836 ( Stuart Hamm - Flow My Tears )

836 ( Stuart Hamm - Flow My Tears )

Quite a few years ago I was trying to find out who were the "screamers" on bass playing behind many of the guitar greats' solo albums, mostly Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. I discovered that one of those bassists was the legendary Stu Hamm.
After going over his discography I ran across one Stu Hamm solo album in particular that caught my attention for one main reason: the album's title and some of the songs made reference to some of Philip K. Dick's works, who is one of my favorite Sci-Fi/Post Modern authors. The album's name, Radio Free Albemuth is actually name of one of his books, which was published posthumously a few years before this album was released. This song, Flow My Tears, is also a reference to one of his more famous and award winning Sci-Fi works: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; the title was itself a reference to the 16th century piece of music credited to John Dowland; Flow My Tears.
It is amazing to see how much of his work has been referenced just in music; you would be surprised to see how many song lyrics and titles across all genres quote or reference his material.
Anyway, this song is an instrumental that features Joe Satriani among others and is quite technical; a delight for the musician, but listenable to casual listener as well. The song is Flamenco influenced and features a lot of different techniques from Stu Hamm and Joe Satriani, including a lot of tapping and harmonics use; a truly beautiful song.

Here is the studio version on YouTube.
Here is a live performance on YouTube.


My song pick a year ago today: Nightwish - I Wish I Had An Angel
My song pick two years ago today: Stevie Ray Vaughan - Pride and Joy

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