Alex W.

1. “Remember” [MP3] [REAL AUDIO]

“I wrote 'Remember' shortly after having to put my German Shepherd down at a very young age, due to an aggressive cancer that came out of nowhere (as cancer tends to do). I don't attach all that much value to human life, and am the exact opposite when it comes to animals, so his passing was a pretty big deal for me. I don't think I intended to write this about him, but when I started playing, that's what I thought about.

The clean background guitar actually comes from three different things that I've been playing with. The first bit is probably two years old, the second about the same, and the clean part that runs through the majority of the tune is something I came up with on the spot. It was nice to finally find a home for those damn things! Don't you hate when you come up with small bits that you just can't seem to fit in anywhere?

As for the electric part, I just plugged the guitar in and played, more or less, not really paying attention to much of anything, especially technique. Though I definitely come from the whole 80's shredder thing, I've found that the best stuff comes if you just shut your brain off and go. The drums.well, they're obviously MIDI garbage, but they serve their purpose.

The recording itself was done using an ancient Peavey Vandenberg into a POD XT, using Sonar 3. I'm not particularly gifted when it comes to recording/mixing. Just enough to do what I need to.”

Post Your Feedback

“This is a nice instrumental guitar piece that lives up to its hearfelt intentions. Be sure to also check out Alex's band by following the link below.”

~***~

“That was sweet.”

~***~

I play lead guitar in the Maryland-based band Life Denied. I may try to do this instrumental with them, but it's sort of personal to me, so it may never progress beyond the very crude home recording [MP3]. Most of the stuff I play in that band as well as other instrumental stuff I've done, is usually the technically demanding "look at me go" style. While that's fun and challenging, this instrumental is definitely the least technically complex thing to come out of my fingers, but is thus far my favorite. It's simple and it really captured where I was, emotionally, when I played it. I guess you really can sometimes say more with one note than with 100 (but I'll still take Yngwie over Eric Clapton any day). I started playing back in '87 after hearing Yngwie's instrumental "Crying." People can say what they want about his playing being cold and unemotional, but that's absolutely not true.