Savatage - Gutter Ballet medley/tab book (Axis Super Sport & Majesty content)

[dt89]

Here's complete album #8 in my Savatage transcription project! As some of you may be aware, there was actually a tab book for this album put out in the 90s by Cherry Lane, but it's been out of print for many years, and there were plenty of errors/positional inaccuracies in it. I did my transcriptions completely from scratch, and I referenced live videos to match the way Criss played the songs. I managed to track down Matt Mitchell, who did the transcriptions for the original book, and he's impressed with my work.

Also, I saw TSO in Philly on Sunday got to talk again with Jeff Plate about the project. Hopefully once this tour is over, we'll be in touch more often and get to work on putting out the transcriptions.

 

[TheShreddinHand]

Sweet, gonna check this out tomorrow!

 

[dt89]

Sweet, gonna check this out tomorrow!

Oh hey, I remember you from the Match the Master contest! Hope you enjoy the video, I've added you to my list of people to contact when the transcriptions become available.

Edit: here's the updated list of songs I've transcribed:

Sirens: Sirens, Rage, Living For The Night
The Dungeons Are Calling (full album)
Power Of The Night (full album)
Fight For The Rock (full album)
Hall Of The Mountain King (full album)
Gutter Ballet (full album)
Streets (full album)
Edge Of Thorns (full album + Forever After and Shotgun Innocence)
Handful Of Rain (full album)
Dead Winter Dead (full album)
Ghost In The Ruins: Post Script
The Wake Of Magellan (full album)
Poets & Madmen (full album)

And here's a link to all of my Savatage videos: Savatage - YouTube

 

[TheShreddinHand]

Very cool! Yes, keep me posted. And I will (shamefully) admit that Savatage is one of those bands where I always meant to go back and buy up their discography but never got around to it. What would be the best album to start with?

Any chance you may do some of the more popular TSO songs as well? That would be killer.

I sure wish someone would do something like this for Symphony X! Ha!

 

[dt89]

Very cool! Yes, keep me posted. And I will (shamefully) admit that Savatage is one of those bands where I always meant to go back and buy up their discography but never got around to it. What would be the best album to start with?

Any chance you may do some of the more popular TSO songs as well? That would be killer.

I sure wish someone would do something like this for Symphony X! Ha!

My personal favorite albums are Streets, Gutter Ballet, and Hall Of The Mountain King. Edge Of Thorns also has some killer playing on it, with Zak Stevens on vocals instead of Jon Oliva. Really the only album that isn't great is Fight For The Rock, which was a record label pressure experiment that didn't work.

I'd love to do some TSO stuff, but I'd want to have their blessing first before I put a ton of work into it.

It's funny, I asked Russell Allen at the TSO show about doing a Symphony X project like this (I brought my V booklet for him to sign). He said he had no idea if Michael Romeo would be interested, and to try contacting him through the website. Perhaps I'll do that.

 

[spychocyco]

Very cool! Yes, keep me posted. And I will (shamefully) admit that Savatage is one of those bands where I always meant to go back and buy up their discography but never got around to it. What would be the best album to start with?

Just get them all. You won't regret it.

I'd start with Hall of the Mountain King, which is a fairly straight metal record -- the best of their early work. From that point, things get slowly, but progressively more symphonic. Streets is a classic in my mind. I'm an avowed fanboy, though. I don't think they've done a remotely bad album except Fight for the Rock. In fact, I revisited that one earlier this year for a review series I was doing on metal bands gone wrong, and even it's not awful, just not really Savatage.

 

[TheShreddinHand]

My personal favorite albums are Streets, Gutter Ballet, and Hall Of The Mountain King. Edge Of Thorns also has some killer playing on it, with Zak Stevens on vocals instead of Jon Oliva. Really the only album that isn't great is Fight For The Rock, which was a record label pressure experiment that didn't work.

I'd love to do some TSO stuff, but I'd want to have their blessing first before I put a ton of work into it.

It's funny, I asked Russell Allen at the TSO show about doing a Symphony X project like this (I brought my V booklet for him to sign). He said he had no idea if Michael Romeo would be interested, and to try contacting him through the website. Perhaps I'll do that.

Just get them all. You won't regret it.

I'd start with Hall of the Mountain King, which is a fairly straight metal record -- the best of their early work. From that point, things get slowly, but progressively more symphonic. Streets is a classic in my mind. I'm an avowed fanboy, though. I don't think they've done a remotely bad album except Fight for the Rock. In fact, I revisited that one earlier this year for a review series I was doing on metal bands gone wrong, and even it's not awful, just not really Savatage.

Thanks for the recommendations guys, got some stuff to check out!

I did some checking and there are some TSO tab books, not sure how accurate they are, but there is some stuff out there.

Symphony X would be killer! I would think there would be pretty high demand for *accurate* tab of maybe the best of Sy. X or something.

 

[dt89]

Thanks for the recommendations guys, got some stuff to check out!

I did some checking and there are some TSO tab books, not sure how accurate they are, but there is some stuff out there.

Symphony X would be killer! I would think there would be pretty high demand for *accurate* tab of maybe the best of Sy. X or something.

The full album TSO books are primarily piano/vocal, they have chord charts sprinkled in, but that's it. There's a 13-song guitar anthology book from Hal Leonard, but from looking at the sample pages on Amazon, it could definitely be improved upon.

There are some old Michael Romeo transcriptions of bits of Symphony X songs on their website. Hopefully he'd be interested in doing a proper collection.

Also, I finished two more Savatage songs, The Edge Of Midnight and She's Only Rock N' Roll, both from Fight For The Rock. Definitely my least favorite of their albums, but still has a few gems.

 

[dt89]

At this point, there aren't many songs in the catalog that I haven't transcribed, so I decided to do parts of each one, and that can at least help people get on the right track to learning them.

Holocaust (rhythm parts and fills done, no solo)
I Believe (rhythm parts done)
On The Run (rhythm parts done)
Twisted Little Sister (intro)
Scream Murder (rhythm parts done)