What has Steve Vai become?

[cmcgee11235]

I agree totally, I have beyond enough time to practice and write music and I still enjoy my work enough and work from home permanently.

I’ve gotten about 7 songs written (though not all recorded) in the last year working on a solo album of my own.

My younger brother is also in software and drummer with an audio engineering degree and released two full length albums last year:

Dementia's Creed - Ain Soph Arar (Full Album 2021)

Moth Priest: Amygdala EP

He plays out periodically, but beyond that, touring seems kinda awful and a huge time and money sink if you really just want to write music. You can promote it online, he just reaches out to various YouTube channels and gets featured - some have reached out to him.

[cmcgee11235]

I’m not sure the majority of great art over the years was really commercially viable in its time and typically artists are making commissioned work just to pay the bills while working on what they’re passionate about on the side.

I think the difference is you get a lot more people trying to be an artist or musician if there’s the allure of money, and that can translate into more people with latent talent coming out of the woodwork and pursuing it more fully. As well as extremely talented people who might take bigger risks instead making more commercially viable material. Kind of a two way street.

[Drew]

@cmcgee11235

I’m not sure the majority of great art over the years was really commercially viable in its time and typically artists are making commissioned work just to pay the bills while working on what they’re passionate about on the side.

I think something pertinent to consider here is, when you talk about why Joe Satriani or Steve Vai are important, musically and as guitarists, then it’s Surfing with the Alien or Passion and Warfare that always come up first, and not Chickenfoot or Joe’s work with Mick Jaggar, or Eat 'Em and Smile or Vai’s work with Zappa, which Vai in particular is probably pretty notable in this respect in that he WAS given a lot of creative freedom in both projects. But Surfing and PAW were both passion projects, neither artist expected them to go anywhere, and I can’t speak to Vai’s headspace but with Satch he was pretty sure this was the last solo album he’d ever get to do so he dumped all of himself into it. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

[cmcgee11235]

Are you suggesting this isn’t Vai’s best work?

David Lee Roth - Yankee Rose Official Video

[Drew]

I mean, it has some fun moments, but even aside from how poorly that intro has aged… no.

[Tom_Gilroy]

@Tom_Gilroy

I’m going to see him in Dublin in a few weeks

Look at this gobshite quoting his own comments…

My girlfriend and I went to see Steve Vai on Friday. My girlfriend is a fan of Steve’s music and she has a little crush on him (his younger self at least). Going to the concert was her idea, and the tickets were a birthday present to her.

The band played a mix of material from Steve’s new album and some older tunes. I was a little surprised how little time Steve spent talking to the crowd and that he didn’t sing at all. I was also surprised by the variety of guitars he played: JEMs, PIAs, UVs, a JEM with singlecoils like a Strat and even an Ibanez semi-hollow guitar. He didn’t bring the Hydra on tour.

Honestly, I thought Steve was on form and the band was very tight. Despite having been a Vai fan since my early teens, I was honestly stunned by how unique and distinctive his playing is. His tone, his note choice and phrasing, everything. If you had recorded any ten seconds of his playing over the course of the gig and played them back, I’d have instantly known it was Vai. If anything sounded cliché it’s because people have been trying to imitate him for 35 years.

I saw Steve in 2005 on the Real Illusions tour and I met him and the band after the show. I was 16 years old. It was never going to be the same experience seeing him perform at this stage of my life, and we decided not to wait about after the show to try to meet Steve and the band.

As much as Vai’s music has meant to me, in particular when I was young, I have always struggled with the idea of adopting elements of his style and phrasing. I’ve always felt that much of his style was at odds with my other favourite players who are more recognizable influences in my playing. I’ve also felt that the exhibitionist style is a natural fit with his extroverted perfomance persona, but that those elements could feel forced or awkward from somebody who is much more introverted like myself. So much of the time I’ve just felt silly trying to imitate him.

Seeing him perform again has reminded me of how impactful his playing was on my younger self. It has made me wonder if I might now, as a more mature person with a better understanding of myself and my playing, be able to incorporate some elements of his style and phrasing into my playing in a way that’s recognizable, but more subtle. I still have my Ibanez JEM7VWH not fifteen feet away, after all.

[bradejensen]

@Tom_Gilroy

Seeing him perform again has reminded me of how impactful his playing was on my younger self. It has made me wonder if I might now, as a more mature person with a better understanding of myself and my playing, be able to incorporate some elements of his style and phrasing into my playing in a way that’s recognizable, but more subtle. I still have my Ibanez JEM7VWH not fifteen feet away, after all.

Well now would be a great time cause there are some really great cover players you could dissect the phrasing which could help some.

But yeah I use to listen to him non stop, but his playing is just so overwhelming I only ever listened. I didn’t really feel like undertaking the task of trying to cover something so extremely intricate, and difficult.

[SlyVai]

@bradejensen

But yeah I use to listen to him non stop, but his playing is just so overwhelming I only ever listened. I didn’t really feel like undertaking the task of trying to cover something so extremely intricate, and difficult.

Well once you start studying his phrasing and style you find a lot of the same techniques and melodies, like with any player I guess.
I used to be the same but I don’t feel so overwhelmed anymore, but I suppose I’ve been studying his playing on and off for a long time.
My problem is my hands are too small to play some of his licks properly, he’s got some long fingers on that left hand of his.

[SlyVai]

@Tom_Gilroy I’m jealous I was trying to get to the Bristol show but couldn’t.

Someone posted some of the Dublin show on YouTube by the way, its so cool:

Steve Vai - Live in Dublin, 10th June 2022

[Prlgmnr]

I’d be happy if I could just get this bit down:

Steve Vai - Erotic Nightmares (Live At The Astoria)

(That should be 1:47-1:50ish)

[Tom_Gilroy]

@SlyVai

Someone posted some of the Dublin show on YouTube by the way, its so cool:

Thank you so much for posting that. I’ve downloaded it in case it gets taken down from YouTube, I’ll be able to preserve this memory for the future.

@bradejensen

Well now would be a great time cause there are some really great cover players you could dissect the phrasing which could help some.

Any favorite cover players you recommend?

[Fossegrim]

@SlyVai

Seems to be a lot of software guys on here and in general I have come across lots of guitarists in my software career I wonder why that is.
Of course most of them are broken men, after giving up their guitar playing dreams to write code 9 to 5 but hey that’s life !

I would have figured the career in software would have broken them. I considered it at one point, but then decided that engineering SQL databases for e-commerce (the most in demand and lucrative at the time) would surely have lead to my end.

Not that things turned out for the better though. I work for a big corporation (bio) that I can’t stand, and drives me nuts on a daily basis. I’m in charge of people and it never ceases to amaze me how many times I have to tell a 63yr old man to stop surfing Grinder in plain sight. I also hustle in building guitar based electronics on the side, which used to be a way of decompressing but is starting to look less and less appealing to me this last couple of years, and I have been turning down work because my free time to do absolutely nothing has become more invaluable. Good thing I never started a family!

I wouldn’t even consider it mid life crisis, because that implies I’ll even make it to 80.

[SlyVai]

Yeh I get it man, I’m the same, after having a year off and doing nothing it’s been hard getting back to full-time working and having no free time. You really protect the free time you have it becomes the most valuable thing in your life if you don’t have kids.

I’m an advocate of the 4 day week, I don’t think humans were built to work 5 days a week 8 hours a day. When you really think about it, most professionals don’t need to work 40 hours a week anyway, it only gives us spare cash to spend on things we don’t need. This capitalist consumerist culture is gonna come crashing down when people realise that.

I can empathise with your managerial problems I was a team leader for a while and my older team members were a nightmare, one couldn’t stay awake the other wanted to kill me.

[http410]

My daughter got to meet Steve and his band in October. He’s such a kind and gracious individual. The Hydra is crazier in person. A 28lb behemoth.

[SlyVai]

Wow that’s so cool, the Hydra looks huge.

So glad he’s nice in person too, he always comes across as sincere and down to earth in his youtube vids and when he’s on stage touring, but for some people in that position, other musicians or stars, you get the feeling its a bit of act. With Steve I don’t get that vibe so good to have some confirmation.

[Drew]

Those pictures are awesome!

[http410]

Thanks! We had an absolute blast at the show. Here she is with Jeremy Colson.

Jeremy, and everyone for that matter, were very gracious with their time. It felt so genuine.
Our tickets were front-row center and my daughter and Jeremy pointed at each other at the end of a song and I was able to capture it. She was so pumped!

Jeremy let her play his kit and gave her a set of sticks pre-show. To our amazement, he came to the front of the stage at the end of the show and gave her a set he played the show with.