ComEnts

Last night's Fez club gig, The Gimp, was my first public appearance (he he) since the news of Sonic Undermind's passing. Thanks to everyone who said they were sorry to hear the news it seemed like almost everyone who was there had something to say. For a while I was thinking, "What the hell are we splitting up for?!" It passed though. Anyway thank you all for your support. I was having a long chat with Emma (Access All Areas promoter) about how supportive our local scene was and how good that was. It is pretty awesome how much help/support/advice you can get if you need it.

I think sometimes this supportive network of Reading music people is perceived as being a bit of a clique, some people must find it intimidating to think that all these bands / members / promoters / sound guys etc. know each other. It's not really though. People are quite happy to get to know people from new bands or whatever, alternatively maybe we are keen to extend the clique so we can take over the world! BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. *ahem* Sorry.

I found it pretty easy to get to know people. When Sonic Undermind started trying to get gigs a couple of years ago we didn't know anyone on the local scene. We'd known a few people back when we were at school but they weren't really around any more so we had to start from scratch. There were a lot fewer venues and nights than there are today and we were struggling to get any gigs and really struggling to find venues who'd be prepared to let us put our own night on. We were a bit naive as well. Back then we were called The Unholy and we sent a CD and bio to someone our bass player knew who was helping set up a Festival in Henley. The bio was the usual stuff you know, singer comes on stage in a bathtub of boiling acid bearing domestic animal skulls. Ther was talk of satanic rituals and sprays vomit and blood... or was it bloody vomit? We knew it was a hillarious exaggeration and we'd all have loved to put us on a bill based on that bio if we were promoters. Unfortunately we had some feedback from the festival organisers that perhaps we weren't suitable for a family festival. To this day I really hope that the reason we didn't get it was because someone read what we said on that bio and believed it all.

At some point around that time I found Josaka and Berkshire Live, and from there I heard about Luisa Seacroft's new Unsigned Showcase magazine so I picked up a copy. Enjoyed it all other than one part which was called The Executioner (or something like that) that was a kind of comedy slating of some local bands. I had a bit of a go at that article saying it wasn't very supportive or something. Actually I think I thought it wasn't nasty enough to be really funny but let's pretend I was being nice. Somehow I ended up reviewing Joski and Mantequila at the Rising Sun Pub for the magazine the next day! Through reviewing for Josaka and Unsigned Showcase I got to meet loads of bands, promoters, sound guys etc. some of whom became good friends. Suddenly we knew the right people to ask and getting gigs and things got a lot easier. It probably helped that we tried really hard to promote those first couple of gigs and packed the place out. Being a bit interesting and not totally boring or shit also probably helped a little. Anyway it could easily have been the case that we died before we ever even got a gig if it wasn't for meeting people through Josaka.

I did have a point to this post... ah yes, I remember now. If you are part of an upcoming band and you want to get gigging and whatever but don't know where to start you should try and get involved with the scene in some way. There are loads of really nice people around come and meet us! Go and say hello to bands after you've watched them play if you like them, offer to help out our hard working promoters who mostly don't make any money from their gigs and are just trying to break even doing something they love. If not that write reviews, articles etc for Josaka or offer to help design artwork or whatever. If you can't do any of that maybe you can do something else.

I will avoid ranting here about bands who piss and moan about promoters 'not promoting' but do nothing to help or promote themselves because that's a whole different topic.

Thanks again to everyone for the support and hopefully I'll have news of a new project sooner rather than later. I got some... let's call them interesting suggestions yesterday.

Hasn't been a good few weeks for local guitarists and their bands.  Still, the Japanese word for "crisis" is also their word for "opportunity", so it's with a positive outlook and a renewed sense of optimism that Mike and myself happily wave two fingers up at life's little trials, and flick bogeys at the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

It's been a tumultuous week in the world of Sonic Undermind. On Wednesday Sam, Nikhil and I got together and put together ideas for three of the best songs we've ever done and by Sunday it was starting to look as if the band was no more. Yep. Sonic Undermind are splitting up.

So, what happened? Well, it's been a long time coming really. It seems as though every time I'm out people are asking me when we're playing next and I have to tell them that we haven't got any gigs, and that's been going on for a while. It's not because we haven't been offered them either. Things have just kind of faded out. I guess from the outside it might seem like it's faded out because people have been picking up other projects. Rob's got a huge amount of stuff on, writing music for films and adverts, producing bands, drumming for Rebus etc. Pete's got the Pirates and The Limes, Nik's making his own electronic stuff, I've been talking to people about starting new bands etc. etc. But in truth people have been doing that stuff at least partly because nothing's happening with Sonic Undermind and they need to be writing and playing music. You can't be a band if you aren't playing together and we haven't been.

On one hand it's not really a shock because it's been on the cards for a while, but on the other hand the last two times we've got together have been pressure free jams and we've started writing stuff that's better than anything we've done before. I'm kind of sad that that stuff will never see the light of day with SU. Sam and I are going to keep writing together and we have some ideas for other people to play with. (if you happen to be an amazing rock drummer looking for a band e-mail me)

I feel pretty sad about the whole thing. Yesterday the feeling was the one you have when you've just split up with someone. You know it's the right thing and it's best in the long run but you can't help thinking back to all the good times you had and wishing you could just carry them on a bit longer. You know you've lost something special, and just because you saw it coming doesn't make the actual decision any easier. Today I feel a lot more positive about the future. It's been the most amazing time. We've played some great gigs and made some people very happy in the process, that's always been the most amazing thing for me having people you've never seen before come up after a gig with a huge grin on their face and tell you they had a great time. I don't think I could have achieved all that we did without the support of the other band members, ok, so we fought a lot but we played hard too and I think it made the music better. I wouldn't have had the confidence do do any of what we did without them. It's hard to really explain how much I've got out of this band without going into stuff that isn't for this blog. Thanks guys.

It's not in Sonic Undermind's nature to fade out with a whimper. As soon as the idea of a farewell gig was mentioned the response was "let's go out with a bang, make it the most amazing SU gig ever". So that's what we're going to do. We'll be back where it all started, Bar Oz (now Colorz...) and we'll pack the place out and play the best gig we've ever done. I wonder if they have a license for pyrotechnics...

Anyway, it's been an amazing two years with Sonic Undermind, and another great couple of years with The Unholy before that. Thanks to everyone who's supported us and we're really sorry to all our fans. I'm sure we'll all still be around Reading in bands in one form or another.

See you all at Colorz.

I'm on Jim's Jukebox Jail on Blast 1386 AM tonight. You can listen via the interweb or on 1386AM if you are in the Reading area.

So, I promised you an Ashton Court sum up and here it is. It was very hot.

Er... ok, so a bit more detail. Ashton Court is just over the Clifton Suspension Bridge from central Bristol, unfortunately the bridge seems to sway quite a lot when there are several thousand people walking across it. It was very scary last year. This year they decided to close the bridge and put on a bus service instead. Which actually worked really well if you left before the massive rush at the end.

I was really there to see Left Side Brain play, they were on the main stage at about half past eight and they must have been playing to more than 10,000 people. Apparently over 90,000 people attended over the two days of the festival and most of those there on Saturday (admittedly the quieter day) were heading over to the main stage by that time in the evening. For my part I just sat down in front of the main stage and drank in the sun all day. When we first got there the stages weren't operational due to a power problem, it got sorted but everything was running behind then. We watched a few good but unexceptional bands, I have to admit to socialising more than I was paying attention to the music. It seemed a lot quieter than last year, possibly as a consequence of the power failure. I think I'll spend more time wandering around the smaller stages if I go next year. It just seemed too hot to move.

Anyway we headed down to the front for Left Side Brain who were really good. Hung around to see Goldie Lookin Chain, who were terrible. Well, I say that. You totally couldn't hear them at all so who knows? Last year Robert Plant was headlining the Saturday, this time it was Goldie Lookin' Chain. There were a lot of people who quite fairly expressed their unhappiness at that.

Seeing an acoustic act open their set with the words; "This is a song by Travis".

It was nearly as good as the original.

We've been terribly slack about posting to this blog haven't we. It's part of our plan to bore everyone so senseless that we stop reading the blog and we can start saying the stuff that we shouldn't really let anyone hear!

In actual fact AK's been busy with stuff (and you should check here if you haven't seen his news) and I haven't. Not talking about on Coments worthy stuff anyway. This weekend sees my annual expedition to Ashton Court Festival which should provide a lot of interesting stuff to talk about. Last years highlight was a three and a half armed punk band called Bucky. I wonder if they are playing again this year. The drummer played his floor tom with the stump of his half arm and got up and smashed into his drums at the end of every song. Great stuff.

Anyway, AK's mammoth post about his favourite guitarists led me to a bit of introspection about my own guitar influences. The kind of stuff I like playing, and writing tends to be moody odd sounding undistorted weirdness or full on rocking riffs. I also find it hard to seperate the guitarist from his band. The technically amazing guitarists whos entire act is based around their guitar skills don't interest me at all.

Andy Cairns - Therapy?

In my opinion Therapy? have the greatest collection of brilliant rock riffs of any band in the history of the world, Andy Cairns writes and plays them so he's probably my favourite guitarist of all time. It seems like every guitarist my age can play Screamager but there is a lot more to Therapy? than that. It's arguably one of the weaker guitar songs on that album. Probably my favourite Therapy riff is from the beginning of Stories on Infernal Love (1995). It's not just the riffs themselves that rock it's the way they fit with the rest of the band and the vocals. Therapy? are a great example of a band where the guitars, bass and drums are all working together. A lot of guitar bands almost seem to seperate the vibe of the rhythm section from the vocal and guitar melodies. It's an area where dance and hip-hop tend to work a lot better. Dave Grohl is probably the best drummer for taking a riff that rocks and really beefing it up with drums but Fyfe Ewing from Therapy? (and later Neil Cooper) also does an excellent job. Anyway, speaking of Dave Grohl brings me to...

Josh Homme - Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age et al

Did you think I was going to say Kurt Cobain? He narrowly missed this list. Not because I don't like Nirvana, they were the band that really turned me on to music in the first place. He's not a guitar playing influence for me though. I love listening to Nirvana but find them boring to play.

Anyway, back to Ken... I mean Josh. Kyuss were slow, rumbling deliberate and in a way the complete opposite to what I would normally think of as rock but it was brilliant. They might have been stoner rock pioneers but their quality by far outstrips that of those who followed them. The genius of the guitars on Kyuss records, and the thing I learnt from them, is that less is very often more. The Dave Grohl link comes with Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age probably my favourite rock album of all time. As a rhythm guitarist you have to love someone who can write an extremely hard rocking riff which is basically just one note played at with a rocking rhythm and tempo. His riffs are good on earlier QotSA albums but Dave Grohl's drumming on Songs for the Deaf just breathes new life into it.

Tom Morello - Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave

If Rage Against the Machine had never existed I think I'd be convinced that heavy rock and funky hip-hop beats could work together. Some people will love Morello for his pioneering sounds and solos. For me it's the groove. His guitar riffs flow like a funk bass but still manage to be one of the heaviest things you've ever heard. The interaction with the bass, vital for rhythm guitar, is really well represented by RatM as well. The guitar and bass riffs are often almost interchangeable.

Jerry Cantrell - Alice In Chains

For me Jerry is the king of guitar sadness. He makes the guitar sound like it's going to cry. For once it's not the way the guitar works with the rhythm section that I took from him. It's the way the guitar works with the vocals. Listen to Down in a Hole from the Dirt album for a single song that really shows this, or better listen to the whole album. The album itself moves from almost a celebration of drug highs to a desolate despairing lament at the damage they can do to your life. The vocals go with the change but the guitar follows too. The change in the way the actual guitar parts is subtle but there is a great change in the way it's played.

That's it I think. There are other guitarists who I admire but I think those 4 together sum up how I want to play and also of the things I feel's important to have in a rhythm guitar player. Catchiness, Simplicity, Groove and Emotion. Me actually being able to write and play like a combination of those four is something altogether different. You'll probably notice that all the guitarists were around in the early/mid-90s. Well, that's when I started to learn guitar and when I developed my style. If I was starting out now I'd probably name 4 different guitarists but hopefully the aspects of playing would still be the same. I think the concepts are true for guitarists of any style and at any time.

Hello. I'm back from my holiday. I've actually been back for a week or so but haven't had much to say. There seems to have been some confusion about where I went, mainly because I didn't know myself. As far as I can work out it was a county in England beginning with H (probably).

What a great night it was at the Face Bar last night. It was an Access All Areas gig featuring Rebus, My Luminaries, Polar Remote and Morning Runner. The place seemed to be pretty packed. Rebus were described to me as "a breath of fresh air" by two completely independent people which was odd. I mean the choice of words and the coincidence of it was odd, not the sentiment. Also odd was seeing Rob, the Sonic Undermind drummer, playing drums for Rebus. I'm used to him being behind me (ooh er) not in front of me.

I don't want to give too much away about the night as I'm supposed to be writing a full review (when I have recovered a bit more!).

I did get a text from AK saying that the Yankee Nine-Niner gig at the Borderline had been flooded out so they'd been moved to the Astoria instead. Which must have been nice! I expect a full report here at some point, but might not get it.

Anyway, in the future I intend to follow AK's lead and start posting more general musical things and not just "what I did at the weekend" type things. I might see if I can automate "got drunk and went to The After Dark" to post every Saturday... but maybe not.

I keep meaning to spend some time writing some meaningful entries for this blog, rather than "What I did over the Weekend" stuff. I thought I'd start by running through my favourite guitarists. Now, most of my fave guitarists are pretty obvious - Hendrix, Clapton, Satch, etc. but a few of them may not be, and one or two of them will probably need some explanation, but explain I shall. These are not necessarily the greatest wood-shedders of all time, they are just the ones that made the biggest impression on me and my development as a padwan learner plank-spanker.

The ones you'll know:

Clapton. Not just the solo's; the riffs, the songwriting, the singing, the whole kit and caboodle. "White Room" and "Badge" would be the songs that grabbed me the most. Most people woud say "Layla", but that's a candy-ass rock song if ever I heard one (sorry, Eric) - what's that country section at the end all about, eh? Contrary to popular belief, some of his later stuff rocked too, check out "Bad Love" - AWESOME SOLO.

Dave Gilmour - I don’t need to say anything. The man can put more feeling into one held note (with or without vibrato) than anyone else, ever. When I first heard "Another Brick in the Wall" I realised that all I wanted to do was flap around in pentatonic boxes all day.

Slash - I will say this only once. Everytime I step onto the stage with Yankee Nine Niner, I feel like I am in some small way paying homage to Saul Hudson. The man wrote "Appetite for Destruction", and if he had only ever written "Sweet Child O' Mine", he would still be top rock dog. As a wise man once famously remarked, "Les Paul and Marshall stack in perfect harmony." Enough technique to make jaws drop, but mostly he's about the feel, emotion, and the rocking out. Probably the greatest rock lead guitarist of all time as far as I am concerned.

Ronnie Wood - Small Faces, Stones, you know who he is and why he's up here. I was more into metal (as the other names here will attest to) than rock and roll, but you can't knock Ronnie Wood. He's the reason why all my heroes started playing guitar. Check out "Stay With Me" by Rod Stewart (Small Faces?), one of the most rocking songs ever.

Keef - see above. Not just for his guitar playing, either. What a cool bloke. There is a theory that a rock guitarist should be 10% about the music and 90% the attitude. Keef is what we all aspire to, or what we should all aspire to, anyway.

Joe Perry - the theme tune to my musical development was the theme music to "Raw Power" (see Rocky George, below somewhere) which was the guitar solo to "Love in an Elevator". I didn't get from rock and roll what I got out of metal until I heard Aerosmith's "Pump". "The Other Side" is probably my fave Perry solo, but his riffing is unbelievable, too. Another guitarist who just looks cool, too. I look at Wood, Richards and Perry and I wish I wasn't built like a front-row forward. In my weaker moments I realise that a serious smack habit is all I need to perfect the "lead guitarist physique", but quite frankly, fuck that.

Carlos Santana - my parents are big on Carlos, and many a childhood car journey was spent listening to "Abraxus". It's interesting that he has always considered himself a blues guitarist, cos most of his material gets pigeon-holed as Latin-jazz, but one thing he certainly knows how to do is to build (and build.. and build! and then build some more!) a solo to a climax. "The Healer" with John Lee Hooker was the track that made me realise what a legend he is (I'd never thought of him as a guitar hero of mine until that point), it made me dig out all my other Carlos CD's and vibe out to them. Preferred him when he played a Les Paul to the PRS (or is it a Patrick Eggle? I should do my research,really) he plays these days, they just have a fatter tone.

Joey Satriani - like Joey Tribiani, but eats less and shreds more. Seriously, the guy is Yoda. He taught (takes deep breath); Steve Vai. I could list more, but that's all you need to know. I thought "Surfing with the Alien" was cool, but "Flying in a Blue Dream" opened my eyes to melody, phrasing, emotional development (see "Bells of Lal part II"). Joe is one of three or four people alive who I would give full "We're not worthy!!" to.

Steve Vai - have you seen the film "Crossroads"? No, not with Britney Spears, the one with Ralph "Karate Kid" Macchio. Best end scene ever. Steve Vai is Jack Butler, the devil's own rock guitarist. Steve does melody and shredding and all those things, but the reason why I like him is because he brings humour and pure emotion into his lines. Check out… anything he's done, really. My faves "The Audience is Listening", "Sisters" and "For the Love of God". Yeah, I do have other platters other than "Passion and Warfare", like "Flex-able" but those are my faves, espesh "..Audience" (".. Little Stevie Vai is going to play guitar for us, class!"). He was Frank Zappa's "Stunt guitarist", too - that alone carves his name in the pantheon of great guitarists.

Kirk Hammett - Metallica's chief fret-worrier. "One", "Fade to Black" and "Unforgiven" highlight the why's and wherefore's of how to construct, develop and deliver a solo. One of the few "metal" guitarists (I don't want to open the "Are Metallica Metal or hard rock?" debate here...) who writes solo's that you can remember and whistle.

Prince - I know that the Purple One is Eric Clapton's favourite guitarist, but he very rarely gets anything like the credit that he should receive. He only lets loose with the occasional solo ("Purple Rain" is still my fave, what a tone! what a solo! What a dude!), but he only writes parts that fit the song, like the opening to "When Doves Cry" which has a bad little mini-shred. He's just an unbelievable musician - I have him here in my "Favourite guitarist" list, but he probably appears on bass, percussion, keyboards, brass and woodwind lists too. "We" - as the expression goes - "Are not worthy".


Lesser Knowns (to the man in the street, at least):

Dimebag Darrell - this guy is about as good as it gets as far as I am concerned. A man who is not afraid of writing an entire riff out of pinched harmonics, truly after my own heart. Wicked songwriter, can do tasteful and melodic, or heavier than Mandy Dingle (I think Pantera were accredited with having invented "The Stomp section"). It's all encapsulated in "This Love", but check out the uber-riffing in "Cemetary Gates". Again, the guy has a sense of humour with his solo-ing (see "Psycho Holiday"), as well as a sense of purpose - it's like he's telling a tale with every shred. Like Vai, you get the impression that he was born great, just a natural talent that you can't teach - you can only learn from.

Rocky George - when I first got an Ibanez guitar (a red RG770) people said it was because I wanted to be Steve Vai, but in actual fact I wanted to be Rocky George, lead guitarist with Suicidal Tendencies. I remember the first time I heard this band. Back in the day (homie) the only real rock that we ever got in the UK was the occasional rock chart on "the Chart Show" on a Sat afternoon, or the once a week church of "Raw Power", which was basically Kerrang! TV on at 4am. Phil Alexander - what a legend! We'd record it and come home from school to watch it, and this was my musical education as a 14yr old. They had one episode where - completely without warning - they played the video to "You Can't Bring Me Down", which is still probably my Now That's What I Call the #1 rock video of all time, ever, part X, in the world. I can't even tell you how cool it is, words flail me. Anyways, they were my fave band for years and years, I had the ST baseball cap and everything. RG was a very jazzy guitarist, a little bit prog with it, but had the greatest delay/feedback/sustain sound ever, could shred till the cows came home and one of the finest musical ears I've ever heard on a "metal" musician. Yes, I still love his work. Listen to "You Can't Bring Me Down" (see the video if you can - hell, just go and buy "Lights, Camera, Revolution!" - one of the best thrash albums of all time), and "Nobody Hears" from "Asleep at the Wheel". I spent more time learning his solo's than I did of any other guitarist. Amazing band, amazing songs, managed to see them live once and almost wet myself with happiness.

Alex Skolnick - Testament's main axeman, another prodigously talented musician and Ibanez endorsee. I saw a video that came with a Metal Hammer magazine, it had Testament in the studio recording "Practice What You Preach", and showed the full guitar solo from the title track, with young Alex Skolnick in full flow. Inspirational. Testament had some brilliant songs, but I lost interest after "Electric Crown", cos there were too many fillers, not enough killers (although the title track from that CD was great!, more quality tunesmanship and shredding!). Check out "The Legacy" for a perfect piece of epic rock balladry, and one of the most tasteful solo's ever.

Zakk Wylde - Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist and all-round wild (sic) man of rock guitar shred-dom. If you want to hear why he is rated about as highly as anyone can be rated, I recommend you check out "No More Tears" by his Ozzness. Zakk may have recorded faster and more complicated solo's, and written heavier riffs, etc. but when I first heard this song I was scarred for life. It's basically just a sick, sick guitar tone (with some spine-chilling slide guitar work) in a song that is constructed and delivered with maximum effect. I hid behind the sofa for a few minutes after I heard it. It's proof that tone is everything. The first Black Label Society album has a track called "I hate Your Guts", which is more Vyv Stanshawe than Vivian Basterd (The Young Ones), another reason to like him as far as I am concerned.

Vernon Reid - the full-package, I think he came from a jazz background, but with Living Colour they played everything and anything and made it sound like they were God's own personal rock band. "Cult of Personality", "Love Rears it's Ugly Head" and "Leave it Alone" to name but a few choice cuts, but see also "Solace of You" for some quality songwriting. Never played a solo unless he had made it all twisted and weird, that's why I love him.

Dave Mustaine - Megadeth's singer, leader and all round rock icon always used top, top men as his lead guitarists, but he's none too shabby a solo-ist himself. I heard a rumour that he has had to stop playing, I hope that isn;t true, but if it is he can rest assured that he is one of the most rock men who ever took breath. He was fired from Metallica for being too rock, that's how cool he is. (I hear he was a nasty drunk, but I prefer the "too rock" image). Even with Marty Friedman ("We're not worthy! we're not worthy!") playing lead, Dave still shone. A very jazzy guitarist at times, his lead break in "In My Darkest Hour" still has the power to make me run and grab a tennis racket to play along with it. I've never been able to imitate this solo, and it holds a special place in my heart because of that. Sometimes I hear a solo and I know how to play it without even picking up a guitar, but this one I've deliberately left alone; some things are sacred. See also "Hangar 18" and "Peace Sells" for some killer lead breaks from DM. Also one of my fave songwriters and riff-churners (Holy Wars - the Punishment Due),even if I get the impression that we'd just hate each other if we ewver met one another. He had the most posters on my bedroom wall as a kid though, a vastly under-rated figure in rock.

Marty Friedman - oriental and eastern melodies combined with rock sensibilities and attitude. Listen to "Holy Wars - the Punishment Due" off Megadeth's "Rust in Peace". 'Nuff said. If that doesn't convince you, then you're stupid; "Foreclosure of a Dream" and "Symphony of Destruction" are songs I've covered in bands before, and I've just about managed to get away with close approximations of his solo's. Probably the cleanest warp-speed guitarist I can think of.

Larry Lalonde - Primus' guitarist started out as a death metaller with a band whose name escapes me for the time being (research? Bah!) and you can tell that he's as technically proficient as can be, but it's the creativity, originality and uniqueness of his playing (and Primus' songs) that put him in this list. The quote that sticks in my mind is Larry's answer to the question "How do you write a Primus solo?";

"Find what key the song is in, and don’t play any of the notes in that key."

Atonal genius can be heard in "Jerry was a Race Car Driver", as well as measured use of effects and tremelo arm-wrestling. Another point I'd make about "Ler" is that with Les playing bass, it's the lower register that tends to make up the melodies and riffs for Primus songs, what LaLonde does/did was embellish and offer melodic support to the basslines, which not only helps to create some weird and funky counterpoint, but also opens up new avenues for dynamic and rhythmic ideas. In short - if the guitar isn’t playing the main riff of a song, then it can do tonnes of other stuff! And Ler was shit-hot at coming up with stuff! Some people think Primus are too weird or cartoony, but I will quite happily do standing backflips over albums like "Frizzle Fry", "Sailing the Seas of Cheese" and "The Brown Album".

Wilko Johnson - I've only heard his stuff with Ian Dury and the Blockheads, but that's good enough for me. The solo in "Hit me with your Rhythm Stick" is everything a solo should be; short, sharp, to the point, and capable of making grown men pull grotesque faces while playing tennis-racket guitar in front of mirrors. His rhythm work is also spot on, but then he did play in the Blockheads, probably the tightest group this country has produced, and he did get to play on some legendary punk/disco/arthouse/rock tracks like "Reasons to be Cheerful Part III". If you haven’t got "New Boots and Panties" - and you like music - go get it.

More to come!