I got an e-mail from a musician friend recently. He told me how he thought my blog was Fucking brilliant, and that he wished he’d thought of it. Actually a couple of music industry people in my life said close to the same thing. Those are nice compliments. However it’s still too early into my own mad game to know if it’s really all that brilliant. However because I know we’re guitar players (or closet guitar players) and we (or used to) like shredders. Hell, I used to be one. I was feeling a little bit nostalgic.
I grew up on guitar players like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Greg Howe, Vinnie Moore, et al. I was recently turned onto Dennis H. Lotka (I gotta wonder about the H, is it like Yngwie J. Malmsteen? I mean how many Yngwie’s are there? You get the point). Anyway, I noticed from the moment the disc started to play that there is some serious guitar playing talent going on here. While I’m not crazy about the drum machine drums, it is indicative of the whole genre from the 90’s. I do think that the playing is incredible. I chose this particular song because it had the most commercial vibe to me in terms of sounding like a song song. I haven’t read the liner notes, but I’m going to guess that Dennis does most of the instruments and all the guitar work on the CD. I’m being lazy about that part ’cause I can be.
I felt compelled to showcase a genre that isn’t really getting the attention that it used to. I remember wanting to write music like this when I was learning to play. I can play it, but I just never felt compelled to write like that when I started writing songs. I might have some old 4-track tapes somewhere from when I was doing stuff like Paganini Caprices in two-handed tapping and other “scary” guitar type stuff. But I ended up going for more songs you can sing oriented playing over the I’m a guitar-god super technical stuff. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate hearing it when it’s done well, and Dennis obviously can do it very well. Overall there’s definitely a lot of Satriani and Vai in his playing. Again a case of where I would love to hear what he really sounds like when he steps out into his own skin. Though in this genre, it’s extremely difficult to do much that doesn’t sound like either of those two instrumental guitar giants.
I’m guessing that this particular Single of the Day Choice is going to rub some people in a fashion of like: What the fuck where you thinking?!? Well, make peace with me and comment on it. Otherwise, buy the song and support an artist with ridiculous guitar talent. I know I do.