RISE by EXTREME
- Thread starter luka
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Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Hold on your arses guys, this is going to get...guitarry
Never liked the band particularly, but Nuno is widely acknowledged as a Top Stunt Guitarist and that commands my admiration. The same is true of Van Halen really - I watched a live show of theirs on VHS some time in the late 80s and was completely wowed, but never got into the music as such to the point of buying a single record.
I like fast playing where the speed has the effect of slightly confusing the ear, the "whatthefuckwasthat" disorientation of hearing a flurry of notes that aren't immediately intelligible as a straight scale run or one of the standard blues rock licks played by someone with abnormally good twitch reflexes. Timing and phrasing and peculiar note groupings can bring that quality to things that aren't even objectively that fast. Although, with Shawn Lane, they also are, objectively, that fast.
I like fast playing where the speed has the effect of slightly confusing the ear, the "whatthefuckwasthat" disorientation of hearing a flurry of notes that aren't immediately intelligible as a straight scale run or one of the standard blues rock licks played by someone with abnormally good twitch reflexes. Timing and phrasing and peculiar note groupings can bring that quality to things that aren't even objectively that fast. Although, with Shawn Lane, they also are, objectively, that fast.
luka
Well-known member
@padraig (u.s.) rate the shred bro
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
I'll do it when I get home later
luka
Well-known member
are you out drinking?
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
At the gym, where else
IdleRich
IdleRich
I don't hate the sound, it's the virtuosity I hate. No not really, that would be such a stupidly cliched contrarian position - but I do dislike all the banging on about it. I think if I heard that tune on the radio - or anywhere where I didn't see the video - I would probably think ooh that bit was pretty cool... but seeing all these dry geeks in their "no girls allowed" bedrooms oohing and aahing about how hard it is to play really sucks any and all fun out of it.
And then I thought, wait up, I'm on a board which is made up of loads of geeks talking about music, do I really want to say that that ruins it? And then I thought, actually, there is nowt wrong with discussing music, it's specifically the way they are banging on about how hard and impressive it is that I don't like. So that's my position I guess.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I've never heard the term "stunt guitarist" before but I guess it means... showing off? Probably with a competitive element. I assume that stunt guitarists play really hard stuff really fast to an audience of geeks and judges who award them points for various things such as difficulty and originality and then you get an overall winner. Basically the guitar equivalent of those DMC turntablism things... I wonder if those retain any vestige of cool about them, I'm pretty sure the guitar one is not cool, has never been cool and never will be, but inexplicably (to me) there was a point when people seemed to give credibility to DMC things - maybe cos the DJs who took part in them might be good DJs outside of the tournaments I guess and they brought some of that prestige with them?
In football you have freestyle tournaments, equally stupid. There is this guy from England who is or was the best for a minute, his videos kept popping up for me somehow and, yeah, his skills and tricks are quite literally unbelievable... in fact that trick where he falls backwards from the knee and catches the ball on his chest, and then springs upright basically from his ankles still juggling the ball, if I'd read about it before I'd seen it I would have definitely said it was impossible, I would haven thought that it would take a world class gymnast to do it without the ball and to suggest that someone would be able to do it while juggling the ball was beyond ludicrous. So absolutely I'm impressed, I'm amazed, gobsmacked etc etc but does that mean that I think it's good? No, not really, sure if his videos pop up I'll idly watch for a few secs but I'll rarely make it to the end, and, if I do watch it, something inside me feels wrong, dirty even... and that unexplained feeling, that gut instinct is probably worth listening to here. I think what my gut knows, and what it's trying to tell me is that these things are parasitic - freestyle is parasitic on football in some way, it looks like football, it involves some of the same stuff as football, footballers can do it cos they have the ball by their feet the whole time and it's a kind of practice... but ultimately it's not football, it's not the beautiful game. And probably guitar solo contests and DMC tournaments aren't rock n roll or hip-hop either.
Here's the guy anyway, amazing right? Extreme skills
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
alrite, shred rating
it's...fine. the song itself is pretty terrible but the main culprit is the unbearable vocals and the general nu-metal meets Stone Temple Pilots vibe, with a dash of metal (pinch harmonics, double bass fills, etc) tossed on top.
obv he's extremely proficient and it's not nearly the most self-aggrandizing wankery I've ever heard. otoh, none of it's anything any number of 14-year old guitar dorks on YT couldn't pull off, so the question becomes more about composition and how much it adds to or enhances the song.
I do like that he's not just playing a lot of notes really fast, he's using different techniques - bends, a lot of palm muting, etc - to create varying dynamics. and he stays more or less on track with the song, doesn't get totally lost up his own ass in convulsions of pointless notes leading nowhere.
when I've defended the shred here, it's basically been against the charge that all shred, inherently, enters the zone of fruitless intensification (ZFI). which is different from saying that shred never enters the ZFI, it absolutely can. Yngwie Malmsteen and that entire lineage of playing a trillion notes as fast as possible for no other reason than to do it are the canonical example.
it's...fine. the song itself is pretty terrible but the main culprit is the unbearable vocals and the general nu-metal meets Stone Temple Pilots vibe, with a dash of metal (pinch harmonics, double bass fills, etc) tossed on top.
obv he's extremely proficient and it's not nearly the most self-aggrandizing wankery I've ever heard. otoh, none of it's anything any number of 14-year old guitar dorks on YT couldn't pull off, so the question becomes more about composition and how much it adds to or enhances the song.
I do like that he's not just playing a lot of notes really fast, he's using different techniques - bends, a lot of palm muting, etc - to create varying dynamics. and he stays more or less on track with the song, doesn't get totally lost up his own ass in convulsions of pointless notes leading nowhere.
when I've defended the shred here, it's basically been against the charge that all shred, inherently, enters the zone of fruitless intensification (ZFI). which is different from saying that shred never enters the ZFI, it absolutely can. Yngwie Malmsteen and that entire lineage of playing a trillion notes as fast as possible for no other reason than to do it are the canonical example.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
didn't watch any of the reaction videos - hard pass - but I see the 1st one is by Herman Li of Dragonforce, a band whose entire thing is playing as many notes as possible as fast as possible. like he's basically the living embodiment of shredding ZFI. if I remember right he actually has a podcast called Shred Talk. which, fair enough. I and I'd guess almost everyone here find that kind of thing totally abhorrent but you have to respect the commitment. like Klaus Dinger was a monomaniacal mfer who was like "I'm only going to play this one drum beat, fuck everything else" and I'd guess a lot us think he was basically a genius. so yunno, horses for courses.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Right, for me, and I guess for most people who aren't guitarists, I would have no idea about this... clearly he's doing something that is advanced, he's moving his fingers around super fast and I'm pretty sure that they are landing exactly where he wants them to, when he wants them to and in the way that he intended. But I've no way to judge its difficulty beyond that first very basic impression. I can't simply judge it in a vacuum and at the same time I have no reference points so no way to decide if it's something that other really good guitarists could also do, or, if he's, I dunno, reinvented the wheel, created a new paradigm of hitherto unimaginable skill that - despite their brave faces - will have those guitarists who are congratulating him on youtube scurrying off to their bedrooms weeping bitter tears of envy, swearing never to emerge until they have mastered it even if they have to play until their fingers are worn down, and their hands and so on, all the way to the elbow.
I suppose that those reaction videos had me believing it was closer to the latter end of the scale (though, come to think of it, why should I give any credence to the facial expressions of some random blokes I've never seen before or heard of, even if some other random guy that I have never heard of has selected them to go on his youtube channel that I've also never heard of?) so it's quite interesting to hear your more considered viewpoint. It gets me to thinking that, contrary to what I said before, if I were going to watch a guitar solo contest then commentators providing context and so on would improve my experience, as they do with all unfamiliar sports.
luka
Well-known member
just scarfed down two st johns doughnuts for breakfast
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
You're tall though you'll be alright
I just read last night that excess sugar consumption is connected to Alzheimer's. Hoping this will get me off the donuts.