A long time ago, on an amp far, far away...

Bopping around town the other day, one of my favorite guitar solos came on, and for a moment I'm sure I was more dangerous to my fellow drivers than an inebriated executive on a cell phone in the midst of changing a CD in a school zone. Good solos tend to distract me. That gave me the idea to mine my collection for ya.

I've collected a herd (get it? "heard" - *ahem*, anyway...) of some great ones. [Click the titles for the solos. Or if things don't work, in MS Windows right click and select "save as..."; on a Mac, hold button down and save it; on Linux, I won't insult you with instructions.]

"When I look at the World" - solo by The Edge (aka Dave Evans) of U2. Doesn't it sound like fireworks riding into the sky and detonating? The Edge is underrated as a guitarist because what he does is so simple. Guitar mavericks often say "anyone can do what he does," yet I've yet to hear someone who makes good on that boast.

"Sentimental Hygiene" - Neil Young straps one on for Warren Zevon's chunky hit. This is just one of the two great solos Neil hammers out for the excitable boy, may he rest in peace.

"Breakdown Dead Ahead" - This is where I get into trouble with the true believers of rock and roll. "Boz Scaggs!?!?" they'd say in mock horror, "What have you been smoking and why aren't you passing it around? Isn't Scaggs that guy who sounds like Kermit the Frog on 'We're All Alone'? How lame!" Well, yeah, Boz did channel Kermit for the first couple bars, but man, Steve Lukather (renowned studio musician) just snorts off a nasty one here, don't he?

"Sausalito Summernight" - from Danish one hit wonder Diesel. This was one of those impossible to find singles until a couple years ago. Don't you wish you could play guitar like that?

"Things Change" - Dwight Yoakam's silent partner, in only a figurative sense, is Pete Anderson. Pete has produced all of Dwight's albums, is often the co-writer of his songs, and is his main guitarist on top of it all. Take the pressure off, Pete.

"Peach" - Prince gets all Jimi here. The tune is essentially a frame for guitar solos (three!) and breast metaphors. In other words, bouncy perfection.

"Up in Arms" - Foo Fighters. That's Dave Grohl, former drummer of Nirvana, smokin' the frets (all too briefly) there (AND doing the vocals). To think one guy is this talented just makes my fillings ache. (In case you were wondering, he simply is the best freakin' drummer still working today, only threatened by the drummer he hired for the Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkins.)

"Nada" - The Refreshments (specifically guitarist Brian David Blush) from their album "Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy", which to me is one of the great unsung rock albums of all time. The whole thing is a raft of great tunes, with phenomenal guitar work - as you can tell from this clip. The band broke up after their second album, which was a dark day in the Yahmdallah household. The wife let me sit out on the deck and gaze into the distance as the sun set, contemplating that "sun-cracked, coal-black soul of mine" (a refrain from "Nada") and the sadness of losing one of my favoritist bands.

Hey kids, rock and roll, rock on.