One of the Most Influential Moments

swass

swass

Power User
I was just pondering one of the most influential times in memory as a young, aspiring guitar player from when I was 12 that consequently had quite the impact on me throughout my guitar life;

I still remember the day, and it is etched in my memories... 12 years old and always will because of the impact that day had.

1978 and going into Hi Fi store, checking out some turntables... had a big idea i could afford my own $1,000.00 system with a paper route. I even dreamed big at 12 years of age. From the room where they cranked the speakers... and they were cranked... Lo, Van Halen's "Running With the Devil". I stopped dead in my tracks. Totally in awe and listened intently. And then was the much revered "Eruption". Never have I heard a guitar so ripping so much in so many ways. Couldn't quite wrap my head around what I just heard. That day changed me forever in how I saw and approached the electric guitar. Never have I heard anything like that. It left me totally entranced in total awe with "the tone" and the guy playing that scary, foreign stuff.

A trip down memory lane... I'll put it in reverse, back up now as I feel a poem welling up inside me. :lol

What was your?
 
I was a total KISS fan at the time, but listened to some other stuff as well. I remember the first Van Halen very well too. Me and my guitar buddy were convinced the "impossible" tapping was an effect box :mrgreen "Rocks" from Aerosmith was a great one also in those days.

I was also awestruck by a handful of times seeing my Gods for the first time:
- Kiss
- Lukather/Toto (esp. 90ies era)
- Pat Metheny (he really improvised these godly solos on the spot?? UNREAL!!)
- Joe Satriani: many techniques that made my mouth fall open; there was no YouTube to spoil it all, like now. Could NOT BELIEVE how he could pull everything off from the record and how easily it came to him. I was kinda expecting he could not really play that :))
- A Dutch radio show that always played "Snorting Whiskey" by Pat Travers, Van Halen, ACDC, ...

Earlier on also:
- Seeing the first ever guy playing an electric guitar for real in the guitar shop when I got my first Novanex amp as an 11 year old.
- Learning what those weird boxes were above a staff and what they were for [chords].
- Building my own distortion boxes from electronics magazines, hoping, but never seeming to sound like the record (The guys on the record always seemed to sound an octave higher. What were they using???)
- Have always been impressed by someone who could strike some chords and sing at the same time, simple as it could be.
 
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My mom had this cd called "Absolute Music 7" released in 1993 (I was born in 1988 but I was older than five at the time, maybe around ten).
It was a collection of hits I guess, and I was listening to it, loving the 2 unlimited - no limit song, but then.. Out of nowhere (well actually out of track number eight)

The song started playing... Track number nine: Lenny Kravitz - Are you gonna go my way. The riff opened up my chest, pulled out my skeleton, and started juggling with it!

I was so amazed in the moment (and so young) that I had no words for it. I got paralyzed and then this flanger effect started taking place and the feeling I got was

"oh my god, the song just entered a JET!" while that smacking snare just kept hitting BANG BANG BANG and then.... the solo.


His voice is so raw and ripping!





I was blessed with music for the first time in my life. That song changed everything. Thank you Lenny Kravitz. I love you <3
 
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For me, it wasn't actually a 'guitar' song that made me go, "WHAAAAT!?!" I was fortunate to have a Mum who listened to a lot of good music and a Dad who saw it as necessary to have a good stereo system in the home. As a kid, I was exposed to a lot of great music from my Mums record collection... the Stones, Beatles, Queen (I damn near played the grooves off of Live Killers), etc...

Then, one day, when I was 12 or 13... I pull out this record with a weird cover and intriguing name... Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells.

I put it on the turntable, drop the needle, and go sit in the middle of the living room floor right between the speakers. I stayed in this position... motionless... only getting up to change sides. When it reached the end of Side 2, I got up and started it over again. I listened to it 3 times, back to back. It was (and still is) one of the most amazing compositions I'd ever heard and completely altered my view of what could be done with music.

Other notables include...
Yes - Fragile (still one of my top 10 albums)
Metallica - Master of Puppets (the one that caused me to be a metal-head to this day)
J.S. Bach - The Well-Tempered Clavier (Hey Bach! Are you kidding me? It's so easy for you... isn't it.)
 
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Had two of those "remember where you were when..." moments.

1. "Runnin' with the Devil" and "Eruption". Played loud on a boombox on the ride home in a school bus, spring 1978, Madera, Ca.

2. Miles Davis: "Tutu" played live at the Concord Jazz Festival, Concord, CA, August, 1991. My brother and I were astonished by the bass line and almost dropped our beer! Never heard any music like that and it started my interest in Miles, which led to my love of jazz. I recall he played at hollywood bowl a few weeks later and I think he left the stage sick, then died shortly after.
 
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Hm. I'm sure my story is completely different than just about anyone else's here. For me it started with jazz: Charles MIngus' Blues and Roots record when I was about 6-8. Included with that was an Oscar Peterson record called "The Sound of the Trio." Those records including my mothers love of classical and opera infused my early listening.

Of course I loved the Beatles and Motown, but when Jimi Hendrix hit that was it. OK, I'm revealing my age. I love my age btw. He made me want to play the guitar. Machine Gun, Little Wing, Axis: Bold As Love, Red House. But for me it was also Coltrane, Chick Corea, Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett. THOSE guys REALLY made me want to play. Specifically Coltranes "Chim Chim Chere". Corea's "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs". Miles ESP-Bitches Brew. Jarrett - Koln and Belonging.

My most primary influences have not been guitar players.

As far as guitar players:

John McLaughlin/Mahavishnu/Shakti. He inspired me.

Pat Metheny - when I first saw him, before I knew who he was and before he'd ever put a record out, he played with Gary Burton. Blew my mind because it was so different then.

A ton a great guitarists who I love but haven't had a real influence upon my playing or my musical point of view.
 
My old man was in a band before I was born and continued to gig up until I was probably about 5 years old. I still remember them rehearsing all these great Beatles songs, I've been hooked on music ever since. I also remember sneaking into his album collection all the time and to this day the only words that I really know to every song would be the Beatles.

But yeah, once I heard Eddie for the first time things changed drastically for me. :)
 
Van Halen in 79,for the initial spark and the "what the hell?"factor.
AC/DC Back In Black for making the gutsiest guitar riffs(that were easy enough for me to figure out at the time.)
Blizzard Of Oz and Rhandy for exploding my brain!:)

one hell of a time to start playing.
 
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Here's my story that TOTALLY dates me but I am so glad I lived through it.

My mother bought me the above album for Valentine’s Day one month after its release and the ensuing craziness. Not only did she give me the album but she bought two and gave me the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] one and told me to never open it. I still have it, unopened. I was 8 at the time. One year later my aunts and a couple of their friends had tickets to the 65 Hollywood Bowl show and one of the friends parents would not allow them to see the long hair hooligans. Yep. I got to go! My first concert ever at the age of 9 was the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl!
 
^ WOW, Cobbler! My first show wasn't that cool... but, still pretty cool... my Mum took me and a friend to see Def Leppard - Pyromania when we were 12.
 
Mine was in 1976, I was seven years old and I heard Bohemian Rhapsody for the first time. I made my mum buy it for me (a 7" single with I'm in Love With My Car as the b-side) and I played it over and over, trying to get my head around why all these totally different things could work together. And the guitar solo is what made me want to be a guitarist.

Some 35 years later I bumped into Brian May at an academic conference in London. That was a serious "OMFG fanboi" moment for me (I more or less kept my cool though).
 
Narrowing it down to "guitar" moments:

Van Halen I - Eruption
Jimmy Page - seeing him in TSRTS at the midnight movies
Pat Metheny - I think the first song I really go into was "As Falls Wichita", but seeing him live the first time was the real event.
Eric Johnson - seeing Cliffs of Dover on ACL the first time
Tommy Emmanuel - toss up between seeing his videos online and seeing him live the first time
 
Hearing the opening bass riff to Tool's Sober for the first time when I was 13. At the time I was studying classical piano, but that planted the seed for guitar and bass and everything that followed later.
 
Watching Rush on their Hemispheres tour, standing about 25 feet in front of the stage. Magical is the only word I can use to try to describe it.

Scott Henderson and Tribal Tech. With Gary Willis, Kirk Covington and Scott Kinsey. Best combination of musicians I have ever seen or heard. Unbelievable sound and talent. Saw them a few times in the 90's

Steve Lukather on the Toto 25th Anniversary DVD. Perfect.
 
So many early influential moments. Getting 45s for getting straight As in elementary school. Got "Sunshine Superman" among others. "Rain" bw "Paperback Writer". Seeing Grateful Dead at 12 with older brother (would've seen Allman's, too, but Berry Oakley died 1 week before that). Seeing Arnett Cobb (fantastic jazz sax player) at a restaurant owned by some friends of my parents at 13. Even with one crutch to help him up, he totally kicked ass, a lesson in how great jazz (and other) players can be, even as they age.

First show I went to only with friends (mom drove us) was Robin Trower, King Crimson and Ten Years After. Trower got screwed by the soundman (only years later did I figure out this must've been why they sounded so unexciting even when I knew the music was excellent). King Crimson absolutely blew my mind...same band as on the USA live album. TYA rocked as I knew they would, but KC was the band that just melted my young brain. What the hell is the guy with the black Les Paul sitting on a stool doing?

I got to hear just a ton of great music from the ages of 16 to 21 (and beyond). Lots of blues, rock, folk, world and jazz greats and underknowns. Weather Report (2x) was one of the many highlights of that period. Allman Brothers and a ton of blues players made me want to play guitar.

In 1988, I heard Bill Frisell's Quartet play. That changed my world as much as anything. I heard sounds that were like something from a dream where musical styles and types I'd never heard and/or never heard blended. Following Bill Frisell and whatever direction he's gone and whoever he's played with has been one of the joys of my life as a listener. Fortunately he's played a ton in the Twin Cities over the years.

As to the EVH thing, I remember very clearly someone playing the first VH record for me at college. I absolutely hated it. Just couldn't stand it. I was so deep into blues, jazz and more rootsy styles and it just seemed like so much wanking to me. I've evolved a bit from my reactionary youth and I can appreciate VH more than I used to be able to, particularly his rhythm playing, but to my ear, a lot of music with way more technique than musicality came out of VH and his spawn.
 
i grew up listening to country & western, boney M, Abba etc and soft stuff that the radio played... Dreamed of playing Mull of Kintyre one day :)
then I was 13 at high school and was introduced to Gary Moores Victims of the Future, Iron Maiden Killers and George Thoroughgood (whom i perforated my eardrum listening to with headphones too loud for too long - OUCH)... Of course Led Zep followed with ZZ Top ...the rest is history
 
My mom was a big fan of 60's and 70's rock and country, I always listened and was amazed by what I heard. but what really got to me was when I was in grade school around 74, I saw a local band play a show at the schoolhouse and could't take my eyes of the drummer! LOL ... I begged for a set of drums forever but the parents wouldn't do :( dad always had a Teisco electric so I started to try at that, wanting to be a part of what I heard. So here I am all these years later still trying to figure it out :)
 
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