Knowhere Man
“IT’S BEEN A long time since I felt the urge to explore technique purely for the sake of technique,” says Guthrie Govan, possessor of possibly the most terrifying guitar chops on the planet. “I can’t necessarily play everything I hear in my head, but I can usually imagine a way in which it could be played, given the necessary amount of practice time. These days, I’m more likely to work on something technical only if it will help me to execute a specific passage of music.”
Those passages of music are in full bloom on Govan’s latest offering, , a joint effort with his mates in the Aristocrats: bass savant Bryan Beller and drum monster Marco Minnemann. It’s an egalitarian and mind-blowing collection of nine tunes, three written and produced by each member. Govan’s guitar work is at once dazzling, quirky, funky, heavy, jazzy, proggy and funny. It’s rare to hear any musician so comfortable, so at home and so in the zone at all times, and, on the cusp of an Aristocrats tour.
