Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2025 i Guitar World

VERY OFTEN, WHEN it comes time to write these Woodshed columns, I just ask myself, “What are your personal experiences with the band/artist/thing on the cover?” And when I did that for this issue, this is what I came up with: It’s August 1984, and my band (a bunch of young’ns, mind you) is roped into playing at a talent show at a vacation-community clubhouse in northeastern Pennsylvania. This guy — not really a friend, but he was an OK kid — decides he’s gonna enter, but he’s gonna dress up as a punk with spiked blue hair, and he wants to sing “Back in Black.” So I had to learn it. Luckily, I had just seen Stevie Ray Vaughan that March, so I knew that Angus Young was most…

OVER THE LAST decade, New Zealand trio Alien Weaponry have positioned themselves as one of the most exciting new forces in metal, opening for giants like Guns N’ Roses and Gojira. After inking a deal with Napalm Records, they released their Tū debut in 2018, peaking at Number 5 in their native charts. What made it an even more impressive feat was singer/guitarist Lewis de Jong being only 16 at the time. Their second album, Tangaroa, arrived in 2021, not long after landing a worldwide-management deal with the same team who look after Slayer, Mastodon and Ghost, and this year sees them building on that momentum with their third full-length, Te Rā. The 11 new tracks could very well be the most explosive they’re written to date, splicing elements of…

SISTER, RELEASED IN 1987, is widely acclaimed as Sonic Youth’s best album. At the time of its release, it was acknowledged as a step up for the New York City alt-rockers in terms of writing and sonic quality. Evol, released the previous year, had already served notice that the band was moving toward a more mainstream sound. Sister was the record that made good on that promise, delivering commerciality without compromise. Guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo had already adopted a wildly experimental approach to their playing, inventing unique alternative tunings, using prepared guitars — with drumsticks wedged under the strings (among a number of radical approaches) — and playing behind the bridge. The fact that they could weld such radical unconventionality to songs that delivered memorable melodies and solid…

IT’S WELL-DOCUMENTED that Angus Young is a no-nonsense player who prefers the sound of just a guitar and amp with no other effects. But there’s much more to Angus’ tone than just his timeless Gibson SG Standard and Marshall amp rig. In the studio — particularly when recording Back in Black — Young used a variety of different Marshall amp heads to narrow down the perfect individual guitar tones for each song. Some of his favorite recording amps for Back in Black included various plexi Super Lead 100-watt heads when he needed crisp treble and crunchy overdrive, various 50-watt Marshalls for solos and Marshall 2203 JMP 100-watt master volume heads for when he wanted darker tones with fatter midrange and more saturated distortion. Unfortunately, Angus didn’t keep detailed records of…

A GREAT APPROACH for all rhythm guitar players is this: think like a drummer! Granted, the drummer is the one who is driving the song’s momentum, but rhythm guitar can similarly contribute. Let’s begin with some simple things we guitarists can do that are derived from a standard drumbeat, the primary elements of which are the patterns played on the kick drum, snare and hi-hats. If we think of just the kick alternating with the snare, we’ve got, “Boom, kahh, boom-boom, kahh.” Add the hi-hat, and it’s, “Tss, tss, kahh, boom, boom-boom, kah, tss, boom, kahh” etc. We can emulate these different elements on the guitar. Starting with the hi-hat, FIGURE 1 shows a series of fret-hand-muted strings sounded as straight eighth notes. We also have low and high notes.…

LAST MONTH, I introduced an approach to playing through a 12-bar blues shuffle in the key of E with some of my favorite licks to play over the IV (four) chord, A7, and the V (five) chord, B7. This month, we’ll expand on these ideas with melodic phrases that work perfectly over these chord changes. FIGURE 1 illustrates the 12-bar blues form in E, starting with the stock root-5th, root-6th boogie vamp pattern, moving from E5 (E and B) to E6 (E and C # ) on each beat through bars 1-3. I begin bar 4 by sliding into a two-note shape known as a 6th, so called because the two notes — B and G # — are six major scale tones, or degrees, apart. At the end of…

Thanks for the Geordie… I just received my May 2025 issue, and in the lower-right corner of the cover you guys finally gave a tribute to one of my favorite guitarists, Geordie Walker. I’m shocked it took so long, considering he passed away on November 26, 2023! Yet you guys pulled off a great “requiem” for him. I really loved reading what you guys wrote. Thank you for what was long overdue. — Joe DeBellis Thank you for the feature on Geordie Walker, one of my favorite “punk” guitarists. I’m actually quite an authority on Geordie. I have the leading viral video of how to play “Love Like Blood” on YouTube! The secret to his tone (as you know) is that archtop. His stuff just doesn’t work on a super-strat.…

EVERY GEAR COMPANY will have a pedigree of talent that it’s most associated with, though in the case of Lieber Guitars, it really just boils down to one group above all others — American rock ’n’ roll originals the Grateful Dead. Master luthier and owner Tom Lieber got his big break designing and building guitars for the band alongside Doug Irwin, resulting in Jerry Garcia models like the Wolf and the Tiger. Since then, his instruments have been seen in the hands of Paul McCartney, Victor Wooten, Blondie’s Chris Stein and many, many more. At the turn of the millennium, Lieber was approached to build a Tiger six-string for a client and eventually decided to revisit his past as a full-time pursuit — producing top-of-the-line, custom-made instruments for all the…

READER ART OF THE MONTH If you’ve created a drawing, painting or sketch of your favorite guitarist and would like to see it in an upcoming issue of Guitar World, email GWSoundingBoard@futurenet.com with a .jpg or screenshot of the image. And (obviously...), please remember to include your name! DEFENDERS of the Faith Paul Deesen AGE: 62 HOMETOWN: Rochester, MI GUITARS: Ibanez RG 270/560, Charvel San Dimas/DK 24, Fender Strat MIM, Washburn MG600 SONGS I’VE BEEN PLAYING: Peter Frampton “Lines on My Face,” Jeff Beck “She’s a Woman,” Skid Row “Monkey Business,” Slash “Back from Cali” GEAR I WANT MOST: Gibson Les Paul Slash Appetite Burst Waylon Binkley AGE: 14 HOMETOWN: Kansas City, KS GUITARS: Fender Duo Sonic, Epiphone Les Paul Junior, Gretsch G2420T Streamliner, Gretsch G2210 Streamliner, Recording King Dirty 37,…

“THE RECIPE IS, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. A number of different things have come out, but I think we can universally agree that, for the most part, the new products in the pedal world are just different-colored housings of the same circuits we’ve all been using for decades. “I’m using a primitive setup, but I haven’t had many problems with it or had to make many repairs to it over the years. It comes from a need — or a desire — not to have to tap dance quite so much. For most of my show, I can get through with just the guitar and a couple of pedals — that’s it. Most of my tone is just the guitar and the amp — but every single…

ITALIAN GUITARIST CAMILLA Sperati has been building a serious rep as a major new force in the rarified world of fusion. Taking her influences from the likes of Frank Gambale, Guthrie Govan and Scott Henderson’s work with Tribal Tech, Sperati — who lives in Rome — has spent time at Berklee College of Music in Boston, opened up for Steve Vai, bagged an artist endorsement deal with Strandberg and self-released a mini album, Moonrise, with a full-length outing on the way this year. Her smooth, mellow tone and updated take on the classic sounds of the fusion era have earned her a constantly growing following on social media platforms. We recently threw five questions her way. Q: What inspired you to start playing? My parents were not musical. They were…

GUITARISTSOPHIE LLOYD GUITAR2023 KIESEL SIGNATURE SERIES GW COVER DATESEPTEMBER 2023 THIS INTERVIEWFEBRUARY 2025 PHOTOGRAPHERJEN ROSENSTEIN Q: Where and when did you get this guitar? This is my signature guitar, which I did with Kiesel in 2023. My journey with the company began in 2018 when they sent me a purple Aries, which later became part of their Artist series. The success of the Aries led to the development of my signature model, making me the first female on Kiesel’s roster to achieve that milestone. It has the Iron Age kill switch, the Sustainiac system and my signature truss rod cover. Q: Why did you choose this model, and what makes it unique? I became obsessed with the Sustainiac system after playing a few guitars that had it. So it’s modeled…

HIS FIRST WITH MCCARTNEY Back in the U.S. (2002) My Town (2024) HIS NEW SOLO ALBUM SINCE 2002, BRIAN Ray has held down the enviable gig as guitarist and bassist in Paul McCartney’s band. At the same time, he’s built a successful side career as a solo artist — sometimes with his garage rock band, the Bayonets — and has released a series of punchy power pop albums and singles that recall the ebullient, hard-driving and hook-laden sounds that dominated the Southern California scene in the late Seventies. “I’m a West Coast guy, so that stuff is in my roots,” he says. “The Plimsouls, Dwight Twilley, the Knack — they were awesome. Of course, power pop can be traced earlier to the Raspberries and the Sweet, and then that got…

Angus Young AC/DC’S LEAD GUITARIST — yes indeed, the gentleman on this issue’s cover — favors 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 told us in 2020, the last time we had a full-fledged chat. “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…

AT THIS POINT, Fender’s core instruments have become the equivalent of classic novels like Moby-Dick and On the Road, which are refreshed nearly every other year for new audiences to digest. It’s almost ironic that a “The Standard Is Set” sticker on this review Stratocaster’s pickguard reads to me as window dressing because, as much as I want to believe that, I’m fairly certain there’ll eventually be yet another revision to this Standard Series’ Strat in some shape or form. Don’t get me wrong; in no way am I cynically punching down at the brilliance of a Strat or Fender’s attempt to reach more musicians with a revamped and well-built guitar at an affordable price point every so often. The bigger point I’m illustrating is that Fender’s consistent tinkering with…

EVERY GUITAR PLAYER should have at least one nylon-string guitar in their collection. Even better is a nylon-string acoustic-electric that can hold its own amongst other amplified instruments on stage. The Cort Sunset Nylectric DLX leans more towards the electric than acoustic side of the spectrum with its chambered solidbody design, but that makes it a great choice for electric players who want to explore the nuances and expressiveness of a nylon-string instrument without having to adapt their playing style too much to a traditional classical or flamenco guitar. Playability Featuring a chambered mahogany body with a solid Sitka spruce top covered with a flamed maple veneer, the Cort Sunset Nylectric DLX looks more like a steel-string acoustic-electric or even a solidbody electric (minus the pickups and electric hardware). The…

IT OCCURRED TO me that I have yet to speak about one of my biggest guitar influences — the other elephant in the room, as it were! I always say that, for me, it’s all about “the two Erics” — Eric Clapton and the one and only Eric Johnson. I first heard Eric Johnson play via a tear-out flexi-disc that was included in Guitar Player magazine back in 1986. It was his studio recording of his virtuosic masterpiece “Cliffs of Dover.” I had never heard anything like that in my life! I was into Hendrix and SRV and many other guitarists, but I hadn’t heard anything like what Eric was doing. The tone, the technique, everything! Eric was on the cover of the magazine, with the headline, “Is Eric Johnson…

ONE OF MY favorite sounds in blues and blues-rock soloing is utilizing the “blue note.” I’m talking about the flatted 5th, or b5, which is located one half step below the 5th of the root note of whatever chord you’re relating to. Let’s use the key of G as our point of reference: FIGURE 1 begins with a G5 chord, establishing the “home base” sound of the I (one) chord. I follow this with the single notes G, then the minor 3rd, Bb, then the b5, Db, which I proceed to bend up a half step to D, the 5th. I then play these same notes an octave higher, followed by a phrase that descends through the G blues scale (G, Bb, C, Db, D, F). Notice in the last…

“GREEN SERPENT” Jinjer ONE OF MODERN metal’s most melodic and dynamic bands, this young Ukrainian quartet fuses elements of their homeland’s rich musical heritage with a sophisticated sonic vision, state-of-the-art level of technical proficiency and an intensely dramatic delivery. This popular new song from their latest album, Duél, has guitarist Roman Ibramkhalilov playing his six-string electric baritone guitar in “drop-A” tuning, which is drop-D, transposed down two and a half steps (low to high: A, E, A, D, F #, B), with bassist Eugene Abdukhanov tuning his five-string’s low B down to A, to match the guitarist’s low strings an octave down. So while Roman plays the song as if it were in the key of D minor, everything sounds in A minor, a perfect 4th (two and a half…

As heard on PRONOUNCED ‘LĔH-’NÉRD ‘SKIN-’NÉRD “I AIN’T THE ONE” WORDS AND MUSIC BY GARY ROSSINGTON AND RONNIE VAN ZANT. COPYRIGHT © 1973, 1976 SONGS OF UNIVERSAL, INC. AND EMI LONGITUDE MUSIC. COPYRIGHT RENEWED. ALL RIGHTS CONTROLLED AND ADMINISTERED BY SONGS OF UNIVERSAL, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY PERMISSION. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD LLC.…

JAPAN’S ELECTRIC GUITAR industry underwent some fascinating twists and turns in the Sixties and Seventies. Many Japanese guitar designs from the Sixties are highly original but with an emphasis on low cost and quirky, gimmicky features that weren’t entirely ergonomic for most players. During the late Sixties/early Seventies, focus shifted to copies of classic American models (now known as “lawsuit models”), often with better playability and quality than American companies offered at the time. By the time American companies caught on and issued cease-and-desist orders, Japanese manufacturers were already one step ahead and building high-quality, original designs during the mid Seventies. The Ibanez Iceman was one of Ibanez/Hoshino Gakki’s first original designs to emerge during the mid Seventies, along with their Artist and Musician models. The Iceman model was actually…