Shawn Lane does Cult of Personality?

[aliensporebomb]

I can't remember if we ever talked about this or not.

[ck1]

Don't remember this one, but I love his work with The Willys. Poor Vernon Reid, if he ever hears this...

[Infinite Ego]

yeah, we've hashed this one out some years ago. VR can hold his own nicely. I actually prefer VR over SL ... like exponentially more so.

[aliensporebomb]

Shawn is smoother than Vernon on this song, so Vernon comes across as somehow more visceral in some ways. Lots of energy.

[chrissh]

Yes, and I like that wailing squalling viscerality about VR too. He's no slouch in technique either, it's just that SL was such a unique phenom that that's what most people notice about him. I maintain SL was just starting to come into his own as a musical voice, beyond his obvious astonishing abilities and musicianship. The Hellborg partnership was good for him, imho, and he was sounding less like his fusion influences.

[mirth]

Can't remember if I heard this before or not, I dont hate it, but I like VR on this more for sure. Shawn's solo just ended up like one of his noodling sessions, at least this recording. Still, much better than most covering the song guitar-wise....the rest of the band doesn't hold a candle to Living Colour IMO.

[Infinite Ego]

I don't want to be critical of SL but VR worked out his soloing ideas by studying all kinds of crazy sax players whereas SL figured out some efficient patterns. It works in some of the stuff with Hellborg but he's just playing nonsense when he shifts into high gear. And that's okay in some contexts. 90% of his small fan base, though, just technique freaks only concerned with speed for the sake of speed. I think there's a thread around here somewhere that goes into this.......LOL

[ck1]

Wow, not sure I agree with any of that. Perhaps Mrs. Ego is in an ill mood and it is trickling through the house!

I really dug Vernon back in the day, but more for his "musical attitude" than for anything specific he actually played. The guitar-only track that ASB posted in the subsequent thread is an honest look at what is a very cool, but sloppy, crazy, and irreverent set of solos. I still dig them even now, but the mostly blues/pentatonic pseudo-shred thing he's got going there doesn't remind me of any crazy sax players (at least not any GOOD ones). That said, I would still take the original version of this track over the cover.

To each their own, of course. The thing I will give Shawn that I'm not sure I could say about any other fast guitar player is that I truly believe he was playing FOR HIMSELF. He wanted to play that way, and enjoyed his own playing. The "hey, look at me" aspect of so-called normal shred playing only exists with him due to the projection of that view by listeners, not by Shawn himself.

[mirth]

I agree that though I've heard many times that Vernon had studied sax players and such, I've never heard anythi n of his that sounded as such. Most seems pretty chromatic, linearly with a pentatonic kind of thing. interestingly enough that's very similar to Shawn.

most of Shawn's playing, to be fair, is based on pentatonics, side stepping and random symmetrical fast patterns. I've never heard either guy superimpose changes, or other jazz saxophone standard playing. Or something that Coltrane was ridiculous at.

I'm not trying to knock either guy, because I love their playing and especially the attitude they played with. Both are "shredders" but both aren't shredders either, if you know what I mean.

[Infinite Ego]

I guess the proof is in the pudding. SL's only fans, as far as I've ever seen, have been 20 or 30-something white males into competitive guitaring or with a fetish for techniques, mechanics, and precision etc. Sloppy? Human life is sloppy. Precision is for machines.

Living Colour, by massive contrast, contextualized some pretty wild guitar soloing within a wildly popular band context and sold millions of records and, I would argue, didn't sacrifice much art for commerce.

[bear]

What I always liked about Vernon is the technique-ness never seemed to be about the technique. There's something actually punk-ish to me about the way he threw all the shred tricks at COP. I still love old Living Colour because it was vital, energetic, well written music.

I remember some wanker guitar mag having the Def Leppard guys listening to other people's tracks and commenting and the ripped on COP and the solo, saying they would have made him redo it because it was sloppy and out of time. That was part of the frigging point or at least I always thought so.

[ck1]

Aug 4, 2012 10:47:18 GMT -5 Infinite Ego said:

I guess the proof is in the pudding. SL's only fans, as far as I've ever seen, have been 20 or 30-something white males into competitive guitaring or with a fetish for techniques, mechanics, and precision etc.

Is this a barely veiled dig at me being a 30-something guitarist AND a Shawn Lane fan? Do I have a fetish for technique?

Sloppy? Human life is sloppy. Precision is for machines.

This point has been argued too many times to count, but here we go again: We're not talking about machine-precision. We're talking about well-honed technique. I don't want my accountant to be passionate but sloppy. I don't want my mechanic to be passionate but sloppy. I don't want to listen to a Bach piece played passionately but sloppy. Why would I prefer passionate but (too) sloppy guitar playing (though it's tough to say what constitutes "too sloppy")? There is definitely a law of diminishing returns in both directions (too sloppy becomes a washy mess, and too pristine can sound lifeless). But I would argue that it is impossible for a human being to get to level of precision in guitar playing that sounds truly sterile. However, it's certainly true that without some rhythmic interaction, it bends in that direction. Shawn was definitely a technician, but he was far from perfect. There's not a single solo of his that I can think of that I would say is completely pristine and sterile.

I remember the first time I heard COP and I thought it was totally wild and loved it. It wasn't about chops or precision; the attitude was crazy! And that's fine, in it's own context.

Don't like too many fast licks or so-called formulaic playing? That's fine, of course. But let's not use that as the basis for misplaced generalizations. I like Vernon quite a bit, and for some of the same reasons that were mentioned in earlier responses by others. There is obviously no issue in liking a particular player more than another one. I happen to find Shawn Lane's music compelling in a way that I haven't with other guitarists. The Petruccis and Gilberts of the world don't interest me much these days. But I do really like guys like Guthrie Govan, who I would say bends much more a Shawn Lane direction than a Vernon Reid one. But once again, these are my tastes and aren't meant to be pushed on anyone else.

Living Colour, by massive contrast, contextualized some pretty wild guitar soloing within a wildly popular band context and sold millions of records and, I would argue, didn't sacrifice much art for commerce.

What does this have to do with anything? Do you think Shawn was "selling out" or something? Sacrificing art?

I wouldn't argue that Living Colour was a very interesting band who did indeed use very dangerous guitar soloing in a pop/rock context. As I've said before, I really like that band, and always have. I also like Jimmy Page, but wouldn't get into comparisons with him and others from outside his own context. Terry Kath was a very aggressive, interesting guitarist (at least in the early days). How many people talk about him in this way? Are we just talking about this because Vernon became larger than his band, unlike Terry? Things to ponder...

[ck1]

To reiterate, I don't think this cover is a particularly good representation of Shawn's musicality. It seems like he's trying too hard. I'm not trying to defend him because someone doesn't like him as much as I do. But I don't like generalizations that I feel are opinion-based but presented as fact. These (mine and everyone else's) are ALL opinions.

[Infinite Ego]

You're forgetting that I like to pull every chain I see, right? ;-)

[Infinite Ego]

"What does this have to do with anything? Do you think Shawn was "selling out" or something? Sacrificing art?"

No, not at all. I don't think a person can "sell out" when they don't sell at all.

Quite the contrary, if SL had ever worried about selling albums he wouldn't have recorded the stuff that he did. I mean, seriously, the instrumental guitar market is pretty much a footnote in the world of music. From a commercial standpoint it doesn't even warrant a discussion. I think the whole thing is intimately tied to gear manufacturers. That's the primary function of all these guitar guys: selling stomp boxes, guitars, etc.

And I don't take cheap shots at people. I see everybody here as products of their societies. Everybody here, with maybe a couple of exceptions, expresses contradictory tendencies toward life and death, progress and regress, revolution and reaction, freedom and obedience, egoism and altruism, generosity and resentment, etc. Since I don't think anybody is "programed" and capable of self-reflexivity I try to throw some of this material up in faces to examine the reaction. Some people react and rationalize, some explain, some ponder, some change. All part of the laboratory that we've been running 'here' for 13 years. Notice that only a handful have ever stuck it out for the duration. LOL.