Rhythmic Waves
Magnapop
Ruthie Morris

by Tim Kenneally

"I've never understood why people consider rhythm guitar playing to be somehow less important than lead playing," grouses Ruthie Morris, guitarist for Atlanta-based power quartet Magnapop. "I mean, Eddie Van Halen...I could never even pretend to play 'Eruption.' I'm impressed by those people, but I don't have the desire to play that stuff. It doesn't move me in the same way as something by, say, Keith Richards."

Morris nails the rhythm down admirably on Rubbing Doesn't Help (Priority), Magnapop's third album. An adherent of the jackhammer method of rhythm guitar playing, she constructs a thick, no-nonsense bed of propulsive power chords that seem perfectly suited to the emotionally charged lyrics of Magnapop vocalist and co-songstress Linda Hopper. "I used to do more of a Byrds-like arpeggio style, but it just wasn't driving enough for this band," says Morris. "So I started playing along with Ramones and Stooges records, and really developed my right hand. The bad part is I break strings all the time--I definitely don't have a light touch. I want people to feel what I'm doing, and if it was just really smooth, you maybe wouldn't feel it."

Not that Morris' playing isn't marked by turns of delicacy; sandwiched between the buzz saw slashings of "Radio Waves" and "An Apology" are the fragile acoustic pickings of "Down On Me" and the winsome chiming of "Open The Door." On the elegaic "Dead Letter," Morris coaxes gentle, banjo-like patterns out of an E-tuned dobro. She sees such tracks as a distinct and deliberate departure from the band's previous efforts, 1992's Magnapop and 1994's Hot Boxing (produced, respectively, by Michael Stipe and Bob Mould).

"We wanted to make this record more eclectic and less stylistically repetitive than our other ones," says Morris. "This is going to sound pretty lofty, but I wanted this to be like our White Album. I didn't want us to be perceived as just another generic pop-punk band when we're capable of so much more than that."