Has anybody seen this guy play? Or have insight into his mechanic? I know he’s been around since the 70’s…but…wow he has modern day chops.
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Frank is definitely a player with a place in the history of picking technique. He’s the kind of player other players say they were influenced by, as the pullquotes in this tailer attest. For whatever reason he never became a household name in he way that players like Eric Johnson did, but it wasn’t for lack of chops.
I’m honestly not super familiar with his output but it’s great to see that he’s still got the technique. We’ve got a totally giant and growing spreadsheet of players of interest for one day, most of which we’ll never possibly be able to get to, but we should put him on it.
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Big Marino fan here, saw him live in 2006 in Mobile Alabama. The Agora DVD really shows the range of his music and techniques. It’d be great to see a CTC interview with him while he’s still active. He always plays with long sleeves, so it’s difficult to see the details of his mechanics but to me it looks like he’s a wrist player. Not much sweeping, most of what he does is alternate picking mixed with legato. Not sure about UPX or DWX, but this video shows a decent view of his picking technique from 6:20 to 7:25:
There is some signature shredding there. Looks like a bit of sweep for repeating pentatonic stuff and a great mix of alternate picking and legato as you mentioned. His timing between the notes sounds really smooth regardless of being picked of other. I may have to slow this down and pull out some of these phrases.
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I love Frank, amazing guitarist with great tone. He’s doing all that shredding on a set of 8s with an unwound D string I believe. Amazing.
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Oh wow cool! I am getting lazier and lazier with my left hand (I don’t want to feel any resistance on bends/vibrato etc.) - so this setup is very tempting!
I’ve been playing with 8s for the past 6 years or so and haven’t looked back; highly recommended. 
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