Paul Gilbert’s sweep in Road to Ruin, Petruccis playing on Images and Words and the entire Friday Night in San Francisco album!
Other than that, i’ve actually been more scared by people who just takes the instrument in a totally different direction from what’s seen as “normal”. Charlie Hunter, Thomas Leeb, Stanley Jordan and Mattias Eklundh comes to mind.
It was late 1992. A number of current and former bandmates who didn’t know each other had each asked me, “Have you heard Dream Theater?”
Nope.
But my interest was piqued. They were playing that weekend at L’Amour, in Brooklyn. A little drive for someone north of Manhattan in the suburbs, but do-able. My other guitarist and I set out to check them out.
They made us both physically nauseous. We had never seen anything like that. Other guy said, “Usually if the guitar player makes me feel bad about myself, I just watch the bass player, but DAMN.”
We agreed we might be best off putting legs on our guitars and turning them into coffee tables.
I often have the guitar table thought after I listen to some prime Yngwie, Michael Romeo, Kiko Loureiro as well… These guys seem to do it so efforlessly that it hurts.
Blitzkrieg was the first Yngwie Malmsteen tune that I heard - I was like “WTF!”
That being said, EVH’s solo on Michael Jackson’s Beat it still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up… the tone and blistering off-the-cuff feel has a certain swagger to it.
It’s George Benson who I’m intimidated by.
Good call - he is a different type of scary… true legend…
For me it was Yngwie’s lick at the 5:12 mark of Trilogy Suite! I remember hearing that as a kid when I bought the album and it was scary almost how fast it was in a intimidating factor. Also hearing some guy from Texas on my TV for a show called Austin City Limits play the most mind blowing guitar that sounded like was coming from outer space. We all know who he is. 
Are you saying King Diamond is actually a satanist? I thought it was just an act for his band’s image. Or are you saying he started out that way, as an act, but more recently he’s actually become one?
You know, some of the more extreme metal bands have really been guilty of doing some dumb sh*t. When I bought either Slayer’s first or second album they had merchandise for sale, either that or their fan club had “Slaytanic Wermacht” on it. They were combining satanism with Nazi - ism. I really have to wonder, exactly what type of people did they think that would appeal to? To say it was pathetic would be an understatement. Yet they got popular. Apparently that stuff appeals to quite a lot of people and believe me, that’s a not a pleasant thought. Iron Maiden wasn’t really very popular until they started really pushing that triple 6 stuff hard. Then all of the sudden they just blew up into a very popular band. I don’t understand why that satanism, the nazi crap, and the triple 6 garbage has such a widespread appeal… I don’t understand it and I don’t want to understand it.
As far as guitar solos that inspired me in my early years as a guitarist, this one had a profoundly inspiring effect
I think the 666 stuff is meant tongue in cheek in most cases, and probably a sort of rebellion against the mainstream Christian culture of the time.
With Slayer and similar bands I am also puzzled as to why they choose words and imagery that are so reminiscent of the Nazis. I would like to think that they are not really Nazi sympathyzers and I think they claim so but the uncomfortable feeling remains!
KD has been open about his satanism from day 1. The lyrics on those early merciful fate albums aren’t for effect… they are hardcore.
Same with MManson, Kerey King of Slayer is pretty vocal about his hatred for Christianity.
The tie in with nazism, has always been about the actual occult beliefs of the party.
Let’s no be naive here, this genre is full occult and satanic imagery and content, some for effect, some not.
If you’re interested, there are several vg videos about the subject that I recommend:
Hell’s Bells. 1 and 2
Rock and Roll Sorcerers of the New Age Revolution
They sold their souls for rock n roll**
Many excerpts are available on YouTube, but I suggest getting them , and watching them in their entirety.
Ps: back on topic, the “scariest” guitar thing I heard as a kid was probably Friday Night in San Francisco. More recently, any of the Shawn Lane stuff that can be found on YouTube.
In terms of inspiration, however, my personal favourite is Vinnie Moore (what a surprise! 
)
Shawn Lane was a scary mofo indeed! What a guy!
Vinnie Moore is very inspiring as well, in my opinion he’s in the middle between the Yngwie and the PG style.
Do you think maybe the Nazi references are just meant “tongue in cheek” as well? Birth the triple 6 references and the Nazi references those bands use are incredibly distasteful even if meant jokingly as you supposed. How does someone joke about anything that serious?
Yes he is! He’s another of the Shrapnel guitarists I listened to back then… Mike Varney was a good judge of talent. He signed lots of guys who have had impressive careers. He signed Steeler which as far as I know is the biggest selling album Shrapnel ever had. He helped lots of guys get noticed and eventually move onto bigger labels and more exposure.
Done right, metal and especially extreme metal can allow us to talk about taboo subjects in a way that stops past atrocities being forgotten and forces us to turn our eyes towards things that we’d rather we didn’t see.
Done wrong, it’s just crass sensationalism and attention seeking.
Where’s the line? I don’t have the answer.
This was a moment for me. I wore out this flexidisc of “Blue Powder” that was released long before Passion and Warfare. It came with Guitar Player magazine an ad for Carvin in 1986. The A side was Michael Hedges “Because it’s There” (I think). I had never heard anything so visceral using so many different techniques, grooves, etc.
I remember those flexi discs… They had one with Black Star sometime around 1984. It’s in the issue with Yngwie on the cover. I liked those things.
Did you liike Hedges at all? I’ve never heard him but have heard good things about him.
I love Hedges. Saw him live several times and he always hung around after the show to chat with fans, sign discs etc. Definitely a major influence on me.
LONGtime Maiden fan here. The 666 - The Number of the Beast - that song was about a nightmare the bass player (songwriter Steve Harris) had. There was a LOT of Christian and biblical references in Maiden, just like all literature, which is how they approach it. Except the drummer, he’s born again.
They’re ordinary guys living an extraordinary life. They have kids and wives and all that.
They happen to like writing about darker or scarier things. That’s just metal.
For me, I was a guy who grew up on my Dad’s Stones and Jimi albums, picked up the guitar because of Nirvana’s Unplugged, and then through Jimi and SRV got into blues, and for a 18 year old kid got pretty decent at it.
So, with that as a background, for christmas one year my brother got a compilation album with KROQ, I think, live-in-the-studio performances. I remember popping it in later on that night, after listening to an Albert King album I’d gotten and thinking that this was really it, as far as guitar playing goes, because I’d heard some stuff about Kenny Wayne Shepherd and this guy named Joe Satriani. There was a great acoustic version of “Blue on Black,” which I dug the shit out of, and then I jumped ahead to this Satriani song called “Always with Me, Always With You.”
I don’t think I breathed for the next four minutes. The performance is floating around the net these days as a mp3, but he’s playing it with a much higher gain sound than the stuido, as a guitar/bass/drums performance, with a fair amount of gain on the heavily palm-muted arpeggios in the intro. It completely changed my perception on what you could do with an electric guitar, I’d never heard anything so technically astounding, aggressive, and beautiful, at the same time.
I think Michael Hedges is by far the best and most important acoustic guitar player of all time.
There are myriads of players following the path he created.
Nothing but one guitar in the track. Mesmerizing.