Today in guitar

Because, I am, or was (I guess), all about the guitar, I wanted to link to Ace’s micro-review of It Might Get Loud.

I’ve been wanting to see this for some time. I don’t care much about Edge or Jack White. I don’t have anything against them, but nothing for them either. I do care about what Jimmy Page has to say and find the idea of having his input couched by a couple of more modern guitarists interesting. To be honest, without having seen more than a couple of clips, I think this documentary would probably be better if the guys from Them Crooked Vultures had been in it instead (with Page still, though).

Anyway, Ace offers up a couple of other music documentaries and while I think they’re interesting, I thought I’d offer up my own suggestions:

~ New York Doll: Here’s my review of this wonderful documentary about the New York Doll’s bass player. Moving.

~ Les Paul – Chasing Sound: Made more poignant by his recent death, this documentary delves into Paul’s history and his relationship with ex-wife Mary Ford and the guitar that bears his name. For a guitar-fetishist such as myself, it was light on technical details except the multi-track recording he pioneered, yet it’s an invaluable video about a American legend.

~ End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones and Too Tough to Die: A Tribute to Johnny Ramone: How fitting that the band featuring two polarizing personalities needs two documentaries to do them justice. I think End of the Century does the better job of balancing the history of the Ramones, but it is very Joey-centric. Too Tough to Die doesn’t really give you any new Ramones information that you don’t get from End of the Century. However, you get to see a side of Johnny that fans never saw until this point. And because of that, I think we get better insight into one of the America’s greatest bands. I found TTD more poignant because of the setting, the fact that much of Johnny’s story was told through close friends. Heck, it even made me like Eddie Vedder again.