This old DCI guitar instructional videotape from 1984 proves Adrian Belew is just too damn much...in all the right ways. And that custom Fender Mustang!
@@krzysztofwaleska This isn't plastic... This is electric! And the fact that he plays with his hands and feeling with electricity means that it's nothing but authentic.
This was the most influential video I watched in the late 80's as a young guitar player. Both Adrian and Steve Vai had a big impact on me and their former employer Mr Zappa first of all :)
I actually discovered Adrian through David Bowie. Adrian Belew was awesome during his tenure with David Bowie in the late 70s. When Bowie was transitioning to his more experimental, electronic era.. apart of what was known as Bowie's "Berling Trilogy" of albums. 1977 "Low", "Heroes", 1978 "Stage", and 1979 "Lodger" Adrian was also on the Bowie live album Stage and for me that's one of my favorite live albums of all time and Adrian's guitar playing and sound effects were awesome esp on songs like Station to Station. Adrian toured with Bowie and played lead guitar for his 1978 The Stage Tour. The noises Adrian could get out of his guitar sounded otherworldly when I first heard it lol.
@@trekgreenwood6743 what do you mean by they're both in Beat? Is Beat a band? Because the only band I know that goes by The Beat is The English Beat, lol. Can you let me know so I can look it up, please?
Adrian Belew is Monster Sonic Master. His Career says so. Paints broad Colors of Sound. Belew and Fripp especially with Disipline Record with King Crimson. Many from Zappa to Bowie Talking Heads NIN called for his Services. Adrian is one of the Good Guys.
Thanks for uploading, man! My favourites instructional videos in those years were Brian May' s , Chris Squire' s (RIP) and Adrian Belew's. In a time with no Internet, VHS format, living in a 3rd World country (Argentina) our only chance to see them was making a copy from a copy from a copy from a copy, and not to mention the astronomical prices of gear (amps, guitars, pedals, etc). Even so, we tried to manage here and there to create something new. Rock and roll was kind of out of fashion until Eddie Van Halen brought a storm of fresh air to it, and in the meantime bands like The Police, Talking Heads, Rush, XTC opened new paths for young musicians.
Wow, this is great. Brings back lots of memories of a time when Adrian was really leading so much of the innovation going on with guitar. So glad I got to see him play this stuff live back then. Can’t wait to see him with Vai playing Crimson.
His guitar solos on Talking Heads' "The Great Curve" from Remain in Light completely blew my mind when I first heard them and are just as incredible today. Then a year later King Crimson's Discipline was released and I was "Belew'n away" again...
I have photos of this guitar, as well as the others Adrian used in both The Laurie Anderson movie and while he was in The Bears, which is when I photographed those guitars, met him and his band mates, had dinner, drank Stoli, and then passed out face first in my Volkswagen on University Avenue, outside The Berkeley Square. 😊
👁️Mesmerizing from start to finish. I grew up, listening to Adrian play with Zappa, Talking Heads, Bowie, King Crimson, and solo & was lucky to see Adrian do a similar in-store demo at Gand Music in my hometown, just a year before this video, in 1983. (I won the Roland synth). He did a lot of these same demonstrations and our minds were blown 🤯 just like this video still does, forty years later! At that in-store appearance, I asked Adrian to sign my Lone Rhino LP. I remember he said he liked my sunglasses; just the nicest guy & so totally unpretentious😎 Looking forward to this year’s King Crimson ‘Beat’ tour ♥️🩵💛
I have the Hot Licks video lesson with Belew I bought new back in the 1980s and haven't been able to watch it in decades because I stupidly chose to go with Betamax over VHS back then.
No telling where I'd be had I seen this in '84. Lots of tricks/effects I was using at the time but wasn't hip to AB till the 90's. Given his live shows and nature of his tone library, he sounds strangely lucid here. So much method to his madness. True pioneer.
So glad to see so many comments on Adrain's singing. I just saw him last night with Jerry Harrison doing the Talking Heads-Remain in Light set. Adrian's gear didn't behave (I've seen it happen before with him), but, his singing just took over. I was reminded of what made me pay attention to him when I first heard the King Crimson stuff in the 80's. It was his voice. Then I realized what an amazing guitar player he is. Total artist. One of my biggest musical heroes without a doubt.
I'm a huge fan of Adrian, solo and in various group appearances.I saw a home recordi9ng demo at Gand.Great music store of days gone by.His use of the guitar and whatever else was available was mind boggling.Adrian's guitar playing in Talking Heads' Remain In the Light, is some of his best and my favorite.One of a kind.
I was an 18 year year old studying on a very early music tech course in 1998 and this was played to us. it totally blew my mind and changed my thinking, I was into Vai, Satriani, Steve Stevens watching this and hearing Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop LP really informed my approach to the guitar, pivotal movements.. Now Vai and Belew are playing together which is exciting stuff for a fan of both and not just that the Discipline era Crimson some of my favourite music ever, I do hope it comes to Europe
I had no idea who Adrian Belew was until my parents got me the King Crimson live from Japan videodisc in the early 80s, in fact, I didn’t even really know who King Crimson was. Sure, I had heard of them but never really heard any of their music. Adrian is a genius!
Just ffyi for Belew fans. Rick Beato has a new interview out with Belew, Levin, Via And Carey about their upcoming King Crimson tour. Its over an hour long and is fantastic.
To be fair the guys in the band are eloquent enough to bounce around a topic around of their, or group history with the minimum of prompting. It’s about the transition from being Robert’s band to being Robert’s sound with Steve’s, and similarly with Danny’s, inclusion.
@morbidmanmusic spell check. I literally thought someone was going to offer up some stuff to start with on my listening journey. But no, it's a grammar guy 🙄. You know what I mean. Now you owe me a good starting point for Mr. BELEW 😆
Why? Because I'm glad that I get to look into a great guitarist that I knew nothing about? That is what I meant by "glad" because as jaded as one can be in his 40s it is great to discover stuf that is "new" to me. The comment is a great complement and genuinely how I feel about it.
I have a plectrum and set list of his when he played the Scala with Gizmodrome. Would have loved to have seen him play with Bowie in the 70/80s. Incidentally the video of Bowie collaborating on Adrian's song "Pretty Pink Rose" is hilarious, and a damn fine tune also.
The last time I saw him live he was playing a Stratocaster after many years playing a Parker Fly Signature. Long gone are the big racks but he always sounds great.
I saw Adrian play through a Line6 Spider Jam amp. It was very impressive! Such a cheap modeling amp, yet he made it sound like a boutique amp in a top line studio. One of the great masters of guitar.
Adrian Belew is a guitar genius, an experimentalist by nature. I love this part of his guitar playing. Others experimentalist are Buckethead and Steve Vai who also make weird sound with his guitar like birds, elephants, etc, just like Adrian does. Funny that both (Belew and Vai) are now in 2024 playing together in the project BEAT, a King Crimson tribute band.
I've always been intrigued by how many times some iconic artist saw him perform and said "I need THAT guy in my band!" (Zappa, Bowie, Fripp, Byrne, etc.). He first landed on my radar with the KC "Sleepless" video on MTV around '83-ish, and I've been a fan of his ever since. Cool, humble dude in every interview I've seen/read, too.
I remember seeing King Crimson on "Fridays" TV show play Elephant Talk in 1980 and Adrians guitar playing and Tony Levins stick playing was something from another planet...I'd never seen nor heard anything like that, ever. Never knew he made a vid shorty thereafter disclosing all his secrets...what an unselfish talent and innovator. "Elephant Talk" was mindblowing for its time.
Today you could probably engineer many of these sounds with a stock computer. But back then it took great skill, creativity, and moxie to make them work, especially live.
@5:45 Here's the Flanger sound - The one setting that no one else ever would use. 😄 Followed by the sound you may only ever make once in your life, you know, your first time @5:58. 😂
Does anyone knows which string he’s pressing on 43:47 ? And why does the note sound so high? I can’t figure if it’s just feedback, really need a full explanation of this man’s technique
