"When the grunge thing hit," Kip Winger explains, "it was like all the 1980s bands were gone. Overnight."


It's a well-referenced piece of musical history. Nirvana's 1991 album "Nevermind" sold 10 million copies, and Winger the band became an oft-used punch line.

That brutal ending was also the beginning for the artist, who is about to execute one of the all-time improbable musical resurrections. Winger, who spent much of the past 17 years studying classical music composition, on Tuesday will premiere his first symphonic piece with the San Francisco Ballet. He wrote the music for "Ghosts," featuring choreography by Christopher Wheeldon.

"The universe does amazing things," Winger says. "It took me down on one side, and on the other side it gave me the opportunity to go back and do what I really wanted to do, which was move to Santa Fe, N.M., put up a studio and basically relearn how to write music."


Ghosts: Premieres Tues. on a mixed bill with "Opus 19/The Dreamer" and "Company B." Through Feb. 20. War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., S.F. www.sfballet.org.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/04/DDPC1BQTKM.DTL&type=movies#ixzz0edgi6oj8

I've always liked Winger. I even met Kip Winger at a signing at a Borders Bookstore signing in 1997, and he was very cool, very nice guy. He even signed my notebook! He had a lot of great stories to tell about his days playing with Alice Cooper in the 80's as well as his time in Winger. Everyone gave Winger a lot of crap during the "grunge" years, but he really is a very intelligent musician and writes excellent songs. Even though Beavis and Butthead made the band out to look like a bunch of buffoons with Stuart in the Winger t-shirt, their 1993 album 'Pull' was amazing. Not the same band who did "Seventeen". "Blind Revolution Mad" was a great song, as was
"Down Incognito" and "Junkyard Dog". Winger were getting better all the time. They released their latest album over a year ago, and it's good. They were a little more than just a bunch of pretty "hair farmers". Reb Beach is an awesome guitarist.

I hope that Kip keeps on doing more rocking material, even though classical music seems to be a logical choice for now. The album 'In the Heart Of the Young' has some prog-sounding pieces. Kip is very open-minded.

I've always liked Winger. I even met Kip Winger at a signing at a Borders Bookstore signing in 1997, and he was very cool, very nice guy. He even signed my notebook! He had a lot of great stories to tell about his days playing with Alice Cooper in the 80's as well as his time in Winger. Everyone gave Winger a lot of crap during the "grunge" years, but he really is a very intelligent musician and writes excellent songs. Even though Beavis and Butthead made the band out to look like a bunch of buffoons with Stuart in the Winger t-shirt, their 1993 album 'Pull' was amazing. Not the same band who did "Seventeen". "Blind Revolution Mad" was a great song, as was
"Down Incognito" and "Junkyard Dog". Winger were getting better all the time. They released their latest album over a year ago, and it's good. They were a little more than just a bunch of pretty "hair farmers". Reb Beach is an awesome guitarist.

I hope that Kip keeps on doing more rocking material, even though classical music seems to be a logical choice for now. The album 'In the Heart Of the Young' has some prog-sounding pieces. Kip is very open-minded.

I liked Winger, too, to a certain extent. I like some of their songs, but the thing that bugged me about Kip is when I see videos of Winger on Metal Mania, especially the videos of them playing live, he's always twirling around on stage, and I'm always thinking "Does he ever play his bass??";) On the flip side, I did see him by himself do an acoustic set, and I thought he did a great job. Just sitting on a stool, playing guitar, and no twirling!!

I think the rest of the band is awesome too, a really talented bunch of guys. I agree, Reb is an awesome guitarist. I never saw him with Winger, but I did see him in Whitesnake, and I also met him after the show. Reb was really cool, too. Never got to meet Kip though. Another thing I thought was cool was I saw Rod Morgenstern(sp?), when he was with Dixie Dregs. After their set, Rod came out in the audience and was talking to a couple girls. I didn't approach him though. Last I heard, Rod is now teaching at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Can you imagine having him for a teacher??

So back to the topic thread at hand, I like when musicians re-invent themselves. Look at Danny Elfman, Stewart Copeland, & Mark Mothersbaugh. They were in their respective bands and they also do soundtracks. I always thought that was awesome that they went on to other things, when their bands weren't doing much at the time. And it's nice to see Kip branching out, too.