No More (Axe) Heroes?
When was the last time a new band blew you away with the sheer invention and audacity of their guitar playing? I mean really blew you away... I'm struggling with this one myself. Guitar heroes still walk among us, though they are exclusively of the superannuated variety (note the recent veneration of Jimmy Page and Johnny Marr) and the only plausible challenger to the old guard, Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, is closer to 40 than 30. Whither the singular young lead guitarist?
Four decades after Hendrix, things have backslid to an alarming degree; the flaming plectrum of innovation lost down the back of rock's generic sofa. Every other band now sounds like the Gang Of Four, their Andy Gill-inspired guitars as brittle as shattered glass--a sound that was daringly new and truly unique in 1978. Thirty years later it's become merely gestural--an echo of an echo. New bands like Foals and Vampire Weekend are widely trumpeted for leavening their non-specific indie rock with vaguely African guitar figures, putting them right up there with Humberside journeymen Red Guitars, circa 1984. God bless ‘em for having a go, but it's hardly Remain In Light, is it? King Sunny Adé's not losing any sleep.
For so long the guitar was the tyro's rapier, consistently slashing back yesterday's dead wood and carving new, outrageous shapes for the rock song to inhabit. It's been that way since Les Paul first patented the magnetic coil pick-up and Link Ray conjured distortion by slashing his amplifier with a jack knife. Subsequently, the medium has been defined by successive generations of axe-wielders whose raison d'être was to drag the guitar kicking and screaming (with feedback) into tomorrow. Hence, in the UK a genealogy rises like a river out of Hank Marvin and Lonnie Donegan, becoming a torrent with Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Mick Ronson, Dave Gilmour et al, then meandering delightfully through Phil Manzanera, Mick Jones, Wilko Johnson, Andy Gill, Vini Reilly, Maurice Deebank, The Edge, Johnny Marr, John Squire, Graham Coxon and Kevin Shields before, the odd Greenwoodian tributary notwithstanding, apparently drying up.
Similarly, in the US, Les Paul and Chet Atkins begat Scotty Moore and Link Wray, then Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Roger McGuinn, Robbie Robertson and Jerry Garcia who in turn ushered in Tom Verlaine, Robert Quine, Thurston Moore, Peter Buck, Kurt Cobain; then... zilch. And for all the recent revivification of folk, the acoustic guitar is still waiting for a challenger to (not merely an adroit simulacrum of) Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, Nick Drake, Richard Thompson, John Fahey or Leo Kottke.
Does all this point to a more endemic malaise? Is rock music drifting inexorably toward the de-clawed fate of bebop? Is the guitar--like the tenor saxophone, once a miraculous conduit of hipster cool and radical free expression--in danger of becoming chronically sanitised and about as unpredictable as a banjo in a Dixieland jazz band?
Emergent guitarists, consider the gauntlet thrown down...
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there is so much good folk music out there, but every 20-something kid thinks he is it and the sad part is so do his friends (probably mostly myspace friends). folk music/solo guitar music is supposed to come from troubled people that pour their hearts into their instrument (they probably can't get along with bandmates). instead these "singer/songwriters" are usually fantastically attractive and outgoing and remind us more of a frat guy or sorority chic from college. soulless.
if you are going to be a solo musician and play the guitar you should immediately split up with your significant other and start doing drugs so you spare us your smiles.
everyone should notice that john mayer's most successful song was that horrid "your body is a wonderland". i am sure that most john mayer apologists would say that they hate and even john mayer hates that song, but somebody out there bought a gazillion copies and thought it was so touching. i still can't get that smug look and faux tortured voice of his out of my head. the least he could do for us is attempt suicide or go to rehab so it gives him a little depth.....but no...he shags jessica simpson. john mayer can play with buddy guy all he wants, but jessica simpson easily overshadows those good intentions. shallow.
as far as someone that is cool to listen to today....i like jack white. guitar dorks (employees at sam ash and guitar center) could list a lot of his technical deficiencies, but he seems like he means it when he plays.
there is also a slew of metal dudes out there, but whatever......
...speaking of hair and originality. devin townsend rules. he is a character, original, abrasive, ....awesome. anything of his with strapping young lad or solo stuff is going to be appreciated.
joe, steve vai, and yngwie used to be my idols until i was turned onto prog
The Mars Volta. For those that don't know, they're like Radiohead if Radiohead snorted an 8 ball, juiced themselves with ungodly amounts of steroids and then went on an LSD binge.
I know, they're weird and out there and a little hard to stomach at times, but within the high pitched sound of Cedric's voice and behind the drums and horns and odd sounds that litter their records lies a true legendary "guitar hero".
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez.
Not only is he innovative, but he's without a doubt one of the most talented and gifted guitarists/song writers around. He isn't even a band leader or lead writer as much as he is a director in a cinematic sense. He sees a vision, and then guides his fellow band mates into the unknown to create something that can only be described as an ingenious masterpiece.
Talk about mind blowing?
Listen to Deloused In The Comatorium and prepare to have your mind almost literally blown. The first great Concept album since Pink Floyd dropped The Wall on the world and made us all cream ourselves to the imagination of a rock star gone insane.
Listen to Amputechture and see the true uncensored genius that this man possesses. Every little sound on every record has a purpose. Every single horn blow, every single guitar lick, every single drum beat is expertly crafted and placed precisely where it needs to be to complete Omar's vision of each song.
If contemporary musicians could catch on to what he's doing, we can once again see a rebirth in rock music. We could once again see a time period like the 60's and 70's when seemingly every artist that released a record was a legend in the making.