Nice summary. It's funny you mentioning the transcribing. It seemed, for me at least, in 87, that transcribing was incredibly important. I also find it strange that it helped my playing and my ear immensely... that's a long time ago though.... I just don't get to play enough to even rate these days lol
Yeah, it seemed par for the course for budding young rock musicians in the 1980's to be theory and ear training freaks - which was great at the time. It makes sense; when I was ten I was reading comic books, so I tried to draw my own comics and pretend they were professional. So then when I was thirteen I was reading guitar magazines, so I was now an amateur transcriber! Speaking of which, I couldn't easily find my epic Skyscraper transcriptions from 1988, but here's one I did find from that period. Don't trust my work! Presented here only as evidence of a Vai-influenced childhood.
Bottom Line What a great intro. What get the fancy drums work and a really nice harmonic scrape. Then we move into this wonderful guitar melody, that ends on that cool double note and burst into an uptempo dirty groove. Again Vai is doing some nice rhythm guitar against the beat and we burst into the pre-chorus, and all the grooves line up, adding a sort of unity that opens the song up. The chorus works really well, and the female backing singers add a nice dimension. The little run before the harmonised melodic lead break is sensational. That lead break is beautiful, and then Billy Sheehan gives us some WTF bass. We move into an out chorus, and again the rhythmic structure is just great and burst into a bit of a rave up. Great song.
Skyscraper We open with some atmospherics, then a bit of a synth section that adds a nice bit of flavour. Then the beat fades up and we have this sort of middle eastern thing, we bend into some melodic guitar and the song starts proper. We have the drums and bass, with the keys laying the backdrop. I really enjoy the way the vocals are arranged here. I reckon it really suits the song, and again adds a lot of flavour. In between verse Vai gives us some great guitar, just to remind us he's there. The second verse section runs through, and we move into a marvelous piece of guitar from Vai that has lots of techo bits and then moves into a nice melodic pattern, and then some really cool bar stuff. The little instrumental section that follows is really excellent. This is a nunusual song, particularly for DLR but I reckon it is just brilliant, and it is one of the reasons I appreciate this album so much. A beautiful wide palette of songs that keep the interest up.
Steve Vai - a rough history The JEM guitar Interview Talking about Zappa Some guitar techniques Stevie's Spanking with Zappa 1981 May 1981 Zappa Tinseltown Rebellion Fine Girl Easy Meat For The Young Sophisticate Love Of My Life Ain't Got No Heart Panty rap, Tell me you love me, Now You See it now You don't, Dance Contest, Blue Light, Tinseltown Rebellion, Pick Me I'm clean Bamboozeld By Love, Brown Shoes Don't Make It, Peaches 3 1981 - Shut Up And Play Yer guitar - Frank Zappa Guitar Book sept 1981 Zappa You Are What You Is Teenage Wind Harder Than Your Husband Doreen, Goblin Girl, Theme From the 3rd movement of sinister footwear Society Pages, I'm A beautiful Guy, Beauty Knows No Pain Charlies enormous mouth, Any Downers, Conehead, You Are What You Is You Are What You Is - video Mudd Club, The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing, Dumb All Over Heavenly Bank Account, Suicide Chump, Jumbo Go Away, If Only She Woulda, Drafted Again NYC Palladium 1981 - with Zappa May 1982 Zappa Ship Arriving Too Late to Save A Drowning Witch No Not Now Valley Girl I Come From Nowhere Drowning Witch Envelopes Teenage Prostitute Mar 1983 Zappa Man From Utopia Cocaine Decisions The Dangerous Kitchen Tink Walks Amok The Radio Is Broken Moggio The Man From Utopia Meets Mary Lou Stick Together Sex Jazz Discharge Party Hats We Are Not Alone Jan 1984 Zappa Flex-able + leftovers Little Green Men Viv Woman Lovers Are Crazy Salamanders In The Sun Boy/Girl Song The Attitude Song Call It Sleep Junkie Bill's Private Parts Next Stop Earth There's Something Dead In Here Flex-able Leftovers You Didn't Break it Bledsoe Blvd The Beast Of Love Burnin' Down The Mountain So Happy Details At 10 Little Pieces Of Seaweed Chronic Insomnia Oct 1984 Alcatrazz - Power Live dvd Oct 1984 Zappa - Them Or Us The Closer You Are In France Ya Hozna Sharleena Sinister Footwear II Truck Driver Divorce Stevie's Spanking - live Vai and Zappa jam Baby Take Your Teeth Out Marque-son's Chicken Planet Of My Dreams Be In My Video Them Or Us Frogs With Dirty Little Lips Whipping Post March 1985 Alcatrazz Disturbing The Peace God Blessed Video Mercy - actual song Will You Be Home Tonight Wire And Wood Desert Diamond Stripper Painted Lover A Lighter Shade Of Green Sons And Lovers Skyfire Breaking The Heart Of The City - live Vai Live at the Spirit Club 1985 Nov 1985 Frank Zappa - Meets The Mothers Of Prevention We're Turning Again Alien Orifice Yo Cats What's New In Baltimore Little Beige Samb Porn Wars Aerobics In Bondage I Don't Even Care One Man One Vote HR2911 Jan 1986 Public Image Limited (PIL) - Album FFF Rise Fishing Round Bags Home Ease Western Vacation July 86 Eat Em And Smile Yankee Rose Shy Boy I'm Easy Ladies Night In Buffalo - correction Goin Crazy Tobacco road (Spanish) Big Trouble Elephant Gun Big Trouble Bump And Grind That's Life Live In Detroit 86 Live In Montreal 86 1986 The Crossroads dual 1988 Skyscraper Knucklebones Just Like Paradise Bottom Line Skyscraper For The Love Of God -live with the Metropole Orchestra
Ok there are actually Tuesday and Thursday things he is doing. Above is the first of the Thursday editions. Thursday - Steve is asked questions about things other than music, and you get to hear him speak of his philosophies and such. Tuesday - Steve is asked questions about music, and he goes into detail about musical aspects of his life and such. It is very interesting. I may not totally agree with some of his philosophical musings, but they are very interesting nonetheless. Obviously talking about music is much less contentious for most people, so Tuesday is probably the easier ride as such. Here is the first Tuesday episode (I believe)
Damn Good This is a very cool song. Sounds like a twelve string to me, but please correct me if I am missing something. I love the guitar part that brings us into the song, and I like the way the song develops. Dave gives a vocal quite different for him. It has a certain reserved feeling that is inviting and very different to party time Dave that we normally get. The little choral sitar riff comes across as pretty cool too. The little melody break sounds like backwards choral sitar, again correct me if I'm wrong there. Just a really good mellow song that finds its place on the album well, and adds to the whole a lot.
Hot Dog And A Shake ... and it's back to the fun. We get a nice scrape into a cool chord pattern, and again we get evidence of Steve's rhythm guitar abilities. The piano addition really adds a good feel. The lead break section works really well, and I get the impression that would have been a lot of fun in the studio. The held notes have a certain attention getting style about them, and then we move into that really nice run that takes us back into the vocal section. Good fun and well executed.
Another favourite for me on this album. I just love that lead break - I often listen to this song, and then 'rewind' back to the break and listen to it again
It was ages since I had listened to this album, just how it rolls, but it is an awesome piece of work. The held notes are great tension builders, and then that explosion at the end is great
It very well could be. I saw Vai and Co. on tour with DLR and Vai had a triple neck heart shaped guitar with a twelve string neck. I wish I could remember if he used it on this song or not. He also used and Eventide Harmonizer a lot which can sound like a 12 string, but I think you are right.
Stand Up This track starts off with a solid beat and some synth and then Vai hits a chordal riff that ends with a flurry of notes. We really get some nice little fills here. The chorus is a little on the average side of things, but the rest of the song is pretty cool. After the second chorus we get a nice little drum section and then we get either an Eventide assisted section of the lead break, or layered guitar, and then Steve uses a really nice key modulation lead break, but the key of the song doesn't modulate up. It's a really nice effect. The outro is the opening guitar riff with some really nice fills and we end with some Little Green Men voices. On the whole a very cool song, but for me, mainly because of some really nice guitar parts that spice it up
Hina We start with the strings being tapped again the pick ups gently and gradually work into harmonics and then we get a really nice delay assisted rhythm guitar that incorporates some nice harmonics. This is probably one of the more, sort of experimental tracks, for David Lee Roth at least. The delayed guitar really is effective, and it is nicely backed by the rhythm section. Roth shows a vocal subtlety that is not his natural ground. I reckon this is actually a really good song and it works well in context with the album. One of the strong things about this album are the variety of tunes and some of the cool little experiments the guys try out. The lead break here, is a stereo panning, delay bonanza, and again works really well. We also get a nice harmonics section to fade out.
'The Bottom Line' Your description is perfect. The 'wtf' bass moment after the solo is the quintessential Sheehan statement. It sounds like notes are bubbling-up from some sort of aquatic realm of the undead (or something). 'Skyscraper' Just beautiful. Totally studio-gestated track (what I mean is, some of those song fragments could only have been born in a studio) and I love it for that reason. Vai had his hands all over it, and it's testament to Roth's relationship with Steve that this song exists as it does (No evidence for that statemnent, but it has Vai's fingerprints all over the production). ''Damn Good' Reflective, which is rare for Diamond Dave-probably don't get this sort of vibe again 'til 'No Big Ting' from Filthy Little Mouth. The backwards solo is lovely-the mad technique isn't how quick Steve moves his fingers, but how he conceived the solo, with the harmonies and sitar. The strummed harmonics which pepper the track will appear again many times later in Steve's discography. 'Hot Dog and a Shake' I seem to remember an interview where Steve says he was cutting the solo, but thought he'd fluffed it and for a moment considered stopping, mid-take, but in that instant thought 'Heck, I'll just keep going, and see where it gets me' (I reckon at 1:49). It's those bits of humility and spontaneous creativity that help to paint a true portrait of him. An exceptional bit of work. (Though, I'm guessing the solo is a comp of many takes anyway. It sounds like it was 'constructed' rather that a one-off free improv-type thing... 'Stand Up' Relatively speaking, a weak track, albeit with a nice solo. I think it was a single. I remember bits of a video... I'll come back to 'Hina' tomorrow.
Perfect Timing I really like the basic chord opening and the little riffs again set it off nicely. This is actually a very good song. It isn't fancy or flash, just a solid rock/pop song that works well in context with the album. The layered vocals and the intermittent guitar licks all work beautifully in service of the song. The change is very cool, and moves into the lead break nicely. We have a a succinct lead break that is very typically Vai, and we move into the out-chorus Again nothing fancy about this, just a solid song.
Two Fools Born A Minute I love this song. To me this track is so much fun. I kind of takes big band Dave and Rock Dave and morphs them into somethin else. The opening riff is great, and it leads us in beautifully. Sheehan's bass is great here, including his fill before the short lead break/interlude. We move into the lead break proper and get a very overly precise couple of notes that move into a really nice run, then Billy throws in some more bass madness, the horns have a go, and we roll back around to the song and Sheehan throws in a last blash of two handed tapping and it sounds great. This works as an outro chorus, and for whatever reason I love the outro chorus "no we can't let Stevie drive" " that's right, don't be staring at your stereo fool" ... This is a great way to end the record, and the little keyboard fill works as a great way to close it out.
This album is, to me, a classic. It doesn't have the sales or critical cred of many of the big albums of the era, but it is just a solid album, that has good doses or great rock, great musicianship, great songs and great fun. There is nothing I dislike on this album, and there are several things on here that I reckon are just great. Sadly this line up didn't continue on. I have no idea about that, nad if you guys know what happened please let us know. Vai was replaced by Jason Becker, another mighty guitarist, and moved into a more straight rock style, to the best of my knowledge, and what was a tragic turn of events Jason developed a horrid disease and was unable to tour with the band. Jason is still alive and well against all the odds, and via some special computer programs has continued writing. Tragic story .... here is the "Not dead yet" doco, for anyone interested
I agree that this album is a classic. The Jason Becker documentary is great, sad in some parts, amazingly inspiring in other parts.
Slip of the Tongue Studio album by Whitesnake Released 7 November 1989 (US) 13 November 1989 (Rest of the World) 18 November 1989 (Japan) Recorded 1988–1989 Studio Record Plant, Los Angeles Genre Hard rock, heavy metal, glam metal Length 46:47 Label Geffen (North America) CBS/Sony (Japan) EMI (Rest of the world) Producer Mike Clink Keith Olsen Slip of the Tongue is the eighth studio album by the British hard rock band Whitesnake, released in 1989. The album peaked at number 10 on both the UK Album Chart and US Billboard 200.[1][2] Four singles were released from the album: "Fool for Your Loving", "The Deeper the Love", "Now You're Gone" and "Judgement Day". All the singles hit the US Mainstream Rock Tracks Top 40, two of which, "The Deeper the Love" and "Fool for Your Loving" cracked the Top 5.[3] Slip of the Tongue has sold over one million copies in the US, reaching platinum status.[4] "Fool for Your Loving" originally appeared on the album Ready an' Willing, but it was re-recorded for this album. The album was met with mixed reactions, with many saying the album's sound was too far from the original Whitesnake-sound. David Coverdale himself has also seen the album as one of the weakest in the band's catalogue, but has since found somewhat of an appreciation for it. He summed his feeling up by saying: "For a long time, I felt the album lacked a certain Whitesnake feel in the music, but, countless people thro' the years have assured me that they enjoyed and enjoy the album, nonetheless. So, now I happily accept it as a significant part of the Whitesnake catalogue and to be honest, I enjoy it more now than I did back then. It was an album plagued with challenges and obstacles for me, personally, from many avenues, but hey...nobody said being successful is supposed to be easy!" David Coverdale – vocals Steve Vai – guitar Adrian Vandenberg – guitar (credited but not recorded) Rudy Sarzo – bass Tommy Aldridge – drums Additional musicians Don Airey, David Rosenthal, Claude Gaudette – keyboards Glenn Hughes, Tommy Funderburk, Richard Page – backing vocals Production Produced and engineered by Mike Clink and Keith Olsen Assisted by Noel Golden, Gordon Fordyce, Shay Baby and Allen Abrahamson Mixed at Record Plant Studios by Mike Clink and Keith Olsen Mastered by Greg Fulginiti at Artisan Sound Recorders John Kalodner: A&R 1. "Slip of the Tongue" 5:20 2. "Cheap an' Nasty" 3:28 3. "Fool for Your Loving '89" (Coverdale, Bernie Marsden, Micky Moody) 4:10 4. "Now You're Gone" 4:11 5. "Kittens Got Claws" 5:00 6. "Wings of the Storm" 5:00 7. "The Deeper the Love" 4:22 8. "Judgment Day" 5:15 9. "Slow Poke Music" 3:59 10. "Sailing Ships" 6:02 Total length: 46:47 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This will be an interesting one to revisit. I bought this in time, but didn't like it. I was more into the earlier Whitesnake stuff. I liked 1987 well enough, and when this came out I bought it, because it was Whitesnake, and because Vai was on it, but it never really did anything for me as an album. There are some songs I like on it, but it must be 25+ years since I bothered to listen to it, and it hasn't been in my collection for at least ten years .... so this will be an interesting one to revisit. So in light of my inability to share more than that, please give us the low down on this album, and we'll hit the first couple of songs tomorrow. Cheers Mark
This one brings back memories - I can remember buying Kerrang magazine with Vai on the cover and the news that he had joined Whitesnake. I'd become a big Vai fan by this time and had trouble understanding how the combination would work in practice. If I remember correctly the talk was that Vai was paid $1m to do the album and tour. Overall, it's a patchy album for me. There are a few songs I really like and a few that I think are weak. It'll be interesting to see the comments on the songs as we go through them.
I thought it was $4 million! ( which seemed crazy, but...) I loved it at the time. Still do. I got the big box for Christmas, so now is a good time to really listen to all the demos etc.
Cool. If you know of anything Vai related on there being particularly good/interesting, and you are able, please post it in as we go along.
