Along with his one-time teacher Joe Satriani, six-string wizard Steve Vai set the standard for rock guitar virtuosity in the '80s. Born on June 6, 1960, and raised in Carle Place, NY, Vai became interested in the guitar via such legendary artists as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Alice Cooper as a teenager and, upon starting high school, took lessons with an older player from his high school, Joe Satriani. Playing in several local bands, Vai quickly picked up on the instrument, and by the age of 18 was attending the renowned Berklee School of Music in Boston. As a student there, Vai transcribed several of Frank Zappa's most technically demanding compositions for guitar, and even sent a copy of one such transcription, "Black Page," to Zappa himself. Zappa was so impressed with the young guitarist that upon meeting him, he invited Vai to join his band.
Subsequently, Vai toured the world with Zappa (giving Vai the nicknames "Stunt Guitarist" and "Little Italian Virtuoso") and played on such albums as 1981's Tinsel Town Rebellion and You Are What You Is, 1982's Ship Arriving Too Late, 1983's Man from Utopia, plus 1984's Them or Us and Thing Fish, before leaving to set out on his own. First off was a pair of self-financed, recorded, and released solo albums in 1984, Flex-Able and Flex-Able Leftovers, both of which showcased Vai's guitar playing and songwriting talents, yet were still heavily influenced byZappa.
With Van Halen all the rage by the mid-'80s due to their massive hard rock/pop crossover success, Vai replaced Yngwie Malmsteen in a similarly styled outfit called Alcatrazz (which featured former Rainbow vocalist Graham Bonnett), playing on their overlooked 1985 release Disturbing the Peace. The same year, Vai made a cameo appearance in the movie Crossroads (playing the devil's guitarist and shredding away in a guitar duel with Ralph Macchio) and got an invite from his friend/bass master Billy Sheehan to try out for the guitar spot in singer David Lee Roth's solo band (Roth had just split from Van Halen), and eventually landed the gig. 1986 saw the debut release from Roth and his stellar solo band, Eat 'Em and Smile, which went on to become one of the year's top hard rock releases. Both Vai and Sheehan were catapulted to superstardom due to their instrumental talents, as they took top honors in numerous guitar magazines for years afterward.
But although the quartet showed great promise, Sheehan jumped ship just after their sophomore album, Skyscraper, was issued in 1988. Although the album was more pop-based than its predecessor, it became another sizeable hit -- with Vai earning a co-producing credit on the album along with Roth. The same year, Vai issued his own line of snazzy guitars, the Jem 777 series, via the Ibanez company. After the ensuing tour with Roth wrapped up in late 1988, it was Vai's turn to jump ship. In addition to working on another solo album, he was invited to join up with chart-topping pop-metallists Whitesnake, an offer he accepted. His one and only album with Whitesnake, Slip of the Tongue, was issued in 1989, as was his third solo album overall, Passion and Warfare, a year later. The album was based on dreams that Vai experienced as a teenager, as the largely instrumental album became a sizeable hit, earning gold certification and solidifying Vai's standing as one of the top guitarists of the day. It was also around this time that Vai created a seven-string guitar through Ibanez. Although the instrument didn't catch on initially, it would by the mid- to late '90s, when the guitarists in such metal acts as Korn and Limp Bizkit would utilize the instrument to achieve super-low tunings.
After an extended hiatus, Vai formed his first conventional rock band (called...VAI) along with newcomer Devin Townsend on vocals, T.M. Stevens on bass, and Terry Bozzio on drums -- offering their one and only album in 1993, Sex & Religion. When the album proved to be a disappointment both critically and commercially, Vai returned back to all-instrumental work with the 1995 EP Alien Love Secrets. For the remainder of the decade, Vai continued to issue solo releases, including 1996's Fire Garden, 1998's Flex-Able Leftovers (a re-release of his long out of print second solo album, with added tracks), and 1999's The Ultra Zone. It was also during the late '90s that Vai and Satriani reunited for an annual co-headlining tour (with a different third artist added each year), called G3, unleashing a live album, G3: Live in Concert, in 1997.
The early 21st century saw a flurry of releases from Vai, including a compilation of instrumentals, The 7th Song: Enchanting Guitar Melodies Archive, in 2000, and his first full-length live release, Alive in an Ultra World, in 2001, as well as his mammoth career-encompassing ten-disc box set The Secret Jewel Box. In 2002, he collected several pieces that he had contributed to films through the years, including the guitar duel from Crossroads and the theme to Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and put them together in a 40-track collection called The Elusive Light and Sound, Vol. 1. A series of compilations came next and after a five-year hiatus from the studio, Vai returned in 2005 with Real Illusions: Reflections. A tour with the Metropole Orchestra followed and he released a ambitious double live set documenting his performances, titled Sound Theories, Vols. 1-2, in 2007.
Over the years, Vai guested on countless albums by other artists, including Gregg Bissonette's self-titled debut and Submarine, Alice Cooper's Hey Stoopid, Randy Coven's Funk Me Tender, Al di Meola's Infinite Desire, Public Image Ltd.'s Album, Joe Jackson's Symphony 1, and Billy Sheehan's Compression. He can also be found on such additional Zappa releases as Jazz from Hell, Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar, Guitar, and on several volumes of the ongoing You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore series and the live tribute disc, Zappa's Universe. As if his busy schedule weren't full enough, Vai pursued a lifelong interest when he began harvesting honey among five bee colonies in the backyard of his home. Greg Prato, All Music Guide
Jumat, 31 Juli 2009
Steve Vai Biography
Simple Plan Biography
Simple plan consists of five members:
Pierre Bouvier- Lead vocals
Charles Comeau AKA Chuck- Drums
Jeff Stinco- Lead guitar
David Desrosiers-Bass and back vocals
Sebastian Lefebvre AKA Seb- Guitar and back vocals
These five amazingly good looking guys come out of good old Montreal Canada!! Jeff, Chuck, Seb, and Pierre all went to the same Highschool. They eventually formed a band, but they needed a new bassist. At the time, Pierre was doing vocals and playing bass, but wanted to just sing. So they recruited Dave from a band called Reset (Ironically Chuck and Pierre's old band). Together they formed Simple Plan.
Simple Plan is a pop/punk band and their inspirational music always gets you hyped and ready to party. They have accomplished so much in such little time, that the only way to go from here is up.
Good luck in the futur guys!
Silverstein Biography
vocals - shane told
guitar - neil boshart
guitar - josh bradford
bass - bill hamilton
drums - paul koehler silverstein.
Acquiring the name from the famous children's author, Silverstein was formed in early 2000 in an attempt to tear down the boundaries between Hardcore, Emo and Punk. Originally started as a side project, the band was a chance for its members to try something new and get away from their current Punk, Metal, Ska and Hardcore bands.
Coming from the thriving scene of Southern Ontario, which includes such acts as Grade, Jersey, Moneen, and Maharahj, Silverstein was met with immediate success, and quickly self-released their first CD-EP, "Summer's Stellar Gaze" in Summer 2000. This release was met with huge local success and led to great responses from all over Canada about their new, powerful sound.
As their success grew, and Silverstein became the main project for all of the members, founding guitar player Richard McWalter left the band and was replaced by former Maharahj guitarist Neil Boshart. This brought a whole new batch of influences and ideas, and took the music to another level. With the new lineup in effect, Silverstein toured throughout Eastern Canada and Quebec, and found there was excitement all over about their music. In April 2002, their second EP "When the Shadows Beam" was released and found its way into the hands of Victory Records owner, Tony Brummel. After a meeting and showcase, Silverstein was quickly signed to Victory in October 2002.
With influences ranging from The Get Up Kids to Grade, Mineral to Cave-In, and even Pedro the Lion to Slayer, Silverstein is a true mix of everything at once. The powerful melodic singing and gut wrenching screaming of vocalist Shane Told evokes the pain, struggle and emotion of the lyrics, which represent true feelings of heartbreak and frustration. Silverstein finds a way to keep the music unique and interesting, but always catchy. Bringing a violin into the mix, and adding 6/8 meter melodic parts to screaming breakdowns help to achieve this. The sound is reinforced by the creativity of drummer Paul Koelher and the energetic playing of bassist Bill Hamilton. The shimmering clean, and singing distorted guitars of Boshart, and Josh Bradford complete the lineup, and capture the listener with their harmony and power.
Sex Pistols Biography
Unabashedly crude, intensely emotional, calculated either to exhilarate or to offend, the Sex Pistols' music and stance were in direct opposition to the star trappings and complacency that, by the mid-'70s, had rendered rock & roll irrelevant to the common bloke. Over the course of their short, turbulent existence, the group released a single studio album that changed, if not the history of rock, at least its course. While the Sex Pistols were not the first punk rockers (that distinction probably goes to the Stooges), they were the most widely known and at least, to appearances, the most threatening. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols unquestionably ranks as one of the most important rock & roll records ever, its sound a raw, snarling, yet mesmerizing rejection of and challenge to not only rock & roll music and culture but a modern world that offered, as Rotten sang in "God Save the Queen," "no future." Whether the Pistols were simply a sophisticated hype run amok or the true voice of their generation has been widely debated, yet, oddly, that neither matters nor explains how they came to spark and personify one of the few truly critical moments in pop culture — the rise of punk.
The Sex Pistols were the brainchild of young entrepreneur Malcolm McLaren. The owner of a London clothes boutique, Sex, which specialized in "anti-fashion," McLaren had conceived the idea of a rock & roll act that would challenge every established notion of propriety when, in 1975, he found himself managing the New York Dolls in their final months as a group. A part-time employee of Sex, Glen Matlock, played bass with Paul Cook and Steve Jones; he let McLaren know they were looking for a singer. McLaren approached 19-year-old John Lydon, whom he had seen hanging around the jukebox at Sex and who was known mainly for his rudeness.
Lydon had never sung before, but he accepted the invitation and thoroughly impressed the others with his scabrous charisma. McLaren had found his act; he named the group the Sex Pistols. Allegedly, Lydon's disregard for personal hygiene prompted Jones to dub him Johnny Rotten. Ten minutes into their first gig at a suburban art school dance on November 6, 1975, the school's social programmer literally pulled the plug. In the early months of 1976, McLaren's carefully cultivated word-of-mouth about the Sex Pistols made the band the leader of the nascent punk movement. Their gigs inspired the formation of the Clash, Buzzcocks, X-Ray Spex, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and countless other rebel groups in the second half of the '70s.
The press and the record industry ignored the Sex Pistols at first, but by the end of the summer the uproar — both acclamatory and denunciatory — was too loud to be ignored. In November EMI outbid Polydor with a recording contract worth £40,000. The Sex Pistols' first single, "Anarchy in the U.K.," was released in December. That month the band used the word "fucker" in a nationally televised interview; the consequent outrage led promoters and local authorities to cancel all but five of the dates scheduled on the group's national tour and EMI to withdraw "Anarchy in the U.K." — Number 38 on the U.K. chart in January 1977 — from circulation and to terminate its contract with the Sex Pistols.
In March Matlock left to form the Rich Kids and was replaced by John Richie, a previously nonmusical friend of Rotten, who named him Sid Vicious. That same month A&M signed the Pistols for £150,000; just a week later the company fired them for a balance payment of £75,000. In May Virgin signed the Pistols and released their second record, "God Save the Queen," timed to coincide with the Queen's Silver Jubilee that June. The song was immediately banned from airplay in England. Nonetheless it was a top-selling single (cited as a blank at the Number Two position on official charts, listed as Number One on independent charts).
When no British hall would book the Pistols, the group went abroad — to the Continent in July and to the U.S. in December, by which time the debut album had been released. In America the band found itself the object of a little adulation, considerable hostility, but mostly uncomprehending curiosity, which turned to scoffing when the group made only halfhearted attempts to live up to its reputation for savagery. Rotten was characteristically critical of the sensationalism and opportunism that had been attached to the Pistols (for which he blamed McLaren), and on January 14, 1978, immediately after a concert in San Francisco, he announced the breakup of the group.
Jones and Cook remained active in the punk movement and formed the Professionals; Jones materialized in the mid-'80s in Chequered Past, featuring former Blondie rhythm section Nigel Harrison and Clem Burke, ex-Iggy Pop sideman Tony Sales, and singer Michael des Barres. Vicious initiated a haphazard solo career, which ended when he was imprisoned in New York on charges of stabbing his girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death in their Chelsea Hotel room. He died of a heroin overdose while out on bail before he could be tried.
Dismissing the Sex Pistols as "a farce" and reverting to his given name, Lydon formed Public Image, Ltd. In 1986 the surviving members of the group and Vicious' mother won a lawsuit against McLaren, charging he had tied up their royalties in two management companies. The plaintiffs were later awarded approximately $1.44 million. That same year, the critically acclaimed Alex Cox film Sid and Nancy was released.
In 1996 all four original members reunited to embark on a world tour, including Europe, North and South America, Japan, and Australia, dubbed the Filthy Lucre Tour. The Sex Pistols, uncharacteristically "professional" onstage, nonetheless attacked the old repertoire with a fury. Filthy Lucre Live, which documented the re-formed band's London performance, was released in the States in time for the tour's U.S. arrival. In 2000 Julien Temple's The Filth and the Fury documentary on the Pistols included some of the footage originally released as The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle in 1980.
Jones debuted Jonesy's Jukebox, a successful L.A. radio show, in 2004; Rotten, meanwhile, appeared on a British reality show as well as his own Discovery Channel nature series. Though the group still reforms for the occasional short-lived tour, one live gig they didn’t make was the 2006 Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony: Before the Sex Pistols could be inducted, the band members posted a message on their website, saying “were [sic] not your monkeys.” The band reunited again to play a handful of shows in late 2007 and in 2008 embarked on a European summer festival tour called the "Sex Pistols: Combine Harvester Tour."
