Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2021 i Guitar World

REMEMBER LAST MONTH’S Woodshed column where I said I wanted to include a few Van Halen song transcriptions in our Eddie Van Halen tribute issue — but couldn’t, due to our quicker-than-usual deadline? Well, those song approvals came through during the later stages of production for this issue, so we figured we’d let you have all three songs in one shot — complete with Jimmy Brown’s epic “Eruption” lesson. Please take note of our new (dare I say “ultimate”?) transcription of “Eruption,” which was created with the assistance of Allen Garber, Bill Flanagan, Troy Grady and Matt Scharfglass. And speaking of Van Halen, thanks for all the positive feedback (so far) about the tribute issue! The Eddie issue actually bumped our “ultimate guitar summit” cover story from January to February…

THE ROAD DOG is one of rock and roll’s most hallowed traditions. The lifer, the musician who lives to be away from home, the one who’s more comfortable in a bus bunk than any high-thread count sheets. When you look up that term in the dictionary, there may as well be a picture of Malina Moye. Over the past 11 years, Moye has put out three albums filled with soulful, funky, R&B-inflected albums, hallmarked by her powerful voice and even more powerful Hendrix- and Prince-inspired riffing. But her experience on tour predates any promotional jaunts for those albums; she literally grew up touring. “I grew up in a family band, so my mom, my dad and my brothers, we always toured. It was like if someone was to go to…

IF YOU REALLY want to get freaky, then the Kiesel Guitars website is the place to go. For more than 70 years the company has been building exotic instruments to spec for extreme shredders like Allan Holdsworth, Jason Becker, Will Swan, Johnny Hiland, Al Joseph, Frank Gambale and thousands of other players. Their models include carved-top guitars, multiscale fanned-fret models, headless guitars and basses, extended-scale baritone instruments and just about anything else you can think of. Their guitars ain’t cheap — their baseline price is somewhere around $1,200 — but because Kiesel has their production so streamlined and organized, they aren’t nearly as pricey as many comparable boutique guitar makers. “I think the thing that makes us special is that all of our instruments are built at our in-house factory…

"Just play it like you mean it. You have to be present in the moment and be able to harness that energy and also project that energy out at the listener. With Alice [Cooper], for instance, he takes his audience on a journey every night. And I want to be a part of that journey, not just somebody onstage watching it happen. So you have to go out there and give it everything you’ve got. No matter what you’re doing, make sure you’re not doing it half-assed. Doors will open. It’s just a matter of time!" — April 2013 Guitar World…

WHEN I PLAY LIVE, I WANT IT TO SOUND JUST LIKE THE RECORD, BECAUSE WHEN I WAS A KID I WOULD GO SEE RUSH OR AC/DC AND THEY SOUNDED JUST LIKE THE RECORD UNLIKE THE NUMEROUS PLAYERS WHO ROSE TO PROMINENCE in Marilyn Manson, guitarist John Lowery (aka John 5) never fell prey to the excesses and indulgences other members of the Manson family thrived on. He’s never had an alcohol problem or done drugs… yet, like many of his peers, he’s most definitely an addict. When he’s out with friends at a restaurant or on vacation with his wife and he doesn’t get his guitar fix, he starts to fidget and becomes as irascible as a 6-year-old denied a visit to an ice cream store at the mall. “When…

STREET PRICE: $1,549.99 MANUFACTURER: Fender, fender.com The Strat HSS V-Mod II pickups are voiced specifically for each position. The two single coils provide detailed clarity and warmth, while the Double Tap humbucker in the bridge delivers punch as well as calibrated single-coil sounds at the push of a button. The Tele Deluxe features two V-Mod II Double Tap humbuckers with dual push-push switches on the tone controls to activate the unique Double Tap technology, unlocking single-coil tones without any volume loss. A new Deep “C” neck profile is slim at the nut and gradually fills out towards the neck joint, while the hand-rolled fingerboard edges and “Super-Natural” satin finish provide playing comfort. The Strat HSS features a two-point tremolo bridge with vintage-style saddles and an upgraded cold-rolled steel block to…

LIST PRICE: $1,799 MANUFACTURER: Reverend, reverendguitars.com The Retroblast mini-humbucking pickups feature oversize 5mm-thick alnico 5 magnets and resistance of 11k ohms (bridge) and 6.5k ohms (neck). Reverend’s Uni-Brace system using a korina brace between the top and back delivers full hollowbody tone and resonance while suppressing feedback. THE BOTTOM LINE: From hillbilly twang to juke joint blues and uptown jazz, the Reverend PA-1 RB is a delightfully versatile hollowbody electric with luxurious playability that’s ideal for a wide range of musical styles.…

FIGHTING WORDS How to play “Kung Fu Grip” IN THIS COLUMN, I’d like to demonstrate some of the techniques I use to play the melodic lines in my tune “Kung Fu Grip,” the third track on my 2019 album, Soul Shifter. There's a specific technique I use to play the single-note lines that appear during the chorus sections of the tune. It involves fretting a specific note and then bending back up to that same note from a half step and one fret below. This technique is one used often by the great Jeff Beck, as well as John McLaughlin, both of whom are two of my biggest guitar heroes. Keyboardist Jan Hammer would play similar phrases when he’d trade solos with Jeff on the many great recordings they made…

YOU KNOW THAT joke that goes, “What’s the last thing a drummer says before getting kicked out of the band? ‘Hey, I’ve written a song!’”? Judging by the example of Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian,” maybe it’s better to listen to the drummer’s ideas first before delivering walking papers. Written and sung by drummer Kelly Keagy, “Sister Christian” became Night Ranger’s all-time biggest hit, and thanks to its success — peaking at Number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1984 — it inspired a landslide of hair metal power ballads throughout the rest of the Eighties. One of Night Ranger’s most distinctive characteristics was its initial lineup featuring two phenomenal lead guitarists — Brad Gillis and Jeff Watson — but “Sister Christian” is one of only a handful…

Pete Anderson: A Nice Surprise! I’ve once again been enjoying your magazine after a hiatus and was thumbing through my latest issue [Holiday 2020]. After getting caught up with AC/DC, I checked out the last page — and there was Pete Anderson! What a great surprise! A friend of mine, Greg Hannah, played bass for a time with Pete; one time on tour I met up with Greg while I was visiting family in my home town in Ohio. We spent the day running errands for Greg because sometimes it’s hard to get around when you’re out on the road. Later that evening we had dinner with Pete and some of his friends, then went to see their show in Columbus. In addition to Dwight and Pete’s own touring, he…

SCOTT GORHAM “What made the band so enduring was the songwriting from Phil and, of course, the harmony guitar work” — JAMES HETFIELD EVEN THOUGH HE’S lived in London for almost 50 years, Thin Lizzy’s longest-tenured guitarist, Scott Gorham, still exudes the kind of laid-back cool usually found lounging by a kidney-shaped pool in southern California. I feel obliged to bring up the new “super deluxe edition” Thin Lizzy box set, Rock Legends, which came out in October. It’s an impressive beast indeed. From the press release: “Six CDs/DVDs, featuring 74 unreleased tracks, 83 tracks never previously released on CD, alternative versions of all the hits, rarities, live tracks and rare footage... previously unreleased ‘Jailbreak’ demo… an A4 book, the rare ‘collected works of Philip Lynott’ poetry book, reproductions of…

MENTION THE WORD “MIDI” to most guitarists and their eyes will glaze over as if you were suddenly speaking to them in Mandarin Chinese. The problem is that the vast options and flexibility that MIDI programming affords musicians can seem unbearably complicated compared to the straightforward, “plug and play” approach provided by most traditional guitar gear. Programming a MIDI controller to get everything in a rig to work together can be a daunting proposition, particularly with controllers that require alpha-numeric hex code programming, but with the introduction of the Blackstar Live Logic foot controller the process just became a whole lot simpler. Blackstar Live Logic can control MIDI hardware devices like amps and pedals, software like DAWs and plug ins and even integrate hardware and software, but it’s very easy…

Maxon Apex 808 Overdrive IF THERE EVER was an app similar to Tinder for overdrive pedals, guitarists would never stop swiping. I say this because there must be thousands upon thousands of popular and boutique dirt boxes available for guitarists to fixate on and mull over as “The best!” but in reality, these armchair pedal pushers rarely ever settle on just one. Debate all you want, but only two are primarily considered the “Holy Grail” (*cough* Tube Screamer! Klo— *cough*). But that still won’t stop me from asking, “Does the world need another overdrive pedal?” Well, after recently discovering the Maxon Apex 808 Overdrive, I must emphatically say, “Yes!” because of two salient points to consider: It has new-found pedigree, and it’s the ultimate TS-808 Tube Screamer variant to date…

I GOT RHYTHM, PART 13 Dissecting and rearranging a classic, enigmatic riff ONE OF MY all-time favorite songs is “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page’s epic masterpiece in DADGAD tuning. One of the things I love about the composition is the intriguing, cyclical rhythmic pattern that begins the song and repeats for the verses — “da-da dat, da-da dat, da-da dat, da-da dat,” etc. That riff offers a great example of some of the very cool and tricky-sounding things you can do with 16th-note syncopations, which we’ve been exploring in depth recently. In this lesson, I’d like to offer a scholarly analysis of that rhythm and also present what I think are some interesting “spin-off” variations on it that are based on different but similarly cyclical patterns. FIGURE 1 shows…

NICE WORK Traditional bluegrass styles, and how to play “Line of Work,” part 1 FOR THIS COLUMN, I’d like to talk about traditional bluegrass rhythm playing and flatpicking soloing techniques. The song “Over the Line,” which I co-wrote with my friend Steve Poltz, is one of the more “traditional” bluegrass-style songs I have penned. “Over the Line” appears as the title track on an album by my good friends Jeff Scroggins and Colorado. The tune starts off with a bluesy, chromatic lick and then moves into the rhythm part behind the vocal. When I play this song unaccompanied, I usually take a few solos on it before returning to the last verse and chorus. This is a good song to use as a springboard for discussing traditional bluegrass-style flatpicking vocabulary,…

GUITAR: Customized 1962 Fender Stratocaster with 22-fret rosewood neck and custom Seymour Duncan bridge humbucker (bridge pickup), Volume: 10 AMP: Mesa/Boogie Mark IIB Coliseum (Lead channel) (Volume: 8/Pull Bright, Treble: 10/Pull Shift, Bass: 4, Middle: 6, Master 1: 6/Pull Gain Boost, Lead Drive: 3.5/Pull Lead, Lead Master: 8/Pull Bright, Presence: 10, graphic EQ 80Hz: +3dB, 240Hz: +9dB, 750Hz: +5dB, 2200Hz: +1dB, 6600Hz: -3dB, EQ: In, Full Power) with ARC 2x12 cabinet with 1965 Celestion G12M speakers EFFECTS: Roland SDE-3000 (Time: 252ms, Feedback: 17, Output: 99, Rate: Depth: 00, Delay Time: X1) STRINGS/TUNING: GHS Boomers .009-.042/Standard PICK: Dunlop .020-inch triangular stainless steel…

WHILE EASTWOOD OFFERS hundreds of makes and models, the mighty Legion Guitars offers… just two. But don’t laugh, both are extremely cool. Owner Chad Petit has carved out a special niche and pursued it with laser-like focus, much to the delight of his obsessed consumers. “I noticed a gap in the marketplace for Eighties-style B.C. Rich and Jackson guitars and decided to update the originals and make them better and cheaper,” says the die-hard metal enthusiast. “That’s why so many people are reaching out to online makers. They want to connect with someone that understands them and will give them exactly what they’re looking for.” True to his word, his Legion instruments are beautifully constructed, reasonably priced and his vintage heavy metal body shapes are to die for. To our…

“WE MADE THE record in about 28 days,” says Australian guitar queen Orianthi, whose new album, O, arrives some seven-plus years after its predecessor, 2013 s Heaven in This Hell. The 10 tracks were produced by Marti Frederiksen, with his 21-year-old son, Evan, contributing bass and drums. “It took a long time to get ’round to it because I was busy with different collaborative creative efforts. And I’m really proud of all the things I’ve done in the time since my last record. There was the RSO stuff [with Richie Sambora] plus writing and touring with all these other artists. But it felt like it was time to make my next solo album.” The new music weaves through all kinds of guitar tones, from more metallic affairs to country and…

IT’S FAIR TO SAY THAT Gorillaz, everyone’s favorite virtual rock-hiphop-electronic-synth-pop outfit, are far from your average band. And yet, even by their unconventional standards, Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez, the newest release from the British collective (led in real life by co-creators Damon Al-barn of Blur fame and artist Jamie Hewlett) is a wild outing. Initially launched as a music-based web series, Song Machine’s “first season” consisted of a collection of standalone singles, each with Gorillaz’s animated members — guitarist Noodle, front man 2-D, bassist Murdoc and drummer Russel Hobbs — joined by a wide range of guest artists including Elton John, the Cure’s Robert Smith and current Guitar World cover star St. Vincent. The songs, 11 in total, were released one each month and accompanied by animated music…

VERY RARELY DO sequels turn out to be demonstrably better than the original. You could certainly make a case for Aliens, The Empire Strikes Back and The Godfather Part II as prime examples if we’re talking movies. But when it comes to guitars, or more specifically — Fender’s iconic guitars, well, things become ambivalent. If sequels can be viewed as indulgent or necessary continuations of a story, then Fender’s ever-evolving enhancements to their original designs can subsequently fall under the same scrutiny, and boy, Fender hasn’t stopped reimagining and reconfiguring their classic guitar models in each series to meet a higher standard. Just when I thought the American Professionals were pretty darn great guitars, along comes the American Professional II series to replace them. Because of these recurring makeovers, it’s…

LIST PRICE: $249.99 MANUFACTURER: Blackstar, blackstaramps.com The Patch/Custom mode switch allows the controller to perform either simple patch change functions or access completely custom setups. In Custom mode each footswitch can control program change, control change, note or clock messages to control hardware via MIDI or software via USB. THE BOTTOM LINE If you’ve always wanted to explore the creative potential of MIDI but were intimidated by its complexity, the Blackstar Live Logic controller provides an easy-to-use gateway to expressive freedom.…

PETE ANDERSON MAY be best known for the tantalizing Tele twang that distinguished his playing with Dwight Yoakam, but — as he’s shown on the excellent solo albums he’s released since the mid Nineties — his true forte is playing blues. Reverend’s Pete Anderson signature model guitars have mirrored this duality with the Teleinspired Eastsider solidbodies and Gretsch-like PA-1 and PA-1 HB hollowbodies. With its minihumbucker Retroblast pickups, Reverend’s newest Pete Anderson model, the PA-1 RB, falls somewhere in between, providing snappy twang as well as sultry jazzy tones. FEATURES Construction-wise, the Reverend Pete Anderson PA-1 RB is essentially identical to the previous PA-1 models, with a laminated spruce top with three-segment f holes, laminated maple back and sides and body measuring just over 15 ½ inches wide and slightly…

AROUND THE BENDS, PART 1 Exploring string-bending techniques on the B string IN THIS NEXT series of columns, I’d like to focus on string-bending techniques, playing on a variety of different string groups and moving through various keys. Let’s start with the E minor pentatonic scale (E, G, A, B, D), played on the B string only. Before we address string-bending, let’s take a look at the scale as it lays on this one string. As shown in FIGURE 1, we can start off with the open string, as B is one of the notes of E minor pentatonic, the 5th. Starting from B, the ascending note series for E minor pentatonic is B, D, E, G, A, B, D, E, G. One can bend up to any of the…

DESPITE EARNING HUGE respect from fellow musicians and those in the know, Lowell George remains largely ignored by posterity. In addition to providing lead vocals and slide guitar to seven albums as a founding member of Little Feat, he also worked as a producer for artists including the Grateful Dead, as a successful session player, as part of Zappa’s Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. All this in a career that tragically ended with his death in 1979 aged just 34, after a life of alcohol and drug abuse. After Lowell left the Mothers, Little Feat formed and released their debut album in 1971. Tensions often ran high within the group, and the members eventually disbanded in 1979, shortly before George’s untimely death (they would eventually reform much…