Tuesday 8 March 2011

Empty Nights and Excess Knives*

Don't know how much I have to add to the geetar-solo compendium, and fuck me if Wayne hadn't already knocked out two of my top contenders via his outboard aside. Me? I'd add a couple more for the early punk years to that same stack.

As far as Bob Quine goes, it's tricky (and perhaps a bit unfair) to single out one single moment from the Voidoids' discog. Still, "Liars Beware" has always stayed with me in terms of its sheer batshittery and unflagging deftness. While it may rate as Hell's most frantic studio performance, Quine responds in kind with a mad scramble of a solo that yanks everything this way and that, strips its gears, and even manages to throw a few seconds' worth of hyperspeed hotsauce blues-boogie blisteroo into the works...




Likewise I have a difficult time with Radio Birdman's Radios Appear, in terms of how singled out one peak or another seems somewhat arbitrary. But I'll still call it for "Aloha, Steve and Danno"...




...for the way it takes the "Hawaii Five-O" theme that's been lurking in the wings and finally runs with it, then compresses the tune's energy by way of through some Dick Dale-styled picking. It'd be about another decade or so before surf-rock would see any sort of a revival, so in the middle of the now-/fashion-obsessed '70s, this meant reaching back to an oft-forgotten dustbin, making it that much more of an alien and arcane move.

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* And right, I know this latter part amounts to a misheard lyric from the Hell tune, but I've always preferred it that way.

5 comments:

David K Wayne said...

If I ever saw a compilation called "hyperspeed hotsauce blues-boogie blisteroo" I'd definitely have to buy it, thinking I'd found the holy grail of rock'n'roll!

David K Wayne said...

PS. I remember watching Quine in action alongside Lou Reed on TV. Lou ended up looking like an amateur in comparison to the riff-god, and rapidly lost his 'mystique' in my eyes.

Greyhoos said...

Re: "hyperspeed hotsauce...". I think I vaguely had something of the Hot Tuna/ZZ Top/Black Oak Arkansas variety in mind when I hammered that out.

And I've never been in any position to rate Reed's ability as a guitarist. But I know that, the Zappas notwithstanding, he's had his share of detractors over the years; especially concerning the later stages of his career...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAec8rZfm0w

Greyhoos said...

(Annnnnd it looks like WEA has already disabled the first clip. Guess I better look into alternatives for re-up'ing.)

David K Wayne said...

Lou's a litigatious motherfucker. I expect he'd fight to remove any youtube clips!