Get well soon

Tony MacAlpine had just undergone surgery to address his cancer situation, here's wishing him a speedy recovery.

2012: Hits and misses (5)

HIT: Alex Hutchings was here for a captivating performance. His set-up would question your need to embrace costly tube tones as 'good tones' per se could be achieved in so many ways, this way shouldn't be overlooked.

MISS: Portnoy/ Sheehan/ Sherinian/ MacAlpine's performance here clashed with Phil X's. It's not about the quality of the prformance, mind you, just the rotten fact of coincidence. Yes, it's unavoidable to a certain extent but this could have been better planned.

PDSM in Singapore

If you are interested in this show, tickets areavaiable @ INOKII. How do you get to the store? Here: CLICK

Tony Macalpine

These days, the new breed of guitar shredders would now Tony Macalpine as Steve Vai's hired hand. Be informed that Mr. TM is a lethal guitarist himself, he's also adept to the synth so this gives us the idea of how accomplished he is in terms of music. In the '80s, I've always confused Tony Macalpine with Greg Howe; they both sport similar hairdo & their guitar mastery made them leaders of the shred pack.

Well TM is back with a new self-titled album (& riding in his employer's guitar brand bandwagon) which is indeed a shred fodder but with heaviness to boot. Well, with 8 strings in his guitar & lots of distortion, sounding heavy is really unavoidable but I like this release because it has a 3-pronged approach to (electric) guitar instrumental- melody, technicality & heaviness. Here's a taster to what you can expect from the above-mentioned release:

Kahler the 8

This Ibanez 8-string was featured in Tony MacAlpine's new album. We can tell it's not a stock option by virtue of its bridge- it's a Kahler.

Tony Ibanez

Finally, after much voodoo from his touring employer (a certain Mr. Vai), Tony MacAlpine is now in the Ibanez camp...