Innholdsfortegnelse for Holiday 2018 i Guitar Player

WHEN I RECENTLY decided to allow the occasional, random bit of profanity to run unaltered in these pages, I wondered if anyone would notice or care. After all, we often report on the world of popular music, where cursing has all but grown in prevalence since Frank Zappa, the MC5 and John Lennon (to name a few) dropped some choice words into their late 1960s catalogs. Certainly, other music publications have printed profanity for years without suppressing letters with asterisks or dashes. Even mainstream news outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post have adjusted to the tenor of modern U.S. politics and the rise of Twitter by allowing unaltered vulgarities in their reportage. Still, it didn’t take long for a few readers to notice Guitar Player’s change…

THE GUITAR STARS shone for 52 hours straight at Steve Vai’s inaugural Big Mama Jama Jamathon. Held from September 28 through 30, at the Musicians Institute’s Live House in Los Angeles, the Jamathon featured continuous performances and impromptu jams from premier artists to raise money for foster children. Among those who turned out for the benefit were Dweezil Zappa, Vernon Reid, John 5, Dave Navarro, Nuno Bettencourt, Spinal Tap’s Harry Shearer (a.k.a. Derek Smalls) and, of course, Vai himself. As the guitar virtuoso explains, the event was the realization of a vision more than two decades in the making. “I had this concept for quite a while, probably 25 years,” he tells Guitar Player. “The idea was to create an event where the music doesn’t stop, and to invite a…

FOR THE MAJORITY of bands signed to major record labels, the idea of messing with anything that could jeopardize their hard-earned careers probably seems absurd. But for Houndmouth, a group that’s had a string of successes with their previous albums From the Hills Below the City and Little Neon Limelight, going completely off-road on their latest album, Golden Age (Warner), seemed a fait accompli. “It would be an injustice to capitalize on the stuff you’ve already outgrown,” guitarist and lead vocalist Matt Myers says. He believes it’s only natural for the band to switch things up and change its sound. “Playing with guitar, organ, drums and bass, we did that for so long it started to seem like a formula. We wanted to experiment with everything and have experimentation itself…

AS ONE OF the world’s top-call Dobro slide and non-pedal steel players, Cindy Cashdollar has worked with Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Asleep at the Wheel, Ryan Adams, Rod Stewart, Leon Redbone and many others. Considering the range of musicians she’s performed with, it’s no surprise that she’s equally at home playing country, blues, rock, folk and Texas swing. After playing with Cindy myself, I can attest that she is one badass musician. In addition to being an amazing sideman, she can shred like the best of them. And when you stand next to her onstage, you better look out, and you better know exactly what you’re doing, ’cause she will tear it up. And it’s not because she’s trying to upstage anyone — she’s just that good. When did you…

MOST PEOPLE DON’T give Teisco guitars a second look, or if they do it’s only because the instruments have such an unusual appearance. One could argue that most of the Japanese company’s guitars don’t play well or sound that great. But while many of them were built to be mediocre starter guitars, there are a couple that deserve another glance, such as the Spectrum series and its fabled Spectrum V, a monument to guitar building. For this issue, let me introduce to you another praiseworthy model: the Teisco Del Rey EP-10T. WEIRDO FACTOR In terms of its body design, the Del Rey EP-10T isn’t so odd. Its offset horns bring to mind popular ’60s solidbody models from the likes of Fender and Mosrite. Unlike those guitars, however, the Del Rey…

WITH 60 TITLES released in his lifetime and almost 30 more since his death, Frank Zappa’s catalog is intimidating. Following on from the albums mentioned by Preston, Anderson, Keneally and Belew, we present five friendlier Zappa works. HOT RATS (1969) Harmonically pleasing tunes, warm jazz-fusion styling, terrific playing and incredible sound quality create a triumph of an album. “Peaches en Regalia” remains one of Zappa’s most enduring tunes, and Captain Beefheart adds bizarre vocals to “Willie the Pimp.” This is the record that people who don’t like Zappa are most likely to enjoy. ROXY & ELSEWHERE (1974) Most artists treat live albums as greatest hits with crowd noise, but Zappa used the format to present new and dramatically reworked material. Twisted jazz meets performance art on “Bebop Tango”, the funky…

ANYONE WHO HAS witnessed a Kaki King solo acoustic concert invariably leaves with the same thought: How the hell does she do that?! King creates a transformative musical experience, a perfect storm of creativity with the most individualistic set of tunings since Joni Mitchell’s. She frequently utilizes unique, unorthodox playing techniques, boasts a cinematic composition sense and, most recently, has added innovative multimedia presentations to her repertoire (see her GP December 2017 cover story). To help players lift the shroud of mystery surrounding her guitar work, I’m incredibly jazzed to present these detailed breakdowns of two radically different early Kaki King compositions, the peaceful “Night After Sidewalk” and the frantic “Playing with Pink Noise,” enhanced with commentary by the delightful Ms. King herself. I’m also thrilled and delighted (and a…

THE KATANA-AIR is the latest model in Boss’s Katana series. Despite being, at a shade over 13 inches wide, the smallest in the line, this mini combo is big in the features department. For starters, the Air in the name refers to its built-in wireless capability. The amp comes with a small transmitter powered by a lithium-ion battery that’s charged when you place the unit into the docking port on the amp’s top panel (it can also be charged using a standard micro-B USB cable). To use it, simply plug the transmitter into your guitar’s output jack, power up the amp, and enjoy the freedom of playing without a cable. We tested the unit out to beyond 100 feet, and the 2.4GHz connection was rock solid. The transmitter automatically powers…

WHILE MANY MUSIC-GEAR innovations arrive in the form of high-profile products like multi-effects systems, modeling amps and recording gear, there’s always a lot going on in the world of accessories. That includes picks, strings, capos, cords, pedalboards, power supplies, pickups, bridges, tuners and other essential items. Companies devote a huge amount of R&D to creating cost-effective products that promise to improve life for anyone who slings a guitar. Here are four cool items that jumped out to us this month. 01 Voodoo Lab Pedal Power X4 $99 STREET voodoolab.com THE X4 IS the latest in Voodoo Lab’s Pedal Power series and also the smallest, with an aluminum housing measuring just 3.37 inches wide, 2.75 inches deep and a bit over an inch high. Designed for small pedalboards, it has four…

AT THE WINTER NAMM show a couple of years ago, I spent some time with a group of modern fingerstyle players who had pitched in to rent a pad they called the Fingerstyle House. I was impressed by the Furch guitars several of them were gracious enough to pass around during our late-night jams. I’d been meaning to take one of the instruments for a thorough test drive, so when I saw that Furch was replacing its flagship line of Millennium models with a new portfolio of Color Series acoustics, I jumped at the chance to have one of these fine Czech Republic–made instruments sent stateside. The model on review is a Red Plus OMc-SW, a designation that tells you a lot about the guitar’s design. Of the seven color-coded…

> Born Lizzie Douglas in Louisiana in 1897, Memphis Minnie rocked the blues with guitar in hand and a voice both honeyed and forceful. She ran away to Memphis at 13 and honed her talent as a powerhouse singer, guitarist and writer of earthy blues tunes. > As skilled, charismatic and raunchy as her many male peers, Minnie challenged their monopoly on the genre with her songs and performances. She moved to Chicago in the ’30s, where she famously beat Big Bill Broonzy in a cutting contest on his own turf. > Minnie’s early sides with her partner Joe McCoy secured her legend and made more than a few male artists richer. She and McCoy cut “Bumble Bee” (a huge hit that inspired Muddy Waters’ “Honey Bee”), “If You See…

Raid Dana’s Gear Stash! Happy holidays from the staff at Guitar Player. For our final gear giveaway of 2018, we’re offering our readers a chance to win an Electro-Harmonix Hot Wax Dual Overdrive. The Hot Wax fuses two of Electro-Harmonix’s popular pedals — the Crayon and Hot Tubes — in one unit. You can use the stages separately to switch between two distinct overdrive tones, or combine them for even more harmonic complexity. Global bass and treble controls and a blend knob let you fine tune the effects and cover a broad sonic range. For a chance to win this great pedal, simply send an email with “Hot Wax” in the subject line to nbmgearcoordinator@gmail.com. Deadline for entries is December 25. Keep in mind that all the gear we give…

IN HIS NEW autobiography, The Gospel According to Luke (Post Hill Press, co-written by Paul Rees), Steve Lukather cracks up readers with his hilarious misadventures, such as the time he accidentally hit Sir George Martin in the face with an inflatable sex doll. But he also brings tears to your eyes with tragic tales, like having to endure the deaths of beloved Toto bandmates Jeff and Mike Porcaro, and inspires you with triumphs spanning everything from playing on Michael Jackson’s Thriller to joining Ringo Starr’s band and selling 40 million records with Toto. For guitarists, however, Lukather’s life story reveals something bigger. It shows that if you want to become a pro, you need to master a few techniques, not all of which have anything to do with the guitar.…

BLUES AND AMERICANA chameleon Samantha Fish picked drums as her first instrument but found her true passion when she switched to guitar. Digging backward from the classic rock she heard at home led her to discover the Delta blues and the Mississippi hill country scene. Along the way, she developed a knack for blurring genre lines when she isn’t knocking them down. Here are the five riffs that changed her life. “SHAKE ’EM ON DOWN” MISSISSIPPI FRED McDOWELL “I had just started playing guitar, and I was at the crossroads where I was finding everything that I loved about guitar had come from the blues in one way or another. I think the North Mississippi style bridged the gap for me between rock and roll and this rough, raucous, raw…

WHEN YOU STRUM an acoustic guitar hard, the sound tends to get brighter. With an unprocessed electric guitar, hitting the strings makes the sound louder but doesn’t really alter the timbre. The Acoustifier process described here imparts some of an acoustic guitar’s dynamics to a dry electric guitar. When I tested this with some guitar players, they thought the acoustified sound was the guitar’s natural sound — until I bypassed the effect, that is. To create this effect in your DAW using plug-ins, you’ll need a dynamic range expander and EQ with both high-pass and high-shelf stages. Figure 1 shows the setup for PreSonus Studio One, but the same applies to all recording software. MIXER SETUP The Acoustifier needs to be in parallel with the track you’re processing, so create…

PERHAPS NO TIME in the career of Jimi Hendrix was as critical to his success as the months he spent in the U.K. and Europe over 1966 and 1967. Jas Obrecht’s new book, Stone Free: Jimi Hendrix in London, September 1966 – June 1967, catches the legend at the moment of his transformation from an unknown American guitarist to the darling of Swinging London. This day-by-day account brings the era to vivid life, starting in New York City, where Hendrix meets future manager and producer Chas Chandler, and continuing in the U.K. There, Hendrix undergoes an extraordinary evolution as he forms the Jimi Hendrix Experience with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, writes and records the songs that would be released on the group’s early singles and debut album, Are…

“WE WERE ALWAYS very forward-thinking about the music we made together,” Reeves Gabrels says of his 10-year creative partnership with David Bowie. Beginning in 1989 with metallic hard-rock band Tin Machine, their alliance continued into the ’90s, when Gabrels co-produced a number of Bowie’s solo albums. “Our whole thing was very much rooted in being in the moment. There wasn’t a lot of looking back going on between us.” Even so, Bowie told Gabrels he’d like to return to the studio and redo some songs from his 1987 album, Never Let Me Down. “The record seemed to gnaw at David a bit,” Gabrels recalls. “He’d had such a big hit with ‘Let’s Dance,’ and I think he felt obliged to follow up that success on Tonight and Never Let Me…

FROM THE SOUND of his name, you might imagine Ford Fry was destined to spend his life in a kitchen. In fact, the 49-year-old Texas-born chef currently has 15 restaurants under his belt, including popular outposts like the Optimist, JCT. Kitchen, and King + Duke in Atlanta, La Lucha and State of Grace in Houston, and Superica in Charlotte, North Carolina. Fry says he once opened five restaurants in a single year and reports that he currently has “another six or seven in the works.” Clearly, he loves food and he loves cooking. But this is a magazine for musicians, not cooking. So, as you’d expect, Fry has another passion, namely guitars. He not only plays them (very well, in fact), he also collects them. His current crop of instruments,…

ASIDE FROM BEING a great guitarist in his own right, Jeff Senn has long been a go-to repairman and custom guitar builder for the cream of Nashville’s pickers. Although he’s known for building excellent classic S- and T-style models, Senn was, until recently, more likely to be seen playing a Teisco or some other “pawnshop prize” guitar with his surf band, Crazy Aces. A few years ago, he started building and playing a guitar of his own design, the Model One. It recalled some of the inexpensive guitars he loved, like Silvertones and Fender Jazzmasters (yes, children, Jazzmasters were once cheap), and he soon struck a deal with Eastwood Guitars to mass produce the Model One. The success of their partnership, and a desire to produce an instrument with more…

THIS NEW VERSION of Lunastone’s Three Stage Rocket features MIDI implementation to allow it to store and control the settings of the three footswitches (Boost, OD2/OD1, Drive), and the two-way pre/post boost toggle switch. Programming is simple, and the TSR retains the same functionality of the original version, providing two footswitchable analog gain stages and a boost function that can be used to either drive the gain stages harder (pre mode) or elevate the output level (post mode), for a volume boost of up to 15dB. (Note that our test model featured separate footswitches for OD1 and OD2. The current production version, shown here, pairs OD1 and OD2 on the middle switch and has a global Drive on/off switch.) The Three Stage Booster is a nicely made unit with a…

AS MORE TAYLOR models are offered with V-Class bracing, the line has expanded. At present it includes the 314ce, 324ce, 414ce, 514ce, 614ce, Builder’s Edition 614ce, 714ce, 814ce, 814ce DLX, 914ce, PS14ce and K24ce, with more on the way. We focused extensively on the benefits of V-Class bracing in our review of the Builder’s Edition K14ce last February. In short, this innovative bracing system enhances sustain by maintaining stiffness along the middle of the guitar in the direction of the strings, keeping them in motion longer than is possible with traditional X bracing. V-Class also allows the top to be more in tune with the vibrating strings, noticeably improving the guitar’s ability to play in tune in all positions. Finally, it increases volume by controlling the top’s flexibility and creating…

SOUND OFF! GET EXCLUSIVE NEWS. COMMENT. CRITIQUE. SHARE TIPS AND TECHNIQUES. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR E-NEWSLETTER. FACEBOOK.COM/GUITARPLAYERMAG TWITTER.COM/GUITARPLAYERNOW GUITARPLAYER.COM CHRISTOPHER SCAPELLITI Editor chris.scapelliti@futurenet.com ART THOMPSON Senior Editor arthur.thompson@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 ALICE PATTILLO Production Editor alice.pattillo@futurenet.com ROSIE WEBBER Art Editor rosie.webber@futurenet.com…

BRUCE FORMAN DEVELOPED his bebop chops over the decades he spent playing alongside jazz legends such as Ray Brown, Bobby Hutcherson and Roger Kellaway. These days, he employs those skills in his straight-ahead jazz trio as well as with his western swing band, Cow Bop, and Junkyard Duo, where he plays National steel guitar alongside a drummer who bangs found objects. Forman also has a podcast, Guitar Wank, which he cohosts with jazz-fusion guitarist Scott Henderson. But the project closest to his heart is The Red Guitar, Forman’s one-man show based upon his life as a musician and his fixation on one particular instrument. “I was performing at a guitar show in Wales, and there was this red archtop with a white mother-of-toilet-seat pickguard,” he explains. “All the jazz players…

ASK GUITARISTS WHAT the Klon Centaur overdrive pedal does for their tone range, and the answers can span from “very little” to “everything.” In fact, the more time you spend with the unit, the more you’ll find it difficult to turn the thing off without experiencing a tremendous sense of loss. No wonder the pedal has become highly sought by guitarists since production ceased in 2009. The Klon Centaur was developed by Boston native Bill Finnegan and first sold in 1994 after several years in development. The pedal was the result of Finnegan’s quest to add a little juice between his Telecaster and the Fender Twin Reverb he habitually gigged with. The ubiquitous Tube Screamer’s midrange hump and spongy response just weren’t for him. Thus, he decided to create an…

I FOUND MY copy of Country Guitar at a used bookstore in the early ’90s. Released in 1965 on the Nashville label (a subsidiary of Starday), the compilation is under the radar and a real honey. As soon as I saw the cover, my instinct told me it would be a great record, confirmed by the inclusion of “Springfield Guitar Social” by Thumbs Carlisle. Let’s focus first on some of the other tracks, because they’re all noteworthy. Billy Byrd performs the great instrumental “Teenage Blues.” Jimmy Capps lets his Chet Atkins influence shine through on “Nashville Shuffle” and “Chattanoogie Bound” and turns both cuts into classic masterpieces. On “Chattanoogie Bound,” Mr. Capps plays an octave breakdown that wouldn’t be allowed 20 feet near a modern country record. Hardrock Gunter, whose…

“A FEW LAUGHS CAN HELP THE AUDIENCE GET THROUGH A SOMBER SET, AND OUR SHOW IS A SAD AFFAIR” “MY GUITAR STYLE comes from the harmonic necessity of playing in a rather unusual context,” says Kenneth Pattengale, the ace six-stringer who performs alongside Joey Ryan in the acoustic-guitar-and-vocal duo the Milk Carton Kids. “Instead of being a lead guitar player, I’m more of a color guy. I choose the wallpaper or set the scene, whether it’s a rainy night or a sunny day. You can do that with the sort of rhythms, chords or accidentals that you ‘place around the room.’” A parlor guitar aficionado, Pattengale is a maestro with intros and outros. He creatively fills sonic spaces with all sorts of melodic runs, double-stops and chord fragments throughout entire…

THE OLD ADAGE that a guitarist’s sound lies mostly in his or her hands is especially true when it comes to the acoustic instrument. Of all the factors involved, attack is the most important. Here are a few ideas to consider as you hone your ultimate acoustic tone. > Flesh It Out Flesh is literally the warmest-sounding tone generator at your fingertips, and a good old-fashioned thumb strum is the balmiest way to go. A simple raking motion works well, and the further away from the bridge you go, the toastier the tone becomes. Use it for dynamic effect on sensitive passages, for the cozy-sounding Wes Montgomery–style octave approach or to take the bite off a bright-sounding instrument. If you’re a devoted plectrum player, practice curling it up securely inside…

THE STARSTREAM TYPE 1 has flown somewhat under the radar ever since Vox rolled it out two years ago, and considering all the things this guitar does, it seems high time that we review it. The Starstream’s unique frame construction is striking, to say the least, but its sci-fi appearance isn’t just for show. The catamaran-like pieces, attached to the mango wood body, are contoured in a way that not only makes the guitar quite comfortable to play both sitting and standing but also offers unlimited upper-fret access. The Starstream incorporates the Areos-D system, which integrates magnetic pickups, a piezo pickup system and a DSP engine. The DSP handles modeling and effects, and it can run for up to 15 hours on four AA batteries. The guitar has a 1/4-inch…

AT SUMMER NAMM last July, I made a stop at the Grez Guitars booth, where founder Barry Grezbik introduced me to his Mendocino Baritone model, a follow-up to the standard Mendocino, which received our Editors’ Pick Award in 2017. The Baritone played beautifully and had a light and compact feel similar to the standard, although its B-to-B tuning obviously opens up other avenues of expression in the lower range. The Mendocino Baritone borrows from the standard’s design by having a one-piece semihollow mahogany body and neck, and a top of solid old-growth redwood. The body’s dimensions — 13.25 inches wide by 1.75 inches deep — make for a svelte instrument that balances well whether you’re playing it sitting or standing. The nicely grained Macassar ebony fingerboard has a span of…

FENDER INTRODUCED ITS California Series acoustics and California Coast Series ukuleles at the outset of the year (see the April 2018 issue for our Montecito ukulele review), and then expanded the line over the summer. Cali acoustics come in three original Fender body shapes, with the midsized Newporter situated between the smaller Malibu and larger Redondo. There are also three price points, and the California Classic model, reviewed here, represents the top of the line. The Newporter California Classic sports several quality components and accessories uncommon on such an affordable guitar. They include a solid Sitka spruce top, solid mahogany back and sides, koa rosette and binding, bone nut and saddle, custom-voiced Fishman electronics and a deluxe gig bag. What’s more, these acoustics come in a bevy of vibrant colors…