This has probably been posted here before, but…Jesus Christ on a pogo stick this guy can play.
Bow down before your master: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw74sDWPH7U&feature=channel
I don’t know that he’s my master, but Steve Vai is a truly brilliant guitarist. In terms of technique and musical knowledge, he’s clearly done it the right, hard way - he wears his hours of practice and deep investment in various music styles on his sleeve. His is a great role model to other guitarists.
Having said that, I rarely listen to him. I have Alien Love Songs and a couple of other tracks, but I don’t find his music compelling. Clearly, YMMV and I would have no argument with anyone who stands up and defends him - he’s objectively great. Just not my guy.
I have to confess that I’m truly impressed by his expertise in Guitar Player Facial Expressions.
I got shit internet. Cant do the “you tube”. Unless your link goes to some Steve Howe clip, you ain’t got shit.
Yeah, and he’s got that hair-flipping thing down too!
I’ve always liked Vai, but Wordman struck a chord (hee hee) when he mentioned that he “doesn’t find his music compelling”…and I’d have to agree.
I used to listen to this whole genre a LOT in my younger years but have kinda drifted away from it…I have found that as I get older, I tend to prefer less overt guitar playing. I find myself wanting the guitar to stand out less and less, and for good songs to have a great balance of all the instumental and lyrical components.
Still, I was noodling around on YouTube yesterday, reminiscing and I found this Vai clip. I hadn’t heard it before. Yup, he’s fucking scary good. But it’s still more a technical showcase than it is an emotional one (for me).
Here’s a clip of our Sage Rat lookalike guitar god playing live. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CfEaSmdtGU&feature=channel
Not a horrid arrangement, and there’s certainly an awe inspiring climax in there somewhere…but god the man could not possibly have a more revolting tone. Also, everyone should check out StSanders, another guitar god of our time.
Steve Vai is an amazing guitarist. Great writer. One hell of a musician. And he bores the crap out of me. I am not sure why.
I generally dig instrumental guitarists. Heck, my favorite player is Steve Morse. I listen to Vinnie Moore all the time. Same with Eric Johnson, John Petrucci, and a bunch of other insane guys. I never have figured out why Vai bores me so. Satch is another guy who, while a hell of a guitarist, doesn’t do all that much for me.
Slee
Same here. I can appreciate the skill, but the whole raft of technical instrumentalist guitar players bores me. Give me a grungy Neil Young track or dirty ole basic riff from ZZ Top any day of the week.
I think these uber-guitarists aim too low - a listen to the, ahem, real guitar gods confirms the truth: the song is infinitely more important than the guitar wankery. Ultimately, they don’t deliver the song.
Yeah, but it is possible, IMHO, to be technically amazing and write good songs. Eric Johnson*, Steve Morse, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Vinnie Moore** and a bunch of others seem to pull it off.
On the other hand there are players who made it to the ‘god’ stage who, IMHO, could use a bit more technical skill.
Slee
*Love his playing, hate his singing
** Vinnie chilled on the neo-classical bit a while ago and I dig his newer stuff.
Yngwie seems to be at the top of this heap, in that everyone seems to agree he’s amazing technically, and I’ve never heard a song from him. Well, maybe I looked him up on youtube once or something. But I’ve listened to rock radio for decades, and he’s just nowhere.
A lot of these guys (Vai, Malmsteen, etc.) do really well at playing fast and not missing a note but it’s like seeing somebody type at an insane rate, it’s neat that they can do it but it’s only really interesting as a novelty. They just aren’t communicating anything to me and sometimes I feel like they’re missing the point.
Great technical skill or not, the measure of a guitar god to me isn’t how fast you can play but what you can say to me, what you can make me feel. With Vai and the like I just think “Holy shit he plays fast,” and then 30 seconds later I’ve forgotten the song entirely.
I respect Steve Vai, and I think he’s more than just a shredder (he has some genuine compositional chops), but I agree that I don’t find him compelling. I’m not sure why. I think it’s partially his timing. He isn’t really a “groove” player, he uses time signatures that are more fluid and floating. He’s not driving. He doesn’t give you the hard down beats that bore into your skull. His beats are like plasma. Kind of all the same stuff. It provides a spacy, unanchored, sort of “flying” feel, but it never hammers itself into your biorhythms. It’s funny how that works. Vai is much more technically proficient than Ted Nugent, for instance, but the simple riff to “Stranglehold” is exponentially more compelling and memorable than anything on “Passion and Warfare.”
Vai is not all that accessible melodically either. Plus he overuses his effects. I would like to hear what he could do on a plain old accoustic.
And that’s why all my personal “guitar gods” play acoustic. 
I want to personally congratulate and bow down to Diogenes the Cynic, for using “plasma,” “exponentially,” and “biorhythms” all in a single paragraph about a guitar player’s technique.
Now that’s impressive.
Yeah, for me, I think it’s something to do with Vai’s phrasing, along with the backing arrangement and production of his tracks, which sound way too New-Age-y and not enough rock and dirt for my tastes. Of that type of guitarist, Vai is perhaps the best popular example (and Joe Satriani has his moments, too), but I still can’t listen to either of them much.
Yeah, I agree with everyone here about Yngwie, Vai, and Satch. They can all play with a lot of skill, but they don’t play with any heart, soul, or expression. They should probably forget some of that music theory with all the modes and whatnot and just play something with feeling.
I find him to be technically brilliant, but incredibly overrated. Like Satriani (and endless others), he knows all of the notes and can get to them and through them in record time, it’s just too bad he never really learned how to play the music. I can listen to him play anything and know it’s him long before the first solo, and I’ll reach over and hit stop. I get fatigued before the end of a single song.
He has zero ability to blend, to play anything at all, it seems, without throwing in any one of his endless trademark licks or phrases that simultaneously piss all over the song like a drunken yard dog and ruin the musical mood—for me at least.
I would never accuse him of being talentless, but for me, it’s like listening to a McLaren with the transmission pulled out. It sounds great, it just doesn’t go anywhere.
Guitar, as a religion, is polytheistic. Here are a few that are far more worthy of your worship:
Paul Gilbert giving a simple yet astonishing lesson on rhythm—Frankly, I wish the guy would adopt me. His contributions to the world of guitar are far more important than Vai’s. He can shred as well as Vai, but understands what is more important than all of that.
Nuno Bettencourt’s Midnight Express Let’s see Vai do something like this. A fat stringed, no effects acoustic piece. No hiding behind all the processing.
Stevie Ray Vaughan. Of course it wouldn’t be a post by me without throwing this guy in. This is Texas Flood, live at El Mocambo.
I’ve left off numerous great YouTube videos of Chet Atkins, Roy Clark, Jerry Reed, Henry Garza, Eddie Van Halen and a thousand more that I am dishonoring by temporarily forgetting to link to.
Did somebody mention Steve Vai? Glad to hear it. Vai is not just a technically masterful player, but he’s a guy with a lot of insight into musicianship and music in general. He’s a great interview.
Here’s my favorite Steve Vai quote (shameless plug to follow):
“When someone uses the phrase ‘the best guitar player in the world,’ I usually go into an exhaustive discourse on how music is art and you can’t judge art and there are many differnent ways that people play the guitar and it’s impossible to be considered the best because then you would have to master all styles and that it’s all right to have favorites, etc., etc., etc., blah-blah-blah. Bit I feel okay in saying that **Danny Gatton **comes closer than anyone else to being the best guitar player that ever lived.”
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riW6BxNeehU&feature=related](Danny Gatton)