And now, our pick in the
Guitarist category,
Tom Morello.
Quote:
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Thomas Morello is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist best known for his tenure with the bands Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, and as the acoustic artist The Nightwatchman, He was featured as one of 20 guitarists in Rolling Stone's "The Top 20 New Guitarists" article. An outspoken political activist, he was also ranked #26 on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
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Quote:
Morello is famed for his guitar style, which consists of heavy metal/punk hybrid riffs and hip hop-inspired sounds. His guitar playing is also characterized by heavy use of guitar effects, such as delay, modulation, wah, harmonizers, distortion, feedback, and others in unique ways and combinations. The most recognizable effect in Morello's arsenal is the Digitech Whammy, which helps him create many of his sounds. Matthew Bellamy of the English band Muse has cited Morello as an influence, which can be seen in his use of pitch-shifting in solos.
Critically acclaimed, he is said to use the guitar in a unique and imaginative way; rather than just plucking the strings, his maneuvers include toggling between two pickups - one on and one off - while rubbing his hands on the strings over the pickups (his signature vinyl scratch effect used in "Bulls on Parade"). He also uses techniques such as rapidly hitting a pencil on the strings ("Cochise", although he now emulates the sound by "baby-slapping" the strings), scraping an Allen wrench on the strings for a whole song ("People of the Sun") and even tapping or scratching his pick-ups and strings with his audio jack cable ("Bullet In The Head").
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Morello
Video of the various Rage Against the Machine solos. Sorry, this video isn't very "good" as it isn't very well edited. May contain swearing, so I didn't embed it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itkeEhSjokQ
Tom explaining some of his tricks.
I took out the link to Wikipedia's entry for Rage Against the Machine because last time I took a look it still had a picture of the four guys naked at Lolapalooza (spelling?) making a statement.