Standing There

At the end of last week these appeared on Youtube, John Squire's isolated guitar tracks from a handful of Stone Roses songs. Hearing just John's guitar was a bit of a moment, revelatory in some ways. The first one I found was the guitar from Standing Here, a 1989 B-side and a song that is the equal of anything else they released in '89.

Standing Here always sounded like John had been listening to Hendrix, the Are You Experienced? album, and then went straight into the studio to put his guitar down. The opening squall of feedback notes and then the bluesy riffing is pure Hendrix in 1967 filtered through late 80s Manchester. Take Ian's vocals and Mani and Reni's bass and drums away and it's like being in the studio hearing him play. The blissed out coda from three minutes sixteen is even more so, John's chorus pedal and picked out notes repeating (and it is difficult not to hear Ian singing 'I could park a juggernaut in your mouth/ And I can feel a hurricane when you shout/ I could be safe forever/ In your arms as it plays but on it's own it is very lovely). 

The next one I clicked on was the guitar from Bye Bye Badman, even more of a revelation- John barely plays what you think of as the song's melody, his fingers dance around the harmonies and the choppy part at one minute six through to one minute twenty five (the chorus essentially) is wonderful. There are more than one guitar parts on this I think. If one had a sampler and the inclination, one could take parts of this and construct a completely new version, an angelic Balearic sunset version of Bye Bye Badman....

The isolated guitar from Don't Stop is a joy to listen to, the backwards guitar from Waterfall on its own. Less of a jawdropping moment when first heard compared to the two above but lovely to listen to. This one lays bare the recording and writing process- you can imagine them playing the guitar part back, backwards, and then Reni drumming along with it, the cowbell being added, then the bass and then Ian's vocals (John wrote the lyrics by listening to the vocals from Waterfall backwards and transcribing what the backwards swirl suggested). 

The last one is the guitar part from the full nine minute 12" version of One Love from 1990. Shorn of Reni and Mani's huge funked up rhythm parts the guitars sound less typically 1990. John runs through his bag of tricks, riffs and solos, wah wah and distortion, chords for the chorus, runs up and down the neck. The second half where the song becomes an extended jam on disc, funky drummer and piledriving guitar and bass, sounds more experimental in isolation, choppy 70s parts, squeals of feedback, trippy harmonics and muted strings. You could do something else with some of the parts of this- sample them, loop them, reverse them...