Like many who grew up in the '60s and '70s, I love me some great guitaring.
No matter how far I may venture in my music tastes, an ax man (or woman) with great chops can always bring me home. There are times when the quality of the playing outstrips the quality of the song writing or singing - I'm looking at you, Mark Knopfler - but still, a scorching riff can cause me great reams of musical ecstasy.
My wife and I had the pleasure of seeing Eric Clapton perform in the summer of 2005 at the Air Canada Centre. It was the second time in my life I'd seen Slowhand - the first being when I was about 14, and he played Maple Leaf Gardens (RIP). Even now, in his '60s, Clapton still cooks. He stood there on stage, for two solid hours, and brought the house down. That he survived and continues to perform and entertain is a testament to the power of rehab.
My good friend Warren Kinsella recently linked to a column proclaiming the death of the guitar solo. As in so many other things, Warren was quick to jump on a bandwagon that may not have had as much forward momentum as he'd like us to believe.
Then today, while cruising the Sunday New York Times (reg. reqd.), I came across an item about a virtuoso whose work appears on YouTube, the video sharing network. This kid can rock. His work brings to mind many who have gone before - Frank Marino, Carlos Santana and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Perhaps the strongest image it evokes is of Jimi Hendrix's searing instrumental cover of the Star Spangled Banner, less because of technical similarities than because of the way in which each musician takes a piece so familiar to so many, and reimagines it as a hard-rock opus.
The guitar solo may currently be out of fashion. But in music, like on the Internet, nothing is ever truly gone. It lives on, in someone's basement, or imagination, or hard drive.
One can imagine funtwo engaging in prototypical guitar god histrionics on stage. And one day, he might well do so. In fact, watching the video, it's hard not to think of This Is Spinal Tap, quite possibly the most astute parody of hard rock ever made (the Metallica documentary notwithstanding).
But for now, he's just a young man, doing what so many have done before - baking your brain with a well-placed arpeggio.
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