[colkurtz]

The Hip is my favorite band. Them and Led Zeppelin are the most played music i have (White Stripes is actually catching up!). The reason i started to play the guitar was because of New Orleans is Sinking.

Thats probably why i like Led Zeppelin and the Stripes, its somthing i can listen to and the go right to the guitar and play. These songs, to me, really make me want to play.

No disrespect to the hip, i love them and all their new stuff, the only thing that has been bothering me after Day for Night has been the lack of guitar songs.

Maybe its just me but there dosnt seem to be many songs i want to learn from the newer stuff. Sure i love to listen and sing to them, but not really want to play them on guitar.

Maybe its because the songs now are less rocky and/or folky. I have owned their guitar tabulature books and the guitar seems to be just a side insturment to the music and not a forfront member. Songs now seem more complicated and/or are more universal for other instruments.

Thats just IMO. Has any other Guitarists noticed this? Maybe you can send me in the right direction. Open to opinions.
Thanks

[everything_is_bleak]

I think IBE has been great for songs to play on guitar....try playing gus or summers killing us....great songs to play for guitar...mind you i mostly play without a band on an acoustic, so if your into playing the really rocky songs then i guess so...vavaccination scar is good to play with a band tho...

[The Horrible Esthete]

i see where you're coming from - there are fewer instances on the later albums where i'm feel a dire need to grab the guitar and play along, but here are some exceptions:

TATHH
Gift Shop - love playing this one
ABAC - chicks really seem to dig it
Springtime in Vienna - simple, and great for the electric

PP

Bobcaygeon - great structure....and chicks dig this one, too
Emporer Penguin - a textbook 'beautiful progression'

M@W

This is a very layered, complex "whole band" kind of album. Tough to find fun songs to sit around and play by your lonesome. but Stay is a nice one to learn.

IVL

Darkest One - A classic guitar cut -great riff, awesome progression
Dire Wolf - Bobby's fingerpicking lines are alot of fun to play...

IBE
As 'everything_is_bleak noted, Gus and SIKU are both sweet additions to a repitoire. But might i add Are We Family....lovely & delicate a pleasure to play......

[colkurtz]

Thanks for the replies. I guess ill find some tabs on the ones you suggested. I also dont play in a band, though i use to jam a bit. I now just play for my daugther cause she is to young to decipher my horrible singing. She is the only one who will listen. It may be because we have the child gates keeping her in the living room though !

My favorite hip songs to play are Wheat Kings and Boots or Hearts. She Didnt Know, if i plug in the old amp.

I also love playing Summer Side of Life. Its a Gordon Lightfoot tune, but first time i heard it, it was the hip doing it. Great tune.

[The Horrible Esthete]

Summer Side of Life is a sweet, sweet tune. I like playing it too.

[HipCheck]

I agree. There are less 'got to go grab my guitar' Hip songs these days. Really, after Phantom Power, it's slim pickings (pun intended :lol: ). Although I like to play Good Life, Darkest One, Summer and Scar, I still find myself playing ABAC, Poets, Thompson Girl, BobC, Little Bones, New O, Wheat Kings, Nautical Distaster, Scared, Three Pistols, etc a lot more.

They're just lend themselves for a single guitar, whereas the newer stuff needs a backing band.

Nowadays, when I hear a Hip riff on a new album, I'm like "wow, that's a riff! Thank you!" Is there anyone else out there who wishes the last half of The Dark Canuck was like 8 minutes long???

[The Horrible Esthete]

Is there anyone else out there who wishes the last half of The Dark Canuck was like 8 minutes long???

Yep. I do too.

You know, they said that each 'part' was written independently, and they sorta morphed em into 1 song as they neared the recording date. Bad move i say.

part one drags what could be one of their better IVL efforts towards HIP mediocrity.

The second part has that thick Middle-Eastern type of motif. Yet it rocks. Reminds me of how Led Zep took musical influences from northern India and weaved one of the greatest rock songs of all time out of it.

[skippy the wonder dog]

I should steer clear here, because I play very few Hip songs, and the few I play are all from earlier albums ... but I don't really agree. Are We Family is a great song, Makeshift is a great song ... one of these days I'll get into playing Hip stuff again and learn them.

My attitude towards songs seems to differ from most guitar players in that I want to play great songs, not songs with great guitar parts. A song doesn't have to be a "guitar song" for me to want to play it, in other words. And unless it's completely unsuited to guitar, you can usually adapt it.

[tigerthelion]

I just wish I could play guitar. I'm a beginner. I have a little fun playing stuff like "Fiddler's Green" , "Get Back Again", or "Wheat Kings". I like to play "Nautical Disaster" but it's just the simple chords Em, C, G, and D and not the lead.

I just have an acoustic but I'd love to get an electric and crank out "Use It Up".

[SoylentGreg]

I love me some Hip guitar. I play most everything I can learn in their catalog, but my favs are probably Gus(works acoustic or electric), Bobcaygeon, and 38 years old (shut up ).

Speaking of Nautical Disaster, has anybody ever tabbed out the lead section of that song? I only have the chords, and i've always wanted to learn that giant, painfully beautiful outro solo.

[colkurtz]

I should steer clear here, because I play very few Hip songs, and the few I play are all from earlier albums ... but I don't really agree. Are We Family is a great song, Makeshift is a great song ... one of these days I'll get into playing Hip stuff again and learn them.

My attitude towards songs seems to differ from most guitar players in that I want to play great songs, not songs with great guitar parts. A song doesn't have to be a "guitar song" for me to want to play it, in other words. And unless it's completely unsuited to guitar, you can usually adapt it.

Well basically you ARE in the same boat as i am, you said you play songs from earlier albums, thus leaning to more of the "gutiar" songs.

Your "my attitude" is kind of condesending is that you think we dont like playing "great" songs too. And i know i could adapt almost all songs to guitar, but when a song was meant and written for guitar, it just feels so good to play. Something distinct.

Not attacking you or anything... it just sounded a lil condesending.

As for the Dark Canuck. Thats my favorite off that cd. Its not a pop radio song but i think its got a great grove. I wish they had of played it when i seen them in concert.

[colkurtz]

I love me some Hip guitar. I play most everything I can learn in their catalog, but my favs are probably Gus(works acoustic or electric), Bobcaygeon, and 38 years old (shut up ).

Speaking of Nautical Disaster, has anybody ever tabbed out the lead section of that song? I only have the chords, and i've always wanted to learn that giant, painfully beautiful outro solo.

Day for Night is out in tabualature book. Good purchase if you got the bucks.

Nautical disaster lead is fun and simple. Lot of single notes, going up and down the neck. Just kinda rings throughout the song.

[skippy the wonder dog]

Not attacking you or anything... it just sounded a lil condesending.

Well, I don't mean it that way. Just different strokes for different folks, that's all.

Some people go for their guitar because a song has a killer riff. Some people like to play the guitar above all else. Some people like guitar solos. Most guitarists I run into seem to think that way, and that's fine.

But I'm not one of them.

[The Horrible Esthete]

Not attacking you or anything... it just sounded a lil condesending.

Well, I don't mean it that way. Just different strokes for different folks, that's all.

Some people go for their guitar because a song has a killer riff. Some people like to play the guitar above all else. Some people like guitar solos. Most guitarists I run into seem to think that way, and that's fine.

But I'm not one of them.

I get what you're saying, skip.

But in my personal experience, it seems that guitarists, as a breed, tend to be 'purists' in the sense that they want to play a song true to its form. Myself, I don't like to 'adapt' much of the stuff i'm sitting around the house playing, because my goal isn't to construct a palatable rendition of the overall "song" per se; it's to learn and execute the the specific guitar lines as written / recorded. Which is also why i decipher as much as i can on my own before ever refer to tab, because in my experience, amateur tablature is sometimes slightly inaccurate and can lead you astray (I think it's easier to work through a piece myself than it is to "unlearn" something had gets memorized but is incorrect.)

That said, there are some songs that i do some "adapting" in order to flesh-out a vesion which can be played and performed solo - like Nautical , for instance, where I do some exaggeration of some of the individual notes in a chord to emulate bobby's lead notes. I do something similar with Grace, so i can somewhate incorporate the signature bass lines that the song is written around.

[skippy the wonder dog]

Right, and that's exactly where I differ from most guitarists I run into. I don't really care how Bobby played it; I care how I'm going to play it.

Now, you might say that's because I'm a hack, and you'd be partly right.