Isaiah from EarthlessThus, a pointless list to get my newly inaugurated and soon to be abandoned blog going. Herein find ten instances of superior guitar wankery with a pronounced emphasis on the 'wankery'. As much as I love a good rhythm player - Steve Cropper, Curtis Mayfield et. al. please take a bow - there is much pleasure to be had from arthritis inducing finger slaloms up and down the fretboard. Thanks to the excesses of prog and stadium rock - and the reactionary conservatism of certain strands of punk rock - guitar heroics still get a bad rap in some quarters.
As for my choices, for the most part I've avoided the hopelessly obscure and the nose-tweakingly obvious. If my Mom has potentially heard of 'em they're off the list. As for the various less mainstream guitar gods beloved by pimply mouth breathing shut ins such as myself, well, they're represented here by a selection which veers ever so slightly off the beaten path. My tastes, however, run toward the ecstatic rather than the workmanlike, so your mileage may vary.
God, this really is a pointless list.
The Velvet Underground - I Heard Her Call My Name. Poor Lou Reed. Just because he's now a lumpy old prick with a headless guitar and all the charm of a German head-cold he doesn't really get his due as a guitarist. This tune is from the rather bracing White Light/White Heat album and illustrates quite nicely the difference between Lou and fellow bandmate and guitarist Sterling Morrison; where Sterling strings along beautifully composed lines that weave in and out of the song like a lover delicately pitching woo to his beloved Lou just turns the volume up and beats that whore into submission. This is about as close to the manic screaming free jazz of the late sixties as a guitar player got at the time. Hell, at that point Sonny Sharrock was still comping groovily behind Herbie Mann's flute and lubed torso.
Lou's amp sounds like it was dropped down a flight of stairs before the session and every note trembles with rising feedback periodically erupting into brittle howls. The piercing shrieks of feedback that follow "and then my mind split open" are especially soothing. The story goes that naughty little Louie sneaked into the mixing room when the rest of the band wasn't looking and turned his guitar waaaaaaay up in the mix, so high that the band sometimes sounds like it's playing in the next room over. They were all a tad peeved -understandably, methinks- and later resolved the issue with a group hug over tea and biscuits at Moe Tucker's pied-a-terre. But Lou was right - the effect is unnerving and beautiful. Just like his balls on a moonlit summer night.
Earthless- Godspeed. The aforementioned hour-long guitar solo band. That's really not a fair description of these guys and proves what a douchebag I really am. But still, when these guys play live they can go for an hour fucking straight - just drums, bass and a wailing guitar. No vocals, no mercy. There are actual hooks and riffs of course but these are the mere bones over which Isaiah Mitchell drapes the acid guitar man-flesh. Why does this work? For one, Mitchell is a stunning guitarist with a staggering command of what Anthony Braxton might call the language of the post-Hendrix continuum, or as I would have it: long unspooling lines that bob and weave in and out of lyricism and chaos, acid fried wah-wah abuse and black holes of delay. Just as importantly though, bassist Mike Eginton and drummer Mario Rubalcaba aren't the kind of hacks that, say, Steve Vai would hire to fluff his musical pillows while he whacks off on the comforter. Instead, it's a three-way tryst, kind of like one of the instrumental breaks from the first Hendrix album, but stretched out to the length of my cock. Actually, Godspeed is only twenty minutes or so as it appears on Rhythms From A Cosmic Sky, so it's perfect for your short attention span. Go read a book.
Earthless – Godspeed (Amplified / Passing / Trajectory / Perception / Cascade)
Love - A House Is Not A Motel. A most concise bit of wankery, as the whole song is just a tad over three minutes with the guitar histrionics in question confined only to the last minute or so. But this illustrates so well the particular genius of Forever Changes, perhaps my favorite record of all time. As with the rest of the album, A House Is Not A Motel is essentially an acoustic number, though a more traditionally structured one with a more purposeful itinerary and no scenic detours. It just grooves along smoothly with a nimble little bassline and some pretty acoustic arpeggios while Arthur Lee croons creepily about his love shack, its lack of shackles and how you can call his name. Then the first instrumental break introduces a lone electric guitar - part Byrds jangle, part drone - ratcheting up the tension before suddenly dropping out in deference to the driving acoustics. Now Arthur sings of "schools of wars" and bathtubs filled with blood. And yes, you can call his name but perhaps, one thinks, he really couldn't help you if you did. Then a brief drum breakdown, the band pushes into overdrive and twin guitar leads break out of the gate, first in tandem then breaking apart, tangling, spitting and clawing as they round the bend toward home, the one in the right channel choking into harmonics as the song fades. Thus the beauty of Forever Changes; the simultaneous lure of darkness and elegance, rapture and horror, harmony and dissonance.
Same time next year: the rest of the list. Or not.
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