Guitarists From The United States

"I remember Cliff talking about how his roommate at Berkeley, a Jewish brother from the Bronx, had introduced him to a far-out guitar player named Jimi Hendrix. "He'll blow your mind, Corn" said Cliff. And he did."

"Hendrix had conjured – with his vision and sense of sound, his personality and genius – the most extraordinary guitar music ever played, the most remarkable sound-scape ever created; of that there is little argument. Opinion varies only over the effect his music has on people: elation, fear, sexual stimulation, sublimation, disgust – all or none of these – but always drop-jawed amazement."

"I recorded "…Moon" on my own with a drum machine, then brought musicians in as they were needed. It's about a person who has a spectacular, meteor-like rise, but burns out or dies young. Though the song ain't about him, the nearest equivalent would be Hendrix."

"He did a forty-two minute cosmic rise in future shocks Star Spangled Banner in the back of CBGB's He stopped every clock in New York state and every heart that heard him and time itself was beaten and confused and fell lamb-like under the spell of his fabulous flashing fingers He played an encore at the Bitter End a heartburst Little Wing even the waiters cried and then we fell outside and in the dusty dawn of Bleeker street a sweet rain fell and Jimi died."

"He made all Manhattan shake and every street and sidewalk quake his stratocaster caused the mighty Empire State to vibrate"

"He was young and black and beautiful big eyed, perfect skin an' he played my guitar like a lightning storm like twirlin' feathers in the wind he could make it sound like the end of the world a fire, the flick of a knife he could squeeze it slow and masterful like the hand that brought the world to life"

"Jimi Hendrix is very important. He's my idol. He sort of epitomizes, from his presentation on stage, the whole works of a rock star. There's no way you can compare him. You either have the magic or you don't. There's no way you can work up to it. There's nobody who can take his place."

"When you listen to Hendrix, you are listening to music in its pure form … The electronics we used were 'feed forward', which means that the input from the player projects forward – the equivalent of electronic shadow dancing – so that what happens derives from the original sound and modifies what is being played. But nothing can be predictive – it is speed-forward analogue, a non-repetitive wave form, and that is the definition of pure music and therefore the diametric opposite of digital. Look, if you throw a pebble into a lake, you have no way of predicting the ripples – it depends on how you throw the stone, or the wind. Digital makes the false presumption that you can predict those ripples, but Jimi and I were always looking for the warning signs. The brain knows when it hears repetition that this is no longer music and what you hear when you listen to Hendrix is pure music. It took discussion and experiment, and some frustrations, but then that moment would come, we'd put the headphones down and say, "Got it. That's the one.""

"We started from the premise that music was a mission, not a competition … That the basis was the blues, but that the framework of the blues was too tight. We'd talk first about what he wanted the emotion of the song to be. What's the vision? He would talk in colours and my job was to give him the electronic palette which would engineer those colours so he could paint the canvas."

"I said, "You’re Jimi Hendrix, and anything you do is taken as gospel because of who you are. In the first show, you humped the guitar, you played it with your teeth, you stuck it behind your back. You just forgot to play.”"

"I want him to be remembered for what he was – not this tragic figure he has been turned into by nit-pickers and people who used to stalk us and collect photographs and 'evidence' of what we were doing on a certain day. He could be grumpy, and he could be terrible in the studio, getting exactly what he wanted – but he was fun, he was charming. I want people to remember the man I knew."

"You never told me he was that fucking good."

"Individual is unable to conform to military rules and regulations. Misses bed check: sleeps while supposed to be working: unsatisfactory duty performance."

"There's so many tight-lipped ideas and laws around, and people put themselves in uniforms so tightly, that it's almost impossible to break out of that. Subconsciously, what these people are doing, they're killin' off all these little flashes they have, cutting off the idea of wanting to understand. They forgot, didn't believe, or just snuffed the feelings or thoughts off to continue with their crazy soul. They don't have the patience to really check out what's happenin' through music, theater and science. It’s like a spaceship. If a spaceship came down and you know nothin’ about it, the first thing you’re going to think about is shooting it. In other words, you get negative in the first place, which is not really the natural way of thinking. It’s like shooting at a flying saucer as it tries to land without giving the occupants a chance to identify themselves."

"When the power of love overcomes love of power the world will know peace."

"I used to live in a room full of mirrors, All I could see was me. Then I take my spirit and I smash my mirrors, And now the whole world is here for me to see, Now I'm searching for my love to be."

"I'm a Voodoo Child, Voodoo Child, Lord knows I am a Voodoo Child"

"You're just like crosstown traffic So hard to get through to you. Crosstown traffic. I don't need to run over you. Crosstown traffic. All you do is slow me down. And I'm tryin' to get on the other side of town."

"Anger he smiles towering in shiney metallic purple armour, Queen jealousy envy waits behind him, Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground."

"Castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually"

"I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to."

"White collar conservative flashin' down the street, Pointing that plastic finger at me, Hoping soon my kind will drop and die, But I'm gonna wave my freak flag high."

"Well she's walking through the clouds With a circus mind, that's running round. Butterflies and Zebras, and moonbeams, and fairytales- That's all she ever thinks about. Riding with the wind."

"The traffic lights, they turn a blue tomorrow And shine their emptiness down on my bed The tiny island sags on downstream Cause the life it lived, is, is dead"

"You got me blowin, blowin my mind, Is it tomorrow or just the end of time?"

"Purple haze, all in my brain Lately things just don't seem the same, Acting funny, but I don't know why, 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky."

"Hey Joe, where you goin' with that gun in your hand? Hey Joe, I said where you goin' with that gun in your hand? Alright. I'm goin down to shoot my old lady, You know I caught her messin' 'round with another man. Yeah,! I'm goin' down to shoot my old lady, You know I caught her messin' 'round with another man. Huh! And that ain't too cool."

"Have you ever been experienced? Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful."

"We’ll hold hands and then we’ll watch the sunrise From the bottom of the sea But first, are you experienced? Uh-have you ever been experienced? Well, I have"

"Listen here, baby And stop acting so crazy You say your mum ain't home, it ain't my concern, Just play with me and you won't get burned. I have only one itching desire: Let me stand next to your fire."

"Waterfall, nothing can harm me at all My worries seem so very small With my waterfall."

"I got a bad, bad feeling my baby don't live here no more... But that's alright i still got my guitar."

"I don't really live on compliments. As a matter of fact, they have a way of distracting me. I know a whole lot of musicians, artists out there who hears the compliments and thinks "wow, I must have been really great" and so they get fat and satisfied and they get lost and forget about their actual talent and start living in another world."

"We want our sound to go into the soul of the audience, and see if it can awaken some little thing in their minds... 'Cause there are so many sleeping people."

"Definitely, and it's getting more spiritual. Pretty soon I believe people will have to rely on music to get some kind of peace of mind, or satisfaction, or direction, actually. More so than politics, the big ego scene. You know it's an art of words... Meaning nothing. Therefore you will have to get an earthier substance, like music or the arts."

"I try to get up every day."

"Start with a shovel, wind up with a spoon."

"I don’t want to be a clown anymore. I don’t want to be a ‘rock and roll star.'"

"I’m sorry, am I mumbling? Tell me when I’m mumbling. Damn … I always mumble."

"Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel."

"Sorry for the tune up between time, but what the hell, cowboys are the only ones who stay in tune, anyway..."

"Although I’m a lead guitarist, I’d say that a good 95 percent of my time onstage is spent playing rhythm. Consequently, it doesn’t matter how great your lead playing is—if your rhythm work sucks, you’re not gonna go very far. When you’re playing rhythm in a band like Metallica, what your right [picking] hand does is really important. Obviously, what your left hand is doing is pretty darned crucial too, but, as a lot of our riffs involve syncopated open-string notes and relatively simple-to-finger power chords, it’s often the right-hand picking and muting techniques that can make or break a song."

"I think heavy metal is therapeutic - it's music that blows the tension away. I think that's why people who have had really bad childhoods are attracted to heavy metal. It allows people to release aggression and tension in a nonviolent way. Also, heavy metal seems to attract all sorts of scruffy, lost animals, strays no one wants."

"Basically I just had to say, "Screw everyone around me - from now on I'm just gonna play what I think is important to me and our music." So I gave the big finger to all the current trends in technical wizardry, and just went off and did what I felt was best for the songs."

"Often overshadowed by Metallica's frontman, rhythm guitarist and band leader James Hetfield (more from him in a bit), Hammett might be one of the most underrated guitarists in hard rock/metal history. Hammett doesn't draw too much attention to himself off stage, and is more casual and laid back than other members of the legendary metal outfit. However, when it comes to playing the guitar, Hammett can deliver at a blistering pace without compensating style or flare."

"And I thought to myself: I actually have a conection to this place, it's part of my musical legacy. [Hammett talking about Scorpions]"

"[about Nothing Else Matters] James always wanted to be perceived as this guy who is very confident and strong. And for him to write lyrics like that - showing a sensitive side - took a lot of balls."

"Cliff was a very smart guy, a reader, very eloquent. I just don't understand why he went, and not one of us."

"Jesse you say Common Ground Does that include the ?"

"First thing you learn is that you've always got to wait"