Innehållsförteckning för July 2020 från Guitar Player

MANY SO-CALLED NEW designs from small-shop guitar makers borrow a little here or there from existing classics. But you know you’re doing something right when the design’s originators send customers your way for orders they don’t want to fulfill themselves, such as left-handed versions. The same is true when you try to retire a model and its clamoring fans won’t let you. So it goes with Kauer Guitars’ Banshee Deluxe. While the company is celebrated for its fully original designs, which are currently dominated by the Super Chief and Starliner models, the Firebird-inspired Banshee was one of the California guitar maker’s first creations, produced even before the company existed as a production manufacturer. “After founding Kauer Guitars around 2008, I didn’t build Banshees for the first couple years,” Doug Kauer…

IF YOU’VE EVER wondered why you never hear Robby Krieger play the same solo twice, the Doors guitar legend has a simple explanation. “I think that would be so boring,” he says. “I mean, just because something is on a record, I’m expected to play it note for note all the time? I just can’t see the point in that.” He laughs. “My guitar tech, Forrest [Penner], gets on me about that occasionally. He knows the old stuff better than I do. He’s always telling me, ‘I think you missed a note.’” Assessing his past work, Krieger draws an interesting and somewhat surprising conclusion. “I think my ideas didn’t always match my technique,” he says. Krieger explains that when the Doors formed in 1965, he had been playing guitar for…

I USED TO think all the different ways to make a viable electric guitar had been exhausted, and that after 60-plus years we have essentially been left with variations of Strats, Les Pauls and Country Gentlemen. However, from time to time, I discover a modern luthier who is brave enough to try something ridiculous, like Bohemian Guitars of Atlanta, Georgia. The company was founded by brothers Adam and Shaun Lee, expats from Johannesburg, South Africa. While growing up in his home country, Shaun was impressed by the ingenuity of local musicians who, unable to obtain traditionally made guitars, crafted their own by repurposing discarded materials, including oil cans that were fashioned into guitar bodies. The memory stuck with him even after his family relocated to Atlanta. Together with Adam, he…

IF ONE FEA TURE set the 1957 Gibson Les Paul apart and heralded a profound shift across the industry, it was the Seth Lover–designed humbucking pickups, which replaced the single-coil P-90 pickups used previously on the model. Designed in 1955 (U.S. patent 2,896,491), the Patent Applied For humbuckers of 1957 became the flagship pickup most associated with Gibson, and one that helped elevate the Les Paul to the status of all-time icon. By connecting two pickup coils in series and out of phase, Lover and Gibson set out to remedy the 60-cycle hum common to single-coil pickups. This innovation also produced a beefier tone that would be embraced by legions of blues and rock players for decades to come. Other guitar companies soon followed suit, outfitting their electrics with versions…

FENDER GUITARISTS HAVE long been attracted to the idea of customizing and mixing-and-matching components to create something entirely their own. The company celebrated this DIY aesthetic in 2018 when it launched its Parallel Universe collection. Fender wowed the crowds at that year’s winter NAMM show with an eye-popping assortment of guitars that were designed from the ground up to be off-the-wall hybrid pairings of classic models. Presented in mirror-reflecting display cases that gave the presentation a kind of funhouse theme, the models included the enticingly named Strat Tele Hybrid, Jazz Tele, Jaguar Strat, ’51 Telecaster PJ Bass, Whiteguard Strat, Tele Thinline Super Deluxe, Troublemaker Tele and the retro-futuristic Meteora, the first guitar designed and built to test the Parallel Universe concept. The Parallel Universe models proved to be a hit…

LAST MONTH, WE began our study of how to create meaningful musical statements with our soloing techniques. The aim was to help you develop techniques to make your lead playing fit the mood of the song as well as resonate with the listener long after the song is completed. To that end, we explored the unique electric lead guitar styles of four masterful players: Mark Knopfler, Jeff Beck, B.B. King and John Mayer. This month, we’ll conclude our two-part series by examining the melodic soloing styles and techniques of David Gilmour, Brian May, Jerry Cantrell and Slash. As before, the goal here is to demonstrate the main techniques each player uses and provide you with examples that can impart guidance and build your chops, so that you can develop a…

PRACTICE AMPS HAVE come a long way from the low-tech combos of yore. Digital modeling and effects, built-in tuners and even rhythm patterns have become customary on modern examples, helping guitarists get great tone and assistance for woodshedding and songwriting. Positive Grid’s new Spark guitar amp and app take that idea to an entirely new level. Spark’s comprehensive features allow it to integrate fully into your musical life at home, from practice to recording to jamming and songwriting. Designed for electric, bass and acoustic guitar, Spark is a 40-watt desktop combo that offers modeled amps and effects from Positive Grid’s award-winning BIAS FX line. It can also play music in stereo via Bluetooth from streaming services or from external sources patched into its aux input and USB I/Os. And it…

IMITATION CAN BE many things, from the sincerest form of flattery to a quick way to make a buck if none of your own ideas pass muster. In the fast-moving world of stompboxes, where it’s become commonplace for builders to “clone” the pedals of others, an ongoing (and heated) debate rages about what circumstances justify reproducing another designer’s circuit. In the case of JHS Pedals’ new Cheese Ball distortion and fuzz — which meticulously recreates Lovetone’s long-discontinued and quite rare Big Cheese pedal — the practice seems fully justified and even laudable: It’s both an homage and a way of providing affordable access to an artifact from an important chapter in stompbox evolution. Founded in England in the mid ’90s by Vlad Naslas and Daniel Coggins, the now-defunct Lovetone company…

Raid Our Stash! The Electro-Harmonix Wailer Wah features the great sound and tone of the company’s award-winning Crying Tone wah in a rugged, lightweight pedal with a traditional rack-and-pinion operating mechanism. It’s great for vocal-like wah and cocked-wah sounds, and at just over 1.5 pounds, it’s lighter than most popular wah pedals, making it a real weight saver for your pedalboard. To get this wah in your rig, send an email with the word “Wailer” in the subject line to stash.raid@gmail.com, and you just might win! The deadline is June 29, 2020. Please note that all gear is “as is.” The Price of Admission When states began to go on lockdown in March, I was shocked to see many bands still hadn’t suspended their summer tour schedules. Here we are…

THE SPACE AGE inspired an era of fanciful guitar designs, like Gibson’s 1958 entrants the Flying V and Explorer. Not as well known, but no less revolutionary, was Ampeg’s 1969 Dan Armstrong guitar, a comparatively late arrival that was just as eye catching and memorable. The guitar featured a clear body made of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), a substance that had been around since the 1930s and offered commercially as Plexiglas, Lucite and Perspex. Decidedly modernistic for its day, the Dan Armstrong guitar featured an outré design that kept it from being a major hit in the commercial sense, but its uptake by several star players quickly enshrined its status as an odd-duck classic. The guitar was the product of a collaboration between New York City musician and guitar repairman Dan…

FROM THE LATE 1930s, Leo Fender had a radio repair shop in Fullerton, California, that also sold records and musical instruments, so it was a natural progression to start building his own amps. Fender initially teamed up with Clayton “Doc” Kauffman, a lap-steel enthusiast and inventor who had previously worked for Rickenbacker. The duo patented a guitar pickup design in 1944 and began producing lap-steel guitars and amps under the K&F brand in 1945. Kauffman left the company to pursue other interests in 1946, leaving Leo as sole owner. It was in this year that Fender Electric Instruments was established and the very first so-called Woodie amps were made, including the legendary Model 26, which would become the Deluxe. Just a couple of years later, Fender started covering its amps…

JOE BONNAMASSA FULFILLED a long-held goal when John Jorgenson agreed to collaborate on the Sleep Eazys’ Easy to Buy, Hard to Sell. In the process, the Telecaster-themed tribute to Joe’s influencers came to feature one of his living mentors. “Joe said to me, ‘If you do this with me, it would be sort of like getting a papal blessing,’” the Hellecasters guitarist recalls. Here, Jorgenson reveals why Bonamassa’s request was an honor, and the endeavor a delight. How did you and Joe meet? We met around 2005 at Colorado’s Guitar Town festival. I helped with artistic direction. Joe was booked right before he “blew up.” He was a force to be reckoned with. He said, “My dad was into the Hellecasters, and I spent hours trying to learn your version…

NO GROUP HERALDED the 1990’s unplugged revolution like Tesla. Acoustic guitar has always played an essential role in the music of the Northern California rock and rollers, who were well ahead of the curve when it came to that decade’s major musical trend. “We certainly didn’t invent the acoustic set, but the timing of it all was magical,” founding guitarist Frank Hannon says. While on a break as the opening act on Mötley Crüe’s monstrous Dr. Feelgood tour in 1990, Tesla cut Five Man Acoustical Jam live at the Trocadero in Philadelphia. For a major rock act to release an album of live acoustic music turned out to be a big deal. Five Man Acoustical Jam went Platinum and helped ignite the acoustic movement during the following decade, when seemingly…

YOUR ABILITY TO keep time says a lot about your skill as a player. It’s also of paramount importance when it comes to getting others to perform with you. No one likes to be hurried or pushed, especially us sensitive musician types. It’s true for the audience as well. Your groove and your vibe — your overall skills as a timekeeper — have everything to do with how eager people will be to hear you play. So how can you improve? BECOME ONE WITH THE ME TRONOME When assessing a new student’s skills, guitar teachers agree that it’s not speed but rather consistency of speed that matters. One must be able to play along with a metronome or click track, and do it consistently over the length of a song.…

JUST WHEN IT feels like Fender has rolled out every imaginable Strat incarnation, the American AcoustaSonic Stratocaster furthers the design and blurs the line between electric and acoustic instruments. It’s built on a platform comparable to the Tele version introduced last year, featuring three distinctly different pickups, but it has a few new curves, including the obligatory double-cutaway and control layout of a Strat, plus fresh voicings generated by its digital Acoustic Engine. The ultimate attraction is the broad blend of acoustic and electric tones on offer via the ever-fantastic Strat platform. The AcoustaSonic is a little larger and slightly less contoured, yet still slim and sexy. Its lightweight, hollow mahogany body has a natural finish, while the top is available in variety of hues. I chose the three-color sunburst…

EVER SINCE I bought my Lab Series L7 amp back in 1983 (because I’d watched B.B. King and Ronnie Montrose play through them), I never understood why some players hated on solid-state amps. I knew from first-hand experience (and second-hand — thanks Ronnie!) that solid-state amps could rock, and while I love tube amps, I also love anything that sounds good and can be used in a musical way. And that’s why I’m crazy for the One Control BJF-S66 on review here. But whereas my Lab was a somewhat bulky and heavy 4x10 combo, this pint-sized powerhouse packs a ton of musicality in an amp you can literally lift with your little finger. Designed by effects guru Björn Juhl, the BJF is so compact that it couldn’t even hold your…

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FOR THOSE WHO see playing the guitar as a form of artistic expression, the highest goal is to develop a recognizable voice on the instrument. When David Grissom appeared on Joe Ely’s Live at Liberty Lunch album 30 years ago, he already possessed an extraordinary personal approach. He has since refined his seamless melding of rock, blues, country and jazz into one of the most distinctive styles in the world. Grissom has brought that style into projects and tours with John Mellencamp, Lucinda Williams, Rodney Crowell, Storyville, the Allman Brothers Band, the Dixie Chicks, Robben Ford, Ringo Starr, Buddy Guy, John Mayall and a host of others, as well as to four solo records. He’s also a respected songwriter whose tunes have been cut by Trisha Yearwood, Lee Ann Womack…

I’VE BEEN WRITING this column for almost three years and never covered the Beatles. It’s tough to choose an album of theirs, because I love every one for different reasons. Ultimately, I’ve selected the White Album for its variety of sounds, and because it was the first Beatles album I purchased, when I was 11 years old. It’s also probably the record I’ve listened to the most. Officially titled The Beatles, and released in 1968 on the group’s Apple Records label, the White Album features incredible guitar sounds, as well as what are arguably John Lennon’s most rocking and inventive songs with the group. “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide (Except Me and My Monkey)” is a study in rock guitar playing, with the opening, downbeat-obscuring chord phrase drawing us into…

50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL ERIC CLAPTON IS known today as a Stratocaster player, but he was well into his career before he ever owned any version of the model. Clapton bought his first Strat secondhand at Sound City in London on May 7, 1967, a few days before his band Cream flew to New York to record their second album, Disraeli Gears. It was a 1956 model, serial number 12073, with a two-color sunburst finish on an alder body and a well-worn maple neck and fingerboard. Clapton loved the guitar and dubbed it Brownie, but it wasn’t suited to Cream, nor to his next band, Blind Faith. He finally found a fit for it in early 1970 when he joined Delaney & Bonnie and Friends on the road. “With Delaney and…

1952 FENDER TELECASTER “This ’52 belonged to Terry Reid. He got it in late 1968 while he was in the U.S. playing on Cream’s farewell tour, and he bought it in Chicago. By the time he made it to Manny’s Music in New York City, the front pickup died, so Manny’s put the humbucker in, and that’s how it’s been for 50 years.” 1951 FENDER “NOCASTER” “This came into Guitar Center in Hollywood about four or five years ago. I think the owner took it to a few different shops in L.A., and nobody wanted it because it had a humbucker. Most people would restore something like that. Guitar Center took it in and hung it on the wall. I walked in and went, ‘Whoa, that’s right up my alley.’…

ALTHOUGH GENERALLY REGARDED as springing from the early ’90s grunge alternative rock scene, the San Diego–based quartet Stone Temple Pilots drew from and creatively fused a wide range of stylistic influences, including heavy metal, classic rock, ’70s glam and power-pop, Celtic folk and the Great American Songbook. The band’s combination of viscerally powerful riffage and keen harmonic and melodic sophistication provided the winning formula behind 40 million album sales worldwide. Thanks to their diverse canon — which includes the 1992 breakout hit “Plush” (from Core), the bluesy acoustic “The Big Empty” (Purple, 1994) and the relentlessly driving pop tune “Vasoline” (Purple) — STP remain staples on radio and are popular with audiences on digital streaming services. Additionally, guitarist Dean DeLeo is widely praised by many other players for his unique,…

FOUNDED BY FREN A SKEN and located in Los Angeles, Asken Guitars is a full-service shop that performs repairs, modifications, restorations and custom builds of its own Intercooler and Sapphire models. The Intercooler Droptop on loan to GP for this review is a single-cutaway guitar that is finished in high-gloss nitrocellulose lacquer and features a striking quilted-maple top over a chambered, one-piece body of Honduran mahogany. There’s a deep bevel on the back that allows the guitar to ride snugly against your ribs, and the wood removal helps keep its weight down to a svelte 7.68 pounds. The quartersawn African mahogany neck has beautiful graining, and the filler in the wood gives it a speckled finish that’s pretty neat. It attaches to the body via a four-screw joint that’s contoured…

SUPRO TEASED US at NAMM 2019 with a new style of guitar called the Clermont, which maintained the brand’s cool, retro-future body shape while expanding it to more of an ES-335 size. In 2020, the Clermont was released to the market, joined by another semihollow: the similarly sized and shaped, but more deluxe, Conquistador. Designed in conjunction with Nashville guitarist Ford Thurston, the Conquistador is as stylish as it gets. Its offset Supro shape, striking racing-green color, personalized f-hole on the upper bout, classic Kluson-style tuners, beveled mahogany top and Hofner teacup-style knobs fairly holler high-end pawnshop prize. At the same time, the instrument’s 12-inch fingerboard radius and satin-finished, shallow C neck scream shred machine. Out of the box, the Conquistador was easy to play, with no fretting out despite…

WHEN IT ARRIVED on the scene two decades ago, Line 6’s kidney bean-shaped POD heralded the age of modeling. There are players, like Nashville’s resident guitar genius Jack Pearson, who still swear by those original sounds. I too remain unembarrassed by tones I achieved with the OG on a record two decades ago. But Line 6 hasn’t stood still. The company has upped its modeling game with HX technology and now includes it in the new POD Go multi-effects processor. POD Go is for players who want the HX sound quality of the Helix LT in a simpler, lighter, less expensive modeling solution. All the Line 6 essentials are here: a color LCD display interface, amps and effects arranged visually as blocks, footswitches color-coded to the type of effect, and…

“I DON’T THINK any artist knows something will become their signature song when they write it,” Joe Satriani says of “Satch Boogie,” the rousing rock-swing guitar instrumental that put him on the map in 1987 and helped propel his second album, Surfing with the Alien, to Platinum status. He even points out that his most famous composition wasn’t the first to bear his nickname: “When I was in high school, I played with another guitarist, John Riccio, and he would call everything I wrote ‘Satch Boogie.’ It became a joke. No matter what I showed him, it was ‘Satch Boogie’ to him. The name just stuck.” STAIRWAY TO BOOGIE “It was back in 1986, and my wife, Rubina, and I were in a car accident. We weren’t seriously hurt, but…