Electrical Guitar Part 1
My Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion, much loved and used.
Trying to pin a date on when something first “grabbed” might seem easy enough, but I tried to figure out when the allure of the electric guitar first set in and couldn’t. Maybe it’s because I was interested in trumpet first and other things arrived by degrees, but I can recall exactly when acoustic guitar hit the radar. It was on a school excursion to the Tamworth Town Hall, a 4 block walk, to check out a performance by Alex Hood. As we sat down I noticed he had a few fretted instruments up on stage. It’s hard to describe what a 6 year old’s thinking is like, but I suppose they appeared magical, just waiting to be played. There was a classical, a banjo, a regular steel string and who knows what else, because it was mostly forgotten when he played the 12 string. I can still hear the song and the sound of that thing like it happened just the other week. I went home and made cardboard guitars for days after that. I wasn’t allowed a real guitar at the time - I kept at the trumpet which ended up ignored due to several years of Christmas-carols, then it was various keyboards - inevitable, cause that’s what Dad played, but I finally scored a real guitar when I was 16. By that time, it’s potential was obvious from years of hearing awful to brilliant rock n roll. And so it went. It’s such a lure. I can assure you there are few things more satisfying then feeling the back of your trousers flap driven by guitar amp sound pressure as you go about playing a great show. There’s simply too much to say about it. >>> One of my favourite players just passed away, Geordie Walker from Killing Joke. He wasn’t one of those mythical pillars like Beck or Page, but he was high on a list I’ve been putting together in my head, a list of players more or less unsung or not so famous. He has several flavours of big-slab-like atmospherics, but this album cut from the mid-80s is distinctive - www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhJ_uPDDFS0 - So, vale to a visionary player from a great band. >>> I came to them very late via Kiwi riff-lords Shihad, a band whose guitar quota could wipe the floor with just about anyone within their idiom. Jon Toogood and Phil Knight veer from shadowy ambiance to completely thermonuclear across their long career - just like this www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWA6YlZHXgs Jon is mondo jubilant while Phil is stoney-faced. What they conjure as a unit is something special. >>> To the late Paul Fox, once of the Ruts, a lesser known London post-punk act that fused many elements, much like the Clash. I love the revved-up electric styling on this noir-punk/rock cut from the seminal 1979 album, The Crack - www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWA6YlZHXgs - check out that diminished-flavoured solo. Just beautiful. >>> Then there’s Joni Mitchell, a legendary singer-songwriter to be sure, but her guitar playing has always got to me. She frequently hooked her acoustic guitar into various FX to bend things this way and that, but she also played electric from time to time. Her alternate tunings and rhythm approach are entirely unique and almost impossible to cop. Among the worlds best. She doesn’t really play anymore, preferring to paint, having been long discouraged by the music industry. She’s also suffered a stroke. Her intricate playing is all over her catalogue, but I chose this one - www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcTDoi9JQiY >>> I’m writing this as I try to conjure up a slightly newer way of going about playing guitar and steel… new setups and toys, less of this, more of that. I’ve just made this Part 1.
Read more about Geordie Walker >>> Read more about Paul Fox >>> Read more about Joni Mitchell, the guitar player