On 03-04-97 MARLA ROMESBURG wrote to PEDRO SENA... 
 
 MR> I tend to disagree with you in one respect...Holdsworth and Satriani 
 MR> are basically in the same mold. 
 
        For the publicly well-known Holdsworth you are probably 
        right. His stuff with UK and Gong, or his solo albums 
        like _Metal Fatigue_ really don't go beyond the Satriani 
        thang. Nor Steve Morse, for that matter. 
 
        However, some of Holdsworth's other stuff, like the 
        straight jazz he was doing before he became famous, or 
        his first solo on CTI (forget the title right now) are 
        beyond anything Satriani could do, I think. But this kind 
        of Holdsworth isn't very public, unfortunately. 
 
        My problem with his public, famous stuff is that all of 
        his solos begin to sound the same to me. Part of that is 
        the way he uses the same tone and effects. To me a 
        guitarist's distinctive sound should be based more on 
        what he plays than on the colours he uses. I think that's 
        why I like the Holdsworth stuff that's straight jazz, 
        he's just plugged into an amp, bass and treble on 5, so 
        there's no barriers between him and you. And yes, he can 
        carry it off. You just wonder why he doesn't do it more 
        often. 
 
        Ditto for Pat Metheny. My fave Pat Metheny solo is on a 
        video of him playing with Ornette Coleman in Montreal. 
        Metheny breaks his high E string and realises he can no 
        longer be the famous plastic "Metheny" and figures "what 
        the heck" and just lets rip, saying what's inside him 
        without the barriers between him and us. Now if only he 
        could break a string every time. The plastic product is 
        cool, I'm not saying it's not good, but once you've 
        tasted real cheese it's hard to go back to Velveeta. 
 
                                Cheers, 
                                Kenneth 
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