Billboard Beatdown: Joe Satriani - “The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing”
One of these days I am going to put together one of those “Ultimate Highway Companion Road Trip†playlists, and when I do you can pretty well guarantee this song will be on it. The name alone makes it fun, but there is more to this song than a quality nonsense title.
The riff to “Potato Head†belongs in the same class with Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild.†Instead of lyrics that are mildly embarrassing to anyone who has ever been to college, you get no lyrics at all. There are enough guitar lines and solos layered and stacked to keep a car full of air guitar heroes shredding, tapping, and riffing. Air guitar looks incredibly silly, but how much sillier does it look than having one of those stupid Bluetooth devices strapped to the side of your head, talking to no one whilst at a traffic light? Now for a real funny, go to a Satriani concert and see an auditorium full of guys pretending to replicate Satch’s fretboard masterworks.
It hit me the other day that I have been listening to Satriani for more than half of my life and my mom still can’t get his name right. I don’t know why I think that’s funny, but I do.
If you were hoping that I will give you some sort of insight into the meaning of the song, you are out of luck. It’s an instrumental with a gibberish title. If you were hoping for an academic analysis of the apeggio pattern in the third minute of the song, you’re out of luck. There is a reason I have been yammering on about air guitar (damn, that F chord is tough!). What I can tell you about the song is that it is both impossible-sounding guitar sorcery and a brilliant composition. It’s chops and melody, it’s sizzle and steak. It’s fun and it will make you drive faster, faster, faster!
Filed under: Billboard Beatdown, Joe Satriani
Now for a real funny, go to a Satriani concert and see an auditorium full of guys pretending to replicate Satch’s fretboard masterworks
Now that was one of the most …unexpected…sights I’d ever seen.
Gee, I wonder where I could get an Mp3?
I hadn’t counted on it either, Sir Mary, until I became one with the room. It was hilarious. I embarrassed the crap out of the individual attending the concert with me until said individual realized there were more geeks like me than, say, non-geeks.
You could always ::cough:: click on the iTunes link and help me make .02121233421 cents. If not… I am sure there are options can be found.
interesting. this is the only Joe Satriani that i own….and i own in in its original incarnation: a flexible vinyl disc distributed through Guitar Player magazine.
hmm, that thing must be around here somewhere….