Obscure and Forgotten Guitar Solos

[DavyDave53]

The guitar work on "Where Evil Grows" by the Poppy Family is creepy and haunting to me.

Don't know if the counts as obscure though?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfeEcCLMtxk

 

[Ddbltrbl]

When listening to that Poppy Family song I couldn't help but thinking of Bukka White.
Not too sure why my brain connected those, but... :dontknow:

 

[Ddbltrbl]

Anybody remember this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ_BYOHhnVU

 

[stubhead]

On 90% of the other "guitar sites" I could get massively reamed in 100% of my orifices for saying this, BUT:

The very best songs by Three Dog Night & The Grass Roots and Tommy James & the Shondells are far more listenable TO ME than the very worst efforts of Jimi Hendrix, the Who, most live Rolling Stones & Black Sabbath, and quite a goodly portion of some "legendary unsung heros" like Uriah Heep, I run, butt: her fly!, dogsnickles the worst band I ever heard was Black Dork Arkansas (yes - heroic Jim Dandy!), I could absolutely listen to the entirety of Three Dog Night's greatest hits than the Best of Hair-Powered Hair Power-Ballads of AOR (iffen that included Foreigner, Styx, Oreo Speedcookie, yes, even Aerosmith's comeback as purveyors of teen prom music).

They could sing! Their nameless faceless studio hit-track musicians could play! Even, In Tune!  With each other! Until the dangerous drug-addled college kids took over their college's low-powered FM radio stations between 1968 to 1970 and blew open the door, you could count the number of "real rock" songs on the radio on, umm, the fingers of both feet? "White Rabbit", "Satisfaction", no you did NOT hear "Purple Haze" in between the Archies and the 1910 Fruitgum Company. Of course it's no surprise that millions of children bolted for the druggy, subversive FM stations - believe me, kids, the 1968 - 1974 100 watt college radio station had an enormously-underestimated impact on malleable little minds. The day after Duane Allman died, the U of Minnesota station played Allman brothers music - for 24 hours straight! Sure to happen if Lady GaGa croaks? :dontknow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkxAf6RxC-g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9nE2spOw_o

You can sense what an uphill climb Mr. Hendrix was facing....  :laughing3: There's been a remarkable re-creation of memories of what "60's Music" was like, at least among the 50 million people who were at Woodstock. Perhaps even brought to you courtesy of the same clown school in charge of childhood Satanic ritual survivors?

There's no functional difference between a bunch of cynical record execs getting together and designing & hand-picking "The Monkees",*  a bunch of cynical record execs getting together and designing & hand-picking Styx, and a bunch of cynical record execs getting together and designing & hand-picking N'Sync - following the Justin Timberlake/Britney Spears/Christine Aguilara trifecta triple flush, there's now a MACHINE in Orlando scouring the remnants of the singing dancing Disney World tour guides, hoping to find some more new cooties in the too-old cast-off Disney dandruff.

*(Steven Stills couldn't make the cut :icon_biggrin

 

[Cagey]

Anybody remember this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ_BYOHhnVU

But, of course! And anyone who doesn't own the Mahogany Rush Live! disc is missing out. Although, it doesn't include that particular tune. But, it does have one of the better covers of "Johnny B. Goode". It's worth the price of admission for that one alone.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Well I don't know how obscure these are[...]

Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" - the outro-solo.  Haunting and awe inspiring

That one's definitely not obscure at all - it regularly comes close to the top, or at the top, of "greatest solo ever" polls.

I reckon the test for obscurity would be:

1. Video yourself playing the solo
2. Upload it to YouTube
3. Type the name of the song plus the word "solo" into the YouTube search box.

If you find your video on the first few pages, then well done, you've got an obscure one.

I have a Comfortably Numb solo video on YouTube, and the only way I can find it in the search is by adding the model number of the pickup I used into the search term. It's been there over a year and only had 5,000 views too, so I'm guessing not many other people are finding it either. The opposite of obscure!

 

[Re-Pete]

Stubhead!
You are ruining my childhood memories.... :sad:

In 1969 I was 8. Sugar Sugar was a 'soundtrack' song for when the boys used to run away from the girls so we couldn't get girl's germs. :help: 
Four years later, the testosterone hit the boys and we were chasing them! :evil4:
I loved the Archies cartoons and comic books.
But I was 8 - 12 years old.... Had to ask Mum to buy me the comics, so I was not really a target demographic for consumer spending!

I did see a doco on The Monkees and one of them said that The Archies songs on the cartoons were done by the same folks who did The Monkees recordings early on - til the people who were The Monkees (Dolenz, Nesmith, Tork & Jones) got testy about not being on THEIR record.
So The Archies cartoon series & the Archies recordings were done to spite The Monkees, by the same Exec Producer who couldn't exercise enough creative control of The Monkees.

If I was to remain true to MY recollections of 1960s music and what I thought it encompassed (and sticking only by my memories NOT what I learned later on), things like Yummy Yummy Yummy, Sugar Sugar, Green Tambourine, The Banana Splits Theme Song, H.R. Pufnstuf  sprinkled with a bit of beach Boys or Beatles songs would be the way it would sound. So....do I remain true to my recollections of the 1960s or do I recite what I later learned?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjS1nrsJhTQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhMxZwWJCfo

 

[Cagey]

On 90% of the other "guitar sites" I could get massively reamed in 100% of my orifices for saying this, BUT:

I won't quote the whole post, but I gotta say I agree with you. Although, I'm not sure about the idea that Jimi Hendrix had a long row to hoe. I mean, the guy went tits-up in his twenties. He wasn't even on the back 40 to see a row.

 

[Re-Pete]

Well I don't know how obscure these are[...]

Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" - the outro-solo.  Haunting and awe inspiring

That one's definitely not obscure at all - it regularly comes close to the top, or at the top, of "greatest solo ever" polls.

I reckon the test for obscurity would be:

1. Video yourself playing the solo
2. Upload it to YouTube
3. Type the name of the song plus the word "solo" into the YouTube search box.

If you find your video on the first few pages, then well done, you've got an obscure one.

I have a Comfortably Numb solo video on YouTube, and the only way I can find it in the search is by adding the model number of the pickup I used into the search term. It's been there over a year and only had 5,000 views too, so I'm guessing not many other people are finding it either. The opposite of obscure!

I don't think Comfortably Numb outro is obscure. It floored me when I first heard it, it floored me when I saw Gilmour play it live in 1988 and it still floors me today with it's massively huge sound. It's well known and much admired.

 

[Cagey]

Stubhead!
You are ruining my childhood memories.... :sad:

LOL! Ruining memories? You're bringing them back! All the songs you mention strike chords in me. Although, you didn't mention The Partridge Family...

I'm a little older than you, and I think Stubby is my age, but there wasn't a whole lotta difference in what was popular at the time. Although, we might be a bit reluctant to admit to what we thought was cool <grin>

 

[Cagey]

I don't think Comfortably Numb outro is obscure. It floored me when I first heard it, it floored me when I saw Gilmour play it live in 1988 and it still floors me today with it's massively huge sound. It's well known and much admired.

I agree. There has to be 2,590,552 examples of guys playing it on YouTube. It makes a definite impact that even chicks like. Wanna dance? Wait for a band to play "Comfortably Numb" at a  bar. Any girl in the place will dance with you to that.

 

[Ddbltrbl]

Sixties - What a bizarre time to get into music. Stubby nailed it!  ccasion14:
I didn't hear anybody mention the Cowsills, Paul Revere and the Raiders, or Neil Diamond.  :dontknow: LOL
Now that I think about it there really was  a "trippy" similarity between Donovan, Tommy James and the Shondells, Iron Butterfly and even Pink Floyd.  :laughing7:
I listened to the 1910 Fruitgum Company, the Archies, the Monkees, the Bee Gees and of course the Beatles and loved all of it! Simon and Garfunkel, 3 Dog Night and CSNY were always a favorites.
But, the music that really touched me was CCR, Allman Brothers, Steppenwolf, Cream, Led and Pink Floyd. Does anybody even remember who Michael Monarch was? I think my unusual taste in guitar came from listening to too much of his stuff like this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2k_gKyv8XM
Listen his unusual solo starting at 2:18. I'm not sure anybody else would have played it that way!  :guitarplayer2:

 

[QuasarQuail]

Powerpop guitarist Doug Gillard, proving a killer shred transcends recording budget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWWbQ6PI6Ng#t=170

 

[bagman67]

Powerpop guitarist Doug Gillard, proving a killer shred transcends recording budget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWWbQ6PI6Ng#t=170

EXCELLENT.

 

[bagman67]

Speaking of Pollard et al., "I Am A Tree" by Guided by Voices has an insanely good riff (again, audio quality notwithstanding):


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV1fPyh53Ik

 

[AutoBat]

Robin Finck's solo in Nine Inch Nails - Ruiner has always been one of my favourites.

Vid misses the first bit of it, but this is a live version of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqmYDnObRck

 

[QuasarQuail]

Speaking of Pollard et al., "I Am A Tree" by Guided by Voices has an insanely good riff (again, audio quality notwithstanding):


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV1fPyh53Ik

Yup. Always liked that slightly country vibe in that riff. Get 'em, Doug.

 

[Ddbltrbl]

This is the exact reason I started this subject. Living in Japan I've missed exposure to a lot of good music. I had never heard of Pollard or Guided by Voices! Thanks for introducing me to them!  ccasion14:

 

[stubhead]

You have to excuse the hand-behind-the-ear "I can't Heee-eere You!" crapola - and I'm glad his fashion choices have improved, but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqeQto8PZYU

I actually took this solo all the way apart, as an example for my bitty guitar students who keep asking "how do you improvise?" even after you tell them a half-million times... you "improvise" by repeating stuff a whole lot! The idea that you'd go out on a stage with absolutely no idea of what you are supposed to do is nuts, there ain't a "jam band" in the world that doesn't have some very predictable behavior... Gilbert plays a certain thing 16 times, then switches to another thing 8 times, back to the first riff, but he only plays it 14 times straight and on the last two he's moving ONE note - just changing the root scale by a 4th by moving the location of a half-step interval - and that's his doorway to the next group of repetition. There's enough videos of him playing/teaching his recorded solos note-for-note that he's clearly a composing guitarist, like Steve Morse. I've always though him one of the most musical of that batch of shredders, and he makes a point to record a classical piece on every CD, whether Bach or Mozart or Vivaldi. And like Morse's shazzams, you could play that solo at half speed or on an accordion and it'd still be a solid solo. Too long by half, but that was back in the days when he got paid by-the-note, more or less. :laughing7:

(I gotta spool my teacher whammy up to speed, I gotta a new infestation of grommets this summer :toothy12: :icon_biggrin: :toothy12

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I don't think Comfortably Numb outro is obscure. It floored me when I first heard it, it floored me when I saw Gilmour play it live in 1988 and it still floors me today with it's massively huge sound. It's well known and much admired.

I agree. There has to be 2,590,552 examples of guys playing it on YouTube. It makes a definite impact that even chicks like. Wanna dance? Wait for a band to play "Comfortably Numb" at a  bar. Any girl in the place will dance with you to that.

Yup. When I first uploaded my video, I got messages from two female friends and one male, all saying that it kinda turned them on a bit. Wish I'd known about that effect 20 years ago.