Nadia (Jeff Beck ‘You Had It Coming’)
This is a cover of Nitin Sawhney’s beautiful track from the 1999 album Beyond Skin. Nitin Sawhney is definitely one of my favourite artists, I adore his work. And in fact he’s one very, very fine guitar player too and he nearly made it in to one of the earlier 5s. Anyway, I should get back to Jeff! The melody in the original is an incredible and heavenly vocal. Frankly Jeff Beck does an astonishing job of capturing that vocal on a guitar. Until I saw him play this live I had absolutely no idea how he had managed it. Was it whammy bar? Was it a slide? Watching the video it’s like “ah, ok… it’s both!”.
Loose Cannon (Jeff Beck ‘You Had It Coming’)
I totally loved this track when I first heard it. It’s been “borrowed” so much since by guitar players that obviously felt the same way! I adore the melody and how it’s played. Jeff has this way of getting stuff going on that no-one else seems to be able to do. But my favourite thing with Jeff’s playing is that he is one of the few who is absolutely unafraid of playing with a massive dynamic range. The solo on this is an amazing example lightly picked fuzzy harmonics. Just awesome.
Thinking about it now, this album is jammed full with great guitar. Some of my highlighst would be, erm… Roy’s Toy has a ring modulator and stuff in the solo. I love ring modulators. It deserves an entry just for that. I love the riff on the track Dirty Mind. What an amazing riff that is. Suspension is haunting. Anything by Jeff would be recommended to guitar players so I won’t even state it.
Schism (Tool ‘Lateralus’)
I think Schism was a riff that Tool bass player, Justin Chancellor, took to rehearsal and it obviously evolved into this massive multi layered piece. Adam Jones has featured a few times as an inspiration of mine and I think Schism is a fine example of why. He knows how to join the band, weld his playing together, work against, drop off into the background, come to the foreground and he writes some pretty fine parts too. It’s so easy to miss just how this style he has of evolving his layered guitars throughout a piece helps to build the unique sound of Tool.
Aerials (System of a Down ‘Toxicity’)
Toxicity is an absolutely awesome album. This album made me depressed for a while! The truth is the whole of Toxicity is fantastic. I picked out Aerials just because I love the song.
Believe (King’s X ‘Manic Moonlight’)
A great riff from Ty Tabor. He really has a great gift for building this amazing understated grooves.
Have a great weekend!
Paul.
