[Jimi Hendrix] seamlessly weaves chords and single-note runs together and uses chord voicings that don’t appear in any music book. His riffs were a pre-metal funk bulldozer, and his lead lines were an electric LSD trip down to the crossroads, where he pimp-slapped the devil.
– Tom Morello.
One of these Top-100-guitarists-ever lists comes out every few years, and every time I read them even knowing that I think most lists are stupid, and then I find myself nitpicking with the rankings, questioning the standards by which the list is made and doubting the integrity of the entire project. And such is the case with the most recent one, at Rolling Stone.
The upside to this one is that it doesn’t seem too strongly tilted toward technical wizardry in lieu of creativity, as these lists often are. But it does seem to give too much credence to guys who were great songwriters that happened to play the guitar. I mean, it’s going to take you a hell of a lot of time to convince me that Kurt Cobain is a better guitar player than Eddie Hazel. And if you want to tell me that The Edge is better than John McLaughlin at anything worth being good at, you’re probably arguing in vain.
And the point I always make when these lists come out — to anyone who will listen, at least — is that there are a ton of session dudes and basement shredders none of us have ever heard of who can likely play with nearly anyone on this list. And you could say, “oh well yeah, but maybe they’re not as creative,” but success in music seems so eminently random that I wouldn’t be surprised if they are. So I think “Greatest” here actually means something closer to “most influential,” which doesn’t make for as strong of a list title.
Jimi Hendrix was awesome though. No beef with that choice. And really I just wanted to pass along the quote from Morello, who is also pretty awesome (and also on the list).
Apparently before he died, Hendrix hatched plans to record an album with Miles Davis. That stands as about the best reason I can think of to hope for some sort of afterlife.
He reports: “Not missing much. Flat bean burrito basically.” But now we know!
Most of them focused on the plot, which is more or less what you’d expect from a Harold and Kumar Christmas movie: Holiday-themed stoner hijinks, framed by the now-rich Harold’s search for a Christmas tree to impress his terrifying father-in-law after the still-slacking Kumar burns his down. For much of the movie Harold and Kumar aren’t really friends, which is at least vaguely interesting.
Brannon — arguing that he is older — makes one very good point: If Pujols were admittedly 17 or older when he immigrated, he would have been ineligible for high-school baseball and thus unable to put his ridiculous awesomeness* on display for college coaches.
OK so maybe I’m reading this wrong, but please tell me this means there’s soon going to be a production of a musical version of Rocky called Rocky, Das Musical IN GERMAN produced in part by Sly Stallone and the Klitschkos featuring “Eye of the Tiger” and described by its composer as a “visceral street opera.”
Tedquarters 