Clouds race across the sky (Joe Satriani) (LP 3718 - 3729)

Joe Satriani  Surfing with the Alien (CD, Relativity Records, 1987) ****  

Joe Satriani  The Extremist (CD, Relativity Records, 1992) ****  

Joe Satriani  Engines of Creation (CD, Epic Records, 2000) *** 

Joe Satriani  Strange Beautiful Music (CD, Epic Records, 2002) ***

Joe Satriani  Is There Love in Space? (CD, Epic Records, 2004) *** 

Joe Satriani  Super Colossal (CD, Epic Records, 2006) *** 

Joe Satriani  Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock (CD, Epic Records, 2008) *** 

Joe Satriani  Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards (CD, Epic Records, 2010) *** 

Joe Satriani  Satchurated Live in Montreal (CD, Epic Records, 2010) *** 

Joe Satriani  Shockwave Supernova (CD, Sony Music, 2015) ***

Joe Satriani  What Happens Next (CD, Sony Music, 2018) ****

Joe Satriani  The Essential Joe Satriani (2CD, Epic/Legacy Records, 2010) ****

Genre: Rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records, HMV, Fopp, Fives, JB Hi Fi, Kings Recording (Abu Dhabi), Virgin Megastore (Dubai)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Summer Song (The Extremist)

Gear costume: Crushing Day, Surfing with the Alien (SWTA), Searching (Is there...Space?), Ten Words (Super Colossal), Wormhole Wizards (Black Swans...)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6

Active compensatory factors: A cunning bit of marketing right there in Surfing with the Alien. I loved The Fantastic Four Marvel comics when I was growing up. The Silver Surfer was originally one of the bad guys - a herald for the beyond evil Galactus. And yet - I loved the very cool The Silver Surfer.

Joe aligns himself in a gnarly way with that mystic, mythic, cool character. Chuck some wraparound sunglasses on the Silver Surfer and boom - Joe!

Surfing with the Alien always takes me back to 1987 - working at Macleans College in Auckland, with that poster on my classroom wall. It is kind of of-its-time, too. This kind of guitar shredding was big in the late eighties-nineties and Joe was a pioneer. It doesn't seem showoffy though, because Joe marries his guitar prowess to actual songs, songs that have melodies thanks to his guitar.

Once I'd bought, experienced, loved Surfing with the Alien, I was putty in Joe's hands. The fact that he trades in rocking guitar instrumentals meant that he became a go-to from then onwards for music to play while marking student work.

The Extremist has become his biggest selling album. The variety of approaches and feels on the album works to its advantage. As AllMusic pointed out - 'the chugging Summer Song, the warm Friends, the slamming Motorcycle Driver, and the crunching The Extremist show Satriani's talents as a guitarist are undiminished, while the more traditional neo-folk approach to Rubina's Blue Sky Happiness and the bluesy New Blues are different from anything he has done before. So, too, is the droning rock of War and the plaintive, questioning funk-rock of Why.'

I guess the question is - could he sustain this kind of music, continue to challenge himself and retain/build on an audience? I have dipped in and out of Joe's career, The Extremist was his fourth album, my second.

I didn't get the next few, but I picked up a CD pack from Fopp for only a few quid. It included Surfing with the Alien and a sequence of four albums starting with Engines of Creation.

That one has a completely different sound and style as Joe embraced electronica and techno music! Gulp. Not my favourite genres (under-statement) so I approached this one with caution.

As the first track Devil's Slide rocks out with trance embellishments I relaxed, a bit. It's unmistakably Joe Satriani but a Joe who's challenging himself to come up with new colours - I respect that. It works for a couple of the songs, but it dates the album a bit and it's not one I come back to often.

Strange Beautiful Music has more of his hook laden instrumental rock, but this one is a bit more inconsistent in its hits and misses than previous records. He's still looking to challenge himself, but SBM feels like a step sideways.

Is There Love in Space? is his nineth studio album. By now the electronica experiments were over and done, but this time there are a few songs with vocals by Joe. He's not a singer so his vocals are heavily processed, and largely successful (i.e. not embarrassing).

Super Colossal produces more excellent instrumental rock music as Joe runs through his box of guitar tricks. Nothing new here - just a master practitioner at work. The anthemic Ten Words is one great example of that.

The fiendishly titled  Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock is a three and a half star. Joe again gets credit for stretching himself with some new looks and grooves. Along with Surfing and the compilation coming up later, this album is one of my key go-tos.

Clearly, he is a virtuoso on the guitar, but he never gets in the way of the songs which tend to be melodic with the guitar often substituting for vocals. I haven't mentioned the other musicians yet, but longtime drummer Jeff Campitelli and bassist Matt Bissonette provide fantastic support.

Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards was his 13th studio album. AllMusic described it thus: "a mature work from one of the great rock guitarists" and "pure guitar prog, filled with compressed boogies, sci-fi synths, exotic flourishes, and all of Satch's phasers and flangers in full-tilt overdrive'.

I particularly like the use of piano on the album, in particular on Wind in the Trees. Beautiful (and not strange) music.

Saturated Live in Montreal is a two CD set recorded live in December 2010 as part of the tour to support Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards. 

Ten of the 11 songs from that album are done live. Then it's a clutch of fan favourites, which makes for a very enjoyable set. It's a long set though and probably more than I can consume at a single sitting. For that reason, I'm more likely to head towards a single studio album or the double compilation.

Speaking of single studio albums - next on my list is Shockwave Supernova from 2015. There were personnel changes for this one with new rhythm sections -  Marco Minnemann and Zappa band vet Vinnie Colaiuta sharing drum duties and Bryan Beller/Chris Chaney providing the bulk of the bass playing.

It doesn't sound too different to my ears - Joe's sound tropes are well established by this point. The album starts off strongly but it's a long one and the slower songs feature more towards the end of proceedings.

My final studio album is 2018's What Happens Next. The drums are from Chad Smith (his amigo from Chickenfoot) and the bass is played by Deep Purple veteran Glenn Hughes.

Joe takes a more direct and simpler route on this one and it sounds terrific. Glenn Hughes gets to play some pumping bass lines and Chad locks onto Joe's guitar as he did while in Chickenfoot. It's an awesome power trio treat!

The Essential Joe Satriani double CD came out in 2010 and is an excellent collection which cherry picks all of Joe's big moments to that point. If you are looking for a place to start this is it. Then go for What Happens Next.

Where do they all belong? Next up - a couple of G3 albums Joe made along the way.