Serious question: does anyone actually watch these shred instructional videos and go “eureka! that’s how it’s done! it all makes sense and now i can shred too!” on their way to shred superstardom, or do we all just stare at these videos in awe and use them as proof that there are real, live players behind those leads instead of superhuman automatons? ‘Cause it seems to me like these videos are at way too high of a level for anyone to actually be able to learn anything off of them… or, if you’re at a high enough level to where having these complex shred riffs slowed down a wee bit actually helps them make sense to you, shouldn’t you be able to figure them out anyway without the aid of a video like this?

Whatever… I’m content to watch in awe and be astounded that a man can actually make the sounds that come from Tosin Abasi’s guitar. Damn, that “CAFO” riff is sick.

-VN

[via Got Djent]

For a long time, outside of some dazzling old-school stuff, I became pretty resistant to the “art” of speed shredding…..obvs it’s impressive when a musician can wail and zip around the fretboard, but that rarely exemplifies SOUL, which is crucial for speaking to this guy’s musical heart.

Having said thaaat, I’ve recently re-opened up a bit to maniac shredders, even love me some young tigers to death. DEATH!!!!!!!!!!

But the below guys border on rishdickulous…..unless if you’re just entertaining the fam at jome — what’s the point?

Tiago Della Vega shreds on MySpace…..eh

-KW

And she is Japanese and wears knee-high socks.

Apologies to the MS Maniac who sent this in — I can’t find your email, but you know who you are.

It gets awesome around the 1:55 mark, but this chick smokes through and through. Even her rhythm playing is tasty.

-VN

What’s interesting here is not the wanky masturbation of Rico “Shred” Carlton or even his ridiculous facial expressions. No, what you need to pay attention to while you’re watching Mr. Carlton fellate his guitar are the subtitles, pure A+ material. Watch it all the way through, then thank me [or the anonymous MS reader who sent this in] later.

-VN

Thanks to Mister Booze for drawing attention to two forgotten shred greats, the indomitable Fat Mr. Crab and Uli Con Carne Rotweiler. Vai, Satriani, Thor Shredsteen and Yngwie haven’t got shit on these guys!

Here’s part 1 of their DVD Born to Shred 2: Emotional Playing; Stage Positions and Wild Antics, undoubtedly one the greatest instructional shred videos of all time.

After the jump, Part 2. The part about “slow amps” = gold.

Click to read more…

We hate these displays of pure speed because they lack heart and show only athletic-like, my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours abilities. We fucking love this kind of shit because it’s awesome!! You can tell this one hasn’t been doctored because the guy in the background’s movements clearly aren’t sped up. Long live shred.

-VN

Another day, another silly but undeniably fun Top 10 list by our friend Carlos Ramirez over at Noisecreep (see also: The Top 10 Bush-era Anthrax songs, Top 10 New School Thrash Bands and The Top Ten High-Pitch Metal Singers of All Time). This week’s topic du jour, The Top 10 Guitarists of the “Shred Era,” which Ramirez clarifies thusly:

The style first rose to fame in the mid-1980s when guitarists started rocking classical influenced scales played at frenzied speeds… Legendary guitarists Uli Jon Roth, Al DiMeola and Eddie Van Halen helped inform the movement while a guy in California named Mike Varney served as scene’s biggest cheerleader and supporter. Through his Shrapnel Records, Varney not only discovered and produced many of the scene’s headliners, his very own Shrapnel Records would go on to become to shred what Motown was to soul music.

As usual, Ramirez is mostly spot on. Michael Angelo Batio — check. Yngwie — check. George Lynch — check. The only obvious omission I can find (I’m sure you guys will have plenty of gripes, though) is that of Vinnie Vincent, one-time KISS guitarist and all-time uber/psycho/insane/batshit shredder extraordinaire. We actually have a shrine dedicated to Vinnie Vincent in the corner opposite the shitter in the MS Mansion bathroom. Nothing quite inspires efficient crapping like the photo of Vinnie Vincent’s face you see on the right. No joke.

Go on over to Noisecreep to read the list, then come back here and tell us “OMG i can’t believe ____ was left off the list, wtf?!?!”

-VN

Totally metal. Any questions? Didn’t think so.

-VN

If there’s one thing I love about shred… ok, fine, I love pretty much everything about shred. But a favorite pastime of mine is watching the facial expressions of one-man shred guitar virtuosos. Here, Rob Marcello of Danger Danger gives us some choice nuggets. Pain, bad-assery, confusion, surprise, indifference, anger, mouthing the notes, it’s all there. The best is the sequence from 1:15 to 1:25; the eye-roll followed by the horns, followed by a nod to the Asian dude mysteriously perched on the side of the stage. Priceless.

-VN

The best way to describe it is as a touch-style multi-string instrument that incorporates both bass and regular guitar gauge strings on one oversized neck, for a variety of sound options. A hominah hominah homainah WHA?!? I was impressed enough back in the day when Alpha-Boy pulled out his custom double-neck guitar (one six-string neck for standard electric strings, and the other six-string neck fretless, for all your wanna-be sitar needz), but I guess you just can’t keep those shredders down, no matter how much you stab em in the jugular.

The Warr Guitar was created and developed by some dude in sunny California named Mark Warr (hence the name…der) in the early 90s, and seems to be in secret use around the world by some of the shreddiest face-melters out there. A commenter on my recently-posted review of 8/8/08′s Knitting Factory Intronaut/Mouth of the Architect/Behold…the Arctopus show made mention of the instrument (which is used by one of B…tA’s shred monkeys — see this weekend’s extra-proggy SSTGST), and for extremely good reason: it’s fucking ridonkculous.

BUT…doesn’t the mere utilization of this instrument no doubt shape the sound of the music itself by the inevitable need to…well, to SHRED??? I definitely could stand to do a bit more research on this, but I would imagine that only the most advanced players out there could respectably step up to the Warr Guitar and put that biatch to good use — namely, by diddely-doodely-diddely-deeing all the way to fucking Jupiter. But could any Warr Guitar player employ the merits behind the age-old acronym K.I.S.S.??? I sincerely doubt it, but it would be a pleasure (and most likely an aural treat) to be proven wrong on that one.

Click to read more…

Love or hate this mega-technical, prog-to-the-nth-degree power trio, you gotsa admit that despite the shredding, this is some stony-ass shit…

-KW