It's funny how our minds make subconscious musical connections...

Recently I woke up with Megadeth's old song "High Speed Dirt" off their Countdown to Extinction release. Pretty good song and one I learned back when I was a little greaser but hardly my favorite (I preferred their earlier work... particularly the album Rust In Peace which I learned almost in it's entirety at one point). Seemed odd that that particular song started earworming me out of the blue like that.
 
I think I just realized why. In my "downtime" I try to soothe the spazzoid cacophony in my mind (heh... just remembered Marty Friedman of Megadeth played on the guitar album Cacophony with... Jeff Beck? I forget and digress) by watching lame old sitcoms (because I've run out of actually funny stuff to watch). Since I had just finished working my way through all the eps of Cheers (which is actually pretty good for the time period) I figured I'd see if I could tolerate Frasier (tried a while ago but drifted away).
 
So on my little brain breaks for the past few days it has indeed been a Frasierfest (and old Columbo episodes at night... now THAT is good stuff). I just now realized how similar the silly little Mustaine blues solo in the full stop parts in High Speed Dirt is to the final little guitar lick in the outro theme on Frasier.
 
Add to that I've been using a GR5 preset to get some riff tracking done that has a very similar hi/mid crunch as they used on the Countdown album and it all makes sense.
 
Stoopid crazy brains. lulz

Ah! Jason Becker. That seems right (and makes more sense). Jeff Beck/Jason Becker... lol more memory twisting.
 
Marty was a huge influence on my lead playing during my formative years. So slippery, musical and tight. Mustaine has talked about how once he met and hired Marty his enormous ego got a massive kick in the crotch and that it drove him to clean up his act musically (and perhaps in general).
 
Unfortunately due to how hard I've been on my hands over the years (lots of construction work, preexisting muscle/tendon issues and... well I'm ashamed to say on occasions fist related violence with inanimate and not so-inanimate objects... but the latter of which always deserved it) I ain't quite as "slippery" as I used to be. I'm sure just aging may have soemthing to do with it as well.
 
The current project I've been obsessing over (written by someone else) has a main riff that is picked very similarly to another tune from an old band I used to play in (again written by someone else) so I've also had my mind drifting to that tune. Both are very odd picking styles to me and both totally screwed me up because of it. Aside from that the riffs are very dissimilar so it's been making that one riff in the new song even more of a buttkicker to nail down.
 
Funnily enough the riff(s) in question remind me of that strange semi off time style chugging/galloping with crazy stabs that Mustaine used to do in the REALLY old days on albums like So Far So Good... (So What). I'm always writing and playing riff picking in easily divisible patterns that land in time so that type of nutty off time stuff is a total bugger.
 
All working out nicely though. In fact I should get back to editing it. lol
 
Cheers, Mesher. ;-)

craigb
Hmm...  Possibly the first time Green Acres and Megadeth are mentioned at the same time. 

Ewe know, this might be a good idea to do a Metal version of Green Acre's.....the main rhythm played in a fast triplet format and the melody done with a wah wah.
 
Bwa-bwa-bwa-bwaaah.....(evil wah laugh)

You would think she's used to your singing by now.....

Hi,
 
I don't always get specific songs at all ... I get the whole band, as if in rehearsal or while playing ... and it is another "photograph" for my mind.
 
It's gotten so huge, and so many of them, that I am working a book around it. There was one in particular that was ... nice for me ... and in my dream, this set of words showed up ... and when I told the story to someone, they specified that yeah, the singer had said that a few times. I thought it was just ... a different time and place, and it did not mean that much anymore to anyone, and too many folks don't give a darn that sometimes music is more than just music! It's a complete heart with a life!  Just ask Bapu!

sharke
Isn't one of Cacophony a paraplegic these days? I seem to remember reading something a couple of years ago.

Jason Becker has ALS. Can't move anything. Can't breathe without a machine. Can't even talk. He communicates by eye movement / looking at letters on a piece of Plexiglas. Google "Jason Becker yo-yo solo". The guy was an amazing player. Got the disease at like 20 years old.

Her name was Lola...

AArgh, now look what you made me do..

Isn't knowing that it's a Barry Manilow song a COC violation? If not, it should be...

(lights a candle and emerges from the depths)
 
I'm still in my Goth phase and the mere mention of someone or something named Barry Manilow causes intense agony. I think I may have cracked some eyeliner. I don't know if it's a COC violation, but that Manilow thing certainly is a crime against humanity.
 
(descends from whence he came)

MY EYES!! MY EYES!!

I gotta get me one of those vests!

Is it just me, or when you look at that picture, do you hear a voice droning, "Duuuuuhhhhhhh...?" You hear it, too, right? 
 
It's hard for me to tell because I hear that all the time. 

bitflipper
Talk about your uninvited associations...that post started up a mind-loop with "take this vest offa me, it don't fit me anymore" sung by Dylan. And now that silly tune is stuck in my head.

Well, look on the bright side. At least it's Dylan singing it, and not Axle Rose.