been watching alot of live videos today of Ministry.
and was wondering how everyone here as Ministry fans
would grade Al as a guitarest between 1-10
style/performance.
I’d give him a 7 for his talent.
you know, given his recorded output i might score this pretty low but after being right up on 'em during the fornica al would kinda break from the ‘simple’ repititious groove of the songs and as the heat and the fact he never removed his leather jacket (insucure about his weight from what i hear) he kinda let it rip on songs and man he’s got skills i just don’t think they are strongest within metal=style you know?
I hang out with a lot of guitar players that would spank Al in a shred-off a million times over. He’s not classically trained and doesn’t seem to much like the whole proggy, jazzy stuff. And I’ve found that a lot of Al’s best licks/grooves were directly lifted from other people.
That said, I think while he may not be the most skilled or the most original person out there, he does know what sounds good and knows how to spin it into something pretty awesome.
Definitely a good player, but he’s fucked out of his head too often to show it, and the guitar’s just a very heavy necklace weighing him down. I’ve seen him playing great and i’ve seen him barely touch the guitar at other shows. I was watching the Adios Puta Madres dvd recently (i have no idea why, it’s pretty crap) and what struck me was that Al actually didn’t even seem to be singing much live, it looked like 80% backing track.
Al is very well rounded and knows the basics and a crap ton of instruments. But he’s no virtuoso on anything.
As a guitarist I think he sometimes likes to be in on the action and act sort of as the lead to set pace or mood for a piece, but he is by no means a great “musician” on the axe.
I think he uses the guitar to play around with the writing process, but, like Jay noted, he’s better off without a 15 lb necklace hanging on him when he’s too loaded to even know the words of the song.
While he isn’t as good as the other guys, he seems like he could hold his own when he wants to. I remember one part during the making of relapse, he was playing guitar, and you’d swear that he probably wouldn’t have needed the other guys except for the solos. And if I recall correctly, I think he played the solo to Rio Grande Blood, and played everything on that track. He usually lets the other guys play though, while he dictates and works the riff out with them.
Yeah, he knows what he’s doing, but there’s a reason he usually hires other guys to play lead.
kinda cool you posted this… i was thinking about this last weekend. i was listening to Lard. Last temptation of reid. and the guitar on that isn’t complex - at all. not in the slightest - but it’s good. tight.
when i think of al playing guitar i think of that lard record. i think of the mind album.