Steve Vai - Alien Love Secrets

 Steve Vai is one of that motley band of guitarists who emerged in the eighties and rewrote guitar playing rules with speed, insane licks and gimmickry. However unlike the rest of them, Mr. Vai is not boring. Steve graduated from the school of Zappa after about two or so years in his band before working with Alcatrazz, David Lee Roth and Whitesnake, and then busting out on his own properly with the groundbreaking Passion And Warfare. Vai showed us that you can have insane chops with delicate ideas and passionate emotive playing. Whilst my own guitar style could be no further from Vai's, I always look back to his work for inspiration and ideas, and when I want to learn some new techniques. Even my guitar (Ibanez Jem) and distortion pedal (Jemini) are his signiture series. Needless to say, his music has had a profound impact on my life, and is a man I respect greatly.

So, this album, Alien Love Secrets, was also released on VHS at the same time, contains some great tracks, let's run it down. Vai's wailing guitar and horse sound effects take us into the first track, Bad Horsie. A chugging train like riff with some deep distortion and a slick guitar melody showing insanely precise harmonics. It's a proper heavy steamengine track, plowing down all in it's path. Vai's use of the wah pedal here is to give total control of the tone and uses it to sculpt out his sound perfectly, as opposed to Hendrix's more experimental and freeform use of the pedal, indeed Vai's signiture wah pedal is known as the 'Bad Horsie' due to this song. Before the main solo we get some nice overdubbing, but the solo is standard Vai fare, not any of his emotive playing, but then this track is a hard rocker, so does it need it? Also nice flanger comming in. Juice is the title of the next track, a short little stunt guitar piece, fast and audatious, keeping some high octane action going, it's an all american rocker. Again this is more of a showoff piece, getting some feelgood energy going, some usual shred soloing and some unusual rhthym playing here. Die To Live is a softer more emotive track, with a distinctly nostalgic feeling to it. It sounds like a celebration and rememberance of life. It's still got a technical element to it, but this doesn't get in it's way, it's also quite fun to play, though bit of a guitar tongue-twister. The solo is delightfully beautiful, the rhythm is forward moving and all fun.

The next track is The Boy From Seattle, a softer more strummy upbeat guitar with a sense of the previous two tracks mixed into one feeling. It's upbeat and kinda fun with some decent melodic elements. A talkwah occasionally makes an appearance, with a line of daddadadaaddada, before the track starts to get quiet, and the guitaring goes into Hendrix mode, which is alright as this song is a tribute to Hendrix. We also get some nifty Vai trickery with delays and such creating a layered sound. Ya-Yo Gakk is a really fun tune, heavy metal guitar mixed with babytalk. His son would say something, and then Vai replicates it on guitar. We get some usual heavy metal soloing and riffing, but let's face it, this track is Vai just having fun, so he's allowed to. After this little diversion, we get to the real meat of the album, Kill The Guy With the Ball-The God Eaters. Some rolling drums and talkbox trickery takes us propelling forward into a really heavy riffage-filled track. It's speedy and thrashy and contains some great funk guitar (though played in metal style). It's full of menacing energy, and the drumming is almost computerised in it's precision. We get the usual Vai licks and some heavy sections we can only assume are left over from his previous album (the metal-tastic Sex And Religion) The track goes into screeching alien orgasm mode and then we enter the angelic second section, The God Eaters, a beautiful gentle guitar melody accentuated with some heavenly synth chords. It builds up and has some great releaving spirity feelings in it, kinda gentling the listener down and raising us up at the same time in preperation for the next track, the highlight of the album (and one of the highlights of his career), Tender Surrender. A sharp chord introduces us to a quiet kinda lounge jazz fusion, we have a soft silky melody and a rhythm based on a Hendrix song. The percussion just helps us plod forward, we get to the soloing section, first off a more bluesey solo, gentle and sweet, and goes for a section before hitting the proper solo, Vai's most impossible and orgiastic solo, which exudes such pleasure and passion. It's technically complex as well as emotionally complex, the speedy notes here given a smooth liquid texture as they just roll into your ears, it gets more passionate and more, until we get to the repeated shred section, the pleasure zone. The passion dies down, and we return to the tender embrace of the main melody, and the song ends  playfully and wah-filled. We have surrendered.

This is by no means Vai's best album, however it includes Die To Live, and Tender Surrender, so it's definately worth picking up.  As a major fan of his, the more purist approach to this album makes a neat break from his usual experimentation and on Tender Surrender, really lets the passion of his playing shine through. It's a good CD.

John McLaughlin & Carlos Santana - Love Devotion Surrender

Love Devotion Surrender, one of the more controversial fusion albums released, features the guitar prowess of both Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin at the top of their spiritual form. 'Why is it controversial?' I hear you ask, well it is inspired by the teachings of Guru Sri Chinmoy (one of those gurus who became very influencial during the post-psychedelic age, where musicians wanted to continue their spiritual journeys which they had begun during acid trips) and pushed Santana further and further away from his rock beginings. I did intend to ignore the spiritualist aspect of this album, and focus solely on the music, however with the gatefold featuring a passage from Sri Chinmoy, and photographs of the guitarists looking remarkably cult-like, I think it's the elephant in the room, and really should be mentioned. The passage represents a very naive view, asking of us to devote ourselves to spiritualist teachings. It also reflects gender stereotypes within the fist paragraph. Did I say reflects? I mean reinforces. The idea of fully surrendering ourselves to one specific goal/teaching/belief is something I find really disturbing, it's like deliberately limiting human potential. I'm a spiritualist of sorts, and I think it comes down to bettering ourselves, doing what we can to help other people, doing what we can to achieve the best we can. Meditate, but don't surrender your life to it. Ok, to avoid getting into a rant and starting to bitch about religion, I think it's time to get down and boogie (well... meditate) with some 'machine gun' guitaring from two guitar giants.

Side A serves as a tribute to John Coltrane and starts with A Love Supreme, a cover of the track Aknowledgement. It bursts into our ears with a flurry of guitar shredding, leading into a soft groove, where John and Carlos improvise over the top in a Free Jazz manner. There's a sense of real emotion behind what they're playing, something modern shredders lack. Larry Young's organ plods at the back keeping a nice sense of musicality which gels the guitars to the rythm. Chants of 'A Love Supreme' come in as it gets quieter, and Larry Young's organ meanders around in a deliciously playful fashion. Doug Ranch's bass really propelled this track forward. Track 2 is an accoustic cover of Coltrane's Naima, a dreamlike beautiful melody which drifts around your head, you close your eyes, inhale from your joss stick, and man, it's good. 
A quiet organ drone takes hold, leading us into an amazing drum roll and then guitar and chanting. A Love Divine begins. It's some beautiful guitar soloing going on here over this constant jazz beat, the guitaring itself has a distinctly more jazz feel to it. Yeah it's much more fusion than the previous tracks, allowing both McLaughlin and Santana have a decent amount of room to really let themselves go and stretch out their wings. At times McLaughlin's guitar is so fast it melts your ears. Again though, this never feels like showing off, there really is an emotional context to his playing which bounces off the wall towards you. "A Live Devine is yours and mine"

The B side introduces us to the epic Let Us Go Into The House Of The Lord, based on an old Bible hymm. It starts with an organ vamp, overwhich McLaughlin plays some of his most amazing and weightless licks, you close your eyes and feel your body raising from the ground. Then a steady moving rythm kicks in, John again just flying higher and higher. He's often been called the 'John Coltrane of the guitar' in that he combines blistering speed with such pure spirituality, and this is proof of that. The backing groove is as undeniable as the lead, it's a simple groove, but when it locks fully into place, it just gets your head moving, getting you in the position for John's sublime guitar masterwork. I have to say, with the constant rythm going on, this is a perfect track to pick up a guitar and jam to, it's just great. The guitar masterclass only gets better and better and then winds down to a close. We have one track to go, Meditation. A softer piece, a walking piano draws us inside, a gentle melody, Santana's guitar providing suport. This kinda track is traditional for closign off 70's albums or music.

As you may have guessed, I am far more into John McLaughlin than Santana, the dude just does it for me. McLaughlin's been one of the biggest influences on my guitar playing and I just love how he does what he does. Musically, this album is really enjoyable, and John's guitar slinging is at the top of it's form, and just listening to it makes me want to pick up mine and just shred. The tones are all honey sweet, and there is a distinct sense of spirituality flowing through the music, though it never becomes overpowering. Sri Chinmoy despite all his controversies has done a lot to promote peace, and without him, we wouldn't have had this album.

Yes - Close to the edge

Yes.... Yes, Yes, Yes... Seen by many as the height of Progressive Rock's pretentions, an example of all that should be avoided, right? Well no. Prog is hardely the dirty word it used to be, and has one of the largest dedicated audiences of any genre around. I think we all go through that phase where we're anti-prog, but in reality, it's a dumb way of thinking. I'd never really sat down and properlly listened to Yes until a month ago, I had brought this album randomly as I had just started collecting LPs, and my oh my, this was a brilliant introduction to the band.

After a short introductionary soundscape of droning and noise, like a kind of natural sound, Yes break in with a free jazz/fusiony instrumental introduction, a pure cachophony of delicious prog, broken up with  the occasional chant of 'Ahhhh' before sequeing into something more musical and melodic. It swings in a pleasant way, very musch what oyu'd expect from prog. John Anderson's vocals creep in, a higher pitched version of your typical rock vocals. There's an element of Sting in his voice? Yes, at times it almost verges on 'white boy reggae', about six years before it hits the mainstream. However it is prog through and through. The music breaks into a quiet water-like section, reflecting the subject theme of The River Man, Siddhartha. A beautiful noise breaks in as we are treated to Rick Wakeman on an organ, becoming something of a spiritual point, like a moment of ecstacy, before erupting into the full Wakeman keyboard majesty. If you have a wizard costume, put it on for this part. the main lyrical theme returns and feels more joyous.


Lyrically, the song tackles the subject of spiritual awakening of Siddhartha, based confusingly on a novel by Hermann Hesse, where the titular character (Siddhartha) is around in the same time as Gautama Buddha (who was originally Prince Siddhartha, and had a spiritual awakening...) Anyways, around this time in the seventies, rock was at a point, leaving the faux-spirituality of the late sixties behind, many had begun to really look into it, and themselves, and this spirituality is a recurring theme of Yes' music at the time. The lyrics are often nonsensical when viewed in a logical sense, but serve as an expression of the abstract ideas found in such a subject.

Side two starts with a nice gentle accoustic piece, folky and playful. Totally light like a field. Wakeman's mooging around adds a gentle breeze and Anderson starts singing, and it eventually becomes proggier, reminding me of King Crimson's 'In The Court Of The Crimson King'-meets-arena-rock. It's that kinda aspirationy sound that'd usually be found at the end of a prog epic. And that it does, It returns to the playful melody and then gets proggy. I'm sensing a pattern here. And it ends. Kinda a fade out, a whimper rather than the bombast of side one.
We're then treated to a funky prog number, propelled by a neat guitar riff, Hendrix-lite, because every guitarist has their Hendrix copying moments. Prog Hendrix though sounds a bit different from most, especially when aided by Anderson's vocals making it totally 100% yes. It plays with prog tropes all too easily, and yes Wakeman has his harpsichord sound breaking through. Howe does his solo bit, it's Howe by numbers, in a track that's totally  prog by numbers. I must admit. It's decent, and enjoyable, but I don't know, I find it kinda lacking.


All in all, Close to the edge is a really good album. The second side feels rather uninspired compared to the first, but ultimately, well worth getting. Even if just for the Rodger Dean gatefold painting. But yeah, I think every record collector should have this album, it's totally of it's time yet timeless. One of the best of the 'pure-prog' releases, and Yes' highlight. This is the first of my 'MUST HAVE' reviews.

 The dreamlike gatefold. Love you man!