Powers of the past

Today’s Sunday’s Child is Shawn Lane. If I’m not mistaken he’s also the first artist that I’m presenting to you that has already passed away. As far as I know this song comes from his tour de force of a debut and what an album it is. Shane Lane’s Powers of Ten is an astounding piece of musical work. When I had first heard about him, I remember reading that he played every instrument on the disc. There’s some incredible stuff going here. But I think it’s a little bit of a misnomer that he played every instrument. Shawn was primarily a guitar player. Yet there is so much more than just guitar here. I have the feeling that the rest of the instrumentation is all samples played from a keyboard. Not to say that the playing isn’t amazing, but it’s much easier to orchestrate a string section from a keyboard than to individually record all those instruments. What the hell am I even discussing that for? I do the same damn thing on my recordings. Except I don’t program drums. I hire people to play them.

Ok, let’s trip back a couple of years to when Shawn was still alive and about to break out on to the scene. I was at the NAMM show hanging out one night at a fast food joint nearby, Taco Bell if I’m not mistaken. I was chowing with my friends Brian and Dave from Vegas who were in town for NAMM as well. While there I was spotted by a reporter for a music paper who thought I was Paul Gilbert (hmmm, another artist I should spotlight here at some point). I joked with him saying “shhh, I’m going under an assumed name.” Because my NAMM badge had my name on it. The reporter was like, oh, sorry – I won’t bother you Paul.

Now you might ask yourself why that guy thought that. Well, here’s the story, Paul and I look like we could about be twin brothers. We’re the same height, same build, same color hair. In fact, I used to get mistaken for him all the time. Shit it still happens. A couple of weeks ago I was getting some gear repaired at Groove Tubes and the front desk guy started talking to me about how he’s been reading my articles and having trouble playing the examples. I’m like what articles? Then it dawned on me, oh, I’m not Paul. Funny how a new employee at a business that endorses you thinks your someone else. Oh well.

Getting back to the next day at NAMM I was in line at a private show being put on by by Washburn. They had a bunch of famous guitar players to play the show. Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Andy Timmonds, Nuno Bettencourt, Shawn Lane, Paul Gilbert, etc… It was a big lineup. I’m in line outside with my buds, and I recognize the girl in front of me as someone I went to music school with. So we chat and she introduces me to her boyfriend. Who as it turns out was Jeff Scott Soto (sound familiar? I blogged about him and Journey a few weeks back). I turn back around to tell my friends about it and introduce him. But they tell me it can’t be Jeff, so I turn around and ask. Jeff was cool about it, and explained why they’d think that. Anyway, that’s how Jeff and I met.

The NAMM Jam as it was called was amazing. Finally came Paul Gilbert and Shawn Lane. They didn’t announce anyone, so I didn’t know it was Shawn right away. In fact when he plugged in, he did a quick check to make sure the amp was working and this blast of notes came out that practically sounded like a computer fart. But he played it. Dave turned to me and said, I don’t think the fat guy knows how to play. My reply was, I believe that’s Shawn Lane and you’ll be thinking differently in a few minutes. I was right. It was Shawn.

They did a rendition of “Hey Jude”. It was insanely cool. Then came the guitar solo. Paul played a little something typical of Paul. Then came Shawn. He started out playing this beautiful melody. It was so awesome it was like you couldn’t have picked better notes, period. Not even McCartney could have envisioned this. Then right into the middle of his solo he started tearing up and going off on this tangent that was insane. It was so fucking fast and so much music it was overwhelming. He proceeded to slow back down and finish it out and the rest of the song. Then all the artists got up to jam. Guess who blew them all off the stage? You got it, Shawn. Mind you this is a stage packed with power house guitar players.

Anyway, I chose this song because it’s got a little bit of everything from the whole CD in there. Plus it shows Shawn’s insane chops. The whole CD is moody and adventurous.

As I stated Shawn has since died. Which is unfortunate. His music is still available for sale and is something that I know is a bit of an accquired taste. Obviously I recommend it. You will likely find it on Amazon, or at his official website. I can’t believe it’s not on iTunes.