ATTN SHREDDERS, PLEASE BOW DOWN TO ALLAN HOLDSWORTH
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 10:23am by Vince NeilsteinThis morning I was reading an interview with Binary Code guitarist Jesse Zuretti, in which the artful shredder mentioned jazz guitarist Allan Holdsworth as a major influence on his playing. Curious, I hit YouTube up for an Allan Holdsworth history lesson.
Check out this video of Holdsworth playing live; he doesn’t really get going until around the 2 minute mark, at which points he lets loose with a flurry of seemingly atonal out-of-key shred passages that just somehow work. Then around the 5 minute mark he goes bonkers, and here’s where I see the Zuretti influence; the quick, almost-sweep-like jazzy shred passages recall the solos in The Binary Code songs “Ghost Planet” and “The Story” (the latter of which is streaming on The Binary Code’s MySpace) in their almost Vernon Reid-esque insanity. Like Reid’s solos, it’s constantly as if the train’s about to run right off the rails but you know there’s a method to the madness underneath it all.
-VN
Who gives a flying fuck about the Binary Code? God damn, do you have to mention them in every post you guys make? Wow, they’re technical. That’s so rad. So is Ion Dissonance, Psyopus and a million other bands and guess what? They still suck.
Candiria also were technical and had guitarists who liked Holdsworth I believe..and they didn’t suck. But enough about the B.Code…they should be paying you for the amount of publicity and hype you surround them with
“they should be paying you for the amount of publicity and hype you surround them with”
They probably are.
http://www.myspace.com/exivious
Exivious… also heavily influenced by Holdsworth, but infinitely more deserving of our attention than Binary Code. Plus, Exivious is made up of members of the current Cynic line-up and Textures, so technical proficiency is guaranteed.
“So is Ion Dissonance, Psyopus and a million other bands and guess what? They still suck.”
Thank you!
You guys think this is sick? check out Al DeMeola or John Mclaughlin.
Mclaughlin FTW!
+2. I prefer DiMeola, because I absolutely love Return to Forever. McLaughlin’s a beast, too.
Al DeMeola is amazing.
I can’t believe you can even draw comparison between these two… facepalm x1000
On another note, Frank Gambale is a sweet guitar player in this same vein, check out the album Show me what you can do. So good
It wasnt a comparison, just an example of two other great guitar players
I actually read both of the above paragraphs, and enjoyed the vid (and yes, DiMeola & McLaughlin rule).
Holdsworth is a beast! Fredrik from Meshuggah is also influenced by Allan.
Oh yeah– good point– definitely true. I can hear it now in some of those polyrhythmic solos…
Idiot.
I’m surprised Meshuggah wasn’t mentioned in the post itself. Bulb from Periphery is into Holdsworth totally because of Fredrik Thordendal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dLm_JunVwY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDDWVpNiovE
Bulb’s youtube account name is Periphery. Lulz.
Thumbs-up.
Good video– very interesting stuff.
Thanks to MetalSucks for linking to our interview of Jesper — and for posting the Holdsworth video, which is awesome. And thanks for turning us on to The Binary Code in the first place! IMO, the attention you’ve given them is amply deserved.
Oh look, its the binary code. Never heard of them. Nice to see you guys mentioning a vast variety of new bands here.
True, The Binary Code is good I guess but I honestly don’t see why they get so much publicity. They just seem like a band I might listen too every now and then, not the band that is ruling my speakers for months to come.
Surely there must be someone else to post about? Its really boring, they should just have one final blog about them and in the comment box we all say whether we have heard of the binary code or if we havent heard of the fucking binary code. Then at the end of the day when 100% of the 5 people who give a fuck comment it and say that they have heard of the binary code we can all sleep soundly at night knowing that every fucker knows the binary code exist and that theyre just fabulous guys that write dull, generic, average music that is overhyped to almost mastodonian proportions
I hear that Dallas Coyle guy is a pretty sweet guitar player as well….
Well, to be honest, i don’t think you ms guys are any competent, if you discovered Holdsworth just now.
They knew about Holdsworth, they’re just getting really desperate for new ways to incorporate The Binary Code into the blog.
Holdsworth is the man. His chord voicings are fucking crazy.
Holdsworth has inspired much more talented guitarist like Fredrik Thordendal of Meshuggah amongst many others. And putting the Binary Code guy here looks a bit lame :) Sure I understand you have to promote them and stuff, but hey, you may do little favor to the band with such aggressive advertising :) Still their album is really good, I love it….
Parts of that vid reminded me of Gianluca Ferro. Anyone a fan?
Allan Holdsworth is the shit, but who is the Binary Code again?
Oh shit I was at this show! Sweet!
Schenkerian analysis (skeletal music structure) proves this to be some awseome stuff. Me like :)
Well shit! As long as its worth is proven by esoteric music criticism theories!
Actually, having just read the Wikipedia article on Schenkerian analysis I’m hard pressed to figure out just who this critical theory is supposed to be meaningful to or useful for, other than as an end in itself.
TAKE THAT, NERD.
Well, I use it all the time in the classical world, and it should carry over into the other music genres. It’s quite important for phrasing lengthy 32nd note passages. I also use it when I play difficult chamber music with polyrhythms in the other instrumental parts, so that way our general pulse and any chordal progressions can be heard more clearly.
I have still out-nerded you :)
are you Rachel Grimes? ^^ <3
god I hope so.
Nope :( and I have no clue who that is, but I bet she’s awesome if she knows music stuff like this.
Metalsucks promotes the Binary code because it’s their website and they can write whatever the fuck they want to!
and they kindly added a comment feature so we could disagree
Good point, although I don’t think that’s the only reason they added it.
I mentioned Holdsworth in a comment about 3 days ago. Now metal sucks has a ‘check out this dude’ video.
Good good my plan is working. Every metal guitarist should be familiar with Holdsworth, he’s the MAN.
My personal favorite is his solo on 4:15 bradford executive from the awesome album ‘SAND’.
Holdsworth is simply incredible. I’m familiar with almost all the top level guitar players in the world and I have to say that Holdsworth is one of the very tippy top of the top tip, if you know what I’m saying.
The two things you have to watch out for with Holdsworth are really boring soupy chord progressions that suck, even if they are complicated and use lots of weird jazz modalities, and when he plays the Synthaxe instead of a real guitar. Personally, I don’t want to hear him playing all kinds of midi crap I only want to hear him shredding on a real guitar. Ah well, Caveat Emptor
Ah come on, the tone he gets on the synthaxe is fucking awesome.
Holdsworth is really great shit. Shawn Lane is still my favorite guitarist EVER, but I think Holdsworth is pretty close.
Have you heard Holdsworth’s acoustic album? It’s weird as shit to hear him play his chords on an acoustic guitar.
Shawn – my hero! Altho, Shawns playing became what it was because of Holdsworth. Check out the diminished string skipping shapes Holdsworth does in this video. Look familiar? :p
Yup. I noticed right away that Shawn Lane seemed influenced by Holdsworth, but who knows, maybe he never even heard Holdsworth. HEH
I do love Shawn Lane much also. Especially when he got real and started playing shit like ‘Time is the enemy’ with Jonas Hellborg on bass. Great crew that was.
Shame Shawn passed away so early. He was a really great guy as well.
I can appreciate his technical skill but the music is shit.
..and his guitar is super gay, i hate those guitars
Good lord, people! This post is about Allan Holdsworth and features a video of Allan Holdsworth; it is not about The Binary Code nor does it feature a video of theirs. They were thrown in for a reference of context. Stop looking for reasons to hate and enjoy the awesome Holdsworth video!
The first and last minute of this, or so, reminds me that I’ve always wondered why jazz guitarists, who are clearly so devoted to guitar, almost invariably choose the shittiest possible clean tones when they want to play clean. I honestly think this factor alone has turned me off from more electric jazz guitar music than any other.
That said, Holdsworth is obviously a masterful musician. And he can pick at least a halfway decent dirtyish tone.
I just wanted to say…..BaBaBooey BaBaBooey BaBaBooey!
hey, great video — nice to see some jazz around here. my all-time fave jazz guitarist is Wes Montgomery and his RIGHT-THUMB technique. check out the solo here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a1W3Wtqdj8. amazing stoner jazz, if I dare to say :)
that is the gayest fucking guitar
QUICK! STOP THE PRESSES! The morons at Metal Sucks just discovered Allan Holdsworth. It’s not like Eddie Van Halen prasied him over twenty fucking years ago. Not like every guitar shredder since Yngwie has name dropped him everywhere. Not like the guy has reams of albums out…or been on the cover of every guitar magazine multiple times.
No, now that some jerk I’ve never heard of playing for some band I never heard of who suck these Metal Suck morons dicks mentions him it’s “HOLY SHIT! HAVE YOU GUYS CHECKED OUT THIS NEW GUY ALLAN HOLDSWORTH! HE’S A HUGE INFLUENCE ON THIS 18 YEAR OLD KID WHO SUCKS OUR DICK!!”
Really. No shit.
Just so I can get you guys ahead of the curve:
Pink Floyd: Not a guy, a band.
Meatloaf: Not a band, a guy.
I can only imagine the article if I Wrestled A Bear Once name dropped the guy. I think you’d try to hawk a IWABO / Allan Holdsworth Metal Sucks Tour!!
FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES: http://meme.zenfs.com/u/2d0321e569ee586c6a17de2de28069321db80ebe.png
shawn lane anyone?
Holdsworth influenced Cynic a whole lot, and it shows on Focus…so much, in fact, that most of their clean guitar sections on that album sound transplanted from Holdsworth albums.
Even more on Traced in Air.
The Binary Code suck but Allan Holdsworth is a phenomenal musician. His synthaxe stuff is beyond boring but his early work fantastic. Proto Cosmos is the “Free Bird” of fusion.
Pat Metheny is Better!!!!!!!
The only guitarist Holdsworth dosent put to shame utterly is Vai.
His ‘Synthaxe albums’ (Sand, Atavachron, etc) are the shit – the guitar solos on them should put that to rest anyway – and if you dont love them, your an idiot.
I have spoken.
El Ray Elrond has spoken .|.