Slash, Guns N’ Roses’ resident guitar hero, showcased another dimension of his playing on
Orgy of the Damned
JEN ROSENSTEIN/GUITAR WORLD
SLASH
THIS YEAR, SLASH’S Rolodex was every bit as important to him as a Gibson Les Paul or Magnatone amp, with the Guns N’ Roses guitarist leveraging all his convening powers for the all-star blues album Orgy of the Damned — before repeating the trick and launching the touring S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Festival to make money for good causes and take the art form nationwide. Orgy was an opportunity to show the world a side to his playing that we hadn’t seen since the Nineties (via his Blues Ball live project), and yet you don’t need to dig that deep into Slash’s back catalog to find examples of blues phraseology — the influence has always been there.
He had been wanting to do some of the Orgy tracks since forever — “Killing Floor” (transcribed on page 86) being one of them. “It’s always been one of my favorite guitar riffs of all time,” he told GW. His high-energy shakedown of the Howlin’ Wolf standard — with AC/DC’s Brian Johnson barking lava into the mic — showcased an ease with this material.
The GN’R guitarist freshened up the rotation for Orgy, predominantly playing through a Magnatone M-80 combo and breaking out his 1963 ES-355. The Gibson brand ambassador even switched codes to use a Fender Telecaster on a bravura take on Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” and a Strat on Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac standard “Oh Well.”
Green and fellow Bluesbreaker alumni Eric Clapton are primary inspirations, but as Slash argues, the O.G. trailblazers remain unsurpassed.
“My favorite British guitar players are amazing, but they all pale in comparison to the original guys, because that was their own personal technique, from its origin, and everybody after that was just picking up on it and taking it somewhere else,” he said. “Those early blues guitar players from the Fifties and Sixties — and, of course, it goes further back than that — there was a thing there that was just raw and amazing and unique.”
JOE SATRIANI
JOE SATRIANI DID more in one year than most players do in a lifetime, starting out with the G3 Reunion Tour alongside the original 1996 lineup of Eric Johnson and Steve Vai, playing shows that would’ve been the highlight of any other year.
But not when Satch also announced that he and Vai were touring and making music together, releasing their first single, “The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1,” in March, sharing a GW cover and having big fun onstage. And definitely not when it was confirmed that Satch was going to be performing a de facto tribute to Eddie Van Halen on Sammy Hagar’s Best of All Worlds Tour.
After all the hoo-ha about the EVH tributes, this was a chance for one great to pay homage to the G.O.A.T., and Satriani approached it with his trademark humility. He got serious. First, fretting about the tone, he developed an all-new tube amp with 3rd Power to replicate Eddie’s Live Without a Net-era sound. Then he sweated the playing. Performing “Mean Streets” on The Howard Stern Show without a rehearsal was a baptism of fire. Everyone had an opinion. But he did what the greats do; they get in the room and practice, and when the shows came around, no one was mistaking Satch for Eddie Van Halen — but they sure could’ve been mistaken in thinking this was easy, because he made it look like a fun jam with friends, which is kind of what 2024 was for Satriani. Which brings us to Mr. Vai…
STEVE VAI
AS IT GOES with Joe, so it does with Steve, and although Vai didn’t need a custom-built amp to play Van Halen night after night he did have his own musical Everest to scale. Once he had fulfilled his post-G3, post-Satch/Vai commitments, it was time to tour with Beat, reimagining King Crimson classic albums in the company of Crimson alumni Adrian Belew and Tony Levin, with Tool’s Danny Carey on drums.
The Beat tour is a big deal — 65 dates across the States — and a heavy lift, with a set culled from King Crimson’s Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair, all performed for a fanbase who expects perfection. Vai wouldn’t have it any other way.
“When the opportunity to do this gig was presented to me, I saw myself on the stage in my minds-eye and I knew it would be good,” he wrote on Instagram. “But the way it is turning out for me has surpassed my expectations… I feel so comfortable being on this stage playing this absolutely superb music and being a part of something that offers the fans of this music an opportunity to hear it live after over 40 years of its release.”