Originally Posted by: educatedfilmactually from what i understand the widdlers (eg Vai) are quite big in the far east...

personally i dont like the widdlers at all.. I saw DreamTheater at manchester in January... and i have to admit, I couldnt believe that I was seeing John Petruscci (sp)... to me it was so unbelievablly bland... he kept on soloing constantly... with very little that was particulary memorable... and the vocal's I genuinly though was parody of Deep purple... When the did the ballads, I have to admit, I hid my face under my jacket... I was just sooo embarrased for them...

There isnt much appeal to the current virtuioso's, i think, in a humanistic sense... I've got the G3 video with Eric johnson... and i have to admit there's surprisingly little to it... It's basically cruiseship entertainment Vai/ Satch style... at points i though i was watching the eurovision song contest...

Converge for example, are seriously competent musicans with some intresting ideas... although they're not really mainstream, i think they do have a relatively large following of poeple who arent musicians...

A band i would recommend is The Fall... Not awe inspiring guitar work, but very intresting production, and lyrics that'll really make you think, without sounding like the Soundtrack to some 80's car chase B movie... I really like the lyrics because they're not romantic or profound at all. They're also not pessimistic, and doom and gloom... They just sound like a pissed off stoner friend...
The Human voice i think seems to have the biggest apeal... the sound is apreciated, and also it comes with meaning/ ideas that are comprehendable, though sometimes i think you do need to know some background to really get some songs... the second part is what Vai doesnt seem to understand when he wrote "brother"... hehehe...
I dont know really...maybe it's because they're not really doing things that appeal to poeple as humans?

I am having a partivularly good time reading posts like that. This site is too overburdened with discusions about who is fastests, who is No1, 10, 100, 1000000, etc. Seems like most of the people are so frustrated about guitar and discovering some ultimate truths about music and life in general.
and I am very, very sorry for my bad grammar