http://music.ign.com/articles/895/895015p1.html What do you guys think of this list? It focuses almost entirely on proto-punk, except for Johnny Ramone and Steve and Mick Jones. It's a pretty good list, but it doesn't talk enough about guitarists that helped the original sound of punk to evolve like East Bay Ray from the Dead Kennedys, who was one of the most experimental hardcore guitarists, and Lars Frederiksen and Tim Armstrong from Rancid, who played a big role in putting a strong ska influence into a harder punk sound than most people had done before. It also doesn't give any credit to Sylvain Sylvain, who is really underrated. His rhythm playing is as much of an influence on my guitar playing as Johnny Thunder's lead stuff. Edit: If the link doesn't work, here's the list: Lou Reed Johnny Thunders Lenny Kaye Johnny Ramone Steve Jones Mick Jones Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd Robert Quine Ricky Wilson Bill Zoom
Ron Asheton?, Fred Smith?, Keith Levine?, Cheeta Chrome?
Mine would be: Joe Strummer-The Clash Tim Armstrong-op ivy, rancid, transplants Whitetrash Rob-blood for blood, sinners and saints, ramallha Tom Gable-against me! Vinny Stigma-ag nostic front Ian McKaye-fugazi Chris Clavin- captain chaos, ghost mice Billy Bragg-solo Tom Morello-the nightwatchman Elvis Costello-solo
Johnny Thunders Mick Jones Poison Ivy and the old jazzy guy of the Voidoids whose name I can never remember.... Robert Quine?
I don't really like the band,but who can despute that Olga from Toy Dolls is a guitar-master? And where is he on the list?
Ben Weasels a pretty solid guitarist
One of my fave guitarists for true entertainment value not mentioned is Captain Sensible when he originally played with The Damned.
Johnny Ramone isn't even that good. A lot of punk guitarists are better than him. Not sure why everyone wanks him so much.
Johnny Ramone isn't even that good. A lot of punk guitarists are better than him. Not sure why everyone wanks him so much. Because his style of playing changed music as we know it. Each downstroke he ever did had more cultural significance than entire discographies of 99,99% of the people who were "better" than him. The list is not about who's more proficient technically. If that was the criteria it wouldn't even make sense to make a list of punk guitarists. Anyway, some other amazing punk guitarists would be: Greg Ginn - Black Flag Brian Baker - Minor Threat/Dag Nasty Greg Sage - The Wipers Captain Sensible - The Damned Paul Fox - The Ruts Bones - Discharge Dr. Know - Bad Brains D. Boon - Minutmen Bob Andrews - Generation X/Empire Stuart Adamson - Skids Rikk Agnew - Adolescents/Christian Death And many others.
Lou Reed was an amazing lyricist and songwriter, but he wasn't a great guitar player. Also, I think Robert Quine should have been on the list.