A great guitarist is something truly special, and it is sad to have to dedicate so few words to summing up their entire body of work. A guitarist can coax out many emotions with just a few notes, or blow one's mind with many, even many years after their heyday through their recorded works, and can inspire people to pick up a guitar themselves, sometimes with life-changing consequences, sometimes with consequences beyond that of the individual, extending to music history itself. I'm focussing on innovative guitarists; those who knew how to take from their influences and create brand new sounds or feelings, rather than stick to the formula laid down before them.
Ron Asheton is perhaps the guitarist with the most far-reaching influence on punk and alternative rock, right alongside Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison. His buzzsaw tone combined with the pure aggression found in his licks and chords is the founding influence of punk rock. He was a musician for a large portion of his life, adept in accordion and bass from an early age, and this dedication and virtuosity was released in an undiluted and raw form on the Stooges first two albums. Utilising fairly simple chord progressions, with his lead guitar showing off his musical chops, he created a new sound with a minimal approach that has been aped ever since, with very obvious examples being the Ramones, Nirvana and the wave of fuzz-pop-rock bands of the last few years to large portions of alternative rock such as Dinosaur Jr. and the Smashing Pumpkins. He was a player of emotion, and although his style is emulated much, it is impossible to recreate the nuances of his playing, as they were truly his. With tracks like Down on the Street he added swaths of reverb, trading off rhythm and lead lines, giving himself space to work with over a chugging beat, letting out yelps of guitar that contain as much venom as Iggy Pop's vocals. For Raw Power, their third album, he was switched to bass guitar, being replaced by James WIlliamson – but that is a different story altogether. His work on their first two albums will always be remembered as vital, inspired, and most certainly influential to all walks of music.
Johnny Marr was a man who, for the most part, disagreed with the 'less is more' philosophy, at least in his tenure with the Smiths, for whom he wrote more or less all the music. Employing chorus, delay, reverb, studio effects – you name it, he took it and formed it into part of his sound. Since the Smiths, he has kept himself incredibly busy, including joining Modest Mouse and writing their song 'Dashboard' and forming Electronic with ex-Joy Division and New Order guitarist/singer Bernard Sumner, but as a guitarist he is best remembered for the inventive, jangly sound he forged with his original band. He says he had known he was to be a guitarist since he first picked up a guitar age 4, and by age 20 he had formed one of the most influential British bands of all time. As an adept rhythm guitarist as well as a lead guitarist, his writing style would usually cross the two over, featuring steady lead lines and arpeggios alongside full chords, switching between styles frequently and, in the studio, utilising overdubs to create not just 'hit singles' or even songs, but creating detailed pieces of music, using everything at his disposal. An extreme example of this is dropping knives onto a guitar to create specific sounds found in their well-known track "How Soon Is Now". A good way to compare his two main styles (jangly lead lines and percussive rhythm) is to listen to both "This Charming Man" for the former and "Bigmouth Strikes Again" (a personal favourite) for the latter. Marr would influence all manner of guitarists (British or otherwise, but primarily British) for years to come, such as the Stone Roses' John Squire and Blur's Graham Coxton.
Stephen Malkmus fronted one of the nineties best-loved independent bands: Pavement. He was both the lead vocalist, lead guitarist and principal songwriter for the band, backed up in all respects by Scott Kannberg, a good guitarist in his own right but just a few notches short of the legendary Malkmus. While it could be said that in his time with Pavement he showed no major virtuosity, it would be both unfair and also be very short-sighted in terms of what makes a great guitarist, because Malkmus had something very few people can achieve: a perfect tone. Just listen to any track off their second album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain for an example – shiny, bright and clear, with the ability to suddenly shift into fuzzed out rock at the drop of a hat. Evidently, he was not a classically trained musician at all: his strained vocals early in their career, self-taught guitar and odd song structures showed someone writing music because they love to. He was also a big fan of alternate tunings, using seemingly self-invented tunings that emphasised sustained open notes or heavy, dropped low strings. Listening to his increasing maturity as a guitarist and songwriter is a pleasure, going from the early days and their noisy first album, the indie classic Slanted and Enchanted, to his modern-day solo work with it's virtuoso lead guitar and more polished sound. Malkmus has never utilised a major label to release his work, either, directly connecting him to my independence beliefs, yet he is a well-known and well-loved figure in alternative rock. As a guitarist he certainly forged his own style using techniques that nobody of his era thought of using, such as completely eschewing the notion of a rock and roll guitar solo, instead using tremolo picking and noise segments to create a sound altogether different from his peers.
Tom Morello was another guitarist who eschewed tradition and what it meant to be a rock guitarist. With Rage Against the Machine, he began forming new ways of creating heavy music, and in Audioslave took a more direct route but still stuck to his guns. When listening to Rage's debut self-titled album, you get a real sense of urgency – taking as much inspiration from Hip-Hop production as heavy metal, some of his guitar work sounds downright militant, to the point of it sounding like war itself – listen to the bass break in "Know Your Enemy" as his guitar comes in like an air-raid siren. These sounds were the perfect backdrop for bandmate Zach de la Rocha's politically charged lyrics. Some people could call him a 'cheater', relying on effects instead of actual playing, but nobody can make the sounds just like he can, and he didn't just knock them up out of nothing, he worked on them and developed a guitar sound that was personal to him. He saw the shred-head wannabes and wanted something else. But aside from that, he knew how to write a good old fashioned riff when he had to. He is one of the best examples of an alternative guitarist, really: someone who takes an instrument designed for one thing and turns it on its head. Since Rage Against the Machine, there has still been nobody quite like him, and he has forged his place in rock history by refusing to play up to what is expected of a 'rock guitarist'.
Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd were the dynamic duo of guitarists from the proto-punk/punk/post-punk band Television. Crediting one but not the other would not be fair so take the title of the article with a pinch of salt. Obviously, their crowing achievement together is "Marquee Moon", the title track of one of the 70's greatest albums (if not of all time). Clocking in at over ten minutes, it goes from one of the great anti-anthem's of the Punk era into uncharted territory, with Verlaine and Lloyd's guitars duelling into ambience and mysterious brilliance. My personal highlight on the Marquee Moon album is "Friction", which has as tricky rhythm guitar as it does lead, and features one of the greatest descending guitar licks of all time. This song really highlights both guitarist's individual talents while presenting it in a punk fashion. It has a number of overdubs, all adding multiple layers of intrigue and has some truly crazy sounds on it. Verlaine has been credited by some for bringing the Fender Jazzmaster into alternative rock circles, and it later became iconic in the hands of Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, another band noted for their intracate twin-guitar interplay. It could be said Sonic Youth, in their prime (Sister/Daydream Nation era), were easily the spiritual successors to Television, creating dynamic, layered music that continued to influence all walks of rock, with both Marquee Moon and Daydream Nation featuring a very long centrepiece (Daydream Nation's being the final track "Trilogy") that showcased a duo of incredibly talented and inspired guitarists at their peak.
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