Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i Guitar World

VOL. 44 | NO. 7 | JULY 2023 NOW, ABOUT THOSE DIMEBAG GUITARS... SOME OF THE highlights (for me, anyway) of this jam-packed issue are the new Zakk Wylde photos by photographer Dustin Jack — and, in particular, the guitars that appear in every pic. They’re not identified in the stories (although they are alluded to on pages 54 and 62), but we just got some late info from the Wylde man himself. And it goes a little something like this (Using the photo below as a guide, the guitars are ID’d from left to right): >>> Blue (camo) Washburn Dime Stealth: Dimebag Darrell had this guitar built when he was with Washburn; he gave it to Zakk at Ozzfest. >>> The Dean Dimebag Razorback was given to Zakk at…

TUNE-UPSNEWS + NOTES Q: What was the first song you learned on the guitar? “I Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash. I learned it instrumentally — especially that Luther Perkins “boom-chicka-boom” rhythm style, which was a big move on my part. In fact, I later used that “boom chicka boom” thing for the “giddy-up” part in the second verse of [Loverboy’s] “The Kid Is Hot Tonight” and again in the theme for “Working for the Weekend.” Q: Ever had an embarrassing moment on stage? This last summer we were out opening for REO Speedwagon and Styx, and I don’t know what prompted me to do this, but, in the solo section of “Turn Me Loose” I got down on both knees and I’m wailing away, my head’s back almost hitting…

“I’VE SAID IT before, but I’m just a girl with a guitar,” says young blues-rock songstress Ally Venable. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t grown — I have — and I think this album shows that. This is my most evolved form, doing what I love.” Since emerging from Kilgore, Texas, at 14, Ally Venable, aka “Texas Honey,” has made a name for herself amid a swarming blues circuit. Now 10 years after the release of Venable’s debut EP, Wise Man, it’s hard to believe she’s only 23. Moreover, as she prepares to release her fifth record, Real Gone, Venable seems more like a weathered veteran than a fresh-faced kid. “Something about this album felt different,” she says. “It’s more than just my songwriting; it was the entire experience of…

COVER FEATURECELEBRATING DIMEBAG PART ONE THE WYLDE WAYPANTERA “WE’RE UP THERE CELEBRATING DIME AND VINNIE. THAT’S WHAT THIS IS ABOUT, AND IT BRINGS JOY TO SO MANY PEOPLE” ON DECEMBER 18, 2022, about two weeks after playing their first-ever show together since 2001, Pantera are getting ready to tear up the Knotfest Carnival stage at the Anhembi Sambadrome in São Paulo, Brazil. Minutes before showtime, the ravenous crowd cheers along to Jackass-style video snippets of Pantera smashing things, blowing up shit, playing practical jokes and performing mind-blowing shows in the Nineties. A projection of a silhouette of the late Dimebag Darrell — wearing a Dean guitar, fist raised in triumph — and his late brother Vinnie Paul — holding up a drumstick — fill the screens as the band takes…

IN THE PANTERA-loving metal community, Grady Champion needs no introduction. As far as the fans are concerned, he’s an integral part of the larger-than-life Pantera family. Although Grady continued to be a much-in-demand guitar tech long after Pantera effectively disintegrated in 2001, he retired from the road not so long ago — or so he thought. “You know me, Nick — I was totally over and done with touring,” Grady says. “Now I’m back out there for Darrell… with permission from my wife and kids, of course!” [Laughs] In fact, when Grady announced he was joining the crew for the Pantera celebration shows, many fans were overjoyed as they felt his involvement added further credibility and credence to an already exciting venture. “I got a little worried when I made…

WHILE ARIA GUITARS might not enjoy the same lofty status as Gibson or Fender in the echelon of guitar makers, its outsider status and unique craftsmanship have certainly made it a worthy contender during the course of Aria’s 60-plus years of existence. Some of the greatest guitarists — from Herb Ellis to Andy Summers, from Yngwie Malmsteen to George Lynch — have, at some point in their careers, brandished one of Aria’s guitar models, such as its popular Aria Pro II series. Even in today’s highly competitive marketplace, Aria continues to flourish and continues to build upon its innovative spirit. THEY SAY NECESSITY is the mother of invention. In the story of Aria Guitars, necessity is very much central to the company’s humble beginnings in Nagoya, Japan, in 1956. It…

SOUNDCHECK SOURCE AUDIO’S PEDALS — like the Collider, Nemesis and Ventris delay and reverb effects as well as older units like the Soundblox Pro Multiwave Distortion — are so innovative and sophisticated that the company’s more utilitarian products are often overlooked. Although EQ and boost pedals are about as utilitarian as it gets, the Source Audio EQ2 Programmable Equalizer and ZIO Analog Front End + Boost make these meat and potatoes effects as sophisticated, sexy and tasteful as a wagyu ribeye steak with truffle pommes aligot. Individually or together, the EQ2 and ZIO can work wonders on a guitar rig’s tone and performance, and they possibly could end many players’ search for the ultimate sound. FEATURES Both the EQ2 and ZIO are housed in compact, pedalboard-friendly formats. ZIO features a…

IF YOU HAVE been with me for the last few columns, you know that I’ve been demoing a variety of my favorite vintage guitars and discussing each instrument’s unique attributes. We began with a 1954 Gibson Les Paul goldtop with P90s, followed by a 1961 Gibson dot-neck ES-335 and a 1952 Fender Esquire. This month, our focus will be the 1954 Fender Stratocaster. While detailing all the great things about the ’52 Esquire, I said (as I often do), “Leo got it right the first time!,” of course refering to Leo Fender, founder of Fender guitars. The same can be said about the ’54 Strat, which was the first year of the model. To me, all the instruments discussed thus far are sonic “staples of life,” for us guitar players.…

STAY CONNECTED WITH GUITAR WORLD ON AND GET THE LATEST GUITAR NEWS, INSIDER UPDATES, STAFF REPORTS AND MORE! An (awesome) issue with the Pedal Issue Every month I make my ritual trip to the mailbox to grab Guitar World. The first section I read, no matter who is on the cover, is Soundcheck. I love checking out new gear, especially pedals. Just the other day I was dreaming of a Guitar World issue that was just 100 pages of Soundcheck. I was delighted to peer in my mailbox and see the Pedal Issue [May 2023]. I hope to see more pedal and gear-based feature articles and issues. Oh, yeah — my issue with the issue? I wish it were 10 times longer! — Dan Newman A massive thank-you to all…

AYLA TESLER-MABÉ’S recent single, “Give Me a Sign?” marks the formal solo debut by the Vancouver-based guitarist, formerly with indie-rock outfit Calpurnia and now one third of soul-jazz trio Ludic. This time around, it’s all Ayla, all the way, with Tesler-Mabé self-producing the lush, effects-rippled R&B ballad, as well as shouldering all the bass, drum, synth, vocal and guitar duties. Though on the one hand “Give Me a Sign?” is the by-product of an artist cutting loose on her own, its glitterball guitar leads are more nuanced than noodly “As much as I love and appreciate a wailing guitar solo, unless it’s in a live setting, I’m not so sure I want to hear a purely improvisational solo that doesn’t have some sense of hookiness to it,” Tesler-Mabé says, connecting…

BACK BEFORE CODY Chavez was expertly quaking through the micro-dives and cement-cracking hardcore riffage of his Drain outfit’s new Living Proof album, he was a teenage guitarist devouring Metallica tabs in Salinas, California. While he’s now squiggling out squeals galore on his arsenal of Jackson Dinkys, he was much more Hetfield than Hammett in his youth, going so far as to eschew lead aesthetics entirely. “I would always make excuses like, ‘Oh, rhythm playing is better; Hetfield, all he does is riffs; I don’t need solos,’” Chavez says. “But as I got older [I realized] if I’m going to be a guitarist, I have to actually work the fretboard. I’m glad I made that decision when I was younger. Now that’s my favorite thing to do — to play leads.”…

CHRIS DUARTE BROKE through way back in 1994, when his second album, Texas Sugar/Strat Magik, sold more than 100,000 copies, serving notice of a new blues guitar hero in town. The release of Ain’t Giving Up, his 15th album, sees him reunited with Texas Sugar producer Dennis Herring to deliver one of the strongest records in his catalog. “I’d forgotten about the way Dennis liked to record. He tapes everything and keeps it all,” Duarte says. “When I was doing guitar parts and it came to the solo I’d just play straight off the top of my head, thinking I’d go back and put the actual solos on later. When I went back in to do the vocals, I took my guitar as I thought I’d be putting on some…

QUOTABLE Q: TRACII GUNS: 12 PLAYERS WHO SHAPED MY SOUND “These are the players that really did it for me,” Tracii Guns says. “I’m not taking anything away from the greats like Vai or Satriani, or George Lynch, who’s a sick guitar player, but I think I was too old for them to have an impact on me when I was a teenager.” 1. Jimmy Page2. Tony Iommi3. Jimi Hendrix4. David Gilmour5. Eddie Van Halen6. Randy Rhoads7. Gary Moore8. Jeff Beck9. Michael Schenker10. Keith Richards11. Joe Perry12. Dimebag Darrell “I’d venture to say Dimebag was able to take in things that were already there and make them his own with his Randall amp, L-500XL pickup, pointy Dean guitar and his smile. He’d kick your ass while smiling at you with…

EVERY GUITARIST NEEDS at least one fuzz pedal. Even if you’re the kind of player who tends to live on the clean channel and disregard distorted sounds, you can still benefit from owning one — whether to clean up via your guitar volume for a treble-focused “glassy” tone or to unlock ear-pleasing octaves as a special effect. Anyone who has been heavily influenced by classic artists like Jimi Hendrix and the Stooges, late-Eighties greats like Mudhoney and Smashing Pumpkins or modern masters such as St. Vincent and Chelsea Wolfe, however, will probably have considered investing in several of these boxes across the years — and with good reason. As legend has it, the invention of the fuzz pedal dates back to engineer Glenn Snoddy’s work on the sessions for Marty…

COVER FEATURECELEBRATING DIMEBAG PART TWO THE WYLDE WAYPANTERA 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…

“I’D SAY 95 percent of Zakk’s rig with Pantera is what he records and tours with all the time,” says Stephen Murillo, Zakk Wylde’s longtime guitar tech. “Zakk has a signature sound, and everyone knows it. So wherever he goes, that’s what he brings. When you see him live, he gives you exactly what you’re expecting.” Here’s the gear Wylde has been using for the Pantera shows so far: • Two 100-watt Wylde Audio tube heads (one black vinyl, one white) running in stereo via an MXR ZW38 Black Label Chorus • 4x12 cabinets with Electro-Voice EVM12L Black Label speakers • Shure Axient wireless system • PEDALS ON ZAKK’S BOARD Dunlop ZW45 Zakk Wylde Wah, Dunlop ZW357 Zakk Wylde Rotovibe, MXR ZW90 Zakk Wylde Phase, MXR ZW44 Zakk Wylde Overdrive…

SOUNDCHECK Buzz Bin SHURE NEEDS NO introduction as an unparalleled leader in audio innovation and as the industry standard in microphones and wireless systems for live performances. Outside of their renowned microphones, Shure’s touring-grade wireless systems have always been priced slightly out of reach for most non-professional guitarists and bassists. But now, Shure aims to change all that with the rollout of their new GLXD+ Dual Band Digital Wireless System, which is available in rack-mount, tabletop and guitar pedal receiver versions. Of course, this wireless system applies to vocalists and presenters as well, with a wide selection of lavalier, headset and handheld microphone options. But as a six-stringer, I’m here to focus on the pedalboard-friendly GLXD16+ Digital Wireless Guitar Pedal System, which has not only given me untangled freedom in…

LAST MONTH, WE began investigating the use of hybrid picking techniques — wherein flatpicking and fingerpicking are combined to perform single-note melodies and/or chordal figures. As a basis for our study, I presented passages from my tune “On Your Way Sweet Soul,” from my 2016 album Theme from a Perfect World. This month, we’ll continue exploring some of the many different and effective ways one can apply hybrid picking to melodic phrases. Let’s begin with a lick based on the E major pentatonic scale (E, F#, G#, B, C#).FIGURE 1 is a six-note phrase played on the 5th and 4th strings using a rhythm of 16th notes. The first three notes, E, F# and G#, are sounded with a single downstroke pick attack followed by a hammer-on and a slide.…

“MOUTH FOR WAR” WORDS AND MUSIC BY VINCE ABBOTT, DARRELL ABBOTT, REX BROWN AND PHIL ANSELMO. © 1992 WARNER-TAMERLANE PUBLISHING CORP. AND POWER METAL MUSIC, INC. ALL RIGHTS ADMINISTERED BY WARNER-TAMERLANE PUBLISHING CORP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY PERMISSION. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD LLC.…

“GOING TO HELL” WORDS AND MUSIC BY TAYLOR MOMSEN AND BENJAMIN PHILLIPS. COPYRIGHT © 2014 EMI BLACKWOOD MUSIC INC., PRETTY RECKLESS MUSIC, DASNICE MUSIC, THE UNDERTAKER’S DAUGHTER AND LIBERAL ARTS SONGS. ALL RIGHTS ADMINISTERED BY SONY MUSIC PUBLISHING (US) LLC, 424 CHURCH STREET, SUITE 1200, NASHVILLE, TN 37219. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT SECURED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD LLC.…

TUNE-UPS NEWS + NOTES WHEN INDIAN SLIDE guitar master Debashish Bhattacharya gives a concert, the venue is usually packed with other guitarists. They come to marvel at his musicianship, which combines the highly disciplined virtuosity of Hindustani classical tradition with the adventurous spirit of a world music trailblazer. He has performed and recorded in a variety of contexts — collaborating with guitar greats like John McLaughlin, Derek Trucks, Henry Kaiser, Bob Brozman, Martin Simpson and African kora master Ballake Sissoko. But his newest recording, The Sound of the Soul, is a sublime offering of pure, unadulterated Bhattacharya — a deep dive into the traditions that form the core of his artistry. All based on classical ragas, the album’s four tracks feature Bhattacharya on the chaturangui, a 24-stringed instrument…

TUNE-UPSNEWS + NOTES “Whatever spiritual nature or god there is [out there] did not want us to have this record. Every step of this was a fight for us” AS FAR AS omens go, finding out about a studio flood the weekend before you’re supposed to make your new album seems like a bad one. That’s the unlikely predicament Philadelphia’s Jesus Piece found themselves in ahead of recording their sophomore full-length, …So Unknown, when a burst pipe at Belleville, New Jersey’s The Machine Shop forced producer Randy Leboeuf to frantically clear gear out of his lower-floor control room to avoid some serious water damage. “It was terrible timing,” Jesus Piece guitarist John Distefano recalls of the plumbing disaster. Leboeuf was nevertheless quick on his feet to keep the sessions on-pace,…

SINCE 2005, LITURGY composer Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix (formerly Hunter Hunt-Hendrix) has released six increasingly extreme albums that have mixed the jagged and tattered arrangements of early Swans, John Zorn’s Naked City and Lightning Bolt with the raw ferocity of Norwegian bands such as Darkthrone and Emperor. At the same time, Hunt-Hendrix has imbued her songs with atmospheres and textures that have belied convention and provided nuance to Liturgy’s off-kilter creations. Along with live musicians Mario Miron (guitar), Tia Vincent-Clark (bass) and Leo Didkovsky (drums), Liturgy have created showers of icy and molten noise that have been both beautiful and terrifying. “I think of Liturgy as orchestral music created with the tools of a metal band,” says Hunt-Hendrix, who studied classical composition and music theory in college. “I’m very interested in avant-garde…

PERSONALITIES AT THE START of our interview, Neil Giraldo wants to first talk about Jeff Beck, whom he calls his “top, number one influence,” beginning with the British legend’s time in the Yardbirds. “Early on, I heard the way Jeff attacked the instrument — it was like a compressor,” he says. “It’s not that it was loud, but it was right there, always. There are so many beautiful things about his playing. He started out playing one way, but he evolved into a whole other type of playing. That’s such a special thing to be able to grow like that, and he did it spectacularly. He could play a symphony with one string.” Giraldo never got a chance to meet his idol, but he segues to an amusing anecdote involving…

ACID INCENSE AND FUZZ OVERLOOKED, UNDERRATED, SIDELINED AND DOWNPLAYED SIXTIES GUITAR HEROES PART 6: ZAL YANOVSKY HE TWANGY GRANDEUR of Zal Yanovksy’s big guitar riff on the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice” made it a Top 10 hit in the winter of 1965-’66. The track also caught the ear of Brian Wilson, inspiring him to write the Beach Boys’ classic “God Only Knows.” Another Spoonful hit, “Daydream,” influenced Paul McCartney as he was putting together the Beatles’ “Good Day Sunshine” from their groundbreaking 1966 album, Revolver. In the mid Sixties, the Lovin’ Spoonful were one the most innovative and well-regarded bands around. Yanovsky’s whimsical, wild, wistful and weird guitar work was no small part of the quartet’s popularity. It was the sunshine in the band’s self-described…

IN THE VAST ocean of metal content that lurks within YouTube, Swedish six-stringer Ola Englund (the Haunted, Feared) is a major force, and deservedly so. He’s also a huge Pantera fan — and many of his Dimecentric videos have amassed impressive views. In fact, they’re so good that Zakk Wylde watched some of them when learning parts for the current Pantera celebration tour. “It’s funny to hear that a player I look up to would even bother checking out my stupid videos,” Englund says. “It’s come full circle in a way… Dimebag was my first real guitar hero. I heard the riff for ‘Walk’ when I was 15, and that was it. Best guitar tone and riff I’ve heard! I busted my ass that summer to be able to buy…

GW’s readers have voted Zakk Wylde Most Valuable Player and Zakk and Dimebag Darrell the Best Metal Guitarists for 2002. DIMEBAG DARRELL: I say thanks a million, right out of the chute. And I just want to say that Zakk Wylde is easily the best, most well-rounded player in every category, and he wholeheartedly deserves the Most Valuable Player award, hands down. He’s the hardest-workin’ motherfucker in rock ’n’ roll, period. He does double duty — he does Black Label, he does Ozzy. He’s been nonstop since he showed his face in the first place, and he keeps taking it to a new level. He’s done scared everybody else off, so nobody else is even gonna try, you know? [Laughs] ZAKK WYLDE: The first time I heard Pantera, I thought,…

SOUNDCHECK ON THE SURFACE, Machine Gun Kelly (or MGK) appears much like window dressing as an artist. With rockstar looks and a skyrocketing career from rapper to pop-punk upstart, it’s dismissively easy to surmise his entire musical persona feels a bit cut-and-pasted, which leads you to wonder whether it’s all an act (I mean, he used to wear a vial of Megan Fox’s blood around his neck, which, I guess, proves he’s committed to something or someone). But MGK is a legit musician, and for what it’s worth, he’s one of the few stars who seriously plays guitar and is savvy enough to take a backseat by recruiting fret-burning British guitarist Sophie Lloyd for his tour, who adds a great deal of musical energy to his performances. Despite all this,…

LAST MONTH, WE looked at ways to craft melodies that work well over relative major and minor chords. To review, a relative minor chord is rooted a minor 3rd, or three half steps or frets, below a major chord. As I mentioned, shifting between relative major and minor chords and is a common move in popular music and can be heard in countless songs, such as “Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding, “Yesterday” by the Beatles, “Into the Great Wide Open” by Tom Petty and “The Boys of Summer” by Don Henley. An effective strategy for soloing over an alternating relative major/minor axis is to use similar or identical scales for both chords while targeting chord tones, so as to give the melody direction and purpose. The chord progression…

LAST MONTH, WE began a new series of lessons covering three specific approaches I like to take when soloing, whether within a 12-bar blues, a one-chord funk vamp, a swinging country tune or a jazz standard. We started off exploring the use of chromaticism, which refers to playing notes or chords that are a half step apart. For example, playing the notes C, C#, D, D# and E in order would constitute an ascending chromatic line. Playing E, Eb, D, Db and C would constitute a descending chromatic line. We kicked things off by exploring some ways to add chromatic movement to a rhythm guitar part across a 12-bar blues progression, in order to place one in the mindset of “hearing” the chromatic movement between the chords, with a few…

“MOUTH FOR WAR” Pantera WRITTEN AND RECORDED during the pinnacle of Pantera’s musical powers, this early Nineties groove metal anthem features legendary guitar god Dimebag Darrell laying down pummeling crunch riffs and a characteristically fiery solo, which the goateed axeman performed on his iconic Dean guitar, plugged into a Randall Century 200 solid-state amp rig, set to produce his signature high-gain, mid-scooped tone, with its tight bottom end and long sustain. A s h e r o u t i n e l y did during this era, Dime recorded this song with his guitar tuned approximately midway between E standard and Eb (or D#) standard, slightly closer to the latter. More specifically, 60 cents flat of E and 40 cents sharp of D#. Depending on the capabilities of your…

THE SIMPLE JOYS of life don’t get much simpler than the Gibson Les Paul Junior. Featuring a solitary P90 single-coil pickup, volume and tone controls and a 22-fret neck, the humble Junior is about as basic as it gets, but at the end of the day it provides everything a player needs. Featuring a body made from a flat slab of mahogany, a hefty (at least on most Fifties models) set-in neck also crafted from mahogany and a rosewood fingerboard, it didn’t skimp on tone woods or craftsmanship, and as a result the Junior delivers big time when it comes to tone. Although the Les Paul Junior was initially marketed as a low-cost student model, it still was a pro-quality instrument through and through. I’m positive it was Gibson president…