This has probably been covered before but... John Mayer... WOW

Garren · 2011-05-09T22:04:22+00:00

Who knew John Mayer could play blues!? After being told to check him out about a year ago I must say I am loving his style... I always knew JM as some pop a...

This has probably been covered before but... John Mayer... WOW

DonovanB

You guys need to watch Mayer's first DVD, Any given Thursday. Was still his very pop-y days but he throws in a few surprises.

His band has completely changed except for the bass player in the band set, but his live work aside, his songwriting is amazing.
Songs like, Daughters, Gravity, Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, Assassin, Dreaming with a Broken Heart (actually most of the Continuum Album)

Then some of his earlier stuff like the imagery he creates with words in a song called 3x5 in which he talks about how he travels but is tired of taking pictures.

It seems that our opinion of musicians is dependant on what we first discovered. Those who heard Hendrix or someone else first, aren't that big on Mayer whereas it's the other way around for those who heard Mayer first.

chris77

My main gripe with Mr Mayer has nothing to do with his ego or whatever. It's that he has talent, real natural once in a generation type natural talent....but he doesn't push it. The boy can play, of that there is no doubt, but he mainly writes pop songs to make money and get laid I reckon. Nothing wrong with that, noble reasons both of them, but so much wasted potential imo. Its like Federer hitting the ball against the wall or Tiger playing putt-putt.

Warren

chris77 wrote: My main gripe with Mr Mayer has nothing to do with his ego or whatever. It's that he has talent, real natural once in a generation type natural talent....but he doesn't push it. The boy can play, of that there is no doubt, but he mainly writes pop songs to make money and get laid I reckon. Nothing wrong with that, noble reasons both of them, but so much wasted potential imo. Its like Federer hitting the ball against the wall or Tiger playing putt-putt.

That's why he has the trio: to get out of the pop sensibilities and into something grittier. It's a format that really lets him cut loose.

chris77

Will have to try and get hold of that trio cd then..... Thanks Warren.

Warren

chris77 wrote: Will have to try and get hold of that trio cd then..... Thanks Warren.

You can check out quite a lot of his trio stuff on the "Where the Light Is" DVD (seriously worth it) or otherwise just check out some numbers on YouTube.

My faves are "Every Day I Have the Blues", "Wait Till Tomorrow", "Come When I Call" and "Vultures".

I'll link them on this thread when I get home as well.

make-and-do

Not a Mayer fan at all, but yes he can play well.

IMO If one is a serious music fanatic, one should be able to see (and feel and enjoy) good music irrespective of
genre or where it fits in the history timeline.

But what I think shapes a lot of people's affinity for certain music/artists or leaning towards one option more than the other
has got a lot to do with packaging and production styles/values and also proximity.
Someone like Mayer might appeal more to people because it features now, at present and is readily available.

At core most, if not all music deals with human emotions/actions/storytelling...and these stories have always been universal and timeless,
it's just the exterior packaging (and language) of it that changes at different time periods - which then can be interpreted as being of "my generation" .
And I guess that shapes personal preference to a degree.

Personally I like music that has rough edges,raw passion, but not in the stereotypical way, Mayer is too cleancut and the production style, recording sound
just too clean for my liking. I prefer my blues old and dirty, (and by dirty I dont mean 80's ZZ Top, although I can get into that after a whiskey or 4).

Jack-Flash-Jr

Brentcgp wrote:
I appreciate 'old' music enjoy most of it, but I understand modern music that speaks to me...

Sounds like you're limiting yourself there... imho John Mayer doesn't play "modern" music anyway and even Warren Haynes is as "current" in terms of putting material out. So you're buying into the image?
Don't miss out on a ton of good stuff...
I'm Gen X but I didn't avoid Cream because Soundgarden spoke to me... It didn't take long to realise blues recorded in the thirties or jazz recorded in the fifties spoke to me just as much as Faith No More.

+1 make and do

Warren

Jack Flash Jr wrote:
Sounds like you're limiting yourself there... imho John Mayer doesn't play "modern" music anyway and even Warren Haynes is as "current" in terms of putting material out. So you're buying into the image?
Don't miss out on a ton of good stuff...
I'm Gen X but I didn't avoid Cream because Soundgarden spoke to me... It didn't take long to realise blues recorded in the thirties or jazz recorded in the fifties spoke to me just as much as Faith No More.

+1 make and do

Not sure Brent means it quite like that. ? I get where he's coming from: I love Mayer's songwriting too. It just resonates with me. I quite dig Warren (cool name) Haynes too, but lyrically and sonically it's just not quite as appealing somehow. Doesn't mean I won't listen and enjoy, just that Mayer has something I connect with, and it's certainly not his image (which I'm actually quite averse too, I wouldn't want to be mates with the guy).

I do suspect that things will change as I get older though. I'm starting to, more and more, become a complete Stevie Wonder fanboy...his songs are just so amazing on every level.

Warren

make and do wrote: Not a Mayer fan at all, but yes he can play well.

IMO If one is a serious music fanatic, one should be able to see (and feel and enjoy) good music irrespective of
genre or where it fits in the history timeline.

But what I think shapes a lot of people's affinity for certain music/artists or leaning towards one option more than the other
has got a lot to do with packaging and production styles/values and also proximity.
Someone like Mayer might appeal more to people because it features now, at present and is readily available.

At core most, if not all music deals with human emotions/actions/storytelling...and these stories have always been universal and timeless,
it's just the exterior packaging (and language) of it that changes at different time periods - which then can be interpreted as being of "my generation" .
And I guess that shapes personal preference to a degree.

Personally I like music that has rough edges,raw passion, but not in the stereotypical way, Mayer is too cleancut and the production style, recording sound
just too clean for my liking. I prefer my blues old and dirty, (and by dirty I dont mean 80's ZZ Top, although I can get into that after a whiskey or 4).

This is what I was trying to say earlier, and you've been much more succinct: proximity. You only know about it if you get to hear it. Contemporary stuff is more ubiquitous.

I also get the objection to Mayer's clean, almost "pretty" tone and playing, even though I don't share it. I actually really like that quality to his sound, and I struggle to really enjoy, say, Cream era Clapton as much (it's still cool, just not as personally satisfying for me).

Squonk

Warren wrote:
I do suspect that things will change as I get older though. I'm starting to, more and more, become a complete Stevie Wonder fanboy...his songs are just so amazing on every level.

Things do change Warren ?, Interesting that you should mention Stevie Wonder. I think he is brilliant and still listen a lot to his music

Although some of the 80's stuff he put out was mainstream stuff, he is an incredible composer.

There is a TV series about huge albums from the past, they Cover Dark Side of the Moon, the Joshua Tree etc and the one they did on Stevie's Songs in the Key of Life was brilliant.

arjunmenon

I hated JM's initial pop offerings, but Battle Studies is really nice.
I listened to Hendrix before JM, and there's definitely more emotion in JH's playing.

Maybe it's me, but i feel that JM tries to emulate Mike Landau's style of playing...

Warren

Arjun Menon wrote: I hated JM's initial pop offerings, but Battle Studies is really nice.
I listened to Hendrix before JM, and there's definitely more emotion in JH's playing.

Maybe it's me, but i feel that JM tries to emulate Mike Landau's style of playing...

Well, there's another thing to consider: who you heard first.

I knew a guy who had read a lot of Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series. Then he tried reading Tolkien, and couldn't get how this Tolkien guy was popular AT ALL...after all he was clearly a Robert Jordan knock-off. ?

I heard JM before I'd really listened to any Hendrix, so it's hard for me to be objective about it. Hendrix's recordings are also not comparable in terms of quality to today's stuff, so that doesn't help.

I don't think of there being "more" or "less" emotion in one or the other's playing: just different emotions. Watching Mayer play, I can't imagine him injecting much more into his music than what he currently does...he certainly couldn't pull a dumber face.

I don't know Mike Landau at all, although being a session guitarist I've probably heard some of his contributions to other peoples' stuff.

Bob-Dubery

Warren wrote: This is what I was trying to say earlier, and you've been much more succinct: proximity. You only know about it if you get to hear it. Contemporary stuff is more ubiquitous.

Yes. But that makes us victims of somebody somewhere's marketing strategy. This is where magazines that cover a broad range of music come in handy. They tip you off to other things, plant the seeds in your mind. Who knows when they will blossom....

I remember reading about Martin Carthy years ago in (of all things) NME. This would have been late 70s when the NME was all about punk, but there was a mention of the new Steeleye Span lineup. Carthy had rejoined the band (he wasn't there for long this time around) and there was something about him being one of the greats of English folk (along with John Kirkpatrick, the other new comer to the Steeleye Span lineup at that time). So that got filed away - along with countless other names I read about in NME and Melody Maker and whatever else I happened to read. (John Otway is one I recall, Loudon Wainwright, Leo Kottke). Some of those names I picked up just by reading the sections in which gigs and tours were advertised. At some point I would read something else about one of those names and so there was a tick against the name now. Enough ticks (or one or two very big, bold ticks in red pen with gold stars) and I might get interested. I heard about Nick Drake in this way too... Sometimes I follow some of these up out of something approaching boredom. "Hmmmm.... I feel like some new music.... well I keep on reading about this Drake guy so that's give that a shot."

One left field source of information is Richard Haslop's excellent column in Business Day every Monday. You'll read about things you had no idea existed.

I suppose all of this is just another way to get some proximity ?

I don't get to do this so much these days. 30 or more years ago I was perpetually broke and occasionally jobless and thus had plenty of time on my hands and often had nothing better to do most of the time than to read NME from cover to cover and then read it again. No TV set or anything like to distract me, so I could really soak up what I was reading.

I miss those days some times....

I also get the objection to Mayer's clean, almost "pretty" tone and playing, even though I don't share it. I actually really like that quality to his sound, and I struggle to really enjoy, say, Cream era Clapton as much (it's still cool, just not as personally satisfying for me).

I think there's various ways in which music can be clean and smooth and pretty. Richard Thompson once spoke about how the really interesting stuff in music is "in the edges". How he likes music that is sort of crude and sophisticated at the same time, how if you smooth the edges too much you lose the magic in the music. He wasn't saying (I think) that you shouldn't have good quality recordings or that we should applaud sloppy playing. I get this sometimes, where you hear something that has been so perfected that it's boring. Squeaky clean - but boring.

Any genre which has the word "smooth" in the name, or any marketing campaign (for music) that has the s... word generally has me running for cover.

Warren

X-rated Bob wrote: ...
I suppose all of this is just another way to get some proximity ?
...

Guitar Forum is another way. ?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you should only ever hear what's on the radio, or what some advert tells you to buy. It's possible to avoid pop culture almost altogether. In fact, I hardly ever listen to music radio and the first time I ever heard a Justin Bieber song was last week.

Thing is, the shopping centers are not exactly plastering Hendrix posters all over the place the way that they might say, with Coldplay.

Sure, there are many ways to seek out new and interesting artists, I'm just pointing out that for many of us guys like John Mayer are our point of reference. I didn't know much about blues as a genre until a couple years ago. I only starting checking it out because of the blues influence in Mayer's music.

On the other hand I found out about Joe Bonamassa in a Guitar Techniques article, so I bought a CD. Fan for life stuff again, though a lot of people don't seem to like him.

...
Any genre which has the word "smooth" in the name, or any marketing campaign (for music) that has the s... word generally has me running for cover.

I find Mayer combines the best of both: his playing is just edgy enough but melodic enough to keep me interested. Clapton's solos in "Sitting on Top of the World" are fun and edgy and syncopated, but honestly not that compelling for me. Both mean are great examples of electric guitar blues players of course.

In "Come When I Call", which is a really simple blues number, Mayer plays some wonderfully melodic and smooth-sounding licks over a very groovy rhythm. I tried playing some of those lines, and realised very quickly that the note choices and phrasing is pretty syncopated and quirky, which I didn't pick up just listening to it. I agree that stuff can be too perfect and boring, but I can't say I find that quality in Mayer's playing.

Another good example is the live solo he tends to start with in "Belief", and his off-kilter solos on "Assassin" and "Heartbreak Warfare" where he makes use of some pretty dissonant phrases.

He has a very jazzy quality to his playing that a lot of people who only know his pop stuff are not familiar with.

Garren

People not liking Eric Claptons cream era playing? :-\

Disraeli gears got me into blues... ?