UNKNOWN- One of the best guitar players I have ever seen...

Let me start off by saying that I am in no way affilliated with any of the websites or the guitar player mentioned herein. I am just in awe of him…

I visit the albinoblacksheep.com website frequently because it has all sorts of neat clips. I clicked on this one not knowing what to expect…

…if you are a guitar player, you will be awed. Even if you are not you will be amazed.

The little I know about him is his name is Justin King and he is unsigned. He has a website at justinking.com.

Again, I am not promoting or pluggin him for any reason other that I was blown away be the clip.

Awesome pyrotechnics. Does he ever just play, I wonder?

Nice! Tapping, slapping, and strumming. That was a pretty damn diverse technique!

That is cool as hell!

Thanks, newcrasher.

Ah, a bass player learns guitar.

The popping and slapping are quite impressive. I’m a bass player with decent p/s skill and I just tried it on an acoustic. No luck. :frowning:

I have figured out that he is playing a dropped D. I suspect the rest of his strings are tuned to an open chord by the way he gets a good sound when he spanks the strings…

…and this kid doesn’t have a record deal…I have yet to peruse his site very much, but I suspect I will shell out the $20 or so to get his CD.

Eh, it’s been done. Check out any of Preston Reed’s work; he was doing this sort of thing 20 years ago, but better, as he’s not just about the pyrotechnics, but writes actual (good!) compositions as well.

This is what you get when you have a bass player, who secretly wants to be a drummer, learn a chord on the guitar.

And you deduced the quality of his entire body of work and compositions by this short 2 minute clip…
:dubious:

Not having heard any of his other work, this short clip is all I have to go on. I’m not disputing the guy has chops, but it still is nothing particularly original.

I couldn’t get a good enough view of the headstock to tell… it would be ironic if that were a Leo Kottke Taylor.

I’m not going to bash him, although his style does seem to owe more to Stu Hamm or some other tapping-mad bassist (Victor Wooten) than any guitarist.

I really enjoyed Michael Hedges and Alex de Grassi back in the day. They both were capable of similar fireworks, but used them sparingly.

I agree with most of you - technically accomplished, but ultimately a very basic blues progression with pyrotechnic riffing on top of it. When you play on top of something so basic, you have to make the melody and emotion compelling in order to overcome the basic limitations of the materials. SRV is as revered as he is for his ability to inject the simple progressions of the blues with melodic and emotional freshness - and, for what it is worth, tended to play single-note melodic leads much more than pyrotechnic dweedly-dweedly stuff. This came across as nifty noodling.

A lot of amazing technicians need to slow it down and remember that, in prioritized order, three things matter:

  1. The song/melody
  2. The emotion invested into the song by the player and the listener
  3. The technical ability of the players

There is a reason why Sex Pistols rock - they have 1 and 2, and just enough of 3. There is a reason why Yngwie Malmsteen sucks - he completely lacks 1 and 2 and is over the top on 3, but by that point, nobody cares…Hendrix, in his day, is someone who had it all, which is why he is so legendary. Same thing with Clapton…

**Skillet38 ** - isn’t a Kottke Taylor a 12-string? This is a 6 string, near as I can hear. I assumed it was a Larrivee guitar simply because the video has someone name Larrivee associated with it…

Wordman they made (or make) both a 12 and a 6. A guitarist I played with a couple of years ago had 1 of each, though since he was primarily a 12 stringer, I got to borrow the 6.

Both were great, best playing flattops I’ve put my mitts on.

You’re right, Skillet - a quick check of the Taylor site says they intro’d the 6string version about 7 years after the 12’er.

And my main acoustic is a Taylor 812c and I love it…

He’s very good, but he sounds just like Keller Williams to me.

Stevie Ray rocked. This guy? Meh… I’m not convinced by this piece. I’d like to check out more before I judge him.

Less is more… Less is more…

When I’m in a guitar shop I love nothing more than simply playing the wicked riff from “All RIght Now” by Free in 1971. It’s a riff which taught AC/DC everything they know, and most importantly, it’s a riff which exemplifies everything that good quality rock music is supposed to be about. It’s not an overly fussy riff - not too many notes or hammers or fancy stuff at all. But holy shit you can invest some feel into it if you want.

The last time I was checking out a Marshall Amp in my local store, I was playing my '68 Cherry Red ES335 just to get a feel, or an idea, of what modern Marshall’s are up to these days.

One of the guys who worked in the shop was ogling my guitar and asked if he could have a play. Now he’d just spent 10 minutes listening to me play a whole bunch of really timeless classic riffs - and so what did he do? He gets my 335 and proceeds to go into shred mode. A million notes all over the shop. He had all the feel of finger nails dragging on a blackboard.

Eh… each to their own… but I just felt sorry for this guy. He had in his hands a genuine and way magnificent 1968 Cherry Red Gibson ES335 and instead of just playing some classic pieces from the era on it, he insisted on playing it like it was some PRS modern thing with a tremolo bar.

My point here is that the sales guy in question has still to progress beyond the wanky “how many notes a second” can you play mentality. He’s yet to learn about taste.

Dave Gilmour RARELY played fast runs, but holy fuck, he knew all about good taste.

What kind of self respecting ES335 doesn’t have a Bigsby?

Ilsa, what the hell was that - sarcasm?!?

You are kidding, right?

No self-respecting ES335 worth a damn has anything OTHER than a traditional Gibson stop bar.

Just check our Mr Clapton himself during the Cream days. Bigsby’s were fashionable, but amongst afficionados, they actually reduce value instead of enhancing it. Eric’s classic ES335 was identical in fitout to a Les Paul in every respect - save for the semi-hollow design of the body of course.