American metal scene? Quiet Riot’s Metal Health was the first American heavy metal debut album to ever reach No. 1 in the United States on the Billboard album charts.

History is written by the winners.

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Music, My Stories, Stupidity

So What! Is Through The Never About? – Metallica

I am watching the preview to the new Metallica movie, Through The Never. So what is the movie about. It’s a half concert, half feature film.

Nimrod Antal is the writer and the director. If you have seen the movies Vacancy and Predators, you would know his style. Antal and Metallica got together to formulate a plot and structure around a set list of songs that involves classics like “Battery,” “The Memory Remains,” “Nothing Else Matters,” “Master of Puppets” and “Enter Sandman”. Basically, the 14 songs used for the live performance have been arranged in a away, that forms a concept story. Instead of releasing the concept story in an album format, it will be released in a movie format.

Going back to the footage, Trip (actor Dane Dehaan from Chronicle fame) is sent out on an urgent mission for the band. He needs to find a Metallica truck that is out of gas and needs to return a valuable item back to the band. He gets into a car crash (Nothing Else Matters or Frantic), when the van he is driving gets hit by an out of control driver. To me it looks like the car crash opens the doorway to an alternate reality which is a violent apocalyptic world, hence the title of the movie “Through The Never”.

The footage shows Trip, climbing out of his van, dazed, bruised and caught in between a clash between cops and rioters (Battery). It shows him being pursued by a masked man on horseback (The Four Horseman) who delivers deathblows to rioters and cops.

Lars Ulrich, in previous press interviews of the movie said that the Metallica movie is a Metallica show that involves Metallica and a separate story arc (that doesn’t involve Metallica) and that story unfolds in a parallel universe. At some point in the movie the two stories intertwine.

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Dream Theater – Three Webisodes In and Still No New Musical Snippets

Okay let me get this out in the open. I am a massive Dream Theater fan and as a guitarist a huge John Petrucci fan. However, after watching three webisodes of the new album process, were are the snippets of new music. Each webisode has music from DT’s past. While that is cool as an introduction, I am sure they can throw in a 5 second instrumental passage or a vocal line from a song.

It’s all talk at the moment and with the new album scheduled to drop in about six weeks, I think it’s time they do some walk. Let’s hear a song. Let’s hear 5 second passages of other songs on the next webisode.

Let’s get a track by track breakdown of each song, talk about the lyrics and the story behind the song, the compositions, show some snippets of the songs being recorded. Let us super fans dig deeper into the back stories. Do some of the riffs come from the past and which ones were written during the tour. We want to know. The people are commenting the same. We want to hear some clips, even if its Mangini drumming to intricate music that we cannot hear.

We get the marketing B.S. It is the best album you have created, Mangini is unleashed, it will make a definitive DT statement, it will showcase the level that the Mangini version of DT is at, its got a 20 minute epic and so forth.

You are preaching to the converted. We are fans. Hard core ones at that. We would not expect anything less than quality from DT.

Sack your marketing team. The fans are your marketing team. Give us what we need and we will spread the word for you. We will get you to number 1 if that is what DT desires. The expensive marketeers that DT has behind the scenes believe in smoke and mirrors.

With each webisode release, DT is missing out on opportunities to connect on a grand scale. Look at the YouTube stats. The first webisode had close to 200,000 views, the second webisode has approx. 91,000 views and the third webisode approx. 84,000 views. If anything, as the release date approaches, the views of each webisode should increase.

Now imagine if the webisodes had clips of musical pieces (hell it could be musical pieces from a song that got cut out for some reason), imagine all the reposts and re-tweets these YouTube webisodes would have had. In the end, DT is trying to get the message out that they have a new album coming. The core fan base know that. Now it is time to give the tools to the core fans, give us the snippets and we will spread it even further.

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Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity

What is going on in Australia?

I’m trying to figure it out. Corporations and Unions run this country. The Courts have been compromised by money. The mainstream media is all about half-truths and likes. No one reports with any substance or an opinion anymore. The Labor Party has knifed themselves into oblivion, deciding in house what the people of the country desire, by throwing out people elected Prime Ministers on two occasions.

Game Of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world, with Australia leading the way. Why? Unless you pay $300 to $500 to Foxtel/Austar to have a PAY TV subscription, you can’t really watch it.

Everyone is talking about the opportunities that the Internet has given people. An artist puts up their music on Spotify and YouTube. They talk about it, post about it and tweet about it. They think the people are paying attention. They are delusional. The Web is all about sell. They are competing with billions of sellers for the attention of millions of payers. The math don’t add up. As for those people who think they have a career making money from Google Ad’s, they are also delusional.

Everyone starts off with a dream to do something that matters, however, as they grow up, we all fall into the trap of being too busy trying to be rich. There is a change coming. As much as we have celebrated the fall of the old gatekeepers like the Record Labels, the Publishers and the Movie Studio’s, new gatekeepers are starting to rise. Facebook, Google, Amazon, iTunes, Netflix, Spotify, Reddit, YouTube, Twitter. All of them are gaining power. Will they be tempted enough to turn to the dark side the way Anakin Skywalker did.

A term that is always banded about, is that the youth are inheriting the earth. They are so computer literate, that they are going to build a new world that will level the old world.

What kind of new world will emerge? One that is embedded with social media, where a person’s status is assessed on the number of friends they have and where they check in from.

One thing is certain, the Global Financial Crisis showed how skewed our ideals have become, and a new discontent has risen from it.

As the lyrics from Do Me A Favor, (Stone Sour) say, I am the anti-everything man, a scab on the lips of the lord.

It is the information age. So much information is out there, we don’t know who to believe and who to trust. Everyone is pushing their own agenda, hence the reason why we are lashing out. We are sick of all the corruption that goes on behind closed doors.

Another lyric from Do Me A Favor is the ignoring your history is killing your past line. It looks like no one is learning from the past. Have we learned anything from the GFC. Hell no, that is old news. We are back chasing the pot of gold.

In the House of Gold and Bones story arc, the character of Alan, is this snake like person, that creates a sense of negativity and distrust to the main character. Transpose Alan with any corporation or money hungry backstabbing friend and you can see why this country needs a reset.

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Why did guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Alex Skolnick, John Petrucci and Paul Gilbert rise above all the other shredders of the era that came on the scene between 1984 and 1994?

Rising Above

Why did guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Alex Skolnick, John Petrucci and Paul Gilbert rise above all the other shredders of the era that came on the scene between 1984 and 1994?

Guitarists like Tony MacAlpine, Greg Howe and Vinnie Moore are all good guitarists, however they are still relatively unknowns outside of their niche market.

When I saw Steve Vai on the G3 tour, I saw that he had Tony MacAlpine as a backing guitarist. I knew it, however the other guitarists I was with, didn’t know it or know of Tony MacAlpine.

Does anyone know that Vinnie Moore played with Alice Cooper? Does anyone know that Vinnie Moore had Jordan Rudess play on his solo album called Mind Control and that he is currently in UFO?

In the end each artist needed the hits.

Steve Vai had Yankee Rose to launch him. Who can forget the talking at the start song, between Steve Vai’s Ibanez and David Lee Roth’s vocals? It was catchy, it was entrancing and it rippled through the mainstream. The music didn’t fit the format, however back in the Eighties you can say that Yankee Rose went viral.

Yngwie Malmsteen had sweep picking. That was his hit. A simple technique. He followed that up with songs like You Don’t Remember (I’ll Never Forget), On The Run Again and Queen In Love. However it wasn’t until the Joe Lynn Turner fronted Odyssey album that Malmsteen had mainstream hits. Who can forget Heaven Tonight?

Joe Satriani is the surfing alien. Enough said. The Surfing With The Alien song and album is perfection in instrumental circles.

Another piece of perfection is Eric Johnson and his piece d resistance, Cliffs Of Dover. Hear it and the let the goose bumps come.

Alex Skolnick took a big risk back in the Eighties leaving Testament just as they were getting traction on the thrash metal circuit. So what does he do, he goes all instructional and jazzy. He started taking standard rock and metal songs and re-doing them in a jazz format. Brilliant.

John Petrucci shredded when it was uncool to do so. He got popular at a time when it was uncool to be popular for the talent he is. Why? Images and Words. That is the DT victory lap. It is that album that gave them steam in the Nineties. When that victory lap was fading away, Metropolis II came on the scene. That took them into the Two Thousands and with the release of the very metal like Train Of Thought, a new audience was won over.

Paul Gilbert is an enigma. On the Racer X albums he was just another shred clone. Then came Mr Big and he showed what a great songwriter and what a great performer he is. When the world wanted vintage Van Halen in the early nineties, Paul Gilbert stepped up. When the world wanted a shredder of the Malmsteen sense, Gilbert stepped up. I remember John Petrucci referencing a Paul Gilbert instructional video as an important instructional tool for advancing his guitar playing. The quick lead break before the Pull Me Under chorus is all Paul Gilbert played by John Petrucci. Who can forget Technical Difficulties? Paul Gilbert at his best.

All of these artists created something so good that it sold itself. It could have been a song, a technique, an instructional video and instrumental album or re doing metal standards in a jazz format.

Standard