Vamping on my 80’s band reminiscing, I wanted to post a video of one of my favorite bands of that time, Night Ranger.
This was right in the middle of the glam rock days, and what I loved about Night Ranger was their ability to write and perform a wide range of music from pop to hard rock, but always with an emphasis on screaming, melodic electric guitar. Brad Gillis was a wizard of the Floyd Rose trem, while Jeff Watson absolutely rocked a Les Paul (that 8-finger tapping was insane).
So the question arose – why aren’t there bands like this any more? Maybe it’s just the old guy in me who just love this kind of music, but bands like this just affirmed my love of the guitar, plus at the time, were a ray of hope in the dreary sea of copy-cat glam bands. And even though Night Ranger was a contemporary with the likes of Poison and Motley Crue, they never took on the glam affectations, and produced well-written songs that ROCKED THE HOUSE! I also dug that you never heard of them partying (though I’m sure they did their share of it), or their debauchery, or nonsense like that. To me at least, they were a group of hard-working musicians whose only aim was to rock it every night.
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