Not Of This Earth, the debut of Joe Satriani. I, like pretty much everyone else on the planet, was introduced to Joe with Surfing With The Alien. So it was after that masterpiece that I started to do reseach on him and came across NOTE. Upon my first time playing through the album, it was in stark contrast to what I had soaked up on Alien. NOTE is a very eclectic record full of experimentation. And even though it was nothing like his follow up, it was worlds apart from every other dime-a-dozen shredder that had a record deal out at the time. What set Joe and this record in particular apart from his contemporaries is that he was doing something completely original. While everyone else was doing their best neoclassical spin on Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe was pushing himself and the instrument further, especially in the way he recorded and played whatever he had on hand to suit his needs.

I picked this album apart like you couldn't believe. This was right around the time that I started playing guitar myself and wanted to learn as much as possible. Not to demean the songs, but they were very straight forward when it came to rhythm for bass and drums, that I literally went song by song and recreated all the parts using my drum machine, bass and 4 track recorder so that I would have my "backing band" to start learning the guitar parts.

That's why Not Of This Earth is special to me, in spite of it not being a perfect record, which it is not. But it holds up pretty well after all these years.

Fave Songs: Not Of This Earth, Rubina and Hordes of Locusts

Sidebar: The original Space/Planet cover is now fetching on some sites upwards of $200 for the Vinyl in mint condition. If you guys come across it, I suggest you pick it up if you can get it for cheap. It's out of print and probably one of the LP's I will never sell. At least for the time being anyways.