Guitar Star 2016, Sky Arts

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  • SteffoSteffo Frets: 572
    The slide dude was really good, watched him 4 times. All the talkie bit skipped. I like GB, but I would rather listen to his guitar than is talking.
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  • BigLicks67BigLicks67 Frets: 766
    The whole of this episode just seemed to be an advert for George Benson.
    I had to laugh at Nitin Sawney advising the classical dude how to improvise and then plays the musical equivalent of ' The cat sat on the mat' as an example.
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  • If you've not watched this series yet, then don't bother. Didn't really show the competitors, strange 121s with mentors/judges, and an odd "This is Your Life" section on George Benson. Bizarre waste of an hour.
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16255
    Major star agrees to participate in semi obscure arts programme. Presumably not doing it for the love or for a huge fee so some adoration and exposure ( new double cd ultimate collection just released isn't there George?) must be part of the package. That's how I think this kind of thing works, not sure what tv other people have been watching. :(|)
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • Dave_McDave_Mc Frets: 2328
    edited June 2016
    1 - It's so heavily weighted against "proper" rock guitarists, not just in that rock guitar isn't a solo instrument, but also in that the players they've chosen are caricatures and stereotypes. I don't understand how they think they're going to get good players if their mandate for the genre is long hair and running around pulling faces at the camera.
    Yeah, agreed. It's also biased against rock because they linked in blues with it this year (last year it was with jazz, right? presumably because george benson is a judge), so there was really only one rock place available.

    It also seems a bit unfair that (to the best of my recollection) they had two jazz players competing for, er, two places, while they had several rock players competing for one.

    Seems a bit sexist to me, as well- they actually had a bunch of good women players (IMO) who I liked more than most of the men, and only one got through (alongside seven men), and why exactly did they put the two acoustic women against each other when letting the other acoustic guy through? It's like "women" is a niche genre of music or something. Even if there was nothing behind it (which I doubt), it looks bad, and not realising it looks bad says a lot.

    EDIT: Also in the second episode some of the competitors got way more air time than others- like they've already decided who they want to win, or at least progress further. Again, that looks bad, and not realising (or caring) that it looks bad again says a lot.

    Goes without saying there was way too much talking and not enough playing. You know, instead of telling me how good they are you could just let me hear them... :|
    scrumhalf said:
    Second episode seemed to feature George Benson more than the competitors.
    Yeah, ridiculous.

    Then when the obsequious fawning started I was wishing they'd gone back to just letting george benson play. my delicate constitution just can't cope with that level of embarrassment... more like sycophant star than guitar star.
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  • Philly_QPhilly_Q Frets: 22516
    Behind the times as usual, I just watched the first episode on YouTube.

    The format's a little better than last year - less wobbly camera work, less talking during the performances, no Edith Bowman - but I can't believe they got down to a final eight so quickly!  I feel like I missed half a series.

    God knows I'm in no position to criticise technique or anything, but the rock category in particular (does one guy even count as a category?) felt so... perfunctory.  Only about half a dozen auditionees, they all sounded dreadful, half of them were out of tune, and none of them played an actual piece of music, just a load of stop-start riffs and licks like someone trying out gear in a shop.  Dreadful.

    For all its faults, I actually enjoyed the first series.  Can't say I enjoyed this.

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  • Dave_McDave_Mc Frets: 2328
    ^ Yeah. I complained plenty about the first series but I think this one is even worse :))
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  • Fell asleep again during this weeks episode; won't be bothering again. Just dull. And what was with the fawning over George Benson? Thought that one guy was going to get up & lick his feet :/
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  • EskiEski Frets: 35
    I agree - the format isn't as good as last year and it doesn't look like it's going to get any better.  

    The UK's Best Part-Time Band on BBC 4 was a mush better format and had some pretty good bands featured - I didn't think the winners were the best on the night but that's just me.  I was amazed how many of them practiced at home - they must have understanding neighbours!
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  • NunogilbertoNunogilberto Frets: 1679
    Yes, the latest episode was a George Benson love fest.

    And I don't want to do the young Epi LP toting lad down, but as rock players go, he's no better than most others his age that I've heard - playing the intro to Run To The Hills which seemingly really impressed GB - just shows how they need a good name rock guitar judge/mentor on the show.
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  • Dave_McDave_Mc Frets: 2328
    Had another thought- the show always seems to be saying, "Everyone thinks guitar is just rock music, so we're going to showcase the other genres!". However, all the talking over it and even the entire format seem to be geared towards getting non-guitar-players to watch the thing. So apparently liking rock music is too populist even if you already play guitar but dumbing* the show down so it appeals to non-guitarists isn't being too populist?












    * I don't think there's any correlation between guitar playing and intelligence, it's just a figure of speech.
    Fell asleep again during this weeks episode; won't be bothering again. Just dull. And what was with the fawning over George Benson? Thought that one guy was going to get up & lick his feet :/
    How will you survive without sleep?

    And yeah that's the fawning bit I was talking about. Once he appeared to be on the verge of proclaiming George Benson as the greatest human being who ever lived (while also being on the verge of tears), I decided to fast-forward through all the fawning before I needed to seek medical attention.

    Which worked well, except that meant the rest of the show lasted about 30 seconds...
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  • BlueingreenBlueingreen Frets: 2584
    I feel less critical than others.  It's cheaply made reality tv for a small, niche audience.  It has all the limitations that implies, including predictability of format, overselling itself, and compromises to keep costs down and get some casual viewers tuning in. 

    And crawling to celebs.  At least these guys are celebs for actually being exceptional at something other than self-promotion.

    So far there's been enough good stuff among the dross to keep me watching.  For me the standard is more consistent and higher than last year, albeit 2 or 3 of the contestants fail the not-a-dickhead test. The absence of Bowman is a small bonus and the absence of Huey a big one. 

    I agree the rock content is poor yet again, but I don't see an easy solution.  With jazz and classical, musical excellence and technical excellence are closely related. There are well established traditions of playing solo guitar. There's a lot of common ground in judging good from bad.

    None of this applies to rock/pop.  Most players don't sound good without a band, and for a lot of fans and even fellow players technical excellence is unnecessary or even bad.  For every fan of Van Halen or Satriani there are several who think they are self-indulgently missing the point of the music, and who'd rather worship at the shrine of Keef or BB King or Neil Young or Nile Rogers.  There little consensus about what's good, and among the majority of rock guitar player fans who think technique isn't what matters, even less consensus about how to measure the nebulous thing that does matter, so much so that last year it came down to being a good-looking kid who waved his hair around a lot.

    I'm happy they've more or less sidestepped these issues by having only one rock guy, who incidentally isn't as terrible as I thought at first but is still the weakest of the finalists by a long way.  If the only kind of guitar you're interested in is rock guitar the show probably isn't going to interest you, which is fair enough.

    Incidentally anyone else think John Gomm would make a far better presenter than the ones they chose?  Confident, articulate, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, generous and with a natural ease in front of the camera that none of the others had.  Not a huge fan of his music (amazing for 5 mins, but tedious after half an hour is my suspicion) but if there is a 3rd series and I were the producer I'd be giving him a bell.
    “To a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail.”
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  • BigLicks67BigLicks67 Frets: 766
    Incidentally anyone else think John Gomm would make a far better presenter than the ones they chose?  Confident, articulate, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, generous and with a natural ease in front of the camera that none of the others had.  Not a huge fan of his music (amazing for 5 mins, but tedious after half an hour is my suspicion) but if there is a 3rd series and I were the producer I'd be giving him a bell.
    Yep, I agree he seemed to be able to make a difference with all the players he sat with, I was disappointed with Milos, as you'd expect a classical guitarist to be used to doing masterclasses and have more interesting things to say than just practise scales. 
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  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 11262
    So where's Tony Visconti?

    Milos irritates the crap out of me. For someone who's been groomned to within an inch of his life to mention the kid's hat was a bit much. The difference between his "recital" approach and Gomm's "playing" approach is very noticeable. I don't like Gomm's music, nothing against him personally, but he looks for positives and Milos seems to be looking for faults.
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16255
    Only just catching up with episode three ; clearly not the must see TV I thought it was last year. Agree about the various above comments around Gomm and Milos as mentors. The one chap quite clear he didn't accept was Milos was saying.
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16255
    Episode 4. Milos to Wilko Johnson is a weird leap. It's all a bit directionless as a series. However, if anyone is a WJ fan it's worth a look. Anyone interested in a guitar competition look elsewhere...
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • Dave_McDave_Mc Frets: 2328
    edited July 2016
    Is it just me or was Louis Balfour hitting on Lianne? :))

    EDIT: Nice Tom Anderson, though.
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  • bignormbignorm Frets: 191
    edited July 2016
    Watched episode 4 for wilco Johnson and was so disappointed....
    Wilcos playing itself was sadly lacking and I can't help wondering what was going through his mind when the slide playing dude sat down with him coz he totally outclassed wilco.
    The widdly Rock kid wax awful .. was he the best of the bunch coz honestly he should sort out his technique. His picking was sloppy and his heavily distorted noodling lacked focus, musical content truly terrible.
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  • sweepysweepy Frets: 4159
    Milos telling the ex Berklee fella to practice his scales, when it was screamingly obvious that he wanted to break away from the sausage factory mentality that sums up Berklee today and find his own path. I agree that the rock guitarists are again, terrible and lacking imagination :(
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  • BlueingreenBlueingreen Frets: 2584
    Yeah really liked that Tom Anderson.  In fact seeing it reminded me I'd seen the guy before, he demos it in a YouTube vid.  I did think the was a bit of a sexual spark there with Lianne but I hope she thinks better of it - she seems a nice girl and he seems a total dick.  Very interesting player though.

    Bizarrely it was also seeing her guitar that made me realise I'd seen Lianne before, on Jools:  just the look of her wasn't enough to trigger the memory until I saw her with that distinctive black and white guitar.  I really need to get out more.
    “To a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail.”
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