Strange Beautiful Music; A muse on Joe Satriani.

   While on holiday in France; My wife gave me a copy of Joe Satriani's autobiography"Strange Beautiful Music"a musical  memoir;for my birthday.The book itself primarily has Joe discussing his musical journey through life and  his dedication to the guitar.                                                                                                                      

 There is something so compellingly intrinsic about music composers in general and for me, never more so than Joe Satriani. From first listening to him in the late 1980's I have found him totally inspiring. Technical proficiency on the guitar was an all possessing goal for me through the eighties with little regard for musical theory. When listening to his tunes, there was a total lack of understanding how he put such complex compositions together. Only when reading the interviews he gave (which were very articulate and incisive) that the realisation came of how he made his music, which was through him being very well read in musical theory.This in turn set me about heavily reading the ins and out of musical theory; enabling me me to compose my own compositions at will, about anything that influences me or comes into my head rather than rely on musical parts falling in to place over time;Due to me knowing what chords, notes and modes fit together in any given key or simply modulating across them.It also brought me in to the world of guitar tutoring which I did quite heavily for the first half of the 90's and in a modest way until quite recently.                                                                                                

                 

I've picked my top ten compositions of Joe Satriani; in chronological order which has kept my enthusiasm in playing guitar very much alive over the decades from when first hearing him.                                               

 I first heard  Satiani's album "Surfing with the Alien"(and Satriani) in a car with a friend in 1987/88. He then subsequently lent me the tape(he never got it back! sorry Tim) This album got an absolute pasting from me and did eventually have on vinyl and cd . At that time of first acquiring the album, there was a tendency to listen to it late at night while walking my dog(an English springier spaniel named Tommy) across the fields where I lived.(usually after first visiting the local pub). The track that really touched and inspired was what probably has become his most Identifiable composition "Always with you always with me" .      

Some eighteen months later towards the end of 1989, I acquired a copy of his album "Flying in a Blue Dream".The year itself proved to be seminal for me as that year I met my wife. There's a great deal of material on this album, some brilliant some not's so. The track that got me straight away was "Day at the beach (new rays from an ancient sun)" in which he incorporates his four fingered tapping technique to great melodic effect. 

  

 

It wasn't until 1992 that the next Satriani album was released.The Extremist is one of his best records which features two of my favorite Satriani compositions: Friends and Rubinas Blue Sky Happiness. Bought for me by girlfriend/wife as a birthday present, it always reminds me of the flat I lived in at the time; handy place nicely situated above a curry house and a pub;)  

The opening track: Friends has a very upbeat feel while Rubinas blue sky happiness has brilliant rhythmic playing, Holdsworth style legato and also incorporates a nice Celtic feel.       

                                                                               Friends performed Live.

  

Rubinas Blue Sky Happiness;taken from the Extremist album.        

The following year of the Extremists album release; I finally got to see Joe Satriani perform live. He performed in Birmingham at the National exhibition center with Adrian Legg as support. The journey there was memorable in that the radiator cap on my car was loose and therefore loosing water, thankfully a burger wagon on a side road of the motorway helped me out and arrived just in time to see Satriani perform but sadly missed the opportunity to see Adrian Legg :(   

The route to Birmingham over that time was common for me and one of my fav albums to listen to was the Time Machine album. Bought for me by my girlfriend/wife; it was also the last vinyl album that I owned. Further more it was a triple lp with some new tunes out takes and live recordings. One of my very favorite Satriani recordings is the title track the Time Machine.

Below, Joe Satriani performing the composition, Time Machine.

  

Not until 1995 when the next musical offering came;turned out to be a rather subdued affair and came when I was busy studying at University.Saw Satriani for the second time while he was touring to support the album.This has been the album which you would find Joe Satriani at his most mellow and was one of those albums that I played a considerable amount while churning out assignments for my History degree while at Uni.  Favorite track for me was a composition called "Home". Couldn't find a live recording of this track, so have just uploaded from his self titled album.


                                                                                                 Home, from the Joe Satriani album.

       It would be three years before the next original Joe Satriani album and this was to be the Crystal Planet. A space rock orientated album of which this time provided a back drop soundtrack to me serving in the army in Bosnia. The track "Raspberry jam delta" for me, is  the stand out composition on the album.

                                Joe Satriani performing Raspberry Jam Delta live in San Francisco.

   Between Raspberry Jam Delta and the next tune, A Love Eternal, eight years had passed by. Not that Satriani hadn't produced great material, the bulk of his most popular and groundbreaking tunes  were done primarily in the late 80's early 90's . However in this time period there was rekindling of an old friendship, As avid guitar players, we both had a huge respect for Joe Satriani's work and together we saw him in 2002, 2004 with Steve Via and 2008 with Paul Gilbert. Due to work commitments I didn't get to see him perform in 2006 which on this occasion I missed the chance to meet him personally, though my friend Joey Blueman did. The chance to meet him personally passed me by again for similar reasons when he played at Wolverhampton in 2013.

      My guitar mentor and great friend Joey Blueman with me, watching Joe Satriani in Birmingham in 2008.

                                 Podcast by Joe Satriani; talking about his tune A Love Eternal.

     A Love Eternal; last but one track from the Super Colossal album, is one of my favorite later Satriani composition's. Really noticed the tune when  it was used as a soundtrack for a short docufilm about his tour of India. Its very typical of Satriani's slower more movingly melodic instrumentals.


                                                         Studio  version of A Love Eternal.

 

   My personal favorite Satriani composition is taken from the album "Professor Sachafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock". The track Andalusia is best described by the man himself  in another one of his podcast ;

                                             And here it is again performed live in Paris

   The final track of my top ten is from his album "Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards" which is called "Pyrrhic Victoria". Instead of going to see him live me and my friend went up to Birmingham to watch it in a special screening in 3d. It gave a new perspective on how the media can be used to reach out to fans.

                                                    The podcast for Pyrrhic Victoria.

                                            Pyrrhic Victoria performed live, again in Paris.

     Will finish this blog with an extract from his book which is the  totally epitome  of what I am personally trying to achieve,

             "I felt the artistic drive to strike out on my own, and I thought, I've got to do it in a way where maybe I'm not using it to make money or to be a career, it is purely  an artistic venture. That's why I got so into playing, and to accomplish this, I was going to need to control it. I couldn't ruin it by trying to bring it into my reality as a working musician. I had to keep it as a new thing where I could control every element , where trying to make it go commercial never entered into it. I knew instinctively if I got the people I knew involved in it, that it would be compromised. Therefore if I wasn't expecting to make money from it, I didn't have to include anybody. It would be like sitting at home and painting weird pictures for yourself without worrying about the outside world and how people will review them or if they'll buy them or not. So once I'd crossed that threshold, I realised, "Wow, I can do whatever I want." So that was a great leap for me, intellectually and emotionally."(Satiani 2014).     

                         


                                  Thanks for taking the time out to read my blog,


                                                           Cheers Riche :@))