The first time you got "guitar scared"

General Music Discussion
#4

I was 14 years old and I had started to learn guitar with my first acoustic. After about six months I was felling pretty good with my progress. I could more or less play the songs of Nirvana and Eric Clapton unplugged concerts and I was already planning to buy an electric, because I thought that if I can play Clapton solos in Layla and Old Love, I might be close to be able to play Brian May/Queen songs and solos, which at that point I believed to be the most virtuosistic and ferocius guitar playing a human was capable of.

One day I saw a spanish guitar magazine with a trascription of “Is this the world we created?”, and I bought it immediately to be able to learn at last one of the songs of my favorite band, while I waited to be able to afford an electric.

In that guitar magazine there was an article about a new live album from a guitar maestro I have never heard of (My music collection at that point had to be something like 5 CDs). The critic was awesome, and the CD that acompained the magazine included one track of that live album.

It was Black Star, of Yngwie Malmsteen LIVE!!! album. The best version of that song ever. Ten minutes of melodic guitar pandemonium.

Never gonna forget that moment. I felt like being in front of Godzilla in real life.

FUCKING AMAZING.

#5

Out of the way, old guy coming through…

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#6

Yngwie and EJ at their peak

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#7

Yeah, first time hearing Cliffs of Dover was also magical for me. As the matter of fact Tones, Ah Via Musicom and Venus Isle are my guitar Bible. Celestial tone and playing.

Then it also left me with my mouth wide open seeing videos of SRV Live at The Mocambo, and above all Jimi Hendrix at Monterey.

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#8

Skip to 3:12. Or don’t, and play the whole thing.

#9

No, never scared…inspired. My attitude was, if I heard something I couldn’t play yet, then I’m just gonna have to work harder. I’d better be better! I’d work longer. Do whatever it takes. Do literally whatever was necessary so I could play anything I wanted to play.

I’ve never been scared from a guitar part but there was an album that did scare me once, and not in a good way. The album was “Melissa” by Mercyful Fate. This was back around 1983 and I was just a kid. I put the album on (an album I had to go to an import shop to buy along with Metallica’s "Kill 'Em All that same day since they were both on small record labels at that time and weren’t being carried by any mainstream record stores). So think about that. You had to go to an import shop to buy a Metallica record. It was a very different time. Everyone is desensitized now to lyrics like these because of all the death metal, black metal, that has come along since then.

So…I put “Melissa” on, I was alone in my house at the time, and King Diamond sounded like a demon from hell! His voice was scary enough. Then I looked at the lyric sheet and realiized just what exactly it was I was listening to. Every song was about satan. Every song! Except the title track,a ballad, so I thought OK, at least one song that’s about something different. Then I heard the line “she was a witch.” I just hoped nothing would happen to me for listening to that album.

I can laugh about it now, but for doe a kid in 1983, this was unlike anything I’d heard before. I also bought Slayer’s debut album at the same store in 1983 but that didn’t scare me. They just sang about the devil too, but they were just aggressive, not spooky like this.

This is the opening song on the album:

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#10

I actually met KD in tower records, NYC, hes sold out to the left hand path… for real.

I’ve become a Christian since then.

#11

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.

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#12

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.

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#13

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.

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#14

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.

#15

It’s George Benson who I’m intimidated by.

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#16

Good call - he is a different type of scary… true legend…

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#17

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. :flushed:

#18

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

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#19

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!

#20

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.

#21

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! :joy:)

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#22

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.

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#23

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.