Friday thread: Eleven axe treatments for the weekend

Friday. Three PM. Time for some strings and things to wind a Friday down with. The common theme here is plucked strings.

Warning: If you’re an aspiring musician, it may not be wise to to watch any of these as they set the bar a bit high. I don’t want to send you into the weekend in a slough of depression…

Firstly, here’s what to do if you’ve got a guitar but can’t get a drummer:

This is Iranian-American guitarist Maneli Jamal with a similarly percussive treatment…

… and this is Tunisian Oud-player, Anouar Brahem playing a beautiful piece that brought him to the wider attention of European audiences when he played it on Jan Garbarek’s ‘Madar‘ album:

Here’s ex-Stray Cat Brian Setzer with a tour de force / lesson / newbie-demoraliser:

Gerry O’Connor – the most imitated tenor banjo player (probably because he’s the most successful ‘teach yourself’ DVD salesman) is here with a couple of reels. The first one is The Bag of Spuds. The second is a nice standard tune – probably familiar to a lot of readers here: The Copperplate.

I saw Richard Thompson playing a solo gig earlier this year – I kept peering around the stage just to confirm that there’s not a backing band of any kind. This one’s his most-requested ‘Vincent Black Lightning‘ from Rumour & Sigh:

This is a Wes Montgomery cover of Monk’s ‘Round Midnight‘ – I’ve always thought it could have been written for a guitar (I fairly certain Monk composed on the piano), the way it steps though arpeggios at the start.

On a heavier note, here’s Norn Iron’s verygood ‘And So I Watch You From Afar‘ with ‘Set Guitars To Kill‘:

Galway’s Albert Niland with that version of Wuthering Heights:

This is my personal favourite of the lot here: a nice whimsical take on Scott Joplin’s ‘Bethena Waltz‘ (which you may have heard as the signature to the Benjamin Button film):

And lastly, Super Mario gets the two-axe treatment: