A Way Without Words: The Triumph Of The Solo Guitarist

forsyth

Chris Forsyth

Chris Forsyth may be the most challenging of the artists we’ve collected here, but for true guitar-lovers he could be one of the most intriguing. His 2013 debut for the Paradise of Bachelors label is a four-part suite of modal explorations and improvisational digressions that are jazz-like in structure but purely rock and roll in tone and attack. Forsyth’s enrapturing psychedelia straddles the line between simplicity and chaos, melody and noise, all swathed in some of the most evocative guitar sounds to be put on tape in recent memory.

“Live, my main guitar is a Rick Kelly Stratocaster,” he says. “I had been playing a Japanese Strat that I had bought in maybe ’90 or ’91. I picked up Rick’s Strat and I was like ‘Ooh, this is what a Strat is supposed to sound like.’”

Kelly is a legendary New York luthier based out of Carmine Guitars on Carmine Street in New York City. Forsyth had been a Carmine customer – going there for set-ups, repairs, that sort of thing – for a while, when one day Kelly had one of his guitars go up for consignment. A Kelly Strat up for sale is a rare thing – they’re generally commissioned by folks like Lou Reed, Bill Frissel and pioneering art-punk guitarist Robert Quine.

“I would keep going back because Robert Quine – who is one of my favorite guitarists of all time – was always there smoking and glowering at people and noodling on guitar, being a total misanthrope,” says Forsyth.

And where his reasons for choosing a guitar shop might be left of center for his choice of amplification. “I’ve got a bunch of silver faced Fenders,” say Forsyth, noting his’73 Deluxe Reverb that he’s had for almost twenty years. On the road he’s used a Fender Bassman 50, an amp favored by guitarists looking for a meatier wallop.  “At least when I play with a drummer,” he says, “because I can get louder and cleaner and it projects over the drums better than the Deluxe.”

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