Life is odd. I haven't heard about Steve Lukather in a while, nontheless how people feel about Toto.
But in the last 24 hours, I've heard Steve's name 4 times, and I have heard about Toto twice. Nothing bad about the man, both bad about the band. I'm not really sure why. I mean...the band had some good songs...one of them being Rosanna. And remember Africa? Good stuff. And the band members could play circles around most bands. Licks off the keyboards, a really solid rhythm section. A kick ass vocalist who had great power and range and Steve Lukather on guitar.
Lukather was one of those not seen guitarists. I was an advocate of reading Guitar Mags and I don't think Steve was in many articles. I remember him being in one with Bob Bradshaw. Going over his gear. Then again I remember how I loved to look at the racks, and see all the knobs and figure out what they did. But by the time I was 20, I hated effects. I sort of saw them as more things to break. I took a page from the Chilipeppers book after I went for their audition in Los Angeles. I was told to not stop playing by the auditioning team. But they said i probably wouldn't be the pick for the band. However.. I was curious about the little bit of gear on the floor ~ a wah wah and a pedal switcher for the mesa rectifier. I thought that was pretty much how I liked it. Lean. I think it stayed with me, because I saw less use for all the xtra stuff.
I didn't know much material on the RHCP either. My bass player at the time gave me the Mother's Milk cassette and I learned some stylings from it, but I wasn't amazing at it. If my cousin didn't catch the article on the news, I wouldn't have even known about the audition. She called me , I called them, got a call back that was so arrogant from the agency I wish i kept it somewhere for today's collection of things on youtube.
Anyway...Steve Lukather...I tried learning the solo at the end of Rosanna with my teacher when I was taking lessons. I wasn't a huge fan yet, but he was. So I took his lead and I listened to the solo, thought it wasn't hard until I started running those licks. DAMN! That was fast! I learned it. In the process I learned all the phrases by heart too. I can sing them to you today. And I loved playing it. Til this day it might be one of the only songs I enjoy listened out to through the full fade due to that solo. There's that chromatic decending run that jumps back and forth between the descending and another stationary note. really great phrasing.
I saw Steve Lukather is out on the road touring in Europe supporting his new CD. I'm gonna have to go check that out.
Thanks for reading this far!! Browse around and write some comments.
-Marc
