[kj] OT: Rikk Agnew, guitarist of 45 Grave, Christian Death, Social Distorti

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

I was lucky enough to catch 45 Grave on their "reunion" tour a couple of 
years back. Unlike many faux reunions (The Misfits, Dead Kennedys) this 
one could at least boast signer Dinah Cancer and Agnew on guitar (later 
he dropped off the tour for health reasons). Agnew was simply great as 
the guitarist; he simply owned his guitar and you could tell he was 
playing well below his abilities to do the 45 Grave stuff. Two hands on 
the neck/fretboard for a lot of the solos and riff yet nothing sounded 
wanky and there was no intricate glam metal noodling, thank God. To my 
delight 45 Grave played a lot of their thrashy, early stuff off the 
_Autopsy_ collection, which a lot of the audience seemed to be 
unfamiliar with. What a shame! "The Plan" by 45 Grave, from 1981 or so, 
is one of the fastes, most powerful thrash songs from the 80s, I think, 
almost reaching into black metal territory with its rhythm section.

-Oliver


Christof hamille wrote:

> You scared me.  I thought it was going to be a obituary or something.  

> One of the greatest guitar players ever.  I have all of those 

> records.  And not because they are Agnew records but because they are 

> all excellent records that ,with no coincidence, have Agnew all over 

> them.  Even his later solo was pretty good.

>

> Chris

>

>