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Thread: Steve Vai Interview about Zappa's Mentoring

  1. #1
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Steve Vai Interview about Zappa's Mentoring

    I love Zappa and go through phases when Zappa's all I want to hear. Joe's Garage is my favorite Zappa album.

    This is a great interview with Steve Vai. and as always, he is a class act.

    https://www.guitarworld.com/news/fra...c-ham-sandwich
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

  2. #2
    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: Steve Vai Interview about Zappa's Mentoring

    Reading music related interviews and bios is alwaysan enriching experience. Vai is a gentleman!

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    Forum Member Gravity Jim's Avatar
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    Re: Steve Vai Interview about Zappa's Mentoring

    Very astute. "The tone is in your head." A former member of this forum called it "intention:" everything about your sound, from how you set the knobs on your amp and guitar to how to pick, is in service to the sound you hear in your head.

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    Forum Member dirtdog's Avatar
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    Re: Steve Vai Interview about Zappa's Mentoring

    Not a massive Zappa fan but I do have a soft spot for Man From Utopia. I even incorporated some SFX from that album into a radio stinger I produced back in the mid 80s (college radio station). That stinger played for years!

    anyways, Vai. I like the sentiment that the “tone is in your head” but the one time I saw Vai live, he had the worst tone of everyone on stage (Experience Hendrix Tour). I wonder what was going through his head THAT night. ;-).

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    Forum Member DanTheBluesMan's Avatar
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    Re: Steve Vai Interview about Zappa's Mentoring

    I have a lot of respect for Frank but I'm not a big listener. That said, I did buy "Shut up and Play Yer Guitar" 3 LP vinyl set. Probably the last new vinyl I ever bought now that I think about it. It would have been around '82 or '83 IIRC.
    "Live and learn and flip the burns"

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    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: Steve Vai Interview about Zappa's Mentoring

    Count me in. I never really could like Zappa much, though I respect him a lot

  7. #7
    Forum Member OldStrummer's Avatar
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    Re: Steve Vai Interview about Zappa's Mentoring

    In many ways, Zappa was prescient. Or at least ahead of his (and our) time. I have an original Mothers of Invention debut 2-album vinyl Freak Out. The inside of the cover is a cacophony of words and images, and the music itself -- well, I've always been a little shy of plumb, so I liked it immediately, but many people found it had to grow on them over repeated listenings. I remember looking at the album, wrapped in plastic, at the record store, so I couldn't open it. But on the back, the liner notes by "Suzy Creamcheese" were enough to sell me:

    "These Mothers is crazy. You can tell by their clothes. One guy wears beads and they all smell bad. We were gonna get them for a dance after the basketball game but my best pal warned me you can never tell how many will show up ... sometimes the guy in the fur coat doesn't show up and sometimes he does show up only he brings a big bunch of crazy people with him and they dance all over the place. None of the kids at my school like these Mothers ... specially since my teacher told us what the words to their songs meant."

    Many of the songs skewer the syrupy-pop style of the day while rendering them in perfect form. Others, like Who Are the Brain Police and Trouble Every Day are as timely now as they were in 1968.

    The word "unique" is often overused, but in Zappa's case, is well deserved!

    Striving to be ordinary

    Proud to be a TFF Dumbass!

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