The Extremist, Relativity Records, all formats. Reviewed by Phil Hearse THE OTHER week Eric Clapton walked off with more Emmi awards than a normal person could carry. Even Clapton was embarrassed by the absurdity of it.
Those who think he's still a guitar god are wallowing in nostalgia or too lazy to listen to anything new. For the truth is that the most technically accomplished rock guitarists today come from Heavy Metal for short.
Mention Heavy Metal to average socialist and they'll ( go into the nearest corner and puke.
Of course a lot of Heavy Metal bands are junk, but for A scene from Maicolm X every ten headbangers abusing themse ves with a tretboard, there's someone who can really play.
At last year's Freddie Mercury concert Metallica played everybody else off the stage. Compared with Eddie Van Haten, steve vai, tunino bet tencourt and Joe Satriani, Capron is a very averase guitarist.
Of the new wave hard rock uitarists Satriani (The Professor') is the acknow ledged genius, alone in shooting to stardom on the basis of pureby instrumenta dourns.
The tens of thousands of US teenagers learning guitar no longer want to play like Clapton or BB King, but like Satriani and Vai.
His breakthrough in the US was the 1990 album Surfing with the Alien, and the single from it Aluays with Yo He had to wait for the Seville Expo guitar festival to ecome widely known in Europe. Already a superstar in France, in Britain he's had who will read Maloolm's speeches, his o wait for people to stop aving about the 28th ver sion of Layla.
What's Satriani got to offer? A technical bag of tricks and virtuosity to be ing Day on the Alien album technically impossible even ve years ago But there's also an unrelenting lyricism, full of cente touches which so way beyond the bounds of the traditional heavy metal vocabulary.
The Extremist combines some straightforward hard rock numbers with jazz and blues inflected pieces, the best of which is Why. It's not his best album, but it's a good place to start for newcomers to the sente People who don't like anything which isn't 12-bar blues won't like it of course. Neither will those who think ck guitar stopped wit lapton, Hendrix and Jimm Page.
But people prepared to try omething new, and get beyond the 'metal' packag ng. should listen to it. Either that, or get booked in to the next 43-night Albert Hall Clapton run and wait for the 29th version of Layla, probab.
ly with strings and a 500: voice choir (yawn). Joe Satriani: Albums - Not of this World, Surfing with the Alten, Flying on a Bine Dream, The Extremist. Video: The Satch Tapes. We welcome letters on any subject but please keep them brief. Letters over 350 words will be cut. Send your letters to: Socialist Outlook PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU