Buckethead

Today, I received my copy of Buckethead´s newest album, “Crime Slunk Scene”. One thing I really like about his music is that you never really know what to expect when he releases a new album… it might be really wacky stuff or just beautiful, quite intense music.
Buckethead is an artist that I really really like and admire. I am constantly impressed about the amount of music this guy puts out,  releasing new albums on a regular base (as I said, quite diverse, not cookiecutter-type releases), playing on other peoples albums etc.

My first exposure to his music took place in 2000. I had heard about him, and had some people mention that he´s a great player. So I was interested in hearing some of his music, and the first one I picked up was “Colma”, which is a rather soothing, ballad-y type album. Hard to describe, really. At first I wasn´t sure whether I´d be able to get into it. These were not “typical” guitar ballads with a  standard formula. Instead, those songs seemed to be based on loops, kinda meditative, and very relaxing. After a while (especially after listening to it everyday on a great vacation in Florida), I started to love it.
And ever since, it´s been one of my favorite albums. I never grew tired of it, and still listen to it on a regular base, which I can´t say about a lot of albums (then again, this is really a “different” album).
He made a similar album in 2002 or 2003, “Electric Tears”, which was similarily relaxed and soothing, but this time, he even left out the drums and created all the music with guitars only. For some time, I listened to this almost daily, but it´s the “Colma”-album I still listen to… kinda prefer that one.

Call me weird, but when I listen to those albums, it seems to me that Buckethead really is sharing some of his innermost feelings and emotions with the listener, really opening up and showing a vulnerable side. And I like that a lot… he doesn´t only have amazing chops and a great sense of humor, but also a lot of heart and taste, IMO.

Of course I love many of his other albums too, like the heavier stuff. “Giant Robot” has some great riffs, neat hooks and insane playing. I always loved playing along to “Welcome To Bucketheadland”. Great riff, and the solo is just plain awesome.

Some of my other favorites include the jam-style “Population Override” album, the riff-heavy “Funnel Weaver”, “The Elephant Man´s Secret Alarm Clock” (it was a nice surprise to see that BH´s is a fellow Lovecraft fan… there´s a multi-part song called “Lurker On The Treshold”, which also is the title of a Lovecraft-story, and the song is dedicated to HPL… so if we´d ever meet, there´s way more than old horror-movies and guitar-playing we could talk about), “Monsters & Robots”, the track “Inferno” he did on one of the 13th Scroll-albums, the “Axiology”-album by Thanatopsis etc. etc.

So if you haven´t checked him out, you should. Some of the music he comes up with might be confusing and quite difficult to get into, but there´s so much music in his discography that there should be something for you in there. You can´t possibly judge him after listening to only one or two songs, and I think trying to figure out which one is the “definite Buckethead-album” or “THE Buckethead-song” wouldn´t be fair, based on all the variety.

So… give it a try. Check out “Colma”, “Electric Tears”, “Giant Robot” or the new “Crime Slunk Scene”.

And Buckethead…thanks for sharing that music with us, and for a lot of great music and playing.

Al Di Meola

I have recently started to listen to some old Al Di Meola-albums again. I think it was a video from the “Friday Night in…” era that got me into that again. It was some clip where Al was using his insane alternate picking-chops, and it was impressive to see how well he does that.

Al´s music might not be everyone´s “cup of tea” (then again, he has recorded a wide variety of different music), but I think that a lot of shred-fans would be surprised if they´d check out his playing. I do think that some of the “shred-heroes” like Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci or Yngwie Malmsteen picked up quite a bit from Al. I wish I remember which song it was, but I remember hearing a song by him where at the end, there was an extended solo on the electric guitar, and in there I heard both a few short licks that later became typical PG-licks, and I also heard one lick that sounded exactly like one I had heard Petrucci use. And no, I am not talking about some little 6 note-figure, I mean some more elaborate lick… and to hear them both in succession was quite fascinating, as I thought “Wow, I have heard Paul use that one a lot… oh, didn´t Petrucci play the same thing on that and that song?!?”

Of course, there´s nothing wrong with those players being influenced by Al, but it seems as if a lot of shred-fans aren´t familiar with his playing. When it comes to discussions about great, accurate alternate-picking, I don´t see Al being mentioned a lot.
While, in that youtube-vid (and of course, on many of his songs), he plays some absolutely dazzling things with very precise alternate-picking… quite impressive.
And of course, if we forget mere technical skills for a while, he also has written some great songs, and is an awesome improviser.

This reminds me of a quote of his from his REH-video that occasionally gets posted in guitar-forums, and usually leads to heated debates… or flame-wars. He was talking about picking vs. sweeping and legato-techniques, and said (I am paraphrasing, as I don´t have the vid around anymore) that in his opinion, for the more intricate types of music and playing, alternate picking was essential and should be focussed on, and that people shouldn´t use the “shortcut” of going only for sweeping and legato.
Well, that´s his opinion, and I respect him. I know what he means too. Sure, there are players who simply prefer the sound of legato, and never cared for accurate, fast picking too much. However, there also are some who mainly want to play fast, and they seem unwilling to invest the whole lot of work required to bring your picking up to speed (while maintaining accuracy). Even the legato-playing and sweeps are not as accurate as they could be in those cases.
However, people take that quote out of context and often go “Al said “don´t use sweeps and legato, picking is the only way, everything else is cheating”, while that is neither what he said… nor what he meant.
Anyway, if you wanna get into Al´s music, there´s a plethora of stuff to choose from. Maybe you wanna start with some “Best Of” or an anthology. I think the albums most people refer to are “Casino”, “Elegant Gypsy”, “Electric Rendezvous”, maybe “Kiss My Axe”. And of course, the albums he recorded with John McLaughlin and Paco De Lucia are legendary, too. “Friday Night In San Francisco” and “Super Guitar Trio”. Don´t forget though that Al has recorded way more music than that, and still is active (and touring) these days. So if you´re interested, check it out!

Modding guitars, Pt.1

I recently got an email by someone who had spend some thought on the things I have said in the past about modifying guitars, and so he contacted me with some basic questions.  The correspondence got me thinking about the topic a bit more, and so I decided to post a few thoughts about it here.
Now, the thought of modifying guitars is quite alien to many players. And yes, of course there are guitars that don´t need any modding and are “great right outta the box”. However, when I got my first electric guitar, it was a really crappy one. I kinda knew it would be,  but I simply couldn´t afford a better one back then.
Then I got the next one, the beat-up, worn-out old Flying V that I still have today. I had saved up some money, so I was able to invest a bit more, even though it wasn´t a “top brand” type prize I paid either.
Don´t get me wrong, the guitar did play great, felt right. However, the tuners wore out quite quickly, and the guitar didn´t stay in tune anymore that well (quite a few mass manufacturers tend to use rather low-quality tuners, which shows in the sale-prize though). Also, the pickups sounded quite muddy and were microphonic, and as I was starting to play out on stage with a loud amp, I simply didn´t wanna cope with that. So I did my first modification, putting in a real hot, potted humbucker that I had bought from someone (my guitar teacher, I think).
And suddenly, stuff came together! The guitar played great before, but the new humbucker added more bite and punch, and the microphonic feedback was gone.

And here was the first lesson for me: The important thing is that the guitar “feels” right and sounds good acoustically. The pickups, the rest of the electrics and many other things can be changed. So that´s what I have been looking for in guitars.
As I said, there of course are guitars that feel and play great, sound awesome and don´t require any further modding.
However, especially with pickups, I might change a guitar every once in a while, and I sure am not the only one. Example: for a while, I had been using a guitar custom-built for me by a small texan luthier. We had spent a lot of thought on the PU-choices, and the ones we picked of course fitted well and were well-built.
A year or so down the road, I was looking for a slightly different sound. The pickups sounded great, but I wanted a bit more harmonic response and a more mid-oriented sound, so I changed them. So even though some guitars have great components right away, maybe your tastes or requirements change and you wanna change something anyway.

When I was starting out, Eddie Van Halen was my biggest influence and role-model, and I read interviews with him religiously. Reading about all the weird mods he did (which all did make sense though), some of them being rather “harsh” (attaching that coin to keep the FR from being a floating one, for example), inspired me greatly.
The guys I was in a band with back then occasionally had that “What the HECK…” look on their faces when I opened my guitar-case and had done another weird mod (building one guitar out of two other ones, or AGAIN putting in other pickups, or putting a Floyd Rose into one), but they did like the results. That was the idea: I was trying to get an instrument that was perfect for my style of playing, my needs. Back then, I could have never afforded to have a guitar built to my specifications, and I couldn´t afford some of the top-of-the-line-models either, so modding a guitar step by step seemed like the best idea.
These days, I have found some guitars that were perfect for me without any changes, but when I get a new one, I still look for feel and acoustic sound first, and then might change the pickups.
More on mods later on… (and in case you have read so far, congrats =) )