The Great Kat-Beethoven's Guitar Shred (1 Viewer)

[Andrew M]

I've been on the Karen Thomas PR mailing list (THOMAS PR IS THE #1 PR AGENCY FOR CONSUMER ELECTRONICS, WEB 2.0, & CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY) for a long time and finally met her at CES in January at the CES Blogger's Party at the Atomic Testing Museum. She asked me if I'd be interested in taking a look at a new DVD from The Great Kat, Beethoven's Guitar Shred. "Sure," I said "Send it out and I'll take a look at it."

The DVD arrived this week and I watched it one night. What a blast! I don't know anything about shred guitar and my favorite fast guitar players are Dave Wronski of Slacktone (Slacktone!) and Gabriela Quintero of Rodrigo y Gabriela (http://www.rodgab.com/). So, this DVD was something else! Very fast guitar and violin playing, a loud mixture of heavy metal and classical played by a buxom gal in a leather halter and black fish net stockings. Talk about roll over Beethoven!

Featured classical riffs include Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Flight of the Bumble Bee," Beethoven's "5th Symphony," Paganini's "Caprice #24," Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto #3." Among the bonus features are covers of Rossini's "William Tell Overture" and a rotoscoped animated version of "Flight of the Bumble Bee."

The DVD has a Parental Advisory Explict Content warning for some bizarre bloody images for videos of "Torture Techniques," "Blood" and "Islamofascists."

My HTF friends know I write a column on film and history for The St. Mihiel Trip-Wire (St. Mihiel Trip-Wire: February 2009) but I don't know if many of them know that I also perform with the San Francisco Opera as a supernumerary (since 1992). I enjoyed the mutant classical stuff on this DVD and plan on sharing it with other classical music/loud guitar fans.

The Great Kat has a website here: THE GREAT KAT’S NEW MASTERPIECE “BEETHOVEN’S GUITAR SHRED” DVD IS OUT NOW! The Great Kat’s New “Beethoven’s Guitar Shred” DVD Features: -7 Outrageous Shred/Classical Guitar Music Videos, including: “The Flight Of The Bumble-Bee” & more!.

 

[Don Giro]

I used to hang out with The Great Kat. She's REALLY small, and more obnoxious than you can imagine. She's been shredding like that for over 20 years now (I haven't seen her in about 17 years). I see she has kept up that stupid, over-the-top image over the decades.

She's actually a Julliard graduate trained in classical violin. The story she spun was that she was a sheltered girl he whole life until she heard a Judas Priest record for the first time, so she applied her violin virtuosity to electric guitar, and voila!

She never played a live show in the entire time I had known her (which is about three years).

Like I said, she was REALLY obnoxious and affected (sp?) a really heavy Brooklyn accent as part of her "image," which used to drive me batsh*t. In a nightclub one night, I decided I'd had enough, and blasted her: "Look! If we're gonna hang out, could you at least be a little more 'normal'? No one here knows you!" Know what? She was actually unbelievably sweet and pleasant ! She just smiled, apologized, and said "I'm sorry I'm like that around you...it's just...you know..." And I DID know it was just an act.

Then my friends and I went back to wondering what it would be like to...you know...

Sorry that this is almost a "threadf*rt," but your post conjured up that memory of my younger days

 

[Greg_S_H]

My only encounter with her was her continued presence in guitar magazines in the late '80s/early '90s. She was obnoxious, but she was entertaining. Kind of like Yngwie and Dave Mustaine--you never knew what was going to come out of her mouth next. I think she and Yngwie might have had a running feud, but it could have been someone else she was mad at.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Holy crap, I remember reading about her back in high school. What a blast from the past! I had no idea she was still around.

HEY! I clicked on the link and it links right back to this very thread!


Now that you mention it, you can see how small she is by noticing how huge the guitars in her photos look.