# Songs/Bands with Guitar Tones You Love **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 9, 2009, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816 "2009-08-09T06:06:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/21 "2009-08-10T16:22:28Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > – The Edge on U2’s “Pride (In the Name of Love” …and along those lines, The Edge on U2’s [“The Unforgettable Fire”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTCCmmJMYFk). That’s my all-time favorite of his guitar work. This thread is a nice coincidence, because I just happened to be listening to some Buckingham/Nicks this morning and reflecting on how much I love listen to Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar. The song that triggered the thought: [“Stephanie.”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Yp4IijeBU&feature=PlayList&p=07A962BF6AFCDD73&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=17) Bonus example:[“Big Love” live.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naAWX6OsHVI) ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/22 "2009-08-10T16:32:08Z")
\*\*\*Please Don’t Tell Her \*\*\*by Big Head Todd and the Monsters. The guitar just has a cool, liquid loping feel to it that I just lie down in. ---
**Author:** ![Canadiangirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Canadiangirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadiangirl)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/23 "2009-08-10T17:08:21Z")
the solo in ZZ Top’s Rough Boy. For some reason, I feel like every muscle and bone in my body wants to liquify. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/24 "2009-08-10T18:05:27Z")
I love the buzzing tone of Bob Mould’s Hüsker Dü-era guitar. And Greg Ginn from Black Flag always had this terrific roughness in his guitar sound. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/25 "2009-08-10T18:08:52Z")
I fell in love with the two tones that Daniel Ash uses in **Bauhaus** and **Love and Rockets**. He uses a very pure almost-acoustic sounding melodic sound, and bounces that against an industrial power tool punchy rhythm, often within the same song. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/26 "2009-08-10T19:08:09Z")
> [@Talon\_Karrde](#): > > Sometimes the way a guitar sounds can effect the enjoyment of a song as much as the notes it’s playing, so I thought it would be interesting to see specific examples. > Some of mine are: > > [Going Out West](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZChJus0qbWs) by Tom Waits- the part that begins right after the 15 second mark. I don’t know how he got that sound, but I’ve never heard another song with a guitar that sounded quite like that. It’s just the right amount of fuzz. By the way - that is a very cool tone. Very compressed and farty - in a good way ;). Sounds like an old tube Silvertone amp with extra fuzz-boxiness thrown in and the tone rolled off of a bridge pickup - most likely a single coil if it still has definition with that level of fuzz and chopped highs… …my initial impression - I can try places like [Guitargeek.com](http://Guitargeek.com) to check out whether they have a rig listing for that song…nope, no listing for Waits. Darn. ---
**Author:** ![Rib\_Eye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/53a042/32.png) [@Rib\_Eye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rib_Eye)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/27 "2009-08-10T19:30:12Z")
Balls to the Wall by Accept. Best Marshall tone ever. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph8kGPXOoUw) ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/28 "2009-08-10T21:03:35Z")
> [@Small Clanger](#): > > September Gurls by Big Star has a fantastic guitar sound (unfortunatly it’s not actually played on a guitar 🙂 ) Wait, what? You’re joking about it not being on the guitar right? I don’t get it. I agree with you though. > [@Rod1199](#): > > **The Beatles** - “You Never Give Me Your Money”. Quite a few tones throughout. I especially like the part that comes in with the lyric \*“But oh that magic feeling…” \* So unique sounding…it’s that and Paul’s vocals that make the song for me. I do like that sound now that I listen to it. I wonder how much of it comes from having a piano backing it though. I love a lot of the guitar sounds on Rubber Soul and Revolver. Especially the intro to And Your Bird Can Sing (which from I understand has two guitars playing that part): [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a4TWiYHx7U](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a4TWiYHx7U) > [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > Another band that wore it’s “guitar tone like a brand” was Big Country. [Bagpipe guitar](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j21ULe2hrY4) it was, and wonderful to hear. Yes, I forgot that one. Speaking of bagpipe guitar, this might be cheating because they used an e-bow to get the sound but I love the solo in [Under The Milky Way](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6nKP10j4s) by The Church. It starts at around 2:22. Actually the guitar in general is perfect for the song. There’s more I want to respond to but maybe I’ll get to that later. ---
**Author:** ![BigShooter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f07891/32.png) [@BigShooter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigShooter)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/29 "2009-08-10T21:22:07Z")
**Wordman** - based on your first post in this thread, you’re truly my long lost musical sybling. We should be in a band together…😃 Besides poking in to say that, I’ll offer up a more recent guitar tone wizard that will probably cause some controversy - Jack White. The title track of **Consolers of the Lonely** has some beautiful rock tone on it… ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/30 "2009-08-10T21:32:05Z")
> [@Talon\_Karrde](#): > > Wait, what? You’re joking about it not being on the guitar right? I don’t get it. > I agree with you though. I think Alex Chilton was using an electric mandolin for some of the higher parts in September Gurls…according to [this site](http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr06/articles/classictracks_0406.htm), it’s a mando-guitar… And \*\*BigShooter \*\*- glad to hear you have good taste :D:D;) I tell ya, if I ever get that guitar body back from being finished (I know! I know! Y’all warned me!!), I can share my tone on line and we can figure it out from there… 😉 But can you play lead? I can, but it’s really not my focus; I’m all about locking into a groove… …and yeah, \*\*Jack White \*\*has a great tone - sometimes glassy and clear on slide and sometimes just a jagged, edgy mess…in a very good way. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/31 "2009-08-11T00:25:36Z")
The first artist/album that came to mind is Robin Trower’s **Bridge of Sighs**. I haven’t listened to it for years, but that guitar sound is deeply ingrained into my memory. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/32 "2009-08-11T01:40:35Z")
Gary Moore’s “Still Got The Blues” album. ---
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/33 "2009-08-11T15:30:41Z")
I’ve always found the main riff in “Don’t Fear the Reaper” to be quite haunting. There’s not a lot of song to back it up, really; the riff carries the whole load. I also enjoy the slowly swirling feel of the guitar/bass interplay in Rush’s “Limelight.” I’ve been a fan of Richard Thompson since day one, but I think his electric guitar work, at least, was at its best in his earlier stuff. I’m think of things like “Roll Over, Vaughn Williams,” the first half of the solo in “The Angels Took My Racehorse Away” (the second half is good, but seems tacked on), or the arabesque that opens “Calvary Cross.” Keith Richards’s (is that how you spell that?) opening to “Gimme Shelter” still blows me away. Pure menace. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/34 "2009-08-11T16:01:04Z")
> [@kelly5078](#): > > Keith Richards’s (is that how you spell that?) opening to “Gimme Shelter” still blows me away. Pure menace. Agreed - and you know what? It is SO easy to play - or, at least, I came up with a way to fake it that sounds beyond cool. - Detune your A / 5th string down to G (so it’s in octave-tune with your 3rd/G string) - At the sixth fret, bar the middle four strings with your index finger. If you use a pick, then DON’T - and instead, while holding the pick, use your pick-hand middle and ring fingers to pluck the B and G strings. Use your middle finger on your fret hand to alternate between playing all 4 strings barred at the 6th fret to fret the B string at the 7th fret. You should be able to “hear the riff” at that point. - If you know the riff, just go down 2 frets to the 4th fret and then 2 again to the 2nd fret - but this time, when you bounce your middle finger off the 3rd fret, do that by itself at first, then add your ring finger off the G string/4th fret - then back up to the 6th fret and start over. Again, you should clearly be able to hear the riff as you try this out. The trick: when you come back up to the 6th fret to re-start the riff, start at the 2nd fret and slide your barred index finger over the 4 middle strings up to the 6th fret and and hold your finger down so those four strings keep sustaining. As you then go back to the pizzicato riff, you have a rhythm chord behind you while you play. If I ever get my guitar project done, I may include this in a sound sample so you can hear it - totally do-able and it always provokes a double-take from my player friends since it is both simple and sounds great - kinda like figuring out a song was played in an alternate tuning when you’ve been trying in standard all along… Sorry for the technique-geek-out… ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/35 "2009-08-11T16:40:54Z")
The _September Gurls_ stuff is played on an electric mandocello, tuned like a mandolin (fifths) but an octave lower, you can’t get the voicings right with standard guitar tuning. OK, this is where I wade in with my usual Soft Boys reference. While Robyn Hitchcock is an interesting guitar player, Kimberly Rew is something else. I assumed on hearing his sound with the Soft Boys he was playing a Strat because of the whammy-esque vibrato he used, on seeing him play with Katrina and the Waves turns out he was playing an SG with P90s\* and got the vibrato by physically shaking the guitar so the neck waved back and forward. Here’s something on YouTube- [Queen of Eyes](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSxRpkva5cw&feature=related) It’s fairly typical but the ultimate dual guitar example is probably _Kingdom of Love_. - just like the ones Pete Townshend used to smash in the 70s. Kimberly didn’t smash his. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/36 "2009-08-11T17:21:58Z")
Anything that Johnny Marr plays on, I love - from The Smiths to Electronic to solo stuff, and now Modest Mouse. I’d also mention Andy Summers, Alan Murphy, John McGeoch, and Peter Buck. These guys have such recognizable sounds but they’re never “hey! hey! Look at me!” Their playing is so exquisite it demands your attention. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/37 "2009-08-11T18:10:33Z")
“Dear Mr. Fantasy” and “Hey Joe” for the haunting/nostalgic/remembering something that never actually happened feeling. ---
**Author:** ![BigShooter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f07891/32.png) [@BigShooter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigShooter)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/38 "2009-08-11T20:12:55Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > But can you play lead? I can, but it’s really not my focus; I’m all about locking into a groove… I think I’m alot like you in philosophy. I can and have played lead in few bands, but like you, I think it’s much more rewarding to just lock in tight with a good rhythm section. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/39 "2009-08-12T19:06:09Z")
> [@Rod1199](#): > > **The Beatles** - “You Never Give Me Your Money”. Quite a few tones throughout. I especially like the part that comes in with the lyric \*“But oh that magic feeling…” \* I believe that’s a chorus effect… possibly used in conjunction with a rotating Leslie speaker. That sound popped up a lot around that time ('69 - '70)… it’s on other Beatles tunes as well, such as the guitar break on “Let It Be”. I love that sound and I’m still waiting to find a doohickey that will allow me to reproduce it on my guitar. By the way… I feel like I must have missed something, because I didn’t see any post mentioning the Byrds yet. Roger McGuinn’s ringing Rickenbacker 12-string is a signature sound that has influenced generations of pop musicians. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816/40 "2009-08-13T01:56:20Z")
And don’t forget Johnny Marr’s work with Neil Finn (Live in New Zealand with Lisa Germano and Ed O’Brien-Radiohead and Eddie Vedder): [There Is A Light](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN3Qwo4jF18) and [Down On The Corner](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ustyrU2OI00&feature=related). Oh, and here’s a too-short snippet of [Distant Sun (acoustic).](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXOOnxLONx8&feature=related) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-bands-with-guitar-tones-you-love/505816.md?page=3)