Steve Stevens Gets Ready To Release ‘Memory Crash’
STEVE STEVENS GETS READY TO RELEASE ‘MEMORY CRASH’:
January 15, 2008
Steve Stevens, the wizard of guitar effects and longtime musical partner of fist-pumpin’, punk-pop bad boy Billy Idol, is one of the most refreshingly creative guitarists in all of rockdom.
“I spent a long time before making this record watching old archival footage and retrospectives on bands like Pink Floyd and Yes, just soaking up what made them tick,” Stevens says. “But this record is not a retro gimmick at all. It’s still very much a Steve Stevens record.”
You’ve heard his raygun-like sound effects on the massive hits “Rebel Yell” and “Eyes Without A Face”…
His grungy “21st Century Schizoid” musical tirades heard on such seminal efforts as the Matrix Reloaded and Top Gun soundtracks are revered as much for their technical precision as textural sophistication …
Steve Stevens, the wizard of guitar effects and longtime musical partner of fist-pumpin’, punk-pop bad boy Billy Idol, is one of the most refreshingly creative guitarists in all of rockdom. For the uninitiated, experiencing Stevens’ kaleidoscopic sonic assault has all the psychic potency of spotting unidentified incandescent objects in the night sky: you know you’ve witnessed something unexplained and dramatic, and perhaps even intergalactic … In a word, “shocking.”
Get psyched for another supernatural jolt of sonic chaos when the atomic playboy drops his first solo record in nearly eight years, Memory Crash — an electro-centric sonic tour de force that makes a serious musical impact. No gimmicks. No over-the-top production. No compromising. It’s just Steve Stevens, his guitar, and his beloved effects – all the ingredients that have made him a global star.
“I think the time is right for me to make a record that is totally me – my world,” Stevens says of Memory Crash.
Boasting such tracks as “Water on Ares”, “Hellcats Take the Highway”, “Small Arms Fire”, an interpretation of Robin Trower’s’ “Day of the Eagle” (featuring Dug Pinnick of King’s X), and the rousing/psychedelic “Cherry Vanilla”, Memory Crash is a journey through another dimension, “a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind”, to steal a line from Rod Serling. It’s virtually musical cinema. “I have a lot of weird little segues going on with this record,” Stevens says. “I’ve always loved that about the prog records, like Dark Side of the Moon. You enter this little theater of the mind. It’s a true headphone experience.”
A freaked-out, Hendrix-meets-Stevens vibe is prevalent in the interpretation of Robin Trower’s “Day of the Eagle”, a tune Stevens says Dug Pinnick “takes to church with a Sly Stone spin.”
Jimi wasn’t the only influence that crept up on Stevens. He revisited a cast of legendary characters, from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, and Yes, to Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Bo Diddley, and Jeff Beck. Yet, despite the presence and interplay of diverse and distinct musical elements, Stevens never surrenders his own creative identity.
“I spent a long time before making this record watching old archival footage and retrospectives on bands like Pink Floyd and Yes, just soaking up what made them tick,” Stevens says. “But this record is not a retro gimmick at all. It’s still very much a Steve Stevens record.”
Courtesy of www.magnacarta.net