I was 15 years old when I showed up at the front door of my guitar teacher with a brand new (copy) red Stratocaster in one hand and a new pack of strings in the other, since I had no clue how to put new strings on my guitar. Soon this was a regular thing and I was addicted to playing guitar. My guitar teacher also had an awesome record collection and really quickly turned me onto Joe Satriani.
Not that long after I joined him to go see him live in (the old) Vredenburg in Utrecht. Of course we stood right in front of Joe to be able to see every note he played and check out his gear. It was the “Flying in a blue dream” tour and of course I listened to that album almost non-stop before the concert. Still to this day it is my favorite album of all time. Joe played the, for me so incredibly complex sounding, songs with his eyes closed. So amazing to have such control over your instrument!
After that first concert I have seen Joe play for many, many times and I keep on going to see him whenever I can. Needless to say I also still listen to all of his albums, but somehow ” “Flying in a blue dream” is still my favourite.
I am such a big fan but when Joe released his book “Strange beautiful music”, I was a bit wary of reading it. Because I like listening to his music so much I didn’t want to lose any of this magic by knowing too much about it, or learn something about it that would make the magic go away. Something about not meeting your heroes. So it took me a couple of years before I decided to order the book.
But I read it in one go and love it! There are a lot of biographical stories of how he started playing, started with teaching and how he started recording all these amazing solo albums. But also there are a lot of technical stories about how he recorded his different albums and with what gear and stuff, which producer, which studio, etc. This can be a tough read for somebody not into guitar playing or recording.
To read about how he came to record an album and what his intentions were and how he tried to translate that into songs and sounds really re-ignited my love of his music and made me even appreciate his other albums more.
Another lesson for me, was that you really should follow your heart and do what you want to do and do it well. This is of course not an easy thing to do and it will take many years of practicing, and learning. But this focus will help get there. Also Joe developed a really good business sense of how the music business works, how to make money in that business and what consumers want. This part of being a musician is still underexposed in a lot of books from, by or about musicians.
So go check out his music, go see his concerts and if you are into guitars and stuff, go read his book.
