I know he’s all ready legendary but; Tom Morello, love or hate, I’m currently watching the live DVD, his last solo started with him playing the jack-socket through a Wah, then a kick-ass bit ‘o’ widdle then back to some heavy riffing, what more could you want?!

Yeah, we booked late, half the arena floor was empty because they’d reached the safety limit (I assume everyone needs ten square feet of space in an emergency!) and we were sat with the local season-ticket holders who bought their tickets so they could see all the ice hockey games but decided to go and see whatever beat-combo was playing that night.

Seats at a gig. Dontcha just hate ’em? I thought only football games required seats by law. I’ve been to gigs where the singer complains of no boogying, but what can you do; stuck in a little “U” shaped area, surrounded by velcro-arses still reading some tour merchandise?

Amen to that.

But on 1BL’s point, yes it did, alongside some of the all-time best rock tracks. Ever.

And when you’re a kid ‘Get in the (F’in) Ring’ is cool.

http://www.slashonline.com/

some nice live video downloads on there Snakepit, GnR, Velvets, i saw Slash at a guitar exhibition a couple of years ago, he was promoting his Sig Marshall stack, ive never seen him live before, and my mate Sean convinced me the 30min queueing up would be worth it, we got in to a stage room of no more than 200 people, got right in front of the stage, he came on with a band and played a 30min set and it totaly blew me away, i stood there open mouthed and in awe, the man is a complete guitar god, he simply has it all.

I remember the “Parental Advisory” sticker:
[quote]This album contains some f***in c**p songs…[/quote]

😆 (go on, let me have a laugh)

Saw them at the MEN arena, had seats unfortunately but a great gig. Duff has been my hero since I was about 8 and got my first illicit GnR album, had to hide it because of some of the F’in lyrics.

Still the best band at live 8.
pure Rock’n’Roll.

I think the hairy guy in Velvet Revolver shows potential, a few more years/gigs under his belt he’ll be pretty damn good.

About 3-4 years ago I heard an acoustic duo at a party near Chattanooga, the name of the duo was Bad Sausage, and those guys could really smoke! My band was actually playing this party, and they got up during break, and stayed up there all night!

😆 . They all did (not sure about Vince Clark). This’ll make you laugh, Lee. I watched some ’90s prog about Brit bands doing well in the US (DM being one of course) and this US DJ said something like

“American kids are disaffected with their country. They want to identify with cool English cities like Liverpool, London and Basildon…”

You can imagine how far my coffee spurted. 😯

Bass, i could pick my nose, measure the impedance of my 2×12 Marshal cab with a mulitimeter, read a book, post a meesage on here, eat a curry roll and chips all at the same time and still play all of DM’s back catalogue!! thats no claim to fame, well at least the singer came from Basildon, where else?

😆 Lee. Rick could do that and no-one would notice. In fact, I suspect he could eat his chicken curry, pick his nose and still play Depeche Mode’s back-catalogue.

“Words are very… unnecessary” – Enjoy the Silence. And I thought “what touches our souls” was a bad lyric ❗ ❓

[quote=”talljackhole”]I fully agree with Bass and Lee. Vai, Satriani, and Malmsteen are indeed just (in my opinion) trying to prove that they can play anything with the guitar. I’d rather listen to somebody who can play songs that move me and have some feeling in them such as Hendrix or Page or Clapton, who are also very good, rather than a technical wizard like Vai who can play Bulgarian wedding music or Satriani playing Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. It’s about the feeling and the groove man, not the fact that you can play 160 notes in a bar with your feet, on some African scale that no one else knows of.[/quote]

I agree, i like fast playing in its place, like Slash, im in awe of the bloke, he goes in my top ten any day, his style is fantastic, i saw him a couple of years ago and it was the best guitar ive heard in a long time, he is so melodic, and he lets the solo breathe, he leaves a few gaps in there, he’s not got that ‘look at me, look at me’ attitude, hes in a band of 5 musicians and he lets the band play, he plays the solo for the song not for the sake of playing a solo, and he looks good too, unlike steve vai and especialy Joe (grow some hair and lose the beany cap) and Ywengie (lose the poodle hair cut and get out of the sweaty spandex)

ELP? the ego’s have landed, the tour of the states in the 70’s, the set was moved around by 3 huge trucks, they each had their name painted on the roof, i think we are slipping into prog rock mode here, Alan Parsons was a good geezer, and Rick Wakeman a top bloke too, he once said he played in front of 60,000 in RIO with YES and was so hungry he went on stage and ate a chicken curry and rice with one hand while playing the keys with his spare, Rock and Roll.

And I completely agree with you, TJH (group hug) 🙂 . Back onto keybs for just a second, Keith Emerson also did that “Toccata and Fugue in Emin for blokes on bass and drums and ME PLAYING MY ELECTRIC PIANO WITH A KNIFE STUCK IN IT!!!” type of song.

A nation yawned, and moved on. Poor Keith is rarely seen in the top-ten ivory tinklers threads – despite his talent. Just goes to show.

As per, I can go along with much of that. Joe Satriani had a minor hit single back in the 90s with “The Extremist”. I don’t remember the widdly at all. What really stuck in my head was the ‘backing’ if I can misuse even a semi-derogatory word to describe it. The most turgid pub-blues riff that sounded like it had been recorded on an 8-track and skipped the mastering stage.

It probably did, because it was all about the solo, man 🙄 . In a similar vein; I like Rick Wakeman – he can play like nobody’s and he runs live comedy at Jongleurs, all round top bloke. My favourite “Yes” album, though, is “Relayer”. Pat Moraz could also play but whereas Yes often sounded like no stage was big enough for the competing egotrips, Moraz actually got them to wind back a bit.

Also, Jon Anderson actually sang “and what touches our souls…” and nobody told him to change it. Go on, say it out loud, “and what touches our souls…” 😆

I think soloing guitarists are overated, its not all about solo’s, its about innovation, serving up something new and moving the whole thing along a bit, i cant realy comment on Steve Vai, ive never listened to any of his albums, his style just leaves me cold, i tried to listen to one of his tracks once and i had to switch it off, it sounds very clever and i can hear some superfast playing and 2 octave note bending, but he doesnt let the notes breathe, even when you hear a 2 bar rest i can hear his fingers chomping at the bit to get the next 36 notes in a single bar, satriani is the same, ywengie too, and has anyone seen ‘Michael Angelo’? the guy with 2 guitars? he plays them simultaniously , one with the right hand and one with the left using hammer on’s and pull off’s, its a wonderfull sight to see, but at the end of the day it belongs in Billy Smarts circus not on a CD. Id much rather listen to Gilmour, Page, Beck, Green, and anyone else who believes that its not what you put in that matters, but what you leave out.

I tend to be biased towards British acts. Anybody across the pond got candidates for current/recent US acts? Dimebag? Cobain (not very good solos, I know, but great songs from great riffs)? Any opinions?

Ah, you’re slightly skewing my point TJH. I was talking about excellent guitarists in bands either current or too recent (eg my Radiohead suggn) for people to be comfortable saying legend. Without meaning to scuttle you, it’s pointless going on about “I’ve seen some kid and man, he’s going to be great”.

I remember back in the 70s some 11y.o. in Wolverhampton I think (I lived in the midlands then) who was on a local TV news report. They showed him outdoors widdling, dive-bombing and shredding. Grown men with frightening pork-chop sideboards were throwing their heads around and making that “first and little finger pointing up” sign.

Where is he? Probably still in Wolverhampton (say, “Kwik-Fit”) and maybe soloing endlessly in The Waggon and Horses to appreciative, but fat and balding, blokes in their 50s. Good technicians don’t make successful musicians every time (from spoof band “Bad News”, Ade Edmondson quote “I could play Stairway to Heaven when I was 15. Jimmy Page didn’t even write it until he was 23. I think that says a lot”). Also, there is universal resistance to the precocious gits.

So who are the current/recents? I think Bernard Butler of Suede is over-rated. Apart from Radiohead’s Jonny, I have an off the wall suggestion (but interestingly, in an early interview, Jonny quoted him as a great player); Julian Swales of Kitchens of Distinction. Unbelievable noises and they never used a keyboard (Patrick Fitzgerald is also one of my favourite bass players – beautiful chords). Please, don’t anyone say Noel Gallagher. 🙄