{ Lick That Riff! }

Alright everyone, hope you had a brilliant weekend. I’m currently skint so no outings to the pub for me Bad Times.

Anyway, as I write this I can already feel that the choice of guitar hero isn’t going to go down to well. His band. The Darkness had only one truly successful album, their debut, and they got a lot of stick for prancing around in leotards. But I assure you, if you listen to the music, especially from the album Permission To Land you will find some outstanding guitar playing for a debut album. This weeks Guitar Hero is Justin Hawkins. Lets see what TG had to say about him.

What Total Guitar Said:

You Know Him By His : Pantomime stage presence and virtuoso lead playing

Greatest Moment : At any of the Darkness’ gigs, whereupon Hawkins sits astride his roadie’s shoulders and parades around the venue while playing the tapping sequence to Love Is Only A Feeling.

Justin Hawkins was born at the wrong time. He’s an 1980′s metaller trapped in the body of a buck-toothed East Anglian; a prancing cyclone of huge hair and day-glo beads; a man with a CD collection full of  whitesnake and a wardrobe full of spandex.

New-fangled concepts like subtlety and introspection skim across the surface of his bulletproof self-belief; the vitriol of the music press merely causes him to turn up the pomposity knob. Hawkins couldn’t give a toss for passing fads or studied cool. His devotion to hard rock -= to the exclusion of all else – has give The Darkness a strange sort of integrity in the sea of fake cockneys and privately educated New Yorkers.

Permission To Land remains a thrilling album. It’s still ridiculous, of coruse; overblown, camp and tongue-in-cheek in an endearing way that only a rare few (Julian Clary, Queen) have been able to pull off. It’s also a guitar masterclass : the production of years spent crouched in a Lowestoft bedroom trying to work out the fiddly bit from Since You’ve Been Gone. If Hawkins’ virtuosity – and that of his brother Dan – is stunning, then it’s still eclipsed by his songwriting. ‘Friday Night’ , ‘Black Shuck’ , ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love – are all moments engineered to have you strumming the air and jabbing the jukebox.

He’s a cocky bastard. That’s fair enough. The knives are out for Hawkins, but while he continues to be the best soloist, songwriter and shrieker in Britain, the Prince of Darkness needn’t watch his back. He’s growing on us.

So that’s what Total Guitar had to say about him. Granted, this was four years ago and a lot has changed in Hawkins’ life over those years. He is no longer a part of The Darkness and has somewhat faded out of the spotlight. I know a lot of you will not appreciate Hawkins’ as a musician because he doesn’t take himself too seriously, but I challenge any of you to listen to Permission To Land; without all the leotards, big hair, and spangles – and actually come back and say it isn’t a great guitar album. It can’t be done, as said in the report above, it is a guitar masterclass. For all my American readers who may never have heard of the Darkness, I suggest you listen to Permission To Land. I’ve left you a snippet below.

Hope you enjoed this post, and I hope people take it seriously.

Peace x

• Harrison
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