Just about thirty years ago there was a record mogol called Barry Kobrin, who started Relativity Records—a label that had a huge left field hit with a new guitar slinger called Joe Satriani. Kobrin and his well-honed apprentice Cliff Cultreri—who first worked with Joel Heumann’s Pantasiz Recorz—turned Relativity into a major league label with coming stars like Satriani and Steve Vai. Relativity’s big Satch moment from 1987, Surfing With The Alien is given the expanded double disc treatment by Epic / Legacy with a 20th anniversary Legacy edition—pairing the original ten cut master with a bonus DVD capturing Satriani’s performance at the ‘88 Montreux jazz festival in Switzerland. From his humble beginnings, Satch has made significant inroads towards convincing anyone who doubted him, or more likely didn’t get his sound way back in ‘87. Regarding Surfing’s bonus DVD on Legacy’s double disc set—Joe and his band were the act set to follow Santana at Montreux ‘88, and came on at 4:15 in the morning no less. Clearly, Satch blew away the crowd further adding, ‘Now we’ve expanded the sonic quality and tried to make the performance come off as powerfully on DVD as it did for us on stage that night.’ www.satriani.com

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