Category: guitarbloke

  • Ardor

    This tune is about that time at the end of a good day when you’re dropping off to sleep, feeling generally well disposed and thinking about how lucky you are to have the people you love. This is a reprise of another song; I wrote two quite different arrangements to the main melody and they…

  • JP…but not

    This track was originally inspired by the tones from the Neural DSP Archetype: Petrucci plugin, specifically the “Glasgow Kiss” preset and the default rhythm tone. I added some extra flanger to make the lead guitar “sing” a bit more and also as the (extremely) lazy man’s alternative to hooking up a wah pedal. The result…

  • KDH Solo Competition Entry

    Guitar YouTuber KDH is currently running a solo competition, and I thought I’d take a swing at it. I’m at best an intermediate player by modern standards, but KDH appears to be a bit of a hair metal revivalist himself and so I figured that my stuck-in-the-80s brand of shred would fit in quite nicely.…

  • Do You Think?

    This song is an exercise in trying to take the most boneheaded riff possible and make it sound more complicated than it really is. The main guitar figure is just two alternating barre chords (played in drop D for even more simplicity) but it doesn’t really sound that way since the harmony is implied by…

  • Never Feed After Midnight

    This track started out with just the rhythm part and then somehow turned into what I think it would sound like if Joe Satriani played lead guitar for Mogwai and everyone was a bit tipsy.

  • Left Hand Riot

    This is a mid-tempo rock track partly inspired by the tones I got out of the Neural DSP Mesa Boogie Mark IIc+ suite. The IIc+ is famous for being the Metallica Amp, but it’s also great for classic rock rhythm and lead sounds.

  • Cathedrals

    I’ve mentioned it a couple of times before, but as someone who was introduced to modern rock guitar by Joe Satriani’s The Extremist (before quickly discovering Surfing with the Alien and Flying in a Blue Dream), I’ve continued to have a huge affection for up-tempo instrumental rock tracks that are less about showing off, and…

  • Christmas at the Beach

    Christmas isn’t just about snow and wellington boots and a big roaring fire; in fact that only really applies in the Northern Hemisphere. This song was written after a rather nice Christmas Day spent working on my tan. As it turns out, warm, laid back, summery sounding guitars actually go surprisingly well with sleigh bells.

  • My Good Nature

    This is another very Satch-esque track in the vein of something off “Unstoppable Momentum” or “What Happens Next”, with a bit of a twist in the form of an intro which channels the sort of guitar/bass tapping duet that Billy Sheehan is known for (with about 1/100th of the talent). This one is all about…

  • Hang On

    This started out as an exercise in figuring out how to take advantage of the low strings of my 8-string. Then I added a coda which somehow turned into its own whole song. This was pretty heavily influenced by both Devin Townsend and Astronoid. Because MP3 players are still pretty bad at seamlessly transitioning between…