Great news!! I’m doing Lynch videos for the best George Lynch Fansite
In guitarland, I have a Big Four. These are Eddie Van Halen, George Lynch, Paul Gilbert, and Jason Becker. This is how I got to know George.
Again, it was early 80’s San Jose rock radio that got me onto George Lynch. The station was playing stuff off that first Dokken album: Paris is Burning, Breaking The Chains, and Live to Rock. When I heard Paris is Burning, I was like, “Ahhh, shit, my precious Eddie!!” I thought that any time I heard a mad solo by anyone other than Eddie on the radio.
So I bought that first Dokken album. I think at least half the songs on there were pretty average, but George’s solos made them a little more palatable. For me, anways. It’s funny, on the back sleeve of that album, it shows all the band members. George is so tan I thought he was African American until Tooth N Nail came out.
There was something I liked more about George than I did Eddie, and I couldn’t really put my finger on it ‘til Tooth N Nail came out. By this time I was 16 or 17, and I was starting to get pretty serious about heavy music and guitar. I started figuring out the songs on that album, and then it hit me.
What separates George from Eddie (and everybody else) was finger vibrato (Ed’s vibrato is pretty tough, it’s just that George’s was a tad tougher). In my brain, Lynch vibrato was the key. A wide, slow deliberate massaging of the string. Consistent everywhere on the neck. That is the key, man. Fast playing, slow playing, it didn’t matter. When you hit a note and apply Lynch vibrato, it screams, “I meant this!!” Even if you’re out of key but apply Lynch vibrato, it tells the listener that all that wacky shit was deliberate. It is the perfect punctuation to a whisper or a scream. And he was the first guy I ever heard apply vibrato to power chords, how rad is that?
From that day forward, I started applying Lynch vibrato to my style. Even now if I have a shit night playing live, I always go, “At least my vibrato rocked!” And that saves me from beating myself up. Cuz that ain’t gonna help.
At age 18, I remember thinking, “Well, now that I’ve found the definitive Metal finger vibrato, I guess everyone will catch on and follow suit.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s fairly apparent in the early 80’s as it is now; no one really gives a fuck about vibrato. How is that? Why is that? It’s an easy technique to correct, and it falls under the ‘feel’ category. The judgmental asshole blues pricks will cut you a bit of slack. Everybody has a guitar pet peeve, and mine is vibrato. Friends know I can be harsh with this, and that’s why I get so down on Kirk Hammet at times. And trust me, I love Metallica’s early work. Ride the Lightning is thee shit! So is Master….
And I know a lot of people think I’m right into EVH, and I am, but really only the first four albums. I was more into George, actually. I thought he was a bit more aggressive. And while Eddie was doing Jump, George was guest soloing on a Tony MacAlpine album. And trying to become better. I think Ed was just coasting.
“Bitch, I got your coasting..”
The last Dokken album I bought was Back for the Attack. I do have Lynch Mob Wicked Sensation. And as you may or may not know, by the age of 20 I started moving from Cock Rock to Thrash.
George, I love you man. You fucking fixed my vibrato, and I told you this every time I saw you at NAMM. As a tenth grader, I even had the half and half bleach dye job as well. I got teased at school, but fuck those clowns. My dad hated it, and fuck him, too. Ha ha.
Dokken gigs I’ve seen that I remember: 87 with Loverboy at Marriott’s Great America, and ’89 supporting Aerosmith. Oh, and a Day on the Green, with Metallica, and Van Hagar were headlining. My friends and I were walking to the car as “There’s Only One Way to Rock” was playing.
George, do me a favor; fuck off the single coil strats, the shitty phaser pedal you’re now using, and burn the fucking black fingerless gloves. Play for an hour a day and show every mutherfucker you mean business!
Ah! It won’t happen, I’ve been told:
I do love you though. I’ll always have a soft spot for you. And EVH. And Gilbert. And Becker. You four, baby. You four.
Another vibrato rant can be found HERE
Doug Steele 
Fuck you robot.
Man, couldn’t agree LESS with what George has to say about music and the ‘times’ people associate. I mean, yes, I understand what he means but I don’t think it’s necessarily the case. I actually didn’t listen, truly LISTEN to, say, Warren’s work in RATT until like 92 or so…and rediscovered in 95, and every few years I get on a RATT kick and there you have it. But they’ve come out with new tunes, and even though some of it is very good, lots of that Infestation album was filler in the worst way. Just like RATT of old, you had some real fuckin’ gems and you had a lot of misses (not the case for the first few records, IMO)…so much so that the fact why glammy rawk didn’t survive was because it was waaaay past overdue and popular tastes changed. Plain and simple. Did we really need Bang Tango and Slik Toxik? Nope. Turn that page!
Ah yes, I did have a point!…the thing is, I loved those tunes ten years after they were popular. A good riff is a good riff. Yes, there was so good shit going on in my life as a teen during that period, but I know for a fact that if I heard a good riff now, then, or 20 years from now, I’d recognize it as such. It’s just hard to top what those guys came up with…even HARDER for them to top themselves!
Many of the 80s shredders who have survived can’t compete with their past, and rightfully so. They literally wrote the fucking book on this shit. But even George admitted to his solos as formulaic, and he used the same skeleton to build those amazing solos. But you can’t just keep doing that. It’s the song at the end of the day that made that kinda music popular….the riffs!
What I object to the most is that he really believes that some songs that Dokken (or Mob or whatever) could have been hits had it been earlier or whatnot…simply not the case. GREAT guitar work, as always! But songs?…nah, just not happening. And that’s ok. Lynch has already done more for electric guitar than someone like Broderick could hope to do. That much HAS changed…popular tastes. But damn if I don’t like some of what HE does as well; it’s just that I like Marty better with Megadeth. Why?…cause he’s just got those dang tasty licks! And if there’s one guy who isn’t the same as he was (and more power to him) it’s Marty.
One thing I know for certain is that those rockers of the past didn’t know any better than you or I about what song was going to be a HIT…well, maybe they could call it 2% of the time (AC/DC, Def Lep to name a few, but when you’ve got Mutt Lange producing you, chances are it’s gonna be a win), but that’s why they can’t just sit down and come up with shit like they did in the past and expect people to love it…they didn’t do it that way the first time around either. It’s a crapshoot. But at least we’ve got the music we got…and I really truly do hope that some young bastards out there get together with the inspiration from the past to make a new rock guitar future that truly can compete with what happened in the post-Van Halen era.
We’ll see. I don’t have much hope for the future regarding what other dudes do, ha ha.
Man I stumbled here from your YT site and saw your love for GL (my handle on YT is BFahz). Man I could not agree with you more! GL has the perfect blend of melody, feel (vibrato), ands technique. And he looked fucking cool as shit while doing it. It pains me that somehow he now gets left off these GW “best guitarists of the 80s” lists…. he caused more kids to play guitar back in the day than anyone minus EVH.
Man give his solo record a listen – The Beast solo break is effin awesome.
BTW, I love your playing and style. Keep rockin!
Cheers dude, I’ll give that a crack. I was probably more into Lynch than EVH, to be honest.