Superhuman Electric Guitar Gods

You know the ones Im talking about .

The ones that make other players stop dead in their tracks as their jaw hits the ground , as they stand there in stunned amazement.

How some of these players can even make their fingers do these things , I simply cant believe.

Post up some examples of astonishing electric fretwork !


I will start with a tiny snippet of one amazingly flexable, spider fingered wonder .............

BUCKETHEAD


Some will find it amazing he has been around for 30 years, dozens of albums, yet not a single spin on everyday broadcast radio airplay.

20 years ago Bucket was a driving force behind the band Praxis, besides his own solo projects.





Bucket could really get going when he sat in with other talanted players.......perfect example was 2002 Bonnaroo with Claypool.





Things allways get a little weird during intermission.......he's quite talented with the nunchucks and can really do a great robot dance when he wants to.....

Couple of my favorites are Paul Gilbert and Tosin Abasi

I was working the stage, watching this amazing performance... what a weekend!
Buckethead showed up in a car in full costume, it was a buick something or other, (might have been a riviera) The only thing he didn't have on was his bucket, and soon as he stuck his head out the door, it went on. Talk about dedicated.

You can even see me stage left twice. out of focus.

Way back when I was a young fella in the 80's we watched a kinda horror softporn B grade movie about a killer laced up on PCP that goes to a Socal motel/ mansion & ends up doing his thing there . There was a bloody good young guitarist rollerskating around thru the place (this was in the movie not at our place) with an amp on his back & mime makeup/ mask like his. Too much of a coincidence I reckon, must have been him.

Eric Johnson, covering the old Mississippi Sheiks' Sittin' on Top of the World. Brilliance.



W.A.

And I'll see your Buckethead (I have 8 or 9 of his records), and raise you a John 5. A little country metal cover of Hank Garland's Sugarfoot Rag.



W.A.

Eric Johnson covering Hendrix' Love or Confusion.



W.A.

Steve Lukather

Very cool !

Yep, I have never seen him without mask in public.......he also rarely speaks. He was wandering the camp and vending areas at the 2004 10,000 lakes festival during mid day. He came right up to me and checked out my merchandise. Didnt say a thing , all I could see were his eyes shifting around a bit. I noticed his super long spider fingers with guitar player callouses . I didnt know who he was at the time, and its common to have freaks and flakes just float past your vendor stand. Just brushed it off as another bizarro dude............boy did I get schooled the next night when he took stage !

Never heard of Tosin .......interesting, I kinda hear some Micheal Angelo In his riffs.

Gilbert has been a standout for a long time.



Here's some M.A.B. The guy has a attitude...... but his playing is worth getting past it.

Eric Johnson had quite a good run in the 90's. Have not heard much about him since ? He has a kind of softened smoothness to his style.

Well, thats different ! Kinda a heavy metal hoedown. Interesting how it ends up sounding like a cross between a banjo and a metal shredding.

The best I've ever seen was Shawn Lane. Gone too soon. He used to play with The Willys, which was for a time the house band at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, so I caught him a few times.

The only other player I think rivaled Shawn Lane's talent was Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Sounds like Yngwie Malmsteen. Has one of the biggest egos in the business but at least has the talent to back it. I remember watching the MAB vids when I was in high school.

I have been enjoying the examples that you guys are listing. I find that I am generally more of an Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani type guy but that may be a generational thing. To me some of the examples have at times transcended music to (sorry, I can't come up with a better word) noise, where stuff is included more because of how hard it is to perform and 'flashy' it is than for what it adds to the music.
Keep in mind that I say that knowing full well that the generation before mine thought EVERYTHING that I liked was noise, as I say 'a generation thing'. It would be a dull world if we all liked the same thing and this opportunity to expand my experience is really appreciated. Thank you all.

Bruce

^^^ What he said. ^^^ I have added Michael A. & Eric J. both to my library. Thanks.

Al DiMeola is one of my all time favorites.

In addition to the above........

John Petrucci
Nuno Bettencourt
Vernon Reid
Paco De Lucia
Andres Segovia

There are all kinds of badasses that most have never heard of. Found this guy looking at amp reviews. Skip ahead to about 20 seconds in.

Guthrie Govan is one of my faves. He's just an amazing player. His part of the trio The Aristocrats and has been Steve Wilson's lead guitarist on a couple of albums and tours. He's also a very humble guy which is refreshing in this genre.