CATASTROPHIC EQUIPMENT FAILURE AT A U2 GIG

Here's comedian Bill Bailey's take on U2 guitarist "The Edge." (thanks to Jack O'Dell for sending me this clip.)
For the record, I like guitarists who use effects to get an interesting sound. (I certainly use pedals a lot, as should be clear to anyone reading this blog.) It's not a dependence on pedals that makes me rate a musician as a B-lister; by that standard you'd have to call Hendrix an also-ran. For me, it's the variety and musical incident created by a player that I look at when evaluating. I put "The Edge" in the category of interesting one-trick ponies-- not because he requires effects for his sound, but more because he mainly has one idea. So, measured against players who have a larger palette of melodic/harmonic/rhythmic ideas, he comes in second. However, extending the logic, virtually any rock guitarist comes in second when viewed in the shadow of a real musical virtuoso like Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, George Barnes, etc.

I try to enjoy and appreciate what any individual player can do-- it's not so important to judge him in the light of more technically gifted and creative artists. In general, when rock fans are arguing vehemently about which rock guitarists are the "best," I find it tiresome because it's usually the phenonenon I call "rock provincialism." This is the notion that a guy holding a note endlessly with a Les Paul and a Marshall stack is some kind of a genius, while a ten-hour-a-day practicer who can play Villa-Llobos guitar compositions beautifully is "boring" or "background music." I'll tell you this-- I love rock and roll, wah-wah, fuzztone, etc., but the day jazz and classical music stop being "foreground music" for me, that's the day you can check me into a hospice.