Innehållsförteckning för Vol. 159 från Australian Guitar

INTERVIEW One could say that Holly Ross and David Blackwell live double lives. Based in Lancaster, they may appear to be middle-aged, married parents at their local Sainsbury's, but they hold the secret ability to morph into The Lovely Eggs. Their power lies in viewing their relentless creative pursuits as their way of life, instead of their career. Since 2006, they've performed hundreds of gigs around the UK, USA and Europe, sharing stages with the likes of The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Shonen Knife, while co-producing six albums, releasing numerous singles and working with members of bands such as Half Japanese. Their seventh album, Eggsistentialism, was released on May 17. Ross describes its eleven songs as detailing a ‘splurge͇ of emotion, following a five-year battle with their local council in…

INTERVIEW Melbourne metal quartet Black Lava emerged in 2021 from six long COVID-19 lockdowns, totaling eight months across two years. Their sound was a departure from the technical prog-metal played by guitarist Ben Boyle and Dan Presland in Vipassi. It also veered away from the tech-death of Hadal Maw, which Boyle plays in with Black Lava's past bassist Tim Anderson and current bassist Nick Rackham. Meanwhile, Boyle, Presland and Rackham also play in A Million Dead Birds Laughing, a tech-death/grind band. In contrast to all of this, Black Lava focuses on simplified, catchy songwriting, with lyrical themes informed by dark medieval fantasies. Black Lava vocalist-frontman Rob Watkins writes their lyrics, music videos and creates their album covers (he also fronts Blackhelm). In late 2022 Black Lava released their debut album…

YAMAHA PACIFICA STANDARD PLUS RRP: $2,399 ∙ au.yamaha.com Pacifica Standard Plus guitars were designed for players of all types seeking their own unique sounds. They deliver exceptional sound and playability, and feature newly designed alder bodies, slim C-shape maple necks with rosewood or maple fingerboards, Reflectone pickups co-developed with Rupert Neve Designs, and a choice of four vibrant finishes developed jointly by teams in Hamamatsu and Los Angeles, inspired by Japanese city pop art and the sun-soaked vibes of Southern California. SUSAN TEDESCHI TELECASTER RRP: $3,299 ∙ fender.com One of the most celebrated musicians of her generation, Susan Tedeschi's powerful vocal performances and dynamic musicality are a testament to the vital emotive power of the blues. Her musical catalog as a solo artist and with Grammy-award winning Tedeschi Trucks Band…

REVIEW When you introduce a new acoustic with a name like “Inception,” it stirs up at least one pressing question about a movie with the same name — at least for me. That said, I quickly found out Inception isn't some fanciful collaboration between director Christopher Nolan and Martin Guitar for an instrument that manipulatively invades your dreams. Instead, it's an acoustic that bears an imaginative design using sustainably harvested tonewoods, and if anything, might ideally “plant” some genuine musical inspiration in you with its warmly focused response. So what is the idea behind the Inception Maple? It's essentially Martin Guitar's fresh approach in using domestic tonewoods to create a uniquely voiced acoustic geared toward singer-songwriter players and fingerstylists. What makes it instantly inviting is the fact that it arrives…

REVIEW The clever folks at Markbass continue to push the boundaries of what a professional bass system should deliver. In this case, it's a punchy, full-featured, gig bag-sized amp head and a lightweight, rear-ported 2×10 cab. Both are dressed in Markbass͇ usual orange-on-black livery, and both offer simple and practical features. The speaker cab heralds a new direction in weight reduction – even for Markbass. The previous 2×10 record holder, the Markbass 102P, weighs in at a very portable 14.5kgs. This new 400w 2×10 cab is just 10.5kgs and is still fullfeatured. The 10” speakers are MB's high-powered neodymium drivers plus there's a new hi-fidelity tweeter for the super-high end. If you're after a more vintage tone, the tweeter can be easily bypassed via a rearmounted defeat switch. Or, it…

The first two singles from the Doobie Brothers͇ fourth album failed to catch fire. So it was a surprise when “Black Water,” the third offering from 1974͇s What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits, went to number Tone on the Billboard Hot 100. Originally issue as the B side to one of those failed singles — “Another Park, Another Sunday” — “Black a” was an unusual cut from a group known for rockers like “Listen to the Music,” “Long Train Runnin'” and “China Grove.” Its easygoing cadence, back-porch fingerpicking and images of Mississippi moons, catfish and riverboats came out of left field. CRESCENT CITY MAGIC Composed by band co-founder Patrick Simmons, “Black Water” sprang from a riff. “Most of our tunes begin with a riff, if they're from the guitar…

INTERVIEW Having re-emerged onto our national scene feeling “sadder, meaner and totally dangerous”, as described by their cofounding violin virtuoso Warren Ellis, Melbourne's Dirty Three made a triumphant return to playing last month. On an eleven-date tour from June 14-29, they landed four sold out Melbourne and Sydney shows while backing their latest album, Love Changes Everything. The Dirty Three's latest tour marked the end of a five-year hiatus. While providing a continuation of the fragile instrumental beauty and ragged depth heard on some of their classic ‘90s albums, such as 1998͇s Ocean Songs, (produced by the late Steve Albini) and 1996͇s Horse Stories, Love Changes Everything is the first release from the group to not feature individually titled songs. Instead it's a six-part suite, inspired by jazz records like…

INTERVIEW In October 1994, four months after the death of Kurt Cobain, four musicians convened at a storage facility/rehearsal space in Florida. Little did they know that their actions here would lead to a unique continuance of American alt-rock spirit. Partially raised on hardcore punk, the quartet chose their name from a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski about women, drinking and gambling. As Hot Water Music, vocalist-guitarist Chuck Ragan, bassist Jason Black and drummer George Rebelo joined forces with guitarist-vocalist Chris Wollard to first record 1995͇s Push For Coin. The cassette demo caused the group's first ripples in their local scene, which formed into a tidal wave spreading from Gainesville, Florida to the rest of America's punk and alt-rock scenes with their 1997 debut album, Fuel For The…

INTERVIEW Founded in 1978 when founding member Steven McDonald was still in high school, Redd Kross first became known as the LA punk band featuring the squeaky-voiced 11-year-old bassist and his older vocalist-guitarist brother, Jeff. Their first gig saw them opening for Black Flag in a suburban lounge room, while the group's early lineups also included members of Black Flag and Circle Jerks. In 2009, Circle Jerks͇ frontman Keith Morris (Black Flag) formed hardcore supergroup OFF! with Steven McDonald, who has been a Melvins member since 2015. Two former Red Hot Chili Peppers are also involved in the Redd Kross story - RHCP's ‘80s drummer Jack Irons, and more recent guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, who produced their new album while playing all of its drum tracks. Red Kross's new self-titled LP…

SLASH: THE INTERVIEW Blues guitar is a high-risk endeavour. Don't be fooled into thinking it's easy or safe just because there are fewer notes in the scale. If you want a safer pursuit, take up whitewater rafting, spelunking or snake milking. An easier way to pass your practice time would be to woodshed, build up speed and throw in some neoclassical tonalities. Stick some compression and delay on it and everyone on TikTok will think you are a genius. But blues is not that. Blues is making more out of less and that leaves a player wholly exposed. Personality counts. Charisma matters. It is like stand-up comedy; you have to tell a story, you have to tell it well, and come the end of it you have to arrive at…

AUSTRALINA recording TECHNIQUE TUTORIAL All microphones work in a similar way. They have a diaphragm (or a ribbon) that moves in response to changes in air pressure due to sound waves impinging on the diaphragm – similarly to how the diaphragm or ‘eardrum͇ in the human ear responds to sound. The movement of this diaphragm, or ribbon, then produces a changing voltage, with a positive value (or amplitude) when the diaphragm moves one way and a negative value (or amplitude) when the diaphragm moves the opposite way. There are three main types of microphone to choose from – dynamic, ribbon, and condenser. 1 DYNAMIC MICS With a so-called ‘dynamic͇ microphone (the word ‘dynamic͇ means changing or moving), a small coil of wire, positioned within the magnetic field of a permanent…

REVIEW I love Electro-Voice gear. I have to say that right up front. I still have a PL-91 bought in the late ‘70s, a TL15 bass cabinet bought in 1980 and often used for guitar, and a few EVM12L speakers, either in a Boogie or in an extension cab. Electro-Voice gear just seems to work and keep on working, no matter what you do with it. The company is nearly 100 years of age (older than JBL or Sennheiser, or AKG) and they are still innovating. Their latest products are quite a leap from the plywood speaker boxes of 40 years ago or the large diaphragm miles of the ‘40s. Nowadays, they are small and portable, but with the same level of quality and bullet-proof engineering. The EV Everse 12…

Koa is a very attractive-looking tone wood that is commonly associated with high-end models or expensive custom or boutique instruments. Because of its higher cost, many guitarists haven't experienced koa's distinctive tonal qualities, which are sort of a “goldilocks” combo of the powerful bass of rosewood, sweet, warm mids of mahogany and brilliance of maple. Taylor, which offers more koa models than any of the other major acoustic guitar companies, is now making full-size guitars with tops, backs and sides made of Hawaiian koa more accessible to the masses with the introduction of two new 200 series guitars — the 222ce-K DLX Grand Concert and 224ce-K DLX Grand Auditorium — that cost almost half the price of their 700 series koa instruments, which previously were Taylor's lowest priced full-size koa…

INTERVIEW Following a DIY approach that has informed his music since its origins in suburban Perth, Peter Bibby's second album Drama King dropped on May 31. It follows his 2018 solo album Grand Champion, and marks his first official collaboration with a producer Dan Luscombe (The Drones, Amyl & The Sniffers). Drama King also represents a stylistic change from the direct live feel of 2020͇s Marge, due to the disbandment of his touring electric group Peter Bibby's Dog Act, who also played on that album. Drama King was recorded with Melbourne-based session musicians recruited by Luscombe, but it still runs the gamut between heaviness and tenderness thanks to Bibby's trademark, lyrical matter-offactness. Recent single ‘Fun Guy͇ is reminiscent of Suicide's ‘Ghost Rider͇ in its hypnotic post-punk pounding. “The drugs I…

INTERVIEW With hook-laden choruses complemented by lead lines that soar and speak with the emotional range of a second singer, Hana & Jessie-Lee's Bad Habits are back to take a bite from Australia's alt-country scene. Quite literally, it seems: the video for ‘The Tallest Of Tales͇ sees lead singer-songwriter and rhythm-guitarist Hana Brenecki with vampiric fangs, poised to take a chunk out of an unsuspecting bar patron's neck. Lead guitarist Jessie-Lee Zubkevych serves drinks in a cowboy hat while Brenecki's morbid one-liner lyrics lend a grim, foreboding atmosphere to the video. Elsewhere on the 12-track album, Brenecki's voice powers through heartfelt shades of catchy RnB-tinged pop, mellow ballads and raunchy barroom rock ‘n͇ roll in ‘Arrowhead͇, ‘Louisa͇ and ‘Say What You Mean͇, respectively, while ‘Under The Vines͇ bears a dramatic…

INTERVIEW The last 20 years has seen the Blue Mountains generate an eclectic range of artists. Hip hop acts Hermitude and Thundamentals were raised there, as were alt-rockers Cloud Control and singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin. Ever since Jacklin's rise to national prominence in 2016, new bands have emerged into the public eye from the bushy suburbia of the Blueys, via rehearsal spaces, recording studios and tour vans. One of these acts is heavy alt-rock quartet Acid Amora, whose upcoming debut album looks set to leave a mark. A statement on their Bandcamp page describes them as the result of Smashing Pumpkins, Trivium and Hayley Williams having a four-headed baby. Recorded at Damien Gerard Studios with producer Andrew Beck (The Church, Grinspoon), Sam Lowe on mixing and Ian Pritchett (Angus & Julia…

ST. VINCENT Annie Clark – aka St. Vincent – is finished, for now at least, with digital guitar tones. “I've done enough direct guitar sounds,” she declares. “I wanted to move some air again.” The result helps St. Vincent's latest album, All Born Screaming, sound extremely human. “It sounds real because it is real,” Annie says of the record's emotional content, but she could also be talking about the Marshall she used to express some of those emotions. When she wrote this record, Clark explains: “I personally was metabolising inward and outward violence. How do you make sense of the human condition? It's wild and fraught. I'm lucky in the way I get to try to make sense of everything, by making work that takes chaos and puts it into…

FEATURE While most 21st-century producers like to surround themselves with a console full of the latest outboard gear, a supercomputer packed with a million plugins, and then take full creative control of a recording project and, consequently, a big points-based slice of its profits, the late Steve Albini, who died on May 7, used little gear, took a low fee, and let the band and their music do the talking. And if he could do it all in one take, so much the better. In an industry famed for precise recording, a million vocal takes, and where a knowledge of Pro Tools shortcuts impresses more than ideas, this pioneering spIrit – or bloody-minded stubbornness, you decide – would earn Albini literally thousands of recording projects. The only thing Albini shared…

REVIEW In updating its Catalyst combo lineup, introduced a few years back with the new-and-improved CX range, Line 6 reminds us that it was born as a modeling amp company. The AxSys, Flextone and Spider released in the early years following the company's birth in 1996 provided many players with their first taste of digital amp modeling. While many would agree those products have been far outshone by the tones and capabilities of more compact units today, there's no denying Line 6 provided players with an aural glimpse of what a fully digitized guitartone future might sound like. The CX 100 is a 100-watt, 1×12 combo, and is flanked by the smaller 60-watt 1×12 CX 60 and larger 200-watt 2×12 CX 200. While the range doesn't bring Line 6 entirely…

REVIEW The newest member of Peavey's long-running Classic series of tube amplifiers, the Classic 20 112 is a compact affair with a birch-ply cabinet measuring just 14 by 17.25 by 7.25 inches (HxWxD) and weighing a little over 15 kilos. It's a nice-looking rig, with neatly applied tweed covering, an oxblood grille cloth with gold piping, and a chrome-plated front panel with pointer-style knobs. There are also steel corner protectors and a padded handle for easy carry. The knob layout is straightforward. From left to right you've got reverb, treble, middle, bass, Pre (gain), Post (volume) and master volume. In addition to toggles for power and standby there's a jeweled pilot light with a pair of T.S.I. (Tube Status Indicator) LEDs. A channelselect push button is also provided. There's no…