I’ve played the guitar for 32 years now. In my youth, I was very much influenced by heavy rock guitarists such as:
Todd Rundgren, Alex Lifeson, Michael Schenker (and his brother Rudi for rhythmic work) amongst many others. I was also very keen on the work of Adrian Belew, Jeff Beck, Robert Fripp, Mick Ronson and Al di Meola.
I used to play a lot in my formative years, striving to become something of a speed demon on the axe. After a few years it dawned on me that while I could play very fast, my timing was awful. I had to go back to the drawing board and spent a lot of time playing along to records and forgetting about the solos, just sticking to trying to replicate the rhythm guitar parts.
I played in lots of bands that didn’t get anywhere and after that, spent a lot bit of time recording guitar based material on a 4-track and later on an ADAT. None of this was ever released (in hindsight, that’s probably not a bad thing !). I grew tired of the whole guitar playing thing, as I got more into ambient music.
I’m now returning afresh to the guitar and plan to release something ‘definitive’ to show what I can do. I have used an ebow for some time and have various techniques and stylistic things I’d like showcase in some format.
I try to keep the guitar at a fairly low profile in my ambient work and find that less is more, in many respects.
Update (22/3/2012)
I’ve set up a Youtube channel for some of the non-ambient guitar things I do, there’s a post describing things in a bit more detail here
