TOM VERLAINE, WITH TELEVISION, "FOXHOLE"

Here's a clip of Television from their early period. The song's maybe not one of their best, but there's some great guitar soloing from Verlaine. Is Verlaine the spiritual father of today's Jazzmaster rock/avant-garde players? Perhaps. Feel free to comment!
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ROBERT QUINE WITH LOU REED, "CONEY ISLAND BABY" AND "WHITE LIGHT"

There's a lot of nice Quine here, raunchy solos and fills on both songs. It's interesting to see how Quine can play a bunch of hoary blues/Chuck Berry cliches and make them all sound obnoxious and fractured. I think it has something to do with his aggressive attack and liberal use of staccato (pretty atypical for rock guitarists).

Quine's work with Reed is a beautiful example of how a dense thicket of guitar fills around a vocal can be a very effective rock and roll sound. The Reed/Quine combo is sort of a punk rock version of Mick Taylor and Keith Richards. Quine and Reed are in the top tier of rock guitar teams, as far as I'm concerned.

I believe this clip is from the "Coney Island Baby" DVD, which I have been trying to track down. It doesn't seem to be in print, although you can find "A Night with Lou Reed" on Amazon, and it has a lot of great solos by both Quine and Reed.
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BARNEY KESSEL AND HERB ELLIS, "FLINTSTONES THEME"

Barney and Herb interpret the Flintstones theme, written by the great Hoyt Curtin. (It's a little out-of-sync, sorry!)

Thanks to Charlie McCardell for sending me this.
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UNITED BREAKS GUITARS

Supposedly this guy got a couple free guitars from Taylor, as a courtesy after all the free publicity they got from this youtube video.

I've had several annoying experiences flying with guitars-- the airlines, for the most part, don't make it easy for musicians to travel with instruments. Nor do they do a good job taking care of your instrument if you insist on bringing it on a flight. This situation got even worse after 9/11. I was told by an airline employee that things had loosened up a bit recently. (To be fair, I'm generalizing-- my experiences haven't all been bad, and some airline people have been cheerful and helpful. It's been hard for me to avoid generalizing after watching baggage handlers throw bags through the air, though. I had some damaged gear that could only have been the result of really stupid handling.)
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12-STRING ELECTRIC-- GETTING A GREAT SOUND

This is a VERY brief guide. I just stole this info from a good article by David Love--
www.myrareguitars.com/12stringtone.html

Rather than poach the article, I'm just putting three tips here. It's mostly for my own use, but feel to take David's advice as well.

1. Use compression.

2. Use thinner picks than usual.

3. Use flatwound strings.
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DICK DALE AND THE DEL-TONES, "MISIRLOU"

This clip is early Dick Dale, from 1963. He is still out there playing-- check him out live if you can.

Here's a more recent clip of the same song--


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GEORGE VAN EPS AND HOWARD ALDEN, "NIGHT AND DAY"

George Van Eps was something of an anomaly even in his younger days. Eschewing the prolix playing of many modern players, Van Eps approached the guitar like a piano, setting a standard for contrapuntal playing that inspired greats like Joe Pass and Ted Greene. Howard Alden is no slouch either! I wanted to post a Van Eps solo clip, but the few I found where pretty bad quality, dubbed from deteriorating video. I may put some up eventually anyway, but in the meantime here's this beautiful rendition of the Cole Porter standard.

for more info on George, see this blog--

georgevaneps.blogspot.com/
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PHIL UPCHURCH WITH JIMMY SMITH, "BACK AT THE CHICKEN SHACK"

Phil Upchurch is an underrated, overlooked jazz guitarist--

Here he is in 1990 with Jimmy Smith, burning.
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RONNIE FROM BOTSWANA

Ronnie has what we'd call an "unorthodox" style of playing. The left hand technique stands out, obviously, but great right hand-- like flatpicking, Ronnie is mixing melody, bass runs, and chords very fluidly.

Thanks to Charlie McCardell for this clip.
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