I'm such a geek. I was dreaming about the clinic last night.
A couple of other random thoughts from the clinic:
1) He has a sweet "I'm turning Japanese" guitar face. Krash would have been proud.
2) He apologized several times for playing so poorly. The only time I really noticed was on one track where the store guy didn't get the level on the backing track up enough so he was a bit out of sync with it. I wish I could play so poorly.
3) It was a Hal Leonard event, but his new DVDs aren't out yet. They also didn't have his Hal Leonard tab book, which I would have purchased. I would have thought that the would have had a few copies of that one on hand. The store guy said they'd keep some in stock now because of the turnout. We'll see.
4) He talked about making instructional DVDs even though he couldn't play a major scale if you put a gun to his head. I think that might be hyperbole but he's definitely not a theory guy. I'll probably be getting the DVDs just for further insight into his technique, most of which still mystifies me. I was paying particularly close attention to his whammy technique which was quite impressive. My whammy technique sounds like someone who has been given a guitar to help deal with a serious brain abnormality.
5) One nice thing about him not being a technician is that the answers he gave to questions were far more practical rather than blowing everybody away with theory. I know a ton of theory, I just have issues putting it into practice.
6) The fact that the room was filled even though the Packer game was just getting over was pretty remarkable. The Packers take precedence over everything here--even respiration. I thought the crowd would be mostly guys like me, but there was a good cross-section: some older guys, a bunch my age, and a number of kids. One girl was wearing a t-shirt from Dokken's "Under Lock and Key" tour, although she certainly wasn't at that tour. She was maybe 20 tops.
My lasting memory of this will be the fact that while he is my guitar hero, he didn't act like a Guitar Hero with an ego to match. He was very much a down-to-earth, self-deprecating guy who just so happened to be blessed with a ton of talent.
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