1350 Al Di Meola - Race With Devil on Spanish Highway
1350 Al Di Meola - Race With Devil on Spanish Highway
From: Elegant Gypsy, Year: 1977
Still listening to a great deal of Al Di Meola's music, so I figured I would pick another one of my favourites from his catalogue. This is one of his songs that, as a musician, you either get really inspired or depressed when listening to it. It just oozes with jaw-dropping musicianship from beginning to end.
From what I've found out there was a remake of the song in the late '90s on the Infinite Desire album featuring Steve Vai titled: "Race With Devil on Turkish Highway."
Here is the studio version on YouTube.
Here is a live performance circa '78 on YouTube.
Hear Race With Devil on Turkish Highway featuring Steve Vai on YouTube.
My song pick a year ago today: Falco - Titanic
My song pick two years ago today: The Guess Who - Undun
My song pick three years ago today: Lynyrd Skynyrd - The Ballad of Curtis Loew
+
There was a Songfight thread about him a few years back. Apparently, he's kind of a jerkoff.
ReplyDeleteI've never met the guy, so I can't verify or deny his character, but as with many professional musicians, I'm sure he has his off days and judging by the music he plays he is probably extremely anal about his sound. Not that it should let him off the hook for being an unprofessional jerk, but I can definitely see his point. After experiencing first-hand horrible sound men both as a performer and as a member of the audience there is a certain point when you've had enough. For instance, at the Exist†Trace concert that I just saw at Sakura Con, for the first four songs you could not hear the vocals at all and from that point on out they had problems with various instruments' volume. That was after an inordinately long soundcheck. Many members of the audience were getting quite vocal and pissed about being kept outside for the soundcheck and were even more P.O.ed when we found that out waiting was in vain. All I can say is that the band did their best slogging through the incompetence of the sound man, especially Jyou, (the band's lead vocalist), she was still belting it out and showed emotion even though you could not hear her. So yeah, I can see where it would be an issue for a performer. At least calling out someone for their incompetence on stage is better than what others have done. I've heard of artists completely canceling performances just because something like the wrong brand of bottled water being in the dressing room. It is unprofessional? Hell yeah, but if I was him I'd probably be unhappy as well if I felt someone's incompetence was robbing the audience of their time and money.
ReplyDeleteNo offense to the guy on the SongFight board, but he/she is obviously not a fan of Jazz, Fusion, or other forms of Progressive music using terms like "free form jazz crap," and "masturbating on stage for 30 minutes" and was already hostile to him and the music being played before he took the stage. I'm sure if he/she was at a concert of one of his/her favourite acts and was acting like Al Di Meola did on stage, he/she probably would be agreeing with the artist. I mean, I'm sure that to an untrained and hostile ear it would sound like he is just wanking his guitar and playing fast scales for 8-minutes, but that is a very unsophisticated view of music, and I'm pretty sure many other fans of Fusion or Progressive music would agree. It's true, Fusion and many forms of Jazz and Progressive music is definitely not genres that I would suggest to most; I guess you either appreciate the form or you hear it as "musical masturbation."
One thing I can at least say is that I listen to every artist and song and judge it on its own merit before I damn it. Al Di Meola is an amazing musician and has influenced uncountable musicians and will probably be remembered for many, many years to come, unlike most musicians today.
Anyway, sorry about going on as long as I did.
No need to apologize. It's your blog. Rant all you want. Can't really say I disagree with any of it.
ReplyDeleteBTW, that post on Songfight originally contained a picture of Di Meola onto which an ejaculating penis had been drawn. So that should tell you something about "Sober."
Nothing wrong with Sober's point of view; it's a free country and he can like and dislike whatever he wants, just as I have the right to not agree with what he asserts.
ReplyDeleteI bet if I tagged along with someone to a concert of a compupop star diva type and something similar happened I'd probably have a similar view of that artist that Sober did to Mr. Di Meola. That being said, if you are going to see a concert performed by one of the granddaddies of Fusion you should expect songs longer than 2.5 minutes and A LOT on "bombastic noodleing" and "musical masturbation" going on. Just the same if I tagged along to that hypothetical concert I would have to expect sugar-coated fluff music with computers providing the vocals; I wouldn't expect anything else and I wouldn't be upset afterwards that they didn't perform some Prog/Rock.
Anyway, thanks for the discussion I always find it fun.