Indholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 128 i Australian Guitar

There’s something fascinating about the way DMA’s compose themselves onstage. Oasis nods are amplified by the lackadaisical gravitas that frontman Tommy O’Dell wields, axemen Johnny Took and Matt Mason jamming to their hearts’ content on either side of him. Their high-stakes Britpop flair is larger than life in every way imaginable, which makes it all the more surprising when our meeting with Took and Mason finds them in a notedly relaxed state. We’re at the cosy Lady Hampshire on the outskirts of their native Sydney, pop-punk covers of early Aughts pop tracks blaring from overhead. The three of us, Took with a seafood chowder in hand and Mason on his fifth plain tonic water, the ultimate rock’n’roll combo, huddle at a table. In a lot of ways, the iconic bar…

Kaki King is a visionary guitarist, but more than that, she’s a visionary musician. Literally. Originally known for her percussive acoustic guitar compositions, King’s style has morphed over the years into a more free-flowing, expressive and expansive repertoire presented with a strong visual component. Her current show, The Neck Is A Bridge To The Body, is as much conceptual as it is musical, with digital images projected onto King’s all-white Ovation guitar. Another recent project, Bruises, uses data on King’s daughter’s illness as a jumping-off point for a musical and visual representation of a tough time in her young family’s life. You’re about to play the Adelaide Guitar Festival, which is a really interesting event because it’s not just for guitar geeks, it’s more arts-based and broad. I think I’ve…

‘64 CUSTOM DELUXE REVERB RRP: $4,999 • fender.com.au Played on countless hit recordings, the mid-’60s Deluxe Reverb is a timeless Fender classic and one of the most indispensable workhorse guitar amps ever made. Moderately powered and producing a full, snappy and crystalline tone, the pedal-friendly ‘64 Custom Deluxe Reverb carries on that legacy with incredible vintage-style tones, thanks to its modified all-tube, handwired AB763 circuitry. Featuring Bright and Normal channels, tube-driven spring reverb and tremolo on both channels, and 20 watts of output power, this is the go-to amp for warm, clean tones and moderate breakup. 2018 LIMITED EDITION FENDER AMERICAN ELITE TELECASTER HSS RRP: $3,599 • fender.com.au This limited edition American Elite Telecaster HSS mixes bleeding-edge performance with timeless visual style. Simply put, it’s the future of workhorse guitar…

REEVES GABRELS GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS As David Bowie’s right-hand man from the garage punk of Tin Machine through to the hippy dream that was Hours... and everywhere in-between, Gabrels’ impressionistic style is part blazing technique, part abstract sonic terrorism. WHERE TO START BABY UNIVERSAL The post-chorus melody in Tin Machine’s “Baby Universal” is a study in sustain and whammy control. BOSS LEVEL A SMALL PLOT OF LAND The solo to the dark industrial jazz weirdness, it’s full of uncomfortably outside notes and weird, skittering speed-licks. RICKY WILSON GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS By the time he joined the B-52’s in 1976, he had already created a new style that merged elements of new-wave, post-punk and surf music. He was also a pioneer of odd tunings, often removing a string or two from his guitar…

MIDDLE KIDS Lost Friends INDEPENDENT / UNIVERSAL Lost Friends – the long-awaited debut LP from the Sydney-based indie jammers in Middle Kids – is like the perfect frappuccino in audible form. In place of an espresso shot, there’s a bitterness that comes from the sharp and sombre lyricisms; there’s a creaminess in the dusty reverb and psychedelic warbles that glisten the guitars, and a sweetness in the emphatic and homely vocals that frontwoman Hannah Joy conquers like an absolute goddess (her keywork is also damn near compelling enough to snap anyone out of a coma). Texture is incredibly vital here too: the rough-edged production offers a decent level of icy crunch, while the always exhilarating melodies deliver an ethereal smoothness to round it all out. And much like the perfect…

There’s something interesting going on in the guitar world. Digital modellers like the Line 6 Helix, Fractal Audio Axe-Fx and Kemper Profiler are great for low-profile stage setups, so touring bands love them because hauling around a full amp rig ain’t cheap. Just plug your processor into the mixing desk, and you’re off and shredding. But at the higher end of the touring budget, some bands like to still have real speaker cabs onstage for the full ‘rock god’ effect – something to make the pants flap and the pickups feed back when the whole band is wearing in-ear monitors and the stage volume is down to just drums and backing vocals. So those players will use power amps and a range of guitar cabs, defeating the cost benefits of…

With Tropical F*** Storm, the clue is in the name. There’s something distinctly humid, carnal and aggressive about the band, and despite Gareth Liddiard (of The Drones fame) having been at this rock’n’roll game for over 20 years, he’s clearly not expecting this band to be the fortune-making commercial breakthrough. And if A Laughing Death In Meatspace shares a lot of DNA with The Drones thanks to the presence of Liddiard and bassist Fiona Kitschin, it’s DNA in the sense of splatter patterns around a crime scene. That’s largely because of the influence of drummer Lauren Hammell (High Tension) and Harmony vocalist Erica Dunn on guitar, who together push the band in strange directions. If single “You Let My Tyres Down” could plausibly be a Drones song, the same couldn’t…

Def Leppard’s fourth album, Hysteria, has gone through an interesting life. Selling about a bajillion copies in the ‘80s, it was a slick, state-of-the-art record that blended pop melodies with a heavy rock sensibility. Over time, it started to sound quite dated – especially as bands went back to basics in the ‘90s. Then, something strange happened: advances in recording technology meant it was easier to get that pristine, produced, orchestrated sound, and now, Hysteria sounds incredibly current again. Put aside the fact that you’ve heard “Pour Some Sugar On Me” a million times and listen to a track like “Gods Of War” instead, and you’ll notice that Def Leppard were employing production tricks in 1987 that producers use as a matter of routine now – except that Leppard were…

Five years ago, this scribe caught Luca Brasi play a ~2,000,000-decibel set to a crowd of flannel-clad punks in a beatdown dive bar accentuated with the faint scent of middle-age regret. It was far from the kind of setting you’d want to take a first date to, but to stand in a human tsunami – drenched in sweat and dodging wave upon wave of crowd surfers – was the only way to truly appreciate the anti-gaudy and intensely honest brand of noise the Tassie pub-punk powerhouse wore so feverishly on their sleeve… But goddamn, how things have changed. Their latest king hit to the eardrums, Stay, is as honest as anything the Brasi boys have thrown us in days past – if not moreso. It’s dirt-raw and never veers too…

The amp’s physical build looks elegant and feels dependable. There’s a nice heft to the wood and steel frame, complimented by a classy design and colour scheme. While you certainly couldn’t fit the V130 in the overhead compartment, it still feels relatively compact and lightweight for its product class. Turning it on, players familiar with the original V30 will immediately hear familiar sounds. While the newer amp is overall brighter than its ancestor, it retains the same core tone and gain structure. The clean tone is punchy and assertive. The increased wattage means there’s far more headroom than could be managed on the original Countess, yet a player can still dig into the circuit and find that pleasing tube compression if they desire. Engaging the voice switch adds some extra…

Back in the ‘80s, Fender offered a really fun guitar line called the Contemporary Stratocaster, produced in Japan and offering humbuckers and locking tremolos. They were crazy amounts of fun (although some of the bridges offered were better than others), and they helped to keep Fender relevant in a changing market where everyone wanted ‘Superstrats’ with names like Ibanez, Jackson and Kramer on the headstock. Now, the Contemporary name is back on a range of high-quality Squier Stratocasters and Telecasters, most of which retail at $899 and feature fixed (in the case of the Tele) or non-locking (Strat) bridges, with the exception of the Contemporary Active Stratocaster HH, which has a Floyd Rose tremolo and a pair of specially designed active humbuckers and comes in at an RRP of $999.…

The sounds that Metallica bassist Cliff Burton wrung out of his Rickenbacker and Aria basses through his Morley fuzz wah in the band’s early days ignited a revolution. As precise and powerful as Burton’s clean tone was, it was on tracks like “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and “(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth” that Burton cemented his metal legacy; these were standout bass moments where his tone took on all the aggression of his six-string chums, and then some. Just think of the iconic footage on the Cliff ‘Em All tribute film: Burton really owned those sounds, those effects, those licks and those spotlight moments. CLIFF NOTES Morley released the Cliff Burton Tribute Series Power Fuzz Wah a little while ago, taking inspiration from the ‘70s Power Fuzz Wah that Burton used…

The Melbourne Guitar Show, set to rock the Caulfield Racecourse on August 4th and 5th, boasts a gigantic first announcement lineup, including Albert Lee, Daniel Champagne, Jeff Lang, Nick Charles, Bob Spencer, Shannon Bourne, Fiona Boyes, James Ryan, Phil Manning, Nat Allison, Brett Kingman, Alison Ferrier, Cat Canteri, Scott Darlow, Rackett, Van Larkins, Justin Bernasconi and Rohan Stevenson, with more to be announced over the coming weeks. In addition to some killer performances from the artists on this massive lineup, the show will also hold a monster exhibition that will feature electric and acoustic guitars, effects pedals, amps and more state-of-the-art guitar technology, both homegrown and from around the world. Drawing over 5,500 guitar lovers and enthusiasts to last year’s exhibit, the Melbourne Guitar Show offers a hands-on chance to…

It’s been quite a while between solo LPs for Aussie singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Xavier Rudd. It’s not like he’s been inactive, though: 2012’s Spirit Bird kept him busy for a while, and in 2015 he released the album Nanna with The United Nations. But now, the time is right for more Xavier Rudd music in the form of his seventh full-length solo release, Storm Boy. “I’m literally just singing about the things that are going on around me,” Rudd says. Environmental work, activism, veganism, spiritualism, surfing, camping trips in the bush and hanging with his family on the beach; everything Rudd does, he pours into songwriting. And since releasing Spirit Bird, he’s also – awww – fallen in love. “It’s definitely a theme on [Storm Boy],” he says. “Life feels…

JOHNNY MARR THE TEXTURALIST GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS Making the guitar cool for indie kids and making indie cool for guitar kids. Also, putting up with Morrissey. WHERE TO START THIS CHARMING MAN By The Smiths, this is instantly recognisable, ever evolving, and a lesson in originality. BOSS LEVEL HEY ANGEL Taken from Marr’s new album, Call The Comet. Marr’s precisely overbent notes in the lead melody add tension and movement. KIM THAYILL THE ALTERNATOR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS Popularising alternate tunings that had previously been more common in acoustic music that didn’t sound like trucks blasting over arctic tundra. WHERE TO START SPOONMAN This riff is simple enough for beginners to pick up pretty quickly, and there’s something physically satisfying about the way it weaves its way down the guitar’s neck. BOSS LEVEL…

Positive Grid’s range of amp modelling products occupies a unique niche, available in software and hardware versions in everything from smartphone apps to full-on amplifier heads. The company knows it’s on a winner with its BIAS Head and BIAS Rack units, but with the new BIAS Mini Guitar, they’ve managed to pack all that processing power into a unit small enough that you could probably even figure out a way to mount it on a pedalboard if you’re clever. It occupies only half a standard rack space, but will just as happily sit on top of your speaker cabinet or on a desk in your home recording setup. And it only weighs about two kilograms, yet it packs a whopping 300 watts of power. HONEY I SHRUNK THE HEAD Let’s…

The auditorium guitar is a venerable design that has stood the test of time. It’s been around way longer than the dreadnought has, and while overshadowed for a few decades, the model has seen a revival in the last 20 years or so due to acoustic music making a comeback. Before the 1940s, when the dreadnought really took off, the auditorium (like Martin’s 000 and Gibson’s L-00) was the guitar of choice for tone and projection. In fact, prior to the ‘30s, it was the largest flattop available. ONE IN A MILLION During the 1990s, acoustic music underwent a major resurgence, probably in reaction to the dark days of the synthesised ‘80s. But the guitar of choice was generally a dreadnought, until Clapton and a few other started performing with…

The case of Cort Guitars is a very interesting one. Over the years, the company has made guitars not just for their own brand, but also as an OEM supplier plenty of other big names such as Ibanez, G&L and Squier. Their Parkwood line of acoustics was eventually spun off into its own brand, and more recently, the company has partnered with luthier Hugh Manson of Manson Guitar Works, perhaps most famously known for the instruments he has crafted for Muse’s Matt Bellamy and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones. Cort has never really tried to establish any one shape as its definitive model, but since Manson came on board with the Matt Bellamy series a few years ago, Manson’s vaguely Tele-ish outline has become a little more closely associated with…