Innehållsförteckning för August 2018 från Guitar Player

MICHAEL MOLENDA HAS GRACIOUSLY OFFERED ME THE PRIVILEGE OF filling this sacrosanct spot for this month—a responsibility I do not take lightly. I know too well that the mountain range of insight and knowledge that occupies this page month after month—and to which I now contribute—has been formed by the literary tectonics of some pretty heavyweight writers over five decades of premier music journalism. It is uncommon for designers—who are connected to the vision of the magazine in a critical, yet seemingly ancillary capacity—to be featured on this page. But our work does have a direct impact on the end product, and we work closely with the editorial team to ensure the artistic mission remains intact all the way to the printed page and online. Just between you and me,…

ZVEX Vibrophase $269 street This vertical pedal uses the original circuitry of the Candela Vibrophase to generate phase and vibrato sounds, and it features controls for Speed, Vibrato/Phase, High Bias, and Low Limit. zvex.com Jensen Jet Raptor $106 street The Raptor is a 12” 100-watt speaker designed for studly lead tones with excellent midrange articulation when used with overdrive or distortion. Clean tones exhibit deep lows, tight mids, and subtle and smooth highs. It has a 51oz ceramic magnet, and overall weight is under 10lbs. jensentone.com Shabat Bobcat $2,999 street The Bobcat features a one–piece mahogany body with a solid, quarter-sawn, roasted-maple neck and a 25.5” scale length. Pickups are Lollar Imperials matched with 1meg pots. You can get a fully customized version by appointment. shabatguitars.com Strum-N-Comfort GMA Pro Crossover…

STAND BY FOR A CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT: AN otherworldly, transcendent, and kick-ass guitar solo is usually wasted air time unless it’s part of an equally brilliant song. Let’s take Jimi Hendrix. His guitar playing certainly influenced and inspired legions of guitarists. However, his songs were well-crafted pop compositions that ended up on the radio for millions of fans to absorb. Would Hendrix have been so phenomenally, culturally huge if his songs had ended up in the cut-out bins of second-hand record shops? Now, there’s a bar/pub debate for the ages. No matter where you stand on the subject, it doesn’t negate the fact that all musicians should strive to create pieces that inflame the emotions of listeners. Here’s how some guitar-slinging songwriters did just that. [These interviews first ran in the…

SARAH AILI IS A TRIPLE-THREAT singer, dancer, and actor from Northern California, who hit the theater scene in New York before landing in Nashville to write songs and perform with musicians who share her love for storytelling. But Aili also brought a bit of New York intensity to town, as the restless and prolific artist has multiple projects in development—an album and a play with singer/songwriter Radney Foster, a musical entitled Box of Letters with musician Eric Erdman, an album of children’s music, and a role in the Nashville Repertory Theatre’s production of Avenue Q. How does a song typically start for you? A lot of times, I’ll come up with a melody while I’m driving from gig to gig. Road trips are great for coming up with ideas. If…

WHEN NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS: Here’s the Sex Pistols rudely elbowed itself into the cultural consciousness in late 1977, the mainstream media focused on pogoing, spitting, safety pins, and grimy teens with no manners. Few thought to celebrate the songwriting prowess displayed on the album, but I learned a lot about composing rock tunes from those punk revolutionaries, such as… > Just Say It. Clever, Cole Porter-style word-smithing is wonderful, but it’s also okay to express what you mean in the most simple and austere language possible. Avoiding flowery language and metaphors—at least early in the writing process—can help ensure you’re being an authentic and sincere storyteller, rather than a glib one. > Cool Intros Can Be Butt Simple. The guitar riffs on Never Mind the Bollocks are galaxies away from…

ETTA BAKER (1913-2006) is a North Carolina legend of Piedmont guitar. She came to the style honestly, through generations of musicians in her family. Etta was a spry 91 when I visited her home in Morganton, North Carolina, for our interview. I was accompanied by Tim Duffy from The Musicmaker Relief Foundation (www.musicmaker.org)—a nonprofit that helps raise money and awareness to support Southern American roots musicians. Etta, who had been working in her garden since dawn, welcomed us in, and we stayed for hours, drinking sweet tea and talking about life and music. After a while, we jammed together, and I was astonished by her down-home, traditional Piedmont guitar style and her technical ability—which was still amazing at such a vintage age. Who taught you to play? My dad taught…

AS ONE OF THE HARDEST WORKING GUITARISTS/vocalists in rock ‘n’ roll history, Steve Miller has created a vast amount of music that is represented by his numerous commercial hits—particularly the songs recorded during a fertile decade that began in 1973 with the release The Joker, and followed by Fly Like an Eagle, Book of Dreams, Circle of Love, and Abracadabra—as well as by the lesser-known (or even unknown) tunes he has written over the last five decades. By his own measure, we’re talking around 150 songs—which is a far deeper trove than one would realize if the only reference is the solid-gold Steve Miller Band playlist heard ’round the clock on every classic-rock outlet. The recent release of the Steve Miller Band Ultimate Hits Deluxe Edition is a great way…

NELS CLINE’S STORY DISPROVES F. SCOTT FITZGERald’s maxim that there are “no second acts in American lives.” Cline was nearly 50 when he went from being a well-respected, Los Angeles avant-jazz guitarist and composer to a rock-guitar god as a member of Wilco. In that band, Cline is granted ample opportunity to demonstrate his sheets-of-sound soloing, scraping behind-the-bridge noises, feedback wails, and Electro-Harmonix 16-Second Delay manipulations that fans of his ongoing experimental work have come to love over the years with his own band, as well as in collaboration with others. So it was a little startling when, a half-dozen years ago, Cline began performing duets with guitar prodigy Julian Lage using a Gibson Barney Kessel straight into an amp. Also surprising was their uncanny empathy when performing their modern…

DISCLAIMER: I CAN’T BOAST ABOUT having ever written a famous guitar riff. However, during my two-decade career as a professional musician, writer, and teacher I’ve had ample opportunity to reverse-engineer many of the great ones, learned a thing or two from the masters, and in the process stumbled upon a few half-decent guitar hooks of my own. Some of the most incendiary riffage in the rock canon is based on crafty manipulation of the notes in the blues scale (1-b3-4-b5-5-b7) using elementary compositional phrasing techniques. Let’s explore some different methods for creating mammoth melodic riffs from this enduringly appealing six-note entity. Ex. 1 is our starting point, a one-octave, low-register F# blues scale (F#-A-B-C-C#-E) played in second position and in a rhythm of eighth notes. Similar ascending, root-position blues scales…

THIS 2018 VERSION OF THE ST. VINcent is decked out in a high-gloss Charcoal sparkle finish, and new color options for this model also include Blue Dawn, Stealth Black, and Seabreeze. The hour-glass-shaped body is contoured in all the right places, and the cutaway and rounded heel area offer good access to the high frets. The bolt-on neck, which is cut from highly figured roasted maple and coated with a thin oil/wax finish, features a 25 ½”-scale (10” radius) ebony fretboard carrying 22 glistening, high-profile, medium frets. The neck is super comfortable, and the factory setup provided low action with only slight string buzzing above the 14th fret. The intonation was sweet sounding in all positions, too. The butter-smooth Music Man Modern tremolo and locking Schaller tuners are a proven…

GP’S SONGWRITING-THEMED ISSUE coincided with my being in New Orleans to cover the 49th annual Jazz & Heritage Festival, so it was an awesome opportunity to connect with top regional players about the art of acoustic songwriting. Tab Benoit is best known as a spitfire bluesman, but the Houma, Louisiana, resident is also a true bard of the bayou, as well as the head of a new label appropriately dubbed, “Whiskey Bayou Records.” Anders Osborne is easily one of the most respected songwriters in New Orleans. He originally hails from Sweden, but he has been in the Big Easy for so long—and embodies the region’s distinct musical dialect—that he’s sought out for songs and collaborations by NOLA stars such as Trombone Shorty and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, as well as…

Raid Dana’s Gear Stash! Thank you to the generous staff at Carvin Audio for offering up their groovy Legacy Drive to one lucky reader. This mint-colored beauty was created so legendary guitarist Steve Vai could recreate his rockin’ Carvin Legacy amp tones using any power amp and store it in a carry-on bag. It’s a perfect pedal for the gigging musician. For a chance to get this very cool box on your board, simply send an email to nbmgearcoordinator@gmail.com with “Legacy” in the subject line. One lucky winner will be chosen at random. The deadline for entries is August 20, 2018. Please keep in mind that all gear is “asis,” because it was reviewed by the GP staff and published in the magazine and online. I’d also like to offer…

EACH YEAR FOR 16 YEARS NOW Leszek Cichoński—founder of the Guitar Guinness World Record Festival (formerly, the Thanks Jimi Festival)—puts out the call for players to come to Wroclaw, Poland, and attempt to smash the Guinness Record for Largest Guitar Orchestra. The last time this happened was in 2016, when 7,356 guitarists descended on the city’s beautiful Market Square to capture the title. The guitar army fell a bit short last year, amassing 6,299 players, and missing the opportunity to break its own record. This year was a different story. When Cichoński and Wroclaw President (“mayor” in USA parlance) Rafal Dutkiewicz announced the official results, the jubilant outcry was tremendous. The 2018 festival had logged 7,411 players. Mission accomplished! Record smashed! The record attempt is always undertaken on May 1,…

THE CULT KICKED OFF THE ’80S WITH a spate of propulsive, riff-tastic, and terminally engaging hits such as “She Sells Sanctuary,” “Fire Woman,” and “Love Removal Machine.” But what has kept the band a viable touring and recording act in the decades hence has little to do with nostalgia. Founders Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy have continued to find inspiration as time has passed, and they’ve never stopped writing material and releasing new albums. Has your songwriting process evolved much since the beginning of the band? Things have certainly changed in the methodology. In the early days, everything happened very quickly. We’d spend a lot more time together on the road, and we’d work out ideas during soundchecks. But, as bands get more mature, shall we say, they don’t spend…

“THANKS SO MUCH FOR TALKING to me,” says Bryan Joyce, a.k.a. King Leg. “I was really excited about the interview. Hey, what’s your address? I want to send you some of my promo stickers.” Such down-home enthusiasm is rare these days—especially when artists can be tormented with countless interviews during media campaigns for their albums. But gabbing with King Leg was like hanging out in a club with a musician you’d actually want to hang out with. You can feel all the appreciation and joy he has for being able to make Meet King Leg [Sire], for being “discovered” by country-music icon Dwight Yoakam (reportedly while waiting on him in a Nashville restaurant), and for having heavies like Yoakam and Chris Lord-Alge co-produce his record. And his wry, nutty humor…

AT THE AGE OF 20, GUITARIST MICHAEL LANDAU SET foot in a recording studio for the first time. By the time he was 30, he was the king of the ’80s Los Angeles music scene, having played on sessions for Boz Scaggs, Michael Jackson, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, and countless others—so many, in fact, that at some point, he lost count of how many records he’d been on. “I think people called me for sonic reasons,” says Landau. “There was a certain sound I had that seemed to stand out. At the same time, you don’t want to stand out too much. That’s the job of the singer. I always tried to tailor my sound and my parts so that I wasn’t abusing whoever was singing.”…

PIONEERS OF THE JAZZ GUITAR was released on the great Yazoo label in 1977. This compilation features recordings spanning the late ’20s to the early ’30s, that capture the unique style of guitarists who started on banjo—because it was loud and cut through the ensemble and crowd noise—but switched to guitar for its mellow versatility when microphones and amplification were available. These virtuoso solo-guitar and guitar-duet performances capture the melting pot of hot banjo playing, ragtime piano, and pre-bop swing. The album features the great guitarists of the era, such as Nick Lucas, Eddie Lang, Lonnie Johnson, Carl Kress, Dick McDonough, John Cali, and Tony Gattuso. Most of the tunes transcend blues forms, and have A, B, and C sections not unlike the French Musette style, making the compositions fully…

IT’S A PRETTY AWESOME TIME TO BE Tracii Guns. One of the original Guns N’ Roses guitarists and founder of L.A. Guns in 1985, Guns has proven to be a resilient and ever-enthusiastic artist, and his fanatical love of guitars and rock music absolutely beams off of his very soul. He has a natural talent for devising propulsive and memorable riffs, and his creative muse is further enhanced by his studious quests to find just the right tones to bring those licks to life. That commitment to creating blissfully vicious guitar tracks and performances informs two recent releases by the revitalized L.A. Guns, The Missing Peace album and the live CD/DVD, Made in Milan [both from Frontiers Records]—the first projects showcasing new songs by Guns and vocalist Phil Lewis in more…

WHILE FILMING A PROMOTIONAL video for his new album, Opus [Red Distribution], Al Di Meola made an offhand comment that it was the first record he made in a state of sustained personal happiness. Since then, he feels that the press has made far too much of it. (Full disclosure: It was the first thing we asked him about, as well.) “It’s the first thing anybody asks me,” he says. “I mean, yeah, it’s an incredibly happy time in my life. I’m remarried, and I have a two-year old now, and it feels like a new start. The fact is, I’ve gone through periods when things weren’t so great, but I still made music that I’m quite proud of. Even so, I was a little worried when I started the…

THOUGH RUSH GUITARIST ALEX LIFEson has cited the guitar solo in “Limelight” as one of his all-time favorites, it’s the song’s brawny power chord intro that first fishes listeners in and makes a lasting impression. Recording the track at Atlas Studios in Quebec for 1980’s Moving Pictures, Lifeson reportedly played his “Sportscaster”—a modified Fender Strat fitted with a Bill Lawrence bridge humbucker and an early Floyd Rose tailpiece—through a Marshall combo. He utilized natural power tube distortion, so to accurately recreate his tone, you’ll need to crank up your amp, find the sweet spot between 7 and 7.5 on your guitar’s Volume control, and pick near the bridge for extra bite. Ex. 1 depicts Lifeson’s riff in all its glory. His opening five-eighth-note pickup (E-G#-A-C#-E) begins on the “and” of…

THE THRIVING AMP AND CABINET modeling industry shows no signs of slowing down, with more and more guitarists (and bassists) mothballing their heavy and bulky rigs for lightweight and portable digital setups. At least one major player, Kemper, offers an elegant powered head setup, but most of the other high-end modelers, such as Fractal and Line 6’s Helix, require some means of amplifying for anyone who wants to push air onstage. That’s where the Line 6 Powercabs come in. These powered 1x12 cabinets are designed to give guitarists not just volume on a gig, but also some clever options as to what that volume sounds like and how it’s delivered. The Powercab 112 Plus on review here ($799 street) is the more full-featured sibling of the straightforward Powercab 112 ($599…

RADIOHEAD GUITARIST ED O’BRIEN’S main instrument since 1996 was an Eric Clapton Strat. But when the band began moving towards a more electronic sound with 2000’s Kid A, O’Brien felt keyboards were replacing his beloved 6-string and sought a way to “make it not necessarily sound like a traditional guitar.” To that end, he and his tech installed a Sustainer unit, and the modified Strat—which has been creatively employed on In Rainbows, Hail to the Thief, and The King of Limbs— inspired Fender’s new Ed O’Brien Sustainer Stratocaster. The EOB is a handsome instrument, blissfully devoid of any indication of the artist’s ego on the front. Only the custom “Flower of Life” logo on the back—representing distances between the heavenly spheres as identical to those between whole and semi-tones—gives any…

JOIN THE GP COMMUNITY! SOUND OFF! GET EXCLUSIVE NEWS. COMMENT. CRITIQUE. SHARE TIPS AND TECHNIQUES. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR E-NEWSLETTER. FACEBOOK.COM/GUITARPLAYERMAG TWITTER.COM/GUITARPLAYERNOW GUITARPLAYER.COM MICHAEL MOLENDA Editor In Chief michael.molenda@futurenet.com ART THOMPSON Senior Editor arthur.thompson@futurenet.com PATRICK WONG Managing Editor patrick.wong@futurenet.com JUDE GOLD Los Angeles Editor judegold@gmail.com JIMMY LESLIE Frets Editor jl@jimmyleslie.com DAVE HUNTER Gear Section & Video Contributor dhunterwordsmusic@yahoo.com PAUL HAGGARD Art Director paul.haggard@futurenet.com…

GP ARRIVED AT THE 49TH ANNUAL New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Saturday, May 5—just in time to catch Dumpstap-hunk on the Acura Stage. Locally grown—and best known for its dual-bass attack—Dumpstap-hunk occasionally becomes an equally funky twin-guitar act when bassist Tony Hall switches to 6-string alongside groove-guru guitarist Ian Neville. Across the Fairgrounds on the Gentilly Stage, the pop-rock Revivalists became a triple-guitar band whenever singer David Shaw played rhythm supporting co-founder Zack Feinberg and pedal-steel ace Ed Williams. Their set was a clinic on how to weave interesting guitar textures into tight song arrangements. Although some pop or rock artists get somewhat rootsy at Jazz Fest, Aerosmith closed out the night by sticking to its rock and roll guns while running through the band’s greatest hits. Steven…

WHEN I MET 13-YEAR-OLD GUITAR phenomenon Chelsea Constable and her father at Muriel Anderson’s All-Star Guitar Night in 2003, she was so shy and exceedingly polite that I wondered—to myself, of course—if she’d ever develop the aggressive demeanor and all-about-me marketing stance it can take to sustain a career in the often dream-shattering music industry. I shouldn’t have worried. Now 27, Constable has not only retained her impeccable manners and soft-spoken grace, her selfie collection documents meetings with guitar legends such as Les Paul, Eddie Van Halen, and Slash, as well as other 6-string luminaries. She’s also a legitimate YouTube celebrity—thanks to her demo videos for TC Electronic, her own “The Solo Lesson Series,” and some stunning performances with her extremely talented younger sister, Grace. (Lightning appears to have struck…

IT MIGHT SHOCK FANS OF ENGland’s soulful, smoothly seductive R&B singer/songwriter Bruno Major that the resolutely un-romantic Randy Newman is his “greatest songwriting hero.” But, for Major, it’s all about Newman’s ability to create unique narratives—an approach the 29-year-old composer takes with even his most tender and sweet love songs. So many songwriters, so few truly compelling songs. What are your thoughts on that? These days, I think you have to be able to master three fundamental skills, and just because you’re a virtuoso on your instrument, it doesn’t mean you can write a good song. If you’re a good songwriter, you might not be able to commit your ideas to a recorded format—which is music production. That’s a lot of different areas to focus on. Many of your productions…

WATCHING ANA POPOVIC FEROCIOUSLY attack a guitar solo is something that should be done from behind concrete bunkers and foot-thick safety glass. Hair flying and eyes defiant, she gives off enough impassioned (yet clean and carbon free) energy to power a Tesla factory. Heed the warning. And yet, Popovic—who recently worked with Keb’ Mo’ on her upcoming solo album—admits she can’t really fire up all cylinders without the right groove providing the ignition. What’s the main concept behind your approach to soloing? I try to make the pentatonic scale innovative and exciting. It’s really not easy to do that, as you only have so many notes to work with. Plus, everybody plays pentatonic. Everybody plays blues. And yet, there is so much you can do, because there’s this ocean of…

THE PHRASE “BOUTIQUE amplifier” was virtually nonexistent when Mark Sampson and Rick Perrotta founded Matchless back in 1989, but the results of that collaboration established a line of amplifiers that has veritably defined the category ever since. The long-standing flagship of the brand is encompassed by a handful of models that all use the 30-watt “C-30” chassis, found in the big DC-30 2x12 combo, TC-30 2x10 combo, SC-30 1x12 combo (pictured here), and the HC-30 head. Living up to and even exceeding the company’s intentions, the amps of the C-30 platform exhibit highly professional designs that are made to shine on the concert stage and to cut through a band mix, exuding monster tone and shimmering, blooming harmonic bliss in the process. Players who have had the opportunity to gig…

WHEN THE CARS WERE WHISKED OFF TO LONDON in early 1978 to live in a luxury house and record their self-titled debut album at Sir George Martin’s famed AIR Studios, a minor miracle occurred. Not one person from their label, Elektra Records, dropped in on the recording sessions to monitor their progress. “They never interfered,” says lead guitarist Elliot Easton, who, along with his bandmates, cruised into the Rock and Hall of Fame earlier this year. “We never got any of that ‘I don’t hear a single’ nonsense that so many bands have to deal with. Obviously, they believed in us.” One reason Elektra had faith in their new signees surely had to do with the fact they had placed them in the capable hands of producer par excellence Roy…

THE SEED FOR A SONG CAN BE A RHYTHM, a melody, a lyric, or if you’re like many guitarists, a chord-based riff or progression. Once a set chord sequence is grafted to a rhythmic motif, it can be used to kickstart single-note riffs and generate melodies based on its chord tones and neighboring passing tones. But how does one come up with something original when it seems as if every common diatonic chord progression has already been used? One solution is permutation—the re-sequencing of a three- or four-chord progression into every possible combination. Here’s how it works. CHORD LIBRARY Our raw materials for the upcoming progressions and permutations consist of six variants of a harmonized E major scale (E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#), but keep in mind that…

WHEN KEN SCHAFFER CALLED ME OUT of the blue during a typical day in the GP office in 2015, I wasn’t immediately certain where his rapidfire dissertation on Filippo Olivieri and the Italian guitarist’s obsession with Angus Young’s AC/DC guitar tone was going. I certainly knew about his Schaffer-Vega wireless system of the ’70s, because I had owned one at some point. I didn’t know it was the secret sauce for Angus’ classic and iconic roar, and I never thought some crazed tone hound would not only unlock that mystery, but also start a company (SoloDallas) to manufacture a user-friendly version for the rigs and pedalboards of today. Sometimes, you’re just glad you picked up the phone. Olivieri’s passion certainly matched his R&D chops, as the SoloDallas TSR pedal ($369…

THERE ARE ELECTRIC GUITARS ALL over my home office, but I seldom plug into an amp if I’m writing or practicing, because I simply like grabbing a guitar the moment inspiration hits and getting to it. No fuss. No searching for guitar cables. No moving amps around. After all, I’m just working out parts, right? But there is one situation where an unplugged electric or an acoustic tone bugs me—when I’m trying to visualize how a riff would sound gloriously overdriven. And that’s where the Strum Buddy portable guitar amp ($69 street) can make me smile. The stress-ball-sized Strum Buddy attaches to your guitar with its suction cup, and offers 6 watts of power, an onboard speaker, and three effects (chorus, reverb, crunch). The Lithium Ion rechargeable battery powers up…

SONGWRITING MAY BE ONE OF THE more esoteric subjects covered in Guitar Player, as so many elements are completely subjective, or difficult to put into words. That said, there’s no better tool for songwriting than an acoustic guitar, and few better sources for inviting inspiration than twisting its tuners to new locations. TRICK YOURSELF An obvious songwriting tip comes in the form of suggesting a player stuck in standard try an open tuning. While it’s an awesome experience to work in, say, open G when you’re used to playing in standard, it’s also true that soon the obvious open-G moves become apparent, and, if you’re not careful, this new adventure leads to sounding exactly like Keith Richards or Jimmy Page. The same is true regarding open E and Duane Allman,…