Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2020 i Guitar World

I JUST WANT to thank everyone for sticking with us during these temporary days of 112 pages (down from 124), four gear reviews (down from five) and two transcribed songs (down from three). As I said in my July Woodshed column, it’s all tied to what I like to call “the lockdown.” While I haven’t received any Sounding Board emails from readers asking what a lockdown has to do with running only four gear reviews, a few people on GW’s Facebook were somewhat confused. Basically, GW is owned by Future, a company that publishes a lot of magazines around the world. Outside of subscriptions, where are most magazines sold? At newsstands! Has anyone been to a newsstand since early March? I know I haven’t! (Come to think of it, I…

“Going off the top of my head creates this power that comes out of nowhere” Got my first real six-string... My first guitar was a Hagström. I must have been 4 when I started playing it. I can’t even remember which model, but it was this Strat-style thing that was lying around the house for the family. Everyone would pick it up and have fun with it. My dream guitar was just a Strat of any kind. That was a big aspiration for me, and it finally happened around the age of 13. My brother Eugene had one, so I could play his, but getting to have my own was pretty cool. Well, it’s floodin’ down in Texas… Stevie Ray Vaughan would have been one of the biggest influences in…

WHETHER YOU LOVE the sound of slide but don’t know where to begin, or you want to take your playing to the next level, this lesson is for you, as we’re analyzing the playing styles of eight celebrated exponents of the art, from the Sixties onward: George Harrison, Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, Sonny Landreth, Rory Gallagher, Jeff Beck and Derek Trucks. Mind you, this is a look at modern blues-rock slide, so it doesn’t feature early, legendary pioneers like Robert Johnson or Elmore James, who obviously influenced them all. One thing all of the eight players whose styles will be covered in this lesson have in common is their preference for using a glass slide, which is de rigueur for playing electric slide guitar, whereas a metal slide generally sounds…

ROBERT JOHNSON THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS Johnson’s mesmerising blues slide is documented by this compilation of his 1936-to-1937 sessions. Song: “Crossroads” SONNY LANDRETH FROM THE REACH This eloquent electric slide player’s classy licks inspired many fretted players. Song: “The Milky Way Home” BONNIE RAITT NICK OF TIME We’ve always appreciated the way Raitt can insert a spine-tingling slide solo into a radio-friendly pop masterpiece or two. Song: “This Thing Called Love” BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON DARK WAS THE NIGHT Otherworldly and haunting, Blind Willie Johnson’s slide sound was also seminal, as this compilation attests. Song: “Dark Was the Night” EARL HOOKER SIMPLY THE BEST Flamboyant, surprisingly off-beat and deeply groovy, Hooker’s a hugely underrated electric slide man. Check him out! Song: “You Got to Lose” ZZ TOP RIO GRANDE MUD “Just Got…

SKOLNICK Maybe my first Les Paul, which was a Les Paul Standard. I always regretted getting rid of it. I sold it to a guy I had been in ninth grade with, and he went through a period where he pretty much lost everything — his wife, his job, etc. — and all he had left was that guitar. He even asked me if I wanted it back at one point. I told him to keep it because he would probably appreciate it more than I would. But I’m not even sure that’s the best answer to the question, because I always wrestled with that guitar. I always wanted a different guitar while I had it. I think a better example would be my ’76 blond Gibson L-5, which is…

STREET PRICE: $1,490 MANUFACTURER: Eastman, eastmanguitars.com The guitar’s single Lollar “50’s Spec” DogEar P-90 is an articulate low-output bridge pickup that produces a lively attack with no hard edges and a real top-end shimmer. The compensated Faber “wraparound” bridge and Faber tuners feature a softly-aged antique nickel finish for a played-in look while offering spot-on intonation and tuning stability. THE BOTTOM LINE: The Eastman SB55DC/v is a stunning example of a premium spec’d Junior model that exceeds all expectations in vintage mojo and robust tone.…

OVERDRIVE AND DISTORTION pedals are the guitar world’s equivalent of seasonings and spices in the culinary realm. Some of these effects are like salt or pepper (such as clean boosts and Tube Screamer-style pedals, respectively) that players will want to use often or always, but others can be like the bolder flavors that you may not want to use all the time, but when they’re needed nothing is better. The JHS Paul Gilbert PG-14 falls more toward the latter category and to me is the sonic equivalent of Japanese shichimi togarashi — a complex blend of flavors that makes its presence known yet perfectly complements a wide variety of foundations to make them even more tasty. FEATURES The JHS PG-14 provides six control knobs arranged in two rows of three,…

LAST MONTH, WE explored a variety of approaches to building soloing ideas from major hexatonic scale patterns. Hexatonic means six-tone, so hexatonic scales are devised of six scale degrees. Similar to the more commonly used major and minor pentatonic scales, which are five-tone scales, a hexatonic scale can be formed by adding one note to either of them. To review, the major pentatonic scale is intervallically spelled 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. Major hexatonic adds the 4th scale degree, resulting in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Major hexatonic may also be thought of as the seven-tone major scale (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) minus the 7th. In the previous column, we explored the F positions # , G # , A, B of , C the #…

THE UNION OF four previous members of Yes (Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Alan White and Tony Kaye), producer Trevor Horn (who also was a member of Yes) and up-and-coming South African solo artist Trevor Rabin proved to be a whole greater than the sum of its parts. This was confirmed by “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” which became the band’s first and only Number One hit in January 1984. While Rabin deserves the bulk of the credit for the song’s composition, Anderson’s vocals, Squire’s Motown-inspired bridge and Horn’s sample-heavy production tricks also contributed significantly to the song’s appeal. While sampled orchestra hits, funk horn blasts and breakbeats provided much of the song’s ephemeral ear candy, “Owner of a Lonely Heart” is actually a very guitar-heavy song, with well more than…

Bowled Over by Phil Collen’s Advice I enjoyed the 100 tips from the pros [June 2020]. I’m kinda surprised nobody said to really work on the note values — wholes, halves, quarters, triplets and 16th — with a metronome. Work on the feel of fluid triplets or whatever you’re geekin’ on. And hey, Phil Collen, get some fiber in your diet. It’s a solid “no” to a guitar in the bathroom! Gross! — Steve LaCombe Does Anyone Else Whine on Dines? As subscribers, we should be able to choose which cover we receive when there are multiple covers. I know for the June issue there was a Joe Satriani cover, and I received the Jared Dines one. I love the mag but in no way want to support that clown.…

O’Connor advises young guitarists heading out for their first jaunt in a van to be conscious of van etiquette. Every band member should have personal space to call their own and, above all, you must practice proper hygiene. Remember: Just because your riffs are filthy doesn’t mean you have to be. THE ROAD IS a magical place in the imaginations of aspiring rock stars. Piling into a van with your friends, spending your days traveling to new cities and your nights playing in front of adoring crowds, all fueled by nothing more than cheap beer, cheaper food and whatever illicit substances you can scrounge together? Who needs frat parties when you can live that life while getting paid literally dozens of dollars every single night? Of course, that’s just fantasy.…

The first thing to consider is positioning: where you’d normally fret a note — behind the fretwire — is not where you want your slide to glide to. Always position the slide directly above the fret, to avoid sounding flat (you may need to raise your action and/or use heavier strings to facilitate this). Next, lay your idle 1st finger on the strings behind the slide, to dampen unwanted overtones. Finally, always use pick-hand string damping (or “string guarding,” as Sonny Landreth calls it) and some palm muting on the lower strings that aren’t being played at the moment. Pick-hand damping is easier to do when playing fingerstyle because you can simply rest the fingers that aren’t picking on the strings that aren’t in play. If you’re playing with a…

Sonny Landreth is the king of the swampy Southern zydeco slide guitar style that has been dubbed “slydeco.” The troubadour from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, has musically sparred on record and on stage with legends including Mark Knopfler, Warren Haynes, John May-all, Derek Trucks and Eric Clapton, the latter rating him as “one of the most advanced musicians on the planet.” Landreth’s new album, Blacktop Run [Provogue/Mascot], is another magical display of his roots-rock artistry, not only as an electric and acoustic guitarist — four of the tracks are instrumentals — but also as a compelling singer, songwriter and storyteller. For a lot of people, you first came to their attention when you started playing in John Hiatt’s band in 1987. Was that gig a big step up for you at…

THERE WAS A piece of tape on the rehearsal studio floor where, in the past, Izzy Stradlin’s amp would have been. “And on the piece of tape,” Gilby Clarke says now, “and I’ll never forget this, it said, ‘Do you have what it takes to fill this spot?’” Clarke had what it took. He’d walked in that fall 1991 day with a Les Paul and Marshall half-stack to audition for Guns N’ Roses’ rhythm guitar spot, which Stradlin vacated following a tour leg supporting the Hollywood hard-rockers’ Use Your Illusion albums. Clarke’s three-year tenure with the band would include GN'R’s most legendary tour and two un-legendary Guns N’ Roses albums, The Spaghetti Incident? and Live Era ‘87 - ‘93. For such a huge band, these albums, particularly the latter, are…

STREET PRICE: $2,299.99 MANUFACTURER: Fender, fender.com A 12-watt single-channel amp with two 6V6 power tubes, three 12AX7s, one 12AT7 and a 5AR4 rectifier. The amp features a tube-driven long-spring reverb tank for lush reverb effects and bias-modulating tremolo for dynamic, responsive tremolo. Period-correct details include a hand-wired circuit board, solid pine cabinet and extra-heavy textured vinyl covering. The Jensen P10R alnico 10-inch speaker provides warmer tone and smoother treble than the ceramic speakers equipped with the original model. THE BOTTOM LINE: Fender’s ’64 Custom Princeton Reverb delivers the timeless tone, features and performance that have made the black-face Princeton Reverb a coveted classic, but at a much more reasonable price than a vintage model.…

STREET PRICE: $199 MANUFACTURER: JHS Pedals, jhspedals.info The push knob adjusts the gain of a preamp placed before the FET amplifier circuit, allowing the pedal to operate like a true amp in a box. A semiparametric EQ circuit allows users to adjust the midrange peak between 400Hz to 7.5kHz as well as the midrange gain. THE BOTTOM LINE The JHS Paul Gilbert PG-14 is ideal for players who want expressive, dynamic lead tones and the sound and feel of a fully cranked amp at lower volumes while being flexible enough to dial in their own individual tones that sound like nobody else.…

FOR THOSE OF you that have been following my columns, you know that one of my favorite techniques for soloing is two-finger tapping, for which I use two pick-hand fingers to hammer-on and pull-off notes instead of the more conventional one-finger approach. A good, instructive example of this technique in action can be found in the solo I play in the song “Get Up,” from the latest Whitesnake album, Flesh and Blood, which The I solo ’d like is played to break over down an F for # 5 you power today. chord and much of it based on the F # minor pentatonic scale (F # , A, B, C # , E) played in 14th position (see FIGURE 1). Also, the feel here is a fast rock shuffle…

GUITAR: 1962 Fender Stratocaster with DiMarzio FS-1 bridge pickup (bridge pickup), Volume: 10, Middle Tone: 10, Neck Tone: 10 AMPS: Two late-Seventies Marshall 2203 JMP MKII 100-watt master volume heads (Presence: 4, Bass: 3, Middle: 7, Treble: 5, Master Volume: 8, Preamp Volume: 8, High Sensitivity input), two Marshall 1960 4x12 speaker cabinets with Celestion G12-65 speakers STRINGS/TUNING: D’Addario XL 130 (.008, .010, .015, .021, .030, .038)/Standard PICK: Landstrom Sharkfin GP 101…

SAN FRANCISCO’S DEATH Valley High recently unleashed “Raise Hell,” the first of a planned series of singles to drop throughout 2020. Describing their music as “aggressive, skronk-disco light fantastic, like Saturday Night Fever on Thorazine,” singer/ guitarist Reyka Osburn isn’t really doing justice to the fact that, basically, DVH are a great rock ’n’ roll band. Why focus on releasing singles? Instead of going into a studio and doing 10 songs, we’re going to be recording two songs at a time. My biggest concern is that you spend a year making a record and people maybe check in on you when you release it, but then, that’s that. In these days of short attention spans, you need to have some kind of event happening regularly to draw people in. Your…

Not content with the status quo, industrious young guitar players have endeavored over the decades to make things more difficult for themselves. Some have tried playing the guitar behind their back, over their head, with their teeth, with their friends’ teeth, etc. And then there was the inventive guitarist who, many decades ago, decided to slip a bottle over his finger and slide it along his guitar’s strings to produce a magical sound. (He probably first emptied the bottle himself, if you know what I mean). While playing the guitar with your teeth is, was and always shall be a novelty, slide guitar — and slide guitarists — is and are here to stay. They actually started digging in their heels long before Robert Johnson made his haunting Delta blues…

EASTMAN MIGHT NOT be as “on your radar” as other well-known instrument manufacturers, but as players in the loop seeking timeless models are well aware, the company has been making some of the finest handcrafted guitars for almost two decades. What’s significant is the company’s deep-rooted expertise in building world-class violins using centuries-old German luthiery methods, and some of that artistry at work is outwardly evident by Eastman’s superb ageing and good old-fashioned hand-varnishing that has trickled down to their Antique Varnish Series of electrics. At the 2020 Winter NAMM Show, Eastman unveiled two new models in that series with the SB55/v-SB and SB55DC/v. They’re not merely replicas, but rather graceful interpretations of stripped-down classic designs with impeccable custom-shop craftsmanship and dynamic tone that make them undeniably captivating. I was…

FUZZ IS A funny thing. It can all at once be sonically glorious for its raw complexity, and pugnaciously chaotic in spitting out crackly harmonics and buzzy overtones. It’s a wild card of an effect for sure, which is why so many guitarists consider it their secret weapon when used wisely. Back in the Seventies, Danelectro owner Steve Ridinger created such an effect with the legendary Foxx Tone Machine, literally an overstuffed fuzz box with faux-fur housing and a switchable octave effect that made it truly original. For many fuzz connoisseurs, its distinctly dense character and jagged upper-octave effect made it an “Excalibur” of sorts for fuzzes. Now, Ridinger has gloriously resurrected this famed fuzz as the Danelectro 3699 Fuzz. Gone is the carpet-covering for a pedalboard-friendly die-cast metal chassis,…

IN I GOT Rhythm, Part 6, we looked at a couple of famous songs that feature exciting together rhythmic dotted syncopations -quarter created accents by in chaining 4 4 meter (“1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3, 4”), namely the ending of “Good Times Roll” by the Cars and the chorus to “I’ve Done Everything for You,” which was written and first recorded by Sammy Hagar and later covered by Rick Springfield. (Another well-known example can be found in the intro to “Suffragette City” by David Bowie.) I’d now like to show you a musically dramatic way to keep this dotted-quarter syncopation going until it comes full circle and strate has you , I’ landing ll simply on strum beat an 1 again E7…

LET’S CONTINUE OUR exploration of the technique and style of clawhammer guitar with a look at the song “Take the Journey,” from my latest album, When You’re Ready. I wrote this song with my friend Sarah Siskind, and as we were writing it, the song developed an “old-time”-y sound with a driving, modal feel that I felt would work well with the alternate tuning I use for clawhammer guitar, which is (low to high) D, G, D, G, C, D. As we discussed in the last column, claw-hammer guitar technique finds its origins in clawhammer banjo, and for both instruments the pick-hand is held in a “claw”-type shape, and the nails of the index and middle fingers are used to pick the higher strings while the thumb plucks the lower…