SO WHAT THE F’N *F* IS A WARR GUITAR ANYWAY?!?
The best way to describe it is as a touch-style multi-string instrument that incorporates both bass and regular guitar gauge strings on one oversized neck, for a variety of sound options. A hominah hominah homainah WHA?!? I was impressed enough back in the day when Alpha-Boy pulled out his custom double-neck guitar (one six-string neck for standard electric strings, and the other six-string neck fretless, for all your wanna-be sitar needz), but I guess you just can’t keep those shredders down, no matter how much you stab em in the jugular.
The Warr Guitar was created and developed by some dude in sunny California named Mark Warr (hence the name…der) in the early 90s, and seems to be in secret use around the world by some of the shreddiest face-melters out there. A commenter on my recently-posted review of 8/8/08’s Knitting Factory Intronaut/Mouth of the Architect/Behold…the Arctopus show made mention of the instrument (which is used by one of B…tA’s shred monkeys — see this weekend’s extra-proggy SSTGST), and for extremely good reason: it’s fucking ridonkculous.
BUT…doesn’t the mere utilization of this instrument no doubt shape the sound of the music itself by the inevitable need to…well, to SHRED??? I definitely could stand to do a bit more research on this, but I would imagine that only the most advanced players out there could respectably step up to the Warr Guitar and put that biatch to good use — namely, by diddely-doodely-diddely-deeing all the way to fucking Jupiter. But could any Warr Guitar player employ the merits behind the age-old acronym K.I.S.S.??? I sincerely doubt it, but it would be a pleasure (and most likely an aural treat) to be proven wrong on that one.
From the Warr Guitar website:
Touch-style playing is an innovative art which reaches its full potential on the Warr Guitar Series. On one neck you can simultaneously play lead, bass, and rhythm parts. You can play in an upright or horizontal (guitar-style) position. You can use your favorite techniques such as tap, pick, strum, pluck, slap, or pop; and, you’ll love the 24 fret, five-octave range. The possibilities are endless on the Artist, allowing you to create your own unique sound.
Hmm…not sure I entirely agree with that; as I’ve already mentioned, my take on it is that the availability to access so many different string/fretboard options (24 frets, 5 fucking octaves worth!) would induce any guitar player, even the most straight-forward among us, to bust out and tear it UP. So…does the likelihood of shredding actually dominate whatever sound you are going for and therefore make it difficult to break the obvious Warr Guitar mold? Is shredding a genre?!? Or at the very least, an inextricable genre element that takes over a band/player’s “sound” or “style”?
Dunno. Whaddyou think, tough guy/gal??
Check out some surprisingly mellow Warr Guitar-ing HERE (complete with cocktail party-esque chitter-chatter and jazz dork melody sing-a-long). Impressive, yes, but it still sorta seems like a wank-off novelty to me.
I’ll take this guy any day of the week.
-KW
