September 24, 2025 • 46 mins
Hit it, Slackers!
On this week’s episode, I’m debunking the myth that the best guitarists always deliver the greatest solos. Sure, virtuosos like Eddie Van Halen shred with jaw-dropping skill, but do their weedly-weedly-dee solos always elevate the song? Not necessarily! Sometimes, simpler is better—think melodic, tasteful, and hummable solos that truly serve the music.
Is Eddie Van Halen a better guitarist than Mötley Crüe’s Mick Mars? No question. But does he craft the best solos? Not always. Is Eric Clapton an all time great? Duh, but why does a guy named Mike Slamer have one of the best power ballad solos of all time?
In my opinion technical prowess doesn’t always trump soulful, song-driven solos.
Expect a heavy dose of ‘80s classics, a nod to a ‘70s gem, and some early 2000s bangers.
On this week’s episode, I’m debunking the myth that the best guitarists always deliver the greatest solos. Sure, virtuosos like Eddie Van Halen shred with jaw-dropping skill, but do their weedly-weedly-dee solos always elevate the song? Not necessarily! Sometimes, simpler is better—think melodic, tasteful, and hummable solos that truly serve the music.
Is Eddie Van Halen a better guitarist than Mötley Crüe’s Mick Mars? No question. But does he craft the best solos? Not always. Is Eric Clapton an all time great? Duh, but why does a guy named Mike Slamer have one of the best power ballad solos of all time?
In my opinion technical prowess doesn’t always trump soulful, song-driven solos.
Expect a heavy dose of ‘80s classics, a nod to a ‘70s gem, and some early 2000s bangers.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the Stuck in the Middle Podcast, the podcast
dedicated to the music, movies, and culture Generation X. What
is up, slackers, and welcome to another episode of the
(00:33):
Stuck in the Middle Podcast. I am your host, Jason Eck,
and I guess it has been.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
The best of times. It was the worst of times.
So the worst of times is that I had to
have this blood test done to determine if one of
the medications that I'm currently taking is doing anything at all,
and it's not, so that's great. But I don't have
(01:04):
hepatitis or tuberculosis, so that's great too. So the good
with the bad. Had a major work meeting the past
two weeks, and it looks as though things are smooth
sailing moving forward. Knock on wood, say a prayer, whatever
it is that you do, because yeah, I've what a
(01:24):
big meeting on Saturday, and then it's going to be
a relatively normal period of time for me in my job.
So I'm gonna revel in that since I'll have a
few weeks before surgery. And I had my first parents'
weekend this weekend for my son at college junior year.
(01:46):
And it's funny because obviously junior year it's his third year,
and somehow my wife and I still can't always manage
like the timing and what we're doing when and like
the time for things. So we couldn't make it to
the tail gate. His brother had a football game, and
obviously we're gonna go to football game, you know, earlier
in the day, and we just weren't gonna make it.
(02:08):
And my wife had signed up for like we're gonna
bring bake c D and we'ren't even gonna be there,
like in any reasonable amount of time. But at the
same token, I think it was a blessing in disguise.
Now we typically go up for family weekend. On the Sunday,
we go to Mass at school and then we go
to this Mexican joint. It's the tradition. I'm really glad
(02:30):
that we did because if we would have gone for
the tailgate. Now, bear in mind, we are admittedly the
type of parents who don't allow our children to imbibe
alcohol with us. They're not of age. We just don't
do it, like we're not going to be supplying you
your booze. Sorry. Other parents feel differently about it. That
(02:53):
is up to them, that is up to you, and
whatever choices you've made with your kids. We simply don't
allow it. And he was just gonna get hammered by
the time we got there. He was gonna be six
sheets to the wind. And I don't drink, and my
wife drinks very minimally. I don't want to be hanging
out with this trashed kid playing beer pong at a
(03:16):
tailgate with a bunch of other parents that I don't
really know. While I'm sto cold sober. It just sounded abysmal.
But he was so fucking hung over that he was
not the most effusive, bubbly, gregarious as he normally is.
He was going. But I think it all kind of
(03:39):
worked out, you know, it kind of is what it is.
And then next weekend, so after I have this big
meeting on Saturday, we have a football game, we have
the second parents weekend for my daughter, who right now
is a kind of a holding pattern where life is
starting to get back to some normal, normal semblance of
normalcy after a rough month break up with the boyfriend
(04:01):
and all that. So it's just funny that, you know,
even though our kids, two of them are technically, by
legal definitions, adults, the reality is brains keep growing and
establishing until age twenty five. They don't fully mature really
until then. So we are perfectly happy to still be
(04:21):
parenting as much of a struggle as it can be sometimes.
And how it was like, oh wow, our new normal
is having one kid in the house and our day
to day is easier, not having to worry about like
driving to and from school or you know, bringing him
to practice. You know, he can do that, and that's great.
I don't have to get up at the crack of
dawn for him to go make the bus for a
(04:42):
football game. We can sleep in a little bit and
then go a couple hours later to see the game.
Like it's yeah, it's just it's different. It's really different.
So I'm just going to be hopeful that I can
kind of keep my guts literally together with crow disease
until the surgery, and that my kids ca and all
kind of bring down the various things that are going
(05:03):
on in their lives that are sometimes stressful sometimes just life.
So anyway, what's the night's topic. You know, we've had
too many heavy topics, too many heavy topics between you know,
major celebrity deaths that are critical to our our our
(05:24):
youth and obviously last week a political assassination, and that
is a tough conversation. I wanted to keep it light. Now.
The thing is what we're going to talk about. Some
of you might not give a damn about this either,
and that is guitarists, but more specifically guitar solos. So
(05:50):
when we talk about the pantheon of great guitar players,
there's kind of a list that people go through and
they talk about the Jimmy Hendrixes, Eric Clapton's, the Eddie
van Halen's, the Jimmy Pages, right, these great classic rock guitarists.
But ultimately I feel that this ends up missing. Like
(06:13):
the whole hair metal generation that I was part of
had some fantastic guitar players, but either they weren't considered
as technical as their peers, or the music they produced
wasn't considered as I don't know, valid, whatever these demarcations
are that people have in their minds of what's good
(06:35):
rock or bad rock, or it's cheesy or whatever it is.
I do feel as though a lot of really great artists,
including amongst the hair metal community, that kind of shit
on certain guitarists and certain players, and ultimately what I
boiled it down to for me personally, is a guitar solo.
(06:59):
A guitar solo is not meant to be, this is
my opinion, a just technical showcase. Instead, it should serve
the song. And if there happened to be some technical
pyrotechnics in there, great. That comes down to feel, style,
(07:22):
but ultimately does it fit the song. My barometer for
a great guitar solo is if you can hummet in
the same melodious way that you do the rest of
the song. So I'm gonna come right out and say
I don't have on this list of great guitar solos
some of the ones that you might might think of.
(07:44):
Everyone talks about bands like the Eagles and the Hotel California. Yes,
certainly hummable and and and and well, right, we all
know it. That's great. It is a memory melodic guitar solo.
Don't get me wrong. It is. People will talk about
(08:06):
the solo in Stairway to Heaven b no, no, no, no, no, no,
no no, no, right, it's hummable, it is memorable. But
those have been done and done and done to death.
Free Bird, for example, one of my all time favorite
(08:27):
guitar players. I'm leaving off this list tonight because this
solo is on many people's top lists of greatest guitar solos.
We're talking about Prince and the Purple Rain guitar solo.
So simple, so melodic, so memorable. So here's where some
of you are going to get upset. Eddie van Halen
(08:53):
is a was a absolute beast on the guitar. His compositions,
his phrasing, his ability to maneuver on a fretboard has
influenced generations of guitar players now and far into the future.
(09:13):
Everyone puts on their list eruption. Eruption is not a
guitar solo. Eruption is a song that happens to be
all played by guitar. But ask yourself, are most of
Eddie van Halen's guitar solos, while technically amazing, that melodic.
(09:36):
I don't think so. I don't see. I don't think
that being a shredder and be able to sweep pick
and do all of these crazy things is what serves
the song. You have this super catchy song, you wait
for the guitar break and it's just kind of noise. No,
it's not. It has a flow it's interesting, good break,
(10:01):
but it just doesn't necessarily give you an additional melody
to carry through the song. So, while my list is
pretty dominated by hair metal guitarists, not all of them.
So what I look at the best guitar solos, the
ones that most serve the song. Some of them are
(10:24):
remarkably simple, but they're right in the context of the song.
So the first one is not hair band. It's actually
from the late seventies Thomas McClary and the guitar solo
for Easy by the Commodoores. I remember when Faith the
(10:44):
More did their cover. I wanted to just kind of
like play it for the guys. I'm like, hey, have
you heard this? They've released their own version of Easy,
and Justin has been on the show. His dad phenomenal
guitar player, and he goes, oh, man, okay, want to
hear the guitar solo. It's like, I want to hear it.
So Jim Martin guitar player for Faith No More, just
(11:07):
nails it, and mister Piccirillo, he goes, yeah, that is
by far, probably one of the greatest guitar solos of
all time, because it really is perfect and it's simple wow, no, no,
(11:29):
w it's so so good and it's not like, hey,
look at me, I can wail. It's this gives you
that break and it's emotional. Now. Mind you, A lot
of the songs that are on here but not all.
A number of them are in ballads where I think
(11:51):
you want that soulfulness that comes through. So certainly, Eric
Clapton has had a number of really soulful solos, but
he's on every list, and really most people look at
Layla as being his grand opus. I don't disagree. Layla
not the acoustic version from MTV Unplugged. The original Layla
(12:12):
is a breath taking composition, but we all know that.
But Thomas McClary from the Commodorees lays down one of
the greatest tracks of all time. But that's an honorable mention.
So Eddie van Halen, he is on my list in
the honorable mentions though, And it's going to be a
song that you're gonna go. But that's not Eddie being crazy. No,
(12:35):
you're right, it's not. It's Eddie being so tasteful. My
all time favorite Van Halen song is Dance the Night Away,
And instead of being this big leap up right guitar break,
and then it's gonna be squealing instead. He brings it
down and this is where Eddie's at his best. Doo
(12:57):
doo doo doo doo doo doo doom too. He's still tapping,
he's still being Eddie. Little harmonics here and there. But
it's so beautiful and it fits that song. And it actually,
instead of being the guitar break that brings everything up
in a way, it really just equalizes a song before
(13:18):
Alex comes back in and the song comes back up
for the remainder of the tune. It's, in my opinion,
Eddie's finest moment, and it's not this blistering, crazy guitar solo.
It's the exact opposite. It truly serves the song. Now,
lest it be thought that I don't listen to any
(13:39):
music past the eighties or nineties, not true, because the
next song would have come out in two thousand and four.
Crazy already to think that this is twenty one years old.
But a great guitar solo by Dave Cunning of The Killers,
the guitar solo for When We Were Young. It's beautiful
(14:03):
and it's a through line of the guitar work from
the earliest riff and how you get introduced into the song,
but it's amplified and extended. And I watched a live
clip of it. Holy cow, I would love to go
see The Killers live. I'm being perfectly honest with you.
I mean their drummer is killer, no pun intended, I
(14:27):
guess it is. But man, oh man, that solo on
When We Were Young was great, is great. Check it out.
If you don't know the song, it is fantastic. Now
they have a bunch of great tunes. You know, I
have to really, I think, listen to Hot Fuss, you know,
start to finish, to really fully embrace it. That's been
(14:48):
on one of my like to do lists of just
listen to The Killer's discography because they're excellent. And yeah,
that song tasteful, perfect, so well done. And then what
could be considered perhaps a guilty pleasure band for me,
and that is my chemical romance and Frankieero's guitar solo
(15:10):
on I Don't Love You Now I Don't Love You
is one of my favorite, if not favorite MCR tracks.
It's well performed, it is melancholy and mournful, and the
guitar solo matches that so well. Now, Frank Hero is
(15:30):
obviously very heavily heavily influenced by guitar players like Brian
May from Queen. It's just really tasteful and mournful in
all the best ways without necessarily having to be mournful
in the bluesy way. It's still very much in their
genre whatever you want to call that, pop punk, emo,
(15:54):
a little bit of all of it, and particularly on
that Black Parade record, they were experimenting with a lot
of different sounds. I do think it's one of the
best albums of the era, certainly of the last twenty
years or so. It's a great listen and the guitar
solo and I Don't Love You is just chef's kiss.
It's phenomenal. So now let's get into my top ten. Now,
(16:18):
these are not necessarily in order of my preference. It
just so happens that as I was going through them,
I kind of arbitrarily ranked them. Now, most of the
songs on here are what would fall under the hair
band umbrella, with the exception of one. Okay, So first
(16:39):
and foremost at number ten we have Frank Hannon of Tesla,
the band, not the Car Company Love song that is
a bluesy tasteful It sounds like exactly what the song
is telling you about, right, love will find a way Right,
(17:04):
It's got everything that you want. I think that those
long sustained notes at different points, mixed in with a
little bit of shreddiness, but all very melodic. I didn't
want to, like just be constantly making the noises with
my mouth, but that is my barometer. Can I humme
(17:25):
along to it? Right? And you can to all of
these songs that I'm gonna mention or they're so memorable
even if you can't necessarily replicate it, but the tunefulness
of it. Frank Hannon and Tommy Skio, by the way,
are both really really frickin good guitarists, and again because
(17:46):
of the genre that they play, I don't think they've
always gotten the credit from outside the circles. No. Sure,
A lot of these bands that are on here have
made the cover of Guitar World magazine, for example, where
Game Knows Game, but with critics and those kind of
things where they don't look at the songs and the
catalog of the bands from this era as being as
(18:08):
worthy as the bands that came out in the seventies
that all of these bands were basically emulating. I mean,
Tesla is obviously coming more from a bluesy like Rolling
Stones kind of vibe more than anything else but their
own sound. Completely. Yeah, love song Tesla. Frank Cannon top notch.
(18:32):
The next guy I think is criminally underrated, not just
as a soloist, as a lead player, but as a singer,
as a songwriter, as a rhythm guitar player. He can
do it absolutely all. The song itself is a classic.
(18:52):
It is one of those tried and true songs that
one hundred years from now people are going to know about.
And this is Living on a Prayer by bon Jovi
and Richie sam Bora's solo on This is shorts, Okay,
shorts in and out, but it is phenomenal. Richie has
(19:16):
a lot of tricks up his sleeve that some other
guitar players of the time wouldn't necessarily put together. And
you think of them, I think many people do, as
were they hair Man. You can go check out the
bonjo of the episode that I did here on the
Stuck in the Middle podcast, and they kind of were
they kind of were they kind of transcend that little
(19:41):
little subgenre of rock and roll. They're probably just a
rock and roll band, and that's great. Richie's guitar solo
on this well now now ba now mayo now no
no now no no no no, you know what I mean,
I do the whole thing. Damn, damn better no no
now ban no no no no no no now man right,
(20:03):
it's hummable. That's the whole key. It didn't need to
be long. Why it was the break that you needed.
He got his little moment to shine. But the guitar
solo wasn't overpowering the song because sometimes when they want
to just go and shred, there's not necessarily a lot
of rhyme or reason. Sure, you can say, well the
(20:24):
scale is, you know, with all the root notes that
are in the basis of the song. Great, that's wonderful,
But it doesn't have a melody. You gotta give me
something to latch onto so that I'm thinking about it
ten twenty thirty forty years down the line and I
could completely replicate that song that solo in my head.
(20:47):
Ah so good. Now the next one is absolutely pyrotechnic,
absolutely super high technical, but it is gorgeous and a
guy that the guitar players will say was one of
the best guitar players of any era, but for whatever reason,
(21:08):
disillusionment with the business, the business of the business, he's
somewhat been He's kind of become a mythological creature. And
I'm talking about Vito Brata from White Lion and the
guitar solo in Wait is bonkers. He's going all over
the place, but it's an encapsulation of the emotion, the feeling.
(21:35):
It's just phrased so perfectly and again not super long.
You know, one of the guys who could have easily
been on the list, but he's on everyone's list. Slash.
It's like every guitar solo you're like, wait a minute,
how long is this song? Five minutes song? Two minutes
of solo. I'm exaggerating, But you can do it in
(21:55):
way less time and still be just as impactful. It
doesn't have to be jerk off moment, and I think
that's what some guitar solos were kind of becoming. It
was it was almost too much. I do blame a
little bit of Jimmy Page for that. I gotta be honest,
Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck all the Yardbird guys, you know,
(22:18):
clapped into It's like, oh, it's got to be a
two minute break, and it's like, no, it doesn't. And
I'm exaggerating. I mean, you figure some guitar solos are
still probably a good thirty seconds long when you could
do it in ten or twenty I don't know, maybe
forty five seconds. You bring it down to thirty or
twelve ad But yeah, Vito Brada's guitar solo in wait
is absolutely astonishing and it holds up. It holds up.
(22:44):
Now the next guy gets completely relegated kind of to
less than status, and I think it's because the band
kind of collectively it's so interesting. They're a band that,
if you really take them at their peak, at their
very height of their powers, at least three out of
the four of them were considered amongst the best of
(23:06):
what they were doing at that time. I'm talking about
Motley Crue. Now, there's a lot of accusations thrown at
the band now that a lot of it is triggers
and backing tracks and all that. I've seen Motley Crue
live and I saw them during feel Good and I
gotta tell you they kicked ass. They kicked ass and
(23:31):
there was no doubt that they were out there playing.
Could they have had backing tracks, sure, that's fine, but
Vince was still in full voice, knew all the lyrics. Tommy,
Tommy is usually the guy who's most well regarded for
the band. Nikki six is not really regarded as a
bass player, but he wrote all the songs, so he's
obviously a pretty competent musician. But Mick Mars somehow just
(23:57):
gets lost in the shuffle great riffs. But his crowning
achievement is the guitar solo for Home Sweet Home. I mean,
I don't have the technical terms and I can see that.
I just go all by ear and feel, and that
(24:19):
is a transcendent guitar solo on the album that many
Crew fans will say is their weakest. But Home Sweet
Home is a banger of a track, and that guitar
solo does so many things, like there's that you know,
it kind of switches right, it's really high mew new
(24:42):
doom doom, doom doom, right, but then it's like that,
I guess it's a not a change in pitch octave.
I don't know, but there's something so elegant about it.
(25:03):
They're not an elegant band. They came out strong right
out of the gate. You think about the old Live
Wire stuff d D and Home Sweet Home is so delicate,
and the guitar solo really expresses how it feels to
be on the road away from loved ones. It's a bluesy,
(25:26):
feel filled guitar solo that is amongst one of the
best guitar solos of all time, and it needs to
be appreciated for what it is because it is excellent.
Just it's excellent. So the next one is my favorite
band of all time and certainly not a hair band,
(25:47):
But there is a guitar solo on the Angel Dust
record by Faith No More. Talking about the mighty Jim
Martin and the guitar solo for Everything's Ruined Again, Super short, memorable.
I consider it to be one of the most perfect
(26:09):
guitar solos in history. Now I know I put it
at six. Again, I told you it was kind of arbitrary.
If I really take my gut, it's amongst the best
guitar solos ever. Probably on my list would be like
one or two. It's that good because it is the
kind of song that is oddly structured, kind of weird instrumentation.
(26:33):
You know, it's driven by piano, as many Faith and
More tunes are, and the guitar solo goes to this
whole melodic place that only the last half of the
song really goes to. It's like the guitar solo sets
the stage for the remainder of the song, so instead
of it being a break, it's actually bringing things up.
(26:56):
It's the crescendo in a lot of ways, and now
it's the through line for the remainder of the song,
which is much more melodic than the first part of it. Yeah,
it's sublime and it really is a master work of
the guitar solo. So it's interesting is that this was
coming out so Angel Does is around the time they
did that recording of Easy. Jim Martin played both of
(27:19):
these solos, and I think it was a testament to
him of understanding how to be really tasty, really tasty,
taste full in the guitar solo without having to be overpowering.
It'll not your socks off, trust me. Check it out.
Another guy from a band that gets kind of underrated
(27:39):
in part because of drama and dissension, within the band.
But this, Wow, every time I hear it, I'm just like,
how is this not on people's top ten lists of
great guitar solos. I'm talking about Scottie Hill from skid
(27:59):
Row and I Remember You. He does some neat little
tapping and barring and some squeals and harmonics, but it's
so pretty. It's a pretty guitar solo and it ends
very mournfully with his use of the whammie bar and
(28:23):
it's coming down and it brings you into that last verse.
It's so fucking good. Like Scottie Hill created that guitar
solo and if he did nothing else in his career,
he can say he did the guitar solo and I
Remember You and it is a masterwork of exactly what
(28:47):
you expect in a big eighties power ballad. It's really
push the emotion of the song through the guitar solo,
so you're not losing anything. It's not a break for
break's sake, because not, hey, look what I can do.
It is this is my emotional response to the lyrical
(29:08):
content of the song. This is how I am giving
to the world what the singer is doing through voice.
He's doing through guitar. Holy Cow. Yeah, if you haven't
heard I remember you in a minute, listen to the guy.
Listen to that guitar solo. There's a lot of videos
actually on YouTube focused on this guitar solo, and it's
(29:32):
warranted because it's just unreal. That is God given talent
into his hands and this moment of creation truly spectacular. Now,
the next one is from a band that is also
one of my all time favorites, one of my all
time favorite singer songwriters in Jamie Laine. I'm talking about Warrant.
(29:53):
But there is some debate about who actually played the
guitar solo. Now. Joey Allen and Eric Turner have both
said that solos, by and large on the first two records,
So Dirty, Rotten, Filthy, Stinking Rich and Cherry Pie guitar
solos were done for the most part by a gentleman
(30:14):
by the name of Mike Slammer or Slammer, and they
were all still pretty new at their instruments. Yeah, they
did the sunset strip and they've been touring and all
of that. But that melodic piece that you get the
guitar solos on those first two Warrant records were either
(30:37):
played by Mike Slammer or C. C. Deville from Poison,
and those guys now can play them phenomenally, and Mike
Slammer ended up becoming the guitar teacher for Joey Allen,
who's the lead guitar player for Warrent, or most of
the guitar solos for Warrent. Eric Turner plays them as well.
But there's one guitar solo in particular that if Mike
(30:57):
did it unbelievable and that sometimes she cries. You know,
I read somewhere that people said it was structured in
a way kind of like a gospel song. I've always
imagined it kind of as a country song. Sometimes she
Cries could absolutely be recorded by a country artist and
(31:18):
it would make sense. And that guitar solo is proof
positive that it would work as a country music song.
It's so good because like it ends with well before
it breaks into the solo, Jenny singing maybe give love
(31:38):
just one more shot? Yeah, and it's like DD no, no,
don't don't by own own bow out boone barrel own
own now right. It's immediate, It's yeah, it's soulful. It's
a really soulful guitar solo, and honestly, when you look
(31:59):
at work that the band did on later records, the
guitar soloing is not as song appropriate. So that's what
I mean by bringing in a session player who can
come in and say we need solos. He was finding
the meat of the song and laying down the solo
(32:21):
that was appropriate to encapsulate the emotion and the feeling
behind the imagery that was being created. And sometimes she
cries is sick. It's great guitar playing. Check it out
if you haven't heard it now. One of my other
all time like favorite bands like I do have like
(32:42):
a rotating top five, but many times throughout my life
I was carried through tough times by a band called
Striper Christian hair metal. They're still putting out great music.
They've actually just gotten heavier and heavier and heavier as
each decade has gone on, really far away from the
pop meta stuff that they had done. But what's interesting
(33:02):
is that, admittedly one of my least favorite sounding albums
is actually where the song I'm going to reference comes from.
So Soldiers on Command, great sounding, very British heavy metal sound,
to Hell with the Devil, muscular, really just great guitar sounds,
(33:29):
just fantastic sounding album. That might have been Fairburn on that.
But the same guy Bohill who did Warren's first couple
of records, I think was two into orchestration and he
always wanted to add keyboards and atmosphere, which I think
(33:50):
detracts from the music. But nevertheless, I was stuck between
two songs. The guitar solo on Call it's good guitar
solo on Free. The guitar solo from to Hell with
the Devil is a blistering heavy metal guitar solo Soldiers
(34:11):
on Command. Hell of a guitar solo, but the most melodic, memorable,
perfect for the song. Guitar solo. It's a dual guitar
solo from Michael Sweet and Oz Fox and I'll Be
There for You. My Kid's a big note and they
go right into the dual guitars and it is pitch perfect. Ah,
(34:36):
It's got its own melody, and it's so gorgeous and
so lush, and the two of them play so well
together and they do to this day. They harmonize beautifully
together because Oz can hit some of those high parts.
So like if Michael has got a part where it
goes pretty high, are really high, and he's not yet there.
(34:57):
They can kind of trade off temporarily so they can
catch their breath and get to that next octave. They
work so great together, and yeah, I'll be there for you.
That solo is really really good. And they're very technical
guitar players, and they don't really get enough credit. I
think likely because a it's hair metal, be its Christian
(35:18):
hair metal, like those are two strikes where their musicianship
is constantly underrated. And as guitar players in particular, they're
really really good. And now the guy that all the
serious guitarists, all the guys with their notepads and writing
out their own tabs and watching video over and over again,
(35:43):
this guy's sloppy. This guy is a cokehead. This guy
is this He's not technical. He is just a clumsy
punk rock guitar player. Some of the greatest guitar solos
in the history of rock and roll music come from
this man. I don't care if he's a technician or not.
(36:05):
I wouldn't know. I'm not a very good guitar player.
I'm three chords, power chords. That's it. I can play
some dirty punk rock and that's about it. We're not
even talking sophisticated punk rock because there's some complicated shit
out there. Okay, but for my money, memorable guitar solos
(36:26):
he could have taken up five of this list, and
I'm talking about C. C. Deville. So first of all,
I'm gonna mention the guitar solo and I won't forget you.
I'm gonna talk about the guitar solo in Fallen Angel
So good, many people believe, many people believe that Something
to Believe In is one of his greatest guitar solos. Okay,
(36:51):
I could go with talk Dirty to Me, such a
quick pop rock guitar solo up there with the likes
of guys like Rick Nielsen who could have been on
this list as well. But I've chosen two, and that
is the guitar solo from Nothing but a Good Time.
You could probably hear it in your head today, right.
(37:15):
I raise a toast to all of us who are
breaking our backs every day wanting the good life. Is
such a crime, Lord, then take me away. Here's to ya.
Maw ba boum boum bound now no no no, no
no no no no no no no no no no
no no no, I mean I can help the whole
thing now now now now I been planning. No no
(37:37):
no no no.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Now do man man man man mal Sorry, folks, it's
its own little earworm of a song within a song.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
So few guitar players do it that way, and Ceci
is a master of the guitar solo that serves the song,
so he he doesn't need to be Ingvey Malmstein. By
the way, I thought, oh maybe maybe Heaven Tonight by
Ingvey would make the list. No, he does a bunch
(38:10):
of whole, unnecessarily complicated shit. Of course he does. I
thought about Panama from Eddie van Halen. No, it's not melodic,
it's good. Does it work for that song? Do no
no no do no no no no do do doo.
But the best part of Jump is a keyboard solo, right, yeah,
(38:34):
he does a little bit of guitar. Think about a film,
some of his keyboard, some of his guitar. It's all
very short, right, possibly some of his best work. And
it's short and melodic, but nothing but a good time.
That is nothing but a good time right there, So
so perfect and number one because again I think not
(38:56):
only does the song hold up, people say, well, hair
metal doesn't really stand up to the test of time. Bullshit,
because songs like nothing but a Good Time get played
on the radio all the time, even today. Every Rose
has Its Thorn gets played today. And that guitar solo
just in Isolation is beautiful. It is their biggest song,
(39:24):
their biggest hit, number one on the charts. It is
a ballad about broken hearts. And let me tell you,
that guitar solo wails in the most mournful way, completely
conveying all of the emotion of the song. It's that
guitar solo that, actually I think elevates that song because
(39:49):
it's so appropriate and it's so right. I can't imagine
any other guitar player or any other solo for that song.
CEC gets slacked all the time. I think some people
in most recent years, particularly with the def Lefford, Motley
Crue Poison Jone Jet tour, people are like, oh wait,
(40:12):
particularly now that CEC's clean and sober, like this guy
shreds and can do pretty much everything with his eyes
closed to hands behind his back. Yeah, absolute showman and
very proficient guitar player. And in fact, I watched a
couple of videos if people were kind of breaking down
his guitar solos and saying he doesn't do anything super
(40:34):
complicated necessarily, but he puts things together in a way
that's unorthodox, and that another guitar player who might be
more technically gifted wouldn't have put these sequences together and
these chord structures and these note structures and these scales.
Because that's the gift what he hears in his head
(40:56):
for a song, go I got a guitar solo for that.
That's tremendous. So I think CC continues to be an
underrated guitar player, and I think he has five six, seven,
eight memorable guitar solos because he thought about how does
this fit into the song? Not about no no, Don't
(41:18):
get me wrong. C C. Deville was very much like hey,
look at me. He was in poison okay, image was everything.
He loved the guitar break because the spotlight was on him.
But he's still a musician who thought about the compositions
and how does he enhance the compositions. So I would
(41:38):
have a bunch of other I think honorable mentions. Tom
Keefer and Jeff Lebar. Some of their stuff really really good,
some really bluesy, deep emotional solos. I think of the
one for Nobody's Fool that could have easily made the list,
(42:04):
easily made the list. He has a like Tom Kiefer,
he had a number in guitarlo Somebody Save Me is
a killer fricking song. Yeah. I've kind of been on
a little bit of a Cinderella kick lately and going, wow,
you know, I had their first couple of albums. I
had Night Songs, I had Long Cold Winter, and I
had Heartbreak Station, and I actually felt that they kept
(42:26):
getting better and then the big grunge wall hit. And
do I think they could have probably found a niche
more akin to a Black Crose, where they could still
have been going strong with this really blues based rock. Yes. Absolutely,
I think a Cinderella Black Crows build back in the
you know, early nineties would have been tremendous. I would
(42:49):
have gone. But yeah, So that is my take on tasty, soulful,
perfect guitar solos. Solos that are enhancements, Solos that bring
attention to the melodic structure of the song, that give
(43:10):
you something else to carry in your brain. Beyond just
the chorus, and that's so difficult to do. I mean,
there's always been riffs. Riffs are very memorable, but think
about it. Some of your favorite guitar players, you know,
they played some crazy stuff, but could you just hum along? Hm,
(43:31):
I'm not sure that you could. Rat Robin Crosby and
Warren D. Martini, they have a few. Robert Sarzo, He's
got a couple. He's a hurricane, brother of oh wait,
Carlos Robert s Rudy Sarzo, Rudy Sarzo's bass player, Roberts
(43:52):
guitar player. He's a hurricane. Hurricane is Kelly Hanson, who
is now a member of Foreigner. Anyway, let me know
what you think. And are there any that I missed?
Some people go, well, I don't see any new No Bettencourt.
Some of Nuno's guitar solos are not super memorable while
being technically cool. Maybe Mother off their debut record that
(44:17):
could have made the list. But yeah, I'm curious, and
is that how you view guitar playing. If you view
guitar playing at all, maybe you don't think about it.
Maybe this has been a completely boring episode, Like guitar
players what are you gonna do next? Bass players don't
check me with a good time, So I'll do all
bass players. I'll do all bass players. I'll do it
(44:38):
because I have a couple of basses hagging on my wall,
and I decided that taking up the bass is gonna
be one of my future endeavors. Sometime when the kids
are all out of the house. That's gonna be one
of my things. I've been picking it up again, playing along.
So I could do a whole episode just on bass players,
to talk about Les Claypool, Flee. Maybe we talk about
(45:04):
Doug Wimbush, Geezer, Butler, m Getty Lee all really good.
I don't really even think about Flea and Flees really good.
Pootsy Collins certainly a lot of really great bass players. Anyway,
What do you think guitar players? What do you think
about guitar solos? What do you think I got right?
What do you think I got wrong? Let me know
(45:25):
and how do you do that? You can email me
at Stuck in the Middle pod at yahoo dot com.
You can find me on Instagram X and YouTube at
stockpot x. Heading over to the Facebook page Stuck in
the Middle of gen X Podcast please like, comment, share,
leave five star reviews, and most importantly, please subscribe to
the podcast. So until next time later, Slackers
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Back Back, bad Ba
Welcome to the Stuck in the Middle Podcast, the podcast
dedicated to the music, movies, and culture Generation X. What
is up, slackers, and welcome to another episode of the
(00:33):
Stuck in the Middle Podcast. I am your host, Jason Eck,
and I guess it has been.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
The best of times. It was the worst of times.
So the worst of times is that I had to
have this blood test done to determine if one of
the medications that I'm currently taking is doing anything at all,
and it's not, so that's great. But I don't have
(01:04):
hepatitis or tuberculosis, so that's great too. So the good
with the bad. Had a major work meeting the past
two weeks, and it looks as though things are smooth
sailing moving forward. Knock on wood, say a prayer, whatever
it is that you do, because yeah, I've what a
(01:24):
big meeting on Saturday, and then it's going to be
a relatively normal period of time for me in my job.
So I'm gonna revel in that since I'll have a
few weeks before surgery. And I had my first parents'
weekend this weekend for my son at college junior year.
(01:46):
And it's funny because obviously junior year it's his third year,
and somehow my wife and I still can't always manage
like the timing and what we're doing when and like
the time for things. So we couldn't make it to
the tail gate. His brother had a football game, and
obviously we're gonna go to football game, you know, earlier
in the day, and we just weren't gonna make it.
(02:08):
And my wife had signed up for like we're gonna
bring bake c D and we'ren't even gonna be there,
like in any reasonable amount of time. But at the
same token, I think it was a blessing in disguise.
Now we typically go up for family weekend. On the Sunday,
we go to Mass at school and then we go
to this Mexican joint. It's the tradition. I'm really glad
(02:30):
that we did because if we would have gone for
the tailgate. Now, bear in mind, we are admittedly the
type of parents who don't allow our children to imbibe
alcohol with us. They're not of age. We just don't
do it, like we're not going to be supplying you
your booze. Sorry. Other parents feel differently about it. That
(02:53):
is up to them, that is up to you, and
whatever choices you've made with your kids. We simply don't
allow it. And he was just gonna get hammered by
the time we got there. He was gonna be six
sheets to the wind. And I don't drink, and my
wife drinks very minimally. I don't want to be hanging
out with this trashed kid playing beer pong at a
(03:16):
tailgate with a bunch of other parents that I don't
really know. While I'm sto cold sober. It just sounded abysmal.
But he was so fucking hung over that he was
not the most effusive, bubbly, gregarious as he normally is.
He was going. But I think it all kind of
(03:39):
worked out, you know, it kind of is what it is.
And then next weekend, so after I have this big
meeting on Saturday, we have a football game, we have
the second parents weekend for my daughter, who right now
is a kind of a holding pattern where life is
starting to get back to some normal, normal semblance of
normalcy after a rough month break up with the boyfriend
(04:01):
and all that. So it's just funny that, you know,
even though our kids, two of them are technically, by
legal definitions, adults, the reality is brains keep growing and
establishing until age twenty five. They don't fully mature really
until then. So we are perfectly happy to still be
(04:21):
parenting as much of a struggle as it can be sometimes.
And how it was like, oh wow, our new normal
is having one kid in the house and our day
to day is easier, not having to worry about like
driving to and from school or you know, bringing him
to practice. You know, he can do that, and that's great.
I don't have to get up at the crack of
dawn for him to go make the bus for a
(04:42):
football game. We can sleep in a little bit and
then go a couple hours later to see the game.
Like it's yeah, it's just it's different. It's really different.
So I'm just going to be hopeful that I can
kind of keep my guts literally together with crow disease
until the surgery, and that my kids ca and all
kind of bring down the various things that are going
(05:03):
on in their lives that are sometimes stressful sometimes just life.
So anyway, what's the night's topic. You know, we've had
too many heavy topics, too many heavy topics between you know,
major celebrity deaths that are critical to our our our
(05:24):
youth and obviously last week a political assassination, and that
is a tough conversation. I wanted to keep it light. Now.
The thing is what we're going to talk about. Some
of you might not give a damn about this either,
and that is guitarists, but more specifically guitar solos. So
(05:50):
when we talk about the pantheon of great guitar players,
there's kind of a list that people go through and
they talk about the Jimmy Hendrixes, Eric Clapton's, the Eddie
van Halen's, the Jimmy Pages, right, these great classic rock guitarists.
But ultimately I feel that this ends up missing. Like
(06:13):
the whole hair metal generation that I was part of
had some fantastic guitar players, but either they weren't considered
as technical as their peers, or the music they produced
wasn't considered as I don't know, valid, whatever these demarcations
are that people have in their minds of what's good
(06:35):
rock or bad rock, or it's cheesy or whatever it is.
I do feel as though a lot of really great artists,
including amongst the hair metal community, that kind of shit
on certain guitarists and certain players, and ultimately what I
boiled it down to for me personally, is a guitar solo.
(06:59):
A guitar solo is not meant to be, this is
my opinion, a just technical showcase. Instead, it should serve
the song. And if there happened to be some technical
pyrotechnics in there, great. That comes down to feel, style,
(07:22):
but ultimately does it fit the song. My barometer for
a great guitar solo is if you can hummet in
the same melodious way that you do the rest of
the song. So I'm gonna come right out and say
I don't have on this list of great guitar solos
some of the ones that you might might think of.
(07:44):
Everyone talks about bands like the Eagles and the Hotel California. Yes,
certainly hummable and and and and well, right, we all
know it. That's great. It is a memory melodic guitar solo.
Don't get me wrong. It is. People will talk about
(08:06):
the solo in Stairway to Heaven b no, no, no, no, no, no,
no no, no, right, it's hummable, it is memorable. But
those have been done and done and done to death.
Free Bird, for example, one of my all time favorite
(08:27):
guitar players. I'm leaving off this list tonight because this
solo is on many people's top lists of greatest guitar solos.
We're talking about Prince and the Purple Rain guitar solo.
So simple, so melodic, so memorable. So here's where some
of you are going to get upset. Eddie van Halen
(08:53):
is a was a absolute beast on the guitar. His compositions,
his phrasing, his ability to maneuver on a fretboard has
influenced generations of guitar players now and far into the future.
(09:13):
Everyone puts on their list eruption. Eruption is not a
guitar solo. Eruption is a song that happens to be
all played by guitar. But ask yourself, are most of
Eddie van Halen's guitar solos, while technically amazing, that melodic.
(09:36):
I don't think so. I don't see. I don't think
that being a shredder and be able to sweep pick
and do all of these crazy things is what serves
the song. You have this super catchy song, you wait
for the guitar break and it's just kind of noise. No,
it's not. It has a flow it's interesting, good break,
(10:01):
but it just doesn't necessarily give you an additional melody
to carry through the song. So, while my list is
pretty dominated by hair metal guitarists, not all of them.
So what I look at the best guitar solos, the
ones that most serve the song. Some of them are
(10:24):
remarkably simple, but they're right in the context of the song.
So the first one is not hair band. It's actually
from the late seventies Thomas McClary and the guitar solo
for Easy by the Commodoores. I remember when Faith the
(10:44):
More did their cover. I wanted to just kind of
like play it for the guys. I'm like, hey, have
you heard this? They've released their own version of Easy,
and Justin has been on the show. His dad phenomenal
guitar player, and he goes, oh, man, okay, want to
hear the guitar solo. It's like, I want to hear it.
So Jim Martin guitar player for Faith No More, just
(11:07):
nails it, and mister Piccirillo, he goes, yeah, that is
by far, probably one of the greatest guitar solos of
all time, because it really is perfect and it's simple wow, no, no,
(11:29):
w it's so so good and it's not like, hey,
look at me, I can wail. It's this gives you
that break and it's emotional. Now. Mind you, A lot
of the songs that are on here but not all.
A number of them are in ballads where I think
(11:51):
you want that soulfulness that comes through. So certainly, Eric
Clapton has had a number of really soulful solos, but
he's on every list, and really most people look at
Layla as being his grand opus. I don't disagree. Layla
not the acoustic version from MTV Unplugged. The original Layla
(12:12):
is a breath taking composition, but we all know that.
But Thomas McClary from the Commodorees lays down one of
the greatest tracks of all time. But that's an honorable mention.
So Eddie van Halen, he is on my list in
the honorable mentions though, And it's going to be a
song that you're gonna go. But that's not Eddie being crazy. No,
(12:35):
you're right, it's not. It's Eddie being so tasteful. My
all time favorite Van Halen song is Dance the Night Away,
And instead of being this big leap up right guitar break,
and then it's gonna be squealing instead. He brings it
down and this is where Eddie's at his best. Doo
(12:57):
doo doo doo doo doo doo doom too. He's still tapping,
he's still being Eddie. Little harmonics here and there. But
it's so beautiful and it fits that song. And it actually,
instead of being the guitar break that brings everything up
in a way, it really just equalizes a song before
(13:18):
Alex comes back in and the song comes back up
for the remainder of the tune. It's, in my opinion,
Eddie's finest moment, and it's not this blistering, crazy guitar solo.
It's the exact opposite. It truly serves the song. Now,
lest it be thought that I don't listen to any
(13:39):
music past the eighties or nineties, not true, because the
next song would have come out in two thousand and four.
Crazy already to think that this is twenty one years old.
But a great guitar solo by Dave Cunning of The Killers,
the guitar solo for When We Were Young. It's beautiful
(14:03):
and it's a through line of the guitar work from
the earliest riff and how you get introduced into the song,
but it's amplified and extended. And I watched a live
clip of it. Holy cow, I would love to go
see The Killers live. I'm being perfectly honest with you.
I mean their drummer is killer, no pun intended, I
(14:27):
guess it is. But man, oh man, that solo on
When We Were Young was great, is great. Check it out.
If you don't know the song, it is fantastic. Now
they have a bunch of great tunes. You know, I
have to really, I think, listen to Hot Fuss, you know,
start to finish, to really fully embrace it. That's been
(14:48):
on one of my like to do lists of just
listen to The Killer's discography because they're excellent. And yeah,
that song tasteful, perfect, so well done. And then what
could be considered perhaps a guilty pleasure band for me,
and that is my chemical romance and Frankieero's guitar solo
(15:10):
on I Don't Love You Now I Don't Love You
is one of my favorite, if not favorite MCR tracks.
It's well performed, it is melancholy and mournful, and the
guitar solo matches that so well. Now, Frank Hero is
(15:30):
obviously very heavily heavily influenced by guitar players like Brian
May from Queen. It's just really tasteful and mournful in
all the best ways without necessarily having to be mournful
in the bluesy way. It's still very much in their
genre whatever you want to call that, pop punk, emo,
(15:54):
a little bit of all of it, and particularly on
that Black Parade record, they were experimenting with a lot
of different sounds. I do think it's one of the
best albums of the era, certainly of the last twenty
years or so. It's a great listen and the guitar
solo and I Don't Love You is just chef's kiss.
It's phenomenal. So now let's get into my top ten. Now,
(16:18):
these are not necessarily in order of my preference. It
just so happens that as I was going through them,
I kind of arbitrarily ranked them. Now, most of the
songs on here are what would fall under the hair
band umbrella, with the exception of one. Okay, So first
(16:39):
and foremost at number ten we have Frank Hannon of Tesla,
the band, not the Car Company Love song that is
a bluesy tasteful It sounds like exactly what the song
is telling you about, right, love will find a way Right,
(17:04):
It's got everything that you want. I think that those
long sustained notes at different points, mixed in with a
little bit of shreddiness, but all very melodic. I didn't
want to, like just be constantly making the noises with
my mouth, but that is my barometer. Can I humme
(17:25):
along to it? Right? And you can to all of
these songs that I'm gonna mention or they're so memorable
even if you can't necessarily replicate it, but the tunefulness
of it. Frank Hannon and Tommy Skio, by the way,
are both really really frickin good guitarists, and again because
(17:46):
of the genre that they play, I don't think they've
always gotten the credit from outside the circles. No. Sure,
A lot of these bands that are on here have
made the cover of Guitar World magazine, for example, where
Game Knows Game, but with critics and those kind of
things where they don't look at the songs and the
catalog of the bands from this era as being as
(18:08):
worthy as the bands that came out in the seventies
that all of these bands were basically emulating. I mean,
Tesla is obviously coming more from a bluesy like Rolling
Stones kind of vibe more than anything else but their
own sound. Completely. Yeah, love song Tesla. Frank Cannon top notch.
(18:32):
The next guy I think is criminally underrated, not just
as a soloist, as a lead player, but as a singer,
as a songwriter, as a rhythm guitar player. He can
do it absolutely all. The song itself is a classic.
(18:52):
It is one of those tried and true songs that
one hundred years from now people are going to know about.
And this is Living on a Prayer by bon Jovi
and Richie sam Bora's solo on This is shorts, Okay,
shorts in and out, but it is phenomenal. Richie has
(19:16):
a lot of tricks up his sleeve that some other
guitar players of the time wouldn't necessarily put together. And
you think of them, I think many people do, as
were they hair Man. You can go check out the
bonjo of the episode that I did here on the
Stuck in the Middle podcast, and they kind of were
they kind of were they kind of transcend that little
(19:41):
little subgenre of rock and roll. They're probably just a
rock and roll band, and that's great. Richie's guitar solo
on this well now now ba now mayo now no
no now no no no no, you know what I mean,
I do the whole thing. Damn, damn better no no
now ban no no no no no no now man right,
(20:03):
it's hummable. That's the whole key. It didn't need to
be long. Why it was the break that you needed.
He got his little moment to shine. But the guitar
solo wasn't overpowering the song because sometimes when they want
to just go and shred, there's not necessarily a lot
of rhyme or reason. Sure, you can say, well the
(20:24):
scale is, you know, with all the root notes that
are in the basis of the song. Great, that's wonderful,
But it doesn't have a melody. You gotta give me
something to latch onto so that I'm thinking about it
ten twenty thirty forty years down the line and I
could completely replicate that song that solo in my head.
(20:47):
Ah so good. Now the next one is absolutely pyrotechnic,
absolutely super high technical, but it is gorgeous and a
guy that the guitar players will say was one of
the best guitar players of any era, but for whatever reason,
(21:08):
disillusionment with the business, the business of the business, he's
somewhat been He's kind of become a mythological creature. And
I'm talking about Vito Brata from White Lion and the
guitar solo in Wait is bonkers. He's going all over
the place, but it's an encapsulation of the emotion, the feeling.
(21:35):
It's just phrased so perfectly and again not super long.
You know, one of the guys who could have easily
been on the list, but he's on everyone's list. Slash.
It's like every guitar solo you're like, wait a minute,
how long is this song? Five minutes song? Two minutes
of solo. I'm exaggerating, But you can do it in
(21:55):
way less time and still be just as impactful. It
doesn't have to be jerk off moment, and I think
that's what some guitar solos were kind of becoming. It
was it was almost too much. I do blame a
little bit of Jimmy Page for that. I gotta be honest,
Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck all the Yardbird guys, you know,
(22:18):
clapped into It's like, oh, it's got to be a
two minute break, and it's like, no, it doesn't. And
I'm exaggerating. I mean, you figure some guitar solos are
still probably a good thirty seconds long when you could
do it in ten or twenty I don't know, maybe
forty five seconds. You bring it down to thirty or
twelve ad But yeah, Vito Brada's guitar solo in wait
is absolutely astonishing and it holds up. It holds up.
(22:44):
Now the next guy gets completely relegated kind of to
less than status, and I think it's because the band
kind of collectively it's so interesting. They're a band that,
if you really take them at their peak, at their
very height of their powers, at least three out of
the four of them were considered amongst the best of
(23:06):
what they were doing at that time. I'm talking about
Motley Crue. Now, there's a lot of accusations thrown at
the band now that a lot of it is triggers
and backing tracks and all that. I've seen Motley Crue
live and I saw them during feel Good and I
gotta tell you they kicked ass. They kicked ass and
(23:31):
there was no doubt that they were out there playing.
Could they have had backing tracks, sure, that's fine, but
Vince was still in full voice, knew all the lyrics. Tommy,
Tommy is usually the guy who's most well regarded for
the band. Nikki six is not really regarded as a
bass player, but he wrote all the songs, so he's
obviously a pretty competent musician. But Mick Mars somehow just
(23:57):
gets lost in the shuffle great riffs. But his crowning
achievement is the guitar solo for Home Sweet Home. I mean,
I don't have the technical terms and I can see that.
I just go all by ear and feel, and that
(24:19):
is a transcendent guitar solo on the album that many
Crew fans will say is their weakest. But Home Sweet
Home is a banger of a track, and that guitar
solo does so many things, like there's that you know,
it kind of switches right, it's really high mew new
(24:42):
doom doom, doom doom, right, but then it's like that,
I guess it's a not a change in pitch octave.
I don't know, but there's something so elegant about it.
(25:03):
They're not an elegant band. They came out strong right
out of the gate. You think about the old Live
Wire stuff d D and Home Sweet Home is so delicate,
and the guitar solo really expresses how it feels to
be on the road away from loved ones. It's a bluesy,
(25:26):
feel filled guitar solo that is amongst one of the
best guitar solos of all time, and it needs to
be appreciated for what it is because it is excellent.
Just it's excellent. So the next one is my favorite
band of all time and certainly not a hair band,
(25:47):
But there is a guitar solo on the Angel Dust
record by Faith No More. Talking about the mighty Jim
Martin and the guitar solo for Everything's Ruined Again, Super short, memorable.
I consider it to be one of the most perfect
(26:09):
guitar solos in history. Now I know I put it
at six. Again, I told you it was kind of arbitrary.
If I really take my gut, it's amongst the best
guitar solos ever. Probably on my list would be like
one or two. It's that good because it is the
kind of song that is oddly structured, kind of weird instrumentation.
(26:33):
You know, it's driven by piano, as many Faith and
More tunes are, and the guitar solo goes to this
whole melodic place that only the last half of the
song really goes to. It's like the guitar solo sets
the stage for the remainder of the song, so instead
of it being a break, it's actually bringing things up.
(26:56):
It's the crescendo in a lot of ways, and now
it's the through line for the remainder of the song,
which is much more melodic than the first part of it. Yeah,
it's sublime and it really is a master work of
the guitar solo. So it's interesting is that this was
coming out so Angel Does is around the time they
did that recording of Easy. Jim Martin played both of
(27:19):
these solos, and I think it was a testament to
him of understanding how to be really tasty, really tasty,
taste full in the guitar solo without having to be overpowering.
It'll not your socks off, trust me. Check it out.
Another guy from a band that gets kind of underrated
(27:39):
in part because of drama and dissension, within the band.
But this, Wow, every time I hear it, I'm just like,
how is this not on people's top ten lists of
great guitar solos. I'm talking about Scottie Hill from skid
(27:59):
Row and I Remember You. He does some neat little
tapping and barring and some squeals and harmonics, but it's
so pretty. It's a pretty guitar solo and it ends
very mournfully with his use of the whammie bar and
(28:23):
it's coming down and it brings you into that last verse.
It's so fucking good. Like Scottie Hill created that guitar
solo and if he did nothing else in his career,
he can say he did the guitar solo and I
Remember You and it is a masterwork of exactly what
(28:47):
you expect in a big eighties power ballad. It's really
push the emotion of the song through the guitar solo,
so you're not losing anything. It's not a break for
break's sake, because not, hey, look what I can do.
It is this is my emotional response to the lyrical
(29:08):
content of the song. This is how I am giving
to the world what the singer is doing through voice.
He's doing through guitar. Holy Cow. Yeah, if you haven't
heard I remember you in a minute, listen to the guy.
Listen to that guitar solo. There's a lot of videos
actually on YouTube focused on this guitar solo, and it's
(29:32):
warranted because it's just unreal. That is God given talent
into his hands and this moment of creation truly spectacular. Now,
the next one is from a band that is also
one of my all time favorites, one of my all
time favorite singer songwriters in Jamie Laine. I'm talking about Warrant.
(29:53):
But there is some debate about who actually played the
guitar solo. Now. Joey Allen and Eric Turner have both
said that solos, by and large on the first two records,
So Dirty, Rotten, Filthy, Stinking Rich and Cherry Pie guitar
solos were done for the most part by a gentleman
(30:14):
by the name of Mike Slammer or Slammer, and they
were all still pretty new at their instruments. Yeah, they
did the sunset strip and they've been touring and all
of that. But that melodic piece that you get the
guitar solos on those first two Warrant records were either
(30:37):
played by Mike Slammer or C. C. Deville from Poison,
and those guys now can play them phenomenally, and Mike
Slammer ended up becoming the guitar teacher for Joey Allen,
who's the lead guitar player for Warrent, or most of
the guitar solos for Warrent. Eric Turner plays them as well.
But there's one guitar solo in particular that if Mike
(30:57):
did it unbelievable and that sometimes she cries. You know,
I read somewhere that people said it was structured in
a way kind of like a gospel song. I've always
imagined it kind of as a country song. Sometimes she
Cries could absolutely be recorded by a country artist and
(31:18):
it would make sense. And that guitar solo is proof
positive that it would work as a country music song.
It's so good because like it ends with well before
it breaks into the solo, Jenny singing maybe give love
(31:38):
just one more shot? Yeah, and it's like DD no, no,
don't don't by own own bow out boone barrel own
own now right. It's immediate, It's yeah, it's soulful. It's
a really soulful guitar solo, and honestly, when you look
(31:59):
at work that the band did on later records, the
guitar soloing is not as song appropriate. So that's what
I mean by bringing in a session player who can
come in and say we need solos. He was finding
the meat of the song and laying down the solo
(32:21):
that was appropriate to encapsulate the emotion and the feeling
behind the imagery that was being created. And sometimes she
cries is sick. It's great guitar playing. Check it out
if you haven't heard it now. One of my other
all time like favorite bands like I do have like
(32:42):
a rotating top five, but many times throughout my life
I was carried through tough times by a band called
Striper Christian hair metal. They're still putting out great music.
They've actually just gotten heavier and heavier and heavier as
each decade has gone on, really far away from the
pop meta stuff that they had done. But what's interesting
(33:02):
is that, admittedly one of my least favorite sounding albums
is actually where the song I'm going to reference comes from.
So Soldiers on Command, great sounding, very British heavy metal sound,
to Hell with the Devil, muscular, really just great guitar sounds,
(33:29):
just fantastic sounding album. That might have been Fairburn on that.
But the same guy Bohill who did Warren's first couple
of records, I think was two into orchestration and he
always wanted to add keyboards and atmosphere, which I think
(33:50):
detracts from the music. But nevertheless, I was stuck between
two songs. The guitar solo on Call it's good guitar
solo on Free. The guitar solo from to Hell with
the Devil is a blistering heavy metal guitar solo Soldiers
(34:11):
on Command. Hell of a guitar solo, but the most melodic, memorable,
perfect for the song. Guitar solo. It's a dual guitar
solo from Michael Sweet and Oz Fox and I'll Be
There for You. My Kid's a big note and they
go right into the dual guitars and it is pitch perfect. Ah,
(34:36):
It's got its own melody, and it's so gorgeous and
so lush, and the two of them play so well
together and they do to this day. They harmonize beautifully
together because Oz can hit some of those high parts.
So like if Michael has got a part where it
goes pretty high, are really high, and he's not yet there.
(34:57):
They can kind of trade off temporarily so they can
catch their breath and get to that next octave. They
work so great together, and yeah, I'll be there for you.
That solo is really really good. And they're very technical
guitar players, and they don't really get enough credit. I
think likely because a it's hair metal, be its Christian
(35:18):
hair metal, like those are two strikes where their musicianship
is constantly underrated. And as guitar players in particular, they're
really really good. And now the guy that all the
serious guitarists, all the guys with their notepads and writing
out their own tabs and watching video over and over again,
(35:43):
this guy's sloppy. This guy is a cokehead. This guy
is this He's not technical. He is just a clumsy
punk rock guitar player. Some of the greatest guitar solos
in the history of rock and roll music come from
this man. I don't care if he's a technician or not.
(36:05):
I wouldn't know. I'm not a very good guitar player.
I'm three chords, power chords. That's it. I can play
some dirty punk rock and that's about it. We're not
even talking sophisticated punk rock because there's some complicated shit
out there. Okay, but for my money, memorable guitar solos
(36:26):
he could have taken up five of this list, and
I'm talking about C. C. Deville. So first of all,
I'm gonna mention the guitar solo and I won't forget you.
I'm gonna talk about the guitar solo in Fallen Angel
So good, many people believe, many people believe that Something
to Believe In is one of his greatest guitar solos. Okay,
(36:51):
I could go with talk Dirty to Me, such a
quick pop rock guitar solo up there with the likes
of guys like Rick Nielsen who could have been on
this list as well. But I've chosen two, and that
is the guitar solo from Nothing but a Good Time.
You could probably hear it in your head today, right.
(37:15):
I raise a toast to all of us who are
breaking our backs every day wanting the good life. Is
such a crime, Lord, then take me away. Here's to ya.
Maw ba boum boum bound now no no no, no
no no no no no no no no no no
no no no, I mean I can help the whole
thing now now now now I been planning. No no
(37:37):
no no no.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Now do man man man man mal Sorry, folks, it's
its own little earworm of a song within a song.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
So few guitar players do it that way, and Ceci
is a master of the guitar solo that serves the song,
so he he doesn't need to be Ingvey Malmstein. By
the way, I thought, oh maybe maybe Heaven Tonight by
Ingvey would make the list. No, he does a bunch
(38:10):
of whole, unnecessarily complicated shit. Of course he does. I
thought about Panama from Eddie van Halen. No, it's not melodic,
it's good. Does it work for that song? Do no
no no do no no no no do do doo.
But the best part of Jump is a keyboard solo, right, yeah,
(38:34):
he does a little bit of guitar. Think about a film,
some of his keyboard, some of his guitar. It's all
very short, right, possibly some of his best work. And
it's short and melodic, but nothing but a good time.
That is nothing but a good time right there, So
so perfect and number one because again I think not
(38:56):
only does the song hold up, people say, well, hair
metal doesn't really stand up to the test of time. Bullshit,
because songs like nothing but a Good Time get played
on the radio all the time, even today. Every Rose
has Its Thorn gets played today. And that guitar solo
just in Isolation is beautiful. It is their biggest song,
(39:24):
their biggest hit, number one on the charts. It is
a ballad about broken hearts. And let me tell you,
that guitar solo wails in the most mournful way, completely
conveying all of the emotion of the song. It's that
guitar solo that, actually I think elevates that song because
(39:49):
it's so appropriate and it's so right. I can't imagine
any other guitar player or any other solo for that song.
CEC gets slacked all the time. I think some people
in most recent years, particularly with the def Lefford, Motley
Crue Poison Jone Jet tour, people are like, oh wait,
(40:12):
particularly now that CEC's clean and sober, like this guy
shreds and can do pretty much everything with his eyes
closed to hands behind his back. Yeah, absolute showman and
very proficient guitar player. And in fact, I watched a
couple of videos if people were kind of breaking down
his guitar solos and saying he doesn't do anything super
(40:34):
complicated necessarily, but he puts things together in a way
that's unorthodox, and that another guitar player who might be
more technically gifted wouldn't have put these sequences together and
these chord structures and these note structures and these scales.
Because that's the gift what he hears in his head
(40:56):
for a song, go I got a guitar solo for that.
That's tremendous. So I think CC continues to be an
underrated guitar player, and I think he has five six, seven,
eight memorable guitar solos because he thought about how does
this fit into the song? Not about no no, Don't
(41:18):
get me wrong. C C. Deville was very much like hey,
look at me. He was in poison okay, image was everything.
He loved the guitar break because the spotlight was on him.
But he's still a musician who thought about the compositions
and how does he enhance the compositions. So I would
(41:38):
have a bunch of other I think honorable mentions. Tom
Keefer and Jeff Lebar. Some of their stuff really really good,
some really bluesy, deep emotional solos. I think of the
one for Nobody's Fool that could have easily made the list,
(42:04):
easily made the list. He has a like Tom Kiefer,
he had a number in guitarlo Somebody Save Me is
a killer fricking song. Yeah. I've kind of been on
a little bit of a Cinderella kick lately and going, wow,
you know, I had their first couple of albums. I
had Night Songs, I had Long Cold Winter, and I
had Heartbreak Station, and I actually felt that they kept
(42:26):
getting better and then the big grunge wall hit. And
do I think they could have probably found a niche
more akin to a Black Crose, where they could still
have been going strong with this really blues based rock. Yes. Absolutely,
I think a Cinderella Black Crows build back in the
you know, early nineties would have been tremendous. I would
(42:49):
have gone. But yeah, So that is my take on tasty, soulful,
perfect guitar solos. Solos that are enhancements, Solos that bring
attention to the melodic structure of the song, that give
(43:10):
you something else to carry in your brain. Beyond just
the chorus, and that's so difficult to do. I mean,
there's always been riffs. Riffs are very memorable, but think
about it. Some of your favorite guitar players, you know,
they played some crazy stuff, but could you just hum along? Hm,
(43:31):
I'm not sure that you could. Rat Robin Crosby and
Warren D. Martini, they have a few. Robert Sarzo, He's
got a couple. He's a hurricane, brother of oh wait,
Carlos Robert s Rudy Sarzo, Rudy Sarzo's bass player, Roberts
(43:52):
guitar player. He's a hurricane. Hurricane is Kelly Hanson, who
is now a member of Foreigner. Anyway, let me know
what you think. And are there any that I missed?
Some people go, well, I don't see any new No Bettencourt.
Some of Nuno's guitar solos are not super memorable while
being technically cool. Maybe Mother off their debut record that
(44:17):
could have made the list. But yeah, I'm curious, and
is that how you view guitar playing. If you view
guitar playing at all, maybe you don't think about it.
Maybe this has been a completely boring episode, Like guitar
players what are you gonna do next? Bass players don't
check me with a good time, So I'll do all
bass players. I'll do all bass players. I'll do it
(44:38):
because I have a couple of basses hagging on my wall,
and I decided that taking up the bass is gonna
be one of my future endeavors. Sometime when the kids
are all out of the house. That's gonna be one
of my things. I've been picking it up again, playing along.
So I could do a whole episode just on bass players,
to talk about Les Claypool, Flee. Maybe we talk about
(45:04):
Doug Wimbush, Geezer, Butler, m Getty Lee all really good.
I don't really even think about Flea and Flees really good.
Pootsy Collins certainly a lot of really great bass players. Anyway,
What do you think guitar players? What do you think
about guitar solos? What do you think I got right?
What do you think I got wrong? Let me know
(45:25):
and how do you do that? You can email me
at Stuck in the Middle pod at yahoo dot com.
You can find me on Instagram X and YouTube at
stockpot x. Heading over to the Facebook page Stuck in
the Middle of gen X Podcast please like, comment, share,
leave five star reviews, and most importantly, please subscribe to
the podcast. So until next time later, Slackers
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Back Back, bad Ba
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