Indholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 164 i Australian Guitar

Keith Urban provided details on his forthcoming signature guitar he’s developing with Paul Reed Smith – and while it might be inspired by his favourite Telecaster, this looks like it is going to be something completely different. And how could it not be? It’s a semi-hollow electric inspired by a Custom Shop three-pickup Telecaster named Clarence that survived the Nashville floods, and its f-hole is inspired by Urban’s tattoo. In September 2024, Urban told Guitar World that he actually sent Smith a picture of his tattoo and asked him to design the f-hole from that. “I like a little bit of a hollowbody, so it’s got a little bit of that in there,” he said. “We have a customized f-hole shape that is modeled after the phoenix tattoo on my…

Merpire is the performing name of Melbourne-based solo artist Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt. Her 2021 debut Simulation Ride - released slapbang at the height of the COVID period sounded like a modern, bedroom-recorded take on the high production sensibilities of ‘90s alternative pop. Now, four years later, that debut is followed up by Milk Pool, which transmutes alternative pop into something dreamier and blurrier, without sacrificing hooks and momentum. It’s a much more confident, and much more varied record, compared to its predecessor, and within its dayglo pop swirls is a fascinating, painterly approach to the guitar. While the instrument doesn’t take a front seat – this feels like a record written with a whole studio – Atkinson-Howatt’s guitar serves a huge number of textural responsibilities. Australian Guitar spent some time with…

You’d like Scott Gorham. As countless rock writers have discovered since the mid-70s, an afternoon with the Thin Lizzy guitarist passes in a happy haze of dirty jokes, political potshots, flumes of e-cigarette smoke and drawled war stories (some more libellous than others). If we weren’t talking on Zoom, you suspect the conspiratorial Gorham would suggest ditching the interview and hitting the pub – although had you accepted that invitation back in his hellraising days, you might never have never made it home. That industrial-strength likeability isn’t just a gift for journalists; it’s also helped Gorham keep the wheels on a band whose combustible chemistry meant a line-up shift was never far away. By our calculations, the band’s 74-yearold custodian has partnered no fewer than 12 other guitarists in Lizzy,…

WHEN THE SG/LES Paul first appeared in 1961, there were two models. The Standard ($265) had a pair of humbuckers, two controls per pickup, crown inlays in a bound rosewood ’board and sidewaysaction vibrato. The Custom ($395) was the top of the line, with gold hardware, three humbuckers, a bound ebony fingerboard and a bound headstock. Later that year, the Junior ($147.50, single-pickup) and Special ($210, dualpickup) were added, featuring a one-piece wraparound bridge/tailpiece and P90 pickups. They had unbound rosewood fingerboards with dot inlays. Gibson tweaked the design over the years, most notably adding the enlarged pickguard on the Custom and Standard in 1966, which held the pickups, rather than them being mounted directly to the body.…

The Pretenders are the black cat of rock music. They go where they want, without seeking approval, yet are more enduringly loved than many trend-chasing acts that have come and gone during the four decades that they’ve been in business. Bad luck has crossed their path once or twice over the years, too, notably with the tragically early death of guitarist James HoneymanScott, whose influence is still felt in the band’s music today, many incarnations on from the original 1978 line-up to which he belonged. To this day, the band’s musical DNA is pure mercury – you could read their music as punk for romantics or pop for rebels, or simply tough yet tenderhearted rock ’n’ roll that speaks with the force that honesty always commands. And did we say…

FISHMAN AIRLOCK RRP: $749 • dynamicmusic.com.au AirLock is Fishman’s wireless instrument system that connects any pickup-equipped instrument to your amp or recording setup. Guitar, bass, violin, keyboards – just plug in and play with no cables, no limits. AirLock delivers true analog cable tone, not simulated. Your pickups, your amp, your carefully crafted sound remains exactly as it should be, just without the wire connecting them. Advanced interference management adapts to your environment. Coffee shops, crowded venues, WiFi-heavy spaces – AirLock cuts through the noise while other systems drop out. LEHLE P-ISO TRS XLR STEREO RRP: $585 • egm.net.au The Lehle P-ISO TRS XLR Stereo brings you closer to the main mixing system. It converts your stereo audio signal not only to balanced XLR but lifts the ground so there’s…

RRP $2,499 (inc hard case) CONTACT Australis WEB www.australismusic.com.au Any guitarist that doesn’t know the Gibson ES-335 story must have been living on planet Zog for the past 67 years. Therefore we won’t insult you with a full-on history and description. Let’s simply remind ourselves of how this legendary model’s semi-hollow – laminated thinline construction with solid centre section, two deep cutaways and a set of powerful humbucking pickups – made it one of the best-sounding, most versatile and nicest playing guitars of all time. It’s up there as one of the coolest lookers, too. As we’ve seen for some time now, Epiphone loves to get in on the act. And some of the instruments we’ve plugged in and played in recent years, especially the Joe Bonamassa models and these…

RRP $399 CONTACT Walrus WEB www.walrusaudio.com The latest of Walrus Audio’s rapidly expanding Canvas range of utility items is the Canvas Rehearsal, which the company is promoting as an all-in-one rehearsal tool. Its basic remit is that it allows you to plug in and listen to your instrument through headphones or a connected sound system, playing along to its built-in metronome and/or any tracks you care to send into it through a mini-jack stereo input or wirelessly via Bluetooth. While you can plug a guitar straight in, the natural place for the unit is at the end of a chain of effects pedals to give you a more inspiring sound, particularly so if there’s an amp-ina-box pedal involved. Walrus Audio sees the Canvas Rehearsal as the ideal companion for the…

LEO FENDER WAS quite pleased with the success of Fender’s Telecaster and Stratocaster electric guitars during the Fifties. However, he wasn’t thrilled that his inventions were embraced more fervently by rock ’n’ roll and blues players than they were by his favored country and western musicians. Furthermore, he was somewhat disgusted that he played an indirect role in the growing popularity of the newfangled radical and rambunctious sounds that were taking over radio airwaves. In an attempt to appeal to a more “respectable” group of musicians, Leo and his designers developed a brand-new flagship model aimed at jazz guitarists. He even named it the “Jazzmaster” so everyone would know exactly who it was designed for. Unfortunately, jazz players felt somewhat lukewarm about the Jazzmaster upon its introduction in 1958, with…

Half a century later, when discussing the road to Queen’s self-titled 1973 debut album with Brian May, it’s necessary to suspend your disbelief. Imagine, if you can, a time when the classic line-up of May, Freddie Mercury, John Deacon and Roger Taylor were not multi-platinum national treasures. A time, in fact, when they were penniless nobodies, typically found bottom of the bill at a sweatbox club, being ushered from record label offices or facing tough questions from parents convinced these four bright boys were burning their futures for an impossible dream. Appearing on our Zoom call in a halo of grey curls, May can smile about it now, knowing what lay ahead. In spring ’72, the band cut their first chink in the industry’s formerly impenetrable armour as they were…

Back in issue 513, Scott Gorham unveiled the top-secret surrealist pencil sketches he’d worked on while touring with Lizzy. Now, buoyed by the glowing response to that first wave of drawings, the guitarist is set to share a new series. What can he tell us? “I’ve got, like, 40 years’ worth of stuff. But – and you’ll hear this from a lot of people in the art world – not everything you want to show people. But I’d say my success rate is maybe one out of five, so I’m hoping that’s a good ratio. At the end of April, we’re putting out four new images [pictured right] and seeing what people think. A couple will be brand-new, there’ll be one from the 80s and another one from the 90s.…

SNOWY WHITE (1980-1982) “I liked Snowy a lot. I also liked his playing. He was a much bluesier player than all the rest of the guys. For us to ask him to rock it up, it was a bit of a stretch for him. Not that he couldn’t do it. But his comfort zone was really based around the blues feel. “Chinatown was my favourite track we did because that was his riff. We were just in the rehearsal room one day and he was playing that and I said, ‘Hey man, that’s kinda cool.’ ‘Yeah, I’ve been beating this one around for a while.’ I said, ‘Well, let’s try to get something together.’ We got Phil in and that’s how it happened. Both he and I play lead guitar:…

Angus Young AC/DC’S LEAD GUITARIST — yes indeed, the gentleman on last issue’s cover — favours the Gibson SG for its light weight — useful for high-voltage guitar heroics — and also because his vintage SG Standard (with its Lyre vibrato removed) has an uncommonly thin neck. But regardless of the exact reasons behind it, Young is truly dedicated to the SG. “The guitar I consistently use has always been the same guitar, the Gibson SG,” Young said in 2020. “Everyone always asks me what year [the guitar] is. You know, I’ve heard somebody say, ‘It’s a 1970s Gibson.’ Then other people say, ‘It’s a bit earlier than that.’ I don’t know what year it is, but it couldn’t have been [from] past 1970, because that’s when I got it!…

The Blues Scale is a hexatonic scale, which means it has six notes. Essentially, the Blues Scale is a Minor Pentatonic with the addition of a ♭5th interval in between its 4th and 5th degrees. The ♭5 goes by many names, including blue note, tritone or, more sinisterly, diabolus in musica, which translates as the ‘devil in music’. Its addition adds a certain amount of tension and colour to the existing Pentatonic scale, creating a familiar yet distinctly different sound. When using this scale, the phrasing is very important. For example, landing on and sustaining the ♭5 can create a clash with the harmony. Several players, including Dimebag Darrell, do this intentionally in their playing to create this dissonance. However, for the most part, the ♭5 is used as a…

RRP $3,499 & $4,499 CONTACT Fenech Guitars WEB https://fenechguitars.com.au We were introduced to Fenech’s guitars at this year’s NAMM Show in January, where they were added to our shopping list of instruments we’d like to take a closer look at. A few months later and here we are with two contrasting models from the Fenech range, and it’s been an interesting time getting to know them. A quick tour of Fenech’s backstory – we take a deeper dive in the interview on page 10 – circles around Aaron Fenech, whose workshop is in Queensland. Aaron began with an apprenticeship in automotive engineering, moving on to carpentry. After completing a BSc in environmental science, oceanography, material science and engineering, his passion for music soon led him to taking on instrument repairs,…

Mooer is no stranger to product launches that look to drag traditional guitar gear into the modern era, and its F15i Intelligent Amp is no exception. Though a regular desktop amp in its proportions, the F15i works hard to differentiate itself from the likes of Yamaha, Positive Grid, Boss and Line 6 by leaning into what makes Mooer such an interesting brand. The F15i modeling amp reportedly “redefines portable guitar practice” thanks to a new iAmp system, which offers 55 preinstalled amp models that are in turn designed using the firm’s MNRS modeling tech. These are bolstered by 69 effect types – reverb, delay, modulation among them – as well as Mooer’s Dynamic Spatial Enhancement function, which looks to deliver a more expansive listening experience with a bit more depth.…

GRITTER Guitars 1999 Fender Jeff Beck Stratocaster, 1985 Fender Contemporary Telecaster, 1963 Guild S-50 Amps Vox AC30, Roland JC-77, Fender DeVille Effects Terry Audio White Rabbit, Death by Audio Rooms reverb, Death by Audio Space Bender chorus modulator, Supercool Pedals ’77 Fuzz Blender, JFX Fresmann PLL custom Voidz pedal [pictured below], Cosmodio Pet Yeti distortion YAGHMAI Guitars 1973 Guild S-90, Fender Stratocaster Amps 1960s Fender Bassman head and 2×12 cab Effects Fairfield Circuitry Randy’s Revenge, JFX Fresmann PLL custom Voidz pedal, Marshall Guv’nor, EarthQuaker Devices Dispatch Master, various Boss effects…

Samantha Fish “MY MAIN GUITAR is a Gibson SG,” Kansas City singer-songwriter Samantha Fish told our sibling mag Guitar World. “I find it’s really versatile, and it’s something I feel very comfortable playing.” Her choice is perfect for her musical approach, which blends rootsy rock with blues elements, a sound packed into a dozen live, studio, solo and collaborative albums. Check out her slide playing, delivered on an Arctic White SG with a standard action height so that Fish can play regular picked solos without switching instruments. HEAR IT HERE: “Fire” (Live) on YouTube Jake Kiszka GRETA VAN FLEET and Mirador guitarist Jake Kiszka doesn’t just play his SG: he practically inhabits it. “With an SG, I can let out my visceral, animalistic side as a player,” he said in…

VIDEO & AUDIO https://bit.ly/4a7AmPe Welcome to this month’s feature centred on playing better solos. In it we aim to identify core techniques and soloing concepts with a view to supercharging your vocabulary. There are 15, four-bar examples to study complete with backing tracks to practice with. We have split the examples into three sections, each with five examples. The first section is based around technique. Section two is more music theory based and the third section concentrates on taste and feel. Each example is four bars long and there’s a two-bar drum break to allow you time to prepare for the next example. As an added extra there are two 16-bar jam solos to learn, again with a corresponding backing track. The jam solos will help you to contextualise what…

RRP Marshall 1959 $6,999, Marshall JCM800 $5,999 CONTACT Marshall Amplification WEB www.marshall.com We have all surely fallen at some point for the majestic tones coaxed from Marshall amps since the early 60s, with each generation’s guitar hero finding new and innovative ways to expand the Marshall sound while the designs themselves remained largely unchanged since their inception. Towards the late 70s a hotter, more fluid guitar sound began to emerge from the US. Tinkering technicians such as Jose Arredondo and Lee Jackson had begun developing hot-rodding techniques to achieve a variety of goals – increased gain being chief among them. These jacked-up tones would dominate the airwaves for a good decade until the buzz and fuzz of grunge brought slacker aesthetics to the fore. However, the modded-Marshall sound never went…

RRP $449 CONTACT Amber Technology WEB www.ambertech.com.au The Echoplex single-head tape echo is right up there in the pantheon of iconic guitar effects, not just for its obvious echo functionality but also the sound of its preamp, used by players like Jimmy Page and EVH, to enhance guitar tone with or without the echo. Strymon has previously released pedals offering the tape echo sound – in particular the twin-footswitch El Capistan that features three different tape echo types, including single-head – but the company has now released a smaller pedal, the EC-1, which puts the focus solely on that single-head sound, building on the algorithm and the ‘dTape’ technology used in El Capistan. Where other popular tape echoes worked by having a fixed-position recording head and several fixed-position playback heads,…