Guitar Gear

After I wrote my article on the Slow Secret Death of the Electric Guitar, it really got me thinking about guitar heroes of today. So…

To start this discussion, I’m going to throw out a question: Can you name five guitar heroes that are under fifty years old? Forty years old? Thirty years old? And mind you, I’m not talking about the child prodigies like Sungha Yung, but actual guitar heroes that have defined or redefined their genre.

If you roll back time thirty years, these questions would be easy to answer. I could name guitarists in several genres. But today, it’s not so easy. And it’s not too hard to see why. If you look at pop music today, while the guitar is still an integral component of the music, it doesn’t take center stage like it once did. When was the last time you heard a guitar solo in any pop song? And frankly, even if you can name a song, can you name the guitarist? Chance are you can’t because that guitarist is a session musician. Most probably it’s going to be someone like Steve Lukather or Phil X who’ve played on tons of hits, and we never know about it.

When was the last time you heard a guitar solo in any pop song? And frankly, even if you can name a song, can you name the guitarist? Chance are you can’t because that guitarist is a session musician. Most probably it’s going to be someone like Steve Lukather or Phil X who’ve played on tons of hits, and we never know about it.

Of course, the guitar, and specifically the electric guitar, will always be THE rock instrument, but just how popular is rock and roll now? For someone as old as me, the rock that pleases me is the rock of my era, namely the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. So forgive me if I don’t know much of the new music. However, in my day, even my mom and dad, who watched Lawrence Welk and thought that Johnny Mathis was a radical singer knew of Peter Frampton and Eric Clapton and Jimi and Santana (my mom actually liked Santana because of the Latino sound).

That’s the point, guitar heroes back in the day were just well… known.

Today, that’s just not the case. A lot of that has to do with the fact that every type of music is immediately accessible to anyone with a computer or smartphone. iTunes originally led the charge, but Spotify now dominates the industry (I can’t live without my Spotify premium). So instead of music being controlled by the DJ’s like it was back in my day, young people have the ability to discover a plethora of musical genres. And while it pleases me that my own kids have discovered acts from my day, they’ve also got their own stuff. And to be completely honest, they’re the ones who’ve turned me on to contemporary reggae.

Speaking of contemporary reggae, this is a branch off of the traditional Jamaican Reggae, which I still love. Here are some awesome bands that I listen to:

Jawaiian Reggae

J Boog
Jordan T
The Green
Kolohe Kai
Common Kings

“White Boy” Reggae

Rebelution
SOJA
Tribal Seeds
Sublime
The Expendables
Slightly Stoopid
Iration

You might be wondering why I bring reggae up, and specifically why I’m naming contemporary reggae. It’s simply because the guitar as the primary instrument is still alive and well in this genre; not as much in Jawaiian (though Jordan T is a f%^king fiend on his Strat), but especially with the “White Boy” reggae, the guitar is central and you get some incredible solos. In particular, I love the guitar work of Rebelution, The Expendables, and Slightly Stoopid. The guitarists in these groups rival anyone in rock.

If you still want to hear guitar-centric music, you’d do yourself a big favor checking these bands out. And by the way, most of these guys are about as freakish about their gear as we are!

Maholo!