The Elusive Satch-Chris Martin Link...

Alright, I may be a few days late on this story, but I had to throw it out there. Apparently, if mine eyes have seen the proper glory, Joe "Satch" Satriani is amassing a lawsuit against one of my current guilty-pleasures, Coldplay (Please, don't hate me, it's just soooo damn catchy. I guess I drank the wrong Kool-aid... or maybe it's that damn Vitamin Water) saying that the hit melody of Coldplay's multi-Grammy nominated hit "Viva La Vida" (the actual song, not the whole album) was plagiarized from Satch's early... ummmmm... song(?) "If I Could Fly" off the 2004 smash, um, album "Is There Love In Space" (I know I bought two copies, in case I wore one out). Now, I am going to first off say that, yes, I have heard "Viva La Vida" a great number of times and that I have just sat through approximately ten minutes of the Satch ditty "If I Could Fly" on various Youtube.com videos. The first was the full 6:30 album cut set to what a believe was a wedding slide show that one of my Parasitology guest lecturers in medical school would of put together if they were stuck in Minot, North Dekota and only hap a laptop running Windows 3.1, a scanner, and the last 25 years of Guitar World back issues for media. Yes, it is that good. The second was a Romanian band named the Adi Manolovici Syndikate playing a cover of "If I Could Fly" live at the R&B Club Sibiu on mar. 2008, and yes, that information is completely cut and pasted from the actual youtube video because I am willing to do that, yet not provide a proper link because, truthfully, Joe Satriani is not for the casual listener. Those adventurous enough may seek these videos out on their own... quite easily, but I will not promote people listening to washed-up, virtuoso guitatists who obviously did not invest their money very well and are now grasping at straws, let alone a Romanian band that actually covers the former. Trust me, this is for your own good.

The Verdict:

I know that you are all eagerly awaiting the verdict on this historic litigation. That is why I have called myself as an expert witness to clear up this mess once and for all... and thus be the law of the land... maybe. I'm really not secure enough to even fake that kind of confidence. I will say this, the first minute or two of the Satriani song do resemble the initially heard verse and chorus of Coldplay's "Viva La Vida". As far as after the intro.... hmmmm.... to be honest with all of you, I rarely make it through more that a minute of any Satch song (except Summer Song, of course) without kinda fading out and thinking about the nuns that taught me in grade school or Top Withens in England or any god damned thing because I get sooooooooo bored. I recognize that Joe Satriani is a great musical talent, but I find the majority of things that are in his oevre seem to be a bit relentless and tedious. I figure it's similar to what would be heard if we had recordings of J.S. Bach dinking around on the harpsichord drunk in front of his friends. I'm sure it would be brilliant, but it wouldn't keep any one's attention for more than a few minutes before someone in the room would shout out "Play Allegro #2 from the French Suites" and Bach would have to go back to performing his rigid, God-praising compositions. But, that is kind of the point of composition. To have a beginning, a middle, and an end without a bunch of scalar wanking going on. I mean, I can listen to a nine minute Frank Zappa guitar instrumental, but he was a genius musician and he was freaking insane. That keeps it interesting. Satch has done some good things, but it's mired in a virtual cesspool of everything else, if you get my not-too-cryptic drift. Thus, I guess my verdict is inconclusive. It depends on how many people picked for the jury are as bored as I am...

The Aftermath:

And that's not even the worst part. I would like you all to think of what would happen if Mr. Satriani was to win this case. Sure, it may be a victory for one apparently unfortunately down and out virtuoso guitarist/composer, but think of the horrible precedent it may set. If one would go back through all of the demos, outtakes, B-sides, home-recordings, etc. of a man like Joe Satriani, one could probably find the melody to every poplular tune ever written in the last two centuries. This would mean endless musical litigation with an endless number of people being forced to hear hours of wanking on guitar... and this is not even touching Steve Vai's catalog yet {shudder}.

I leave you with the original news story link from which I got the basic information on this lawsuit. That should prove my point..... and I will try and follow this and keep y'all posted. Happy Holidays.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081205/music_nm/us_coldplay_1