rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

RATTLES AND HUMS: A PRB LIST OF GREAT GUITAR SOLOS

     I had such a good time formulating the top 10 list, and have really enjoyed yr comments regarding same, so I'm gonna pull a Pink Floyd and go back to the well again w/a list of some of my favorite guitar solos. When it comes to 'rating' things like this I have to be totally arbitrary. I try not to consider one guitarist 'better' than another, because technique is relative. Take, say Steve Vai playing at the top of his technique and compare/contrast it w/say Neil Young doing the same. Certainly the argument can (and has) be made that Vai is a 'better' guitarist, but both musicians have the power to move hearts and that can't be rated. Only appreciated.

     So w/out further ado.......................... (AND IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.........)

     Lou Reed - I Heard Her Call My Name

       From the second Velvet Underground record 'White Light/White Heat' (1969). With this solo Reed violently redefines what a rock guitar solo can be. Eschewing trivialities like harmony, melody and pitch, Reed takes off into a frenzied flight of 'wrong' notes, screeches of feedback and a commitment to velocity and impact over structure. Extra texture indeed. This solo really seperates the men from the boys, so to speak, when it comes to adventures in sonic experimentation. If you can see why this is a great solo, then sit right here next to me. Revelatory.

     Brian May - Bohemian Rhapsody

     We all know this one right? If only from Wayne's World. This solo is a great example of the 'composition within a composition' thing that guitarists are always talking about in the guitar magazines. The solo is a beautifully structured thing with a grand entrance which soars in a triumphant arc through stately cadences and manic note flurries majestic enough to support, nay, enhance the wonderfully over reaching grasp of Freddie Mercury's vision herein.

     Richard Thompson - Shoot Out the Lights

     One of my very favoritest guitar players takes the swagger of Link Wray's 'Rumble' and jacks it up on psychotic hinges, each phrase more manic and spiderlike than the last. Sounding much like Mark Knopfler on acid and steroids, Thompson is among the rarest of players in that he can consistently surprise and who's playing has remained cliche-free for  nigh onto 40 years now. I'll have to write a good overview for the uninitiated, but if yr interested, there's a great 3 CD set called 'Watching the Dark' that I feel is required listening for anyone who..... well, for anyone.

   Steve Vai - Ease

     From the largely forgotten Public Image Ltd. 'generic' CD from the mid 80's. (The cassette was called 'Cassette', the record 'Record' etc). Vai played all the guitars on the record and burned throughout. He (Vai) has gone down on record as saying this is his favorite recorded solo and I have to agree with him. As a guitar player I always check out the latest 'hotshot' players (and there really haven't been any since the mid 80's, unless someone can hip me to somebody - and I know all about In Flames and Lamb of God etc. heavy metal piffle all), and the 80's were lousy with sweep picking, arpeggiatin' Yngwie clones. Amongst this field of mediocre weedwhackers, Vai stood and stands head and shoulders above the pack by bringing a real musicality to his speed freaking. I have most of his solo output and am consistently impressed not just w/his chops ('cause anyone can get chops if they play long enough) but what he does with them. On this cut, backed by Bill Laswell on bass and Ginger Baker (!) on drums, Vai snake charms a solo of manic ascendance that hasn't a hair out of place. Priceless. And extra bonus points for not having to sit through 6 minutes of David Lee Roth or David Coverdale's posturing to get to the solo.

   Mick Ronson - Time

     From 'Aladdin Sane', David Bowie's 1973 follow up to 'Ziggy'. Ronson's work, criminally overlooked, with Bowie ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime and, to me, the most sublime moment of his (or maybe anyone's) career, comes in that 4 bar phrase right after Bowie sings 'We should be on by now' at the song's crescendo. The notes seem to breath out of Ronson's half-cocked wah wah pedal and speak with a voice of triumph and grace that never fails to raise the hair on the back of my neck.

    Jeff Beck - You're the Only One I Want

      From Kate Bush's 'The Red Shoes'. Beck is, without a doubt, my favorite guitar player in the world. The solo on this song is rather buried in the mix, but rises like a phoenix through the clouds of Gary Brooker's organ, he of 'Whiter Shade of Pale' fame and darts, parries, thrusts and dances with and against the angelic soul shouts of the lovely Kate. Transcendent and almost holy.    

      That's all I can think of right now, gotta get to work. I hope to hear from y'all with yr picks and pans etc. One of these days I gotta get my thoughts on Hendrix down. It's odd that a guitar player my age doesn't worship at his feet, but I have a theory, involving Lou Reed and the mid 60's New York city club scene that I'll flesh out later. Don't expect it to be popular, but who is?

Ta,

tim

Posted by: timbyrnes at 18:56 | link | comments (3)

LITTLE BLEAK HOUSES FOR YOU AND ME

     So Simmons and his friends go to all the trouble to produce a compilation of those tapes I've been talking about for years (and really, I can't thank you guys enough) and I finally have the chance to really put them out there, and I'm foiled by technology.

     Which is a fancy way of saying it's gonna be a while before I get the Tension Envelope and 'Punk Rock Blues' CDs online at lulu or elsewhere. Fact is I'm stymied and will have to wait until my man Everret gets his computer out of hock, which should be in about a week.

     In the meantime, whilst unsuccessfully attempting to convert the .cda files to purt near everything this side of Christianity, I've lived with all these old tunes and re-lived all the times those tunes represent. Many, if not most, if not all of these times were weird, if not hard. The Tension Envelope CDs bring me back to those amphetamine days when there wasn't enough alcohol in the world to save my soul, nor shut me up. I often joke that we (TE) were who the Replacements replaced and maybe we were, but I remember how it felt back then, just divorced and vaguely suicidal all the time, living for those 2 or 3 nights a week we rehearsed and especially for those rare cbgb or Showplace gigs to convince myself that I could win. Win what? The game of life, maybe.

     Yeah it's gonna be one of those columns.

     Tension Envelopes were a great bunch of guys, Carl Simmons, Rick Neblung, Mike Hegger and me. 2 college students, a jock and a drunk. We crossed lines musically, bringing a lot of punk to metal and vice versa, and socially, spiritualism versus cynicism , and attitudinally, from 'let's just have fun' to 'I hate yr fucking guts' (the latter usually aimed, by me, to the audience). Drawing a twisted confidence from the 'anything goes' ethic of the early punk scene we treated each show like we were opening for the Who at Madison Square Garden, an attitude I still take at the even rarer gig now. Listening to these songs from my youth, sung and introduced, for days they're introduced, in the slurred speech of the young drunk, I'm struck at once by conflicting emotions. There's shreds of shame hearing this arrogant little lush condescend to a bar half full of people who just want to get drunk, dance and maybe get lucky. Pangs of regretful memory hit 'cause I remember what sort of things happened days before and days later and not much was pretty, believe me. But at the same time, I got to give the little shit credit. He's putting it out there, not holding back. Sure, he's clearly got issues, but someone who throws that much hate out at that intensity is bound to run out of it sooner or later and find maybe another way to feel, or at least communicate. Right?

     Well, not according to 'Punk Rock Blues' the 2CD set of solo demos Simmons built out of a stack of scratchy tapes I sent him, and the bane of my recent existence vis-a-vis internet posting and the like. No, 'PRB' offers little to no respite from the spite of Tension Envelopes ' In Yo' Face' and 'Live at the Show Place'. Actually the dark factor gets a boost from the fact that much of Disc One, the 'acoustic' CD, was recorded in Greystone Hospital, a mental institution in New Jersey, after a failed suicide attempt on my part. They lent me a classical guitar (like I couldn't hang myself w/nylon strings if I really wanted to. HAH!) and a boombox w/abuilt in mic. These songs were written by a young man who didn't want to live, but didn't have the resources or nerve to kill himself. Also I was wrapped up in what I felt was the failure of, and a wrongly perceived betrayal by, Tension Envelopes. You know, just 23, had a few decent songs, a great band to play them. This was my only shot at any kind of rock and roll success and I blew it. I drank and drugged and atagonized-the-wrong-people- through it. It's no wonder the other three got sick of me, or more likely tired of watching a friend self destruct. Or both.

      So what did I do? I wrote song after song after song about how much things hurt, how many different things I hated and how many different ways in which to hate. And I recorded them with the full knowledge that there was always an attendant or 2, just outside my door, listening and, for all I knew, taking notes. And did I mention I was on psychoactive medications at the time?

     Wallowing, I know, but maybe somebody else who's feeling that same way, that down, that defeated, that close to giving up might hear these songs and know that they're not alone. And maybe that might help. I don't know. Maybe that person might hear these songs and realize how pathetic this kind of response to struggle really is, and maybe move on. Maybe in that way, these songs of drunken madness might bring some good to the world.

     The second 'PRB' disc consists of multi-tracked  demos. The keyboards and drum machines add color and breathing room, a break from the doom and gloom starkness of the voice/guitar live tracks of Disc 1. I think there's more room for more varied emotion when the tunes can be arranged more and especially when I can slap a guitar solo on 'em. The thing with voice/guitar is that the song has to be carried by the lyrics (and yes, I know I have to get lyric sheets printed for all this stuff, hell I can't remember half of 'em) and as a result wind up being largely driven by what I was thinking at the time. Once the guitar solo rears it's sometime ugly head, though, I can communicate what I was feeling at the time. There's room for more than regret and bleakness, there's room for a little triumph, a little swagger and a little of dat id and ego bumpdance in the middle of the song.

     Sometimes one can speak volumes without words.

     In any event, I got a little piece of my history here. Old voices, all mine, speaking of defeat and doing that nihilist slow drag we all think we invented. I'll get 'em to ya as soon as I can. Right now these technical difficulties are moving me to confront the crazy drunk I came from and to make peace with the little bastard so maybe we can both move on.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 18:46 | link | comments (3)

The audio file has been deleted from user's Mediablog.

Hope this worked.

tb

Posted by: timbyrnes at 21:02 | link | comments (2)

FOR THOSE OF YOU PLAYING AT HOME: MP3 POST TAKE WHATEVER

     Hey gang, sorry I've been away so long. Working more hours as a co worker is sick. Still haven't beaten the .wavfile curse but am going to put another tune up here (or at least attempt to). To do this I had to delete 'For Sentimental Reasons' as I have neither enough bandwith for more, nor can I afford at present to upgrade to a 'pro' account. (Which I will do as soon as I can.) In any event I'm gonna try to post a tune called 'Good Company', it's like the oldest tune on the CD , 1983 I guess. The saxophone solo is played by my old friend and former Alto Music co-worker Ronny Seggesse. He's the horn repairman at Alto in Monsey, NY. I had just gotten my 1st four track and this was like the 2nd song I ever recorded that way. I asked Ronnie if he'd play the solo and the brother grabbed the horn he was in the middle of working on and laid down what I think is a beautiful solo. It was the first and last time I ever had a 'guest musician' on any of my solo tapes. Hope you like it. (Hell, I hope it plays!!!)*

tb

*as it turns out, I am presently unable to delete the last audiofile (even though it's not on the page as far as I can see). Can't get new tune on as it exceeds 'memory'. Boy, I think I need a producer and a manager or something, don't you. Anyway, will further attempt on my own. Stand back, Buster, this could get ugly.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:42 | link | comments

SOMEBODY GET ME BRIAN ENO ON THE PHONE....

     I can't figure this out. The little doohickey's on the right, fer chrissake! It's taking forever to load and lulu still won't recognize filetype and the Media Player has no function I can find to convert .wma to .wav. I'm gonna have to rope old Everrett into coming down here. In the meantime, I'm gonna keep trying to post 'For Sentimental Reasons' here. Warning: I use the 'F' word.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 19:29 | link | comments

I'LL BE YOUR BROKEN MIRROR

(Lou Reed - Berlin)

     Still having problems converting .cda to .wav.  In the meantime, as I continue to try and get Punk Rock Blues (the musical) online, I figured I'd say a few words about my choice for #1 Record of All Time. I really thought it was gonna be 'Horses', and I took the whole winnowing process probably more serious than I could have, but I'd never really came out w/a top ten before and felt it was an opportunity to really delve into what music makes me tick.

     'Berlin' is as grand an opera as any, elegant, ornate and blindingly depressing it tells the sordid tale of 2 expatriate Americans, Jim and Caroline, living on the edges of amphetamine madness in the then dividded city of Berlin. A sad tale of sad people, but told in a shockingly dispassionate style by Reed, then coming off the major success of the 'Transformer' record, and playing around with his first whiff of real 'stardom'. That he would subject this long awaited, but only recently arrived, adoring public to a work of such brutal honesty; to proffer an unvarnished look into the miserable creatures humans can be as pop music says a great deal about Lou Reed. It tells me (told me) that the boy's playing for keeps. That this record broiled in his brain and sufferred him so that, had it not been transformed into art and released, it surely would have killed the man.

     Far from the skinnybop guitars of the Velvets or the glamorous doowop symphonies of the Bowie/Ronson produced 'Transformer', 'Berlin' (produced by Bob Ezrin who would later go on to fame as the producer of 'The Wall) was bedecked in  3-D orchestral arrangements, bolstered by musicians as varied as Jack Bruce, Steve Winwood, Aynsley Dunbar and Dick Wagner. Marketed at the time as a 'movie for the ear', Berlin's sound is remarkably full throated and cinematic. The story of these 2 speed freaks, beating each other physically and spiritually until her kids are taken away and she cuts her wrists in their bed. Jim ends the record intoning on the regal 'Sad Song"

 " I'm gonna stop wasting my time.

   Somebody else would have broken both of her arms."

     Such offhanded matter of factness smacks of brutality, of course, but also of the numbness sometimes required in living through extreme circumstances. Rather than the music hall frivolity of 'Walk on the Wild Side' where Reed reduced living, breathing tragedy into a short cartoon, on 'Berlin' Reed looks the devil that we are in the eye and calmy considers the extent of damage we can both inflict and endure. No judgements made, just a peek into a real heart of darkness.

     The most fully realized work to fall under the vague rubric of rock and roll. Our 'Citizen Kane'.

      Now, how to convert those $#@$^&* files.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 18:46 | link | comments (2)

ACTUALLY, MAYBE NOT.....

     Sorry, gang, but I've temporarily deleted PRB Volume 1 from lulu. Since the preview didn't play, that leads me to believe that any purchased CDs would be blank. Can't have that. I had a similar problem last time, I have to convert the CD's from .cda to .wav files and I'm still not sure how to do so. Hopefully will have problem corrected by tomorrow. In the meantime, 'Brick' and 'Catholic as Hell' are still available for free download.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 23:22 | link | comments

AND THE WAIT CONTINUES.

   Sorry gang, I've been trying for the last 2 hours to upload my CD 'Punk Rock Blues: an incomprehendium of the 20th century byrnes to lulu.com but it ain't working. I think I have them in the wrong format. I'm trying, but my local computer whiz friend had to hock his computer (things are tough in the heartland!) I apologize for the delay - and believe me- I weant to hear this stuff as much as y'all. Simmons found some stuff I ain't heard in 20 years.

     Being the technologogical idiot that I am, it's probably gonna take a few days, but rest assured, I'm on it.

   Oh, and yeah, my top ten.

10. Darkness on the Edge of Town- Bruce Springsteen

9. Mott- Mott the Hoople

8. Roxy Music - Roxy Music

7. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust  and the Spiders from Mars- David Bowie

6. Daydream Nation - Sonic Youth

5. Plastic Ono Band - John Lennon

4. Never Mind the Bollocks... - Sex Pistols

3. Loveless - My Bloody Valentine

2. Horses - Patti Smith

  ....... betcha ya thought that'd be #1, so did I. Listen, I'll get into the whys and all of this list and real reviews but I'm pressed for time now, but wanted to at least stop dragging the list out like it was actually important. Oh, Ok.

The Punk Rock Blues #1 Record of All Time is.......

1. Berlin - Lou Reed.

    More on this and all of the above soon. Still trying to get my own record available!

tb

Posted by: timbyrnes at 21:40 | link | comments (8)

TALES FROM THE TOP TEN: PART ONE, IN WHICH DORIS GETS HER HORSE.

      Happy New Year, one and all. Hey, have any of you checked out Carl Simmons' new 'rockcrit' blog Burning Light? There's a link over yonder in the links section (where all good links should be). Anyway, Carl's an old friend and bandmate from back in the 20th century who's been laying out his Top Ten records of all time here at motime. Really incisive, thoughtful pieces about (so far) Television and the 2nd PiL CD. Heartily recommended. Now, the first thing I do when I find a good music writing site is figure out what I can steal. So I decided to come up w/my own, punkrockblues Top Ten Records of All Time.

     Smart, huh?

     Well, nature interceded to assist this last Friday when I was struck with a case of the flu that's kept me basically housebound (apart from walking Buster. Don't worry, I know my responsibilities) these last 5 days. A length of time I took to go through my cassettes, vinyl and CDs, to listen and calculate the ones that mean the most to me, weighed one against another. As I wrote and rewrote lists, changing ranking orders time and time again I was struck more by the absence of certain material, than by what had finally been included. Like no Beatles. No Stones. No Dylan, even. 'Hmmmmmmmm,' I thought, 'this is most peculiar.' How could I, as a 50 year old white male in America, not include at least one Beatles record on a list of the supposed 10 greatest. Ever!!???

     Let's investigate.

     Unless you were there in 1964 you truly cannot imagine the sudden and complete impact the Beatles had on the world. They were everywhere, coming out of radios, tv.s, yr big sisters never shut up about them. They permeated the national conciousness like sleeping gas with a backbeat. Ed Sullivan, Murray the K, the WMCA Good Guys all conspired to weave a nation out of the screams pitched towards these Beatles by the young. Suddenly we had (and some of us were) the Youth Culture. I remember my sister getting 'Meet the Beatles' the same Xmas we got a suitcase style 'stereo hi-fi', a record player that served me from that day through the first pulses of punk. It was like getting our driver's licenses.

     Sot it was certainly the Beatles that got me into rock and roll. I was 9 in '65 and remember the Ed Sullivan Shows. I (obviously) can't explain it, but things were just different the next day. That was the year I, among million of others, started pestering the folks for guitar lessons. The year I stopped drawing superheroes and started drawing guitars and amps. The beginning of whatever I am now, amateur, searcher, barndance mechanic etc. The Beatles put the guitar in my hand, that's for sure, but it was left to other bands to put words in my mouth and different fires in my heart. To this day I own no Beatles records, except a cassette of 'Live at the Star Club' Part One, a 'bootleg' of the boys as a young, sweaty frat band in Germany, speeding their way through classic bar-band rock of the early 60's like wired, wild horses. It's a marvelous rock and roll record, certainly more than a curio, but neccessarily less than the canon that makes the Beatles, well, THE BEATLES.

      I have warm nostalgic feelings towards much, but not all, of their work. The 1st 7 seconds of 'Help', brings me back to my neighbors yard, standing in the swingset sun of the 10 year old's summer afternoon. Anything from Revolver summons black turtleneck sweaters and awkward 6th grade dances. A cut from the White Album comes on the car radio and I'm back in Monument, Colorado, 1968. My mother's dead and I'm like a stranger in my family's house. The countryside feels somehow restrictive, a new beginning gone horribly awry. Something's just wrong.

             "......feel so lonely/wanna die....."

      Abbey Road, Let It Be, and The Long and Winding Road all track in memory like warning signs. Something was ending along with the '60's and childhood. Something that probably never actually happened, or at least was never given the room to move, but something deep and real and vital. The death of possibilities? Something like that, I guess. But the end of the Beatles is still really nowhere in sight. The questions they posed, that we in turn, as a generation, asked then and are in some cases asking today are still valid. Is love really all we need? Maybe, maybe not, but wouldn't it be a hoot if it were? If that naievete could be self sustaining and actually make things work? In any event, the Beatles exist for me today as reminders of time, their music so tangled w/my own memories and perceived experience as to have no musical charms of their own left to me.

     Although I still use the 'Nowhere Man' F to Fm chord change in my own tunes every chance I get. Like I said, the first thing I do is look for something to steal.

      

    

Posted by: timbyrnes at 21:14 | link | comments (6)