Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2021 i Guitar World

IS OUR COVER photo of Dave Grohl a bit on the “vintage” side? Why, yes it is. Good eye! Since the pandemic struck, we simply haven’t been able to assign that many photo shoots. For instance, if we wanted to get a new pic of Pat Smear to go with our two Foo Fighters features, we’d have to hire someone to track him down in the Canadian hinterland. (It sounds like he’s been listening to Cracker’s “Turn On Tune In Drop Out.”) Anyway, because this issue’s Foos coverage happens to focus on the band’s 25-plus years of existence, we decided to go the “classic” route with Grohl — as we did with the “of a similar vintage” Jimmy Page photo that graces our March 2021 cover. As it happens, both…

LESLIE WEST WAS always an unlikely guitar hero. His massive physical presence — he weighed 300 pounds at the dawn of the Seventies — defied the longstanding vogue for undernourished-looking, rail-thin rock guitar slingers. And he never cultivated dazzling fretboard techniques, relying instead on pure soul, a powerhouse singing voice, and one of the meatiest electric guitar tones ever to burst from a speaker cabinet. “I didn’t play fast,” West said in 2011. “I only used the first and third finger on the fingering hand. So I worked on my tone all the time. I wanted to have the greatest, biggest tone, and I wanted vibrato like somebody who plays violin in a hundred piece orchestra.” West, who died of a heart attack on December 22, 2020, at age 75,…

“Some players look at fast playing as the goal, but that shouldn’t be the case... the goal should always be great timing” “I LOOK AT playing fast as fractions of rhythm,” says Hedras Ramos when asked about the burst picking passages in “Pagans,” the title track from his new album. The LA-based Guatemala-born multi-instrumentalist is capable of blasting at warp speeds — though, as he explains, it’s only possible because he spent time dividing each count of the metronome in every way. “Some players look at fast playing as the goal, but that shouldn’t be the case... the goal should always be great timing,” he continues. “If you get that down, playing fast will come naturally. You need to control time and remember that speed is just part of the…

THE EIGHTIES WILL always represent the pinnacle of rock ’n’ roll decadence. Considering the bank-breaking record advances and the extravagant arena tours, a guitarist’s gear in the Eighties had to be just as over-the-top as his or her look, whether that involved Spandex or nail-spiked armbands (or both, with a side order of cowboy boots and completely out-of-place ersatz military hats. We’re lookin’ at you, Poison!). Yeah, it was a great time to be a great guitarist — but let us not forget that the Eighties wasn’t all about hair metal. You had your tube-screamin’ Stevie Ray Vaughan, your heavy Bay Area metal, the studio-born brilliance of Toto’s Steve Lukather, Frank Zappa’s unique tones and, of course, the phaser-, chorus- and/or reverb-drenched worlds of guys like James Honeyman-Scott, Johnny Marr…

Only 10 years after he started posting bits of music online and hoping that somebody — anybody — would give him a click, Australian guitarist Plini is now experiencing the kind of success he never dreamed possible. As both a support act and a headliner, he’s trekked across the globe several times (he was the first instrumental artist to play the U.K.’s Download Festival), and on the strength of his dazzling 2017 debut album, Handmade Cities, he’s been hailed by the likes of Steve Vai as “the future of exceptional guitar playing.” (GuitarWorld.com readers were similarly bowled over, ranking the disc number five in a poll of the “20 Best Guitar Records of the Decade.”) If anybody needs further convincing that the prog-guitar wunderkind had indeed arrived, it came last…

HARD ROCK IN THE 1980S WAS A hedonistic and often intensely creative wellspring of escapism that helped define a spectacularly over-the-top decade. Indeed, fist-pumping hits like Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” and Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” are as inextricably linked to the era as Reaganomics, Pac-Man and E.T. Nöthin’ But a Good Time, a new book from Guitar World writers and former editors Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock, captures the energy and excess of the hair metal years in vivid detail, weaving together more than 200 interviews with the musicians, managers, producers, engineers, label executives, publicists, stylists, costume designers, photographers, journalists, magazine publishers, video directors, club bookers, roadies, groupies and hangers-on who lived it in all of its outrageous glory.…

OUTSIDE OF THEIR competitively priced audio/ video cables and adapters, excellent headphones and myriad of electronics, I had no idea that Monoprice, the massive online discount retailer, sold musical equipment. Under the brand name Stage Right by Monoprice, their website has everything from pedals to pedalboards and, you guessed it, amplifiers. Monoprice is a popular online enclave for tech-savvy consumers, so it goes without saying I wondered if their Stage Right by Monoprice 30-Watt Tube Guitar Amp Head and 1x12 Cab would live up to the quality of some of their other well-received products. And at less than $600 for this complete bundle, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed at its surprisingly outstanding sound and above-average construction. The Stage Right by Monoprice 30-Watt Tube Guitar Amp Head…

PART I GOT 15 RHYTHM, The dotted-eighths treadmill MOVING ON FROM the “Kashmir”-style cyclical rhythms that we explored in the previous two lessons, I’d now like to venture deeper down the rabbit hole of 16th-note syncopations and present some additional ones that are part of the common vocabulary of modern music. The examples in today’s lesson are all based on chaining together dotted eighth-note accents into revolving patterns, which is something we had explored in I Got Rhythm, Parts 11 and 12 (see String Theory Holiday 2020 and January 2021). As such, they provide another batch of instructive exercises that bring to mind a few familiar songs. So put on your rhythmic running shoes and get ready to jump on the dotted-eighths treadmill! FIGURE 1 shows a “rhythm-within-a-rhythm” pattern that…

Ultimate Indeed! Let me say how much I massively enjoyed your “Ultimate Guitar Summit” feature [February 2021]! You assembled the perfect cast of diverse guitarists who collectively, and with mutual respect, proved that the future of the instrument is as solid as a rock. The realization that guitar-based music is so powerfully present across such eclectic media made this perhaps the most inspirational article I’ve read in the last 20 years. A huge thanks to all involved! — Craig Isherwood I Give John 5 a 10 I’ve always been a big fan of John 5 — ever since seeing him live with Marilyn Manson and then with Rob Zombie. But after reading the article about him in the February 2021 issue, I’ve gained an even higher level of respect for…

AS GUITAR WORLD Crosses into its fifth decade of existence, we’ve certainly had to grapple with our fair share of deaths over the years. We’ve said goodbye to countless six-string heroes, including Randy Rhoads, Chuck Berry, Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Malcolm Young, Prince, Tom Petty and Chris Cornell, among many others. Truth be told, it always stings a bit more when we have to bid farewell to one of our own, someone who not only had an impact on us musically, but who we were proud to consider part of our family. Dimebag Darrell, Chuck Schuldiner and Eddie Van Halen are a few who fall into that esteemed category — and it is with a heavy heart that we add Alexi Laiho to our list of friends who left…

“I really liked seeing someone around my age, who was a girl, playing the music I was into”— TÉA CAMPBELL GUITARIST TÉA CAMPBELL of Orlando, Florida-based pop-punk band Meet Me @ The Altar was only 14 when she discovered New Jerseyan drummer Ada Juarez while searching YouTube for covers of the Twenty One Pilots song “Holding On to You.” “It was a really good cover, and I really liked seeing someone around my age, who was a girl, playing the music I was into,” Campbell says. She connected with Juarez in hopes of collaborating on a cover song. Five years later, the band they formed with singer Edith Johnson signed with Fueled by Ramen — the label home of Twenty One Pilots as well as Paramore, whose hit “Misery Business”…

“I'm very lucky to have a guitar player like Fabio [Bartoletti], who is a real shredder. He can play; he knows his shit” — FRANCESCO PAOLI AFTER NEARLY A decade of delivering brute-force blasts from behind his drum kit, Fleshgod Apocalypse’s Francesco Paoli has strapped on a custom Rufini guitar and stepped up to the mike for the sextet’s fifth epic full-length, Veleno. This just means everything is back in its right place, with the symphonic death metal group’s principal songwriter having handled those same roles all the way back on their 2009 debut, Oracles. Speaking from his home in Perguia, Italy, Paoli explains with an incredulous laugh that handling the backbeat was originally intended to be a temporary measure. Though he’d always been meshing grave-desecrating metal licks with near-heavenly…

LAST YEAR WAS notable for a lot of what we didn’t have. There were no 2020 Olympics, no Boston or New York City marathons. Wimbledon was canceled, as was the Masters Tournament. If you were pining for NCAA Women’s March Madness, there was little madness to be had. Hell, even the Scripps National Spelling Bee was called off in 2020, marking the first time the event hasn’t taken place since 1945. But not even a COVID pandemic could stop Guitar World and Guitar Player’s search for 2020’s Guitarist of the Year, nor did it deter heaps of talented guitarists from responding to the call. In fact, we noticed a dramatic increase in the number of entries we received, and they came from all parts of the world: Japan, Australia, Finland,…

“IT WAS  THE FOO FIGHTERS’  25TH ANNIVERSARY, SO IT was going to be a big year,” he says. “We thought, it’d be great to make an album, our 10th studio album, and I started planning around that — ‘Let’s circle the planet! Let’s release this documentary thing that we’ve made! Let’s do these van tours! We’ll play the same cities 25 years to the date that we did on our first-ever tour… and in the same van we did the tour in!’ Just all this shit, you know? Basically coming up with this world-domination-celebration thing.” Spoiler alert: 2020 did not work out the way anyone — Grohl and the Foo Fighters included — had planned. Which is why the singer and guitarist, rather than telling this story to Guitar World…

ERNIE BALL MUSIC Man is well known for developing outstanding artist models that feature entirely new designs and distinctive, original body shapes. Recently, Music Man has taken a slightly different approach with a new breed of artist models by collaborating with guitarists on modified designs of the company’s existing classic-inspired Cutlass and StingRay guitars. The artists involved with these models are not the usual obvious guitar heroes commonly touted within the musicians’ community but rather highly talented players with original ideas who have somewhat flown under the radar. That spirit of originality is reflected in the Cutlass model designed by country phenom Hunter Hayes, the minimalist StingRay by punk/ alternative guitarist Stephen Egerton (Descendents, All) and the stripped-down-but-versatile stereo-capable humbucker/single-coil StingRay by post-hardcore/spiritual musician Dustin Kensrue (Thrice, solo). The new…

WHEN BOSE INVENTED the L1 system 17 years ago, no one could have imagined how indispensable its game-changing design and intended purpose would be today, considering the current musical landscape. With most soundmen sidelined and music venues shuttered due to the pandemic and social distancing, the need for a portable and powerful PA system — like the L1 — as an ergonomic sound solution for peripatetic performers having to adapt to where they play has never been more crucial. The last iteration of the system appeared in 2012, but the good news is Bose never stopped reimagining its modular L1 family despite the amount of competition and imitation in this space from a product they created. With that in mind, the company introduced three “new generation” models — the L1…

USUALLY USED IN a studio to convert a high-impedance unbalanced signal (such as an electric guitar or bass) to a low-impedance balanced signal for direct connection to a mic preamp or mixing console, the DI box is a highly useful tool for recording applications or even on stage for situations where a direct feed is helpful. IK Multimedia’s Z-Tone DI features the patented Z-Tone interactive impedance-adapting circuit along with Pure and JFET preamp channels, all previously introduced on their acclaimed AXE I/O interface, to give guitarists flexible sound-shaping capabilities not available from normal DI boxes. Z-Tone DI’s unique features make it easy for guitarists to capture expressive, dynamic guitar tones in any DI application. FEATURES The Z-Tone DI active DI/preamp unit’s front panel features an instrument-level ¼-inch input, a Link…

AROUND THE BENDS, PART 3 Expanding minor pentatonic string-bending techniques to the Dorian mode IN THE LAST two columns, we explored string bending techniques and applications on the B string, utilizing the E minor pentatonic scale (E, G, A, B, D) as our point of focus. For each note in the scale, we looked at two basic approaches: bending up to it from below, and bending down to it from above via a pre-bend and release. This month, we’ll apply this same approach to the more expansive E Dorian mode. The term pentatonic means “five-tone,” so a pentatonic scale comprises five notes. Each of the fundamental modes — Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian — are derived from the seven-note major scale (also known as the Ionian mode),…

ON THE LINE Playing up and down one string for greater musical expression and variation HELLO, AND WELCOME to my first-ever series of columns for Guitar World magazine. In this first lesson, I’d like to get into the concept of where melody comes from, and how to better apply a melodic approach to your playing. Many guitarists tend to focus on scales, such as the A minor pentatonic (A, C, D, E, G) shape shown in FIGURE 1. We then learn specific patterns and licks that lay the foundation of our soloing vocabulary, such as the line shown in FIGURE 2. When I solo, I’ll sometimes rely on this kind of position playing, but over the years I've become more attracted to the idea of horizontal or linear playing, moving…

“PARANOID ANDROID” WORDS AND MUSIC BY THOMAS YORKE, JONATHAN GREENWOOD, COLIN GREENWOOD, EDWARD O’BRIEN AND PHILIP SELWAY © 1997 WARNER CHAPPELL MUSIC LTD. ALL RIGHTS IN THE U.S. AND CANADA ADMINISTERED BY WC MUSIC CORP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED USED BY PERMISSION REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD LLC…

Mark Darrah AGE: 50 HOMETOWN: American Falls, ID GUITARS: Gibson Les Paul Standard Premium, Epiphone Les Paul Tribute Plus, Epiphone Dot Deluxe, PRS Custom 24, Fender American Select Tele, Charvel San Dimas, Ovation Celebrity Elite, Breedlove Pursuit Exotic SONGS I’VE BEEN PLAYING: Pink Floyd “Wish You Were Here,” Aerosmith “Seasons of Wither,” Lynyrd Skynyrd “Gimme Three Steps” GEAR I WANT MOST: Gibson ’59 reissue, Fender Deluxe ’57 Custom Twin 40-watt amp Simon Jesus Mora AGE: 23 HOMETOWN: Katy, TX GUITARS: Washburn WI66PRO, Washburn EA-20A SONGS I’VE BEEN PLAYING: Plini “Electric Sunrise,” Zequinha de Abreu “Tico Tico no Fuba,” Birèli Lagrène “Made in France,” Jack Thammarat “Falling in Love Again” GEAR I WANT MOST: Washburn WI67PRO, Washburn WI595, Washburn J3TSK, Paris Swing GG-39 Tom Hord AGE: 68 HOMETOWN: Raleigh, NC GUITARS:…

“I think I know the pitfalls. In the late Eighties and early Nineties, it often felt like a guitarist playing over a backing track” ALTHOUGH INTERVALS ORIGINALLY started off as a band, with a team of musicians appearing on 2014’s A Voice Within, the subsequent instrumental releases were very much a solo project from guitarist Aaron Marshall. Returning last year with fourth full-length Circadian, the Canadian progressive metal mastermind explains why these latest recordings feel like his most concise exploits to date. How does the new music pick up from 2017’s The Way Forward? In many ways it’s an expansion of the story I was telling last time ’round. From a more guitar-driven perspective, it’s a lot more refined. I wanted to bring the more angular and aggressive riff-centric parts…

Steven Wilson “Eminent Sleaze” The latest album from U.K. progressive rock mastermind Steven Wilson, titled The Future Bites, could very well be the least guitar-driven release he’s ever put his name to. The six-string sounds that did make the cut, however, are truly glorious — as evidenced by second single “Eminent Sleaze.” In many ways, it’s the modern equivalent of what Pink Floyd were driving at on The Wall, the elaborately conceptual music weaving through different genres, with some exquisitely lavish slapback echoes on his clean-ish Fender tones. The biggest surprise arrives at the end in the form of some aggressive guitar stabs, slicing away at the ear in a blur of unpredictable mayhem. Nighttime Boogie Association “The Path We’re On” Formed by Sound› garden/Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron…

OVER THE LAST 10 or so years, sibling duo Larkin Poe have become one of the most exciting prospects in guitar music, thanks to their tasteful musicianship and heavenly harmonies. Latest release Kindred Spirits sees them return to the “covers” format that originally got them noticed, giving us their take on classic hits by Elton John, Neil Young and Elvis Presley, as well as more contemporary cuts by Lenny Kravitz and Post Malone. “The beauty of the song selection for this was in how organically it all came together,” says Rebecca Lovell, who sings lead and plays guitars, banjos and mandolins in the group while her sister Megan usually sticks with lap steel and harmonies. “And though it might not seem apparent on the surface, there’s definitely a thread that…

“THERE’S A FAMOUS OLD JOKE: WHAT WAS THE last thing the drummer said before they kicked him out of the band? ‘Hey guys, I got a new song I just wrote!’ ” Dave Grohl told this oldie-butgoodie to Guitar World back in 1997 to describe his mindset during the Nirvana days, when he was not only, yes, the drummer, but also the drummer in a band that had already been through six of ’em previously (“and when you’re the seventh drummer, it would be pretty big-headed of you to imagine yourself being the final drummer,” he acknowledged). What’s more, Kurt Cobain, the guy who was up front singing and playing guitar and writing Nirvana’s songs? He also happened to be one of the greatest — if not the greatest, in…

STREET PRICE: $3,499 MANUFACTURER: Music Man, music-man.com Versatile switching and coil-split wiring provides a versatile variety of full humbucking and Strat-like single-coil tones. The master volume’s push/push function toggles between a +20dB boost or no boost. The back of both cutaway horns is slimmed down and contoured to reduce weight and provide unrestricted access to the uppermost frets. The refined neck design features a flatter 15-inch radius and wider 1 11/16-inch nut width compared to the standard Cutlass 10-inch radius and 1 5/8-inch nut width. THE BOTTOM LINE The Music Man Jason Richardson Cutlass 6-string provides a comprehensive, high-end upgrade to the classic Cutlass design to satisfy warp-speed shredders or anyone looking for a classy, versatile ax that plays like a dream.…

STREET PRICE: $1,799.95 MANUFACTURER: Bose, bose.com Bose’s J-shape extended-frequency line array features 16 articulated neodymium drivers and wide 180-degree horizontal coverage that delivers sound evenly across the stage and throughout the audience. The Pro16 includes a comprehensive built-in mixer and an integrated “RaceTrack” subwoofer design that rivals the performance of traditional round drivers in a smaller footprint. THE BOTTOM LINE The Bose L1 Pro16 is the complete package for a portable and powerful “next-gen” PA system with remarkable 180-degree horizontal sound coverage for small to medium venues and even outdoor spaces.…

STREET PRICE: $149.99 MANUFACTURER: IK Multimedia, ikmultimedia.com The Z-Tone variable impedance control can dial in a useful variety of tonal textures from crisp and brilliant to fat and dark. The JFET preamp setting slightly boosts midrange and enhances harmonic complexity to deliver amp-like tones and dynamics. THE BOTTOM LINE: A DI box is an essential tool for any home studio, and no DI on the market is a better match for guitarists than IK’s Z-Tone DI thanks to its JFET/Pure preamps and the tonal versatility of its Z-Tone variable impedance control.…

COLLINS MIX Soloing over a blues shuffle in the style of Albert Collins HELLO, AND WELCOME to my column! Over the course of these lessons, I’ll be discussing a wide variety of approaches to both rhythm guitar playing and improvisation in the realms of blues, rock, country and more... which begs the immortal question: Can you dig it? I think you can! Years ago, I would often play duo gigs with a harmonica player, and when he’d take a solo, I had to cover the chords, bass line and groove with my guitar, “comping” behind his solos. We would play a lot of 12-bar blues songs, but instead of just sticking with a standard I - IV - V (one-four-five) chord progression, I would often throw in a few “jazzy”…

“ORB” Ichika Nito THIS SUBLIMELY BEAUTIFUL solo instrumental by YouTube sensation Ichika Nito features the young guitarist and composer performing some seemingly superhuman sleights of hand with a gentle, flowing touch and great expressiveness. Using a dreamy clean electric tone with some delay and reverb and employing hybrid picking throughout, as well as numerous finger slides, natural harmonics and tapped notes, Nito starts off simply, with a sequence of sparse diatonic 10th intervals that effectively outline a four-bar chord progression in the key of E natural minor. He then proceeds to spin a series of inventive and more densely textured and technically complex variations on his initial idea in a way that brings to mind what baroque-era composer Johann Pachelbel famously did with his “Canon in D.” Beginning in bar…

TRIVIA QUESTION: WHO was the first Dutch guitarist to record a song called “Eruption”? The answer is not Edward Van Halen, but rather Jan Akkerman, who recorded “Eruption” with his band Focus in 1971 for the album Moving Waves (titled Focus II in Europe), although Focus’ song was a sprawling 23-minute prog-rock concerto based on the tale of Orpheus and Euridice instead of a blazing solo showcase. Akkerman’s performance on “Eruption” is certainly dazzling, but the song that mesmerized fans of Euro shred guitar long before Schenker, Roth, Van Halen, Malmsteen, et al. is the album’s scorching opening track, “Hocus Pocus.” Driven by a heavy distorted guitar riff punctuated by jazzy major 7th chords and ripping hyperspeed solos that explored harmonic minor and Hungarian minor scales, “Hocus Pocus” was a…