Rolling Stone's - Keith Richards

PLAYING WITH FIRE

IT'S HUMP TIME in Toronto. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and company have rolled into town, ready to begin preparations for this year's version of the Summer Stones. There are stage models to be examined, promotional campaigns to be mapped out, lightning schemes to be con-figured.

Oh, yeah- and music to be played.
"We're getting familiar with playing some of the newer ones," the 50-years-old Richards reports with a gleeful cackle. There's nothing he likes better than playing, and there's nobody he likes playing with more than the Stones- Though his solo band, the X-pensive Winos, rates a pretty strong second.

"The way those shows usually shake down - it's kind of like picking track for an album. We start playing everything, and you don't pressure or guide it too much. Some songs kind of leap out and say, ' Yeah, me this time'. It always comes out all right."
These days, things are about as all right in Stonesville as they've been in a long time. The nasty mid-Eighties rift between Richards and Jagger is patched over and, seemingly, forgotten. After years of infighting, bassist Bill Wyman has left the band, replaced by Darryl Jones- the first new Stones in 19 years. Trusted keyboard hand Chuck Leavell is on hand for the tour , and tickets as always are selling well, despite a concert market glutted by the high-priced likes of Pink Floyd, the Eagles, Barbara Streisand and the tandem of Elton John and Billy Joel.
Best of all, the new music is good. The Stones' new Voodoo Lounge is a bold, sprawling work that finds the band ignoring the sonic conversions that come with being The Stones, Oh, Voodoo Lounge has its share of Jagger-Richards crankers- "Love is Strong," "Mean Disposition"- but the Stones consistently reach for more, employing country touches, funk, blues, Celtic folk, Latin rhythms and lush balladry in the Jagger vocal showcase "Out Of Tears" to elevate Voodoo Lounge.

Wes Borland: Seventh Heaven

Limp Bizkit's Wes Borland shows how he and his seven-string Ibanez have re-written the rules of metal in the Nineties.

"OUR MUSIC IS MAINLY hard rock mixed with hip-pop, but we do more than just that," says Limp Bizkit seven-string guitarist Wes Borland. "We like to call it' crossover' music, because we try to take from every style of music that there is. Everyone in the band has really different musical tastes, and we each bring in our own individual things."

Borland cites a range of influences that are both electric and diverse: "(Bassist) Les Claypool from Primus is big, because watching him playing really inspired me to mess around with two hands chording and riff playing." Limp Bizkit tunes like "Stalemate," "Sour" and "Indigo Flow" all features the two hands on the fretboard approach. Incredibly, the only guitar player Borland points to as an influence is jazz great Wes Montgomery.

He goes on to discuss Minor Threat, Black Flag and, of course, Metallica. "I'd play along to Master Of Puppets for hours, God, I still love that record. Hetfield's tone is monstrous! The same goes for ...And Justice For All and Ride The Lightening."

Another major influence on Wes is also an unexpected one: "I absolutely love Danny Elfman's movie soundtracks, and his music with the band Oingo Boingo," he says. "That's where I get all the ambient, weird stuff. I'm always trying to adapt Elfman's soundtrack music to the guitar. It's not uncommon for me to launch into 'Pee Wee's Big Adventure' in the middle of a show."

Of his use of the ibanez seven-string, Borland says, "I play the seven-string 90 percent of the time, and i've started to play this four-string thing that I invented, too. But the way I feel into using the seven-string is kind of funny. Before we got signed, all of our songs were written on a six-string. When we got our equipment budget, I went to look for a new guitar. I didn't want a Strat or a Tele, or any other standard type of guitar. I wanted something that was 'me,'something different, and the seven-string was it. We were already friends with the guy in Korn, and they said to me, 'You'll love it!' And they were right. I really like the big, fat neck on it, it's almost like a bass. But I hate whammy bars: I jam a piece of wood in the cavity so the block won't move."

Guitar Legends: Jimmy Page And Joe Perry

JOE PERRY HAD HEARD IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

Maybe it had been a hundred times... maybe a thousand. Whichever it was, he had definitely lost count. No matter where he went, it was always the same thing: "Hey, Joe, I like your music, but when are you going to make an album that sounds really raw...you know, like Aerosmith did in the Seventies?" There were times he left like responding with a brutal sock to the jaw. But the truth was, he also missed the good old days. Perry always thought the band was at its best when delivering greasy, riff-fueled party anthems like "Walk This Way" and "Toys in the Attic." Throughout the Nineties, Aerosmith had all but mothballed their mighty two-guitar assault as they churned out an impressive string of glossy, radio-ready hit ballads like "Cryin'," "Amazing" and "Crazy." But enough was enough. Perry decided it was time to make a change, or else risk losing his rock and roll soul. And whaddaya know? Things changed. Over the past six months, Aerosmith have been working on an album of classical blues rock that Perry claims is "very reminiscent" of the band's 1976 masterpiece, Rocks. "It's a response to what a lot of fans have been asking for, and something we've always wanted to do. The album is full of guitars, and we're playing some of the best riffs ever composed." To cement their return to form, the band hired producer Jack Douglas, who worked with Aerosmith from 1974 to 1979.

Tentatively called Honking on Babo, a title attributed to the screwball humor of singer Steven Tyler, the album features no-nonsense cover of three Mississippi Fred McDowell songs as well as a completely gonzo version of 'Muddy Waters' classic "Baby Please Don't Go" and a scorching remake of Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved A Man." Other surprises include a slam-bang attack on Sonny Boy Williamson's "Eyesight to the Blind" and a truly slinky and sinister take on Willie Dixon's "I'm Ready." While some may say recording an album of blues is commercial suicide, Perry insists recording the music was crucial to the long-term health of the band. "We needed to reconnect as musicians," he explains. Or as Tyler quipped recently, "It feels like we all took a break, went to summer camp and got laid for the first time."

JIMMY PAGE: My experience was, in a way, not different from Joe's. I also learned from rock musicians. I loved Elvis Presley's early singles, like "Hound Dog" and "Milk Cow Blues," which were originally written and recorded by blues performers. After I listened to Elvis I started going back to the source of his music through a friend of mine that was a record collector. He had an amazing stash of blues album, and he was very generous about letting me listen to them. No one was really playing the blues on the radio or in clubs yet, so it was still a very underground thing and records were very hard to find.

I think I gravitated to the blues because I was guitarist and it was a very guitar-centric music. Is you were a guitarist at that time, your appetite was voracious for early rock guitarists, like Chuck Berry and all the blues that was coming out from Chicago.

Eric Clapton: On Pilgrim

More than 30 years have passed since Clapton's passionate guitar first inspired devotees to proclaim that he was a God. As the world inches ever closer to the Millennium, it is reasonable to ask, "Where is the God now?" The answer is that he is just released Pilgrim (Reprise), his first full album of new material in more than eight years. More notable is the fact that the record contains mostly original material 12 of the disc's 14 tunes were written or co-written by Clapton something that says much about his development as an artist. For even in his heyday, he preferred filling his albums with cover songs because, as he says today, he was unwilling to reveal himself beyond what could be determined from the music and his guitar playing.

Not anymore, compared to much of Clapton's past work, Pilgrim is practically a Book Of Revelations. Not in any sort of lurid, tabloid sense, but in the sustained openness that characterizes every song on the album. He stands up to some powerful ghosts on Pilgrim and, unlike in the past, does not rely on his guitar playing alone to do the dirty work. There is plenty of memorable guitar playing, of course, everything from scorching blues to smooth r&b to melodic slide to delicate acoustic finger picking. Also present, however, are some fairly out of character elements, like the straightforward, sometimes harrowing lyrics. Even more surprising are the vocals. Anyone who's ever heard "Layla" knowns Clapton is capable of intense, even hysterical singing. But there is something different about Pilgrim. On the new album, he rises to the challenge posed by this uncommonly revealing lyrics by taking some uncommon risks vocally. From the raucous bluesy shouting of "Sick and Tired" to the technically demanding ornamentation of "Broken Hearted," he sings acoustic guitar-driven "Circus," which man ages to be moving without sounding at all like "Tears In Heaven, Part II."

Clapton addresses another painful topic on the album. He never knew his father, who abandoned him and his teenage mother before he was even born. On "My Father's Eyes," he pulls off a play on words that enables him to unite, as it were, himself, his father and his son all in the same song. The clever, sensitive lyrics, combined with a very strong vocal, do fitting justice to subject matter that would daunt most singers.

" 'My Father's Eyes' is very personal," says Clapton. "I realized that the closet I ever came to looking in my father's eyes was when I looked into my son's eyes."

Jimi Hendrix And The BBC King

THIS STORY BEGINS in 1967, when the Jimi Hendrix Experience made a series of recordings for the British Boardcast Corporation. Some of the BBC sessions took place in the earliest days of the Experience's existence, prior to the completion of the band's debut, Are You Experienced? Over the years, the BBC material attained an almost mythic status among Hendrix collectors hardly surprising, given that they came from a time before his deification as the Superstar Rock God, when the guitarist was in the first flush of his greatness. Given the natural tendency to lionize the pure product of budding genius, Hendrix freaks who'd never heard a note of the BBC sessions knew they had to have them.

Actually having them, however, was another thing. For years the BBC sessions were available only as bootlegs which, when they could be found at all, were usually of extremely poor quality. In 1988, however, Alan Douglas, the oft-reviled keeper of the Hendrix flame, and Rykodisc released Radio One, a 17-song collection that represented the lion's share of the Experience's BBC sessions. The response was overwhelming: Session madness ruled supreme in Hendrixland.

Now, bootleg manufactured have been dealt what appears to be a truly crushing blow: Experience Hendrix, the family-run outfit which succeed Douglas as the arbiters and controllers of all things Jimi, has issued The Jimi Hendrix Experience: BBC Sessions, a two-disc, 30 songs collection that features all of Radio One Plus 13 additional, previously unreleased tracks. Among these are alternate takes of such old favorites as "Hey Joe," "Foxy Lady" and "Hear My Train A'Comin'," plus one alternate and one additional take of "Drivin' South," a powerhouse instrumental that is one of Hendrix's earliest compositions.

The release of this digitally remastered set is cause for celebration, as it means that Hendrix scholars and neophytes alike now have access, for the first time, to these essential recordings, complete, unabridged, and in one beautifully designed, fully annotated package. That the brain trust behind Sessions includes Eddie Kramer, who engineered much of Hendrix's original output, indicative of the kind of care put into the landmark release.

Neil Young

In 1992, Neil Young turned back the clock a full twenty years with his album Harvest Moon. The album, full of sweeping melodies and beautiful harmonies, recaptured the spirit of 1972's Harvest, still his most popular release, and represented Young's first appearance in the Top Twenty in almost ten years.

To call Harvest Moon a nostalgia trip or a 'remake' would be a great folly. In Harvest, beneath the pedal steels and honey-tinged melodies, the twenty-six years old Young sang about getting old and dying. "As the days fly past/Will we lose our grasp?" he questioned on the title track; on 'Are You Ready For The Country?' he sang, "I ran into the hangman, and he said, 'It's time to die'". Even 'Heart Of Gold', Young's only Number One single, ended each verse with the line, "And I'm getting old."

Harvest Moon on the other hand, is a testimony to survival, focussing on the losses, compromises and triumphs of a man approaching fifty."What this album is about is this feeling, this ability to survive and continue and grow and get higher than you were before," says Young. "Not just maintain, not just feel well. You can be more alive."

It hasn't been all sunshine and laughter these two decades for Young. He has lost several musicians who were very close to him, from Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten's drug-related death in 1972 to passing away of Steve Lawrence (saxophonist in Young's bluesy, big band project, the Blue Notes) in 1991. Young was involved in a turbulent, messy legal battle throughout the Eighties with Geffen Records, his label at that time for making what the company called 'unrepresentative' albums for making albums that didn't sound like Neil Young albums, whatever in heaven's name that might mean. Most horrifying, however, is the fact that he has two sons by two different women and both of them were born with cerebral plasy.

Joe Satriani : Now Makes His Technique Crystal Clear

Joltin' Joe Satriani makes his other wordly technique crystal clear in his exclusive lesson.

"MY GUITAR PLAYING on this record is not at all didactic or methodical," says Joe Satriani. "I'm trying to show people that I'm really not like that. If a shameless display of non-technique like stepping on some weird box and holding one long sustained note is what the song calls for, then that's what i'm going to do."

Satriani, perhaps the world's foremost purveyor of instrumental rock guitar, is free associating, sharing the musical and emotional sensibilities that inform Crystal Planet, his powerful new album. "I'm under this funny umbrella, this ' rock and roll instrumental' thing," says Satch. "I'm not really fusion or traditional rock, but I entertain kind of a wide audience. Some of the stuff is simple, and some of it is complicated, but it's all wrapped up in this fun, high-energy atmosphere."

High energy, technical, non-technical all of these could describe the guitar playing on Crystal Planet. And one other thing: the stuff is challenging.

Satriani sat down with Guitar to give us a tour of Crystal Planet and offer some insight into licks from his previous albums, as well.

The first single from Crystal Planet is "Ceremony," which begins with a quite, dreamy melody played with a wah-wah. ABOVE FIGURE illustrates the tune's intro. "This opening riff is based primarily on shifting two note figures, "explains Satch, "starting with an index-finger barre across the A and D strings at the 6th fret. After hammering on and off the 7th fret with the middle finger, the pinky reaches up to the 9th fret on the low E string for the C# note."

Joe Satriani says, "because ever since The Extremist, I was on this craze to make things sound not technical. But, as it turned out, that record was filled with some of the most technically difficult stuff I've ever played! On 'New Blues,' the rhythm track is performed entirely using two-handed tapping, recorded live. But, for whatever reason, no one ever asks me about the technically challenging stuff on that album. At the time, people would say to me, 'Oh, this record seems pretty straight ahead no weird techniques,' and I was like, "What, are you kidding?!