April 8, 2018 – A little bit ago (yes, that is an actual time increment), I came across a video. It’s an interview of Nita Strauss, the guitar player for Alice Cooper, done by a kid. It’s no secret that I like Nita. She’s a fun guitar player, good, young, and the same gender as I am. But did I say good? She is good. She seems to be such a throw-back too. From other interviews I’ve listened to, her idol is Steve Vai, so she’s a shredder like that. Like Taylor Momsen, she cites the movie Crossroads for influencing her strong love of hard rock. Someday I really do need to see that movie, or perhaps not, seeing as it seems to transform lives, girls leaving the world of normal to become these rock devotees. In other interviews Nita talks about her rocky tryout for Alice Cooper. They liked her talent on her try-out videos, but wanted her to learn rock, as contrasted to shred. Her discussion of the work it took to learn that style is inspirational. This particular interview – the one with the kid, is my latest inspiration. The point of the inspiration? Well…
Here’s me these days. Sitting in traffic, punching every pre-set on the radio … only to turn the radio off. I’m not inspired by anything. Pop is so rap it’s losing me. And every other song is by Halsey, and sure those were cute … at first, but not every time I get in the car. The alternative station? That sound…. It’s starting to bug me. I don’t know why. It’s just so … coffee shop, kinda the same as how much seeing every single twenty-or early thirty-something man having a stubble-beard is starting to bug me. Classic rock? Paradise City. I heard that song three times yesterday. I can’t hear these songs again.
So, within the Lana Del Rey videos, and I’m not that in the mood for that right now (I got Lana’d out because I over-did it), and the Tanya Harding and Margo Robbie videos (yes, I’ve watched too many of those too), up popped this Nita Strauss video. Seriously, it was YouTube telling me to play guitar; I watch good people’s tutorials, and she’s one of those, so YouTube knew just what I needed. Guitar, and guitar inspiration.
The interview is normal interview fare, a pretty good job for this kid. He asks her good questions, and she’s serious in the interview, giving the boy respect and thoughtful answers throughout. Then the kid does the interview tactic of asking the interviewee’s preference between two things. One question, to pick monsters or puppies, I particularly liked. She correctly answers puppies, then asks if anyone picks monsters. The interviewer-boy says no, although I wondered how many rock guitarists were asked this question. And is it appropriate for Alice’s guitar player to prefer puppies over monsters? Their rapport was sweet. They made you wish to be as into metal as they are, noting it takes in and accepts anyone, women and children included, not first, but included.
In the interviewer’s section about preferences, he segued into her preference of certain listed band’s or guitarist’s best album. In rapid-fire fashion, Nita answered for each band and guitarist: Iron Maiden, Seventh Son; Alice Cooper, Trash or Raise Your Fist and Yell; Steve Vai, Passion and Warfare; Megadeath, Rest in Peace; Judas Priest, Firepower (which she listened to that day, apparently its release date). The discussion showed two people talking about their favorites, with full knowledge of the bands and the records.
Then there’s me – hitting buttons in the radio only to turn it off in the end, but hey here’s this, an entire genre of music that might just be new. Okay its new to me because I know pretty much nothing of this subject. Sure I like rock, but my knowledge is a bit narrow, compared to theirs. And that kid is what, ten? So what did I do? I made a plan. I’ve made this plan before – give these metal artists a go, really listen. And seeing as I have no idea what I’m doing, I thought I’d start with Nita’s favorites.
I listened to Firepower a couple of times through. The second part of the record is good. The first is annoying, other than the song Firepower. Actually, it’s the lyrics of the first songs that are annoying. I don’t like the subject matter; devils, evil and death are really not my thing. And I am not, and I mean not at all, a fan of the vocal sound of most metal, but I actually am liking the metal guitar. I just try not to listen to the words.
Next up was Alice Cooper. I played Trash through twice and loved it. And Alice’s vocals are good; the words too. I tied to play Raise Your Fist and Yell next, but the “album” version was actually a bunch of videos strung together. I got about 30 seconds into the first video and it was so ‘80s (and not in a good way) that I had to turn it off. So then I changed the plan. I thought that kid and Nita seemed to know all the artists’ albums, so why not just pick the first artist and play all the albums of that artist in succession. I noticed Trash was Alice’s 18th studio album, so I had a whopping 17 to go. This is a plan that will keep me busy for a while!
I did a search for Alice Cooper albums and a convenient link of 400+ songs popped up. I hit play on the first song of the first album. I have no idea the year, but I made it three or four songs, all very short, some less than 2 minutes when this song came on.
What is that? The Beatles meets Tip Toe Through the Tulips? It’s so bad I can’t even describe it. If an artist did that today, they wouldn’t keep their record deal. Heck if an artist did that in the ‘80s, they wouldn’t keep their record deal. I didn’t keep playing and have more to finish this plan, a lot more, but this Beatles-Tulip Alice Cooper song was its own form of inspiration.
I thought, somehow, Alice went from that to timeless, and very rock, songs like 18 and School’s Out, absolute anthems for children of the ‘70s. Eventually, we even got around to singing that line for real: school’s out forever. And while I have a seriously long way to go on my quest to even listen to Nita’s favorite metal and metal-like albums, let alone to know this new-to-me genre enough to have my own favorite, I have to say, her list of her favorites is having an influence on me. I really want to learn to solo, to use a whammy, to play really well. I’d like to learn to use gain. I think all of this metal stuff is really fun from the guitar standpoint. Who know? Perhaps there will come a day when I do Yayo (the song Lana Del Rey performs while strumming chords on a Gibson Flying V), only Yayo-the metal version. Now that would be really cool metal! Metal with pretty vocals! Humm….