Ran into Eric Johnson and later saw Monte Montgomery!!

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Texsunburst59

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I got to meet up with Eric Johnson at Austin Vintage Guitar this Sat. at closing time. This is the third time I've met up with him. Last time was in December, and I gave him a Lovepedal Fab 50, and a copy of some of my son's originals. He actually e-mailed me thanking me for the pedal which he really liked and to tell me he really liked one of my son's songs. Since the CD didn't have the name of the songs, so we weren't sure which one. This time my son was with me and he was beside himself at meeting Eric in person. He played Eric the song he thought he liked, and he confirmed that was the song, and said he really liked the chords and chord progression, and wanted to know the name of the song. My son said it didn't have a name and asked Eric to name it. He said he'd think about it and get back to him after he checked his Memory Man that was being fixed. About 20 min. later he came out and we asked if he'd take a pic with my son.He agreed and said he thought of a name for his song and said to call it "Starcrest", so that's the new name. It's called "Practice song" on his soundclick.My son also got his Red Jazz pic he was using to jam in the back. Later that night we went out to Nutty Brown concert venue to see Monte Montgomery. All I can say is this guy must be some kind of Alien. His music can only be described as a cross between Yes, Rush, Dave Mathews and
Michael Hedges. I was totally blown away. If you've never seen this guy, you NEED to.I know this has been long post, but here's a pic of my son with Eric.

Photo0015.jpg


Here's also a link to the song Eric named. It's called Practice Song,A.K.A.
"Starcrest"

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=453803
 
Very cool in all respects. I can hear why EJ likes that song. Great post, Tex.
 
yeah i know eric johnsons awesome, but i'd rather have your amps than meet him!

those are some fricking beautiful amps man... jeez, that gives me a hard-on..
 
Somebody like Fender amps?? Super collection. Met EJ in Austin about twenyt years ago. Class guy. Keep your son and yourself inspired. Met Bob Vila (sp) with my dad in Vermont hardware store, does that rate? LOL. :D
 
A few years ago I saw Monte open for Eric. IMHO, Monte sort of put Eric in the shade.
 
Great to hear when stars are cool to people......

I will never forget when Steve Vai was in the GC in New Orleans...

Some fat pizza faced teen was playing all these shred licks w/ Vai watching... When he was done Vai said something to the effect of.."you do a pretty good job of imitating licks I invented 15 years ago."

You could litterally hear the poor kids heart hit the floor.
 
Have to check out this Monte fellow. EJ in the shade, wow. Nice to see the Austin conx chiming in. ;)
 
Thurgood said:
Have to check out this Monte fellow. EJ in the shade, wow. Nice to see the Austin conx chiming in. ;)
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Don't get me wrong; techique-wise, Eric is Da Man, no doubt. But Monte is something else entirely. He plays an old beat up Alverez acoustic guitar, but it sounds like no acoustic guitar I've ever heard, and if I hadn't been watching with my own eyes, I'd have said it was impossible for one guitar to be making all that music. See him live if you can; you won't regret it.
 
Texsunburst59 said:
His music can only be described as a cross between Yes, Rush, Dave Mathews and Michael Hedges.
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I had never heard of him before so I went to his website and listened to samples of his tunes. Yes? Rush? Dude you had better lay off of the Peyote buttons. He is a talented guy but the tunes on his site sound more like Billy Joel with an electric guitar instead of a piano. Rush and Yes are two of my favorite bands and putting them in the same sentence as that talentless F'er Dave Mathews is sacrilege. His vocals are about as pleasant as fingernails on a chalkboard.
 
ocnor said:
I had never heard of him before so I went to his website and listened to samples of his tunes. Yes? Rush? Dude you had better lay off of the Peyote buttons. He is a talented guy but the tunes on his site sound more like Billy Joel with an electric guitar instead of a piano. Rush and Yes are two of my favorite bands and putting them in the same sentence as that talentless F'er Dave Mathews is sacrilege. His vocals are about as pleasant as fingernails on a chalkboard.
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You need to learn how to READ. I said a cross of those bands. You haven't listened to a sample of all his CD's . He has alot of syncopation and other elements of those bands. You need to stop using the remainder of my leftover
Peyote. If you've been around music long enough, you'd be able to grab the little elements of all those bands in Monte's music. If you can't I CAN'T help you.It sounds like you're as opinionated as I am,so I hope we don't go any further with this.
 
ocnor said:
I had never heard of him before so I went to his website and listened to samples of his tunes. Yes? Rush? Dude you had better lay off of the Peyote buttons. He is a talented guy but the tunes on his site sound more like Billy Joel with an electric guitar instead of a piano.
Click to expand...


I could only get the first clump of songs to play and i more or less agree. The last song has some licks on it, but overall, it's kinda yawn.

Maybe I'd think he was awesome if he wasn't sold so hard in the original post.

Regardless, gotta love the brush with greatness stories.

One time I was playing some blues at the zoo when i was like 14 and Joe Negri came up and said "you do a pretty good job of imitating licks I invented 150 years ago".

Not really.

I have no brush with greatness, but one time I shook BB Kind's hand after he took a shit.
 
My brother and I sat and talked with Adrian Belew in a bar once. Shared our pitcher of beer with him. Uncle Frank had just discovered him a couple of months before, and the FZ band were in town playing a show, which was fantastic of course. This was after the show. Adrian impressed me as a helluva nice guy. He impressed me on stage even more as a helluva string slinger.
 
Here this video should give you some idea of what Monte can do live. This isn't even his most progressive or funkiest stuff he plays live,but I think you'll get an idea.

Monte Montgomery -Shock (Live)
 
Very cool. I got to hear EJ a few years ago in an outdoor concert. He was (is) awsome.

rpe
 
Wow. I only wish I could meet EJ. That's a cool story man.......I have a bunch of videos of EJ playing at various blues festivals. Each one he completely blows away the other guys playing such as Buddy Guy, BB, etc. Back in 1988 I met and talked with Satriani but that is my only brush with guitar heros.
 
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