Choppy post punk guitar technique

That rhythmic thing used by Talking Heads, A Certain Ratio and all dem lot...

How do I achieve this? Is there a method? Is it just playing the chords with muted palm or is there more to it? And are there any particular chords or keys I should learn?

kind of a hard question to answer, but instead of studying specific chords or playing techniques i'd just listen closely to how these guitarists use space and rhythm. i'm not superfamiliar with a certain ratio, but none of the talking heads guitar parts i can think of are especially hard to play, there are lots of big open chords on '77 for example. i think you're mainly thinking of the rhythmic patterns, which are usually just stripped-down funk rhythms, so maybe you should listen to more funk music

maybe you could mention specific songs where you hear the guitar style you're interested in, or even specific moments?

The '77 sound is not really representative of what I mean as, as you say it's a bit more acoustic and open-chorded. But by Remain In Light, there's this almost percussive use of the guitar that's very ingrained in Funk music, but while it's rhythmical it still has melodic or harmonic qualities. I think, form the research I've done, that it relies on a lot of 7ths and 9ths, but I'm not that experienced to be able to use the fretboard confidently enough in this way. I'm wondering more about how they achieve the jagged "angular" rhythmic sound here. I'm assuming it's all palm muting, but I could be wrong.

It's a trademark sound and it's all over the Disco and FUnk ispired postpunk stuff on albums by The Slits, Talking Heads, THe Pop Group etc. etc.

Modern bands, particularly DFA types like The Rapture and LCD Soundsystem use this technique a lot too.

lots of upstrokes

are we talking gang of 4 stuff here?

It's not really about palm muting - palm muting sort of 'anchors' the right hand and you need to be a bit more flexible in movement for funky choppy stuff. You can use the front of your fingers as well as the side of your palm. You need to be muting with both hands - I'd say that being able to mute accurately and fast with the fretting hand is probably more important to work on, as being able to do it well makes all the difference. Some tips :

Try lots of small 2 or 3 -note half chords or double-stops. Make sure you mute the other strings, either with the tips of the adjacent fingers or, for lower strings, by hooking your thumb over.

Muted 'clunks' and 'clicks' are as important as the notes themselves, so make sure the timing of these is spot on.

Try and get the hang of 'ghost' strokes with your picking hand - i.e. sweeps that miss the strings altogether. These are important for keeping the timing, keeping your hand flowing and being in the right-place for the next downstroke or upstroke if you need consecutive ones of either.

Single-string fast picking little runs can sound good - here you can do normal palm-muting with a fixed hand. You can release tension by relaxing the palm muting gradually. Talking Heads do this all the time on the early albums.

If we're talking Gang of Four, that's quite easy - a lot of Andy Gill's stuff is copied from Wilko Johnson - you can do a lot of that stuff by chopping about in the pentatonic.

For more trad-type James Brown funky guitar look here for advice on chords and rhythms. http://guitar.about.com/library/weekly/aa091701b.htm

Cheers Dr C - that's helpful. What is meant by "double-stops"?

Two notes together.

lmao this is the first google result for "post punk guitar"

and now i see why--thx dr c!

haha - that's great. Now the whole internet plays as badly as me.