Our Favorite Ridiculously Gratuitous Guitar Solos | While we all love good pop songs, as a musician it's hard to deny the power of a really sick solo. These are our favorite moments where someone said, "You know what this needs? A guitar solo. From me. It's gonna be awesome." And awesome it was...
BRENDAN (drummer):
The Knack - My Sharona (from Get The Knack)
Everyone knows this song, but most people only know the shortened radio version. The album version is 4:52 long, mostly thanks to one of the longest, most-badass guitar solos on a pop-rock album for its time (1979). If you ever get the chance to get your hands on this record, it's well worth a listen.
Do You Feel (Like I Do) - Peter Frampton (from Frampton Comes Alive!)
If your parents liked rock and roll in the 70's, chances are Frampton Comes Alive! lives in their record collection somewhere. My dad absolutely loved Frampton, or rather "Do You Feel (Like I Do)", simply because he could talk through his guitar during his solos. "He made his guitar talk! Amazing!" Pretty cool, dad. Pretty cool.
Mountain Jam - Allman Brothers (from Eat a Peach)
This track, featuring Duane Allman and Dicky Betts having a musical conversation with their guitars, takes up the entire Side II of "Eat a Peach." It can get a bit intense, but something tells me that was the intention. And the drum solo at the end is pretty spectacular as well.
THOMAS ORGREN (bassist/guitarist):
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird
It's THE classic guitar solo, and I love it to death. When I was a freshman in high school, my band learned it so that we could actually play it when that asshole in the crowd yelled for it. Somewhere in my house I have a cassette tape recording of us playing it - I was playing rhythm guitar, using a Boss Metal Zone for distortion, and when the solo rolls around it sounds like aliens landed in the swamps of Florida. I still sing the solo note for note whenever I hear it on the radio. People think I'm crazy...
In A Gadda Da Vida - Iron Butterfly
Another song that I learned freshman year of high school for little reason at all. This one I actually learned without ever having heard the song before. During the guitar solo our drummer's bass drum pedal broke so I put down my bass and climbed underneath the drum set and fixed the pedal as the drummer launched into his solo. I'll probably lose my hearing before I'm 50 years old because of that.
Derek & The Dominoes - Layla
This song makes me a little embarassed for Eric Clapton, because Duane Allman was just that much better than him (read: more tasteful). I still hardly believe the first part of the song exists (you know, "Layla, you got me on my knees") because whenever I hear it on the radio it's always the outro that's on.
RYAN LITTLE (vocalist/guitarist/singer):
Wilco - Ashes of American Flags (live)
It's almost impossible to choose the best Nels Cline guitar solo, but on the live Wilco album Kicking Television, he pretty much destroys the end of Ashes of American Flags. It's heartbreaking and pure and technical and abstract and just one more reason he is my favorite guitar player of all time. Of course, I do have to give some props to Glen Kotche on this one because his signature drumming really deeply reinforces the splendor of the moment.
Yo La Tengo - We're An American Band
As much as I enjoy "My Little Corner of the World," this should really be the last song on I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. It's epic. The solo is the culmination of Ira Kaplan's face-destroying noisy proclivities, his patient and moving sentimentality, and his incredible sense of melody. Ira takes a really solid, structured song and rides it out for a while before really pushing it out into another dimension.
The Velvet Underground - I Heard Her Call My Name
There's the line "And then my mind split open!" and the subsequent guitar solo proves it to be true.
The Knack - My Sharona (Mp3)
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird (Mp3)
Wilco - Ashes Of American Flags [Live] (Mp3)
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