guitar players are the worst

[Pink Gregory]

ooh look at me I'm a 'guitarist'

here's a hot 'lick'

ooh here's a 'modal scale'

i think women should go back to the kitchen

[jamiefairlie]

That's why us post-punk types invented 'rockist' as a verboten sin. It's hideous.

[Urinal Cake]

Because of the youtubes algorithm I get a lot of these guys. It's interesting peering into somebody else's insanity.

[The Mollusk]

Rockism can get in the fuckin bin

[bgmnts]

Fuck off you over-talented precocious guitarist TWAT:

[idunnosomename]

Surely even a jeans-wearing yer dad with all his guitars hung up in the front room isnt as bad as a boogie-woogie pianoman

[markburgle]

6 children playing recorders, get tae fuck

[Senior Baiano]

Who draws the crowd, and plays so loud
Baby, it's the guitar man
Who's gonna steal the show, you know
Baby, it's the guitar man

He can make you love
He can make you cry
He will bring you down
Then he'll get you high

Something keeps him going
Miles and miles a day
To find another place to play

Night after night, who treats you right
Baby, it's the guitar man
Who's on the radio
You go listen to the guitar man

Then he comes to town
And you see his face
And you think you might
Like to take his place

Something keeps him drifting
Miles and miles away
He is searching for the songs to play

Then you listen to the music
And you like to sing-along
You want to get the meaning
Out of each and every song

Then you find yourself a message
And some words to call your own
And take 'em home

He can make you love
He can get you high
He will bring you down
Then he'll make, make you cry

Something keeps him moving
But no one seems to know
What it is that makes him go

Then the lights begin to flicker
And the sound is getting dim
The voice begins to falter
And the crowds are getting thin

But he never seems to notice
He's just got to find another place to play

Fade away
Got to play

Either way
Got to play

What a cunt

[Pauline Walnuts]

Fuck off you over-talented precocious guitarist TWAT:

Bassists ≠ Guitarists

[Norton Canes]

Oh okay, this is serendipitous. Last week I hauled my daughter's electric guitar out of the loft. It was Christmas present from a few years ago, but sadly she didn't get any further than attempting to pluck out the riff to Smells Like Teen Spirit. After I'd plugged in the distort and fuzz pedals and made a tuneless racket for a few minutes couple of hours I played a few of the simple chords I'd learned in my half dozen or so acoustic lessons years back. Then I thought, what do I actually want to play? Because I am so not mister hot 'lick' or here's a 'modal scale', I really don't get on with rock music and all the guitar tropes that go along with it, wyld solos and the like. In fact I don't like show-offy, lead guitar playing of any sort, even if it's in an indie band. Then it hit me: reggae. Reggae chops, man! It's all about the downbeat! Or is it the upbeat? Anyway, watched a few YouTube tuts and gave it a go, it's pretty hard to get the strings muted properly but I think I'm getting the hang. And this is nice because it's like a gateway into playing dub, and then maybe onto dub-infused industrial or some shit, I dunno. If I don't get tendonitis!

So, yeah. Stick to the rhythm, and leave solos to the egotists. What other styles of non-twiddly, post-punk style guitar are easy to pick up? 

[bgmnts]

Bassists ≠ Guitarists

I refer to a bass player as a bass guitarist, for they play the bass guitar.

[Pauline Walnuts]

Yeah, but different mindset innit.


Sometimes.

[sevendaughters]

instagram guitarist write one good song to completion challenge

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

Maybe it's because I'm too young to have experienced any of that 'punk changed the world' wank but I can't understand being that annoyed by a bit of widdly guitar showboating, even if it's not no artistic value it's still kind of thrilling and fun to say the least. Like watching a cool action film and going "hmm this is all a bit tasteless if you ask me"

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

Although having said that, as a guitarist if I could go back in time and spend my early adulthood learning a different instrument I would

[Wonderful Butternut]

Bassists ≠ Guitarists

Bassists > Guitarists.

[Underturd]

Bassists > Guitarists.

Yes

[What Doth Life?]

Fuck off you over-talented precocious guitarist TWAT:

Went down a bit of a rabbit hole with this channel the other week and found this video where her dad, Bald, announces Ellen's exciting move to home-schooling:

No red flags there, no sir.

[Kankurette]

Fuck off you over-talented precocious guitarist TWAT:

Bassist.

I hope her dad isn't one of those awful pushy stage dads.

[Luornu]

One time at the Eurovision the Albanian entry had a gimmick whereby at the climax if you will of the song, some funny ooze came gushing out of the guitarist's headstock.

I was in a chatroom watching it with others and I said "the Albanian guitar has ejactulated" and it got a few lols which was cool (cos usaully whenever I plucked up the courage to say anything it was roundly ignored by the hip dullards in there *im not bitter or anything*[/u]

and well er...something something..only acceptable form of public masturbation etc

I am a guitarist myself (not very good one)

I'm now not sure if I didn't dream the whole thing. What possible other connotation of a spoooging guitar could there be? At least go for the old piano on fire thing like everyone else in eastern Europe!

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

One time at the Eurovision the Albanian entry had a gimmick whereby at the climax if you will of the song, some funny ooze came gushing out of the guitarist's headstock.

I was in a chatroom watching it with others and I said "the Albanian guitar has ejactulated" and it got a few lols which was cool (cos usaully whenever I plucked up the courage to say anything it was roundly ignored by the hip dullards in there *im not bitter or anything*

and well er...something something..only acceptable form of public masturbation etc

I am a guitarist myself (not very good one)

I'm now not sure if I didn't dream the whole thing. What possible other connotation of a spoooging guitar could there be? At least go for the old piano on fire thing like everyone else in eastern Europe!

I remember Lordi had sparks coming out of their headstocks which seemed cooler and somewhat less pornographic

[Agent Dunham]

That's why us post-punk types invented 'rockist' as a verboten sin. It's hideous.

"Rockism" was coined by one post-punk type, Pete Wylie, in an interview for NME, who then rinsed the term beyond meaning. I'd say the guitarists who you could blame for the current state of guitar youtube channels (finding yet another way to present you the "mystery" of pentatonic majors and minors) all stem from Stevie Ray Vaughn, the post-punk era having been and gone by that point, and it was US bar bands and church bands that sustained that style of guitar playing beyond its sell-by date. You definitely have a more healthy approach when you look beyond the US.

While we're on post-punk non-rockist guitar players; before John McGeoch, Robert Smith, Robin Guthrie, Geordie, etc there was original Banshees guitarist, John McKay, who doesn't get enough recognition. Nor did he do much after walking out of the Banshees, curiously.

[Agent Dunham]

Bassists > Guitarists.

If the bass player plays an E then the chord the guitarist is playing becomes an E. If the bass player plays a reggae bassline then the band is playing reggae. Unarguable power down there in the bass frequency range.

[Pink Gregory]

genuinely one of my favourite guitar players (hate 'guitarists') is Lou Reed.

His amateurish solos and simple playing on Songs for Drella are absolute perfection, to me.

Even then someone like Robert Fripp I really like, because despite his proficiency he's not a show-off like a lot of prog types.

[Agent Dunham]

genuinely one of my favourite guitar players (hate 'guitarists') is Lou Reed.

It's all about White Light, White Heat on 1969: The Velvet Underground Live for me. Another not-proper lead guitarist is Neil Young on Zuma.

[Agent Dunham]

People need to bring back Lou Reed's term for a good guitarist:

[Maurice Yeatman]

Maybe it's because I'm too young to have experienced any of that 'punk changed the world' wank but I can't understand being that annoyed by a bit of widdly guitar showboating, even if it's not no artistic value it's still kind of thrilling and fun to say the least.

I'm a sucker for very expressive and melodic virtuoso solos – I love prog rock and jazz fusion guitarists like Hillage and Di Meola – but can't stand showboating shredders. I also find the sight of someone finger-tapping quite annoying.

Just as an aside, a friend of mine was exasperated by one rock dad co-worker (who he didn't know) always appearing on screen during Zoom calls with a couple of expensive guitars, Strat, Gibson or sunnink, mounted on the wall strategically over his shoulder to show off, so in response he put a cheap ukulele that he'd smashed with the neck hanging down by a thread on the wall behind him and a Stylophone mounted next to it. No one on the call said anything.

[Pink Gregory]

People need to bring back Lou Reed's term for a good guitarist:

thing is about Hendrix is I think he's talked up so much by people who fundamentally don't understand his musicianship

no one with such a narrow range of interests as your average guitar player has (or is encouraged to have) could ever in a million years comes out with something like Castles Made of Sand or The Wind Cries Mary.  There's something beyond what he's actually doing there, but some people want to narrow it down to technique.

Even then you can't understand the most exciting, vital classical or folk or jazz players through technique.  Not completely.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

thing is about Hendrix is I think he's talked up so much by people who fundamentally don't understand his musicianship

i cant think of a worst case of it

the idea of hendrix as the "first shredder" in particular. or that he ever did recognisably "virtuoso" stuff.

[Pink Gregory]

i cant think of a worst case of it

the idea of hendrix as the "first shredder" in particular. or that he ever did recognisably "virtuoso" stuff.

I've said this before but the saddsest thing about his premature death is that I reckon he would have done some *fantastic* stuff in the 80s that rock dads would disavow