Oh okay, sounds complicated, I’ll have a read up on it.
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I won’t support anybody selling NFTs until they’re more environmentally friendly. There’s nothing out there eating up more electricity now than crypto, and NFTs have to be mined.
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I thought the video was typical Vai, very tongue and cheek, he’s a character, that’s never going to change, personally my fav is ‘Sex & Religion’.
I’m guessing your talking about the mining and GPU prices. I totally agree with you. But there’s more to it.
There are broadly two types of Crypto, proof of work and proof of stake. Proof of work is where all the miners live. Proof of stake doesn’t have that kind of impact.
Bottomline is you now have a publicly verifiable ledger and a controlled money supply.
About the NFT, good things will happen soon. Crypto with utility will be a good thing eventually when the dust settles, right now it’s the gold rush and things are far from what is to come.
I’m a software dev, been working on the crypto space for just under a year now. We’ve been working on a crowd funding project that has fractional ownership with royalties. Very relevant to our times, do check it out. It’s in constant development, we got a huge build coming out later this week. It keeps me away from my guitar … grrrr.
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I’ve been a huge Vai fan since the DLR days. I pre ordered this record and listening to it, I felt that it was the first miss in a long, long time. He has some really interesting ideas, but they never manifest into songs. Seeing this video, it actually gave me a little more appreciation of the song. But, I still stand that there aren’t a whole lot of songs on the new record.
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That video put me to sleep, but I can’t see anything wrong with it. The guitar is strange, of course, but why not have some fun and build a custom axe every few years? 
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On NFT’s, Vai is probably just having a boomer moment. It’s easy to forget that not everyone, and especially not older generations, are terminally online. he probably saw one positively spun article about them and decided to do it as a promo for the album because it’s the “in thing with the kids.”
As far as the Hydra and accompanying song, I don’t see anything wrong with it. I think it’s amazing. He gave himself both a technical and compositional challenge and pulled it off with aplomb. Just because he created an aesthetic you don’t like in one video for whatever reason, doesn’t mean he has “become” anything bad.
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You’d be surprised with the number of boomers are in the NFT scene. These are the folks with money to spend, and have seen the evolution of tech from the early 90s and understand technology rather well. I’ve been doing a lot of studying lately, one of the best way to learn anything is to study it chronologically so as to relive it’s evolution and application and relevance of each new find.
I could be wrong by pure statistics though, maybe there’s a larger demographic of younger folks in there.
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I like the music and the guitar.
I don’t know anything about NFTs and I don’t care to learn.
Maybe I just don’t know how hard it can be to make money though. I love music, but I don’t think of it as a job. If someone has to go to this length to try to be or keep in the spotlight that sucks. Is it that hard to make a financial profit these days in the music realm?
It has always been about the music for myself, but trying to show off is a showman aspect. Maybe he is just challenging himself musically still, and at the same time developing a finale for live show purposes?
Vai’s always been a showman. It’s part of his thing.
But this is like even more lol or maybe i just havent kept up with him. but that guitar looks complex as hell. i hope its not heavy haha!
I saw him in 2018 with Generation axe, and he was incredible live.
This was my introduction to Steve Vai, when I was fourteen years old. Triple guitar, sheer floral shirt, totally over the top facial expressions, awesome Lydian phrasing.
It made an impression. I bought an Ibanez JEM7VWH when I was sixteen.
Honestly, this seems to be Vai as I’ve always known him.
EDIT: Now that I think of it, I would have heard Vai on Alcatrazz God Blessed Video and DLR’s Yankee Rose before this. They were both on the soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
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This is a kind of interesting discussion point honestly. I mean, not as hard for Steve Vai or John Petrucci - but I remember seeing a reddit AMA from the deathcore band Carnifex a while back (they get something on the order of 250k listeners per month on spotify as a rough benchmark of popularity) and they said they could maybe make 18k a year per member.
However, if you were a pretty popular guitarist in particular - like say Brandon Ellis (who honestly it would be super interesting to get a breakdown of income from royalties + touring from) - who hustles, has a Patreon with lessons and are doing 1-1 lessons virtually or from town to town, keeping up a social media presence with Ads etc, I figure you probably do pretty decent. But you’re still hustling a lot to do it, and that’s a top .1% example.
I would think that Steve makes most of his money from touring the same as any other artist these days.
And we have to remember that making a living to me or you is a lot different to his “making a living” as his living standard and lifestyle are way above ours (well mine for sure). He’s got a big house or 2 and a few supercars and a wife and kids to fund.
So beyond Danny Gatton has anyone else in the past tried to put some kind of effect ontop of the guitar to control? I know I have seen the guitars that JHS has had on their channel lately, but was there anyone before Danny? You will need to look up the history of the device he called it the Magic Dingus Box.
Muse maybe?? I can imagine they would have something like that or possibly midi triggering/Kaoss pad type thing???
Les Paul himself? With the delays,etc. He literally invented this shit, so he had to be the first one.
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Yeah, definitely an absolute legend and pioneer. Great video - thanks
Steve Vai remains himself: he released the Passion and Warfare 25th anniversary version a year too late, he now releases the Flex-Able 36th anniversary edition two years too late. Age does take a toll on you. 
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