Guthrie Govan Discussion

[alexkhan]

Any cover of a famous instrumental tune that you guys would like to see Guthrie do? Not that Guthrie is taking any requests! I take late night walks with the iPod and decided to listen to some Gary Moore one night and rediscovered his rendition of Roy Buchanan's 'The Messiah Will Come Again.' I've always liked Moore's style even if I didn't care for some of his albums and certain periods of his career (personally, I'm not all that into his foray into the blues).

As Guthrie mentioned at the recent GIT clinic, Moore has that "angry" snarly style (along with the likes of Angus Young and Paul Gilbert, etc.) that is one of his defining characteristics as a player. Well, Guthrie certainly has a bit of that element too in his style and it's probably one of the reasons I find his style so appealing. So as I listened to Moore's 'The Messiah...,' I thought, "Hmmm... I think it'd be cool to hear Guthrie do a rendition of this classic guitar instrumental tune." There's an intensity about it that's hard to match.

Any other ideas or suggestions? Like I said, it's not like Guthrie will do a cover of any existing tune. I'm just thinking about some tunes that might be cool to see Guthrie do on a live impromptu jam. Another tune that just popped up in my mind is Jeff Beck's rendition of Charles Mingus's 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.' Yeah, that'd be cool. Can't really think of any other instrumental that would serve Guthrie right at the moment although I'm sure there'd be more. As far as songs with vocals that might provide a good vehicle for a GG instrumental (a la what Jeff Beck did with the Beatles' 'A Day in the Life'), I was thinking Prince's 'Purple Rain' and, for old metal silliness, Iron Maiden's 'Alexander the Great'... Hehe... Well, I can dream, can't I?
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[aveyz1]

I'd love to see them do little wing, just for old times sakes. I saw a youtube vid of him doing it at some Namm show (quite possibly Namm 06/07) and it was spellbounding. Some of the cleanest guitar playing ever.

[ShadyDavey]

"The Messiah will come again" is a good choice - I've always been partial to that style of playing and hearing Guthrie's take on it would be awesome

[sumis]

well, "messiah" is an outstanding number bot with buchanan and moore.

as for doing covers ... guitar covers of guitar covers aren't really cool, if it's not hendrix.

when jeff beck does "pork pie", it's genius, because at that moment it was a pretty unpredictable tune to play. now, it's allready covered and made a historic guitar performance.

there are a lot of tunes from miles around late 1960's. wayne shorter stuff, or tony william's great song "pee wee". that's a potentially great guitar instrumental. so is "prince of darkness".

i've done instrumental covers of a few kate bush songs that deserves better treatment than what i can give them.

jeff buckley's "grace" could be cool.

shit, i just realized it's an endless topic ... i'm gonna play som miles stuff instead.

.
.

[greenfingers]

I would love to see him have a go at "The song remains the same" i know it's not a instrumental but i would love to see him have a go, take away the lyrics and i think you have a great song for a three piece to get there teath into.

Sticking with Jeff Beck, how about "Scatterbrain"?, it is very reminiscent of "Erotic Cakes" in my view, they both have that 70's chase sequence vibe going on, You Dig. I think Guthrie could take that song to new levels.

Last but not least "Contusion" by Stevie Wonder, I can see him playing that song with the Fellowship with great results,

[alexkhan]

Pat Metheny Group's 'Roots of Coincidence' from the 'Imaginary Day' album. It's like industrial-techno meets jazz and would be a great vehicle for Guthrie to solo over. I love Metheny and he's one of the few giants of modern jazz, but let's face it: he's not a very good rock player. I'm always disappointed when he tries to play with rock-style distortion. Guthrie would to this great tune justice.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[van hellion]

[chelmsford123]

Speed Metal Symphony by Cacophony .. classic

[Chilton-a-tron]

I think It would be great if he played some sorta adapted/twisted version of some famous Spanish guitar music like Asturias or something like that... but great suggestions all 'round... keep 'em coming!!
_________________
"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"

[elydian]

Sorry to be rather boring, but I'd be interested in hearing him play one of Vai's seventh songs, probably Windows to the Soul.

I must admit that this is more out of curiosity about how his trademark tone would sound in a setting like that, and of course, his interpretation of a style that he usually avoids.

I'm also with Ed on the Metheny stuff, I've always been curious as to how his music would sound with the guitar tone substituted out for an edgier rock tone.

[icecap]

Would love to see Guthrie cover the rest of Lane's Powers of Ten album. Well... the more guitar centric songs at least.

[sumis]

zappa ... sure, he's allready done "zoot allures" for GT.

i must concur in that doing covers of allready guitar centric is lame, if it's not hendreix or zeppelin or something else with god status.

i agree with andy that it would be cool to hear more straight ahead stuff from guthrie. you know, a real book album would be cool.

i if there's one thing i hope that will change with coming guthrie releases it is ... that he's taken the burning-over-kind-of-simple-vamps as far as ... well anyone. the reason it works on the erotic cakes material is of course because he's soloing is so unpredictable, imaginative and funny, but also in part because of the 'odd' signatures, that spices things up and makes things interesting.

it would be interesting to either see what GG would do in a more genre specific context (straight ahead, blues, thrash, rackabilly, whatever), or in a much freer or less predictable context that compositinally avoids the "pretty and smart melodies playd over pretty and smart vamps".

i love the erotic cakes material, and i think it's a feat to take those compositional and conceptes and make them feel fresh and exciting -- but there's probably other sides to the monster that would be cool to get a glimpse of.

.

[ShadyDavey]

I think in light of the exhaustive list of Guthrie's influneces I'd actually like to hear anything from a player on that list because its likely to be far more interesting than any suggestion I could make - with the proviso that its the least guitar-centric song to allow for a little more musical interpretation.

[markrobinson]

He's done Goodbye Pork Pie Hat for GT at some point, I remember learning it for a solo gig...
_________________
www.markrobinsonsounds.com
www.myspace.com/markrobinsonsounds

[Delicato]

Why not Gary's "The Loner"? Or Purple rain maybe. But really, he could do just about any song and I'll bet you anything that I'll like it.
_________________
Jesus saves, but Gretzky scores on the rebound