PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic The slow, secret death of the six-string electric

An interesting article on the current state of guitar sales:

"WHY MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS"
"The slow, secret death of the six-string electric. And why you should care."

(cool graphics, too)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/the-slow-secret-death-of-the-electric-guitar/?utm_term=.33bba99fd653

This is so interesting to me. I'm not a guitarist, but have really missed guitar solo's.

Sort of a strange thing I've seen in current country, or whatever, is the emergance of a pseudo-guitar solo. It's only 4 bars long! It's not a main course, it's not even a side, it's that lady/guy standing at the grocery store asking if you want to try a sample I like it and would gladly ask for more please!

Somewhat odd timing on this, I was listening to Nickelback's latest CD that came out last Friday and I heard...dare I say...a guitar solo?! WHAT?! Now, you may not like them, their music, their style (music, clothing, hair, or otherwise), but...there is a solo! I personally think it sounds pretty decent too!

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/5LKOvlS3dnw?t=2m3s[/video]

Ironically "Guitar Hero" was not a guitar hero at all.

Thanks for posting this FJ. Maybe with a bit more talking, more can happen.

Darn it Floyd! Just found the article a few minutes ago only to discover you beat me to posting a link.

Seriously, the article makes some good points. The art of music as well as the art of making music is changing. The musicians that use to use guitars and other traditional instruments are dying. I thought the point that Clapton and other musicians that also guitar collectors are downsizing their collections is stark evidence things are changing.

I didn't realize both Gibson and Fender are carrying such huge debts.

Great, after 25 years of trying to play this thing turns out it is no longer cool!

I've been reading about the demise of the saxophone in the United States, which seems to be plotting a similar course for similar reasons.

According to this guy, mass-produced Chinese instruments have attained a level of quality where it's a better choice to buy a brand new saxophone instead of repadding an older one.

The demand for these instruments isn't coming from the United States, but from China, Russia, and South America. We just happen to get the benefit of inexpensive instruments.

There's a guy in my town that buys instruments returned to Amazon, fixes them up, puts a decent mouthpiece on them and resells them on Craigslist in the $200+ price range. That's an amazing deal for someone like me, who could never afford a "pro" instrument, but doesn't want the risk of buying an instrument sight unseen.

I've picked up an alto for my daughter in hopes that some of her EWI skills might transition over, and a tenor for myself.

Fortunately, my kids are exposed to "oldies" when I'm driving around, so they are currently unaware of the demise of the saxophone.

Typical golden goose story. The big guys crank out thousands of guitars, new models every year, special editions, distressed versions (for musicians too lazy to screw up their own guitars), etc. And their corporate owners demand bigger revenue every year. Then lots of little guys (and Chinese) see the huge sales and get in with guitars that are about as good for half the price which further gluts up the market. And at some point the bottom drops out. I'd hate to see Gibson and Fender go but if they cannot compete in a shrinking market then..."ByeBye"!

This was an interesting article, thanx for sharing.

As mentioned about saxes Chinese guitars are of high quality for a fraction of the cost of a Fender or Gibson. It's hard to compete with China in today's climate.

One thing missing in this report is the fact that many today want instant gratification. It takes time and patience to play an instrument and many kids today do not want to learn the basics. I could tell be the second lessons which students would stick with it and which would drop out. Now they can load up a DAW and record a song using loops, BiaB/RB, VSTis that have automatic playing programing like finger picking a guitar, etc without touching an instrument (this is not a knock on those of us on this forum - I'm just trying to prove a point). The attention span is dwindling!

Just my thoughts - YMMV

Interesting, but not totally accurate on more than one level.

No more guitar heros? I've never actually liked the term "guitar hero", but there are plenty of good, young players out there still. Check out Joe Bonamassa, doesn't get much better than that. Clapton may be selling off his collection, but Bonamassa continues to add to his.

Yes, rap music and electronic music doesn't need guitar players, but so what? There will always be young people coming up that want to get into blues or jazz or music that has soul.

I think one of the main reasons Fender and Gibson are having problems is not because no one wants to play guitar anymore, it's because they are overpriced.

Mario made the point about the chinese guitars and he is 100% correct, same or similar quality at a fraction of the price of the american made guitars. Having said that, I just bought myself an american made tele last year, but it was the first new guitar I had bought in 20 years so I figured I deserved it

Interesting article, thanks for posting, Floyd!

I know a guy who bought a Chinese knockoff Les Paul, the one that is covertly spelled "Gibsun" with embellishments to make the U look like an O. He then put Grover tuners on it, a Floyd Jane Rose tailpiece, and DiMarzio pickups in it, and it sounds GREAT! With his having some used parts on hand, he probably brought that guitar in for under $400. The Les Paul Standard it resembles would have cost him WAY more than that.

Only point here is to not dismiss those knockoff so quickly if sound is your only criteria. With a little tweaking they can sound good.

I started a thread on this forum a few years back asking 'is the guitar dead?' or something to that effect. I thought so then, no one else here did, and I think so now. I use FL Studio as my DAW, along with a couple of others, and if you go on the forums there you see very, very few guitar songs. I even hear some of the guys there comment that they hate guitars. Computer music is the wave of the future or technology, IMO. And I like a lot of it (for an old fart) and like to write it, too.

Pop music is about the singers and dancers and there's no guitars anymore. All the music is mostly keyboards and programmed music. R&R is long dead except for us old timers. We're a dying breed. I love old country music and it's dead, too. But everything dies and fads come and go. Maybe we'll have a resurgence (right and I'm going to be 18 again).

Country music is leaving a lot of strings behind also, it seems, like steel, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, etc. I went to Billboard website just to see what country music was doing these days and of the songs I listened to I heard only guitar, bass and drums.

Mario said that the guitar companies are pricing themselves out of business and I agree. The last two guitars I bought were a Squier Strat and a Squier Tele (hollow body). They tune and play just as well as, to me, as the more expensive Strat's and Tele's. They sound as good as well to me. But what's a guitar body or neck got to do with sound these days when everything you're playing through is electronic and it controls the sound? And at 72, I don't think I'm going to hit the big time anyway. So, as they say, only change is constant.

Charlie, this happened here about a year ago. My friend brought over his $3000 Fender Tele. I played his first then my $110 SX Tele from Rondo music. He looked at me and said "I just wasted $2900"!

True story

A few years ago, one of my work friends withdrew his 401K money and started investing in musical instruments, figuring they would grow in value faster than the investments that were available to him in our 401k plan. And for a while they did.

I lost track with him when I retired... but now I'm curious to know if the stringed instruments he bought are continuing to grow in value.

FWIW, I think he was mostly buying banjos, not guitars. Given the current popularity of bluegrass and Americana music, I'd guess that banjos are more marketable than guitars these days.

I have some guitars I'd like to sell... maybe I'd better not wait...

As far as the guy saying the guitar is dead, that is not new, people have been saying that for many years. Back in the 70s keyboards were king, and there was a guy called Larry Fast who was quite popular at the time. I remember on the back of one of his albums he had a quote "..and nobody played guitar". Well, here we are 40 years later, still lots of guitar based bands out there, and when was the last time you heard anything from Larry Fast?

Also lots of guitar in modern country music. Doesn't sound much like country music to me, but it is music young people identify with. My nieces and nephews, all in their teens and early 20's, love that music. I've heard some of it, some fine guitarists in those bands!

In my parents day the Trumpet and to a lesser extent the Trombone were the kings of pop music solos. Before that it was the violin.

The clarinet and accordion entered the scene.

Then the sax which during the early rock era, was the king of pop music solos.

With the invention of sustaining technology the guitar gradually took it's place, and the keyboard synth horned in too. Today the sax is rarely heard in pop, and usually for a repetitive figure if it is. (Fortunately I play for an older audience that still loves the sax).

Now the guitar seems to be fading out in the place of things like Ableton Live and other DJ looping machines. (Fortunately I play for an older audience that still loves the guitar).

Everything runs in cycles.

Like the trumpet, trombone, sax, the guitar isn't going to disappear, it just isn't the alpha dog anymore.

That's my opinion anyway.

Generally, China is great at customer service too. Living in Hong Kong, I've had US companies refuse to ship and refuse to deal with me. Those amazing single PA amplification systems that got a mention on our site are an example. The company never responded to my email and then the distributor said they wouldn't ship one to me in HK. Just saying. I have a PA company in China who will save a mixing desk or a PA for me from a production run and provided I find suitable transport will send it to me for peanuts. Their transportation quote was more expensive than the Amp. Nothing is too much trouble for them. In the old days, quality was an issue - not so now.

Your opinion, but supported by history. I was going to write about the same thing in response to this article, but you wrote it well.

I started noticing the slow death when reviewing CDs starting about 15 years ago, even guitar-heavy bands were just using the electric guitar for rhythm, leaving out leads. There are TONS of growler vocalist, chugga-chugga bands these days playing not only 6 but also ye olde 7-string and 8-string electric guitars, but there seems to be less and less lead lines and solos. This isn't 100% true, but the guitar solo seemed to leave rock music as a 'must have' quite a long time ago. What I have enjoyed in pop-rock lately, however, is a return to some really catchy rhythm guitar work. This was missing for a couple decades in my opinion, with guitar slingers like Johnny Marr seeming to be missing. These days, you have bands like Colony House, which are bringing it with pop-tastic, clean-tone hooky chord work. Here's an example that's an example of what I'm talking about: https://youtu.be/IBTB54ty-tc?list=PLKXpG3IlfP1p2of_2C1735cFXewK-h00G

A lot of people say that the death of the guitar started in 1962, when I started playing it.

i can't get past the WP sign up page on my iMac but I get the gist of the article from the thread.

We were watching one of Clapton's "Crossroads" the other night and I commented to Janice that there was no way you could fill a stadium with folks nowadays to watch guitar centric music.

Yeah, there will always be young folks who want to enter the fray but I think the movement toward cult status has begun. Sad, to us because guitars and vocals are what so attract us to a song...and a sax. Yeah, Billie Holiday and Lester Young!

J&B

Edit: found the article here if you have a WP issue.
https://pilotonline.com/entertainment/music/the-slow-secret-death-of-the-electric-guitar-and-why/article_04ccc8ca-b36f-548d-950f-d538eeb36e98.html

Death of the 6 string guitar?

I think not....


As long as young men understand the "chick magnet" power in playing guitar, and as long as girls go gaga for guys with low slung, amplified, 6 string guitars... guitars will never die.

Face it, it's way more sexy to play guitar than it is to play piano or drums.

Careful. You posted an awful lot about that new cabin of yours. I would hate to see anything happen to it. Those piano players can get pretty crazy from what I hear.

-A drummer

well.... Herb is in the home security business. You don't think he'd live in a house that wasn't protected by wall to wall video surveillance, do ya? And what fun is it to live in the country if you don't set one or two booby traps for intruders? Even without video cameras, in the country you can tell somebody is coming by the unmistakable sound of car tires on gravel. If the driveway is long enough, you have plenty of time to prepare your greeting (whatever form it might take)

Just sayin'. ;-)

Rumor has it that Herb's personal home security also includes the insurance company of Smith and Wesson and Remington and Uzi!

Proceed with caution..............plenty of caution!

Agreed, but the singer is the reason the guitar is having a slow, secret death.....

The way I see it is this:

It's a child's duty to rebel. This brings progress to the world. Children rebel with clothing, language, music and other ways.

So the child doesn't want to like his/her parent's music. Today the guitar is the instrument of the last generation and is as corny as the accordion was when I was growing up.

Notes

The guitar is corny according to who, you? Because I'm not seeing any evidence that young people think that.

There are three music stores in the city close to where I live, one just sells guitars, the other two sell a variety of instruments, but their guitar sections are the largest.

When I go to those stores, especially the guitar store, I am typically the oldest guy in the store, mostly it is young people checking them out.

"So the child doesn't want to like his/her parent's music"

Not wanting to like their parents music has nothing to do with not liking or wanting to play guitar.
Nice thing about guitar is it is not limited to one genre, you can play classical, country, rock, jazz, ... anything! .... so maybe a young person might not like his parents music, but he can invent his own guitar based music, something that has happened many times over the 80 years or so that the electric guitar has been around, that is a few generations of guitarists playing music different from what their parents played.

How many kids do you see drooling over a guitar player? Not many, most are going gaga for singers and DJs like Deadmau5.

No the guitar isn't going to die, but it has become the instrument of the older generation as far as pop music is concerned, and the sales numbers at Gibson, Fender, Ibanez and others show that.

Even country music doesn't have the guitar solos that it used to have.

So instead of being "king of the heap" in pop music like the sax, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, accordion and violin before that, the guitarist will just blend in.

I love playing guitar, but I can see it's popularity is on the decline and I'm not going to fool myself.

BTW, for the guys who thing guitar is sexier than drums, think again. I was in large bands for decades, and the drummer always got more girls than the guitar player.

Notes

But that's not because the guitar has become yesterday's accordion. And again, that point that there are no good solos in country music could be argued as I can easily point out a bunch, and I mean a bunch, of really good country guitar solos on songs.

Nashville execs are responsible for starting the whole thing about "no one wants to hear guitar solos anymore" because time is money and time is limited on radio. So as a result, solo's, the good solo's got cut down to a simple 4 bar solo/turnaround. But go and check out those bands and artists in concert where radio rules don't apply, and be prepared to have your jaw dropped. Some of the hottest guitar players are working in country music bands.

In general, the traditional approach to music, learning an instrument, is being replaced by computerized, mechanical methods. The producers have come to regard the music track, not countuing the vocals, as one of many production values -- lights, dancers, video effects, on and on.

(I was told that hip hop backing tracks come from three or four production studios. Most digital work stations supply loops that can launch the budding hip hopper into immediate stardom.)

That's only one factor. Electric guitar is a flexible instrument, and we are told that the musician actually plays the amp. I see it developing in that way -- triggers, controlled voltages, effects, etc. Kind of the Moog concept.

Now then will the system of tones and harmonies disappear?

The electric guitarist definitely plays the amp, along with the guitar and pedals.

And when you come to see me live you hear me playing a lot of guitar and sax solos, but you don't hear as much sax and guitar on pop records anymore. It took 50 years for the sax to completely disappear from the Billboard Top 40, and it might take that long for the guitar to do the same. But then again, like most of us who play the guitar, we hope that doesn't happen.

Insights and incites by Notes

So this was from the Today show 20 minutes ago...seems like a legit guitar solo (and band) overall. Not to mention the artist himself is fairly young.

There's A Guitar Solo In There!

What's old is new.

The fiddle seems to be going strong, not just in bluegrass, but in country. George Strait was a fiddle fan.
Listen to the intro of this "Closer Walk."
Mr. Travis is good with vocal slides, too.
https://youtu.be/sIfqa_741s0

The same article popped up on the Larrivée guitar forum, and I finally had a chance to read the article.

Oh good grief, what a click-bait title they gave it. This time, reading it made me angry with how many incorrect assumptions the author makes.

Here's what I wrote about the assumptions he made which I find to be fundamentally flawed: ( I might have gone a little hard on him for his Rush comment)

---------------


Assumption 1 not backed up by facts: Guitar solo heros - since there aren't as many now as the music styles drove in the 70's and 80's = death of electric guitar.

Wrong. Author is right that the guitar solo is no longer a standard feature in pop music;

However, name one Beatles killer guitar solo or the Beatle's guitar hero worship song. The Beatles had great riffs, but very little in the way of blistering solos. The Beatles were hugely responsible for the surge in guitar sales at the time. Epiphone was sure glad for the Beatles. The lack of pop-culture worship of soloist wizardry does not equal a death of the electric guitar. Here's the actual reality; there are thousands of guitar wizards across the planet today that only YouTube users know about. Guitar solo wizardry has become somewhat of a commodity. Long ago, that wasn't the case. There are under 10 year old kids that can play anything that the guitar heros of olde were know for - they didn't invent it, but they can play it. Pick any killer solo, with the words '10 year old' on a Youtube search, and you are almost assured some kid has a video posted of him or her blazing through an Eddie Van Halen solo and doing an insanely good job of it. You'll also find all the tablature and notation you need, the signal chain, etc. We used to have to pay for all of that in sheet music, magazines, etc. Ability to record a video of a kid doing a burning solo - that's in your pocket.

Assumption 2: Financial trouble at Gibson, Guitar Center, Fender = slow death of the electric guitar. Again wrong. Bad business decisions, among other things, drive Gibson's problems. Not a lack of interest in guitars. Gibson and Fender both (Gibson more guilty of this) have such a fear of moving away from their 4 core models and marketing them. If it isn't a Strat or LP, or Tele, or SG - then it's not worthy of investment; just figure out ways to make them cheaper overseas. Gibson and Fender both equipped the world's low cost country's abilities to make decent quality instruments for next to no money; which that is what enabled the millions to afford cheap guitars not branded Fender or Gibson.

Assumption 3: Gruhn's sales down = slow death of the electric guitar. Again wrong. I've been to Gruhn Guitars new location in Nashville. One of those Mecca experiences like shopping at Elderly Instruments in East Lansing, MI. Elderly has some affordable stuff, Gruhn does not. By affordable, I mean something that a kid can buy and learn on. I loved being at Gruhn, but that was as a 40+ year old man. They have a great selection of expensive instruments. They cater to the professional musician at his store, and he can afford to do that being in Nashville with all the pros and the wannabe pros. If it wasn't for Gruhn, I wouldn't know about the 8 string baritone that Taylor has on the market and on my 'to purchase someday' list.

Assumption 4: Kids learning 30-50 year old songs at Schools of Rock instead of newer songs = death of electric guitar. There are loads more resources for learning older songs than brand new ones. Lot's more lessons, lots more YouTube videos on how to play the older songs, etc. You learned classical music before modern keyboard music if you took lessons, that's just the way that it is.

Not an assumption, but shows the author's lack of understanding of Rush and perhaps his past-pop-culture only view of guitar in general: "Rush’s prog-metal is not for beginners, with its time shifts and reggae twist."

It's clear that the author has listened to exactly one Rush song in his lifetime: "Spirit of the Radio", and he heard it at his visit to a School of Rock. Name another Rush song that has a 'reggae twist'. Would you EVER characterize Rush, in a single sentence opportunity, as stating it has a 'reggae twist'? Did he mistakenly mix up Rush with The Police? There's hardly more than 20 seconds total of reggae in that 5+ minute long song, and quite possibly the only famous 20 seconds of anything reggae in all of Rush's decades long discography. For that matter, 'metal'?

There is no death of electric guitar - I would guess it's more popular than ever, it's just not controlled by a select few companies; same as music in general. Same as GM, Ford and Chrysler learning the hard lessons of having to compete with global competition.

Album Oriented Rock is not as popular since the early 80's; AOR lends itself to longer songs and therefore room for a guitar solo - well, that's probably not coming back. But neither are video arcades, shopping malls, the Big 3 dominance of the auto industry, etc. But do people still play video games, buy stuff, drive cars? Absolutely, more than ever. The types of things that are in these categories has spread out with less dominant character, but by no means are any of them going away. This is what happens with more and more individual choice.

An absolutely Excellent response. Thanks for the great effort.

An excellent and very true response Rockstar_Not.

rockstar_not,

Enjoyed reading your response. You made some excellent points. One item minimized or overlooked is the rise of the synth as a lead instrument, essentially replacing the guitar solo in recorded music.

The synth is being use to make crappy looped rifts in pop music. A real synth player is someone who is a real keyboardist, not some thriteen year old DJ wanna be who just want to creat music for clubs. Oh and the worst part, most of DJs don't own a real synth oor a midi keyboard for their virtual synth or even know any music theory. You want proof, listen to every edm song and hear the four on the floor kick drum and the same sanre roll.

Also, if you want to keep your instrument alive, you have to be to do so. You have to be the to showcase the use of the instrument in solos, melodies etc.

I don't know, I think that instrumental solos of any kind are pretty much non-existent in today's pop music. The last time I can think of popular keyboard solos in pop music goes back into the 80s with songs like Toto's Rosanna, Al Jarreau's Mornin, etc. I can't think of a single pop tune from the last 25 years with a keyboard solo. Maybe Bruce Hornsby's first hit but again that was the 80's or early 90's. Maybe a topic for a different thread?

Electric guitar and associated gear/gadgets seem to be growing in popularity in the Houses of Worship. Though, I don't have statistics.
Guitar solos usually don't fit well in church services but the variety of color tones, fills, transitions, and ambient effects is certainly taking it's place.

^^ absolutely true

Scott, you mean I can't walk into School of Rock and come sounding like Dream Theater????

Bands like Dream Theater, stellar players from top to bottom, ruin music for a lot of people. I can play scales until the day I day but I will never play like Jordan Rudess. And guitar players can play scales until THEY die and not play like John Petrucci. Those are the kind of bands that when I see them, I am not inspired to work harder. They make me understand the futility of the whole game!! There are Rush copy bands everywhere. Thus, kids CAN learn to play the Alex Lifeson stuff. Same for Van Halen, Aerosmith...

Remember when everybody drooled over Van Halen doing "Eruption"? All I heard was "He is so great! He is amazing! He is the greatest player ever!!" I have heard at least 3 dozen players copy that whole thing note for note. Doesn't that mean they are also great and amazing? They are playing the same stuff.....

I do agree the guitar is now sitting at the back of the stage, but the John Mayer types, the John Scofield types, those players who play in a genre where the guitar IS the instrument, they will keep the guitar alive. Whether that is true across the board of genres or not is debatable. I watch Lollapalooza every year. The big draws the last few years were the DJs who play extended mixes of other people's stuff sampled. Not even AN instrument, much less THAT instrument.

So I think it comes down to where you are looking. That weird SkrillX person, whoever he is, doesn't really even know music. He is a computer whiz, but he isn't really a musician. But isn't he popular??

So, you can still find a guitar out front if you know where to look. The basic premise though I have to agree with. You are likely going to find it in older acts, but it's there.

Can you even TRY to imagine Joe Walsh playing with a computer on stage??

OK - Here's a lineup of my favorite youngsters playing great music with guitar-centric (or in the case of Vulfpeck, bass-centric) orchestration.

Vulfpeck (eddie, you might want to look away, these kids are from Ann Arbor as far as I can tell). Really tight funk. Everyone plays everything except for Joe Dart the bass player - he just kills it on funky bass and I don't mean slapping.

Some of my faves from them:
https://youtu.be/w9COHCrwNQs (nice strat solo about 2:30-2:50)
https://youtu.be/4dpvyZBKg6Q (insane strat playing on this one, with slide thrown in here and there)
https://youtu.be/jRHQPG1xd9o (guest vocalist has some Al Green going, for sure - the guy playing the strat in this one also is a mean keyboard player, and drummer)

If you enjoy this straight up excellent soul and funk, subscribe to their YouTube channel - they'll get paid through the advertisement revenue they are now getting by having so many views on YouTube.

Colony House
Just great pop-rock. No guitar pyrotechnics, but slick riffs and a great overall sound. These guys are getting huge press. Radio play, who knows - but they've been on the Today show. The riff they do on the back end of the chorus sections is great in this one.
https://youtu.be/IBTB54ty-tc
https://youtu.be/DkfBxIH0g0k (throwback sound on this one to many different eras inside of one song)
https://youtu.be/Y4WkY30Sxd0 (same song, played live on Conan - lead singer busted a string on this one)

Silversun Pickups (these guys are more label supported and have been around for 15 years or so - lead singer's voice is a love or hate sound - everytime I hear it, it intrigues me and I listen more)
https://youtu.be/XBdeNVb3SdM (video is a bit disturbing, but it does feature some of their unique modern riffy guitar sound)
https://youtu.be/AG8fugqFn9Q (probably their most popular song - very heavy riff opening repeated at different points in the song)

Death Cab for Cutie (Band just broke up, I came to liking them late - the album Kintsugi is fantastic if you like 80's new wave guitar based sound)
https://youtu.be/srvcc8izHSU
https://youtu.be/io9ivuo4r6Q

Alabama Shakes (one of the biggest bands in the entire industry right now, with GREAT guitar work)
https://youtu.be/x-5OX7CO26c
Same song on SNL live
https://youtu.be/t3Lu1WbImPE

Not necessarily favorites, but just more proof that the guitar is not dying.

Bruno Mars (is there a bigger star right now? - so glad this sound with it's funk guitar and keyboards is being appreciated by the kids of today)
https://youtu.be/_8cK15Iv5qM (Live on SNL)

Kings of Leon
Live on Fallon:
https://youtu.be/SZDmwP1rOfM

I just listened to all three songs by Vulfpeck and they are really good.

Amazon has Vulfpeck MP3 albums that you can purchase. I think I will pick up a couple.

I'll listen to the others when time permits.

Thanx for sharing.

That SINGER in Vulfpeck!! Sounds WAY too much like Al Jarreau!!! And the old school Wurlitzer is cool. I'll probably pick up an album as well.

Though there IS that whole Ann Arbor thing... maybe that is a misprint and they are really from Columbus...

And Colony House sounds exactly like Neon Trees.

Death Cab for me kind of blended into the gray of alternative band sameness for me.

Alabama Shakes I never liked. Something about that girl I can't handle.

Bruno is the bomb, but his act is pretty much James Brown redone, and I was a huge JB fan. Bruno updated that theme and whoever writes for him does a great job.

Kings of Leon I have liked since they started.

Just heard about a band from the U.K. called Inglorious. Sounds like 70s heavy metal, meaning the singer actually sings.

Terrific analytics all around.

As a musician, it has always been like this for me: I'll hear a song and come away wanting to sound like that. I uxed to joke, if I had a dime for every hour I spent trying to capture the vocal feeling of Tammy Wynette, I coul retire. All, it turned out, in vain. My point is, as long as kids and adults listen to music and make their own, the six blade knife will have a place in our lives.

Here in another to listen to. It is a wild Knoxville George Jones show, 1994, with this very unsual intro. The band and sidemen hold this rhytmic, instrumental
round, while George chats up the audience in time with the band. Then, they seamlessly go into the spoken intro to "No Show Jones," and literally the audience has gone nuts by the time the song actually starts.

Now, it is a given that this backup band features the most amazing musicians in the field, as well as the Maestro. But still, as I say, figure this one out and you'll really have something.

https://youtu.be/nSgeM-Vtans

I have a great George Jones - Porter Wagoner story, but it's not for mixed company.


Regards,


Bob

Listening to something on Austin City Limits called Arcade fire. Very interesting band. There's like 8 of them who change instruments from guitar to mandolin to accordion to keyboard to fiddles to some weird instrument one of the girls played where she seems to be turning a crank with her right hand. Picture an oversized guitar with a jack in the box crank on the strap button. That's what it looked like. All versatile players. Music is like Dexie's Midnight Runners meet alternative meet Enya on meth.

Edit: I have identified that weird thing as a hurdy gurdy.

Sting played a hurdy gurdy on the Grammys a few years ago in a duet with Allison Krauss.

Arcade Fire have actually been around for quite awhile. Once the darlings of the indie rock scene.

One of the things I noticed in the article was how 6 string acoustic guitar was growing in users and listeners who wanted the sound of the acoustic guitar and other instruments in an acoustic setting as close to a back porch as they could get it!

Been there! Done that!

Back porch is better. (Live music is better! Bumper stickers should be issued!)

I notice in your youtube link that the drummer has headphones on .. a click for a country show??
Some would call that cheating ..
Or maybe he just needed to hear the rest of the band <grin>

I watch for stuff like this; and I analyze. If we are doing a 'show' there WILL be a click.
Good on them.

If we are jamming at a local small time pub, maybe not, but I assume at this level the show is planned/timed/clicked.
Just noticing

I can't imagine recording a song where the guitar wasn't considered .. can't even think of many recordings here where it doesn't exist in the end result.
It ain't going anywhere soon.


Really? We're a few hours apart. We could be friends, and this is what eats at you?
yer funny

O-H, baby!!!

Buckeye Nation.

As I was selling gear, I had interest in my guitar from a girl in that city up north. I almost didn't sell it to her because I didn't want it to go "there". I relented though so I could buy my RV.

Here's another band that is pretty danged popular right now, that I forgot about but that I am enjoying and one could even argue that they have guitar solos:

The War on Drugs

They have a new album coming out soon. I have recently bought their last album.

This is a pretty touching video promoting one of the new songs.

https://youtu.be/6-oHBkikDBg

There are fair comparisons between the singer and Bob Dylan, but this guy sings a little better; some 80's synth treatments, a driving bass guitar line, nice little figures at the ends of phrases.

Great cruising music.

-Scott

Nothing in music is really "dying", the overall market is huge and diverse. Jazz is dying, the guitar is dying, piano is dying etc, etc. Not true in a literal sense because there are successful young, new artists in all those genres but that's not what this thread is about.

This thread is about the overall marketplace from a manufacturers pov. If a market has shrunk down to say 20% of what it used to be then given cheaper overseas competition 20% isn't enough to keep Fender and Gibson in business. Look at this thread about the top 100 downloaded songs:

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=423799#Post423799

There's not much of what we're talking about in that list. Some, sure like I said but nothing like it was 30 years ago. Again, it's the overall market as a whole that we're talking about not the exceptions. It's like classical music. It used to be the hot, trending thing 200-300 years ago. Is it dead no, but it's not driving anybody's market either.

Bob