Guthrie Govan Discussion

[alexkhan]

Greetings from a plush hotel room in China as I embark on another round of visiting the mega guitar factories in Asia. I have a few days of downtime and one of the things I'm doing is listening to all the recorded live material of the Aristocrats shows during the 'Culture Clash' tour over the past year or so - the best of which will make the upcoming 'Culture Clash Live!' album to be released later this year.

I caught the band's SF show in Feb which was the last of the West Coast tour after NAMM. Since then the band played a huge 45-date tour in Europe and recently completed a tour of Asia and six more dates in Europe to conclude the 'Culture Clash' World Tour. The SF show was awesome and I was struck by how tight the band had gotten and how Guthrie continues to get better and better as a player as time goes by, as unbelievable as that seems.

Then I listen to these tapes of the most recent shows and I'm again blown away by how much better Guthrie and the band had gotten since that show at SF in Feb. The interplay between the band members is air tight - virtually telepathic. I'm a pretty jaded guy now when it comes to this kind of stuff but it really is amazing that my jaw drops to the floor every time I listen to this band and Guthrie play every six months or so.

Without a doubt, what makes them get better and better is that they're playing live together night after night for months at a time. There is no substitute for live performance in front of an enthusiastic audience. Practice and rehearsals aren't the same. It's through live performances that the band jells and grows and the individual members continue to improve.

As for Guthrie, having been on tours with him and with the Aristocrats, I can assure you that he only gets to pick up the guitar for a quick soundcheck and then the show itself. It's very rare that he'll have the time to pick up the guitar any other time during a tour. I've never even seen him warm up before a show. The guitar is left on the stand after the soundcheck and then he just picks it up and plays when the show starts.

So how does he do it? How does he keep getting better and better? I think it's really in how he internalizes the music and his approach to it when he starts playing. He's listening to what the other band members are doing and is very critical about his role and how he plays night after night. It's not very often Guthrie says that he liked how he played on a given night even though everyone else thought he was typically mind-blowing. He's that self-critical.

I think it's really about getting what he "hears" in his head and is feeling over to his hands to play on the guitar and out through the speakers. So much of the music is improvised but it isn't a jam band kind of thing at all. There is solid structure to every song but there are sections that leave room for spontaneous "modifications" that develop organically between the band members. I don't know how else to really describe it. It's something that advanced jazz musicians do but this would be in a very aggressive rock-fusion setting.

And, then, there are Guthrie's solos... I've seen and heard him hundreds of times now over the past decade or so and he still makes me break out in laughters of utter disbelief. Just when you think you've seen or heard everything he could do, he drops your jaws with something mind-blowing that you haven't heard him do before. And you know that he's just going for it - fearlessly playing stuff he hasn't tried before. And when the ideas and inspiration are flowing freely and his mind and hands are connected as one, then the magic happens.

You guys are in for a real treat with the upcoming live album. You thought 'Boing, We'll Do It Live!' was good? Yes, it was very good but you'll see and hear how much better the band and Guthrie have gotten since. They're entering a totally rarefied zone now. And it's scary to think just how much better they will continue to get... As I keep saying over and over again, I don't think Guthrie has even entered his peak years yet... We are truly blessed to observe him grow as a player, musician and artist.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[alexkhan]

During my business trips to Asia, there are the inevitable downtimes when I'm just looking for ways to kill time besides listening to music or reading something on iBooks or the Kindle app. Internet access to sites that I frequent often aren't available or too slow to be nothing but an exercise in frustration.

So I ended up wandering to a well-known gear forum that I hardly ever bother to visit anymore and saw a thread called 'Who has better command of the guitar than Guthrie Govan?" It seems that it was an old thread that got "revived" for some reason. I thought, "Okay, well, I have some time to kill so let me read through this." And as I read through it all I could do was vacillate between and . Geez...

It really is perplexing why people would always want to try to quantify what is "better" or "best" about something that is so subjective. I certainly wouldn't bother to send the thread link to Guthrie as he would have absolutely no interest or the time to read through it. Life is short, you know?! But I ended up reading through all of it and couldn't help but think that some people really don't have better things to do with their time.

I also find it funny and somewhat unfortunate (if not outright pathetic) that people would "judge" Guthrie based on one or a few YT clips they see. Then they say it's just "shred" devoid of soul, feel, creativity, blah-blah-blah and how it leaves them "cold", etc. Again, it's a combination of: and

People seem so quick to judge something based on a very limited amount of information these days. They see some little thing on the Internet (basically YouTube) and think that they've seen all they need to make a final judgment on something. It's this thumbs-up or thumbs-down culture. I notice that in my teenage son when I play something for him. He's so quick to say whether he likes the band/artist or not and I'm thinking, "Look, it's just one song, okay? Sheesh!"

But I guess that's the reality of the world we live in now: instant gratification or bust - especially amongst the young but in the old geezers as well. Truly sad and pathetic... There's very little appreciation for the big picture or the long-term. It's all about now and a very narrow and close-minded view based on what little tid-bits that people see on the Internet. People don't seem to really listen to music anymore. They look at videos on YT and judge based on that.

Oh, well... I'm not going to fight reality. For me, it's about finding the people who do get it. It's a very small percentage but the world is big - very big, much bigger than most people can imagine. Find the niche and then dominate it. Guthrie and the Aristocrats are doing just great with this approach.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[alexkhan]

Another side subject that developed in that thread was about "innovation". I think Guthrie is a very innovative and unique player in how he mixes various techniques and musical ideas into a seamless whole and a style that has his unmistakable personal stamp on it.

But I think someone said that what Guthrie is doing has all been done before - speed picking, tapping, legato, slapping, blah-blah-blah... Geez, does someone need to play with his toes to be considered "innovative" now? This is another example of - as Allan Holdsworth once said - how many guitar players listen with their eyes, not their ears. They're so focused on what a player is doing with his fingers than the music that's being played.

Musical innovation is about ideas. It could be the way harmonies are applied, the way the chords are superimposed, how rhythmic patterns are used, etc. There have been many innovative composers and instrumentalists throughout musical history and it had nothing to do with what kinds of physical techniques were used. But so many guitar players don't seem to see it that way. Again, it's all about what they see on YT of a player's fingers doing on the fingerboard.

When I say Guthrie is getting better, he's certainly not getting any faster. or applying some new mechanical techniques that he hasn't used before. He's coming up with fresh new musical ideas that I hadn't heard him do before. Guthrie's wide ranging vocabulary of certain techniques, licks, and patterns are often re-used but he's always playing lines that are new, not a regurgitation of what he played the night before.

That's musical innovation as far as I'm concerned. It's internal. It's about thinking, listening, feeling... and then applying the techniques to get the musical ideas played on the instrument and out through the speakers. As much as I've seen him over the years, I'm always excited about what new things I will hear from him before a show. That's why I sometimes prefer not to see him during a performance and be in an area where I could just listen to what he's doing. Had that happen quite a few times during my tours with the Aristocrats and sometimes I enjoyed that more.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[Carlo]

yeah, I kinda despise the Youtoob guitar community these days. It's like the equivalent of watching the Special Olympics, ugh!

[frankus]

Hello, sorry for the prolongued absence - I thought this place had ceased to be for soem reason!

The other day my mate from London Guildhall, who shares my commute says "you've been talking about that chap Guthrie for years, so our latest intern put some music on and it was this guy ripping through jazz and country and all sorts of fusions with absolute ease - turns out it was Guthrie"

I note with some sadness that the band at the bassment, now playing quarterly doesn't include Pete, Seth or Guthrie
_________________
Fabulous powers were revealed to me the day I held my magic Suhr(d) aloft and said "by the power of great scale!"

I have the power!

[alexkhan]

Hey, great to see some "old faces" in here again. I know it's pretty quiet here but I kinda like that and I like to drop in every now and then and post some blogs that may be of interest to some. It'll keep going. Obviously, you can see that I'm seeing to that.

Yeah, it'd be great if Guthrie could still do the Fellowship gigs more often but he's hardly ever in UK anymore it seems. The world has taken him away from you Brits!
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[frankus]

Well we deserve it but it's good to know we can still export something of worth
_________________
Fabulous powers were revealed to me the day I held my magic Suhr(d) aloft and said "by the power of great scale!"

I have the power!

[Carlo]

Yeah, I've been really busy with work. And I have moved work locations the past two years (first San Francisco then Chicago). But now I am back in NYC, yay!

But always thoroughly enjoy reading your posts Ed. They are always insightful stuff! And I learned so much about guitar, techniques, and gear thanks to you, Guthrie, and this forum.

[alexkhan]

[Carlo]

Logistical and supply chain aspects of business are definitely not talked about enough, esp in the guitar community. These days people, including myself, don't fully understand where our stuff comes from, how they are made and how much work it truly takes for a product to get developed and finally brought to stores, and who are involved and how many. Sounds really daunting.

I hope things are going really well with you and Strandberg. I know it's a lot of hard work, but it must be really cool to be completely immersed in the toys we love to play