There are no words to describe his playing and song writing ability. He takes an emotion and puts it into four minutes of tastefully blended sounds ... with a screech here and there added for extra flavor. The end result is a series of songs that will take you to another place.

The best way to experience this is to watch his Alien Love Secrets video (dir. Margo Romero, Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1995). It's a full-length video of the entire Alien Love Secrets album. It's nothing fancy, no super special computer effects or story lines. It's just a straightforward rock and roll performance of all the songs on the album.

Vai's performances are anything but boring, unlike most of the successful mainstream bands out there. Let's just say I'd pay good money to see him play "Mary Had A Little Lamb" if I had the chance. He has great stage presence. Even if you have no interest in playing guitar or listening to instrumental rock and roll, you will be very impressed and entertained by his performance. He really gets into his songs. During the video, I started to notice that he hardly even looks at the guitar while he plays! He's too busy enjoying the song. It's also an amazing sight to watch him play such a conglomeration of notes at such a blistering speed, and he makes it look easier than tying your shoes.

There are some guitarists out there that concentrate too much on the speed. They just want to see how many notes they can fit into one measure and forget about making it sound good. For example, remember the solo from "Cult of Personality" by Living Color? It was impressive, but it did not fit with the song at all. Then there are other guitarists that can write tasteful music, but don't have the speed to play anything flashy. Steve Vai is the perfect blend of the two. Even when he's being flashy, it fits perfectly into the song.

The first, and one of the best songs on the album is called, "Bad Horsie." What a way to start it off! "Bad Horsie" is a heavy, grinding, in-your-face type of song. It's the kind of song that makes you bite your bottom lip and start bobbing your head. On top of that, Vai and all his band members have painted themselves silver. (Talk about stage presence!) In this song, Vai has the most difficult looking guitar solo I have ever seen, and he plays it perfectly without even trying. It makes "Eruption" by Eddie Van Halen sound like a child's nursery rhyme. The whole album is worth that one solo right there.

Another great song is "Die To Live." You can tell that he put a lot of emotion into this song. He seems to be off in another place when he plays it. It's a wonderful thing to watch and beautiful song to listen to.

One of my other favorites has to be "Tender Surrender." This song has it all. He starts it off nice and mellow, then gradually builds up into a climax of notes which gets your heart pumping and your muscles tense. Then he quickly but smoothly brings you back down. When it's over, you feel more relaxed than you did before the song started. It's an extremely cathartic experience

One more mentionable song is "Ya-Yo Gakk." If you're wondering what that means ... I don't know. It's actually incoherent babble coming from his youngest son, Julian. He took some of his babble and turned them into the lead vocals of a song. This is the only song on the album that has lyrics, so to speak. If you let the burliest and manliest of men listen to this song, he will tell you it's unavoidably cute.

Every song on this album is a masterpiece of work. It would take several pages to describe each one, so I would recommend getting a hold of the video and taking a look for yourself. All songs were written by Steve Vai. Musicians on the video are: Chris Frazier--Drums and Robbie Harrington--Bass.

Steve Vai Links

www.vai.com