MUSIC

MUSIC Legendary local shredder keeps busy during pandemic by Steve Newton

Vancouver guitarist Dave Martone once played 48 gigs in a single month, but that was before W hen the global pandemic hit last March, Vancouver guitarist Dave Martone was doing pretty well nancially. “but there are bene ts from being online. Just certain video things, le-sharing, and documentation. And there’s also travel time that’s kind of erased for both parties. You the global pandemic hit. Now he’s averaging a quarter of that, but diversification has paid off. He wasn’t living in a mansion like the guy normally gotta drive, you gotta park, it’s from Nickelback, mind you, but he was busy raining all the time. If you can cut that right as hell, playing an average of 35 gigs a month. out, it’s worth its weight in gold sometimes.”

With six di erent agents booking him One job that’s kept the upbeat picker into local casinos and high-end lounges like busy of late was recording a guitar solo for Gotham and the Fairmont Paci c Rim, he his friend, mentor, and former tourmate actually played 48 gigs one month. Joe Satriani. e Bay Area guitar god’s

“ at was a lot of gigs,” Martone recalls, latest project, Stripped x ree, collects the almost wistfully, from his home in Coquit- music from three Satriani albums but with lam, “and it was a lot of income! So then that all the guitar solos removed so players can all stopped. And at this point, right now, I add their own to the full backing tracks. am only doing about 12 gigs a month. So Martone chose to solo over “Premonition”, that’s a far cry from what it used to be.” the opening cut from 2010’s Black Swans

Martone counts himself lucky, though, and Wormhole Wizards, because that was compared to some of the other musicians the album Satriani was promoting when he he knows who rely solely on live perform- and Martone rst toured together. ances to pay the bills. For them, the loss of Another reason was that it was in the potential stages has been devastating. key of C-sharp minor. Martone notes:

“If you keep all your eggs in one bas- “ at’s just a beautiful key that I love.” ket,” he posits, “then what are you gonna Besides Satriani, Martone has managed do? Fortunately, I’ve spread myself around to work with such acclaimed six-string slingwhere I can record, I can produce, I can ers as Yngwie Malmsteen, Jennifer Batten, perform, I can educate. All those little av- Tosin Abasi, Greg Howe, Paul Gilbert, and enues bring me di erent income streams.” Marty Friedman. ere was one other guitar

As well as recording a full-length al- hero that he had always wanted to meet one bum for a client at his home studio, Brain- day, but cancer ruined any hope of that . works, Martone has managed to pay the “I was fucked up for three or four days,” bills through his role as an instructor at Martone says of the e ect Eddie Van Halen’s Douglas College in its music-technology October death had on him. “I’m even emoand contemporary-guitar departments. tional thinkin’ about it right now. He was Although he’s lost about two-thirds of his such, such.... He was so in uential to me— previous income, the 50-year-old believes and so many other people—because he epitthat things are getting “better and better”. omized fun in playing amazing stu . He He’s adapted well to the techniques of on- was always smiling. Always. He wasn’t like line education and stays positive about the all these metal guys, doom ’n’ gloom, lookin’ restrictions COVID-19 has wrought. like they’re gonna rip each other’s arms o .

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cool hair. You know, he had a wicked sound. He wrote cool pop songs; he played his ass o . And he made me want to play. So when I heard of his passing, it le a massive hole in my heart.”

While Van Halen’s death was a terrible blow to his fans, guitar freaks can take solace in the fact that Martone is doing his best to keep incredibly fast playing (“shredding”) alive and well. He has written two books on it—Shredding the Blues: Heavy Metal Guitar Meets the Blues and Serious Shred: Advanced Scales—and was voted among the top four underground shredders in North America by Guitar One magazine.

Would he say that shredding is his forte?

“I would say that, as adolescent boys, it was something that we all wanted to do. We all wanted to have the fastest car and drive as fast as we could and burn the tires up and do the craziest things that we could. People say you slow down when you get older, and it could be that. Or sometimes you realize that there’s more to music than the virtuosity and speed—that it’s just one of the parts of the equation.

“[Shredding] was what put me on the map, I would say, but I equally love playing something with a clean guitar, slow or just melancholy. I have so many loves of di erent styles of music, from Allan Holdsworth—which is just chordal, atmospheric sounds—to insane amounts of virtuosity, like the song I wrote called ‘Dinky Pinky’, which almost blows my hands o every time I try and play it. “And anywhere in between.” g