Based on my current listening habits, and discussions I often have with myself, I thought I'd share my 10 favourite indie/alternative guitarists. I don't want to get too theoretical about that title by the way. Let's waste no time defining indie and alternative - any of us with any musical sense know in our heart of hearts what we're on about. One key stipulation though is this: there is a difference between what I hold as my FAVOURITE of something and what I regard as the BEST of something. I hold strongly to the truth that, in music at least, there are objective bests. Music that is factualyl, for various reasons, better than other music. But that's a very long discussion for another day. For now, these are my favourites. The ones that tickle my current fancy. Care to share yours after?
10. Alex Turner
As frontman of Arctic Monkeys, Alex Turner is most often hailed for his songwriting abilities, lyrical genius and eternally stunning vocal delivery - all of which deserve the prasie they receive of course. But behind that, people forget that that, despite the fact that band mate Jamie Cook is officially on lead guitar, Alex is the man behind all of the most beloved moments of Arcitc fretwork. The intros of "A Certain Romance" and "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor", the riffs of "Teddy Picker", "Fake Tales of San Francisco" and so many more, the epic shreddery of "Brianstorm". The Arctics were rightly hailed as the best of a new generation of British guitar groups, and the Alex Turner was the one with his fingers changing history on the fretboard.
9. Nick Drake
Now, this is a bit of a cheat. Nick's one of the most famous folk musicians of all time, hardly an indie kid, but I feel he falls firmly enough in an "alternative" kind of taste, and plus, he never gets recognition for his brilliant guitar playing. Like Alex Turner, the focus with Nick is always on his song writing and lyricism, but people overlook the fact he was a stunningly gifted, nimble fingered guitarist. The sound he created with just an acoustic guitar in his hands was mindblowingly beautiful. It was so full, so rounded and always flowed with a seamless grace that, in my mind, is unrivalled amongst folk musicians. "From The Morning", "Cello Song", "Introduction" and "Time Has Told Me" are all gorgeous examples of what this man could do with a guitar. His death at 26 is one of the most tragic musical deaths in my mind, but his legacy has grown steadily over the years, and you can hear his indelible influence in the music of the new generation of folk artists like Laura Marling.
8. Albert Hammond Jr.
If you were creating a list of the 10 BEST indie guitarists, Albert would be a heavyweight contender for a top spot. Back in 2001, The Strokes' exuberant, fuzzy, fresh faced indie rock hammered life into a music scene which was rolling in its own commercialised filth, still hungover from Britpop and grunge. The garage rock simplicity of "Last Nite" set the indie world on fire and the saviours had arrived. With their debut Is This It?, an album based on the insistent riffs and solos of dear old Albert, they changed the face of any guitar rock which has emerged since. The success of any bunch of white kids with guitar in their hands since 2001 is attributable entirely to The Strokes and how, with Albert at the guitar helm, they changed the sound of indie rock. "Take It Or Leave It", "New York City Cops" and "Someday" all sound as fresh as they did 10 years ago, even if their new material doesn't quite measure up. Rarely has someone called Albert ever been this badass.
7. Stevie Jackson
This is probably a name that will illicit a few "huh?"s from a lot of people, even fans of indie music. Jackson is the lead guitarist of Belle & Sebastian, probably the only band who could ever be called "twee-pop giants". Belle & Sebastian have a love-it-or-hate-it kind of sound, but Jackson's squeaky clean, lushly reverberating guitar lines are an instrumental part. People who are familiar with Belle & Sebastian can find it easy to perceive the group as simply "the Stuart Murdoch project", just an outlet for the creative juices of their frontman. Indeed, the first few albums were just that. He is still the drivign creative force, but the band have been growing ever stronger as a unit since 1998's The Boy With The Arab Strap. Whether through his own compositions or the embellishments laid on top of Murdoch's songs, Jackson's guitar work is one of the most defining features of the band's sound. Melancholy, romantic and gorgeously retro, it just hits a sweet spot in me every time - the sublime riff of "I'm A Cuckoo" and the huge sound of the guitar on "Another Sunny Day" are my personal favourites, but his embellishments are so nuanced and integral to the sound of a classic band that picking his best moments is a difficult, difficult task. The sound he's carved for himself has been an inspiration to countless bookish, hopelessly romantic teenagers craving something sweet and clean in the world.
6. Bill Ryder Jones
Now, our Bill inhabits a similar realm to Stevie Jackson in that his guitar work in The Coral sits side by side the stunning songwriting of frontman James Skelly, being just as integral in crafting the sound of one of Britain's must under appreciated bands of the past 10 years. The band first exploded onto the scene in 2002 with the timeless "Dreaming of You", with Ryder-Jones' scratchy jangles and nifty little solo helping to truly cement the song's magic, to such an extent that his guitar work on the rest of their self titled debut gets overlooked. The sweeping clang of opener "Spanish Main" was a pretty decisive statment about how prevalent he was going to be on the album, and indeed he was. As the band came into their own psychadelic way of doing things on subsequent albums, Ryder-Jones only flourished in crafting a distinctively decorative, warm, jangly sound. Some of the places that his sound shines brightest might be "Put The Sun Back" and "Bill McCai" but, again, his guitarwork doesn't showcase itself in specific moments but in its stunning role in The Coral's overall sound. Shame he left before the band's last album, Butterfly House. I hope he's got more up his sleeve.
5. Jonny Greenwood
Jonny Greenwood is one of those guitarist who you come to describe and you just think "what words are there?" Radiohead are a band who have become so revered that it's hip on the nth level to dislike them, and to class them as one of your favourite bands is often to be regarded as someone with a fairly unadventurous taste in indie music. They're one of the few genuinely huge indie bands of the last few decades, and, whether you think that's a cause for celebration as it demonstrates some mild remnants of taste clinging on for dear life in the vacuous, post-Armageddon corridors of the general public, or a cause for woe indicating how people think all you need is some weirdo dancing like an electrocuted halibut and making strange wailing noises to be artistic, there's no denying that Jonny Greenwood and his revolutionary guitar work have been part of the beating heart of the band. The bleak screeches of "Paranoid Android" still send electric shocks up spines the world over. The scorching wails of "Just" just kick arse every time. Even though there's been an auspicious decline in the amount of obvious guitar work on Radiohead records in recent years, 2007's In Rainbows showed that Jonny hadn't lost any of his guitar finesse whilst he'd been arsing about with that ondes martinot. Even the few splashings of guitar present of most recent release The Kings of Limbs were inspired, and proved, to me at least, that one of the best things about Radiohead has always been the guitars.
4.Tom Campesinos!
Not his real name of course, Tom Campesinos! joins with the rest of his bandmates from Los Campesinos! in keeping his full name a secret, opting instead to mark himself out with a Ramones style mark of loyalty to the band. Los Campesinos! are one of my favourite bands of all time and, for a band who only released their first LP in 2008, the intense love that their fanbase feels for them is terrifying. I think they have the destiny of becoming a true cult classic band and, like many bands in that bracket, their sound is a love-it-or-hate-it affair. It's overwhelming, cacophonous and lyrically as blunt and (sometimes) uncomfortable as being beaten to death by a large, metal-alloy statue of one of your ex-lovers. Tom's guitar lines are at the heart of the band's punchy, abrasively euphoric sound, and they consistently have the kind of earworming quality which causes them to be chanted back to the band at gigs - see "Death to Los Campesinos!", "You! Me! Dancing!", "Straight In At 101" and plenty more for evidence. The band have released 3 albums in 3 years, an astonishing feat in itself, but made all the more impressive by the maturation of their sound on all fronts, including Tom's guitar work. Last year's Romance Is Boring had a stunningly unified sound, with the guitar work underpinning the albums most emotionally intense moments, notably fan favourite "The Sea is A Good Place To Think Of The Future".
3. Lee Ranaldo/Thurston Moore
It doesn't get much more alternative than this does it? I've cheated a bit here and put the two Sonic Youth heavyweights as one entry, but that's because the interplay between their guitars is so awesome and integral to Sonic Youth's sound that the pair's work is inseparable in my mind. Sonic Youth formed out of the largely pretentious no-wave/noise scene in 1980s New York, and, after trying a few other guitarists, Thurston and his girlfriend Kim Gordon met Ranaldo and were buzzing about the work he'd done with avant-rock afficionado Glenn Branca. Sonic Youth, with Ranaldo in particular, were obsessed with exploring the possibilities of SOUND, rather than just the standard notes a guitar was expected to produce. This meant that they employed heavy use of alternate tunings, which, when the band began to gain prominence as a popular rock group, was fairly off the wall. The band have always been and will continue to be explorers of the sonic world, but their music has always been grounded firmly in song writing, stemming from a love artists ranging from Bob Dylan to Thurston's fetish faves, The Carpenters. This marriage of noise and experimentation with structured and pop influenced song writing essentially birthed altnerative rock as we know it. The ripples caused by albums like Daydream Nation is untold. Whilst their have been more than a few moments where they've disappeared up their own arse, it's all been done in the name of taking guitar music to a new level. There are plenty of great guitarists in the world, but it's very rare that someone comes along and turns the guitar into something new entirely, reinventing it for a new generation. But that's exactly what Thurston and Lee did. The ultimate guitar anti-heroes.
2. Graham Coxon
Choosing between Graham and my number one was a heck of a challenge. There's just nothing I do not love about this man and what he does with the guitar. Again, as the axe man of Blur, he's one of those guitarists who can sometimes get lost in the shadow of the band's front man, Damon Albarn. Graham is, from my knowledge of guitarists, the most underrated of them all. Nearly everything that fell of his fretboard in Blur, and in most of his solo output as well, is just gold. "Beetlebum", "No Distance Left To Run", "Coffee & TV", "Tender". "SONG 2!" Genius. Sheer, unabashed, irresistible genius. Even album cuts like "Bank Holiday" or "Badhead" have this subtly magical charm about them. He never blasted out with neanderthal like solos like Noel Gallagher. He preferred the wryest, most cleverly placed bits of fretwork, which Damon Albarn described as "more like anti-solos". His solo material however has proved that he can wail with the best of them - "Spectacular", "You & I" and "Freakin' Out" all being beloved, punk influenced gems. He's even demonstrated his terrifying dexterity with an acoustic guitar on 2009 album The Spinning Top. Graham's sound has had such an influence on British indie bands in the past 10 years and, even if it hadn't, it's never anything less than a joy to listen to.
1. Johnny Marr
Well, here we are. I said at the start that I resolutely distinguish between the BEST of something and my personal FAVOURITE of something but, in this case, my favourite is also the best. There is not another man who can ever be said to have more of influence on indie guitar music. Ever. Being part of The Smiths, our Johnny is probably top of the class when it comes to putting up with the reputation of your frontman, but that never seemed to stop the two of them creating indie music as we know it. Inspired by the likes of The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, Jonny engineered a trademark "jangly" sound which could soundtrack every area of The Smiths' emotionally panoramic catalogue. I very rarely agree with Noel Gallagher, but one of the few times I have was about Johnny Marr: "There's nothing he can't do with a guitar". The Smiths (well, Morrissey) possess that strange aura of being both at once romantically understated - the backbone of the indie aesthetic - and subtly flamboyant. That's as evident in Marr's guitar work as it is in Morrissey's lyrics and personality. The dexterity of the guitar parts on songs like "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side", "Ask" or "This Charming Man" is just sensational, yet never exhibitionist. "How Soon Is Now?" has one of the most cataclysmically bleak and massive riffs ever, and yet somehow, through Johnny's magic, heavenly touch, it never becomes overbearing. His sound is just so engrossing and enveloping, whilst still being technically unrivalled in modern music. Morrissey's introspective and terrifyingly clever lyrics were the beating heart of The Smiths, but Johnny Marr's guitar work was the flesh and bone that wrapped it up and gave the band form. Without The Smiths and without Johnny Marr, no-oe on this list (apart from predecessor Nick Drake and contemporaries Sonic Youth) would have ever started making the music they do. The Smiths are, like many acts on this list, a love-or-hate kind of band. I'm firmly in love but, even if you're not, there is no arguing, in any sphere of existence, theoretical or otherwise, that Johnny Marr is the greatest indie guitarist of all time. As well as my favourite.
Meric Long is pretty darned great. (The Dodos)
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