Bug Alley
This guy can play, but with the unusual
twist of knowing what to do with his technique. Nice reworkings of songs,
especially a trebled up rendition of Bach's "Jesus Joy of Man's
Desire", where the rotating theme is insinuated between perfect barrages
of notes and multi-tracked harmonies. Also, "Black Magic Woman" gets
an adrenalized face-lift -the truth of the matter is that I'm as sick of
Santana's version as I am of "Stairway to Heaven"--and he does a
punchy reading of Dylan's judgment day blues "You Gotta Serve
Somebody", recasting Mark Knopfler's recasting of Albert King in ways that
maintains the searing , wailing ostinatos with the clipped rapid fire note
clusters that bring Gary Moore to mind. He even does "Wipe Out" as if
it were a jam to die for. Smarter than Steve Vai, a major player: refreshingly
musical.
Monsters
and Robots
Buckethead
I just popped Monsters and Robots
out of the CD player, and the effect is exhilarating There's some kind of
fractured genius going on here, with all the metal / fusion/ funk / bluegrass
cross over the boundaries so easily, and Buckethead's super-velocity guitar work
punching up the action in ways that are sonic and lethal. Wow. If Ornette Coleman were a shred guitarist,
this is the full-kerang sonic scraping he’d give the world that braved an
audience with him. Transmutation Live is a must have, based on this.
There's a strong suggestion of Capt. Beefheart, with it's disconcerting sci-fi
lyricscape and self-mythologizing, but this is the evidence that skilled
pastiche is the dominant form at this point. Buckethead slices and dices the
elements so well together that the channel-surfing dynamics make sense when the
bits are linked, stitched and seared together with the speed-genius of the fret
work.
