Online Guitar Lessons

June 30, 2022

2016 meeting, we’ll allow East Bay Ray decode the technique to his chaos:” One of the tricks is to put the echo device prior to the amp. Recording engineers don’t like that. Due to the fact that they’re at much less quantity, the echoes clean up as they go through the amp. Recording designers or some guitar players stick it in the loop in the back of the amp. They make the sound, procedure it, and after that they add the echo– but that’s even more like a post-EQ result. I do it pre-EQ. Even when I’m maxed out– like with the compressor on, the amp up, as well as the guitar right up– if there is an item of silence, if you listen to the resemble, it cleans up. The last ones will be the tidy guitar. It’s a less technological means to do it, yet it’s a much more musical way. It’s bad design, yet a lot more music. For somebody that’s learnt design,’ Each resemble is different! ‘From an artistic side,’ Yeah. That’s what makes it more interesting– since they’re different.'” As for the one in charge CS-3 Compression Sustainer, he uses it much more as an increase than squeezebox. He maxes the level, reduces back the tone, dimes the attack, and pushes the maintain, resulting in a moderate quantity jump for solos as well as single-note ditties. It’s in the chain after the DL4 and in advance of the amp so it can boost the repeats when the CS-3 is involved in addition to the eco-friendly machine.

The punk rock pioneer splits on nothing more than a Schecter S-1, a JCM2000, and a well-placed DL4.Punk rock is

concerning power, perspective, as well as message. It’s been the gateway medication for a great deal of guitar players and also music lovers. And also those forces are what guided East Bay Ray away from his bar-band gig in 1978.

” The little hairs on the back of my neck stood,” Ray bore in mind throughout a 2016 PG meeting. “I saw the Weirdos having fun. I stated, ‘This is what I wish to do.’ I phased myself out of bench band as well as placed an advertisement up in Aquarius Records and also Rather Ripped Records. Klaus Flouride (bassist Geoffrey Lyall) and Jello Biafra (vocalist Eric Boucher) answered the advertisement.”

And with the addition of drummer Ted (Bruce Slesinger), the Dead Kennedys were born. By the time they tape-recorded their 1981 EP In God We Trust, Inc. ( by themselves independent label, Alternative Tentacles), Ted was gone and D.H. Peligro (Darren Henley) became their solid skin slammer.Through the band’s first 8 years, four albums, and an EP, their subversive harpoon of jagged political commentary was tipped by Biafra’s verses. That obtained the country’s focus, yet what motivates musicians to today was the power triad’s natural combination of acquainted and strange aspects of punk and primitive rock. Certain, you’ve obtained the power chords and also the four-on-the-floor paces, yet deepness and subtlety under the biting messaging is essential to the DK’s chemistry. Their punk-rock bangers have modal tendencies as well as atonal flourishes, and several of their most thrilling tunes have odd-metered foundations. Their debut solitary, “California Über Alles,” is a take on author Maurice Ravel’s Boléro, no less. As well as no one else in the land of the 6-string shreds quite like East Bay Ray.

” One of the factors our tracks have lasted as long is the structure underneath has a whole lot in common with a Beatles song or a Motown song or perhaps a ’30s requirement,” he states. “There are standard building and constructions that make a track work. I actually had a hard time copying or figuring out solos off my favorite recordings when discovering to play, so I would certainly establish my own musical method to receive from one area to one more. It’s actually a lack of method that aided with the music.”

His creative thinking and resourcefulness do not stop there. East Bay Ray was the band’s co-producer/engineer on a lot of recordings, as well as he’s played with his very own tone tools, putting together partscasters that ideal matched his strategy. Ray has jammed humbuckers into the bridge of a T-style for a twangier bite that aids his speedy arpeggios sting a bit a lot more. He’s added short-scale Japanese F-style necks for slinkier playability. And, most significantly, he placed a Maestro Echoplex before his amp to create the trademark clanging sound listened to on his traditional recordings with the band. (” One of my favorite documents of perpetuity is Elvis Presley’s Sun Sessions. That is just one of the records that inspired me to obtain an Echoplex, to get that slapback resemble.”)

” We just didn’t recognize the guidelines on what to play as well as how to play,” he connects. “That’s where not recognizing something pressures you to make your own remedy, developing something unique and also new, verifying that necessity is the mom of development. The absence of strategy as well as expertise helped produce our sound and the songs.”

Before the Dead Kennedys’ headlining show at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl on June 15th, PG hit the phase for a enlightening however quick tone talk. We covered Ray’s economically abundant arrangement that consists of a solitary Schecter doublecut as well as a simplified, solid-sounding Marshall, and also we were enlightened concerning why he puts his Line 6 delay in advance of the amp and what that does to repeats.

[Offered you by D’Addario Nexxus 360 Tuner.]

S-1 Is Good Food

East Bay Ray was known to make use of a variety of Fenders in the early days of the Dead Kennedys. In a PG article, he described that he chose Leo’s offspring (or duplicates) because the longer range length as well as string-through construction provided his noise extra twang as well as quality. He commonly modded out bridge single-coils for hotter humbuckers since that provided him a huskier tone that punched through the mix. He keeps in mind in this brand-new Rundown that the Japanese T-styles he utilized in the ’80s in fact had a 24.75″ scale size, regular of Gibson-style electrics.

” That’s how my noise started: I liked the twangy sound with the fatter humbucking pickup. Like on ‘Holiday in Cambodia,’ I play a bunch of arpeggios as well as they truly sound out.” (In the same short article, he does mention using Gibson models, yet really felt a “Les Paul benefits one-string type things, because it is really fat, yet when you start playing two strings, it’s not as verbalize as a Fender would be.”)

For this headlining run through the U.S., Ray brought a solitary Schecter S-1. He states in the Rundown that he still has all his japanese duplicates and old fenders however doesn’t want anything to happen to them. To soup up the doublecut, he commonly swaps in a Seymour Duncan SH-1 ’59 (neck) and also Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB (bridge) for the design’s common Schecter Diamond Plus humbuckers. (Although the S-1 on this tour still has supply pickups.)

Handle Job

Ray’s guitar for the DK’s first singles,” Holiday in Cambodia” as well as “California Über Alles,” was videotaped via a Fender Super Reverb( with an Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 Linear Power Booster in front of it ). Quickly after those recordings, the self-admitted “scientific research nerd” found schematics for Marshalls and also Boogie amps and hot-rodded his Fender Super Reverb to have an additional tube channel, overhauling it to, essentially, a master-volume Marshall. He finished to a real-deal JMP for the band’s later documents and live shows. Currently when on scenic tour, he carries a Marshall JCM 2000 since it has “a versatile sound with a great midrange, and it does not have a lot of handles like the TSLs [laughs] That point is annoying to take a look at.”

A Blast from the Past

Here’s a shot from our Forgotten Heroes piece of East Bay Ray( featured in the August 2016 problem) cutting tracks at San Francisco’s Hyde Street Studios playing a Coral S-style rather than his Tele. Furthermore, you see the JMP and mighty ‘Plex lurking on the table.A More Musical Way … Way … Way

In the band’s prime time, Ray took a trip all over with his beloved Maestro Echoplex. He comments in the Rundown that while it was a vital component to his noise, it was a pain to maintain with its tape cartridges and the requirement for a container of tape cleanser. Plus, in Europe power performs at 50 Hz so the system would certainly run slower. (The U.S. conventional power is 60 Hz.) Retiring the solid-state echo equipment years back, he arrived at the Line 6 DL4 as his now-long-running replacement. EBR likes it due to the fact that it has 3 presets as well as he constantly has it locked in the analog-with-modulation setting. The key to his kerrangingly music repeats is putting the DL4 (and the ‘Plex, prior to he acquired the Line 6 tool) in advance of the amp, making each echo a cleaner degeneration than the one prior to it.Taken from our

Knob Job Ray’s guitar for the DK’s initial songs,” Holiday in Cambodia” and” California Über Alles, “was tape-recorded via a Fender Super Reverb (with an Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 Linear Power Booster in front of it). < div class=" rebellt-item col1" data-basename= "a-more-musical-way-way-way" data-href=" https://www.premierguitar.com/videos/rig-rundowns/dead-kennedys?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5" data-id= "5" data-is-image=" True" data-post-id =" 2657583973"

data-published-at=” 1656525573 “data-reload-ads=” false “data-use-pagination=” False” id =” rebelltitem5″ readability=” 41.534626038781″ > A More Musical Way … Way … Way In the band’s heyday, Ray took a trip everywhere with his cherished Maestro Echoplex., we’ll let East Bay Ray translate the method to his insanity:” One of the tricks is to put the resemble device before the amp. East Bay Ray was understood to use a variety of Fenders in the early days of the Dead Kennedys. Ray’s guitar for the DK’s initial singles,” Holiday in Cambodia” and “California Über Alles,” was recorded through a Fender Super Reverb( with an Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 Linear Power Booster in front of it ).

Rig Rundown: The War on Drugs [2022]

June 16, 2022

Bandleader Adam Granduciel on how single-coils, the Dead’s Wall of Sound, and cascades of chorus build his live tones. Plus, bassist David Hartley gets weird, wild, and wonky.

For nearly two decades and across five albums, The War on Drugs’ founder and frontman Adam Granduciel has narrated our complex modern lives while his band has scored our dreams.

The captivating moods of their music, much like us, morph from dense melancholy to saturated, swirling madness and everywhere in between. Granduciel often layers his Springsteen-meets-Young proletariat prose atop a post-rock soundscape, but the heartbeat of their impressive, expansive live shows is their gear and how it is implemented.

“I could play the whole tour with two or maybe three guitars—a White Falcon, Strat, and maybe a Jazzmaster—but I bring all these out just for fun,” he says with a laugh as he considers his trove of axes.

So, let’s have some fun already! Before a full evening of The War on Drugs’ jams in support of 2021’s I Don’t Live Here Anymore, PG was invited to Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium. We covered Granduciel’s growing guitar collection, got the skinny on how Jerry Garcia’s monstrous setup played into the bandleader’s theatre rig, and we took in a cockpit view of his stompbox squadron full of tone ticklers, sizzlers, and wigglers. In addition, bassist David Hartley showed off a trio of Ps, an armada of Ampegs, and demo’d a fuzz that has ended his quest for razing tones.

Brought to you by D’Addario XPND Pedalboard.

Keeping It in the Family

If you’re a fan of Rig Rundowns or Kurt Vile & the Violators, you’ve already seen this Strat. The above Fender American Vintage ’57 reissue was once owned by Jesse Trbovich, who’s flanked Vile for years. Trbovich landed a true-blue ’70s Olympic white Strat and needed to unload this to make room. Granduciel quickly raised his hand as a landing spot because he really enjoyed how comfortably the neck played. And since bonding with it, he likes its low-output single-coils because he can “juice it with pedals.” (It’s worth noting that Trbovich put in a Seymour Duncan Antiquity II Strat Surfer Series in the middle position, allowing him to have hum-canceling operation in the second and fourth position.) All of Granduciel’s electrics take Ernie Ball 2220 Power Slinkys (.011–.048).

It’s the One

“When this thing is in my hands, I can react with it, and it becomes this whole other animal. It can be unwieldy, but this guitar plugged into a cranked Princeton or small tweed sounds incredible,” allows Granduciel. So, as you can imagine, this 1969 Gibson SG is Adam’s right-hand when it comes to recording, but, as he explains later in the video, it doesn’t coexist pleasantly with his live setup. He scooped this gem at Rivington Guitars in New York City.

Story Time

Flip a Coin

Granduciel had lusted after this vintage offset for weeks when seeing it listed on Reverb by Chelsea Guitars. The listing was removed and he thought that it was gone forever. A few months later, he was in NYC and decided to stop into the shop and, low and behold, the sunburst Jazzmaster was on their bench in pieces. Apparently, the original buyer from the Reverb listing was after a birth-year model (1964, as listed on the Reverb page), but when he removed the neck its pocket revealed a 1963 date. He traded in the guitar for a proper ’64 and, fatefully, Granduciel didn’t let a second pass before offering to buy it. Alongside the SG, this is another heavy hitter for recording.

Down Under with Terry

During a 2018 tour of Australia, Granduciel scored this 1966 Fender Jazzmaster that looks swanky with a matching black headstock. He claims the rhythm circuit in this one “sounds killer,” while the lead circuit is “super bright and used on ‘Occasional Rain.’” In addition to being a remarkable instrument, he loves that it reminds him of a short span of time that included a wonderful tour of Down Under, earning a Grammy for Best Rock Album, and the Philadelphia Eagles winning the Super Bowl.

Checked Past

Cracks aren’t meant to be beautiful, especially on guitars, but looking at the ’66’s backside reveals a twisted thumbprint.

Fly, Firebird Fly

This 1965 non-reverse Firebird was upgraded by its previous owner with a set of Lollar P-90s. If you recall the last Rundown with TWOD, Granduciel added a Bigsby, but that has since been removed.

Ol’ Reliable

This Fender American Vintage ’65 Jazzmaster has been a dependable dynamo for Adam. He prefers it because he knows what he’s going to get sonically and he can throw it around without worry. The newer pickups offer a snarlier tone, so it gets used for songs like “Pain,” and the top-end sear helps him cut through the seven-piece live band.

Hummingbird Season

This new-ish Gibson Hummingbird gets busted out for C# tunes and features a LR Baggs M1 soundhole pickup.

Bastion of Tone

Not quite the famed Wall of Sound procured by the Dead and audio engineer Owsley “Bear” Stanley, but Granduciel’s evolving setup is heading in that direction.

Alembic Ace

Since our last Rundown, Adam has ditched the Hiwatts (although he admits to enjoying that era of TWOD) for the Alembic F-2B Stereo Preamp that was used by Jerry Garcia and David Gilmour. He describes its circuity as mimicking the front end of a Fender Dual Showman. “There’s just so much clean headroom and they’re so creamy. And I don’t know what it is, but single-coils and P-90s just come to life here in a way that other amps don’t, so maybe that’s why Jerry and David used them so much.” The Mesa/Boogie Stereo Simul-Class 295 powers the Alembic. He does run a direct line signal from the F-2B to FOH for a clean DI option.

Take a Guess

In the video, Granduciel challenged me to guess how many speakers are in the oversized cab, and I said four. Seemed logical but, as he quickly pointed out, the Marshall 2041 Lead Organ has only a pair of Celestion (pre-rola) 12″ speakers. The Alembic runs through this pillar of power.

Fender Firepower

The other side of Adam’s grand equation is a 1960s Fender Bandmaster head that hits a Marshall 1960BV 4×12.

The Swart Solution

As we alluded earlier, his beloved 1969 SG doesn’t jive with his Alembic-Fender setup, so he incorporates its humbuckers into his live rig by plugging into the 5W Swart STR-Tremolo. The SG and Swart typically dance for “Thinking of a Place,” but Granduciel admits to kicking it on with the Fenders during the heat of battle and treating it like a tremolo pedal for parts of “Pressure” and other jams. To the right of the Swart you’ll notice a pair of Rockman Tom Scholz (yeah, the Boston legend) Power Soak attenuators throttling the Alembic and Fender.

Keeping Time in the Loop

The band uses this AKAI Professional MPC Live II for additional drum machines for the show.

User Input

They are harnessed by four Boss FV-500L Foot Volume Pedals controlled by Adam that allow him to bring the samples into the room mix. Additionally, the band syncs their modulation to it, so everyone is locked in. (The MPC clocks or syncs the pulsing of the tremolo for the band. Adam uses a Lightfoot Labs Goatkeeper 2, while bassist David Hartley uses a Malekko Goatkeeper.)

Horseshoe of Madness

Here’s a crow’s-nest view of Adam Granduciel’s massive pedal playground.

Bradshaw’s Boardroom

Most of what Adam does with his feet is simplified by this Custom Audio Electronics R-ST 24 + 2x PSS MIDI controller.

The Fun Begins

Here’s one of the sections of Granduciel’s expanding pedalboard that includes a Wren and Cuff Tri Pie 70, a MXR/Custom Audio Electronics Boost/Line Driver, an Ernie Ball Expression Tremolo, anElectro-Harmonix 1440 Stereo Looper, a Lightfoot Labs Goatkeeper 2, a Strymon TimeLine, a Boss DC-3 Digital Dimension, and a Morley ABC Pro (for switching amps). A Boss TU-3s Chromatic Tuner keeps his guitars in check.

To the Moon, Adam, to the Moon!

Here’s the meat and potatoes of Granduciel’s spreading stomp setup: (top left) a Boss FT-2 Dynamic Filter, another MXR/Custom Audio Electronics Boost/Line Driver, DigiTech Hardwire RV-7 Stereo Reverb, ADA Flanger, JHS Bun Runner, J. Rockett Audio Designs Archer, MXR Flanger, Moutainking Electronics Loud Box, Crowther Audio Prunes & Custard, a Fulltone OCD, and a trifecta of Eventides that rest on the right side—a Space, TimeFactor, and H9. Everything gets current by either a MXR Custom Audio Electronics MC403 Power System or the Eventide PowerMax.

Clovis the Rough Rider

At first glance, you’d probably mistake this for a ’60s or ’70s Fender P, but as bassist David Hartley attests, this is a 2002 Fender Precision named Clovis that he acquired brand new almost two decades ago. Part of Clovis’ charm for Hartley is that it’s the lightest P he’s ever held, making their “Evening With” shows a little easier on the back. It’s stock aside from him swapping out the standard anodized gold pickguard for the tortoiseshell. He uses La Bella 760FS Deep Talkin’ Bass Flats (.045–.105).

Jam Like Jamerson

Another 4-string that does a lot of heavy lifting for Hartley is this 1983 Fender Fullerton ’62 Reissue Precision Bass. While this one isn’t as light as the previous P, he does love how much it sustains.

Find the Note

And occasionally you’ll see Hartley put down all the guardrails and dance with this Fender Tony Franklin Fretless Precision Bass. The connection with this one came through when he heard how much vocal tonality it has. It’s a highly expressive instrument.

Ampeg Assault

The Ps come to life thanks to this boulder of bass tone: a pair of Ampeg Heritage 50th Anniversary SVT amps that hit an Ampeg Heritage SVT-810AV. The SVT on the left is a backup and Hartley plugs into the normal channels.

Simple but Not

Prior to this run, Hartley toyed with the idea of just plugging his Ps into a DI and his Ampeg. Clearly, that plan changed and he’s probably having more fun because of it. His stomp station contains a pair of Boss GE-7 Equalizers (one to help Clovis pop a bit more and the other helps brighten up the ambient drone of the Gamechanger), an Eventide H9, a Gamechanger Audio Plus Sustain Pedal, a Mountainking Electronics Megalith, a Malekko Goatkeeper, a Keeley Super Mod Workstation, and a MXR Phase 90. A Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner keeps his Ps sounding right.

How Many Amps Do You Use?

T. B. Smith

June 16, 2022

Kevin Morby joins the discussion of what we’re plugging our guitars into these days. Plus, musical obsessions!

Q: Do you own or use more than one amp—why or why not?

Kevin Morby — Guest Picker

A: I technically own four different amps. Two different Orange 15-watt practice amps that are great for recording and running vocals through in my living room. I also own a Supro and Fender Vibrolux. The Fender Vibrolux is my most used amp, and the Supro is good if I ever want a lot of overdrive.

Kevin Morby’s Current Obsession:

My current musical obsession is MJ Lenderman, a young artist from Asheville, North Carolina, who is making incredible music. If I didn’t know his backstory, I would maybe think I was listening to a lost demo from the early ’90s Drag City submissions bin. But it’s not from then, it’s from now, and it’s amazing. I listened to it while mowing the lawn recently and it was perfect lawn-mowing music. He is also incredible at guitar. Go listen!

Joseph Müs Contento — Reader of the Month

A: Yep, and I use them both at the same time. Got a Vox Night Train combo set clean and a Marshall Class 5 set dirty, and the resulting sound is a sparkly, gritty mix. Chimey and articulate, while warm and meaty. Best of both worlds.

Eventually I want a Fender ’65 Princeton Reissue and a Marshall Silver Jubilee 20-watt combo to really accentuate those qualities. I also use stereo delay and ping-pong the signal between the two amps. The further I physically keep the amps away from each other, the more dramatic the effect. It’s trippy and atmospheric AF, fills out the space between notes, and I love it.

Joseph Müs Contento Current Obsession:

Continuing to build the coolest guitars I can. I’ve settled into my job at Gibson Custom and have slowly built up a woodshop of my very own. The inaugural build that I just started this spring is my entry to this year’s Great Guitar Build-Off. I’m excited to dig my teeth into my new tools and techniques and to see how far I’ve come as a luthier in the past two years!

Shawn Hammond — Chief Content Officer

A: Yes! I love the variety of tones and textures imparted by different types of power tubes—and that you can further tweak responsiveness with preamp-tube swaps.

My ’76 Fender Vibrolux Reverb (6L6 tubes) is a killer pedal platform and pairing it with a Fender Rumble 200 bass amp adds massive oomph. An old Fender Vibro Champ (6V6) is great for middle-of-the-night playing that still sounds nice (I hate headphones).

A Sound City SC30 (KT66s) yields a huge array of British tones with killer reverb, a Goodsell Valpreux 21 (6973s) is great for soulful, old-school tones at a reasonable volume, while a Jaguar HC50 (EL34s) combo has big, brawny sounds, thanks to its Hiwatt-esque circuit and oversized cab.

Shawn Hammond’s Current Obsession:

Current obsession: Fontaines D.C.’s new album, Skinty Fia.

Ted Drozdowski — Senior Editor

A: I’ve curated my amps for a wide variety of tones, and I love having Marshall, Fender, Carr, Supro, Orange, and Quilter sounds at ready for the stage—where I run in stereo—and studio.

After many years, I’ve found a voice as a guitarist that’s my own, and blending a variety of amps, guitars, and effects is part of it.

Ted Drozdowski’s Current Obsession:

Germanium fuzz and octave fuzz pedals. Over the past year I’ve gone deep into fuzzworld and acquired a pile of stomps, including three custom builds (my one-off Burns Buzzaround clone with four germanium chips is satanically heavenly), and they’ve expanded my sonic vocabulary even more. I want to keep it expanding, like the universe.

Ten 2×12 Cabs to Try

June 10, 2022

Zilla Fatboy 2×12

This oversized closed-back 2×12 aims to emulate the response of a 4×12 with added low-end punch and can be preloaded with a handful of different speaker options.

Starts at $432 street
zillacabs.com

Blackstar St. James 212VOC

This newly designed cab is up to 35 percent lighter than a normal 2×12 set up. It also has a removable rear panel and comes loaded with Celestion Zephyr speakers.

$749 street

Blackstaramps.com

Mesa/Boogie Rectifier Compact 2×12

Modern metal-ers will rejoice with this 120-watt closed-back cab that is constructed with marine-grade Baltic birch. The rear-mounted Celestion V30 speakers round out the package along with the twisted jute-dipped grille filters.

$749 street

mesaboogie.com

Avatar 3D Vertical Forte Replica

The standout feature of this cab are the side vents, which give your sound a wider feel. It’s constructed with 13-ply void-less Baltic birch and is available with either customized speaker options or totally bare.

$698 street

avatarspeakers.com

Marshall ORI212A Origin

Classic styling meets modern construction in this retro-flavored vertical cab. The Celestion Seventy 80 speakers offer 160 watts of power, and the angled setup is decidedly British.

$549 street

marshall.com

Orange PPC 212

You can’t miss the trademark Orange vibe of this beefy horizontal 2×12 cab. Brit-style tones are right at home with a pair of Celestion Vintage 30 speakers and a closed-back design.

$899 street

orangeamps.com

Vox V212C

For fans of that unmistakable chime, this Vox cab not only matches the vibe of an AC30 but spreads the sound out a bit with its open back. A pair of Celestion G12M speakers aim to offer clarity and warmth.

$599 street

voxamps.com

EVH 5150III 2×12 Extension Cab

Designed to King Eddie’s demanding specs, this straight-front cab is a powerhouse and features old-school tilt-back legs. Inside is a pair of Celestion G12H speakers and a very handy built-in head-mounting mechanism for the EVH 50-watt head.

$599 street

evhgear.com

PRS HDRX 2×12

As a tribute to the sound of late-’60s rock guitar, the PRS HDRX line is vintage flavored and full of vibe. This closed-back cab features the decidedly British Celestion G12H-75 Creamback speakers and poplar plywood construction.

$899 street

prsguitars.com

MojoTone 2×12 West Coast Cab

The wood wizards in the cab shop at MojoTone offer a mind-boggling number of options, right down to the piping and Tolex. This one comes stocked with Celestion G12M-65 Creamback speakers and an oval-ported rear panel.

$774 street

mojotone.com

Eric Johnson Pans for Gold

June 9, 2022

Eric Johnson knows that excessive pride gets in the way of true progress, and that having extraordinary talent doesn’t beget personality or, simply put, make you better than anyone else. “I’ve spent so long being involved in [playing music] that, at one point, you take a break and go, ‘Yeah, but that’s not me—that’s just something I do. Who am I?’” he shares. “Regardless of how well you do it and how appreciated you are, it’s not like a carte blanche calling card that gives you any kind of real entitlement in life. If you think it does, then you don’t know who you are.”

That philosophy, along with his passion for the instrument, has, over time, superseded any ego-inflating diversions that can come from fame. And rather than resting on his legacy, the guitarist is building on it with the release of two albums: The Book of Making and Yesterday Meets Today. The records came together in a process of creative reconnaissance, where Johnson dove into his vault of recordings to find forgotten song ideas that could be polished, fleshed out, and rejuvenated for release.

Eric Johnson – Soundtrack Life (Official Visualizer)

The 18 tracks that collectively make up both albums include those that fit into a classic Johnson style, such as the brightly textured lead single from The Book of Making, “Soundtrack Life,” along with ones that explore other territories, like that album’s gentle, piano-guided “To Be Alive,” co-written with singer/guitarist Arielle, and a cover of the blues classic “Sittin’ on Top of the World” by the Mississippi Sheiks (famously covered by Howlin’ Wolf). These new compositions range from panoramic instrumentals to lilting ballads, embroidered by the guitarist’s fluid, crystalline tone and uplifting vocals. And together, they offer a new look into Johnson’s characteristic finesse.

When the last few weeks of his tour got cancelled in March 2020, Johnson, amidst the societal standstill and isolated from his bandmates, decided that the best use of his time would be to revisit his old demos and musical sketches. As he navigated through the tiny snippets, little chord changes, and other bits and pieces, he discovered that he had far more material available than expected and set to arranging and recording.

“When I take the vantage point of a listener, it’s easier to tell if stuff really has merit.”

I felt, well, if I’m going to be isolated, let me go try to find something to work on,” he says. “There’s a handful of songs that were written from scratch, and towards the end of the period I brought musicians in and we recorded new stuff. Then there’s a couple of tracks that I didn’t do anything to. They were just left over from outtakes from other records. But predominantly it was just stuff that was barely started, and I did a whole lot of work on my own.”

The songs done from scratch include “Floating Through This World” and “To Be Alive” from The Book of Making and “Hold on to Love” and “JVZ” (dedicated to Johnson’s late tour manager and guitar tech, Jeff Van Zandt) from Yesterday Meets Today. The original idea for the former album’s “My Faith in You” dates back 20 years, although its oldest song is “Love Will Never Say Goodbye,” which was built from a rough mix on a 25-year-old cassette. “That’s all I had,” Johnson says. “I couldn’t find the master take. It had synthesizer, bass, drums, and a vocal that was a little too low in level, but I just went with it. Then I added several guitars to it, and background vocals and percussion.”

Twenty-five years ago, Johnson was having an especially fertile creative period, despite his reputation as a painstaking studio craftsman. His albums Venus Isle and Seven Worlds sprang from that era, and his tenure on tour with fellow maestros Joe Satriani and Steve Vai was preserved on G3: Live in Concert. And while he’s more relaxed about record-making these days, he’s no less creative or prolific. The popular virtuoso says that every time he sets out to make an album, he usually ends up making two—and stashes the excess recordings in his vault. In this case, his efforts at rekindling his past inspirations resulted in 28 tracks that were pared down to the final 18, although he intends to eventually release five or six more of the original set on an upcoming EP.

Producer Kelly Donnelly, who has worked with Johnson on eight previous albums plus his 2014 collaboration with Mike Stern, Eclectic, helped with some of the engineering, but Johnson did most of it himself. In the process, he learned something interesting about the usefulness of low-fidelity recordings: If you pair them with recordings of a higher quality, the combination can create a compelling depth of field. This meant that he was able to salvage and build upon some of his more compromised cassette recordings. “I found that to be fascinating—it was like, ‘Wow, that kind of works.’ I didn’t know that was going to happen.”

“There has to be an element of the music that has enough power and velocity to reach out to the listener, rather than just be sonically nice to listen to.”

In 2020, Johnson worked with Fender to create a replica of his 1954 “Virginia” Stratocaster, which he played on many of the tracks from The Book of Making and Yesterday Meets Today. The guitar’s body is made with the less commonly seen sassafras wood and set up with a DiMarzio bridge pickup and ’57/’62 single-coil Strat middle and neck pickups. On the albums, he played a handful of other models, including a 1957 Strat with a maple neck, a 1965 Gibson ES-345 semi-hollowbody, and a late-’50s Les Paul. He also plays a National lap steel and Danelectro Vincent Bell Coral sitar on some tracks.

When it comes to songwriting, Johnson comments that his self-proclaimed perfectionist tendency to overthink things can work against him. “The songs where you’re really pushing and striving and stressing end up sounding like that,” he says, while the ones that just flow are the ones that are, for him, most worth working on. His creative process usually begins with making recordings of musical snapshots on his iPhone. He’ll capture a phrase on guitar or piano, or sometimes record himself singing a vocal or instrumental melody to later revisit. “They’re pretty embarrassing, if anybody ever found ’em,” he laughs, referring to the latter.

Eric Johnson’s Gear

Guitars

Eric Johnson Virginia Fender Stratocaster
1957 Fender Stratocaster
1965 Gibson ES-345
1950s Gibson Les Paul
National lap steel
Danelectro Vincent Bell Coral Sitar

Strings & Picks

D’Addario EPN110 Pure Nickel sets
Dunlop Jazz IIIs

Effects

TC Electronic Stereo Chorus
Electro-Harmonix Memory Man
Vintage Echoplex (modded for use as preamp)
’60s Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face
Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer
BK Butler Tube Driver

Amps

Marshall plexi 50
Two-Rock Classic Reverb
Marshall 4×12
Fender Bandmaster Reverb
Electro-Voice speakers

Deciding which compositions to keep or toss can be a curious process. To better judge his own writing, Johnson says it’s important for him to detach and act like an audience member or listener—so not to give himself any favoritism. “You have to dispel all that,” he says. “When I take the vantage point of a listener, it’s easier to tell if stuff really has merit.” While that can sound like a purely imaginative exercise, he has a rather practical way of getting to that perspective. Often, he’ll just crank up his studio monitors and walk into another room to listen.

“That helps you tell whether something’s really reaching you or not,” he elaborates, “because you’re not sitting there enveloping yourself and hyping yourself on something. There has to be an element of the music that has enough power and velocity to reach out to the listener, rather than just be sonically nice to listen to.”

“There’s nobody who’s going to be able to do what you do the way you do it.”

Johnson calls the evolution of his sound a “crazy process” that he says could go on forever, but he tries to let the music speak and will work to rise to the occasion to come up with a part that fits. “Sometimes that means I have to study a part that I can’t normally play.” Which means his self-labeled “perennial student” mentality has its benefits.

When asked if he experiences self-doubt, Johnson shares that he believes the habit of comparing yourself to others can be demoralizing, but he looks to practicing gratitude as a solution. “It’s just trying to be thankful for what you have and not compare yourself to other people. The more you’re in yourself and do your best.… There’s nobody who’s going to be able to do what you do the way you do it.”

Johnson was born into a musical family, with a father who was an enthusiastic music appreciator and three sisters who studied piano. His parents have said that he loved records when he was 3 years old. They listened to a lot of swing and showtunes, he says, which he developed a taste for as a child. He got his own record player when he was 5.

When Johnson got into playing music, he began to study piano at age 11, then took some lessons on guitar—though on guitar, he was mainly transposing what he learned on piano. His passion for wood and strings, however, quickly took over. “I loved it so much that I incessantly worked at it to get better, and it’s all I wanted to do,” he says.

“When I was a kid and saw all the cats playin’ guitar—Cream and the Yardbirds and all those people—I was like, ‘This is awesome,’” he shares. “Plus, it was kind of the first generation of overdriven guitar with fuzz tones. It was a sound that you’d just never heard before. That was really exciting.” He played in bands as a teenager, and tried going to college at the University of Texas at Austin but only earned three credits from taking an astronomy course, thinking it might be something he would want to pursue. But becoming a professional musician ended up being his clear choice.

Rig Rundown – Eric Johnson [2018]

Despite his high profile and staggering proficiency, plus eight Grammy nominations and a win for his 1991 tune “Cliffs of Dover,” Johnson says he’s remained conscious of not letting things go to his head, saying, “It’s better to just let it flow, like when you were a kid just loving to play,” he says. “It’s best to let that happen naturally. Once you start becoming too aware of yourself and assimilating your legacy or living in your stature or fame or notoriety, you create a feedback loop where you’ll trip over yourself eventually.”

Fame, he says, can be stressful, but “right now I’m kind of taking a break from the whole thing. Just trying to work on myself and do other things. But it’s kind of always there a little bit because I live and breathe music.”

YouTube It

Take a good look at the fretboard on Eric Johnson’s signature Virginia Stratocaster while he performs “Gem,” from his 2010 album, Up Close, showcasing a brilliantly articulate clean tone and impeccable finger work.

Xabier Iriondo’s “Energy from My Fantasy”

T. B. Smith

May 17, 2022

Italian guitarist and sonic adventurer Xabier Iriondo has an affinity for the Basque term, metak—which literally means, “pile”—and he often incorporates it into the names of his various projects. His custom-built experimental guitar is the Mahai Metak (or “table pile”). Some of his unconventional musical collaborations also include the term, as in PhonoMetak and PhonoMetak Labs. And Sound Metak was the name of the eclectic shop he ran for about a decade in the early 2000s, which sold everything from boutique guitar pedals to shoes. (Check out his Instagram profile, which, in addition to pictures of his amazing collection of guitars, pedals, and vintage amps, is also a showcase for his impeccable taste in footwear).

“I am half Basque,” Iriondo says. “And these words—like “mahai” and “metak”—come from the Basque language. A metak is when you take the grass that you’re cutting, and you make a mountain of this grass in the garden. In the past, you gave this metak to the cows.” Another traditional Basque practice and type of metak involves shredding and drying corn stalks to use as fodder over the long, cold winter months. So, a metak is a pile of collected things that are preserved for an extended period. In Iriondo’s view, this serves as an analogy for something deeper. “I love this idea, because you can put everything inside the metak,” he says. “It’s like a collection of your emotions. For example, with my shop, Sound Metak, I sold different kinds of things—from old gramophones and vinyl shellac records to fuzz pedals and jukeboxes and guitars and amplifiers—it was a lot of different things. Metak for me is an idea, and my instrument, the Mahai Metak, is the same thing. It’s an energy from my fantasy, which is everything I can put out from my mind.”

Conceptually, metak also helps to explain Iriondo’s musical diversity. Born in Milan, he started playing the guitar at 17, and became something of an Italian celebrity as part of the alternative band Afterhours, with whom he’s been a member since 1992 (except for hiatus throughout most of the aughts). But Afterhours is about as mainstream as Xabier gets. He’s also made incredible noise with myriad projects, like his recordings and performances with Can’s Damo Suzuki (Damo Suzuki’s Network), collaborations with the cream of Europe’s avant-garde (?Alos, Pleiadees), numerous solo projects, and the list goes on and on.

His most recent outing is the abrasive, apocalyptic, noise-rock quartet Buñuel. Named after the legendary Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, the band first came together in 2016 and mixes the talents of a trio of Italian musicians—Iriondo, bassist Andrea Lombardini, and drummer Francesco Valente—plus American vocalist Eugene S. Robinson. Their new release, Killers Like Us, is awash in fuzz and rages between brain-crushing, metal-tinged cuts like “A Prison of Measured Time” and “When God Used a Rope” to slow, doomy dirges like “Hornets” and “When We Talk,” as well as moments of unstructured, free improvisation interspersed throughout the record.

BUNUEL – When God Used A Rope (official video)

“We are three Italian musicians,” Iriondo says about Buñuel’s genesis. “We were a little bit famous here in Italy, and we decided to choose an international singer. We wrote to Eugene Robinson, and he accepted our idea. For our first record, the three of us recorded 10 songs in a studio in Italy. We sent them to Eugene in San Francisco, he sang on them, and then sent the tracks back to us. We did that again for this record.” Not only were the vocals recorded separate from the rest of the band, but Robinson didn’t even get a chance to rehearse with them. The first time the band played together as a quartet was onstage in front of an audience. “We didn’t rehearse with Eugene—we rehearsed ourselves—and we met with him the first day of the first gig. That’s how it started.”

Despite Iriondo’s years of experience with group improvisation, that was not the approach he took with Buñuel. You’d think improv would be helpful when stepping onstage raw with an unrehearsed new singer. Rather, the band’s vibe is through-composed songs that are played the same way—except for planned sections set aside for improvisation—night after night.

“When I want to take a solo, I adjust the Cornish directly with my foot. I open up the volume, and then I arrive in the cosmos.”

“We play the songs like they are on the album,” says Iriondo. “Although we do have some parts, or structures, that can change. For example, on our first tour, we wrote our 10 songs, and that’s all we had. At the end of the show, the audience asked for more. I said, ‘Okay, let’s start with an improv,’ and that improv we used on those gigs from the first tour became a song on the second album [“The Sanction” o 2018’sThe Easy Way Out]. We composed each day, each gig, and the song transformed and arrived at the end of the tour.”

When recording Buñuel, Iriondo harnesses that live feel by taking a minimalist approach to overdubs. Aside from an odd guitar solo or two, the instruments are recorded live, with the band members standing together and looking at each other. “I also play pop rock with other bands, and overdubbing is okay for that kind of music, but the wildness of this project gains a lot when we’re all playing together in the same room,” he says.

“In the past, in the ’90s, I used the VHT head system that people talked about,” he says about the now-rebranded Fryette Pittbull Ultra-Lead. “I bought the second one that arrived in Italy in 1994. But in the last 20-to-25 years, I started using theHiwatt DR103, and I think that’s my sound. When I plugged in for the first time, I said, ‘What the hell is this?’ I can go from high-frequency, crystal-like sounds to really deep grunge sounds with a lot of low frequencies. In general, with Buñuel and also Afterhours, I use the Hiwatt, and then also another amp, a 300-watt SWR California Blonde, which is a transistor amp. I have the headroom also in the clean sounds, but when I engage all my fuzzes and boosters, the gain is incredible, and it’s still in front of you all the time.”

“I love this idea, because you can put everything inside the metak. It’s like a collection of your emotions.”

Iriondo’s tone is wild, too. Considering how mangled, heavy, and distorted his sound gets, it’s interesting how he crafts his tone almost exclusively with pedals, which he uses to drive his amps. He owns more than 20 heads and cabs, and his preference is classic British amps like Hiwatt, Orange, Carlsbro, and Simms Watt—he has a few of each in assorted colors—that have a lot of headroom. He feels those work best with his high-gain pedals.

Xabier Iriondo’s Gear

Guitars

Two custom Billy Boy Guitars made by Fabio Ghiribelli (a white model and a purple model used with Buñuel, with a TV Jones pickup in the neck position and a ’52 Tele pickup in the bridge)
NukeTown Venusian IX Signature 9-string
Loic Le Page (Mahai Metak Guitar)
James Trussart Red Star Steelcaster

Amps

Hiwatt DR504 stack
Hiwatt DR103 head and 4×12 cab (1970)
Vox AC30TB (1992 reissue)
Orange OR120 head with 4×12 cab (1969)
Orange bass cabinet with 18″ speaker (1970)
Simms Watts AP100 Mk2 (1972)
Marshall 1959 SLP Purple Limited Edition (1994)
300-watt SWR California Blonde

Effects

Hologram Microcosm Granular Looper
TC Electronic Ditto X2
Pete Cornish NB-2
AC Noises AMA (reverb w/ oscillator + bit crusher)
Supro Tremolo
DigiTech Whammy Ricochet
Death By Audio Waveformer Destroyer
EarthQuaker Devices Organizer
EarthQuaker Devices Acapulco Gold
AC Noises Arpiona Xabier Iriondo signature
Korg PB-03 Pitchblack

Strings & Picks

D’Addario .010–.052
Dunlop Tortex Purple 1 mm

Iriondo has a seemingly endless collection of pedals, too, although his go-to is his signature octave-synth-fuzz-boost Arpiona, made by Italian builders AC Noises. The pedal starts with a gated fuzz circuit inspired by Death By Audio’s Harmonic Transformer, followed by a sub-octave bass synth, more fuzz, and a boost. He uses that in conjunction with an EarthQuaker Devices Acapulco Gold, and a Pete Cornish NB-2 boost that’s always engaged. “When I want to take a solo,” he says, “I adjust the Cornish directly with my foot. I open up the volume, and then I arrive in the cosmos.”

Afterhours – Spreca una vita

They’re Italian, which is probably why this Afterhours video looks like a Federico Fellini film.

Iriondo is also no purist. If an analog circuit will get him the sound he wants, great, but he’s just as happy using a digital device. “I use everything that can give me satisfaction,” he says. “Why not?”

Why not, indeed. He also gets that satisfaction from his guitars. “About 80 percent of my choice in guitars is the feel, and 20 percent is the sound,” he says. “When you’re using some of these destruction pedals on the loud and heavy stuff, the guitar isn’tso important. You destroy everything with these kinds of pedals. They completely destroy your clean sound. Although when I play pop-rock music, I change my guitars a lot.”

But that feel is elusive, which may explain Iriondo’s vast collection of instruments. He has vintage guitars he doesn’t mod at all, but in general he’s an itinerant tinkerer. He usually swaps out pickups, even on his less expensive guitars, and has a significant number of custom-built guitars as well. “I’m not only a collector, I’m a professional, which means guitars are my life,” he says. “I want to have tools that work well with me. In the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to have my dream guitars that I ask luthiers to build for me with my specific specifications. The principal guitar that I used on the Buñuel project is made by Billy Boy Guitars. It has an incredible tremolo, and it’s a light guitar. All the sounds you hear on Buñuel are made with that guitar.”

Perhaps Iriondo’s most unique instrument is his custom-built Mahai Metak. It’s a 10-string, short-scale table guitar. Six of the strings are tuned to D in different octaves and act as drones. The other four are G, G, F, and A. The instrument has pickups on both ends—near the bridge as well as near the nut—plus an onboard oscillator and distortion unit, and controls for volume and tone. He plays it with an assortment of items, including marbles, roach clips, and steel wool. “I play it with Chinese sticks,” he says, “and I create rhythms and special sounds with steel wool—that stuff you use in America to wash your dishes. It sounds great. I use it with the loopers and reverbs and it creates these noisy and bizarre sounds, as well as melodic sounds that create a nice texture.”

It’s that openness and wonder, as exemplified by Iriondo’s voracious appetite for gear, as well as his embrace of disparate genres and styles, that are the ingredients that make up his metak. Call it his esoteric pile of ideas, which gives him permission to explore the endless energies of his imagination. He’ll conjure up sounds that are heavy and dark—or playful and light—and almost always fun, and, maybe, even a little mischievous.

And isn’t that, ultimately, the ideal?

YouTube It

This live performance shows Buñuel from their last tour in 2016, with Xabier Iriondo playing his custom Billy Boy guitar. It takes a while for Iriondo to enter, but it’s worth the wait. Head to 2:45 to hear one of the guitarist’s deliciously mangled solos.

Rig Rundown: Dirty Honey

T. B. Smith

April 21, 2022