Carlos “Am I in Tune???” Santana, Totally Fuckin SUCKS!

Well, well, here we are again for another edition of “SUCKS.” And in this installment, boy do we have another musical pile-o-shit doozy! I know him as the local, filthy, motor oil covered, corner gas station mechanic down the street that I wouldn’t trust putting gas in my car let alone do any work on it. But sadly, all you dorks know him as Carlos Santana. Paper Tiger #2. In my previous post I talked about Eric “Arthritis Hands” Clapton, well, this fuck is right on par with Clapton. Although,  Mr. “Am I in Tune???” Santana, maybe just a small notch lower.

Before Ibanez began to conquer the world of the store bought, “off-the-rack” guitar in 1987, courtesy of Ibanez’s savior and patron saint Steve Vai, you really only had a few choices when it came to a quality guitar. If you had the money to pay the inflated high price, you bought a Jackson or Chravel, this is when they appeared to be separate companies, but Grover Jackson bought the Charvel company from Wayne Charvel around November or so of 1978.

 The Jackson name wasn’t used until the “Rhoads Concorde” came out in 1980 and Grover didn’t want this experimental model to adversely affect the rest of the Charvel line so Grover put his last name on it, Jackson, in case it didn’t sell.  Or your other choices were Kramer, Gibson and Fender. Yes, yes Asshole!! I know there are other companies but these were the big, important ones of the time! The others are irrelavant, and I’m telling this story, so fuck you! 

A small guitar builder by the name of Paul Reed Smith was working his way up the business ladder and producing some axes that were a bit on the expensive side but different and pretty cool.  Skipping over a few years to around the early mid 90’s I and many of my friends went into total shock and I think even a couple of my friends needed defibrillating paddles applied to them, when we all learned Carlos “Am I in Tune???” Santana received a major, and I mean major, indorsement deal with Paul Reed Smith!!! Holy fuckin’ shit!!! I remember passing out and being revived with a glass of cold water to my face.

There were a large number of known fantastic guitar players that didn’t even get offered a small deal from PRS let alone anything. In particular a guy I knew personally that was a ridiculously smokin’ player and he had to do some serious coaxing just to get them to release a couple of PRS guitars for him to do some clinics with. So to see this son-of-a-bitch get this huge deal, reminded me of that Super Friends cartoon with Superman’s doppelganger opposite named Bizarro who was evil and could do everything Superman could do, except he had the brain of a moron. Kinda like most of your brains. Bizarro world is what I’m living in.

This was also within the first few years of the grunge/alternative scene when the more you sucked on guitar, bass, vocals, as a being of Earth the better promotion you got. Very much like rewarding bad behavior and punishing the good. Not very much like.. this is EXACTLY what happened and is still happening. Before this happened, PRS Guitars had a growing reputation of a quality instrument and a potentially growing reputation of attracting a roster of REAL quality talent which is what I would think was the making of a perfectly symbiotic relationship. Well, after this major fuck up, was not to be. That dream went right out the fuckin’ window.

Well, now let’s get to his playing. Something that no matter how long someone who plays a guitar plays, in “theory” a person should get better. This is not the case here as with everyone on my ever growing list and with I’m sure all of you. “Am I in Tune???” Santana plays the guitar with the identical skill of a clumsy child. A 4 year old child during a gran-maul seizure. When doing a music video, you have some freedom to move around and put on a bit of a show without having to worry about really playing. Your job is to get into the video and sell the tune. Look like you’re having fun or be the character you’re supposed to be acording to the song. This is something that a person with even the most elementary  motor skills can pull off. But not the grease monkey. He’s hunched over his guitar looking like a deer frozen in headlights.

Bending to pitch and vibrato are ideas unknown to this chimp. Youtube I like for many reasons. For one it allows me to save my money until I’ve sampled enough to know if it’s worth buying. Santana’s music in a nutshell is boring, plain and simple. Santana writes with the same structures as a 12 year old plucking while watching cartoons. Santana is a great example of the listener really needing to be either drunk, high or both to find anything redeemable in his hacking away on that poor inocent guitar.

When I was a kid, if I attempted to even slightly play something sloppy I was berated by my real talented friends to the point to turn back on my metronome and do what so many of you hacks and the hacks on my list either don’t, won’t or can’t do……to focus and exercise discipline to play correctly. That is asking waaay too much of all of you to do. Santana improvises with the same results as someone trying to speak with an advanced case of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. If you enjoy listening to Santana, you must also enjoy smelling other peoples farts.

                           Here endeth the lesson.

              Love, Crappy.

 

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 http://crappystruth.wordpress.com/2007/07/03/hello-world/