Paul Gilbert: racer x the early years the pure hard rock view

News:
07-07-2008:
A really great blog for hard rock fans: http://purehardrock.blogspot.com/. Don't forget to subscribe to the rss feed. I remember how devastated I was to hear that Racer X had split up for the first time... They were about to tour Europe with Cacophony according to our local band promoter... then Mr Big, fizzy guitars and pop rock... Here's just a snippet of this meaty review:

While the band continued to sell out their live concerts, they were not generating any major label interest. They had several showcase shows – the most famous being a CBS Showcase show – but no corporate interest was displayed, perhaps due to the fact that the average Racer X concert drew more studying musicians than casual music fans.



The years of unsuccessfully searching for major label representation finally took its toll on the band, and the group's last gasp came with two nights of back-to-back live shows at the Country Club, which were recorded for posterity and later released as Live Extreme, Volume 1 (1988) and Live Extreme, Volume 2 (1992). The albums included many Racer X fan favorites, as well as solos from Gilbert, Bouillet, Alderete, and Travis. Also on the album were several new songs which were originally intended for a third studio recording, including "She Wants Control", "Set the World on Fire", and the instrumental "Scit Scat Wah". But even as Live Extreme, Vol. 1 was getting ready for release, the dismantling of the band was near. Musicians like David Lee Roth and Steve Vai were often seen at the live concerts. Billy Sheehan, bass player of the band Talas, approached Paul Gilbert about forming a new band; the two would go in 1989 to form the band Mr. Big. Gilbert had mentally detached himself from Racer X during the final shows with the band; the rest of the group, searching for an explanation to the lack of major label interest, focused their frustrations on Jeff Martin. It wasn't long before both Paul Gilbert and Jeff Martin left the band on the same day.

John Alderete, Bruce Bouillet, and Scott Travis initially brought in Guitar Spotlight player Chris Arvan as a replacement and performed a few shows – one with Oni Logan from Lynch Mob – but the dissolution of Racer X was imminent, and soon, the members of the band went separate ways. Racer X's hiatus carried on well into the late 1990s.

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