First Half of 2025 Has Some Sounds For You
The last six months have been productive for my musical making, and there are 3 releases (including instrumental guitar covers, odes to the lost, and gamey remixes) to check out if you’re looking for something new.
Satch 20
When I first started learning to play the guitar in ~1995, I was already steeped in the rock and/or roll scene. Your Guns ‘n Roses, Metallicas, AC/DCs, Led Zeppelins, and the like were all part of my listening sphere by the time I was a pre-teen. However, my musical preferences were really cemented in the early 90s, and bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, and Nirvana became the foundation for what excited and soothed me.
These bands are all guitar-centric, so I listened to a lot of strings vibrating through distortion pedals. Lots of the guitarists in these bands were virtuosic, but they mainly played to the song, which had vocals that were the emotional center. Playing the guitar and not singing? That wasn’t the norm.
However, at some point I discovered Mr. Joseph Satriani, someone who would revolutionize my interest in not only focusing on the guitar in a piece of music, but influencing what I thought a piece of music could be.
While I might’ve heard “Summer Song” back when it first came out in the 80s, I wasn’t cognizant of what it was, or why it was amazing. The first track that truly hit me was his first single from Crystal Planet, entitled “Ceremony”. I guess I heard it on the radio (even though he’s not an artist that tends to be played there), and it just fascinated me with its opening wah riff, the catchy main melody, and both the middle and ending solos. When I finally bought the CD I only listened to “Ceremony” for days, not yet wanting to spoil the rest of the album. Eventually I did listen to the rest of it, and was blown away by all of it. It spurred me to go into his back catalog, and it kept me interested in his future releases for many years after that.
Of course, as a budding young guitarist at the the time, I looked up tabs and tried to play along, but my ability was nowhere near his. Practice, practice, and more practice allowed me to play along to the rhythms and main leads, but the solos were always out of my league.
It’s now 2025, though. I’ve been playing guitar for nearly 30 years. It was time to finally see if I could pull off Satriani. After spending a fair amount of time setting up backing tracks, I plowed into 17 different Satriani songs running the first 20 years (1984-2004) of his recorded output. I chose favorite songs, even if they weren’t all “the hits”. Over the years I had actually tried and recorded a few “easier” Satriani songs, and decided to include them in my collection. I also added one more track, originally written in 2008 but recorded now, that was heavily inspired by Satch.
My efforts are not as professional as I would like, and there are errors and hand-wavy attempts and patch-ins, but it’s all my guitar playing. It’s my own little Satch collection, finally done after so many years of admiration.
Pennyfarthing
2025 has been a rough year for obvious geopolitical reasons, but on a personal note it’s been rough because our family dog, Penny, passed away. She was 13.5 years old, was not doing well, and…it was time.
In order to mask the hurt and sadness, I did what I do in these times: make an EP of music as Fenchy.
None of the tracks are really about Penny, but the subject matter and its contemplative and fractured tone were inspired by the loss of her. Musically, I decided to sing over beats and synths instead of guitar and drumkit (like most Fenchy stuff). It’s not my favorite Fenchy release, but it needed to be done. My favorite track is “Important Job”, my attempt to sound like NIN.
Gamey Jumble
Number 5 in an ongoing series of albums that cover/remix old video game music came out the most recently, and instead of a goulash, amalgam, stew, or mixture you get a jumble this time.
All the track titles are in non-English languages because…reasons. It was fun to come up with ideas and then find a language that had a cool translation. Virtual metal guitar VST Heavy7Strings features, uh, heavily in many tracks.