No More (Axe) Heroes?

11:36 AM GMT 19/03/2008

"Where have all the innovative guitarists gone?" wonders MOJO's David Sheppard.

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...

And just in case you’ve forgotten what the rapture of axe innovation looks like...

David Sheppard

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 11:36 AM GMT 19/03/2008

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I agree 100%. Let's take it a step further and say what happened to good SONGS? It seems to be all about attiude today, not melody. Everybody is so concerned with being cool they forgot to write a decent tune.

Posted by Scott Relf, Canada at 3:59 PM GMT 20/03/2008 Report Abuse

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Everybody with an attention span of more then half an hour is almost concidered a true genius these days. As I am finding out myself, learning to play guitar takes a little more patience.
Life in the fast lane dude. Or here today gone tomorrow if you like.

Posted by Bert at 10:05 PM GMT 20/03/2008 Report Abuse

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I would respectfully add that you not overlook Adrian Belew. Mr Belew is still innovating, and just finished a critically acclaimed tour with a bunch of talented kids, who could be,well, his kids. He has his own corner of the world, but he continues to experiment with the likes of Robt Fripp, Trent Reznor and others that appreciate his gift. On top of it, he's just a regular guy,making a living in Tennessee. Besides, he makes some really good guitar faces too! His site?
www.adrianbelew.net

Posted by Faith Cohen at 10:31 AM GMT 21/03/2008 Report Abuse

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Pop/Rock music has been in a general state of DIMINISHING RETURNS since about 1982. Also, musical standards have dropped to the point where even nominally adept Distorted-Guitar Chord-Strummers like Jack White and Kurt Cobain can now pass off as "guitar gods". This would be a good place to ask WHY THE DAMNED'S BRIAN JAMES IS NEVER FEATURED IN THOSE STUPID TOP 100 GUITARIST LISTS, whereas JW & KC are in the TOP TEN!

Posted by Alan Lord at 4:23 PM GMT 21/03/2008 Report Abuse

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An inventive and young guitarist who can make sounds no one ever heard of before? Leo Abrahams. He's really talented and constantly explore new ways of expressing himself with the guitar. I haven't heard anything like him before. Brian Eno loves him and he has every reason to do that.

Posted by Thomas Renhult at 10:17 AM GMT 24/03/2008 Report Abuse

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An inventive and young guitarist who can make sounds no one ever heard of before? Leo Abrahams. He's really talented and constantly explore new ways of expressing himself with the guitar. I haven't heard anything like him before. Brian Eno loves him and he has every reason to do that.

Posted by Thomas Renhult at 10:17 AM GMT 24/03/2008 Report Abuse

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Decent tunes, attitude AND guitar heroics? Look no further than Josh Homme. QOTSA are one of the definitive bands around today, and they seem to get overlooked by people who assume they are power chord boneheads, perhaps because No One Knows was, you know, quite popular.

Posted by Liam Trench, UK at 11:50 PM GMT 24/03/2008 Report Abuse

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Not that I follow it that much but I suspect that you would have to look in the direction of Nashville to find any modern guitar heroes. Brad Paisley perhaps?

Posted by Bruce at 3:32 PM GMT 26/03/2008 Report Abuse

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Maybe we are close to 'the end of time'? In that case 'sublimation' is answer and BTW what Handrix should play today?

Posted by wishxy at 9:50 PM GMT 26/03/2008 Report Abuse

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RE: Alan Lord

I think you're acting snobby in regard to Jack White. He might be overrated, but he is definitely a visionary. He does things with his guitar that are very unique, very expressionist and emotional. It's amazing to see when you watch him playing the right song at the right time.

I will say that I agree with you about Kurt Cobain though, even though I love Nirvana. His guitar-playing was not one of his strong points. It's the songs he wrote WITH his guitar, of course.

Posted by Bianca (backinburntcity) at 5:37 AM GMT 27/03/2008 Report Abuse

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RE: Bianca (backinburntcity)

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate JW's great attitude, frankness, talent and energy. What he does is fine, so long as people don't start telling me he ranks with Jimmy Page.

Posted by Alan Lord at 4:28 PM GMT 27/03/2008 Report Abuse

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There's loads of people out there who can play the axe well.... just they don't look like a pratt playing with his dick on stage.

Hendrix seamed to be a bit preoccupied with his. I hope that upsets Hendrix fans.

Posted by Surealneil at 8:57 AM GMT 29/03/2008 Report Abuse

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Some of those guys might be Canadian i.e. J.R. Robertson and Neil, etc

Posted by Elmore Callaway at 2:12 AM GMT 02/04/2008 Report Abuse

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