Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 135 i Australian Guitar

A VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH GREG ALFONZETTI The Arrebato Ensemble is contemporary flamenco with edge. Led by acclaimed guitarists Greg Alfonzetti and Damian de Boos-Smith (who also plays cello), the longtime collaborators are joined by Byron Mark (cajon, percussion and piano) and dancer Chachy Peñalver. This new line-up creates passionately moving performances that combine incisive ensemble playing, masterful solos, and the beauty and power of flamenco dance. Their much-anticipated third album, Sofia’s Dream, was released in October 2018. Much like it, the group’s previous albums have drawn critical acclaim, with SMH journalist John Shand describing that while their music “moves from pure flamenco in favour of a more contemporary style, the spirit – a dramatic, sexually charged and haughty sadness – remains intact.” AN INTERVIEW WITH SEYMOUR DUNCAN After lending his…

Getting a hold of Ian Moss is neither as easy, nor as difficult as one would expect. He’s more than happy to chat your ears off, but only if you manage to find him – our first calls wound up going straight to voicemail, and Moss’ management had no idea where the elusive Cold Chisel guitarist was. When our second attempt rolled around, it turned out Mossy had double-booked himself with a dentist’s appointment – no, sadly, we did not interview him high on nitrous… Maybe one day. It wasn’t until our fifth attempt at reaching the Alice Springs-native icon that he picked up – but when he did, he was in an especially chipper mood. The 64-year old is enjoying a rush of creative energy at the moment: in…

The late 1990s and early 2000s can be marked by three things: chain wallets, three-quarter-length jeans, and nu-metal. While nu-metal’s mainstream days are well behind us, Korn lives on. Most remember Korn either from their five-time platinum 1998 album Follow The Leader – which gave us such (head)bangers as “Got The Life” and “Falling Away From Me” – or from their more radio-friendly 2004 cover of Cameo’s “Word Up!”. Nevertheless, Korn live on in our hearts, minds, and record players with the release of their 13th studio album, The Nothing. With founding bassist Reginald ‘Fieldy’ Arvizu’s combination of fingerstyle and slap bass giving Korn their unmistakable sound, it’s still evident on their latest release, with guitarist James ‘Munky’ Shaffer declaring, “It’s very much a Korn album.” We spoke with Munky…

When he’s not inciting all-out calamity as the face-melting rhythm riffer in Alexisonfire, hardcore expat Dallas Green melts hearts en masse as the sweet and soulful twang-maker in City And Colour. And though the project started as a side-hustle from his pit-splitting main gig, City And Colour has grown to be significantly more successful for the 38-year-old Canuck. And outside of his native Canada, Green’s biggest fanbase lies Down Under; all three of his last LPs have debuted in the ARIA Top 5, and the tours have consistently seen some of Australia’s biggest and most respectable venues sell out in flat seconds. This month, Green looks to continue his hot streak with the long-awaited sixth City And Colour LP, A Pill For Loneliness. Coming a hefty four years since his…

INCLUDED IN: Kiss Deluxe Guitar Play-Along Hal Leonard 288989 Customise your experience with the interactive, online audio and TAB. Copyright © 1975, 1977 HORI PRODUCTIONS AMERICA, INC. and CAFE AMERICANA Copyright Renewed All Rights for HORI PRODUCTIONS AMERICA, INC. Controlled and Administered by UNIVERSAL - POLYGRAM INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING, INC. All Rights for CAFE AMERICANA Administered by INTERSONG U.S.A., INC. All Rights outside the U.S. excluding Japan Controlled and Administered by UNIVERSAL - POLYGRAM INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING, INC. All Rights Reserved Used by Permission…

As Devin Townsend was wrapping up recording the latest chapter of his storied career, he quickly realised that in order to complete the album, he would have to mix it himself. Sure, Townsend had been involved in production, mixing and so on since the days of Strapping Young Lad, but he’d never worked with something on the same scale as his gargantuan, multi-genre masterpiece, Empath. It was a tough job, but Townsend learned a lot about production, engineering and mixing, alongside psychological and physical challenges that manifested while putting together what is arguably the most complex record he’s ever written. You’ve been very candid about how writing and recording Empathwas a huge emotional journey. What did you learn about mixing during these sessions? I hate it [laughs]. I don’t hate…

This issue we are taking a look at two concepts that I hope will break you out of any improvisation ruts you may find yourself in. The first two exercises are designed to help you break out of the pentatonic box shapes and give you some ideas on how to develop your own scale runs and pentatonic riffs. These exercises also help to bridge and create scale runs between the minor pentatonic box shapes one octave apart. You can utilise licks you already know in the minor pentatonic scale, then use the three note-per-string scale run outlined in Exercise #2 to repeat the same licks an octave higher or lower. Exercise three touches on the idea of modal arpeggios. Modal arpeggios are a great tool for creating tension and new…

Not everyone wants to master the entire fretboard. So much good music can be made with just a couple of notes. If you’re someone who’s learnt that first pentatonic shape and milked it for all it’s worth, this column is for you. I just wanted to provide the more common uses either side of the good old minor pentatonic shape one. Billy Gibbons, Tony Iommi and John Lee Hooker really come to mind, personally, as guys who didn’t need to venture far from that main shape to play a great solo. All examples are recorded at 100bpm. There are times when the tracks won’t be essential, but for licks and phrases I strongly encourage you to listen to the tracks to get the sound of them in your ears, so…

Once upon a time, Earthquaker Devices from Akron, Ohio was a little boutique company. Then they became one of the most bragworthy, droolworthy pedal companies in existence, hugely expanding while maintaining their street cred. You’ll find Earthquaker pedals at the feet of artists like Albert Hammond Jr of The Strokes, Cameron Avery from Tame Impala, Chelsea Wolfe, Chon, Dave Depper from Death Cab For Cutie, Devin Townsend, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, Kelley Deal of The Breeders - heck, just go check out the Artists section on their website and you’re going to see a hell of a lot of names across a hugely diverse range of artists. SPEC-TACULAR The Pyramids Stereo Flanging Device is a great example of Earthquaker’s vibe and innovation. On the…

Fri Oct 11th Rosemount Hotel, Perth WA Sat Oct 12th West Aus Guitar Festival, Margaret River WA Fri Oct 18th Lansdowne Hotel, Sydney NSW Sat Oct 19th The Zoo, Brisbane QLD Fri Oct 25th Halls Gap Hotel, Halls Gap VIC Fri Nov 1st The Tah, Hobart TAS Sat Nov 2nd Royal Oak Hotel, Launceston TAS Sun Nov 3rd Bridge Hotel, Forth TAS Sat Nov 9th Blues At Bridgetown, Bridgetown WA Fri Nov 22nd Sooki Lounge, Belgrave VIC Sat Nov 23rd Queenscliff Music Festival, Queenscliff VIC Sat Dec 7th The Briars, Mount Martha VIC Sat Jan 18th Ocean Sounds Festival, Churchill Island VIC Tickets are on sale now via secretsounds.com…

WHEN: FRIDAY JULY 19TH – SUNDAY 21ST, 2019 WHERE: NORTH BYRON PARKLANDS, BYRON BAY NSW There isn’t a cloud in the sky when we roll up to the North Byron Parklands. The flora that dots the walkway in is idyllic, and as we stop to admire the rustic and kitsch artwork they’ve propped up at every turn, we’re enraptured in the laughter of giddy first-timers spouting out their grand ambitions for the weekend, and seasoned veterans recounting tales of their messiest years prior. Everyone here is bounding in glee with eyes wide and smiles wider, and it makes sense: we’re at Splendour In The Grass, Australia’s biggest arts and culture festival and a three-day celebration of music, mates and the complete absence of melancholy. The festival site is laid out…

OCTOBER Fri 25th Tivoli Theatre, Brisbane QLD Sat 26th Venue 114, Sunshine Coast QLD Sun 27th Home Of The Arts, Gold Coast QLD Thu 31st Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide SA NOVEMBER Fri 1st Freo Social, Fremantle WA Sat 2nd The River, Margaret River WA Fri 8th Palais Theatre, Hepburn Springs VIC Sat 9th Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC Thu 14th Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle NSW Fri 15th Factory Theatre, Sydney NSW Sat 16th Ettamogah Hotel, Kellyville NSW Fri 22nd The Jack, Cairns QLD Sat 23rd Kirwan Tavern, Townsville QLD Sat 30th Armatree Hotel, Armatree NSW Tickets are on sale now via busbymarou.com…

Fri Nov 1st Enmore Theatre, Sydney NSW Fri Nov 8th Anita’s Theatre, Thirroul NSW Fri Nov 15th Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide SA Sat Nov 16th Palais Theatre, Melbourne VIC Fri Nov 22nd Canberra Theatre, Canberra ACT Sat Nov 23rd City Hall, Newcastle NSW Fri Nov 29th Tivoli Theatre, Brisbane QLD Sat Dec 7th Crown Theatre, Perth WA Fri Feb 28th Blue Mountains Theatre, Springwood NSW Sat Feb 29th Civic Theatre, Orange NSW Fri Mar 6th Theatre Royal, Hobart TAS Sat Mar 7th Princess Theatre, Launceston TAS Fri Mar 13th Capital Theatre, Bendigo VIC Sat Mar 14th Eastbank Theatre, Shepparton VIC Fri Mar 20th Regional Theatre & Convention Centre, Dubbo NSW Sat Mar 21st Town Hall, Tamworth NSW Fri Mar 27th Park Lane Theatre, Lennox Head NSW Sat Mar 28th Jetty Theatre,…

Whenever a band makes it past ten records in their discography, you tend to see one of three things happen. The first is, depressingly, the most common: the integrity suffers, the quality wanes, and the records continuously churn out every few years as an increasingly desperate attempt for the artist to stay relevant and squeeze whatever pittance they can from Spotifiers yearning for their glory days. The second is similar, yet slightly more respectable: the quality of them fails to hit the highs of their first few, but the records come out every five or so years as the band continues to revel in moderate success, treating each new release as a passion project of sorts. The third is largely subjective, but never theless riveting when it happens: the band…

For all you’ve heard about Liam Gallagher, he’s quick to own up to his weaknesses. Everyone knows he was in the seminal British rock group Oasis – he’s just not the one who wrote “Live Forever” or “Wonderwall”, nor is he the one who delivered the psychedelic solo that rips through the latter half of “Champagne Supernova”. He’s a man who’s “said a lot of s**t over the years and meant every word”. But to many he quite simply is Oasis and all they stood for. It’s why his first solo album, 2017’s As You Were, was able to reach platinum status in the UK. It’s why he’s announced secondary shows on his nationwide Australian headline tour this December. It’s why we’re so damn interested to see what he does…

Fast, ‘shred-style’ licks invariably involve picking from one adjacent string to the next. This makes sense, since most scale-based lines move from note to note via small intervals (the distance between two notes). This feels (and sounds) quite natural. However, it can also sound cool to incorporate wider interval shifts into scalar licks, and this can be achieved via string skipping (picking across non-adjacent strings). By using string skipping to execute large interval leaps, it creates an interesting sound that isn’t commonly heard in the shred/ metal environment. I’ve come up with four exercises to get you started with this technique. These licks use the E natural minor scale (E-F#-G-A-B-C-D), but of course, can be applied to any scale or key. EXERCISE #1 Using a three-note-per-string fingering in the 12th…

When people think of an acoustic guitar, they picture a dreadnought. It’s an iconic image that’s been drilled into us ever since the Great Folk Scare of the 1960s. Back then, almost everyone played a dreadnought – the projection, the booming bass, the percussive chunk… all helped the solo singer/songwriter to connect with the audience in a time when amplifying the acoustic was not nearly as simple as it is today. But smaller instruments could still be found here and there, and the most common if these was the Auditorium-style guitar: the short (24.9”) scale 000 and the long (25.4” scale) scale OM (Orchestra Model). The 000 is a sweet-sounding guitar but the higher tension OM has great projection and a tonal balance that has, in the last decade or…

If you look close, you’ll notice there’s something of a trend arising among guitar companies at the moment. A lot of high-end brands are releasing Stratocaster-like guitars with two humbuckers, non-locking tremolos and an extra wiring trick or two. Sound familiar? Because although there are lots of modern brands doing this now, you can trace their lineage back to what Charvel was doing in the late 70s and early 80s. The very definition of ‘Superstrat.’ And with Charvel now under the ownership of Fender, the company is able to incorporate particularly Fender-y touches into their designs such as lawsuit-free use of the Stratocaster headstock shape. If you’re in the market for this type of guitar, Charvel is making damn sure you consider them on your wishlist. NOTHING DINKY ‘BOUT IT…

So, you’ve bought your dream guitar and it’s perfect in every way. The guy at the shop said it’s ready to go and, in no time at all, you know you’ll be playing the big gigs. But as soon as that first rush of excitement wears off, you’ll start to find some tiny details that you didn’t notice in the store. You wish it played a little easier up the neck, or maybe the strings are too low and they rattle a little, or some chords are perfectly in tune and others have a slight dissonance. When you buy a guitar, it most often has a generic feel. This is a result of the factory setup – a balance of the instrument’s component variables. These variables include string gauge and…

Generally in the studio, it’s customary to keep things as simple as possible at all stages of the recording process. When miking instruments, we tend to use only as many mics as needed, rather than introduce too many random elements, phasing issues, setup time, mixing challenges etc. To that end, with a single sound source a mono mic setup is usually always the default. However, there are many situations when a stereo mic setup will provide the engineer with a more natural, balanced sonic picture of the instrument. If you take the analogy of the microphone as a small torch or flashlight, then pointing the mic at a narrow, focused area will inevitably only capture a percentage of the instrument’s natural tone, texture, and sonic range. If guitars only produced…

For this issue’s lesson I’m once again feeling a little inspired by Steve Vai. If you’ve seen Vai live any time in the last, oh, 15 years, you would have caught him playing a song called “Building The Church” which includes a few very cool over-the-top-of-the-neck two-handed tapping sections. This isn’t a particularly new idea – Joe Satriani is all over this stuff, and while Van Halen did something similar on ‘Judgement Day’ on 1991’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, he’d been messing around with the technique for a long time before that – but it’s still a somewhat under-utilised technique which can give you a lot of cool melodic and harmonic options. What I’ve done for this lesson is created a chord vamp which we will outline using two-handed tapping.…

Ever since Eddie Van Halen and Fender started releasing guitars in the Striped Series - instruments that paid tribute to Eddie’s iconic guitars over the years - fans have been screaming for a reproduction of the Shark, Eddie’s chopped-up Ibanez Destroyer. He famously took a saw to the original and ate a chunk out of the body, painted it silver then taped it up and sprayed burgundy Schwinn bicycle paint on it and removed the tape. This was after Eddie had used a similar striping method on his original ‘Frankenstein’ guitar but before he’d added red to it. So this is really Eddie’s first red-and-white-striped axe. He used it on all the non-trem stuff on the first Van Halen album. ‘Jamie’s Cryin’? That’s this guitar. SHARK ATTACK The EVH version…