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Conference napalm::guitar

Title:GUITARnotes - Where Every Note has Emotion
Notice:Discussion of the finer stringed instruments
Moderator:KDX200::COOPER
Created:Thu Aug 14 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:3280
Total number of notes:61432

2001.0. "Guitarnotes Volume I Tape Reviews" by GOES11::G_HOUSE (Shread melodic) Fri Oct 19 1990 14:31

    This note will be for reviews of the Guitarnotes Volume I Tape
    compilation.  Please post your comments and evaluations of the tape
    as replies to this note.
    
    Greg 
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
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2001.2DECWIN::KMCDONOUGHSet Kids/NosickFri Sep 28 1990 15:0922
    
    
    OK, group.  I've got the master and I'll start making copies this
    weekend.  
    
    I could use some liner notes to figure out who's playing what....Any
    available? 
    
    Some smokin playing!  Tom Descrochers, yeeeeoooow!  That is a MEAN
    version of "Because We've Ended".  
    
    And the classical pieces! Wonderful, just wonderful!
    
    Who did the jazz-rock stuff on side 2?  Incredible!
    
    Lots of other good stuff here, too!
    
    
    Kevin
    
     
    
2001.3Yes, tasty stuff to be found thereGOES11::G_HOUSEBrouhahaSat Sep 29 1990 00:2543
    re: Kevin
    
    > And the classical pieces! Wonderful, just wonderful!
    
    That's Bob Conroy (slightly enhanced with stereo reverb from a one
    track master courtesy of myself and ART, I hope Bob doesn't mind my
    addition)
    
    > Who did the jazz-rock stuff on side 2?  Incredible!
    
    In case you haven't figured it out from the postscript label, it was
    probably  either Larry Vignealt or Buck, depending on which one(s) you
    were referring to.  
    
    As far as release notes (beyond the label), I'd envisioned having a
    note in here that the contributors could put in their comments on how
    the pieces were recorded, equipment used, other players contributing to
    the music, and so forth.  At one point Rich C. had set one up, but I
    don't remember where it is/was or if it's still there.  As the tape
    copies start getting out, I'd like to remind the contributors to add
    notes with this information to that topic (we can create a new one if
    the old one's gone).
    
    One thing I should say (if I haven't already); I hope nobody minds, but
    I did have to take some liberties in the selection of equalization when
    making the master from the individual submissions since the only one
    that mentioned what kind of noise reduction and tape equalization he
    used on his tape was Brian Rost.  Basically I listened to them with
    several settings and chose the one that sounded best to my ear, so if
    it sounds slightly different from what you sent, that's probably why. 
    I apologize for any misinterpretations, but I was kind of flying blind
    here. 
    
    I have three tapes with approximately 12-15 minutes worth of material
    for Volume II right now, if anyone has anything they'd like to submit
    please feel free to send it on out.  I'll work it like the last one,
    keeping the submissions open until I receive enough material to fill a
    tape.
    
    I enjoyed putting the master together!  Thanks to all who contributed!
    
    Greg
          
2001.4Good stuff!!!PUGGS::DESROCHERSI Want More!!!Thu Oct 18 1990 14:4626

	Well, I got my tape and just want to say good job to all who
	contributed to it.  I was surprised that Greg and Mike from
	PNO didn't have songs on it though.  Thanks to those who made
	it happen while not even having a tune on it.  Noters tape II,
	right?

	I've only listened thru once but was very impressed with the
	talent and more than surprised with the diversity of styles.
	From Rich Ciccoli's creative, synth stuff (it made me think
	of Godley & Creme meets Al DiMeola) to Bob Conroy's beautiful
	classical technique!!!  And Kevin McDonough's rippin' Beck
	thru Larry Vignault's great sounding and groovin' fusion!!!

	I've heard Bill Buckley many times and I'm sure no one is
	surprised at his entries - guess I just expect it - Wow!!

	Like I said, I've only heard it once and I'm going from memory
	but there was also some crankin' rock and blues tunes from the 
	GSO guys, right?

	Anyway, good job to all.   And thanks!!
	
	Tom
	
2001.1BTWGOES11::G_HOUSEShread melodicFri Oct 19 1990 14:321
    Liner notes for the tape may be found in note 1809...
2001.6Pleasantly pleased with it as a whole!ICS::BUCKLEYYou were an angel sent for my despair!Fri Oct 26 1990 17:188
    I agree with Larry on the diversity...that's what makes this tape, and
    that's what makes this conference!
    
    Can't wait til Tape II!!!
    
    Buck
    
    PS - Bob Conroy Roolz!  (I want his chops!)  ;^)
2001.7yeah, sounds good!GOOROO::CLARKpsychedelic music fills the airFri Oct 26 1990 19:3415
    I just finished listening to it (thanks Rick!). I also agree about the
    diversity. I like this tape better than the 'Guitar Speak' album which
    came out a few years back! Lots of talent here! 
    
    Rich Coccoli, do you live in the greater Worcester area? I can
    recommend a good therapist!
    
    Brian, I like Nothing But Time. Strange but true :-)
    
    Buck and Larry; superb but then again we all expected that :-)
    
    All in all very imressive! When are the submissions for Vol. II
    due?
    
    - Dave
2001.8I loved Nothing but Time...DNEAST::GREVE_STEVEGreee Veee KingSun Oct 28 1990 02:011
    	Do this, do that.....  heh, heh
2001.11DNEAST::BOTTOM_DAVIDReelect nobody!Mon Oct 29 1990 14:095
    the big surprise for  me on the tape is the classical piece(s). 
    
    I was delighted and impressed with almost everything..what a tape!
    
    dbii
2001.12No, it's Marshall that rooolzICS::CONROYMon Oct 29 1990 20:0345
I've really enjoyed listening to this tape. Like someone
said, lots of diverse interests and talents here. Congrats
to everyone that submitted stuff. Good job.


Side 1:
Tom D.: Cause we've ended as lovers. I really liked this one.
        Nice tone, very musical, played with feeling! Good rip Tom!

Rich Coccoli: Weird shit, I like it! Love those cheerful tritones. 
              First time I listened I was thinking, where's the
              guitar? Nice blending of instruments and sounds.              

Steve Greve: Wins best title contest. Good feeling there.

J. White and J. Cooper: Good songs. One of them reminded me of Led
                        Zeppelin. Would like to hear more recent stuff.

Side 2:

Kevin McDonough: Blazing leads! Was sorry the lead guitar disappeared
                 into the mix. Wanted to hear more.
                 Great tone; and no effects, I love it!
		 (Also: Great, way cool piano intro by Dave B.)

Brian Rost: You were right in your liner notes. Neil Young at his best.
            (That's meant as a compliment of course!) Let's hear
            some of the new stuff.

Larry V. : 2 Whoa's; good stuff. Recorded well. Real nice playing, real
           good tunes. Nice sense of line. Great all around.

Bill B. : Another 2 whoa's. 2 really different tunes. 
          Really well done. The brazilian schtik is down pat.
          I like the chord progressions on "Fallen Angel". How do you
	  do that really fast section on the solo? I wouldn't mind
	  having THOSE chops.

John Williams: Good jams. Liked the modal lines that came in there.
                               
On to tape 2!
Bob
    
    ps. Another hand clap and a thank you to the people who took the
        time to put it together.
2001.13Hope I didn't miss any...GOES11::G_HOUSEBut this amp goes to 11Mon Oct 29 1990 22:4683
    I guess I can put my own personal review in here now huh?

    Overall I was really impressed with the music put on here.  I've been
    with it for a bit longer then most of you so far and have really grown
    to love much of this.
    
Tom D.:
    
    This is a great song, well executed.  I am quite impressed with the
    feeling that Tom put into this.

Rich Coccoli: 
    
    This reminds me so terribly of the King Crimson period with Adrien
    Belew that I *love*!  Rich has a cool feel for things and an
    outstanding sense of humor in his music.  This is the first submission
    I got and is still one of my favorites.  I laughed for hours after
    hearing "Gerbil In My Pocket".
    
Steve Greve: 
    
    I'm with Bob, I loved the titles.  I enjoyed this, definately crude
    (that nasty drum machine's gotta go, Steve!), but still enjoyable.  The
    pieces were a little long for my tastes without any tangible form, but
    that's not a big thing.
    
Bob Conroy:
    
    Outstanding!  I was soooo pleased when I got a classical submission for
    the compilation and Bob didn't let me down at all.  These two pieces
    are absolutely beautiful.  The tone, execution, and style is simply
    marvelous. 
    
Jerry and Coop:
    
    I've had this demo tape for at least a couple of years and have always
    enjoyed it.  The recording's a bit muddy, especially after all the
    generations of copies it's been through (don't think mine was first
    generation), but considering the equipment used it's amazingly good. 
    The vocals leave a little to be desired, but the leads make up for
    them.  Overall I like the songs and enjoyed the tones used.

Kevin McDonough: 
    
    Searing tone, Kevin!  My first comment was "Wow, what a sound.  What's
    he playing through?"  This is one of my all time favorite songs anyway,
    and that doesn't hurt.  Hot keyboards DB.  The mix is pretty rough,
    sounds like it came off the board and everyone had different stage
    volumes.  I can hardly hear Buck at all (but this *is* Kevins
    submission after all...).  Definately some hot playing!

Brian Rost: 
    
    Also some great humor in this one.  I would never play with those
    guitar tones myself, but it sounds kind of cool in this kind of
    context.

Larry V.: 
    
    Very impressive.  Solid smooth tone and excellent playing.  I couldn't
    pick up tangible patterns to these songs though, they just sounded like
    jamming to me and maybe a little long for that.  I tend to like this
    type of song with more of a clearly stated theme and then improvization
    around it.
    
Buck: 
    
    The Rio tune really surprised me.  I always figured he was capable of
    playing different styles of music, but I've only hear Buck play rock
    and classical and this caught me off guard.  Definately hot playing and
    the production is excellent.  Fallen Angel has a great hook and a
    killer guitar tone, but there's some kind of wierd high end noise all
    the way through it that I find distracting.

John Williams: 
    
    When I heard this I immediately thought "Allman Bros."  The first tune
    I liked, but the East Block Stomp one got a little tiring.  It sounded
    kind of out of tune in places and didn't seem to go anywhere.  Still
    fairly impressive playing.
    
    Greg
                                                
2001.14PNO::HEISERtwo bodies, 1 mind, 1 soulFri Nov 02 1990 16:4948
    Bottomline:  I loved the variety of this tape and was really impressed
    with some of the talent we have in DEC.  I don't know why some of you
    are still working here ;-)
    
    Tom DesRochers:  I haven't listened to much Beck so I've never heard
    the original.  I think this song is great though.  One of my favorites
    on the tape!
    
    Rich Coccoli:  like I said before, you have quite a creative imagination!
    I start rolling everytime I hear "Gerbil..." ;-)  I'm not real big on
    synth rock, but these songs have some real interesting sounds.
    
    Steve Greve:  good job ole timer! ;-)  I agree with Greg though, a good
    sounding drum machine would really add to your guitar work.  
    
    Bob Conroy:  a man after my own heart!  I've always loved great
    acoustic guitar and you did an excellent job on these pieces.  I'm not
    familiar with either song, but they sound great.  I wish I could sound
    like that! ;-)  Also my favorites on the tape.
    
    Jerry and Coop: the recording is a little muddy, but all 3 are great
    songs.  I don't care what anyone says, Coop sings okay! ;-)  I really
    like the guitar work in "Little Teaser".
    
    Kevin McDonough:  I also love the tone here, is this the M*word amp? ;-)
    The recording is a little rough though.  When I listen to it thru the
    walkman headphones, I can faintly hear Buck's shredding.  I know it is
    your song, but it would've really been cool to get a good balance of
    all instruments ;-)

    Brian Rost:  the Rebel Song, it also cracks me up. ;-)  I remember you
    said it was some sort of experiement, but it still sounds decent.  
    
    Larry Vignealt:  excellent efforts here!  I really love that cheerful
    sounding melody.  Do you cook (Mr. DEC Cookbook himself) as well as 
    you play? ;-)
    
    Bill Buckley:  I always heard how great a rock guitarist you were, and
    I was really impressed with the diversity in "Rio".  You're just a
    plain great guitarist, forget the rock classification.   Hopefully,
    someday my Ibanez will sound like that ;-)  I also noticed the high
    pitch too.  Thru the walkman headphones, the high guitar notes really
    hurt the ears.  Not sure what caused it.
    
    John Williams:  also great efforts on this pair of songs.  Nice
    playing!
    
    Mike
2001.15High-end problem explainedICS::BUCKLEYMidnite Dynamite!Fri Nov 02 1990 17:3116
    >someday my Ibanez will sound like that ;-)  
    
    Fwiw, I only used an Ibanez on the 2nd (metal) song.  The first was
    played on a (aack) Strat!  ;^)
    
    >I also noticed the high pitch too.  Thru the walkman headphones, the 
    >high guitar notes really hurt the ears.  Not sure what caused it.
    
    I can tell you what caused it...three things:
    
    The mix-out was put thru a graphic eq to help clear it up...remember,
    thios was a 4tk recording with many bounces on it!  So there was a lot
    of high-end on there.  Also, the graphic-out was put thru a BBE aural
    exciter...more high-end.  Thirdly, it was mixed onto a stereo
    VCR...which has more headroom than normal 1/4" tape, but kind of gives
    that tinny quality.  I found it acceptable for metal, but...
2001.16Good Job All AroundAQUA::ROSTDennis Dunaway Fan ClubTue Nov 06 1990 13:1651
    
    My eagerly awaited copy arrived in yesterday's mail.  OK, one thing I
    noticed was that my copy seemed to have almost all the signal in the
    left channel.  That's one reason I mix things down to mono  8^)  8^) 
    8^) 
    
    Tom DesRochers:  Very good rendition of this tune.  Sounds like there's
    a noise gate cutting off the end of many of the notes, though. 
    
    Rich Coccoli:  I really enjoyed these, although the lyrics to "Secret
    Life" weren't as good as the music.  Boy, you sure like those square
    wave tones, eh?  Was that really all done with a guitar controller...very
    impressive.  
    
    Steve Greve:  Nice lead work, Steve.  Yeah, the backup was kind of
    boring, who cares, rhythm sections only exist to make the guitarists
    sound good  8^) 8^)
    
    Bob Conroy:  I'm a big Renbourn fan, but "Lady.." is one LP of his I
    don't have.  Your selections were the best thing on the tape. 
    Really good stuff.
    
    Jerry and Coop:  I was really surprised, I honestly didn't expect
    anything this tight sounding.  Oops, that solo overdub on the first
    tune ran over a wee bit...  The lyrics to "LTB" were pretty ridiculous,
    haven't we heard enough songs like this?  Go listen to "I Love You Miss
    Ogyny" by the Groundhogs....
    
    Kevin McDonough:  The mix was pretty screwed up, but when I could hear
    what was going on it sounded very good.  On tape, at least, I can't fault
    the tone of that P-word amp.  

    Larry Vignealt:  All three of these were very well-done, although the
    first two were a bit "breezy" for my taste, I prefer more bite in my
    fusion.  I assume that all those guitars went direct through the SGE to
    tape?  Despite your disclaimer, I think the sound was very good except
    for a bit of muddiness in the second tune.
    
    Bill Buckley:  Hey, Bill, you gotta show me how to play those 90 mph
    Latin bass licks.  I wasn't disappointed in either song.  It was a real
    surprise to hear you on *acoustic* guitar.  I saw "Rio" on an old
    DECjam video with you, Rick B., Ron Ross and Todd Rhodes.  This
    recording makes me appreciate the composition more.
    
    John Williams:  Like Steve's, nice leads but boring backdrops (I should
    talk...).  Believe it or not, I prefer the synth pieces you did on
    Commusic V to these, they sounded more developed.
    
    								Brian
    
    P.S. Thanks for everyone's kind comments about my submissions.
2001.18secret revealed!ICS::BUCKLEYmaybe we can learn to loveTue Nov 06 1990 17:075
    The secret to Kevin's screamin tone is the custom DAL on-board preamp
    he has in his guitar!!  I heard him turn a farty-old Fender into a
    metal shredding monster at one of the (informal) DEC jams!!  I also
    remember the day the battery died, and he had to go stright into the
    P-word amp!  ;^)
2001.20PNO::HEISERstand in the gapWed Nov 07 1990 19:453
    Okay I'll bite.  What should go in the "review" topic?
    
    Mike
2001.21nuff said, note cleaned!ICS::BUCKLEYmaybe we can learn to loveWed Nov 07 1990 19:471
    Reviews!
2001.22got it.GLOWS::COCCOLIa sack of throbbing gristleTue Nov 13 1990 19:4359
    
          Just got my tape Friday. First in ,last out eh boys?. 8^)  
         
    
       Some really happening stuff on this tape. I was pleased and
    surprised.
                     
    
    
           Tom DesRochers
      Great rendition of one of my fave Beck ditties. Lots o' emotion
    as well as technique in your cover of it.
    
               Steve Greve
      Keep playin' them blues. The guitar was so up front you couldn't
    hear the rhythm section though. Good ideas.
    
         Bob Conroy
     Great stuff. I'm impressed. Tone and execution flawless (to me
    anyway). Good work. The only classical I ever learned was "Mood
    for a Day" by Howe and it took me a year. Know any ragtime?.
    
         White+Coop
      Good technique on them guitars. Yup. Divebombed right into the vocal.
     Just testing the whammy, right?. 8^)
    
         Kevin McDonough
      You definately got chops. I like DB's(?) intro, especially the
    two short pseudo-jazz chords he threw in right before the band came
    in. Sounds like someone hit a clunker right before the vocal came in.
    Blistering solo!. All in all, one of my faves for this tape.
    
         Brian Rost
     Nothing But Time. It's warped. So am I. I liked it. What is the
    vocal going through?. I recognize the Popeil flange-o-matic. 8^).
    Parallel. Neat ideas.
    
        Larry Vignealt
     Yeah. This stuff is great. This guy cooks. These *songs* happen.
    The fusion tune is *great*. Why aren't you doing this for a living?.
    Yeah, I know..mouths to feed. *^)
    
       Bill Buckley
      A master shredder. Rio's my fav o' rite tune on this tape.
    Fallen Angel..I was driving over the Brooklyn Bridge to work today
    with this sucker blasting. Thump. Thump. Lot's o" power.
    But let's face it. If you can do a song like Rio, why bother with
    stuff like "Fallen Angel". Eh?.    8^)
    
         John Williams
      Love the beginning of Traveler. I like quirky little chord changes.
    Nice clean sound. Neal Young/Allman type soloing.

                                 
       It's a blast being on the tape with such fine musician/composers.
     Where's G. House?. Hopefully Vol II.
    
    RichC
                                         
2001.23MERCY !!!RAVEN1::JERRYWHITEJoke 'em if they can't take a ...Tue Dec 04 1990 07:2029
    Just got my copy tonight ..... in a word ...
    
    
    
    
    		    S H * T !!!!!     8^)
    
    Mercy, there's a wealth of talent in this file !  I'm gonna have to
    listen to it a LOT more .... it's a got a little of something for
    everyone.  I'll give a detailed review later, but my 1st_listen favs
    are:
    
    Tom DesRochers - "Cause We've Ended As Lovers"   Good tribute to a
    		great tune !
    Larry Vignealt - "Just A Blues Jam"
    Bob Conroy - Both of 'em ... this stuff is GREAT !
    Bill Buckley - Reminicence Of Rio
    ... and my most fave is ....
    
    
    Kevin McDonough - "Goin' Down" ... YEEEOOOOWWWW !   This is one of my
    all time favorite songs anyway, and this version peels paint.  Sounds
    like it's a board tape, but even at that it's a monster !
    
    I'll post some other stuff later ... for right now, I put it on side B,
    play my tune, rewind, play the tune, rewind ....
    
    
    Scary (who wishes his submissions had been left off now ....)