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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.
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
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