Guitar festival review - good read
Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 3:43 pm

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Trevor Reekie reports on: G-Taranaki, the NZ International Guitar Festival. New Plymouth 15 - 19 July 2008

14 August 2008

Author: Trevor Reekie

Man, it sure can rain in Taranaki. But it still wasn't enough to dampen a major guitar festival of workshops, concerts and midnight jams that included a Who's Who of local and international guitarists.

The man responsible for the New Plymouth Events development at G-Tar Fest is a man who really knows his hard rock and metal. Originally hailing from England, Garry Sharpe-Young has been involved with just about every aspect of the industry, not to mention writing 14 books on the subject. When I asked what the logistics of routing a huge number of musicians from all around the globe to come to our dark and rainy little island, he responded 'blood sweat, tears and more tears'. Glen Hughes for example had to come over from Norway where he'd just finished a tour.

Living Colour's Vernon Reid is a musician whose background is steeped in not only rock, funk and blues, but in his early years he earned a reputation in the New York Jazz scene playing with avante garde jazz legend Ronald Shannon Jackson. I met up with Vernon at a local rehearsal space at 11 in the morning. This man certainly doesn't keep rock star hours given that he'd played at a midnight jam the night before.

The interview was really relaxed. A very nice guy and not stuck up at all. And anyone who loves black hardcore metallers Bad Brains and jazz metaller James Blood Ulmer is more than alright by me. In fact when I asked him if, like Bad Brains, Living Colour were marginalised as a black hard rock band in a white man's industry, Vernon said "there would be no Living Color if there hadn't been Bad Brains".

He credited Mick Jagger with producing the early Living Colour demos which side-tracked a lot of that potential roadblock. As Vernon says "Carlos Santana once told me that nobody does it by themselves". Jagger also had Living Colour open for the Rolling Stones' 1989 Steel Wheels tour. Even when you're real good it's who ya know kids!

Vernon is a way cool guy, obviously bright and very articulate. Maybe his point of difference is that he was born in the UK but raised in New York. I asked him the old joke. 'Do you know the difference between a jazz guitarist and a rock guitarist?' When I told him the answer (which is 'If you are a rock guitarist you get to play 3 chords in front of thousands of people') he laughed and came back with "Unless you're Pat Methaney".

Te Puke Ariki, just opposite Len Lye's cosmic 45m-high kinetic sculpture Wind Wand was also the chosen venue to see midnight jams and press and public receptions for the likes of Glen Hughes from Deep Purple and before that (the should have been famous but never were) UK band Trapeze. If you are really old then here's a wee anecdote for you. Glen started off playing in a 60's band called Finders Keepers who had a novelty song called Sadie The Cleaning Lady. It did nothing over in the UK but it proved a hit in the Southern Hemisphere when it charted big time for Aussie 60's heart-throb Normie Rowe.

I digress. Glen told a great story how when he was playing bass and singing in the prog rockish Trapeze in the early 70's. One night he saw Jon Lord from Deep Purple at the gig. Then the next night he saw Ritchie Blackmore there and some of the Deep Purple crew and Glen is thinking 'what are these guys from Purple checking us out for?'

A few days later he gets a call from Purple's management asking him if he will fly out to LA and meet the band etc … he says of course, cos by now he knows Purple just fired the original singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover. So he gets there and they ask him if he wants to join as bass player! Glen Hughes was really pissed off cos he thought he was going to be asked to be Deep Purple's new front man. That job went to David Coverdale instead.

You gotta figure that whoever thought of hiring Hughes is a genius because Hughes is a fantastic singer and it would mean that Coverdale was really gonna have to step up to the plate knowing Hughes was lurking in the background. At the meet and greet Glen sang one song accompanied by acoustic guitar and electric piano - he has an incredible vocal range and seemed very humble. He's a man who has had his fair share of ups and self induced downs and it would seem he has found salvation in one form or another. The people attending were predominantly baby boomers with their teenage kids and were very obviously fans who knew a lot about him . The questions were knowledgeable - it was enjoyable and the reception he got was incredibly warm.

Tim Donahue lives in Japan and is not only an incredibly gifted guitar player but he's also a kind of visionary luthier. He makes his own guitars which are fretless acoustic guitars with a harp built in as well. Incredible looking instrument. He designs a lot of his own electronics with his father's mentorship. One very interesting thing about Tim Donahue is that he sees notes in colours - he sees his whole fretboard in colours so he plays by mixing and matching those colours.

So I asked, 'If I say blue, what note is that?' He replied, 'Well it depends what kind of blue. A light blue is A major and a dark blue is a D major.' Of course all the time we've been in New Plymouth it's been grey and wet, so I pointed outside and asked, 'What's that note?' - he says 'Eb Minor'. That may be a cool if you're a trumpet player but as a guitarist you couldn't really play in a worse key in my book. That's why God invented capos.

Before one gets the impression that Tim's guitar / harp instrument is used for making the sort of music that people make videos of waterfalls with Bambi roaming around, I should point out that hiss solo album 'Voices In The Wind' was made with vocalist Paul Rodgers. (Remember Alright Now?) And it was produced by the legendary Eddie Kramer who recorded Jimi Hendrix's seminal 'Electric Ladyland'. Tim may be someone you would describe as a musical academic, with honors, but he can rock!

On the Friday night I got a ride out to the TSB Stadium which is fortunate cos it was really pissing down with rain. The TSB concerts started really early and it was mostly a real mixture of young people who were there to see Gilby Clarke and a lot of their parents (I guess) except they're the kind of parents who are wearing Led Zep tee shirts.

I got there in time to see the Alex Skolnick Trio. Now this is one guy who has musically gone from one extreme to the other. He started off playing in LA with hardcore speed metal (before there was speed metal) bands like Testament, and later Savatage, and he's played with Ozzy Osborne as well. Now he's playing jazz - as a trio - great drummer, upright bass player and Alex has swapped his Flying V for a Gibson semi-acoustic 335. It was really different and towards the end he was cooking up a storm.

I missed most of Alex's set cos I finally got back stage to speak with Gilby Clarke. Gilby of course got his big break when he replaced Izzy Stradlin, the founding guitarist in Guns 'n Roses, although it's well documented that Axel actually told Gilby that he was really Axel's second choice - he would have preferred Dave Navarro but Dave turned them down. Welcome to the big room!

Gilby, of course later went on to be one of the main men in the monstrously overblown RockStar Supernova. I asked him if he could relate to what it was like for Lukas Rossi to be the new boy amongst some seriously famous people cos Gilby has been there himself. He answered that he was possibly a little more humble joining Guns 'n Roses than Lukas Rossi was joining RockStar Supernova! You gotta have tons of attitude in this game.

Gilby isn't exactly in short supply of it either … he is pure black eye liner LA rock 'n' roll. And a really nice guy. And, as he says he has seen it all. He's been in pay to play hard ass rock bands trying get a break, scuffling around bars and dives around Sunset Strip. Through meeting Slash he got to be in the biggest band in the world back then.

Most people ask him how his life changed when he joined G'nR - I asked him how his life changed since he left the Gunners? He's done heaps of stuff, like being a gun for hire (excuse that pun) … in fact he confessed that he hasn't really found his place in today's industry but he's still ultra-productive. I asked him how he defined success and he said, "As long as I'm earning a living playing my guitar then I'm successful, y'know? We can't measure it with dollars and stuff cos someone always makes more money … it's hills and valleys and your character is built when you are at the bottom of the hill." That is a pretty real way of looking at things. …
When I asked him if he'd seen anyone that may be the new Keef or Johnny Thunders he told me he rates the Jack from The White Stripes. I asked him if he'd read the new Slash biography? He said that given that the book was written in hindsight, like 10 years after the experience, it's real good, but he wonders how different it might have been if Slash had written the book whilst he was living it. I'm not quite sure what he was implying there, but given that Gilby is in at least half the book I guess he considers he came out okay.

I'm embarrassed to say that I asked him a real dumb closing question but I was a bit rattled cos the guy's about to go on and play his set (and already I can't believe he's being so patient with me.) I asked him the old 'If there is one thing in life that you can be sure of what would it be?' He came right back with 'The one thing you can depend on is death and taxes', that's actually a quote from Benjamin Franklin - pretty smart dudes some of them rock stars! When I thanked him very much for his time he said, 'You got it man. We're gonna go do our gig now!

Uli John Roth was the guitarist who replaced Michael Schenkar in the Scorpions back in the early 70's when he was still a teenager. (He also was the partner of Monica Danneman who was the German chick who was with Hendrix the night he chocked to death in 1970. She's dead now too.)

Uli Jon Roth is credited as being one of the first guitarists to employ the technique of shredding, as well as introduce a classical element into rock. Uli's life has been both a musical and spiritual journey, which given the nature of much of the early Scorpions music, may seem to be a contradiction.

Uli is a genuinely refined man who has a concern for few material things. His music is connected to his spirit - an amazing musician who has never been career driven, just music driven. It was during that early period of working with the Scorpions that he realised that so many things with the electric guitar hadn't been said.

"A vision was forming in my mind what could be done with the instrument which was very much In its infancy then -. even with Jimi Hendrix of course, Eric Clapton. These guys had already taken it to incredible heights in one way, but I could see other routes were still totally unexplored."

This guy was visionary enough in his teens to appreciate how he could merge classical and metal - he customised his fret board so he could get higher and lower. "I always had the desire to play a little higher than the guitar would allow me, cos of my love of my violin background - I loved violin concertos."

Uli would not have been the same had he not come from that background. Uli risked everything in a dream that nobody saw except himself and he has been fortunate enough to pursue it all his life. It's easy to see how, in his highly recognised guitar clinics, how much young guitar players could be inspired by this man.

When I asked the source of his inspiration, he replied, "God is the source for my inspiration. I totally believe in the Creator and that's the inspiration that I feel. I have that since 5 years old and I rely on that. It's like an inner voice, an inner knowledge. It's not a belief it's knowledge. This is my source of strength and the haven I turn to in my hour of darkness and it never lets me down." Uli is fascinating.

I only had 10 minutes with Joe Satriani. He'd just arrived in New Plymouth after driving down from Auckland on the day of his gig.
Satriani is an incredibly charismatic man, intelligent and articulate and he may very well be one of the better guitarists walking the planet! I started by asking him the defining moment when he knew he was a guitar player - once again Hendrix was the motivation.

We discussed the 'x' factor that defines the extraordinary musician eg Steve Vai. Satriani tutored him when they were just kids. Satriani, like Vernon Reid, says you gotta follow your heart and develop your own sound. We talked about 'Surfing with The Alien'. It cost 30 grand and a lot of down time doing sessions for the likes of Blue Oyster Cult for which he got paid in studio time. Improvisation was the goal from the start.
He emphasised that you have to learn to be free of everything to really improvise - empty your mind.

Joe described how when he filled in for Deep Purple within days of Ritchie Blackmore leaving, how he approached the gig. Some of Richie's solos he replicated cos Satriani thought they were definitive, but then he revamped a lot of it. We also talked about the new business model in this disintegrating age and how he has always has his own business model. Joe has always kind of been just outside of the industry.
He described how when suddenly 'Alien' took off how he had to learn how to be a front man playing instrumental music. Mind you, at the time he was on a world tour playing in Mick Jagger's solo band. Satriani said he believes that he was lucky in so much that he was in the last wave of musicians who sold records and he was able to get a few out there before things got bad. And he definitely says things are bad. But he tours constantly and packs out. Joe is a hugely likeable guy.

The TSB Stadium was packed for the Saturday night. A real rock crowd but the age mix seemed to defuse the testosterone levels that hard rock can sometimes attract.
Satriani is the SHOW.His guitar playing, Martian image and exemplary execution made the earth move - almost literally! That night in New Plymouth there were sheets of lightning shredding the sky with a ferocity that blew out the street lights in a couple of places - and Joe Satriani provided the soundtrack.

RE: Guitar festival review - good read
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 10:45 am

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