Check out some of the world’s best modern fingerstyle acoustic guitar at Tractorgrease Cafe on Thursday, Oct. 8.
Vancouver-based Don Alder is an international fingerstyle champion. Of his many accomplishments, he has won Guitar Superstar (2010) and Guitar Idol (2011), been featured in numerous acclaimed guitar magazines, and has recently performed a duet with Chris Hadfield, former commander of the International Space Station.
Alder will be showing off his incredible guitar skills, including work from his latest album Armed and Dangerous (Sept. 2015), which is a fingerstyle acoustic guitar tribute to The Walking Dead.
“[Alder] is a wild performer. If anyone is going to destroy zombies with their guitar, it would be him,” laughed Alder’s friend and fellow musician Kris Schulz. “He’s such a big fan of that show. I think he just wears his influences on his sleeve.”
As the album artwork (below) by U.K. artist Rob Sullivan illustrates, a guitar player in a zombie apocalypse fights the dead with a weaponized instrument, equipped with chainsaws, blades, whips, and a whammy bar-operated flamethrower.
Alder explained that most of the songs on Armed and Dangerous are dedicated to characters from The Walking Dead, like Arrows Will Fly, which is a tribute to Daryl Dixon.
Schulz, a guitarist from Chilliwack, is also on the bill for the evening. Schulz has viewed Alder as a mentor long before they met. “Just seeing and hearing his calibre of music on YouTube was inspiring,” Schulz explained.
The two have since become good friends, and Alder has shared his expertise with Schulz as he works on his debut solo album While The City Sleeps.
Alder and Schulz will be joined by Sacramento’s Adrian Bellue, an accomplished young finger-stylist who will be performing for the first time in western Canada.
“[Kris and Adrian] are the new, young lions coming up,” Alder said, “and they have all the techniques down to a science.”
With finger style guitar, Alder said that many musicians will “use gimmicks for the sake of gimmicks.”
“You have to write a good song first, then add in the entertainment value afterwards to bring colour and life to it,” a process which Alder said that his fellow performers have already mastered.
To witness these outstanding performers up close, check out the show at the Tractorgrease Cafe (48710 Chilliwack Lake Rd) on Oct. 8 beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 at the door.
