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Lexikon der Rockgitarristen: Von Ritchie Blackmore bis Frank Zappa
German
352 pages, Perfect Paperback
Published January 1, 1999
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August 15, 2022
It is amazing, or rather shocking, to see how full with racism and sexism the so-called alternative (sub)culture still was in the late 1990s, merely two decades ago. Judging from the list of newspapers and journals that these two testosterone-driven writers of this book also work for, I can assume that they consider themselves part of the political left-wing on the one hand and as subversive satirists on the other. And yes, I must admit, some of the jokes and other condescensions that fill up this flippant encyclopedia of rock guitarists are rather amusing - at least when you encounter them for the first time. Repeated jokes wear down easily.
What about the selection of guitarists that they included here? Well, I wouldn't have bought this book if a first flipping through hadn't revealed that they did include adventurous players of the instrument like the three great Fri's (Robert Fripp, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith), Henry Kaiser, Steve Albini, Caspar Brötzmann, Alexander Hacke, Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, Snakefinger, Marc Ribot. And luckily these authors don't make fun of these artists (except of Hacke, which is certainly ok...). Yet picking out these truly innovative artists gives a wrong impression of the book: The vast majority of guitar players represented here comes from the field of (hard) blues rock, and the author's benchmark for greatness of a rock guitar player is virtuosic soloing in the foreground of a large stage. Mere rhythm guitarists are condemned as losers, and if a rock band happens to have two soloing guitarists, one of them has to be the winner. The authors live in a world where making music is a competitive sport, not an art. (Though to be fair: The winner of a competition is not necessarily always the fastest one - when treating people like Joe Satriani or Steve Vai they readily admit the boredom that can come out from virtuosic speed; so even though this looks like a competitive sport, the jury is at least open to give marks in several fields. Let's say their idea of presenting rock guitarists is like a ranking in figure skating rather than short distance running.)
To sum up: A book that could be rather funny if you share the writers' value system, i. e. you are a white male with a slight tendency towards sexism and racism, at least when it is wrapped into jokes, and you think that not only Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, but also the Scorpions and Van Halen are among the highest achievements that have ever been reached in rock music.
What about the selection of guitarists that they included here? Well, I wouldn't have bought this book if a first flipping through hadn't revealed that they did include adventurous players of the instrument like the three great Fri's (Robert Fripp, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith), Henry Kaiser, Steve Albini, Caspar Brötzmann, Alexander Hacke, Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, Snakefinger, Marc Ribot. And luckily these authors don't make fun of these artists (except of Hacke, which is certainly ok...). Yet picking out these truly innovative artists gives a wrong impression of the book: The vast majority of guitar players represented here comes from the field of (hard) blues rock, and the author's benchmark for greatness of a rock guitar player is virtuosic soloing in the foreground of a large stage. Mere rhythm guitarists are condemned as losers, and if a rock band happens to have two soloing guitarists, one of them has to be the winner. The authors live in a world where making music is a competitive sport, not an art. (Though to be fair: The winner of a competition is not necessarily always the fastest one - when treating people like Joe Satriani or Steve Vai they readily admit the boredom that can come out from virtuosic speed; so even though this looks like a competitive sport, the jury is at least open to give marks in several fields. Let's say their idea of presenting rock guitarists is like a ranking in figure skating rather than short distance running.)
To sum up: A book that could be rather funny if you share the writers' value system, i. e. you are a white male with a slight tendency towards sexism and racism, at least when it is wrapped into jokes, and you think that not only Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, but also the Scorpions and Van Halen are among the highest achievements that have ever been reached in rock music.
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