To Mark IV and anyone else interested who can't resolve the hilarious vimeo link I posted above -

It is a clip from an old SNL skit in which Eddie Murphy (in dreads) is announced onstage at an American Legion gig. He is accompamnied by musicians all in dreads and especially notable here, a lanky guitar player with a Strat and a battery powered Pignose amp om a strap around his shoulder...awesome tone BTW. They are introduced as Tyrone Green and his Reggae Band.

I really don't want to spoil the fun of the song they play so that should be enough for anyone to find the clip but with one caveat - You likely won't find it on YouTube since Google, the owner of YT, is rigidly Politically Correct, avoiding controversy at all costs which is a monumental task since what is controversial varies with cultures globally.

Personally I hate this ridiculous censorship (reminds me of Jack Nicholson's arrogant army character yelling "You can't handle the truth!". I truly don't understand why Google, who from the jump offered profile preferences like "Safe Search is Off" for their famous/infamous search engine has not learned from that experience and instituted profiled preferences for YouTube to make it adjustable instead of simply catering to American 12 year olds.

Maybe search for the skit and you decide if in 2025 we can't handle the comedy of The Not Ready for Primer Time Troupe from 70s = 80s.

If you’re a pasty white guy and you’ve ever played a pentatonic lick with the flat five added “the blue note,” you are guilty of cultural appropriation or stealing from black culture. If you’re a black dude, and you’ve ever played a harmonic minor lick, you’re guilty of cultural appropriation, or stealing from white European culture… By your definition.

So every combination of note’s you’ve ever played, are unique unto you? No borrowing or “stealing” from another culture or artist? You’ve developed a brand new style of music without a hint of anything from any other form of music? Awesome! I’d love to hear it.

No disrespect to the OP, but I could only ever choose guitars based on the aesthetic I like, the playing feel, and the tones I want.
Nothing else matters.

Certainly guitars serve a dual, yet secondary purpose as “stage props.” Some radical stage prop guitars like the Van Halen logo guitar or Steve Vai’s triple neck heart guitar have to be a nightmare to play on stage. It all depends on how important “the show” is to an artist. Certain guitars are expected in certain genre’s. If you’re playing metal with a Jazzmaster it’s going to look a little off and people will notice because they have expectations.
If you’re playing country in a Honky Tonk with a bright pink Jackson soloist, you’re probably going to get beer bottles chucked at you.

Play what sounds / feels best to you for the music you want to make and everything else be damned.

This is why it's good to be half black, half white. I can do calculus while swinging from trees.

🤣🤣🤣

Sometimes you just gotta pull out something for the show.

Nope! You got what I am saying wrong. There are differences between wholesale ripoffs and having influences.

Jump into microtonal, and there are endless possibilities to explore new sounds. An infinity of brand new. Would you like to hear it? Don't lie, you would hate to hear it.

Nah, and let the nostalgia cycle keep going. Endless ripping off of ripping off of ripping off. I sure love hearing those same few riffs over and over again, don't you? Sure you do.

Imagine if the Brits would have stuck with Skiffle instead the blues.

Maybe poorly ripping off American music and selling it back to us would have been in more obvious bad taste then. Certainly less profitable.

Start a Skiffle band! I mean, folk and redneck music is hot right now.

The right guitar for that, hmmm, better play a... Brit made guitar, of some kind. Patterned after an American one of course.

Brits still make guitars?

When you’ve invented your own new “system” of music, derivative of nothing. Get back to us WITH sound clips of course.

I don't think you are really disagreeing. Everything is based on something, and somethings are well played out. Gotta either innovate further out, or base it on something else. But it is always based. Even if you think it isn't- it is.

There's really no gray area about stealing music. You are either intentionally stealing something or not. Emulating something, being influenced by things is fair game. It is pretty clear when people are stealing. And our white American rock star and famous British rock stars stole. Not right, but they innovated plenty and did more original than they stole. Thievery was a starting point really. Although they stole later on too- those guys are racist pr*cks. Does not detract from their music for me, if I only listened to non-pr*cks I'd never listen to any music. I even like Wagner, although he wasn't too fond of my ancestors.

They might notice guitars when certain people play them - EVH Frankenstrat - Angus Young SG - even then they don’t care - just that sound moves them - my wife is pretty smart but she doesn’t know when I’m playing a Telecaster or Les Paul - she just sees the color and says ‘Is That A Different Guitar”?

I gotta say given the caliber of much of Music in 2025 and that it has always been that most Rock players who try to play Blues run out of anything to say after a couple measures if they get that far AND I take the opposing view that it isn't from lack of creativity but another phrase for "rip off, cultural appropriation" is "building on the roots" and so many players today don't even bother to learn their roots.

I actually played with a decent but quite young drummer who actually thought there were no decent recordings made prior to 1980 (it was 1984 then) and mostly because of lack of technology. It was rather ironic and funny that almost every post 1980 band he liked never left 4/4 time.

A player here on these message boards responded to a pot I'd made about introducing unique and interesting lines to Blues by learning from Jazz-Blues and Fusion by "playing outside". He responded back and actually stated he couldn't understand how music can be considered any different just by playing out of doors and that's not an exaggeration, just stone cold fact.

Blues as a Music form covers a LOT of territory. It's just that especially since the decline in popularity of Jazz and the encroachment of popularity on what manged to get any airplay on Pop stations even when Blues enjoyed a resurgence for a few years mostly between 1965 and 1975 it is and had been pared down to formula because so much Blues is so naturally "vocal". "I like it Mr Clark 'cuz it's got a good beat and you can dance to it" was heard by the bean counters.

So I don't rave on too long I'll just say I probably should make a Poll Thread asking players to play to this from 1959 and just complement the songs.



I'm pretty confidant the results would be fascinating