Charvel vs. ESP - Levin vs. Lynch

[lerxstcat]

Rich, you don't need roids for any is that shit...just ask any of my therapists.

But my son does alot of body building/weight traing and takes creatine and other shit. Let me tell you, we are buttin' heads like a mo-fo..and YES it is THAT shit he's taking. I'm about to kill the muthafugga!!

Love,

ZBubz

...@ Tommmy..Yes, harldy any TP required when shitting a cement plug! But I wipe good because...well, that's what your momma always told ya when you were a lil' baby!

My roommate has a 16-year old son. He is a metalhead and plays guitar so he and I get along great, but he is obstinate to his mom and dad! I try to tell him he makes it harder on himself and his folks. He's very respectful but it goes in one ear and out the other. I was the same at his age, it's kinda horrifying to warn them and see it in their eyes that they think it'll be different for them. So I feel for ya, Bill. Must be like trying to reach yourself of 25-30 years ago! But you turned out alright, so will he. And remember, he might be more buff but you have the experience. Just wait until he pops off to his mom and SHE wants you to whip his ass. Many fewer repercussions that way if Mama tells you to teach him a lesson.

My good friend Dale died last September after a long battle with cancer. He could hardly eat of poop the last few months. I had a problem myself because he was sharing his Dilaudids pretty freely, so I was dropping the rabbit pellets myself. He shared the stool softeners too, so that helped. I needed to be numb, we were best of friends since 1978 at community college. He was the guy I worked up Sails of Charon, We'll Burn The Sky, Your Light and Cast Away Your Chains with. Everyone else thought those songs were not commercial enough. Well, they weren't, but they were FUN! We'd jam that shit with Sal Riccardi - 2 guitars, no bass, and drums - then head off to the river to party with nature. Good times, true friends, youth was good! God rest him...

[MSGfan]

Regaurdless of how GL plays now adays, this pretty much somes up my feeling.
BTW!, Reb B. doesn't even come close to playing George's leads as good as George. Every solo RB plays is mostly hammer ons!

Levin is amazing, but there will only ever be one George. He had the whole package in the 80's, great tunes, great riffs, solid tone, cool guitars, cool hair, cool clothes, etc. And maybe most importantly, George had very unique recognizable playing style in an era that was a sea of EVH clones.

[VitaminG]

Regaurdless of how GL plays now adays, this pretty much somes up my feeling.
BTW!, Reb B. doesn't even come close to playing George's leads as good as George. Every solo RB plays is mostly hammer ons!

On the Live From The Sun dvd, Reb talks about how when he auditioned for the band, he explained that he is a fan and very respectful of the material, but as a pretty seasoned guitarist he already has a style of his own. He was never going to try and note-for-note George's solos. He touches on key melodic milestones through a solo, but gets from point to point in his own way.

[lerxstcat]

Regaurdless of how GL plays now adays, this pretty much somes up my feeling.
BTW!, Reb B. doesn't even come close to playing George's leads as good as George. Every solo RB plays is mostly hammer ons!

Yeah, it's terrible, all those hammer-ons he did in Tooth and Nail!

[lerxstcat]

Lynch Mob sounded better than Dokken because the whole band functioned better, it's all about the band. Dokken had great guitar parts but take 'em away and you got mediocre 80's pop music with melodic pop vocals. The players in Dokken were great but you would never know it by listening to Dokken, the rhythm section was incredibly restricted by Don, there was not much groove at all. Outside Dokken both Mick and Jeff grooved like crazy.
Lynch Mob had hell of a groove, the whole band was rhythmic and locked together and the powerful rock vocals just fit right in.

As far as George's chops go, he started to go downhill in the mid 90's, his most technical playing was on his first solo album Sacred Groove made in 1993.
But seriously how many late 70's/80's players really made some hyper progress later on? How many of them (not counting session aces) can improvise over moving harmonies? I know Greg Howe can but he was alway into Holdsworth and whatnot, Vai can because he played with Zappa as a teenager... let's see Kotzen played with Stanley Clarke. And I guess the biggest process was made by T-Mac who plays with Planet X, I can't name any other 80's neo-classical player who plays over complex moving harmonies and polyrhythms besides him. The others are all about the same old modal wankfest, same ascending and descending lines over and over again.

That's all great, but nobody really wants or hopes for any of that from George - we just wish he could play his old cool stuff without choking on it. It's just a shame, that's all. It doesn't take away from what he accomplished, it's just a shame to see him washed up like EVH.

As for Levin, nobody said he was first - just that he plays the stuff better than George does TODAY. Which is nothing but true, and says nothing more than that it IS true.

[Endrik]

Reb B. doesn't even come close to playing George's leads as good as George. Every solo RB plays is mostly hammer ons!

George's lead style is 50% hammer-ons and pull-offs.
Here's Reb playing a Dokken tune with his own solo, plenty of picking and Lynch vibe while retaining his own identity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krjDyDlf6hg

[lerxstcat]

That's a great record! It prompted me to email Reb and pay my respects for exactly what you said. He actually replied to me the same day to thank me, and said he is a huge Lynch fan and would not have joined the band if he didn't feel he could do respect to Lynch's work. He did the Tooth and Nail solo in the video you can look up on Youtube pretty damn well.

[VitaminG]

I was YTing Reb videos when I came across that Tooth and Nail performance. It prompted me to buy the dvd. Which got me into Dokken. Previously, I hadn't really listened to much of the band. I have an old compilation album with Lightning Strikes on it. The pics of them in their mum's blouses, combined with Don's vox, put me off. I was very aware of Lynch, having read plenty of interviews and attempted to play lessons in the guitar mags over the years. But like many bands of the time (Ratt, Motley Crue, etc), I couldn't get passed the awful lead singers to get into the music.

[devastone]

I'm a noob here so take anything I say with a grain of salt...

Jon plays these songs almost daily, George probably hasn't played them in years, at least not as much as Jon. G probably got a phone call about the show and asked if he wanted to jam on a song, probably the same night. He probably just said, "sure", and thought eh, I'll just wing it (sounds like something I might do anyway and having met G a few times, definitely sounds like his attitude). It was all in fun to the guys on stage, seems like too much is being made of it. George was just being George... Both of those guys are great players and could kick my a$$ any night.

FTR, I love G's playing when he is "on", I've also heard him on bad nights, the worst was the last Dokken tour for Shadowlife, you could tell they couldn't even stand to be in the same building. The first LM disc is probably in my top 10 favorites, and I got into G's playing on T&N, never was a huge fan of Don's vocals, but bought every Dokken disc because of G's playing, so, I'm a fanboy, but still will admit he can have off nights.

Eh, my <$0.02

[atomic charvel guy]

that's a good post devastone, and you're probably right about the phone call, and he probably also went up there cold and not warmed up.
after reading this thread again, who cares in the end? i for one do not.
EXCEPT- for the the loss of Rich's friend Dale, I missed that part, I'm sorry for your loss rich, i'm no stranger to lost friends myself, it sure ain't good, and it
sure isn;'t any fun during those moments and time periods.

[devastone]

EXCEPT- for the the loss of Rich's friend Dale, I missed that part, I'm sorry for your loss rich, i'm no stranger to lost friends myself, it sure ain't good, and it sure isn;'t any fun during those moments and time periods.

I don't know Rich, but losing friends is always tough, thoughts and prayers for you.

[fullmetalguitar]

Sorry to ruin the last minute phone call theory, but that's definitely not what happened. George played several shows opening for Dokken last year, some as Lynch Mob and some as Souls of We. On more than one of them, he came out for Dokken's encore to play a song with them. There was even one show, in Hollywood I think, where Jeff Pilson also came out and "classic four" line up played. You can find it on youtube.

[atomic charvel guy]

he's not getting off the hook with this crowd.
this the JCF Lynch Mob throwing a rope outside the JCF Courthouse around a tree and you guys are gonna hang 'em -lol

[devastone]

Yep, hang 'em high, George should practice the entire Dokken catalog daily just in case...

[lerxstcat]

Tommy and Devastone, thanks for your kind words.

As for the JCF lynch mob, Tommy, I think you have the wrong idea, man. No one is knocking his contributions to the 80s guitar world. But it is definitely a known thing that his playing has slipped due to his abuse of steroids, and do you think he can really be happy that his replacement plays his stuff better than he does now? He just doesn't seem to care anymore, why should his fans be happy that he is content to do a half-assed job 75% of the time?

It's not just the JCF, guys, the whole world knows that George has been hit or miss for many years now. And George doesn't seem to care as long as he still gets paid, which is the saddest part of all. He doesn't care if he does a half-assed job for people who maybe drove hours to see him play and get a shitty show for their time and money. So what's up with that, anyway?

And yeah, I'd say that you ought to be able to play anything you wrote yourself any time you're called on to do so. That doesn't seem unreasonable at all.