Innehållsförteckning för April 2025 från Guitar World

WHAT MORE CAN you write about George Harrison? I mean, people have been writing about the Beatles — almost nonstop — since 1963, when Peter Lorre, Andrés Segovia, John Coltrane, Stan Laurel and Bud Abbott still walked the earth. Well, to answer my own question, it might actually be a story like this issue’s cover feature — a story where all of George’s albums (including everything by the Beatles) are laid out, side by side, in chronological order, along with some of his most important side trips and guest appearances, making it all seem like one huge body of work, which — guess what! — it is. It’s a feature in which — for better or worse — oddities like Wonderwall Music, Encouraging Words and Is This What You Want?…

SPIRAL XP’S MAX Keyes wasn’t a natural-born guitarist. Though he tried picking up the instrument a few times in his youth, something about a six-string just didn’t connect with him back then. That’s why he started honing heavy rhythms as a drummer — most notably for Seattle-based noise-pop band Versing. It wasn’t until a Versing tour with cult Canadian jangle-pop trio the Courtneys — where he began obsessing over the latter outfit’s gliding open-tuned melodies — that Keyes changed his, um, tune. Later, after a friend gifted him an old Epiphone SG, Keyes was inspired to experiment with drop-D and open-D arrangements from his living room. This led him toward developing an elementally intuitive approach to fretting that finally unlocked the guitar’s potential for him. “I was like, ‘I’m just…

THEIR FIRST Blue Öyster Cult (1972) Ghost Stories (2024) THEIR LATEST THE NAMES ARE invariably lifted from album and song titles. There’s Agents of Fortune, Spectres, Secret Treaties and, of course, Dominance and Submission. They’re just some of the various Blue Öyster Cult tribute acts floating around, and the very mention of their existence elicits a curious chuckle from BÖC’s guitarist, singer and co-founder, Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser. “I’m not aware of these things at all,” he says. “I’d be interested in seeing them. I find the whole thing rather surprising.” Roeser has, however, kept tabs on artists covering Blue Öyster Cult material, and he gives high marks to the late Lisa Marie Presley’s take on “Burnin’ for You” (“She slowed it down, and it was really nice”), as well…

LAST MONTH, WE looked at the rolling, neo-classical-style arpeggios in the verse section of “Master Gracey’s Manor,” (Charisma). Mastering arpeggios like these can be both challenging and hugely rewarding for guitar players of virtually every style of music. You’ll find arpeggio-driven melodies and accompaniments at the heart of rock, blues, country, jazz and classical music. No matter what styles you like to play, working on arpeggios will fortify both your pick- and fret-hand technique tremendously. I’d now like to present the arpeggios I play in the chorus to “Master Gracey’s Manor,” which is in the key of G minor and is played in 6/8 meter. The chorus progression begins on the iv (four minor) chord, Cm, followed by a return to Gm then D7, which is the V7 (five dominant 7)…

IN MY HUMBLE opinion, the B.C. Rich Mockingbird is the most symbolic electric guitar of the Seventies, both because it is so damn wickedly cool and because it checks all of the right boxes. Natural laminated-wood hippie-sandwich with neck-through construction? Check. Highoutput humbuckers? Check. Custom electronics with a confusing array of switches? Check. Radical original body shape? Check. Just by strapping on a Mockingbird you can feel your mustache getting bushier and your heels lifting several inches higher. The Mockingbird was conceived in 1975 when Johnny “Go-Go” Kallas drew a unique body design for a custom bass that he wanted B.C. Rich to make for him. Bernie Rico thought it would make a great guitar as well, and the Mockingbird was born. Neal Moser, who designed a new electronic circuit…

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 Nicholas Buller AGE: 38 HOMETOWN: Escondido, CA GUITARS: Seger YG, Obstructures .750e, various Fender offsets with EGC necks, Fender American Strat, Gibson Custom Shop SG SONGS I’VE BEEN PLAYING: Hum “Step into You,” Criteria “The Slider,” The Munsters theme song GEAR I WANT MOST: Soldano SLO-30 combo Quinn Lombard AGE: 15 HOMETOWN: Virginia Beach, VA GUITARS: Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster and Epiphone Les Paul Special (mostly) SONGS I’VE BEEN PLAYING: The Kingsmen “Louie Louie,” Jimi Hendrix “Foxey Lady”…

I CONNECTED WITH Paul Gilbert as he was taking some well-earned R&R — that’s rest and relaxation, not rock ’n’ roll — shortly after completing the final dates of Mr. Big’s global farewell tour. Gilbert, a lifetime guitar nut, was eager to share the secrets behind his three favorite instruments. Unsurprisingly, given his long association with Ibanez, all three of his choices come from the Japanese shred manufacturer of choice for so many guitar heroes. Not only does he play a bunch of signature Ibanez axes, but he also likes to track down Eighties models such as the Blazer and Roadstar. “I have a student at my online school who got me into vintage Ibanez guitars,” he says. “During lockdown, I had too much time to look at Reverb.com, and…

GUITARISTSTEVE STEVENS GUITAR1986 HAMER SS1 GW COVER DATEMAY 1986 THIS INTERVIEWNOVEMBER 2024 COVER PHOTOGRAPHERJOHN PEDEN Q: When and where did you buy this guitar? I got it from Hamer. By then, I had done the “Rebel Yell” solo with the ray gun [effect] on it, so we tried to add the ray gun into the guitar. That guitar might’ve been one of those. There are three buttons on it. Q: What attracted you to Hamer? Paul Stanley actually got me my Hamer endorsement! I still own the very first Hamer guitar I got as an endorsement that was given to me before Billy Idol. I still have that [first] guitar, and I have the prototype, which was the guitar Andy Summers played. Q: Have you used this guitar on any…

SIMPLY SAID, IF there hadn’t been a Gary Moore, there would be no Joe Bonamassa. For me, he wrote the playbook, along with Walter Trout, Rory Gallagher and a few others, for British-style blues-rock guitar from the Seventies, Eighties and beyond. Moore’s playing revealed his Irish background and musical influences, along with his love of American and British blues traditions. He had a phenomenal tone and touch, often produced with his 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard. Gary also had a highly expressive finger vibrato and great sense of melody. He was able to weave incredibly huge thematic riffs together to create many great performances, such as “Still Got the Blues” and “Parisienne Walkways.” One of my songs, “Is it Safe to Go Home?,” is a bit of an homage to…

L.A. PUNK LEGENDS X made their major-label debut in 1982 with Under the Big Black Sun. The record, which followed two critically acclaimed indie releases — Los Angeles (1980) and Wild Gift (1981) — spotlights a more refined and polished version of their sound while not losing an ounce of the urgency of the previous two albums. As always, at the heart of the band’s — and the album’s — sound was guitarist Billy Zoom’s sparkling ’55 Gretsch Silver Jet. Zoom’s under-appreciated (and killer) chops are the lynchpin that ties together the left-of-center vocal stylings of Exene Cervenka and John Doe, not to mention D.J. Bonebrake’s rock-solid drumming. Below, Zoom discusses the making of Under the Big Black Sun and then gets into gear, the band’s latest album and his…

WHEN WE THINK of the earliest electric guitar amps, names like Rickenbacker, Gibson, Vox, Marshall and Fender will often be the first that come to mind. Peavey came into the picture not too long after, with the company dating way back to 1965. Founder Hartley Peavey — the son of a music store owner in Meridian, Mississippi — was a guitar player who dreamed of becoming a rock star, but quickly found out he was better suited to building the equipment being used by working musicians. This led to him acquiring his first patent in 1964 and starting the company from the upstairs room of his father’s shop a year later. Today the company is known for producing amps, guitars, basses, acoustics and ukuleles, as well as all kinds of…

WHO THE HELL are Spiritbox? That’s what gaggles of boomers and other pre-millennials asked in November when the Canadian quartet was nominated for its second Grammy in a row for Best Metal Performance. To the unfamiliar, Spiritbox seemed to storm the scene like a tornado through a gated community, emerging from blue skies to open 25 dates for Korn, collaborating twice with star rapper Megan Thee Stallion, decorating playlists with millions of streams and getting handpicked to play select dates with Linkin Park — all before releasing their second full-length album. But to those in the know — including fans who’ve watched the band’s 22 music videos — Spiritbox’s ascent and their acceptance among the pantheon of greats (or, at least, their booking agents) is hardly a conundrum. It’s the…

IF YOU’D BEEN taking bets in 1970 on which former Beatle would be the most successful in the new decade, George Harrison was definitely — to borrow the name of one of his future hits — the dark horse. But as he’d sing in that tune, “Baby, it looks like I’ve been breaking out.” In November, he turned the page on the Fabs with All Things Must Pass, a triple album brimming with artistic confidence and gorgeous, melancholy songs, not to mention the world’s first-ever God-conscious Number 1 single. The album topped the charts around the globe, earned two Grammy nominations and had critics spouting superlatives about the formerly quiet one. As Melody Maker put it, “Garbo talks! — Harrison is free!” Free maybe, but as 1971 unfolded, he was…

“From fit to finish, it’s staggering how good this guitar feels and sounds, making it nearly impossible to fault” WHETHER YOU’RE A novice, a shredder or even a dabbler, there’s a guitar that Cort can quickly curate for you. How so? Just head over to Cort’s comprehensive website and you’ll find a trio of dropdown menus that will generate the ideal guitar for your needs. While this sounds like I’m shilling for them, rest assured, I have no skin in the game; Cort has done just fine selling a dizzying amount of guitars, basses and acoustics without my help. What I can say is I’ve reviewed a few of the firm’s guitars in the shredder and the more contemporary categories — the KX700 Evertune and the G290 FAT II, respectively…

SO MANY COOL new thinline semi-hollow electrics have emerged recently that it would be safe to say that we’re in the middle of a semi-hollow renaissance. D’Angelico has played a big part in that development, with the company currently offering 22 different semi-hollow models across its entire line, from the upscale Deluxe series to the affordable Premier series. The single-cutaway Premier SS model has been part of the D’Angelico lineup for a while now, but they’ve made a few tweaks along the way — so it’s worth consideration if it hasn’t already crossed your semi-hollow radar. Priced between $699 and $899 depending on finish option, standard or figured maple top and use of D’Angelico or Supro humbuckers, it’s also D’Angelico’s most affordable semi-hollow and one of the few single-cutaway models…

TODAY I WOULD like to present a neat fingerpicked blues rhythm pattern inspired by the great Jimmy Reed. It’s in the key of A and is based on a simple eight-bar progression, as opposed to the more common 12-bar blues form, and it’s a fun and refreshingly different template to play and improvise over. The structure of the progression is two bars on the I (one) chord, A, followed by four bars on the V (five) chord, E, with the last two bars returning to A. Additionally, I think of the groove as a mid-tempo backbeat, like a half-time feel, at around 78 beats per minute, as opposed to a more country-style “two beat,” with quarter notes at 156 bpm. FIGURE 1 presents the eight-bar rhythm pattern. On the A(7)…

A GREAT WAY to accompany yourself while playing a melody on the guitar is to simultaneously play a repeating low bass note, usually on an open string, which can add rhythm and harmony to what you’re playing. This is a technique that has been used to great effect by some of my biggest blues heroes — everyone from Lightnin’ Hopkins and Guitar Slim — to players like John Fogerty, Lindsey Buckingham and Dan Auerbach. With this technique, which many refer to as dead thumb, as it’s typically performed with the pick hand’s bare thumb and palm muting, which muffles, or deadens, the sound, you can almost sound like a one-person rhythm section. As a fingerstyle player, it’s natural for me to use this technique to self-accompany licks. To demonstrate, FIGURE…

“DOGS OF WAR” Mötley Crüe FEATURING THE GREAT John 5 on guitar, this ominously rocking new song from Mötley Crüe includes a bunch of cool, sinister-sounding riffs that are both fun and challenging to play. John begins the song with a repeating, alternate-picked root-5th-octave sequence, which he plays entirely on his high E string (Gtr. 1 part). This requires a wide stretch, between the pinkie and index finger at the 7th and 12th frets. In bar 3, the riff morphs into an even more technically formidable variation, with the open E note now replaced by Bb at the 6th fret: Bb-B-E. John doesn’t play this variation live, so it’s hard to say for sure if he brought his 2nd finger into play here (1-2-4) or just slid his 1st finger…

“DOGS OF WAR”WORDS AND MUSIC BY JOHN LOWERY, NIKKI SIXX AND TOMMY LEE. COPYRIGHT © 2023 BMG GOLD SONGS, GTR HACK MUSIC, TOO FAST FOR LOVE MUSIC AND DEADLEE MUSIC. ALL RIGHTS FOR BMG GOLD SONGS, GTR HACK MUSIC AND DEADLEE MUSIC ADMINISTERED BY BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT (US) LLC. ALL RIGHTS FOR TOO FAST FOR LOVE MUSIC ADMINISTERED BY SONGS OF DOWNTOWN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY PERMISSION. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD LLC.…