Influences: Joe Satriani

Satch drove mainstream acceptance of guitar musical pieces achieving a mythical status in the players community. I reminisce fondly of my introduction, and appreciation of Joe S.

The year is 1987, I am still taking lessons with my maestro guitar teacher. Life is good, proficiency is good, and I am having fun. Then I hear this amazeballs song hit the radio, “Satch Boogie¹”. It was jaunty, it was ballsy, it was incredible. Apparently, it was the warm up that Joe and his band played to loosen up before practice, or gigging. It just grooves

From the initial snare/hi-hat pattern that leads of, to the first notes of the main riff, until it dies out after the last note, it is a high energy romp, something that gets the toe tapping, and the groove just invades your bones.

That was my first contact, but I became obsessed. Joe’s band included the incomparable Stu Hamm on bass (he of the “Linus and Lucy” solo), and on every track, the musicianship was amazing.

I ws engrossed. Turns out this wasn’t his first album, there were a couple of EP’s released before, but one thing that was apparent was that Joe was painting with an amazing palette of tones, technique, and sounds. He was a master of the fretboard, but also unafraid to explore and work the edges of the known universe. Joe’s music followed an arc, with songs like “Summer Song”, “Big Bad Moon”, “Ice 9” and others. Later he began to sing (frankly, his voice isn’t great, I listen mostly for the guitar, naturally), rounding out his skills and repertoire.

My favorite listens are still Satch Boogie, The Extremist, Rubina, and many many more that are in my Daily Grind rotation.

I saw him once. He headlined at the San Jose Civic Auditorium, with Eric Johnson opening. This was circa 1990. I had just heard of Johnson, and I was there to see Joe. If I were forced to be honest, I would have to say that Eric Johnson was absolutely at the top of his game, and his playing was impeccable. He had just released Ah Via Musicom, his second album, and the anthem “Cliffs of Dover” was getting a fair bit of airplay.

My recollection of that evening was that Eric Johnson was otherworldly good, and Satriani sounded like he ws just stringing cliches together. I was less than impressed, hence why I didn’t go out of my way to see more of him.

Still, Joe Satriani was instrumental in driving me to practice more², and to improve my style and technique. For that, he remains one of my key influences.

1. Technically, since it is instrumental, it isn’t a song. As the incomparable Gary Moore said that if their ain’t words, then it is music, not a song

2. I was never disciplined about playing with a metronome, so once I turned on the metronome, and counted out Satch Boogie, and I’ll be damned if Joe wasn’t perfect on every beat and note. That was an eye opener to me at the time.

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