Legendary: Appetite for Destruction Les Paul and day 53

Legendary: Slash's '59 Derrig Les Paul, AKA The Appetite for Destruction Guitar

Few people brought Les Paul back in "style" more than Slash of Guns N Roses.  Arguably no one has needed to bring it back since, as it has stayed one of the top guitars since.  The Les Paul has gone in and out of style as time passed.  It has looked too old before, and then became something that only pretentious rock millionaires used.  The story of Slash's Les Paul begins during the era after the 70's, when punk music had branded the Les Paul as gaudy symbols of wealth, and the flashy hair metal bands saw it as too old fashioned and apparently devoid of spikes and neon.  This can be seen in the picture below.  If you wanted to look the part, the B. C. Rich guitars of the time were the ultimate in boutique style.  Today they are overseas made budget instruments, in the early 80's they were the height of showing off.  Slash had other ideas though.

Slash's B C Rich guitars he eventually gave up

One of the big "we made it" memories with Guns N Roses was the day Slash brought home a Les Paul for the first time.  It sounded amazing.  The band played more jam sessions just to hear how well the guitar sounded.  However, by the time Appetite for Destruction was to be recorded, he sold it to pay his drug habit.  Slash claims that most of Appetite was recorded on B. C. Rich guitars, but when it came time to lay down the lead parts, they sounded horrible.  Their manager went out and found a Les Paul of the late 50's style, and brought it to Slash.  It had an amazing sound to it.  It turns out that this guitar was made by Kris Derrig, it is not even an original Gibson.  Slash has used this guitar on every album he's ever done.  He will do rhythm parts and small parts with others, but the Derrig Les Paul is his main guitar used for recording.

It shocks a lot of people to find out that he is not playing a real Gibson.  The deal was that he could keep Gibson on the headstock, and Gibson wouldn't bitch, but he was always call it a Les Paul.  Later Gibson would make copies and issue special "Slash" Les Pauls, but the "original" as Slash calls it, is only a replica made in the 80's.

The journey of this guitar is Legendary, but it has mainly stayed in the hands of Slash for decades.  What of that first Les Paul Slash had?  Its called The Hunterburst, and while not as famous, it has a very complicated story.  A story for another post at another time(maybe tomorrow?).

Day 53

Doing a big Guitarcade day since i'm playing sorta late at night.

Earlier in the day I did play outside of Rocksmith.  I was watching these interviews with guitar players where the interviewer asked about their techniques and stuff.  I have to say that every time I see Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top in an interview, and he's playing guitar, I learn something I use.  Just like Angus Young, Billy has this reputation for doing the same kind of "easy" blues rock over and over.  Billy was one of Hendrix's favorite guitar players.  Jimmy once said that Billy would be the next amazing guitarist everyone talks about.  I don't think many people realize the techniques he sneaks and works in.  Billy does tapping, he did tapping before it became a "thing".  Lots of people will crap on tapping as a cheap trick to sound shreddy and fancy, but if Billy Gibbons says it belongs in rock and roll, then it belongs in rock and roll.  Makes me want to study Dusty Hill a bit more and see what I can learn about bass from him.  All in due time I guess.

I really really like Scale Racer at the moment.  I think I always wanted to beat Rad Racer, but only ever got to the later tracks a few times... I probably haven't touched the game in a serious way in 20 years now that I think about it.  I really wish I'd push myself in Castle Chordead a bit more.  I keep wanting to stop before I get "too far ahead" of myself and haven't committed the chords to memory.  Maybe tomorrow I'll just go as far as I can get.

Spotlight Guitarcade: Scale Racer and Day 31

Scale Racer

Scale Racer is a game where by you steer a car through lanes of a highway by playing scales.  The highway has cars you must avoid, and also you are being chased by the police.  If you wait to change lanes till the last moment, you can make the police cars crash into civilians.  This scores you extra points on top of whatever it takes to finish the course.

I would say that this game most resembles and sounds like an old racing game that all my cousins and I played tons of: Rad Racer.  There are elements of the newer Need for Speed: Hot Persuit, and also a bit of Sega's Outrun.  The colors used on screen and the car chosen to represent you makes me feel that they mainly used Rad Racer.  The music also more reminds me of the Nintendo's sound effects than any arcade game.

Scale Racer is probably my pick for the best average between learning and fun.  Scale Warriors wants to get your used to switching between scale parts, but you're memorizing enemy patterns more than scales, while Scale Racer more easily teaches you the scale shape.  This is, of course, just my opinion.  I have barely touched Scale Warriors, but I have played the hell out of some Scale Racer.

Additions, criticisms? Aside from being able to edit your own parameters, which is lacking in most Guitarcade games, I think the main changes to be made would be cosmetic.  I think it would be really cool that if your choice of headstock, inlay, and amp skins would affect how your car looks and sounds.  Just a cool thought.

Day 31

I'm over the 1/2 way point?  I'm having such a fun time doing this blog that I'm not sure I'll stop updating at 60.  I'm getting encouraging feedback from friends, and thinking of stuff to post above the memoirs gives me a sort of satisfaction that I've missed since highschool(I'm a nerd).  I have some ideas on what I'm going to do.  We'll see how it goes.

Instead of messing around with the in game Tone Shaper section, I ended up playing with my actual amp for much of the day.  I found that it actually has a pretty good hi-gain setting that allowed me to nail "The Beautiful People".  Yesterday was the loudest I have had the amp up while doing palm mutes, and I have to say that I see why high gain amps are popular for metal.  It is not just the howl that they give, it makes palm muted notes sound amazing.

There are a few tones I'm having a problem getting set up though.  The lighter overdrive settings pretty much do not exist in this amp.  I am getting addicted to the tiny bit of dirt when doing blues inside Rocksmith, which is funny because I have always disliked the "Tube Screamer" pedal clones, and now I think I want one.  Tube Screamers are named more aggressively than they really are, its actually a low gain, low dirty overdrive sound.

The amp I do have is really good at getting the ACDC tone, which is my favorite guitar tone of them all, so its not like I have fallen out of love with my amp.  I've had this thing for over a decade now, and its worked flawlessly.  At the time I got it, there just was not the low watt tube amp options that there are now.  I do have a mid-2000's amp modeling digitech amp station, which is kind of like a less advanced "Tone Shaper" from inside Rocksmith.  I will have to look at getting that Tube Screamer tone with it.  Nu-metal and Triple Rectifiers were all the rage then, so it abounds with high gain amp sounds, I don't know how much low gain stuff it can do.

Play what you like, even if you don't like it. And Day 19

Forgive me if I've ever given you this "speech" already.

I did not consider myself a "bassist" until I had this strange set of revelations.  One of these revelations was that I should embrace what I find fun to play.

I know that seems weird, but I have to explain a little.  I'm probably notorious around my friends were hating radio.  I really can't wait for 2 or 3 songs that I don't care for to get done for 1 tolerable song.  This means that it is hard for me to focus on learning any songs I find blah.  This also means I don't like playing "blah" bass lines that exist in a lot of classic Rock or the genres I listen the most to.  Its my flaw, I know I suck more because of it, but I try to live with it.

About 6 years ago I was turned on to "jazz improv" bass by the Talkbass forums.  I have to tell you, I can't sit and listen to this stuff really... but holy crap do I love to play it.  How can I explain that without sounding like a jerk?  Maybe its like the people that will play sports, but hate watching it on TV?  Maybe it reminds them that they should be doing it rather than watching it?  I do make myself sit and listen though, for learning reasons.  It has probably made me what people would call a "busy" bass player.

I read that John Paul Jones used to listen to horn players and that's how he got inspired for his bass lines in Led Zeppelin.  So I immediately got on Youtube and looked up the horn player I knew the name of, Louis Armstrong.   I also branched out.  The silly thing was, I forgot to go back and listen to more Led Zeppelin.  This came later with another "revelation" I will write about later.  By listening to that, I began appreciating the older "golden era" of horn player's music.  I also became a much better bass player, and learned a very clean, "poppy" sound as I tried to come closer to the sounds I heard on the jazz.

Anyways, all of that is to say, play what you find fun.  Sure, you've probably heard it, and you've probably thought "well yea, play what you like not what other people like" and I say YES BUT, maybe you find something fun that you don't like.  Play to your strengths.  You may love Punk rock, but you find you hate the bass lines.  You may despise Surfer music, but find tremolo picking to be tons of fun.  Play what is strong for you and it will make you practice more, and eventually you can work your style into the genres you like.

John Paul Jones works his motown inspired stuff into the heaviest rock that Led Zeppelin does.  Flea brought funk bass into punk rock.  Brent Hinds of metal band Mastodon is a bluegrass banjo player.  I have, on several occasions, brought my improv jazz into blues.  I am currently bringing the only thing I really know decently on guitar, simple blues riffs, into chugging palm muted metal.  Play what you find fun, play what is strong for you in technique, and then YOU can make it the genre you wish you were playing.  You may find your own voice and bring something new to the world.

Day 19

I'm not going to lie, I did not get a lot of playing in today.  I had jury duty and after I got home, I took a nap.  I used the guitar unplugged for about 30 minutes, noodling as I waited for lunch to get cooked.  Practiced the stuff I've been practicing lately.  I did play 1 game each of my "warm up" Guitarcade games.  I also played some of the Scale Racer.  I love the look of Scale Racer.  It reminds me of Rad Racer, a game I played a  lot in my youth.  Scale Racer is the kind of game that is going to help me learn scales.  I wanted Scale Warriors to help so badly, but I'm more focused on getting the "game" correct than learning anything.

I did get some practice in though, so I count that as a triumph.  You can take it as you will.