#comets on fire

So, since I’d already done a Listed a while ago, the suggestion was floated to do a Listed of just guitar-influence records since the solo album I just did has a bunch of guitar on it. So here goes:

Teenage Jesus And The Jerks — s/t EP [aka the pink EP] (1979)

Lydia Lunch’s slide playing and grinding bursts of noise are some of the most incredible uses of a guitar my ears have ever come across. Perfectly matched to the emotion of the songs, and instantly affecting — I can’t hear it and not feel something. Impossible. Added bonus that one of my favorite guitar players happens to be responsible for this quote: “The only thing worse than a guitar is a guitarist.”

Sonny Sharrock — Black Woman (1969)

Sonny Sharrock’s playing throughout this whole entire album is an unbelievably perfect balance of both the gorgeous and the ferocious. An all-time favorite record, for sure.

John Lee Hooker — Sittin’ Here Thinkin’

I bought this record when I was about 18. I was in a record store, overhearing the owner and another “old” dude talk about how the one blues guitarist they just could not get into was John Lee Hooker. Just as they were saying that I came across this record priced at $4 and I took it as a sign to buy it. Now I’m 48... probably the same age as those two guys were at the time, and this is still one of my favorites by Hooker, even if usually I prefer solo recordings by him. But there’s a looseness and togetherness to this band that I love.

E Gayathri — Veena

Not a guitar record but a veena record. This is one of my favorite records by any stringed instrument, so it definitely has had an effect on my sense of melody and timing on guitar. I found a cassette of this record in a bin of tapes lying on the floor of a clothing & furniture store in Manchester, UK in 2005. I bought a handful of the tapes and went back a little while later to try to pick up more, but all the tapes had disappeared. Who knows what else I missed?!?

Susan Alcorn — And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar (2006)

Another record that’s technically not a guitar (per se) record, but what a record it is! Stunning. As in stunningly beautiful sound and pacing. And also stunning, as in knock you on your ass, jaw on the floor, seriously fuck you up it’s so good.

Scissor Girls — New Tactical Outline I & II 7"s (1995)

These were collected on the Here Is The “Is-Not” CD. I saw them live around the time these 7"s came out. Kelly Kuvo’s angular guitar lines interacting with Azita Youssefi’s bass lit up the same parts of my brain hit by DNA’s A Taste of DNA and Capt. Beefheart & The Magic Band’s Trout Mask Replica.

Metalux — Victim of Space (2005)

I’m not sure I could tell you all the parts of this record that are guitar-generated vs. synth vs. who-knows-what utopian future technology from outer-galaxy reaches. It’s not for mere mortals to say. But this is a great record full of all the kinds of weirdness I like. And as far as guitar influences go, I love the tones Jenny Graf Sheppard gets, and how she and MV Carbon create universes.

Magik Markers — Isolated from Exterior Time: 2020

I listened to “Machine” a whole hell of a lot in 2020. Partly because I was working on the solo record and wanted to reference the mix against things I thought sounded great. And more to the point, because it’s such a great song. Elisa Ambrogio rips on this as she does on all Markers records.

Ascension — Broadcast (1996)

This record in particular of Ascension’s kind of lit up intertwined pathways for me — Stefan Jaworzyn (guitar) and Tony Irving (drums) brilliantly firing simultaneously in directions of high-energy free improvisation and heavy guitar dissonance. This was the record that really convinced me of free improvisation’s ability to avoid historical/genre dead-endings. Anytime people express themselves like this at the outer limits, you can trust that’ll remain vital and forever present-tense.

Body/Head — Coming Apart (2013) & s/t (2013)

The liminal nature of Body/Head always knocked my socks clear off. Improvised and freer than free, but always with a song form just about to take shape as it’s also just about to dissolve. That they could sustain this for one record, let alone multiple releases, is a lightning-in-a-bottle level miracle capture. But seeing them remain in this state for a whole entire live set was transfixing beyond belief.

Comets on Fire — Field Recordings From the Sun (2000)

Twin guitar overload from Ethan Miller and Ben Chasny. Again, seeing them live really is the thing that blew my mind straight out of my skull, but cranking this record at regular intervals brings me back to seeing them at The Hemlock in San Francisco in 2003. It felt like the walls were breathing. heavy.

I left off tons of other guitar influences (Lou Reed — Metal Machine Music, Stooges, Hendrix, Sightings, Charalambides, Howlin’ Wolf, Blind Willie McTell, Jack Rose, Elizabeth Cotten, Sun City Girls, Myriam Gendron, Bo Diddley, Michael Flower, and on and on), but it’s 5:30am which means it’s either much too late or much too early to be working on a list about guitars anymore.

Oh, damnit. OK one more:

Germs — M.I.A. Anthology