The Boomtown Rats and Devo had some good guitar.
Mould played to stunning affect on Husker Du’s Metal Circus and the Eight Miles High cover. Definitely punk and very influential.
Anything by the Replacements previous to Tim qualifies easily as punk.
D. Boon is my pick, but I’ve seen a bunch of others named here that I’d place a close second… if it wasn’t for Joe Baiza being a better choice. Seriously, if you haven’t seen him play live, you are missing out.
Links to UCO music on top of page.
I still maintain that the 2 best concerts I ever saw were both UCO shows. One was free & the other cost me $2. Awesome band; great guys.
Sorry; there was some info I should have given in that last post: Joe Baiza was the guitarist for Saccharine Trust; after that band broke up, Baiza formed a new band that played very tight, very avante-garde jazz/rock called Universal Congress Of, or UCO in shorthand.
I’ll third it.
Good to see Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd getting so much appreciation. I think the Lenny Kaye from the Patti Smith Group and Captain Sensible from The Damned should be on this list as well.
I still think John McGeoch owns this thread, but I also would co-sign on Andy Gill and Andy Summers. I’d also want to add Andy Cox (English Beat, Fine Young Cannibals) for a trifecta of Andrews.
Jimmy Honeyman-Scott, if he had lived, would have been the guitar god of the 80s. Johnny Marr has mentioned often how influential his sound was on his playing.
I don’t know if I would say “best”, but since these threads always seem to become lists of generally influential figures, I will mention Elliot Easton and Rick Ocasek of the Cars. Also Andy Partridge of XTC. The one that always blows me away whenever I see him live still today is Jonathan Richman.
Simmerdown has me thinking that the other XTC axeman, Dave Gregory, should be on the list too.
:smack: I can’t believe I left him out. I’ve been listening to alot of Wasp Star lately, so the focus has been on Partridge, since Gregory was out by then.
I don’t know about ‘best’ but J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. made a great noise!
This is one of the funniest things I’ve read in some time. In the late 70s and early 80s we often discussed the impossibility of defining "new wave, but one thing is for sure, no one would have called TP it! Don’t get me wrong - a lot of good stuff on his first 2 records (and a whole lotta shite for decades after), but TP is deluding himself if he thinks anyone ever considered him new wave.
My most obvious choices have been listed above. But how about a shout out for Brinsley Schwarz?
I’d put Cheap Trick down as mostly pop, but Rick Nielson sure was one of the funnest axemen of the time.
Stretching punk a tad I’ll offer up Rick Miller of SCOTS.
And since Dave Alvin was mentioned, I saw the Blasters on Sat, and MAN Keith Wyatt can BRING IT!
I third the Andy Partridge noms…
I’m thinking “Keith Wyatt, Keith Wyatt, sounds dang familiar.” He was one of my instructors at GIT in 1983. And yes, he can bring it.
I’m really surprised at this thread to me the answer is obvious but no one has mentioned him…Elliot Easton!
Well yeah, except he was actually mentioned up thread. Good guitarist though.
It seems like 10 times out of 10, when a zombie is resurrected with a “I can’t believe nobody mentioned!” type of post, that person or thing has, in fact, already been mentioned years ago in the thread.
As an aside … man, is it better being a Bob Mould fan in 2016 than in was in 2009. District Line ('08) and Life and Times ('09) were okay, but the last three albums with Narducy and Wurster have been great.
I think Robert Fripp counts. His work with Bowie on Scary Monsters is about as New Wave as it’s possible to get.
Seconded. Especially Silver Age is a blast, as good as everything he did with Sugar.