Which brings us to the Great Kat, aka Katherine Thomas, the only woman named in Guitar One magazine's list of the "top ten fastest shredders of all time." In public relation stills, Ms. Kat wears a star-spangled bikini, and onstage she plays six-note-per-second metal with a crazed look that seems only partly an act. Talk to her on the phone and you get the sense that if a Cape buffalo could speak and it were really angry, it would sound something like this.
"I kick doors down," she shouts, in a 10-minute monologue torrent. "I literally kick doors down. I have to go buy new doors all the time."
She's totally serious. And when you ask her about the lack of guitar heroines, she has some inflammatory opinions. Mostly, she blames the women: for refusing to work hard enough, for lacking discipline and for lacking a certain part of the male reproductive anatomy, although it's safe to assume she's being figurative.
"Any idiot off the street can play the guitar," she sort of yells, without pausing for breath. "But you have to have attitude, you've got to know the basics, and women, unfortunately, whether in music or politics, they don't have the mind-set to practice and work to go [testicles] to [testicles]. Not letting guys take over. 'Get the [heck] out of my way, now! I'm going to kick your [rear]! I'm going to stomp all over you!' "
The more you know about the Great Kat, the more she seems like a walking, talking unifying theory of women and rock guitar. There's more testosterone in her voice than in the entire starting lineup of the New York Rangers. But testosterone alone can't explain her career. As it happens, when Kat was 4 years old she saw something that changed her life: a little girl playing a violin on TV.
"I said, okay, I'm doing that," she recalls. She practiced for hours and hours through her childhood, attended the Juilliard School in Manhattan, one of the country's premier music schools, and picked up the guitar only after she concluded that classical music was dead.
Then she began to transpose the work of composers like Wagner and Beethoven for the electric guitar, note for note, sped up and distorted. One of her albums, "Rossini's Rape," features a guitar-based version of the "William Tell" Overture. On the cover, she's dressed as a dominatrix, about to pummel a helpless man wearing chains and a leather hood.
I wouldn't say this to her face -- actually, I wouldn't say it to her on the phone either -- but it's unlikely that the Great Kat will show up on a list of the greatest rock guitarists in history. Playing super-fast is neat-o and updating symphonies for metal freaks is novel, but neat-o and novel aren't the same as writing and performing "Purple Haze." Still, in her origins and her hectorings you can spot all of the elements needed to build a great guitar player, male or female: a role model, an early start, discipline and an indefatigable urge to show off and dominate. Once the world is crawling with Great Kats, and once little girls know it, there's no telling what could happen.
"I consider myself a god," Kat blurts before hanging up.
All guitarists should. Guys like Beethoven don't roll over for mortals.
Re: Who says chicks can't play guitar?
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 9:05 am
by phlemmy
Ugh. She's horrible. I've tried getting into her playing for 20 years and it's still just noise.
Re: Who says chicks can't play guitar?
Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 5:37 pm
by jaymi
phlemmy wrote:Ugh. She's horrible. I've tried getting into her playing for 20 years and it's still just noise.
I have tried as well...the shredding violin is interesting but....
Re: Who says chicks can't play guitar?
Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 5:50 pm
by kiramdear
It's not really my taste either. But then I have that with a lot of players in this genre. I just thought she was a fascinating anomaly, and then I read her interview and thought she needed some kudos.
It's kind of lean pickings out there for girls who are looking for guitar heroines
Re: Who says chicks can't play guitar?
Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:00 pm
by rikk
It's who can go faster, not who can play a better song. It all sounds the same to me. Give me melody, groove and a hook and I'll be happy.
Re: Who says chicks can't play guitar?
Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:58 pm
by kiramdear
OK, here's another great female guitarist: April Lawton of Ramatam (c.1970-72) Mitch Mitchell was drummer in this group which made two albums, I believe. April got quite a bit of attention at the time for being one of the first women to play lead guitar, and for doing it so well.
About '89, I answered an ad from The Village Voice that the The Great Kat had placed, looking for a bassist. When I heard her voice on her answering machine, I couldn't take her seriously. I didn't leave a message.
Re: Who says chicks can't play guitar?
Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 11:13 pm
by kiramdear
Here's a band that's more to my taste. This is Fanny, featuring June Millington on guitar (I parked her car once ) Here they cover on of my favorite songs, "Badge", in 1970. The guitar solo is worth waiting for.
That was ummm...nuts...wow...anyway...Flight of the Bumblebee isn't Tchaikovsky, either. It was Rimsky-Korsakov
Re: Who says chicks can't play guitar?
Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 12:02 pm
by atomic_punk
Hey, Nancy Wilson from Heart or Jan Kuehnemund from Vixen can be in my band ANYTIME.
Re: Who says chicks can't play guitar?
Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 1:02 am
by Tarrbot
The kidlet loves playing her guitar. She's 12.
As much as I try to get her into some great (IMO) music, she's all about Paramore and No Doubt... which is understandable given her age and they've got heavy women leads. Yeah, we have tickets to their show in 2 months.
I encourage her but she's incredibly shy about playing around others. Listening to her in her room, though, she's not half bad.
She plays bass too as well as clarinet.
She does like some Rush though.
I keep telling her that if she's good enough she might one day go to UNT's music school. (There's an in joke about Texas there since I'm originally from there).
At the very least, I can thank her for getting me back into playing bass again and into another Ric.
Re: Who says chicks can't play guitar?
Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 3:37 am
by kiramdear
I love it, Scott. Please give your daughter a hearty handshake for me and tell her to keep on rockin' by all means. She's already halfway to the top with a great Dad like yourself. Chicks rule!
) Here they cover on of my favorite songs, "Badge", in 1970. The guitar solo is worth waiting for. 