Ratt / Leppard-ish original

[ArtyBoy]

Maybe this is getting overlooked because I put it in the thread I made for my own tunes, so...I'll just repost it here.

Please keep in mind I'm not reposting it in a new thread because I'm desperate for attention. No, no! It's because I know you'll ENJOY it so much! I'm thinking of YOU, man!

This is the song I sent to Jacob Deraps and Josh Gallagher thinking maybe they could do something with it. I never heard anything back, though. I've also got some lyrics and a melody for this, but you're spared my "singing" on this one.

If you have a good set of headphones nearby, I think it stands up well to close scrutiny. Kind of a blend of mid-80's Ratt and Def Leppard.

[RRvh1]

Geez, you are more desperate for attention than a scorned Sammy Hagar!

Cool tune and playing. I hope you get some more traction behind it in this thread. Do you have more stuff like this, ready to go? Interesting that you sent it to Deraps, and that he apparently at least heard it once... I wonder what he thought, seeing as he likes the 80's stuff as we do.

[BlofeldsCat]

Seems too 80s radio rock for the Emperor's New Clothes to bother with.

My thoughts? It's too disjointed - changes gears too many times and loses whatever vibe it's setting each time. Cool riff from 34-46s though and it's a shame that groove wasn't maintained throughout.

[ArtyBoy]

Do you have more stuff like this, ready to go?

I've got one more hard rock tune that sounds more Guns n' Roses-like that I actually started before this one. I'm just trying to make sure I'm satisfied with the mixing of it and also think of lyrics for it. Then I've got a Bruce Springsteen-ish one that's done that I'll post next week (I don't want to oversaturate my rabid fan base with too many awesome songs at once). Past those I've got some pop-country type things I'm trying to finish on the acoustic before I move forward. If I could even find a bar band to play one of these on a Tuesday night I would notch it as a victory.

[RRvh1]

Awesome... I'd like to hear more stuff, if you're so inclined. I think it's a neat thing to support buddies and their music, even if it's simply words of encouragement etc. Keep jamming and (hopefully) posting away...

[EJC]

I like it. It's a cool tune. I'm not very good with social media, but if you are - try to get in touch with directors that do B movies. I think the best bet for any original music for guys like us is to get something into a low budget movie. If you have an Amazon prime membership - there is like this entire genre of B movies out there that I really get into. I'm not into the Hollywood blockbuster bullshit anymore, That would make my life complete, lol.

~E

[japeape]

I like Arty's country sounding/Tele stuff & his takes on the elusive Zep/Page style, but
this riff sounds too generic.

There's an art (no pun intended) to that kinda 80's thing, where a Demartini or Crosby could
just hook you with balls & melody (Lay it down, In your direction, Morning After, Round & Round, etc.)
"You're in trouble," the chordal thing within the chorus, is just fantastic.
Melody for days, but with serious teeth.

Plus, you need the right tone.
You need more bite & attack, to convey that style.

Even the 70's stuff, things like "Get the lead out," have that push/pull melody happening,
followed by another riff that has so much balls.

You gotta be creative.

I love the guy who demos these amp modulator things, because he steals those cool 80's
chordal things & twists them into his own riffs.
Plus, that tone!

I like how he takes the VH "Secrets" chords & turns them into something else, at the ;34 mark.

[RRvh1]

I like it. It's a cool tune. I'm not very good with social media, but if you are - try to get in touch with directors that do B movies. I think the best bet for any original music for guys like us is to get something into a low budget movie. If you have an Amazon prime membership - there is like this entire genre of B movies out there that I really get into. I'm not into the Hollywood blockbuster bullshit anymore, That would make my life complete, lol.

~E

Very cool suggestions, and I like the way you think!
Hell, maybe Art can score the next 'Fast Times...' or ''The Wild Life' movies!

[ArtyBoy]

I like it. It's a cool tune. I'm not very good with social media, but if you are - try to get in touch with directors that do B movies. I think the best bet for any original music for guys like us is to get something into a low budget movie. If you have an Amazon prime membership - there is like this entire genre of B movies out there that I really get into. I'm not into the Hollywood blockbuster bullshit anymore, That would make my life complete, lol.

~E

Thanks! Greta Van Fleet got me started down this road. When I was 20 I was just like them, wanting to be Led Zeppelin, but I was just sure I could come up with a better song than them. Then I saw Jacob Deraps getting a lot of flak over his first original. So I thought, "Hmm...maybe that could be my middle-aged thing. I write the song, and the younger people who still have their looks go play them." Desmond Child did it!

I've been watching a lot of videos from people in Nashville. They say getting your tune in the hands of an actual signed recording artist is going to be pretty much impossible, you have to get to know a band on the way up and hope they remember you after they make it. So I browse Bandcamp and I hear a lot of bands that play well, have really nicely recorded stuff, and great logos and photography, but their music doesn't have strong choruses or hooks. So I think, "They need ME!"

I'm also learning that unless you have a great voice out front, most people don't get where you're going with an idea. They either hear a Mutt Lange CD quality production with great vocals or they don't get it. I tried singing my own stuff just to give people a rough idea, but as a friend kindly put it, "It's hard to judge if a song has potential when it sounds like Dirk Diggler singing." (I had to look up who Dirk Diggler was.) True, if you played "Kashmir" but put a flat tuba in Robert Plant's place the song suddenly isn't so epic.

But anyway...I'll be putting a Bruce Springsteen-type song on here next week. Thanks for listening and commenting, everybody!

[japeape]

Problem is it's not the glory days of cable TV & local programming.

If someone needs an 80's soundtrack, there are probably thousands of guys at the ready.
Youtube has created this surplus of amazing guitar players & musicians in any genre, all
looking for a break or opportunity.

What made us, as players, special back in our hey day, leaves us as ordinary in today's
world of players.

I even wonder if we were special.
Were there always millions of kids, like today, shredding like Yngwie, but invisible due
to lack of internet?

Or have musicians just evolved to the level we see today.

That teenaged girl bashing out HFT better than Alex....
That just made me think, HOW do you even get on the playing field in 2018?

The talent & ability of no-name musicians is frightening.

[RRvh1]

Right on, Art.
Looking forward to hearing the new stuff!

[Dave's Dreidel]

Seems too 80s radio rock for the Emperor's New Clothes to bother with.

Ha, took me a second.

[ArtyBoy]

Problem is it's not the glory days of cable TV & local programming.

If someone needs an 80's soundtrack, there are probably thousands of guys at the ready.
Youtube has created this surplus of amazing guitar players & musicians in any genre, all
looking for a break or opportunity.

What made us, as players, special back in our hey day, leaves us as ordinary in today's
world of players.

I even wonder if we were special.
Were there always millions of kids, like today, shredding like Yngwie, but invisible due
to lack of internet?

Or have musicians just evolved to the level we see today.

That teenaged girl bashing out HFT better than Alex....
That just made me think, HOW do you even get on the playing field in 2018?

The talent & ability of no-name musicians is frightening.

Pfft. You could put a thousand 15 year old girls playing "Scarified" in front of me and I'll be unfazed. This would be because of a perspective I only got later in life...

I've posted many times about the guy who played Joe Satriani in my high school talent show. The day after that talent show, a kid in my chemistry class detailed why he thought my band sucked. And there were a couple of other guitar players around who were blazingly fast, like they were born playing 64th notes.

But fast forward two years. As I've detailed elsewhere here, we made it into a music showcase that about a thousand or so bands applied to, and we were one of the 120 who got in. The entertainment columnist in our local paper said of the five bands in our county who were going to be in it, she would put her money on us being the ones to get anything out of it.

And as also detailed elsewhere, because we were in that showcase, Elektra Records in Los Angeles called and asked us for a tape. I got to meet the A&R guy and shake his hand. The owner of the club that hosted Satriani and Jane's Addiction when they were in town met with us because he wanted to manage us. And then our horribly amateur demo tape even made it into the cassette player of John Kalodner!

The point here being: I'm wonderful. No, the point being I never heard of any of those guys who could shred me under the table even playing outside our zip code. They had zero adventures, probably because they lacked focus and chutzpah. I at least got to brush my fingers across the world I read about in Circus when I was 13.

I've done the same in other areas: radio, getting my music writing published, the podcast, voiceovers. I make headway where I'm supposed to go nowhere.

So bring on the sweep picking 10 year olds.

[BlofeldsCat]

Problem is it's not the glory days of cable TV & local programming.
I even wonder if we were special.
Were there always millions of kids, like today, shredding like Yngwie, but invisible due
to lack of internet?

Or have musicians just evolved to the level we see today.

Yes, they were special. And for two reasons - reasons why I think your perspective is off and thus a reason to be happy.

1) You can only judge people by the era they're in. It doesn't matter that what Roger Bannister did is nothing special nowadays - he was the first man to run a mile under 4 minutes and everyone from coaches to doctors said it was humanly impossible. So for Ed to blaze like a madman when all around him were noodling slow-ish blues speaks volumes. If he can widdle so fast back then - no internet, no Troy Grady, no countless analyses of speed efficiency picking - then what could he do were he born in 1998?

2) As the old adage goes, creating is the hard part - copying and expanding is easy. Of all these people on You Tube, 99% of them are just copying the tracks. There's no individuality there's no creativity, it's just painting by numbers. Hell, forget technique for a minute, how many of these kids can write one decent song let alone an album's worth? All our heroes were creating memorable songs, riffs and solos by the dozen, and they were unique too, the majority on YT can't.

In fact, go back to when they sprouted up, they got famous when their peers didn't. Crue, Poison and Guns all made it through the melee despite having non-highly competent guitarists. And of those that were demons, had you heard anyone as distinct as Sykes? Wasn't he a breath of fresh air on 1987 even though technique was everywhere by then?

So in short, creating music and developing a personal style is a million mile away from You Tube-ing and is one of the reasons why I |put so much value in being able to improvise. So yeah, they were special. Remember, there tons of guys all playing Vai and Satch under the table even in the late 80s, releasing Shrapnel-type albums but they were dismissed (and you would have read as much in interviews with famous pros) because they were not original and their songs weren't memorable. You must have read 1000 times some pro saying 'and that's what makes Hendrix, Eddie and Joe stand out, not just because they could wail'.

All that's changed is that technical proficiency is more everyday and in that regard the guitar is in the same boat as the piano and violin have been for centuries. All it's done is catch up to the instruments and created a level-playing field whereby speed is no longer this thing to be jealous of and intimidated by and that should put an end to the 'fast is soulless, slow is feel' shite we'e had to endure for decades from the slow guns.

Now a third and ironic point is that despite the upsurge in skill and speed of skill acquisition, the majority on YT aren't very good. Not even technique-wise and so it's still the preserve of a minority. Remember FunTwo and the praise he got for his Canon Rock cover? He was sloppy and clearly not good enough. Even the original artist - JerryC - was a bit ropey. MattRach was another poor player ho gained a lot of attention 10 years ago - who would 'bluff' playing fast. By that I mean he would make it appear he could play faster and cleaner than he could to create an illusion. Basically, you can fire up any famous song on You Tube and struggle to find top-level performances and when you do, you think the herd out even more when looking first for quality expansion and development on top of the original, then individuality and then last of all, creativity.

And this is why the only note-for-note covers I do are of rare tracks - I was the first to be Back to the Future, for example - whilst I insist on doing my own thing over the popular-covered tracks.

So worry not about the talent & ability of no-name musicians. And don't forget, it only seems like a lot because there's so much more exposure these days. 50 flawless covers of Jason Becker seems like everyone can do it but it's still only 50. Out of how many billion?

[ArtyBoy]

Yes, they were special. And for two reasons - reasons why I think your perspective is off and thus a reason to be happy.

1) You can only judge people by the era they're in. It doesn't matter that what Roger Bannister did is nothing special nowadays - he was the first man to run a mile under 4 minutes and everyone from coaches to doctors said it was humanly impossible. So for Ed to blaze like a madman when all around him were noodling slow-ish blues speaks volumes. If he can widdle so fast back then - no internet, no Troy Grady, no countless analyses of speed efficiency picking - then what could he do were he born in 1998?

I thought you were imposing a three sentence limit?

Just what you're talking about went through my mind when I was watching George Lynch last night. He wasn't using a high gain tone and was just improvising with some locals, plus he's 60+ now, so it wasn't like an old Dokken show. And when I looked back over my shoulder I dare say some even had a bit of a spacy look in their eyes. And I thought, "When you look away, I hear a lot of people playing like this today. There are kids on YouTube who could blow past this."

BUT, I reminded myself, we were looking at the ORIGINAL! (Or close to it; Eddie's the original.) You hear everyone doing it today because George did it in 1982!

I once read a Chicago newspaper sports editor talking about getting a column from the paper's longtime, famous columnist and sending it back to him. The writer wanted to know why he'd told him to rewrite his column. "Because it's full of cliches."

"But they're my cliches," the writer said. This editor said that was an enlightening moment for him. Those phrases had become stock stuff for lazy writers everywhere, but this was the INVENTOR of those phrases, so he could use them!

I guess I'm saying George Lynch is now like a B.B. King. You can hear those licks in any blues bar today, but he's the guy who made them a standard.