hello joe

i am quite a new fan of your music but have developed quite a tastefor and bought most of your records. i have tried to learn how to play a few of your tracks but with only limited success. are there any exercises that you found usefull when you first started learning or when you had just progressed past the beginner stage of your guitar playing career. please excuse me if you have already covered this sort of question before. also would there be any official tabs of your tracks or any liks posted on your site, much better to get them from the horses mouth, so to speak.

thank you for reading this hopefully i will find a reply

The Forgotten (Part 2) For G3!

the time has almost come for me to start adressing you by your username! haha! Laters dude

oh yea, and Crushing day for G3 in london! id love to hear memories too (anyone know what harmonizer he uses in crushing day live?)

Yo hO hO. Why be there a bottle in me bum.

i have spent the alst 2 years playing guitar (not very long, kinda like ma little cornel) and i could never work out how Joe plays guiatr like he does. But now i ahev cracked it. have seen The live in san fran dvd and i have observed that joe is actualy not playing. scandelouse. he is in fact using his peculure voice box which i have decided (because i am mad) was put in by aliens, and makes his voice sound like his guitar. oh yes. it is true. he is miming guiatr but playing with his voice. ill work out how he sings while playing later.

actually Joe is my favourite musician ever. He looks soo cool when playing (this is put in as a way of avoiding a law suit. jst kidding. lol). I would like to say thanks Joe your music has helped me throw some ruff times. Your music has a way of pulling me out from whatever pit im in. So thank you. And i hope to see you play sometime.

Jst incase Joe reads this (doubtfull) i have something to say.

Joe is amazing....new album is the SHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEITTTTTTTTT but..........call to all guitar players you guys should check out www.guitarbattle.com im a new member over their, its free and awesome.....

killerkenny: - i kinda see what ya mean in the way u can kinda imitate the guitar notes into lyrics, I found that "just look up" on the new album the guitar sounds like its sayin "just look up"

I never wrote a review before. I just realized, it's not easy. It takes practice I guess, like everything else. Gnaahh : The first thing that came to my mind listening to the first track was the "way" Joe is playing rather than what is playing. He's taking chances on this one. I like that. And then Jeff Beck's name popped into my head, I don't know why. There must be a connection somewhere. Probably because he's taking chances too. Always. This thought ended as soon as a lick a la Borg Sex came along. Was this necessary for this song? I don't know ... it's a trademark lick, that's for sure. Overall I like the approach to this song. The next one , Up in Flames, reminds me of Psycho Monkey, which was also recorded using a Peavy amp I think. But in fact, is more of a House Full of Bullets type of song. Oh , I get it: from all that shooting the house is burning now. Cool! Hands in the Air ! Don't shoot ! ...You got me partner... I don't know what else to say about this one. Lifestyle is unlike any of Joe's songs. It just proves again that he's got the songwriting in his little finger. I mean this song could easily be in the Billboard Top Ten. Not that we want that, do we? Even the solo is standard length (short), not to scare anyone away. I like this song though. For those who drive, it's a must have song in the car. For those who are too young to drive yet, one more good reason to grow up quickly. Just kidding. I was expecting a lot from the title track, since none of the previous songs blew me away. It also supposed to answer 'the question'. Well, not surprisingly it has an Engines of Creation vibe. Joe did his job well on this one as a musician and as a producer. So did the delay. The solo with the clean sound at around 3:55 sounds like the good ol' Marshall. I'd be surprised if it was the Peavy. And then we get another dreamy song in If I Could Fly. Or it's more like smiling with tears in your eyes, thanks to the lydian mode. Could this be the ballad of the record? I mean it's already song 6 and there's no ballad? There are very nice melodic runs from 1:25 to 1:45. Unfortunately nothing that follows is this good. Still I like this song. Another title for Souls of Distortion could be The Soul of the Wah. There's plenty of it here. Like with most of this record 's songs, a rhythm player will come in real handy for the live performance. And still no ballad... But just when I thought that there might not be one on this record, I looked up, and there it was... And then it started raining... April showers bring them bikers... I can see Joe plucking with his thumb , while holding the pick between his lips. No wait, he has to sing...

Searching is a jam type of song a la Bells of Lal II. And we know that he can jam like nobody else. It's nice to hear Joe experimenting with effects, I'm reffering to the one at 2:11. It reminds me of Steve Stevens. I also like the whammy pedal acrobatics in this one, and I'm sure everyone does. I think this song will be a concert favorite, unlike Bamboo, which is a very nice song but kinda hard to reproduce live.

My daughter asked me last night if I could read with her a bedtime story. But I was in the middle of writing this review and I said : "No , not tonight". If the year was let's say 1991, Joe would have told the producer somethinglike, how frustrated he is in the project... Time becomes very precious when you have a family, especially kids.

So, to sum it up, this record is not about meticulously crafted harmonies or groundbreaking techniques. And that shouldn't be surprising considering Joe's busy schedule in the last year and a half. It's about spontaneity and love for the instrument. It's about touching those six ( sometimes seven) strings and letting your fingers fly and last but not least about the Peavy JSX. I must mention one more important aspect : the SOUND. Knowing from previous interviews how Joe feels about the advantages of digital recording, I assume, that's the way it was done. 'Cause there's no analog warmth here. But this record being about SPACE, and space being frigid cold, it only makes sense.

ah man... today is that show with Andy Timmons, Joe, Phil Keaggy, Eric Johnson, and George Lynch in Dallas...