What year is this? Last night Axl and I went to see Slash, tonight we’re going to see Billy Idol (with mutual man-crush Steve “Jewy Jewowitz” Stevens on guitar!!) and now I’m posting about a new song by Joe Satriani. Sergeant D overslept today or else I’m sure he’d be kicking our asses and making us listen to way cooler music from the ’80s and ’90s like, I don’t know, Leeway or Black Army Jacket, but your Uncles Axl and Vince weren’t nearly so cool back in the day.

So for now it’s Satch, and ya know what? Cheesy Chickenfoot project included, dude can still play his balls off although Satch ought-ten is way more restrained than Satch nineteen-ninety. It’s like Satch realized a long time ago that he can’t keep up with today’s kids by out-shredding the shredders so he took a conscious step back from the speed in favor of a calmer, bluesier, dare I say loungier version of himself. Which was a good decision if you ask me, because the key to longevity in music is finding a way to slide gracefully from your youth into whatever follows. If only Slash would be so prudent and make a straight blues album (or five) instead of still trying to rock, man! we know it’d absolutely smoke faces, instead of Slash’s recent solo album which is perfectly ok but… tries just a little to hard to rock, man!

Hear neo-Satch on his brand new track “Light Years Away.” It’s available for free and comes from his forthcoming jam Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards, out October 5th on Epic Records.

-VN