Austin-I have always been amused that people consider Vai to be a better guitarist.Joe is MUCH more accurate, and is a great improviser.I think all of the showmanship just blinds people.

Austin-Yeah, I did post there fairly recently.I have been on JP and MPs forums since like, 2000.I recently decided to stop visiting those sites, since I don't really like their music anymore.It just dawned on me one day that it made no sense to go to a site for something I don't like.

Austin-I'll go album by Album-
Not of This-Don't really listen to it anymore, but
I really only listened to the title track on that one.
I prefer the live (dreaming #11) versions.
Surfing-Crushing Day
Dreaming #11-Crush of love
Flying-All the Vocal songs, One Big Rush, Back to Shalla Bal
Extremist-Cryin', Summer Song, and Motorcycle Driver
Time Machine-Speed of Light, Crazy, Woodstock Jam
Self Titled-SMF, Look my way, Killer Bee bop, Slow Down Blues, Sittin Round
Crystal Planet-Lights of Heaven, Ceremony ,Secret Prayer, A Train of Angels, Psycho Monkey, ZZ's song
Engines of Creation-Flavor Crystal 7.Pretty much a perfect album.

Austin-I loved NOTE when I was a child.I originally had it on a cassette that had Passion and Warfare on the other side.Whenever I would finish "Love Secrets", the tape would flip over and the opening chords to NOTE would begin.To this day, If I ever hear Love Secrets, I expect NOTE to play right after.

I think I just outgrew the album.The production is a pretty big turn off compared to modern recordings.It's not that I dislike the tunes, I still play Brother John on my guitar occasionally, and I do like the Dreaming #11 live versions of the songs.

The studio versions of "Hordes..." and "Memories" just sound silly compared to the D#11 versions.As far as Driving at Night and New Day, I don't dislike them, but I can go without listening to them.Just sort of dull.

I pretty much only listened to Sufing, Flying, NOTE, Passion and Warfare by Vai, 5150 and 1984 by Van Halen, The Best of the Dregs, A Farewell to Kings by Rush, Apostrophe & One Size Fits All by Frank Zappa over and over again until I was like, 11-12.

There were a few other albums that I would listen to occasionally, but it was mainly those 10 albums over and over again.Mainly Joe and Vai at that time.Shoot, from 88-90 I probably only listened to Surfing and Flying,When I got Passion in 90 is when I got NOTE.Weird.

So-So setlist, obnoxious performance from Vai, and the reused shots were irritating.They only had like, 2 different shots of Macalpine soloing, and they would just reuse them.

The cutaways to Vai changing clothes while Donati soloed were just irritating.I really HATE what he does in Bad Horsie.I would probably be tempted to leave if I saw him do that at a show.I can't recall if he did that during the Real Illusions tour here in Seattle, but I probably went to the bar to get a drink if he did.

I understand Vai didn't have a lot of quality footage to work with, but I just didn't enjoy it.I think that DVD was the beginning of my losing interest in his playing.

Re:Vai's list.The only tunes I like on there are "Meeting of the Spirits" and "Is there Love in Space?". "'Cause We've Ended as Lovers" is decent, of course, but I have read him praise "Where Were You?" in the past over that one.

I dunno, just looks suspicious to me.He picked the most typical instrumentals from pretty much each artist, as if that was the only song he knew by each one.

Midnight by Hendrix looks to be the only other Non-Most well know track.

Perhaps he didn't mean for these to be his favorites, but rather his view of the most important ones in the history of Rock guitar instrumentals.That makes a little more sense to me, because the choices are so typical.

His picks are along the lines of Beethoven's 9th symphony and Greensleeves or something.

Hendrix-Midnight.Not too typical. Malmsteen-Black Star-Signature tune. Satriani-Odd choice.Fair enough. Mahavishnu-Meeting...-Track 1 off of their first album. Zappa-Black Napkins-Pretty standard for an instrumental choice.In his box set he names 3-4 other Zappa tunes as his favorite instrumental, i.e RDNZL, Strictly Genteel, etc. Santana-Europa.Whatever. SRV-Lenny.At least he didn't say Little Wing. Tequila.Seriously? Holdsworth-That must be the only track he has ever heard.Every 80s rock guitarist mentioned that song.I would have picked something off of Secrets or his stuff with Tony Williams.

Austin-I actually went to Meyers Elementary School with Jaycee Lee Dugard.One of my best friends was at the bus stop and saw her get kidnapped.Surreal.

Austin-Yeah, it's weird. I hate to promote any kind of hearsay regarding negative remarks about Joe, but II have read him say negative things at least twice over the years.

Maybe the interviewer asked him what he thought and just didn't print the entire interview so that the remarks would be less offensive in context.That happens fairly regularly with interviews, from what I have heard.

If I remember correctly, part of Crowd Chant is based off of Faure's "Pavane"

Slanshroom-That album is AWESOME.I love Vinnie Colaiuta's drumming on the original.