School Daze

by  Rich Maloof

My favorite college memories include jamming with foreign exchange students, getting kicked offstage during Parents’ Weekend, and sleeping through classes the day after a gig. You see, I was a scholar. There’s a time and a place for playing guitar while your folks burn their life savings, and college is it.

That’s why we were impressed when BestCollegesOnline.net published its own Top 10 Guitar Players Of All Time. These people understand higher ed in a way that someone paying full tuition never will.

Granted, we’ve bucked against the “Top 10” tradition here at the Punch-In; if you haven’t already cast your votes in TrueFire’s Who’s Who Of Guitar 2010, get on it already. But we’re interested that even people who don’t breathe guitar 24/7 still have some strong feelings. Check BCO’s Top 10 and let us know what you think: Do the usual suspects still deserve top billing or is time to chisel new faces into Mount Rushmore?

Each entry features a classic vid clip, and we thought it was very cool that they included Robert Johnson (though if you were expecting video of Johnson, remember that cellphone video quality was still poor in 1937).

We’ll leave you to the college crowd right after you take a look at this clip of Eddie Van Halen, #7 on the list. It’s an 11-minute version of “Eruption” — a tune that still, after all these years, makes me wonder whether it’s time to quit or head back to school.