Guest post by Drew Zackary, guitar afficionado
"So if I had a dime for every time I should've
Stopped playing guitar and put my nose in a book
Then my head would be healthy and my guitar would be dusty
And that just might save me from a bunch of bad songs
So maybe I'm too polite just like good Moses
But just like good manners we've had enough of them."
--Davey von Bohlen
So this pick isn't so much about the guitar playing on Maritime's latest album as it is about Davey von Bohlen's long career as a guitar player. Personally, I have a special affinity for him. While we never met, his various bands' songs have found their way into my cars and living rooms for the past decade. He may also be the coolest, baldest, most left-handed sunburst Fender Telecaster player and father of two in rock today (who also had a fist sized tumor removed from his head AND survived a van crash). Bohlen truly deserves that oh-so-overused moniker of ‘underrated’. Pitchfork Media (with whom we have a love/hate relationship), likes the new Maritime record. However, they review it like a bunch of hipsters who can’t even play a recorder, the usual references to singing and his indie cred. Nay, I say! Davey von Bohlen should be listened to for his truly great guitar playing and songwriting (if not for his singing).
Davey von Bohlen's true skill in guitar songwriting came to the fore during his 7 years as front man of emo godfathers, Promise Ring. With each consecutive album, his writing became increasingly restrained and complex, the churning passion of earlier work being reduced to an understated melodic phrasing (holding one melodic line in mind while having a chord phrase play out is a difficult trick). Promise Ring were the real item: a gifted, guitar player's band that helped define 90s emo while joining the early ranks in the now famous Indie Rock movement.
Promise Ring's “Scenes From France” is a perfect study in the force of Bohlen's brutally beautiful, naked guitar playing. The pauses in the breakdown were both perfect and awkward, a brilliant trick in writing. If you grew up lonely in the Midwest, the feeling the song gives you is a familiar one. By the time Promise Ring's wood/water was released, Davey von Bohlen had mastered his sound, defined by a passionate restraint and energy applied to each down stroke on the strings. “Stop Playing Guitar” from that album still gets me (and most drunk guitar players around here) a little choked up.
So it was with much disappointment that I listened to the first two Maritime records. Busy with old punk rock, I had matured in a different direction. I bought their third album Heresy and the Hotel Choir on a whim. It is a gorgeous record. Von Bohlen's guitar licks are forceful, with beautiful arpeggios over the progressions that will make you get up and dance. Well, it made my girlfriend dance in the kitchen, alone (I saw it). I humbly suggest you listen to these songs, loud, of course:
- “Guns of Navaronne” (super sweet use of the blue box octave shift pedal, it's that buzzy, two-note sound. I used to have one but couldn’t control it. Great outro solo!)
- “Pearl” (good songwriting and solid--fucking rock solid--guitar work. If you think writing and playing this restrained is easy then I dare ye to try. Beautiful ending.)
- “Be Unhappy“( best song on album, masterful use of two guitar melody and buildup, breakdown. Also has best lyrics “even if you find the love of your life, you can be unhappy for weeks at a time.”)
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