UFO with Michael Schenker, 1978 Lights Out live
I’ve been meaning to write this for a while and just got around to it. I’m not going to link it, you can GTFTG if you really must read it yourself, but the asshole magazine Rolling Stone has its “100 Top Guitarists of All Time” and, to put it bluntly, its shit.
It puts the White Stripes guy in the top 10. Yeah, he’s one of the top 10 guitarists of all time. Dumbasses.
It gets nothing right, it puts too much emphasis on alternative and grunge and ignores metal completely, except putting the plodding, copycat, unoriginal Metalicca fuckwit in the top 50, right after the twat from Nirvana, who did his best work with a shotgun.
It puts Eddie Van Halen at like #80. You can hate on Van Halen all you want, but Eddie is the most influential guitarist of the last 30+ years. He changed the way people played. But whoever made the list obviously not only doesn’t play guitar, he knows nothing about playing guitar.
I don’t love Yngwie, but the guy was influential and is a great guitarist. He doesn’t make the list at all. In fact, hardly any metal guitarists do. Not even Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, who were in Lou Reed’s band and RS loves him. Randy Rhodes squeaks in the last few slots, barely. They give Blackmore and Iommi slots because they are legacies, but they pretty much slag them in the paragraph describing their work.
None of the great studio cats either, like Steve Lukather, Larry Carlton nor Elliot Randall. No Rick Derringer, although Johnny Winter makes it far down the list.
Hendrix is of course their #1. Sorry, but I never liked the guy. Don’t enjoy his songs, don’t like his music, don’t much like his guitar style. I wasn’t alive to see him, but I’ve seen vids and he’s sloppy, out of tune and messy. His band is not tight. Fuck Hendrix, I’m so fucking sick of hearing about him. He died like all the assholes of the time, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin etc. did, junked out. Fuck him, glad he’s dead.
But there are a few of my personal favs who were left completely off the list.
UFO/Rock Bottom
First, Michael Schenker. The guy is one of my heroes partly because the greatest guitarist I ever played with emulated Schenker and played with the same feel and scale sensibility. Schenker is unique and hugely influential. RS never heard of him, I guess, or hates on him because he played heavy metal, the ultimate sin in their eyes.
Recommended LPs: Phenomenon (1974) Force It (1975) No Heavy Petting (1976) Lights Out (1977) all with UFO
Next, Rory Gallagher, Tattoo’d Lady. I remember listening to this for the first time in a friend’s car, on an 8-track tape. Blew me away.
Lots of guitarists play the blues. Its very hard to differentiate yourself and have a real style and sound so you know who is playing, exactly. Of course, fucking Stevie Fucking Ray Vaughan is in their top 10 or so. God, I fucking hate SRV. To me, he’s vanilla. He’s doing the same fucking licks 100,000 other famous guitarists have played for 100 years. Sorry to be iconoclastic again, but I just don’t like the guy, don’t like his playing or his songs.
Cradle Rock
Rory Gallagher is different. His playing is so beautiful and soulful, its heart-wrenching. We’re talking about guitar playing here, but his voice complements his playing wonderfully as well. A truly great artist, and one who should not be ignored. Brian May credits him with helping May develop his own sound. He tells the story that before May was famous, he met Gallagher at a concert, and Rory took the time to explain his gear and how he got his sound. By all accounts, he was a gentleman and a nice guy, rare in rock and rare in show business as a whole.
Died too young, after battling alcoholism his entire life.
Recommended LPs: Tattoo – 1973 and Live In Europe – 1972
Tommy Bolin from the LP “Private Eyes”: Post Toastee, studio version
Lastly, although I have a lot of other bones to pick, is another of my all-time favorites, a prodigy on the guitar who was playing with greats when he was a teen-ager, Tommy Bolin. He replaced Joe Walsh (who also didn’t make the list) and Ritchie Blackmore in their respective bands, and did some great solo work himself. Another one of those lyrical guitarists with an amazing style who influenced many, but didn’t make the cut for the geniuses at the fucking Rolling Stone.
Rehearsal version of “Teaser”, live in the studio.
There’s a buttload of jazz stuff he played on you can find on YouTube. He had an amazing range, playing jazz fusion, hard rock, pop, etc.
He played on so much studio work, I’m constantly listening to something and realizing “hey, that’s Bolin!” because his style is so distinctive. Above is Bolin playing with Billy Cobham. Sadly, Bolin died like an idiot, OD on a cocktail of drugs at 25. But he was magic on guitar while he was alive, and did an insane amount of work that would be a full lifetime of recording for half the guitarists on the RS list.
Recommended LPs: with James Gang: Bang (1973) Miami (1974) and solo: Teaser (1975) Private Eyes (1976)
These aren’t just quirky favs of mine whom I feel were slighted. They were (and are, in Schenker’s case) some of the greatest and most influential ever. Rolling Stone’s editors have always had their head up alternative music’s ass and they put too many rhythm guitarists and old blues cats and song-writers instead of actual guitarists on the list so people like Gallagher, Bolin and Schenker get left off.
Its fucking retarded, but who the hell gives a shit about Rolling Stone anyway. I never did. I’ve never bought a copy nor read an entire article from that rag. I only read their list of guitarists to confirm my superiority in taste and musical history to their lame-ass editors.
I wipe my ass on their list of “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.
You can check out all these guys on YouTube. These are just a taste.
