Artist: Satriani, Joe
Label: Epic Records
Released: 1987
Running time: 36:33
Rating: 4/5
When Hendrix died on September 18, 1970, the world shook, and a whole new generation of hopefuls grabbed a guitar. Seven-year-old Malmsteen sat in Stockholm in front of the family TV, stunned, staring at archive footage of Jimi setting his Stratocaster on fire on stage, while a slightly older Satriani told his gym teacher the very next day that he was leaving the football team to focus on music, period. Joe soon made a name for himself as a guitar teacher, and his students included a wet-behind-the-ears Steve Vai (who one day turned up at Satriani’s door with a guitar and asked if he could show him how to put on strings), Kirk Hammet and Alex Scolnick. He introduced himself to the wider American audience with his second album, Surfing with the alien. With this record, Satriani proved that, in the golden age of the eighties and the guitar revival that came with it, instrumental rock was still fresh, commercially appealing and anything but a dead genre.
Surfing is a kind of apotheosis of the electric guitar and its many techniques, with legato, pick tapping, using pitch and the whammy bar at the same time, and sweep picking standing out. The latter was the calling card of the brilliant Jason Becker back then, before ALS put him in a wheelchair at twenty. The young virtuoso, best known for his work with Marty Friedman, had just stepped in for Steve Vai in David Lee Roth’s band and was getting ready to hit the road when he found out about the terrifying diagnosis that took one of rock’s greatest hopes away. But back to Satriani. Surfing is much more than a dry collection of solos. It’s a complete masterpiece with highly listenable music, where the technically demanding parts perfectly complement the harmonic structure of the songs and add to the overall mood just right. Even more than the assorted acrobatics, what grabs us are Satriani’s blues phrases, which are as simple as can be and yet incredibly effective and expressive. That’s where the essence and soul of the guitar live, which makes the album required reading even for those who are only just learning the instrument. On those lines, which, like with BB King and Jeff Beck, stand in for the vocals, Satriani builds compositions like the title track and the song Crushing day, while saving some more demanding rhythms for the energetic Satch boogie. The calmer tracks win us over too, like Midnight, where Joe experiments with multi-string tapping, and Echo, plus the classic Always with me, always with you. The last two were used countless times as a backdrop for on-screen announcements between programs on national TV.
The Cry Baby is never far from his foot, in the studio as much as live, which is mostly Satriani’s way of tipping his hat to Hendrix, who also inspired how he puts together his pedal board. “Couple of little boxes on the floor,” he says in an interview on the bonus DVD package Live in San Francisco, pointing out the modest gear Hendrix relied on, unlike most eighties guitarists, who leaned on mountains of rack effects. True masters simply don’t need a lot of equipment.
“Surfing with the Alien” is the “grandaddy” of all modern guitar albums and an essential extension of the tradition of Hendrix’s “Axxis” and Beck’s “Blow by Blow” on one side, and the innovation of Rhoads’s “Blizzard of Ozz” and Van Halen’s debut on the other. A perfect blend of instinct and technique. In 1987 the album put Satriani on the musical map, and with his following records, which you could definitely call classic mainstream rock, he’s stayed there to this day. His music is timeless precisely because of its universality, and unlike the work of other guitar aces, it’s unusually easygoing and undemanding for the listener. Mark Twain once said: “My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine. Everybody drinks water.” Something similar goes for Satriani, who, despite his huge technical knowledge, (almost) always stuck to music that’s first and foremost listenable and friendly to the ear of the layman and the connoisseur alike.
Last year, on the album’s twentieth anniversary, Epic put out this now-legendary masterpiece once more, and the double CD includes a new remaster and a live show from the Montreux Jazz Festival that’s never been released before. The release also comes with new artwork inside and photos from Joe’s private collection. A must-have for every Satriani fan and every serious guitarist.
Lineup
Joe Satriani – guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, percussion, programming (drums)
Bongo Bob Smith – programming (drums), sound design, percussion
Jeff Campitelli – drums, percussion
John Cuniberti – percussion
Production
Joe Satriani & John Cuniberti
Track list
1. Surfing With the Alien
2. Ice 9
3. Crushing Day
4. Always With Me, Always With You
5. Satch Boogie
6. Hill of the skull
7. Circles
8. Lords of Karma
9. Midnight
10. Echo
