Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 10:30 pm Post subject: Guthrie's Effect on Non-Guitar Players
I'm starting to get a lot of feedback from people who attended the Guthrie shows here during NAMM week, and quite a few from people who are not guitar players or even musicians. Some were just casual music fans at most who had never even heard of Guthrie, brought along by Guthrie fans and my invitations with the guarantee of a "mindblowing musical experience". There were quite a few ladies at the shows, with Guthrie fans quite confident that their wives, girlfriends, sisters, and mothers, etc. would also enjoy Guthrie's playing and music.
Well, the reactions from these non-players/musicians have been at least as overwhelming as those from the players and fans. I met some of them yesterday at my brother's engagement party and they were all raving about the Jan 18 Tuesday show, asking for whatever media I had of him. They're your typical casual music fans who know of EVH, Clapton, Page, Satch, etc. But they're not the types would enjoy Yngwie, EJ, or even someone like Vai. Yet they were absolutely blown away and enamored with Guthrie's playing.
My wife pretty much enjoys whatever I'm into (she's a big Metheny fan), but on her own, she listens to classical music and something more mellow, specially with little kids around the house. But after seeing some of the Guthrie shows that week and watching the Jan 19 show on video several days ago, she actually asked me if we can watch it again tonight. Now that's a first! She's actually asking to watch what is a pretty intense guitar-intensive video with me. Normally, if she sees me watching some other guys on video, she'll watch along with me for 5 or 10 minutes saying, "he's good", and then wander off to do something else. But with the Guthrie video, she sat captivated watching the whole thing and said, "Hey, let's watch that again Sunday night."
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Guthrie definitely does have something that appeals beyond the narrow confines of the male-dominated electric guitar freakdom. And his music and his style also seems to appeal well to the ladies, which is a very difficult thing for monster players to do. A friend's wife who teaches piano and has a Master's degree in piano performance was at one of the shows and she's been telling my wife that it was one of the most incredible musical performances of any type she had ever seen and is eagerly awaiting DVDs and the debut album from Guthrie. It's a very encouraging thing. It's about music in the end. Guthrie applies his virtuosity in a way that average music fan can readily appreciate. This bodes extremely well for Guthrie's future... _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.
His work with the fellowship will have a broader appeal i think than his erotic cakes stuff. There are loads of people who are into the jazz combo band thing with a sax in the mix so the fellowship have the potential to appeal to a rather large audience. maybe there's some way that the local jazz station here in so cal (located at my school long beach state) KLON would consider playing something from the fellowship if it were available on cd. it would probably cause all kinds of accidents on the road if people were driving and heard that for the first time though, you have to be careful. i know that if i heard guthrie for the first time while i was driving that id probably have to pull over...i really hope that his fanbase broadens out so that he has the opportunity to pursue his own musical whims full-time. im optimistic that it'll happen but then a brief perusal at some of the various web forums devoted to guitar stuff tends to prove me wrong.
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 6:04 am Post subject:
sterlingsilver wrote:
His work with the fellowship will have a broader appeal i think than his erotic cakes stuff. There are loads of people who are into the jazz combo band thing with a sax in the mix so the fellowship have the potential to appeal to a rather large audience. maybe there's some way that the local jazz station here in so cal (located at my school long beach state) KLON would consider playing something from the fellowship if it were available on cd. it would probably cause all kinds of accidents on the road if people were driving and heard that for the first time though, you have to be careful. i know that if i heard guthrie for the first time while i was driving that id probably have to pull over...i really hope that his fanbase broadens out so that he has the opportunity to pursue his own musical whims full-time. im optimistic that it'll happen but then a brief perusal at some of the various web forums devoted to guitar stuff tends to prove me wrong.
I think we'll need to wait for the Erotic Cakes album to come out before we can say which side of him will have a broader appeal. We've only really heard and seen the real raw live versions of EC and it's my understanding that the studio recording will be huge sounding with a lot of intricate arrangements, etc. The EC will have a broader appeal to the guitar freaks community that is into the likes of Vai, Satch, Yngwie, etc.
The Fellowship is more of a live band doing jazz covers and standards. They have very few originals, so they won't really have a broad appeal in the recorded medium until they have more of their own tunes mixed in with the occasional covers. But I agree, in an intimate live venue environment, the Fellowship will have more of a broad appeal. The Erotic Cakes stuff is more auditorium and arena kind of stuff and I feel Guthrie needs a second guitarist/keyboardist to fill out the sound more (like Satch and Vai do) to make the overall band sound really full.
The Fellowship is fine the way it is, although they have used keyboard players on demo recordings and gigs before. It's a totally different approach from EC. The Fellowship is a live band at this point in time and EC is really a studio concept that needs to come into fruition before Guthrie can really stretch out the EC concept live. The thing is, I really think EC and the Fellowship combined only covers about half or little more of all the things that Guthrie can do. He's going to be doing a lot of other things that fall outside of the EC and the Fellowship realms. _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.
My friends and girlfriend really have trouble appreciating these kinds of music unless I drag them to a live show, which is difficult. My group is a big MTV crowd (myself included..I admit it!) so their tastes tends to be dictated by what's fashionable. Even though they appreciate the musicianship, all the fusion, jazz or intrumental rock I listen to is nothing but new age bs to them
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