Harry’s Place Arts

It’s very odd, how much a male space a guitar selling music shop is, how male rock bands are. It’s not innate musical ability. Choirs, for instance, are female dominated. I would guess that more girls than boys take music lessons in classical instruments like piano, flute, violin or cello. Rock is male. Go to a rock gig and the audience will mostly be male with often the women attending there going as girlfriends of members of the band or punters. Yet women will go to something like Mamma Mia in a big gang.

I think it may have something to do with confidence. At an open mic of singer songwriter types I go to, one in four of the performers at most will be women and they will normally be more accomplished than the average guy who goes. The guys don’t seem to mind making fools of themselves in public, so guys start out pretty raw and then become competent whereas the women will only venture out if they feel they’re competent already.

However that may change with the likes of KT Tunstall, Amy Macdonald and Winehouse being such big names now.

‘Do you in fact need a penis to be a guitar hero?’

Noel Gallagher is both a penis and a guitar hero.

“‘Do you in fact need a penis to be a guitar hero?’”

A pick is easier to use, fits more comfortably in the fingers and makes a cleaner, sharper sound.

female guitarists?

Straining my memory back to some painfully embarrassing heavy metal moments of my youth and a few names spring to mind…
I seem to remember Lita Ford as a competent guitarist being (badly) marketed on the strength of dodgy black leather outfits.
I’ve no idea what Rock Goddess even sounded like, I took one look at the publicity shots (black leather, big hair, cleavage) & decided I wasn’t interested.
Girlschool? wore jeans, collaborated with Motorhead, can’t remember much else.
It’s a bit sad that in the rock / metal genre the female artists usually get marketed on the basis of their appearance than their artistry.

On the indie / alternative side of things, Lush are the only lot that spring to mind, but they weren’t really in the guitar hero mould.

I can’t help feeling that there is a very talented female guitarists who should’ve sprung to mind but who I’ve forgotten.

And, FWIW, I’m not convinced Joni Mitchell is a better songwriter than Neil Young. I’ll give you better than Dylan & Lennon though.

I suspect a combination of factors. Prolly quite an important one is that men looking like keith richards, slash, eddie vanHalen etc can still be regarded sexy and therefore rockstar material whereas women have to conform to a different set of standards.

I was talking to a friend about the related female bass player anomaly. We suspect many women take up the bass so they can be in their boyfriends band cos it’s easier to ‘get by’ on bass quickly. Then some of them get really good on it and move on.

“And, FWIW, I’m not convinced Joni Mitchell is a better songwriter than Neil Young. I’ll give you better than Dylan & Lennon though.”

Neil young is not as literate as Mitchell. His lyrics are crap on paper, though I will grant you that this isn’t the be-all and end-all of what makes a good song.

“it’s easier to ‘get by’ on bass quickly.”

A VICIOUS SLANDER!!

(Though admittedly true)

The friend in question was a female bassist fwiw. I’m told it’s difficult for bands to find passable bass players but fantastic 6 string fretwankers are 10 a penny - unfortunately they’ve usually got intolerable personalities.

Jon d - your theory about how females become bass players is true in at least one case I know. Bloke has musical ambitions (and delusions). Loyal girlfriend learns bass to help him out and turns out to be pretty good. At least if you play the bass you will always find a place in the band, because everyone fantasises about being a lead guitarist. There aren’t Air Bass competitions, are there?

I seem to remember Lita Ford as a competent guitarist being (badly) marketed on the strength of dodgy black leather outfits.

Lita Ford was involved with Tony Iommi at one point.

As for female guitarists, I give you the lovely and exceedingly talented Wata of the legendary Boris.

Apparently you need a penis to be a guitar hero

Of course you do. Otherwise you’d be a guitar heroine, duh.

When it comes to ‘musical innovation’, you immediately go to the top of the pile if you happened to be one of the two leading Beatles. But your comparison is flawed anyway – Lennon simply wasn’t a ‘songwriter’ in the same sense as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are/were. He was much more of the whole package – as a rocker, as a pop star, as a trailblazer, as a musician, as a celebrity. So overall he beats them hands down.

If you like lyrics, however, and think that music should also have something to do with, ack, poetry, then Joni Mitchell and the hideous Neil Young are probaly right up your street. It’s music, as I always try to say, for people who don’t actually like music.

Anyway, when it comes to ‘songwriters’, Randy Newman and Mark E Smith piss over both of them.

Although, saying all that - I do like Joni Mitchell a great deal.

“then Joni Mitchell and the hideous Neil Young are probaly right up your street. It’s music, as I always try to say, for people who don’t actually like music.”

I think you’re confusing them with Coldplay.

Would Charles Mingus have hand-picked Joni Mitchell as his collaborator on his final project if she had merely been “someone for people who don’t like music”? Would Jaco Pastorius’s playing have reached its most sublime in an ensemble playing behind “someone for those who don’t like music”? Is Hejira an album “for those who don’t like music”?

“So overall he beats them hands down.”

I regret opening up an avenue that makes it all seem like a competition. Suffice it to say that Mitchell hasn’t got her due - while the powers of her peers have been mythologised and sometimes exagerated - and I think this is because she is a woman.

“Suffice it to say that Mitchell hasn’t got her due - while the powers of her peers have been mythologised and sometimes exagerated - and I think this is because she is a woman.”

Utter rot. She always ranks extremely high on the critics’ lists. And she’s certainly got the kudos with those that know. Christ, even I like her. So I really think you’re pushing the “just because she is a woman” bit as if she’s somehow ignored. She isn’t. Don’t confuse sales with appreciation.

“Would Charles Mingus have hand-picked Joni Mitchell as his collaborator on his final project if she had merely been “someone for people who don’t like music”?

Sorry Brett but… so what? Mingus was fantastic but that stuff he did with Joni Mitchell was pretty awful. Besides, you know what I meant when I said “people who don’t like music”. That there’s that element of people who, while favouring the likes of Joni Mitchell for her supposed literacy and high artiness, have no time for other for other forms of music. I tell you the sort of people I mean - deafheads who prefer the dreary Carole King version of her own Will You Love Me Tomorrow to The Shirelles’.

If you go back a ways, Memphis Minnie and Sister Rosetta Tharpe were amazing players. (Yeah I know, but no deader’n Hendrix and way more alive than you or me.) Memphis Minnie could out-guttural most metal vocalists too, when she felt like it.

“Sorry Brett but… so what? Mingus was fantastic but that stuff he did with Joni Mitchell was pretty awful.”

BITE YOUR TONGUE!!

“That there’s that element of people who, while favouring the likes of Joni Mitchell for her supposed literacy and high artiness”

Well if you’re talking about “Ladies of the Canyon” period JM, perhaps.

When I was in high school and just getting into music, I started with CSNY and moved into those in their orbit. I liked ‘classical’ Joni Mitchell and had no exposure at that point beyond “Blue” and that sort of thing. There was this late night DJ on Radio 5 (which was South Africa’s version of I dunno, Radio 1, I suppose). Because he was on late, he was allowed to do his own thing. Every night from 11 he had what he called “The Priority Feature” (which was a pun on his name, Chris Prior) where he played an hour of one particular artist. On Thursday nights it was the ‘Live’ Priority Feature where he played a whole concert. One night he played Joni Mitchell’s ‘Shadows & Light’ concert.

I did not know what to make of it. It sounded well, alien. But I gave it a chance, and it was my entry into a world occupied by Joe Zawinal and Weather Report, Stanley Clarke, and of course the light that shone so briefly, Jaco Pastorious (which is why I became a bass player). Weather Report’s drummer, the astounding Omar Hakim, I soon learned played with Bowie. Wow, Bowie was more than just Ziggy Stardust…? There’s gold in them there hills.

So I reject utterly the notion that Joni Mitchell is for people who hate music. For me - and I know a lot of my friends - she was the passport out of the folk-rock mindset into a glorious new world of sound and posibilities.

There is also Gabriela Quintero of the band Rodrigo Y Gabriela - one of the best rhythm guitarists around at the mo.

Re: K T Tunstall and that picture - it was a Firebird, not an Explorer, if my memory serves me correctly.

Oh, and Bonnie Raitt is THE female guitar hero…

Surely Tunstall is godawfulshite though?

Would Charles Mingus have hand-picked Joni Mitchell as his collaborator on his final project if she had merely been “someone for people who don’t like music”?

Jazz is music for people who don’t like music. Joni Mitchell is so far up her own backside these days that she has serious trouble getting her hands free in order to play guitar.