HW: technique (was: '80's sound...)

[Jon Jarrett]

        Dave Brock: the thing about Dave is that without being fast as,
for example, Jerry, and with an almost total absence of shredding, he can
turn out some genuinely surprising guitar; look at the lead on the
original `Death Trap' - where's *that* coming from? I love it. But also,
look at the two-note solo in `LSD' - it's chock-full of energy and it
picks you up and won't put you down till he stops. Some of the stuff on
_California Brainstorm_ is also blinding improvisation to my way of
thinking. Whether he still does this sort of stuff, of course, it's very
hard to tell.

        Lemmy: is a supremely competent bass-player and adds a certain
mass to anything. Again, though, he very rarely shows off and it's just
the bass solo on `Time We Left' that you can use to evidence his skill. A
point here though, made to me by a bass-player friend of mine, is that I
tend to like bass-players who converted from guitar - like Lemmy, Joe
Bouchard, Noel Redding, and you can doubtless think of others. These men
do not play the same way as, for example, Adrian Shaw or another
"real" bass player, Walter Becker, who these days only plays guitar - go
figure...    Alan sort of slips into the first category because he _does_
play like Lemmy and has always tried to - he maybe plays better now, but
even though he started as a bass-player he's still imitating a
guitarist. My bass-player friend, on seeing Bedouin, claimed that he
thought Alan should get a lead guitarist or another bass-player and stop
doing both jobs himself. I did not agree :-)

        My 2pworth, yours,
                           Jon
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