He's now in a group called the Aristocrats.  I like how he's able to blend being melodic and musical with unhuman guitar wankership.  I hear he started when he was something like three and just kept trying to make all the tones he ever heard until the guitar becomes another part of him.
 
(BTW - I'm thinking of trademarking "unhuman guitar wankership."  )

craigb
He's now in a group called the Aristocrats.  I like how he's able to blend being melodic and musical with unhuman guitar wankership.  I hear he started when he was something like three and just kept trying to make all the tones he ever heard until the guitar becomes another part of him.
 
(BTW - I'm thinking of trademarking "unhuman guitar wankership."  )

You need a better acronym than 'UGW' mate!
 
 

Don't worry about putting me off, when I go through one of these phases I usually end up w/ the band's full discography a couple of weeks or months later.
 
I've checked out Baptizm on iTunes and I think that I've found what could be one of my "classics".
 
It's often hard for me to get into some of the more modern techniques, to find a guitar player I like to begin with who'll manage to gradually introduce those elements.  Plus, it's not easy because I tend to prefer guitarist playing in a real band context, I'm not really into supergroups or solo shredding.

A lot of my old favorite guitar players are pretty inadequate by today's standards and many didn't really evolve, as if they'd given up when EVH came out. My most recent guitar hero probably is Randy Rhoads - that tells you...
 
Tipton seems to offer just the right blend. He kept on evolving and picking up new techniques, starting all the way back in the 70s. That's something I can look up to.