Welcome to the offseason, the show where everythings made up and the points dont matter (LOL). Im PFT Commenter and Im going to be helping out with the mock drafts this year. This week we draft guitar solos, which yea are kind’ve the showoff diva receivas of rock ‘n’ roll music, and Im generally more of a power chord fella but oh well. The only rule is you cant pick the same artist twice.
Lets get it started. Picking for KSK will be: Big Sandy, me, StuScottBooyahs, Old James, Sarah Sprague, RobotsFightingDinosaurs, Bobby Big Wheel, Christmas Ape, Tim Schavitz, Trevor Risk, and Eric Sollenberger. Each person gives there strong solo take and then a explanation of why they made such a bad pick.
1. Big Sandy – Weezer, “Tired of Sex” (starts at 2:07)
Maybe the Ryan Leaf of this draft or maybe the Thurman Thomas? I’m not going to placate people with a Clapton or Zeppelin pick. No, I’m picking the best song from the best album by a band that’s spanned the gamut of amazing to hysterically bad. Kind of like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers! This solo is a terrific, frantic, buzzsaw that fits the song’s spastic, anxious, and sloppy tone like all that sloppy sex with roadies while Rex Ryan watches.
2. PFT Commenter – Van Halen, “Eruption”
= the entire songs a guitar solo. if a LEGAL ailen came down from outerspace and said ‘whats a guitar solo?” youd play this for them and they would understand immediatley because the guitar sounds Eddie Van Halen makes are also a direct translation into alien english that means “this is a guitar solo” FYI.
3. StuScottBooyahs – Guns ‘N’ Roses, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” (starts at 2:32)
Air guitarists around the world know it well.
4. Old James – Prince, “Purple Rain”
Was this the greatest Super Bowl halftime performance in history? Yes, it was. Five minutes before this happened, when I was a senior in college, did I announce, to an entire party full of people, that if His Royal Badness played “Purple Rain” I’d march straight to the bar and karaoke it afterward? I did. Had I ever karaoke’d before? No, I had not. Did I know then that performance would one day lead to me kicking off a buddy’s wedding reception with a stirring rendition of “Purple Rain” that may-or-may-not be on YouTube? I did not.
If you can hear this solo, and not start screaming “Whoo-hooo-hooo-hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo” over the top of it in your car, you’re a better man than I.
5. Sarah Sprague – Radiohead, “Paranoid Android” (starts at 2:44)
One of the best modern era guitar solos. Amazingly crashing and grinding solo that is the bridge between two completely different tempos of the song, the climax of the first second that leaves you breathless for the downtempo third. (Also the guitar solo that plays in my head when my imaginary band blows the doors off of any award show, because we’re about the real rock.)
6. RobotsFightingDinosaurs – “Pokemon Theme Song” by who knows this is a terrible pick IMO (starts at 2:03)
And I’m dead serious. I love that solo. It makes me want to kick ass. Yes, I could have picked this later in the draft, but the Pokemon theme song solo is my Zac Stacy, and none of you can have it. It’s mine.
Bobby Big Wheel: Hey PFTC, wanna bully some Pokemon nerds like the old days?
PFTCommenter: Id put his head in a toilet but hed probly use his second round pick on the flushing sound
7. Bobby Big Wheel – Ted Nugent, “Stranglehold”
You know how people will sometimes komplain in the komments that I’m too liberal even if I’m funny sometimes? Well now you know how I feel whenever the Nuge spouts off about Obama being Hitler. Stranglehold has the baddest ass solo ever. We’d all be better off if bands just ripped off Nugent’s guitar riffs as long as they change the lyrics so they aren’t about strangling your ex-girlfriend and crushing her face.
(Ed: This is a obvious pick to distract us from Bobby Lib Wheels biased dont be distracted)
8. Christmas Ape – Rage Against The Machine, “Killing In The Name”
Bobby Big Wheel skipped on the libruls so I will reap the angst that racked the 2000 DNC.
9. Tim Schavitz – Pearl Jam, “Evenflow”
On the album, it’s a horrible early pick considering all options still available. But live it’s a completely different story. For a band who’s played it 738 times live, the song is rushed like they’re just making sure it’s checked off the setlist. But more often than not, it’s to get to the good part, Mike McCready’s solo action – something new every time:
10. Trevor Risk – The Knack, “My Sharona”(starts at 2:49)
There’s probably some of you who have never heard the full, album version of this song. The radio edit cuts off a solo that isn’t only brain-melting, but maybe the entire point of the song. Right around 3:23, this solo starts being more than just guitar notes, it achieves sentient status and the recorded material becomes Skynet-level self aware, needling through your face and into your psyche forever. It makes my dick bigger every time I hear it, and there was a period in my early teens where I listened to it every single day before school for maybe eight months while my dear mother screamed at me to stop. I’m half certain this solo was the final push that brought me into puberty, possibly with the aid of the robo-babe on the cover of the single (holding the LP, how cool is that?) who isn’t wearing a bra.
11. Eric Sollenberger – Jimi Hendrix, “All Along the Watchtower” (starts at 1:41)
Not the most complicated solo but it grabs you by your pubes and tosses you into a rock volcano.
ROUND TWO:
12. Eric Sollenberger – Dire Straits, “Sultans of Swing” (starts at 4:58)
The last solo. Knopfler plays without a pick and absolutely tears it up.
13. Trevor Risk – The Auteurs, “Light Aircraft on Fire” (starts at 1:58)
Not even the most interesting song by a band who wasn’t the most interesting Brit Pop band, this song meanders around until it gets to a short, and incredibly simple squealing solo that is just a semi tone slide with fuzz distortion. It ends too quickly and makes you wanna rewind to the beginning again, which is exactly what a perfectly written song is supposed to do. Luke Haines is what I picture a young Bill Nighy acting, looking, and sounding like.
14. Tim Schavitz – Chuck Berry, “Johnny B. Goode” (starts at 0:28)
There’s a reason why Marty McFly brought it from the future. Perfect celebratory guitar solo after willing yourself back into existence.
RobotsFightingDinosaurs: OH FUCK YOU TIM
Bobby Big Wheel: Well maybe you shouldn’t have taken some Pokemon thing with your first pick.
15. Christmas Ape – Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody”
It’s been referenced to death by pop culture and I still love it every time.
16. Bobby Big Wheel – Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Free Bird” (starts at 4:50)
Sheeeeeit. I get Russell Wilson-style value in the second round. Only the most famous trio of guitars of all time. By the way, I yelled the name of this song while holding my Giants-logoed lighter in the air.
17. RobotsFightingDinosaurs – Led Zepplin, “Stairway to Heaven” (starts at 5:53)
Pretty sure the fact that none of you picked Stairway means that I get it now.
Stu Scott Booyahs: Dragon Ball Z is still available.
18. Sarah Sprague – Pink Floyd, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” (starts at 13:00)
First off Sam, I was going to go with “In the Evening” by Led Zeppelin. A guitar solo that comes crashing down from the gods of pure sex and power, everything that a guitar solo should be, and not the over-indulgence of “Stairway To Heaven”. Should have known someone who uses double-spaces would pick Stairway.
So I take Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” in its stead. Why that song and not “Comfortably Numb”? Because “Diamond” is basically a love song to guitar rock.
19. Old James – Candlebox, “Far Behind” (starts at 2:49)
Just realized this song was released in 1993, the last time my Chiefs won a playoff game. Which seems fitting. But that slow crescendo to a head-banging guitar solo defines 90’s rock, for me at least, and no one did it better than Candlebox (see also: “Cover Me”).
Related: when Kenny Powers played this song on a boom box at Shane’s funeral, I peed a little.
20. StuScottBooyahs – ZZ Top, “Sharp Dressed Man” (starts at 2:48)
I wish I could grow a beard that long. I’d never have to wear a tie again.
21. PFT Commenter – Puddle of Mudd, “She Fuckin’ Hates Me” (intro)
This is my ringtone FYI
22. Big Sandy – Dinosaur Jr. “I Don’t Wanna Go There” (starts at 4:18)
It’s considered the indie rock Freebird.
ROUND THREE:
23. Big Sandy – The Rolling Stones, “Sympathy For The Devil” (starts at 2:51)
A classic.
24. PFT Commenter – Peter Frampton, “Do You Feel Like We Do?”(starts at 7:22)
on account of his guitar speaks good english better then 99% of the NFC west
25. StuScottBooyahs – Don Felder, “Hotel California”
That solo was the theme song of my college days. As an aside, why stop at double neck guitars? EIGHT NECKS OR GTFO.
26. Old James – Steve Segal, “Girl It’s Alright”
Now, just hear me out. (Ed: your never going to have to explain yourself to me for putting the Law Man in any mock draft FYI) There really isn’t much of a guitar solo, and there’s nothing face-melt…wait, you know what? Fuck that. The guy in this video is playing the guitar with the same hands that once jammed Tommy Lee Jones’ eyeball up into his frontal lobe. It doesn’t get more badass than that. Style points for rocking out in a kimono.
27. Sarah Sprague – The Beatles, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (starts at 1:54)
George Harrison writes a song so complicated he doesn’t feel like he’s doing it justice so he hands it over to Clapton. I’m not a huge Beatles fan, but this song hits me in the gut every time.
28. RobotsFightingDinosaurs – Muse, “Knights Of Cydonia”
Pro move, taking both the Beatles and Clapton off the board in one fell swoop. I was gonna pick Bell Bottom Blues, but now I can’t.