Seriously, how good is Paul Gilbert??

[mi2tom]

Originally Posted by demian

Excellent GP!! very clean and fast at the same time!!, and thats is very important at least for me. great compositor too!
He has a lot of instructional videos and you can learn a lot from there.
and besides he is a very nice and patient person personally.
GREAT!

Yeah you got that right

[CrossingStar]

I like the sound of his picking a lot. Real staccato and you can hear so much "pick hitting the strings". I love that for some reason. Like he would say, like something stuck in a spinning bycycle wheel. I still whip out Intense Rock, his original instructional video and I feel good if I can get even a small part of some of those licks. That video was a big influence on my later playing.

[Knightmeir]

I'm blown away by him. One thing that amazes me about him is that he has a serious understanding of what he does, as opposed to those who just play... yes he's VERY technical, but why's that a bad thing?

Strange is good. That makes Paul a God.

[nickcoumbe]

The guy rocks, and no mistake.

I got into Mr Big about 10 years ago after a guitar mag had a piece on him, and a tab of "To Be With You". I bought the tape, and laterly the CD of the album, and it is rarely of play.

His tone, composition and feel on songs like "Green Tinted Sixties Mind" still blows my mind 10 years later. Then he will switch tone to a raw bluesy SRV type of thing on "Alive and Kicking". Both tracks sound like him, but he switches tone seamlessly. Not difficult to do, but not necessarily normal.

I think that in terms of playing in a band situation, and a normal rock song, Gilbert is the complete player, and I am sure that in terms of his solo stuff it is great too. Personally I prefer Vai's tone, I think he creates a sonic landscape with his guitar, and I feel as though I have been on a journey at the end of the track. I suspect that Gilbert is probably more relevant to the rest of mortals, and what we actually play.

His instructional videos (particularly the Terror Death Licks) are like a toolbox. There are lots of cool things in there, and I use some of them still. He also will stop shredding and just start talking about dynamics, and feel, which is refreshing from a "shredder".

The guy rocks, I rank him alongside Bettencourt and Rhodes (and in my book, that is as good as it gets). I think you have to think of Vai, and Satch as fundamentally different in terms of their composition, although I bet he could nail anything that they could.

[PauloGilberto]

Originally Posted by elcid

I don't know if anyone here has heard his cover of 2 become 1 from the Spice Girls, but it kills. Especially when he throws in the solo from Stairway to Heaven. Later he fits Sweet Leaf in it too.

Oh man. He totally 0wn3d the song! I think he first played the song at the Ibanez clinic in France, 1998. The chord progressions were so beautiful. And the solo! Total respect man.

I am a noob guitarist, just started to play around late 2003. It was strange how most of my friends are into Vai or Satriani but not Gilbert.

And yeah, by looking at my nick, I am a really big Gilbert fan. I have a PGM3, and it rocks my socks. LOL. And I do have almost all of his instructional videos. His website really reflects his fun attitude and I like him partly for that.

Cheers.

[desertdweller]

Slightly OT: Is there truth to the rumor that Paul Gilbert is secretly Buckethead, or is that bunk?

[EKG]

Not true....former student

http://www.geocities.com/stringcheese242001/

[Tom Gilroy]

This is what happened at the clinic I was at.

loudmouth; Paul! Are you Buckethead?!!
Paul ; No I'm not Buckethead.
loudmouth; Paul! Who is Buckethead?!!
Paul ; He's a kid I used to teach.
loudmouth; Yeah Paul but, who the heck is he?!!
Paul ; He's just an ex student of mine.
loudmouth; We need names Paul! NAMES!!
Paul ; Ok I'll level with ya. Buckethead is Neil young.
<starts playing rocking in the free world>

[TheToneZone]

My first concert was Mr. Big, back in say 88 I think at some backwoods waterslide place, they just started touring. Front row center, ten feet away from the guy... That was the moment I realized what I wanted to do when i grew up.

I still wonder HTF I became an accountant...

[The 7th 7]

Hey I'm a management consultant -- and I still rock out....

Admittedly... if I could give it up to become a Pro musician, I would!!!

[mi2tom]

Originally Posted by The 7th 7

Hey I'm a management consultant -- and I still rock out....

Admittedly... if I could give it up to become a Pro musician, I would!!!

I'm an acting cost controller here..... And yeah me too I will give it up to become a pro muscian too

[freedom's door]

I just finished watching the "Eleven Thousand Notes DVD", and all i can say is: he's the best.

Tone, technique, feel, soul, sense of humor- he's got it all. Plus he writes some damn catchy melodies. Although i still prefer the Racer X stuff to his solo stuff, his talent kills me every time i hear him, no matter the context.
peace

[gpenguins]

Paul is the absolute shiznit! After not hearing form him for years, I decided to grab one of his solo CDs off of the bay a couple of years ago, and I was an instant convert. I've since then gotten all of his solo stuff and 4 PGMs. I LOVE that he has unbelievable technical ability, a great sense of songwriting, and wraps it all together with his goofy sense of humor.

I have to say, if you haven't seen or heard the "Yellow Matter Custard" concert with him, Mike Portnoy, the Bissonette brother that plays bass, and I forget the last guy, you've gotta check it out. Listening to Paul play Beatles covers is awesome. He has such a great sense of how to play the songs, I can't really explain what I mean - it's not that he's shredding through them, but you can tell it's him playing on a lot of them. And he really rips on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

Then, I found out a few weeks ago that he was going to be in town with Mike Portnoy to do a Rush tribute, but I ended up with a family function and I was SO pissed that I missed that.

[Chris Brooks]

I was never a fan of his tone in the 80s / early 90s but he's a picking genius and I should probably check out what he's done the last 10 years!

[onewhiteduck]

I love Burning Organ, Alligator Farm, and Flying Dog. Those are killer albums. I still need to get Space Ship 1.

I Am Satan from Burning Organ is just an awesome song. Especially the "evil" outro.