Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 157 i Australian Guitar

INTERVIEW If you like rock music that’s confrontational and confessional, you’d be doing yourself a disservice not exploring the gut-punching songs of solo artist Laura Jane Grace and her punk band Against Me! Known for tackling a range of intense topics in songs written for both projects, such as gender dysphoria and mental illness, Grace’s talent for writing honest, unapologetic songs has made a global impact. So too did her decision to come out as a trans woman in May 2012 - one of the first in the American punk scene to have done so since Jayne County in 1979. Common to the story of many transgender people, Grace’s decision didn’t come easily. A tough, winding journey through three decades pushed her to make the leap. Reflecting on coming out,…

PANTERA ZAKK WYLDE IS not only one of the finest metal guitarists to ever grace this planet; he’s always been an open book when it comes to expressing his deep love, plus his profound reverence and respect for his dear friend, the late Dimebag Darrell. Yes sir, Zakk literally wears his heart on his sleeve. Which is why every Black Label Society show since 2005 has featured “In This River” — the emotion-laden ballad Zakk wrote for Dime — complete with large, backline-covering images of his beloved friend. And, ever since Darrell’s brother, Vinnie Paul, sadly passed away in 2018, his picture also graces the BLS set during said song. “Those are our buddies, man,” Zakk says in an unusually soft but searingly sincere tone. “That song and their images…

AUSTRALIAN recording TECHNIQUE TUTORIAL Recording your guitar parts can be a nerveracking experience, even for players who’ve done it a million times. If you’re heading into the studio there are time constraints to think of, the leer of your bandmates as you fail to hit that tricky bend yet again, and the overall pressure of trying to nail a perfect take in front of other musicians. Ever when recording at home by yourself there’s the option paralysis of plugins and presets to think about, ensuring your composition is perfect, and setting your own time constraints so you actually get your songs finished. It’s a bit of a minefield to say the least, so to make things easier for you, we’ve put together a list of 10 common recording mistakes every…

REVIEW It’s rare that heritage companies like Guild come up with new guitar designs. Why should they when there are a huge number of models to reproduce from their own past? The Surfliner originally appeared in early 2022 and although you can see some design cues from their past, it was actually the first new design they’d created for, well, longer than we can remember. Named after a train line that runs down the West coast of California, the original HSS model, quickly followed by a dual humbucker version, was a rare Guild bolt-on, but unusually features a tune-o-matic with through-body string anchorage along with, unusually, 23 frets. It also features some unusual on/off pickup switches, the sort of thing you’d find on a small table lamp from IKEA. This…

Seagull Guitars has been making high quality acoustic guitars for a long time. Their parent company, Godin Guitars, is rightly proud that their instruments are built entirely in their own North American factories. Founded in 1972 by Robert Godin in the rural town of La Patrie, Quebec, Canada, Godin Guitars is now one of North America’s major guitar manufacturers. Seagull has been their premier acoustic range since its inception in 1982, and the company continues to offer new Seagull models as market requirements morph with playing trends. This Seagull is from their Maritime range and features all solid wood construction in an auditorium sized instrument. Seagull’s auditorium shape is called a “concert hail” (the “CH” in the title) and its body dimensions are almost identical to Martin’s venerable 000/OM shape.…

INTERVIEW The group’s name comes from a buzzword promoted by fitness trainers and doctors. Now, Gut Health is causing a buzz of their own beyond Melbourne’s music community, releasing two EPs and three singles in the last 15 months. After playing industry expos such as SXSW and Bigsound, Gut Health has now shared lineups with the likes of Kraftwerk, Mudhoney and Alex G. As one might expect from such an eclectic purveyor of disorienting, bouncy post-punk, Gut Health’s origin is quite surprising. The concept for the band was first conceived in Melbourne around 2020-2021, partiallyinspired by the boredom of eight months of COVIDinduced lockdown in the most locked-down city on earth. Gut Health’s founding figures are their exuberant singer and front person, Athina Uh Oh, and bassist Adam Markmann. As…

INTERVIEW Sydney-based songwriter and guitarist Dave Favours followed a unique path to altcountry. He grew up as a punk rocker in the ‘80s and ‘90s with exposure to the Ramones and the Descendents, as well as Aussie bands like the Hard-Ons, The Hellmenn and Massappeal. After that, an exciting new world of “hip underground bands” helped to lead Favours to groups from the US who looked further back to vintage rock ‘n’ roll, blues and country, namely The Gun Club and X, with a dash of The Cramps. A rapidly-growing reverence for Johnny Cash led Favours further down the rabbithole of American country music, and things progressed organically from there. After being enlisted in a Johnny Cash tribute show before releasing his first of two solo albums in 2012, Favours…

INTERVIEW Taking their name from J.R.R Tolkien’s Elvish term for the dwarves that inhabited the Blue Mountains region in Middle-earth, Naugrim is a metalcore quartet from the Blue Mountains and Lithgow regions west of Sydney. Founded in 2021 by rhythm guitarist Luke Boyd, AKA Boydie, through a call-out to musical friends, players include members of Celestial Oath, a riff-loving doom metal trio, and Greg McManus, a formidable frontman with a background in festival organisation. Boydie himself emerged out of the extreme metal subgenres of death, slam and grind, as a drummer in Festering Drippage and in Lithgow’s 12Gauge Rampage, who have supported Napalm Death in Sydney. Boydie’s two current bands are now part of his region’s unofficial ‘Big 4’ of metal bands, rounded out by Foothills and Celestial Oath, and…

Since 1925, this great American brand has been behind everything from Presidential addresses to conference calls, and from music festivals to YouTube reaction videos. That’s a great legacy, but due to the many and varied Shure models available, you might wonder which is suited to your purpurpose. So below we’ve rounded up our favourite Shure microphones to help you choose the right mic for your needs. From straightforward vocal mics to feature-filled podcast options, there’s a Shure mic to suit almost any application. Let’s take a look. SHURE SM7B BEST FOR VOICE RECORDING Type: Cardioid Connectivity: XLR Features: Bass rolloff and presence boost controls, internal air suspension, pop filter If you’ve watched a vlog, or listened to a podcast, in the last 10 years, then the chances are you’ve already…

REVIEW Introduced nearly 10years ago, the original Royalist was the first amp from Tone King dedicated entirely to classic British tones. Prior to that — both under the sole stewardship of founder Mark Bartel, from 1993 to the early ’00s, and during much of his association with Premier Builder’s Guild, from around 2010 to 2016 — most Tone King models offered one American-voiced clean channel and another with a tweed-meetsMarshall dirt tone. Boutique Amplifiers Distribution (BAD), which has owned the brand since 2016, has brought noteworthy updates to all remaining models in the lineup, and the Royalist Mkill is the latest to get the treatment. The result expands the amp’s functionality while retaining the basic premise, resulting in a circuit that applies its 1964-70 Marshall-derived sonic template across a more…

As the world eased itself into 2024, the Smashing Pumpkins broke the internet when they announced they were looking for a new guitarist… and anyone could apply. Now, the alt-rock icons are facing up to the reality of their generous offer, revealing that over 10,000 guitar players have applied for the position. In a social media post simply captioned, “Update”, SP writes, “The band has received over 10,000 submissions for the position of additional guitarist. Currently, there are 8 people working full-time to review each and every one.” There’s no word or the credentials of the eight-strong team reviewing applications, but we’d assume they are pretty guitar- and Pumpkins-sawy. Although we imagine their primary job will be weeding out anyone who just emailed in to say, “I can play Today…

INTERVIEW As one of the few remaining pop-punk bands from the genre’s early-2000s resurgence, Simple Plan maintain their reputation as a stadium-filling musical force in their 25th year of existence. The group first assembled in the FrenchCanadian suburbia of Montreal in 1999, comprised of young members of two defunct teenage punk bands, Roach and Reset. Roach’s former members Pierre Bouvier, Chuck Comeau and Jeff Stinco have remained members of Simple Plan ever since, alongside Sebastien Lefebvre. The group released their debut album No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls in 2002, promoted via their breakthrough first single ‘I’m Just A Kid’. The album’s title started a tradition of sly genitalia and sex jokes, most recently continued with 2022’s Harder Than It Looks. in the decades between, Simple Plan became Warped Tour mainstays,…

INTERVIEW As a teenage guitarist growing up in the Melbourne suburbs of the ‘80s, a young Ashley Naylor was introduced to the exciting possibilities of rock and pop music by way of free-thinking bands like The Church, R.E.M. and The Smiths. Decades later in 2019, Naylor joined The Church and contributed parts to their latest album, The Hypnogogue, which proved that they could still be as unique as ever. Naylor also toured twice through the US with The Church last year. Since 2007, Naylor has served as Paul Kelly’s lead guitarist, while contributing to four of his albums. These include Kelly’s first #1 charting album in his long career of 28, Life Is Fine (2017), which gained gold certification, and Nature (2018), his second of three #1 charting releases. Meanwhile,…

REVIEW It’s been about four years since Fender sprang a surprise on us with the introduction of the all-digital Tone Master amplifier range, which leveraged high-powered digital processing, Class D power and lightweight speakers to recreate some of its best-loved 1960s black-panel amplifiers. These had no menus, no presets and no effects other than the reverb and tremolo the original amps came with. With dwindling and increasingly variable valve supply putting pressure on volume manufacturers, the Tone Master amps make a lot of sense, delivering authentic classic tones with the consistency, reliability and portability that valves struggle to compete with. They also set many of us wondering what kind of product might result if the Tone Master’s prodigious digital capability was unleashed. Now we have the answer with Fender’s latest…

REVIEW Fender’s new Tone Master Pro amp modelling floorboard is a significant new product from the company that practically invented the guitar amplifier, underlining the steadily increasing dominance of digital technology in the amplification market. The arrival of digital modelling floorboards brought with it another conundrum - how to amplify them? At the upper end of the market, where many bands are using in-ear monitors with dedicated monitor mixes and the front-of-house PA system takes care of the rest, there’s no real need for conventional backline any more. However, many players still prefer the convenience of an onstage loudspeaker that they have some measure of control over, while at grassroots level it’s still common for many bands to use a vocal PA and rely on backline to amplify their instruments.…

With a title like “Turn Up the Radio,” Autograph’s 1984 hit song might seem like a cynical attempt to score points — and airplay — with deejays. But as lead guitarist Steve Lynch explains, that was the last thing he and his bandmates were thinking when they penned the tune. In fact, it was titled “Turn Up the Tape Machine” when the group — Lynch, singer and guitarist Steve Plunkett, bassist Randy Rand, keyboardist Steve Isham and drummer Keni Richards — cut a demo of it during preproduction for their RCA debut album, Sign in Please. “Eventually, it dawned on us that we were missing an obvious way to reel in some serious airplay,” Lynch says. PUMP UP THE JAM As Lynch reveals, the song was a late arrival, written…