I originally heard about It Might Get Loud - a documentary focusing on guitarists Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White - from an issue of Guitar World.  Despite what common sense would dictate, this sort of documentary didn’t get a lot of press outside the guitar community.  It played at Lawrence’s Liberty Hall a couple of weeks and then went away.  I really wanted to see it, but I’m really bad about procrastinating with movies and unless they’re complete blockbusters they end up going away before I can see them.  I ended up  seeing it last night after it popped up on my cable system’s on demand service.  Again without fanfare, it just sort of showed up.

The bottom line is that it’s good, but I was hoping for a lot more, although I’m not sure what.  The film tracks the career history of the three who talk about their influences and motivations for playing.  With a couple of exceptions I was familiar with the sections about Jimmy Page, which makes sense based on all the interviews of his I’ve read over the years.  The Edge covered U2’s origins and discussed the different effects he uses to get his sound. 

When I was younger I used to really dislike The Edge’s playing because he wasn’t Jimmy Page or Yngwie Malmsteen.  Over the years I’ve come to appreciate his playing more, and appreciating that he’s doing his own thing.  That came out even more during the film and after seeing it I can see the path he’s going down as a guitarist.

Jack White ended up being the most interesting character in the film, mainly because I’m not sure what to make of him.  I’m not sure if everything he said in the movie was sincere or not.  At one point in the film he pulls out a Son House album and describes how one of his songs is what drives him to make music.  On one hand this seems like the sort of thing that a phony hipster would do - bring out a relatively unknown but not too obscure blues musician and really talk it up in order to seem deep and intelligent.  On the other hand, I pulled out my White Stripes albums today and I can totally see where Son House influenced his material, especially how he described the passion and energy of his music.

So that’s how he goes throughout the movie.  He has his odd hipster clothes and his off-brand guitars and the whole thing seems sort of pretentious.  However he seems very sincere about the whole thing and I hope he is.  The world needs more people who listen to Son House.

The movie culminates with the three guitarists meeting in London comparing notes and playing together.  They play Zepplin’s “In My Time of Dying”, U2’s “I Will Follow” and the White Stripes’ “Dead Leaves and Dirty Ground”, along with “The Weight” as the credits roll.  This sounds like it would be incredible but for some reason left me flat.  Both Jack White and the Edge seemed a little tense and it came out in the playing.

Overall it’s worth watching.  The archival footage is great and gives some pretty decent insight into the minds of guitarists from three different generations.  Now I have a great idea for a sequel featuring Yngwie Malmsteen, Glenn Frey, and that guy who used to be in the Foo Fighters who wore a dress…

“But seriously, you only cheat yourself if you cut corners with crappy guitar playing”

- from the “Duncan Hills Coffee Solo” instructional video

The problem with a lot of instrumental guitar albums is that the songs start blending together and ends up being just a lot of wanking with the bass and drums plodding along in the background*.  Brad Paisley has overcome this with Play, a mostly instrumental album (five of the sixteen songs are duets with other artists, although one is an oddball “duet” with Andy Griffith).  These songs are spread out through the album and give it a nice flow with the instrumental tracks.

Each track has its own identity - “Huckleberry Jam” is a traditional country breakdown, “Turf’s Up” is a surf type instrumental, “Cliffs of Rock City” is an Eric Johnson-type song. Despite the different song types, Paisley’s guitar playing remains a constant and makes each song his.

I’m a mark for instrumental albums anyway, but this is one of most accessible ones I’ve ever heard.  The different styles keep things from getting bogged down and boring.  This is one of the better albums I’ve heard this year, and hopefully this will lead to similar projects by non-traditional guitar heroes.

* Of course, my music collection contains about 90% of what Yngwie Malmsteen has put out so guitar wanking isn’t always a terrible thing.