So, Terminator,
This seems like a good time for one of my "life quotes." I've always said...
"Perspective is 90% of reality."
I've always felt it's way to easy to judge someone else but you have no right to do so til you've walked a mile in his shoes. I know people who were GOOD solid people, who worked hard, had great family and life values, would give you the shirt off their back if you were in need, whose lives are ravaged by drugs and have stolen from their own family and best friends.
Anyway, all that to say this. I know "my" perspective base. I obviously don't know much about yours. While this is a pretty unfiltered "what you love sucks" I don't take it as a direct personal insult or attack. So, not like if you said "your wife is ugly" or "you have bad breath caused by gingivitis." But still, a pretty strong attack on some things I do love dearly. So that we can better understand each other, here's where I'm coming from.
For most of my life, (other than religion) there were two predominant factors and loves in my life. Music and sports. I grew up in a home of musicians and singers. I took classical piano lessons from ages 5-14. When you are classically trained, Virtuoso is not a bad word, it's an honor that you hope you may some day achieve. Technical skills are drilled into you. Moving forward to harder and harder music. Your love of music drives you to practice for hours and get better and better. Not so you can say "hey, look at me," but so you can achieve the satisfaction of knowing you can play the most beautiful and most difficult music. When I stopped playing piano it was only because I wanted to play guitar. I was very advanced and actually had several colleges talk to me about music scholarships when I was in Jr. High.
And sports... I'll try to keep this short. If you play sports "for fun" that's great. I did too. Only problem was, I never had fun losing. I had an intense desire to be the best. I was all state in two sports, and had D1 major top 20 scholarship offers in basketball, but I had a knee that was a problem and was born about 5 years too soon. I shot over 60% in high school and in college despite never having the knee fixed, but the 3 point shot didn't come in til after I was out of college. One of my D1 offers was good even if I had to sit a year to have my knee fixed, but was contingent on the 3 pointer being voted in my Sr year of high school and it wasn't voted in that time. I played competitive softball to my early 50s. Played left center on a team that had no other members over 30 just two years ago.
Point is, I worked hard to be the best at what I loved. When I was younger, as much as I liked guys like BB King, I shook my head and thought "I could play just like him 2 weeks after I started playing guitar. How hard is that?" Honestly, I still feel that a lot of blues is just TOO simple. Oh, don't go there. I totally get the "feel" aspect. But if you get the feel, the notes are easy.
So, from a classical background and with a competitive nature, it seems I'm probably going to gravitate towards the guys with extreme technical skills more than the guys playing really simple things. That said, Hendrix and Trower are two of my top 10 guitar players ever. So trust me, I DO get it! But so are Alan Holdsworth, Al Di Meola and John Petrucci. So I get that too.
For years, (when I was younger and much more competitive) I thought all the shred bashers were just guys who couldn't play, so they put them down. And that is a common thing. Just like the guys who couldn't make the Jr. High basketball team but they constantly criticize the elite college coaches and/or players.
It's all perspective though. IMHO. Saw a guy at TGP say this weekend "I went to see Yngwie once, but in the very first song, he played every note and every riff he knew, then all he did was keep repeating them in all the other songs so there was nothing else to hear. I could have left after one song and known everything he could play." And I almost countered with "and that is not true of the blues guys?"
Music isn't a competition. Took me a while to grasp that, but I have. Trust me, if this was 20 years ago and you slammed Jimi and Petrucci like that in a thread, the first words out of my mouth would have been "well lets cut heads and see what you've got." Now, I'm a kinder, gentler DTR. And I think that, but I don't say it out loud. LMAO!!!!!!!! (just kidding!)