Biggest wastes of talent

[Rovim]

It's true, as part of the people, I really do want tunes.

[moreblack]

It's like you have these underground MCs coming up in hip hop and they can rhyme all night and it's amazing, the mindblowing rap you ever heard...and me as a rap fanatic i'll just listen to em rhyme all night off of some mickey mouse beat, i don't care, i eat that shit up but like, people don't wanna hear that shit, people wanna hear songs so like, y'know, to me they're the shit but to most they're like an incomplete tapestry. It's kinda the same with these virtuoso guitarists, to you its some cool shit cuz it's your sphere of interest most people ain't trying to hear that shit, that fuckin' tinkley Ice Cream van jingle shit up and down a fretboard, people want tunes.

I see it kind of like certain publications. Everybody can enjoy a copy of Sports Illustrated, The Sun, or US Weekly. But mostly only people with an interest in their respective field, are gonna enjoy an issue of Applied Arts, or the New England Medical Journal. The albums those guys make aren't geared towards getting to the top of the pop charts.

[Nulla Lex Ink.]

Hillel Slovak. That guy was my main inspiration to get into music. Such a shame he died so young. If he hadn't, I really do think he could have eventually reached a "Hendrix" level of recognition. I can't help but wonder where he and RHCP would have gone over time, though I doubt he would have stayed with RHCP if he had lived. Also Layne Staley, while he did put out a lot of good work while he was alive, there's still so much more he could have done. Also, guitarist John McGeoch. The guy was way more talented than the people he was surrounded by, but unfortunately, that was the music of the time.

But people that didn't die? The band "The Sisters of Mercy" come to mind right off. Not only did the "original" line up disband before the first album even came out, but they haven't released anything for around twenty years now. They debut new stuff at concerts, though, so that's one thing they have over us GNR fans. Skid Row after Bach's departure too, although with their most recent EP, I think they've finally found the proper footing again. Only took them about fifteen years, but at least they got there. Also, Jay Yuenger. After White Zombie disbanded, this guy just disappeared, and that's one of the biggest disappointments ever, because he was definitely talented. Would definitely love to hear some more of his work again some time.

[OmarBradley]

Challenge accepted, give me a list of songs. My main PC isn't operable now, but it should be within the next week or so.

Cool, OK First time someones done this over all the years of my making similar statements so respect to ya fella. Anyway, OK, Ramones sets were like 21 songs-ish, played live they were played a shitload faster so bear that in mind and there's basically no breaks between songs, it's 1,2,3,4 and into the other...and you have to do a Dee Dee impersonation 1,2,3,4 Nah, scratch the Dee Dee bit

Anyway, songs:

Do You Wanna Dance?

Judy Is A Punk

I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement

Havana Affair

Listen to my Heart

I Dont Wanna Walk Around With You

Commando

Warthog

Glad to See You Go

Oh Oh I Love Her So

Rockaway Beach

Teenage Lobotomy

She's the One

Chinese Rocks

Psycho Therapy

Endless Vacation

I Wannabe Sedated

He's Gonna Kill That Girl

Sheena Is A Punk Rocker

California Sun

Gimme Shock Treatment

Once again, played in The Ramones style, as they did live (i.e. a shitload faster than the studio recordings), back to back, with no breaks except for that count in...and maybe one break after the first 3 songs when they'd take their jackets off, all of 20 seconds Respect to you again by the way, for taking this up

Zounds sir! I thought you meant maybe 5-6 songs . Regardless, I will do the entire set, as you have stated, faster than studio speed. Then once I complete the Ramones set, I will play Holy Wars (don't worry, I won't bore you with the solo) to prove that I am indeed better than Johnny Ramone (or perhaps you'd need to hear an original composition to prove it?). And what sort of Ramones set doesn't include Blitzkrieg Bop? I will need some time on this though, I have 15 songs I separately have to learn for a wedding gig, and a few work assignments. My computer is still inoperable, waiting for the manufacturer to send back it's graphics card - should hopefully get here sometime this week.

I'd say 2-3 weeks or so, is a reasonable timeline for this. Not exactly settled yet on how I am going to record this; I'll either do audio + video from an iPhone, or video from a webcam + audio from a cheap USB mic - leaning towards the former method.

Yes you can say that though, on some level, he is better, although it does beg the question is that shit was Marty Friedman is even looking to do? But yes, if you can write good songs but you're rudimentary and then you got a virtuoso who can't write a song to save his life, in the sphere of popular music the first guy is better.

Addressed your accusation that Mr. Ramone is better in my above paragraph. I know you don't mean it this way, and it's partly because we have a fundamental differing opinion on what "skill" is, but I am truly offended at the insinuation that Johnny Ramone is better . Not sure what you mean by "begs the question is that shit was Marty Friedman even looking to do?" But the assumption that just because Marty (Mustaine should be included in this too, as he wrote a lot of the riffs) can shred super fast and knows every scale in the book = he can't write good songs is ludicrous. He may not write songs based on 3 power chords.... because he's a lot more talented than that, which is my whole point in this argument.

I don't know of any virtuosos who "can't write a song to save his life." Most of the virtuoso guitar players, I am not big fans of (Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen, etc.), but their songwriting ability is not poor. If you don't like Cliffs of Dover, fine, but after listening to that, how could anyone say that Eric Johnson can't write good songs? He might not write pop songs, and he might not have as big of a following as The Ramones, but associating that with being a poor songwriter is an erroneous assertion.

[moreblack]

I don't know of any virtuosos who "can't write a song to save his life." Most of the virtuoso guitar players, I am not big fans of (Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen, etc.), but their songwriting ability is not poor. If you don't like Cliffs of Dover, fine, but after listening to that, how could anyone say that Eric Johnson can't write good songs? He might not write pop songs, and he might not have as big of a following as The Ramones, but associating that with being a poor songwriter is an erroneous assertion.

The common man prefers simpler stuff. KISS will always sell more albums than Steve Vai, so will the Spice Girls. That is in no way an indication that Steve doesn't know what he's doing.

I mean, if you watch his rundown of how this song works, it'll make your head spin. I can't imagine Gene Simmons either having the knowledge or be willing to put in the work, to ever pull something like this off.

[DieselDaisy]

I prefer Spice Girls over Steve Vai. At least Geri has a decent set of babs, although, thinking about it, so does Paul Stanley!

[Iron MikeyJ]

I saw Malmsteen on that metal showv recently and my opinions have been altered slightly. I still prefer bluesier players than most virtuosos tend to play, I also prefer the music made by guys like Slash and what not. But as far as ability to pick up a guitar and play, malmsteen is as good as humanly possible. No one, I mean no one, is better than him technically speaking. Having said that his music can be summed up by watching him play for about 5 mins, so I'm still not a huge fan of it. But he is a freaking madman.

[jbhutto]

Rivers Cuomo / Weezer

Fo real though, I know most people now view the band as a bad joke but

I think Rivers had potential to make some great stuff. At least he emptied

the vaults though via the Alone releases:

And here's another earlier track (not from Alone though)

Rivers had some good guitar solos on Blue and Pinkerton too, then he

just sorta quit.

[Guest Len B'stard]

I'd say 2-3 weeks or so, is a reasonable timeline for this.

Not really, thats tantamount to cheating, half the job is the physical aspect of doing the set, 2-3 weeks, what are you going into training camp? Anybody can do it if they give themselves that much time to get into practise, you were saying like it's easy, like you could do it in your sleep young man!

[OmarBradley]

Not really, thats tantamount to cheating, half the job is the physical aspect of doing the set, 2-3 weeks, what are you going into training camp? Anybody can do it if they give themselves that much time to get into practise, you were saying like it's easy, like you could do it in your sleep young man!

It's not like I'm going to do nothing but practice those songs for the duration of that time.... I have things to do in my life other than learning a bunch of Ramones songs to prove to some yahoo ( ) on a GNR forum that I'm better than Johnny Ramone. But since the burden of convincing is on me here, I will change the terms of this challenge. How is 3 days? Not 3 days from today, but 3 days from when my computer is usable again. I am still waiting for the manufacturer to send me back my graphics card, once I receive it, I can send you a picture of the shipping invoice via PM to confirm that the challenge has begun. I will learn, and record all of the songs you listed, in that 3 day period. But without my PC, I can't get the songs (nor can I record them).

The issue with Ramones songs isn't practicing them, it's simply learning which 3 chords they decided to use for the particular song, and then remembering the two/three times they change the order of those chords (slightly exaggerative, emphasis on slightly though). I literally have 0 Ramones songs on my iTunes, I am familiar with none of their music. So 3 days should satisfy you, is that agreeable?

[GivenToFly]

Not really, thats tantamount to cheating, half the job is the physical aspect of doing the set, 2-3 weeks, what are you going into training camp? Anybody can do it if they give themselves that much time to get into practise, you were saying like it's easy, like you could do it in your sleep young man!

It's not like I'm going to do nothing but practice those songs for the duration of that time.... I have things to do in my life other than learning a bunch of Ramones songs to prove to some yahoo ( ) on a GNR forum that I'm better than Johnny Ramone. But since the burden of convincing is on me here, I will change the terms of this challenge. How is 3 days? Not 3 days from today, but 3 days from when my computer is usable again. I am still waiting for the manufacturer to send me back my graphics card, once I receive it, I can send you a picture of the shipping invoice via PM to confirm that the challenge has begun. I will learn, and record all of the songs you listed, in that 3 day period. But without my PC, I can't get the songs (nor can I record them).

The issue with Ramones songs isn't practicing them, it's simply learning which 3 chords they decided to use for the particular song, and then remembering the two/three times they change the order of those chords (slightly exaggerative, emphasis on slightly though). I literally have 0 Ramones songs on my iTunes, I am familiar with none of their music. So 3 days should satisfy you, is that agreeable?

Escrow!

[Guest Len B'stard]

Not really, thats tantamount to cheating, half the job is the physical aspect of doing the set, 2-3 weeks, what are you going into training camp? Anybody can do it if they give themselves that much time to get into practise, you were saying like it's easy, like you could do it in your sleep young man!

It's not like I'm going to do nothing but practice those songs for the duration of that time.... I have things to do in my life other than learning a bunch of Ramones songs to prove to some yahoo ( ) on a GNR forum that I'm better than Johnny Ramone. But since the burden of convincing is on me here, I will change the terms of this challenge. How is 3 days? Not 3 days from today, but 3 days from when my computer is usable again. I am still waiting for the manufacturer to send me back my graphics card, once I receive it, I can send you a picture of the shipping invoice via PM to confirm that the challenge has begun. I will learn, and record all of the songs you listed, in that 3 day period. But without my PC, I can't get the songs (nor can I record them). The issue with Ramones songs isn't practicing them, it's simply learning which 3 chords they decided to use for the particular song, and then remembering the two/three times they change the order of those chords (slightly exaggerative, emphasis on slightly though). I literally have 0 Ramones songs on my iTunes, I am familiar with none of their music. So 3 days should satisfy you, is that agreeable?

Bit of a deviation from the original proposal but id still love to see it though

[OmarBradley]

I don't think just anybody could do for a living what Johnny Ramone did, as a guitar player. We got some pretty good guitarists on here and honestly, I'd like to see some of em attempt a Ramones set, see how well they do.

Bit of a deviation from the original proposal but id still love to see it though

Well, then I'm not sure I interpreted your original proposal correctly. What did you mean by "attempt a Ramones set"? I interpreted that as learning a bunch of Ramones songs, and then playing them - but you seem to be indicating otherwise.

[GivenToFly]

Not really, thats tantamount to cheating, half the job is the physical aspect of doing the set, 2-3 weeks, what are you going into training camp? Anybody can do it if they give themselves that much time to get into practise, you were saying like it's easy, like you could do it in your sleep young man!

It's not like I'm going to do nothing but practice those songs for the duration of that time.... I have things to do in my life other than learning a bunch of Ramones songs to prove to some yahoo ( ) on a GNR forum that I'm better than Johnny Ramone. But since the burden of convincing is on me here, I will change the terms of this challenge. How is 3 days? Not 3 days from today, but 3 days from when my computer is usable again. I am still waiting for the manufacturer to send me back my graphics card, once I receive it, I can send you a picture of the shipping invoice via PM to confirm that the challenge has begun. I will learn, and record all of the songs you listed, in that 3 day period. But without my PC, I can't get the songs (nor can I record them). The issue with Ramones songs isn't practicing them, it's simply learning which 3 chords they decided to use for the particular song, and then remembering the two/three times they change the order of those chords (slightly exaggerative, emphasis on slightly though). I literally have 0 Ramones songs on my iTunes, I am familiar with none of their music. So 3 days should satisfy you, is that agreeable?

Bit of a deviation from the original proposal but id still love to see it though

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! THE GUY IS GONNA LEARN 20 FUCKING SONGS BY SOMEBODY HE DOESN'T EVEN LIKE AND HE'S GONNA DO IT IN THREE FUCKING DAYS AND THAT'S STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU????? WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT????

Do you want his to fly over to London and give you a blowjob too?

Seriously Omar, super-kudos to you if you go through with this. This is taking 'OP delivers' to new extremes. Nobody ever does this on the internet!

[Guest Len B'stard]

Not really, thats tantamount to cheating, half the job is the physical aspect of doing the set, 2-3 weeks, what are you going into training camp? Anybody can do it if they give themselves that much time to get into practise, you were saying like it's easy, like you could do it in your sleep young man!

It's not like I'm going to do nothing but practice those songs for the duration of that time.... I have things to do in my life other than learning a bunch of Ramones songs to prove to some yahoo ( ) on a GNR forum that I'm better than Johnny Ramone. But since the burden of convincing is on me here, I will change the terms of this challenge. How is 3 days? Not 3 days from today, but 3 days from when my computer is usable again. I am still waiting for the manufacturer to send me back my graphics card, once I receive it, I can send you a picture of the shipping invoice via PM to confirm that the challenge has begun. I will learn, and record all of the songs you listed, in that 3 day period. But without my PC, I can't get the songs (nor can I record them). The issue with Ramones songs isn't practicing them, it's simply learning which 3 chords they decided to use for the particular song, and then remembering the two/three times they change the order of those chords (slightly exaggerative, emphasis on slightly though). I literally have 0 Ramones songs on my iTunes, I am familiar with none of their music. So 3 days should satisfy you, is that agreeable?

Bit of a deviation from the original proposal but id still love to see it though

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! THE GUY IS GONNA LEARN 20 FUCKING SONGS BY SOMEBODY HE DOESN'T EVEN LIKE AND HE'S GONNA DO IT IN THREE FUCKING DAYS AND THAT'S STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU????? WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT????

Do you want his to fly over to London and give you a blowjob too?

Seriously Omar, super-kudos to you if you go through with this. This is taking 'OP delivers' to new extremes. Nobody ever does this on the internet!

I see why you have difficulty making friends The skill level he's talking about should have you up to playing these songs in one night, thats kinda the point. I mean i learned to play half of em in a couple of days and i can't play to save my life...and i never caught the bit where he said he didn't like The Ramones although admittedly I've been drinking

I meant play em, hear em and play em and if he thinks he's a better guitarist that Johnny Ramone and he can do what Johnny Ramone did night after night onstage and on record as he is now then a training camp is kinda lame really, a day maybe, a couple of days, i don't think you get how rudimentary these songs are, I mean I can play em and I can't play anything really. There's a good chance even that he'll nail this, he could be a pro or semi pro guitarist for all i know, as in like playing in a bar band but i don't think you can play with the skill, power and tightness of Johnny Ramones just like that and thats what this is to settle.

Edited April 3, 2014 by sugaraylen

[OmarBradley]

I see why you have difficulty making friends The skill level he's talking about should have you up to playing these songs in one night, thats kinda the point. I mean i learned to play half of em in a couple of days and i can't play to save my life...and i never caught the bit where he said he didn't like The Ramones although admittedly I've been drinking

I meant play em, hear em and play em and if he thinks he's a better guitarist that Johnny Ramone and he can do what Johnny Ramone did night after night onstage and on record as he is now then a training camp is kinda lame really, a day maybe, a couple of days, i don't think you get how rudimentary these songs are, I mean I can play em and I can't play anything really. There's a good chance even that he'll nail this, he could be a pro or semi pro guitarist for all i know, as in like playing in a bar band but i don't think you can play with the skill, power and tightness of Johnny Ramones just like that and thats what this is to settle.

Please explicitly state your requirements for this challenge, I've offered two different suggestions but you've sort of shrugged them both off. Do you want me to learn these songs in 1 night? If that's the case, fine, I'll give that a whirl, how many hours do I get?

This "play em, hear em, play em" concept though, I'm not sure if it's a reality. I could almost certainly figure out which chords and key the songs are using by just hearing them, but it might be more difficult to memorize the arrangements of 20 different songs in 3 hours ... I'm not 100% sure of this, maybe these Ramones songs really are that simple and identical with each other, I'd have to look into that when I can get back on my PC.

And what's this, "the skill, power, and tightness of Johnny Ramone"? Skill? To be blunt, Johnny Ramone is not a highly skilled guitarist. Power? Yeah I can hit chords this hard too (

), the style of music which I primarily play forces a developed attack. Tightness? Yeah his playing is pretty tight (assuming you mean rhythmically), but when you practice simple music for years with the same group of guys.... it's going to sound tight.

You also mention something about "night after night onstage," do you want me to start a Ramones cover band and tour these songs to prove that I can do it? I had a lot of trouble with the mechanics of that sentence, probably has something to do with that fact that you were drinking . But seriously, just tell me word for word, what you want me to do, and I'll do it.

We're also still disagreeing about what skill is; to me, this challenge is pointless, and proves little. Because to me, being able to play Johnny's songs as well as he can, doesn't signal that I'm better, it makes me a cover artist. But if you still think otherwise, I will accept whatever you suggest.

Oh and if I haven't explicitly stated it yet: I do not like The Ramones.

Edited April 5, 2014 by OmarBradley

[Guest Len B'stard]

Please explicitly state your requirements for this challenge, I've offered two different suggestions but you've sort of shrugged them both off. Do you want me to learn these songs in 1 night? If that's the case, fine, I'll give that a whirl, how many hours do I get?

Nah, couple days is good

And what's this, "the skill, power, and tightness of Johnny Ramone"? Skill? To be blunt, Johnny Ramone is not a highly skilled guitarist. Power? Yeah I can hit chords this hard too (

I await your proving of it then.

the style of music which I primarily play forces a developed attack. Tightness? Yeah his playing is pretty tight (assuming you mean rhythmically), but when you practice simple music for years with the same group of guys.... it's going to sound tight.

So it's easy, simple all of that stuff...but it still requires years of practise?

You also mention something about "night after night onstage," do you want me to start a Ramones cover band and tour these songs to prove that I can do it? I had a lot of trouble with the mechanics of that sentence, probably has something to do with that fact that you were drinking . But seriously, just tell me word for word, what you want me to do, and I'll do it.

Just learn the setlist and play it, fast, back to back, with no breaks...and I'll give you a couple of nights The night after night onstage bit was designed to illustrate exactly what it is that a guitarist does, the work aspect of it, the performing live, the physical aspect of that, the exertion it requires, it was all designed to back up the 'i don't think you could do what Johnny Ramone did for a living' angle.

We're also still disagreeing about what skill is; to me, this challenge is pointless, and proves little. Because to me, being able to play Johnny's songs as well as he can, doesn't signal that I'm better, it makes me a cover artist. But if you still think otherwise, I will accept whatever you suggest.

What my point was that, without knowing you, i don't think your average guitarist has the ability to either come up with the songs Johnny did or play them without putting their work in, it is not easy. Edited April 5, 2014 by sugaraylen

[Crash Diet]

Kurt Cobain