Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2024 i Guitar World

A FEW YEARS ago, I wrote a GW feature about George Harrison’s best guitar work after the Beatles. It contained this sentence: “Let’s face it, regardless of how great they might be, albums by individual members of iconic bands — from the Stones to the Beatles to Led Zeppelin to the Who — rarely, if ever, attain the same mythic status as the music released by the bands themselves.” Obviously, I could’ve added Pink Floyd to that list. Because, no matter what, “Comfortably Numb” will always remind you of your first kiss in 1979 — or the great time you had in the summer of 1980 — or just your childhood in general, or your teenage years, or high school or college — or just plain old innocence and happiness…

WHEN COCTEAU TWINS released their debut album, Garlands, in 1982, their unique sonic signature immediately marked out guitarist Robin Guthrie as a new kind of guitar hero — a player who seemed to have traded traditional, blues-based pentatonic riffing and soloing for minimalist soundscapes. As a result, their music was simultaneously spacey and spatial; Guthrie created vast canyons of delay-drenched arpeggios that provided the backdrop for Elizabeth Fraser’s singular vocal stylings. When Cocteau Twins split in 1997, Guthrie went on to release a series of solo and collaborative albums, including a number of collaborations with composer Harold Budd. One of them — 1986’s The Moon and the Melodies, which was credited to Budd, Fraser, Guthrie and Cocteaus bassist Simon Raymonde (making it the first meeting of the minds between the…

WITH THE ALLMANS Brothers and Sisters (1973) Fly Like an Eagle (1976) WITH STEVE MILLER I’M A LEGEND nobody knows,” says guitarist Les Dudek. “Through my career, it’s like I’ve always been right on the edge of being known and unknown.” Dudek’s frank assessment is pretty spot-on. During much of the Seventies, the Florida-raised guitarist always seemed this close to stardom. There were tours and record dates with Boz Scaggs and Steve Miller, among others, and at one point Dudek found himself in the studio with the Allman Brothers Band. He played co-lead guitar on the smash single “Ramblin’ Man,” and with Dickey Betts he helped co-write “Jessica” (a song he played acoustic guitar on). In the 1980s, Dudek performed with his then-girlfriend Cher in a rock/new wave band called Black…

IT WAS 25 years ago that Slipknot dropped their self-titled debut album on Roadrunner Records. And if the idea of a band made up of nine masked men in red jumpsuits playing a highly combustible and chaotic strain of heavy metal — one that mashed together everything from thrash and death, to punk and hardcore, to hip-hop and sampled sounds, all of it laced with a healthy dose of atmospheric weirdness and straight-up ear-bleeding noise — would not only still be around a quarter-century later, but also be a multi-platinum, arena-dwelling, festival-headlining behemoth sounded, well, crazy? You wouldn’t be the only one to think so. “Not a fucking chance,” says guitarist Mick Thomson when asked if he thought major success was in the cards for the band. “We were just…

WHEN DAVID GILMOUR touches a Strat, the result is pure cinema. His distinct touch, both in and out of Pink Floyd, has spawned a shorthand for the soulfully psychedelic — from the four-note phaser motif that echoes into infinity on “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” to the arena-rumbling blues bends of “Comfortably Numb.” But he’s never been a “guitar god” in the virtuoso sense — he’s an expert in atmosphere and dynamics, disinterested in showboat-y shredding and sophisticated scales for the sake of them. (“Well, I can’t really play fast, per se,” he told Guitar World in 1988. “Not like so many players today. I don’t have a very disciplined approach to practicing or anything… Generally, I’m not too ambitious about that sort of thing.”) During a solo, he can…

IT’S BEEN NEARLY a decade since Yamaha released the Revstar series, and now it appears these guitars are becoming even more prevalent in the hands of today’s most influential players. From the jaw-dropping virtuosity of Matteo Mancuso to the expressive blues stylings of Chris Buck, it’s undeniable how impactful the Revstar line has become in the capable hands of a new generation of guitarists. And how could it not be? Revstar guitars combine the most elegant contours, familiar ergonomics and warmer tones of Fifties-era Les Pauls and Yamaha’s own SG/SBG series of guitars in a triumphant new design that takes its styling cues from Japanese and British café racer motorcycles. While I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing the Standard and Professional versions of the Revstar, this time I received the…

LAST YEAR’S EHX Lizard Queen pedal — a collaboration between Electro-Harmonix and Josh Scott of JHS Pedals — was sort of a mashed-up combo of old DIY circuits with its own unique character. As the pedal caught on with adventurous bass players, EHX decided to further enhance the effect for low end specialists, and the result is the new Lizard King Octave Distortion. Delivering massive tones that obliterate like Godzilla’s ten-ton balls bouncing the bullet train to oblivion, the Lizard King is certain to please the most aggressive, distortion-loving bassists. However, guitarists are equally well served by its truly distinctive tones that hit many ideal sweet spots. Whereas most octave-up fuzz effects for guitarists sound like squealing mosquitoes in a bottle, the Lizard King produces a gut-punching effect that is…

LAST MONTH, I presented a country/blues-type fingerpicked rhythm part that’s played within the context of a 12-bars blues form in the key of A. This month, I’d like to offer a country/jazz-inspired solo played over this rhythm part, shown here in FIGURE 1. The solo is played almost entirely in a rhythm of 16th notes that are played with what’s known as a “swing 16ths feel.” This means there’s an implied undercurrent of 16th-note triplets on each beat, for which each pair of 16th notes is played in a slightly lopsided way, as if they were the first and third notes of a 16th-note triplet — trip a let. Think “long short, long short.” I also play a few actual 16th-note triplets here and there to reinforce the groove and…

“LUX ÆTERNA” Metallica THIS NEW, CLASSIC-thrash-style track by Metallica finds the band in top form, featuring aggressive, tightly executed 16th-note-driven riffs, high, powerful vocals from James Hetfield and a characteristically blistering and melodic guitar solo from Kirk Hammett. The song’s fast tempo pretty much necessitates the use of alternate (down-up-down-up) picking for the picked 16th-note rhythms, many of which are palm muted (P.M.) When performing the descending power chord slides in bar 1 and elsewhere, you needn’t squeeze the strings any harder than necessary to fret the notes cleanly. Although this may seem counterintuitive for such a punchy-sounding riff, use a light fret-hand touch here. Doing so will minimize unwanted friction, thus making the slides easier to do. The staccato (short, detached) power chord hits in bars 2 and 70…

IAN MOORE IS an extraordinary guitarist, singer and songwriter who was born in California but moved to Texas as a child. His talent was incubated in the clubs of Austin, where he heard Albert Collins, Freddie King, Albert King, Buddy Guy and many others. His music is visceral and spiritual, meditative and rousing, deeply personal and universal. It is Eastern and Western, yin and yang. And he bestows it with love, grace and an open heart. Moore graciously let us in on some of the tools he utilizes to create that music. We asked him a whole jumble of questions, and he free-formed his response. Can you define the sounds you’re looking for and how your amps have evolved to help you translate what’s in your head? Have you found…

DAVE RUSAN HAD never actually built a guitar before when he found out he’d be making one for a local legend who went by the name of Prince. The year was 1983 and the funk/soul icon was already well-known to the staff of Knut Koupeé Music in Uptown, Minneapolis, on one occasion speaking with the owner about a custom order for his upcoming Purple Rain movie. The request was passed down to shop tech and repairman Rusan who, despite the mammoth task ahead of him, took on the project and would soon end up crafting several of the major label superstar’s most recognizable and storied six-strings. One of them, Cloud 3 — finished in a lemony yellow, fitted with active EMG pickups and Love Symbol position markers — made headlines…

HIS FIRST WITH THE MOODIES Days of Future Passed (1967) Spirits of the Western Sky (2013) HIS LATEST IN 1966, THE Moody Blues were about to go down in flames. A year earlier, the London-based rhythm and blues group consisting of singer-guitarist Denny Laine, keyboardist Mike Pinder, bassist Clint Warwick, multi-instrumentalist Ray Thomas and drummer Graeme Edge had scored an international smash with their sumptuous version of “Go Now” (a 1964 hit by singer Bessie Banks), and they served as the support act on the Beatles’ last British tour. Repeating that success proved difficult, however, and after follow-up singles stiffed, Laine and Warwick quit, and the Moodies seemed rudderless. “WHEN I TOOK ‘NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN’ INTO THE REHEARSAL ROOM, I PLAYED IT TO THE OTHER GUYS, AND THEY WERE PRETTY…

“HAVING ANY WEIGHT OF EXPECTATION OF WHAT’S GONE BEFORE CLOUDING THE VISION OF YOUR COLLABORATORS IS SOMETHING YOU WANT TO AVOID” OVER THE HALF-CENTURY we’ve had the pleasure of his company, David Gilmour has never been one for hype or hot air. While other rock stars deliver each new album alongside chest-beating proclamations of its greatness, the former Pink Floyd legend has always let his exquisite phrasing do the talking (a marketing non-strategy that has nonetheless gifted him career album sales north of 250 million). Given his reticence for the hard sell, the opinion that Gilmour voices in the making-of video for new solo record Luck and Strange is liable to stop you in your tracks. “This is the best work I’ve done, and the best album I’ve made,” considers the…

COVER STORY DAVID GILNOUR LIKE A LUMP of Play-Doh, the archetypal session guitarist is malleable, able to stretch his or her style to accommodate any playing situation. David Gilmour is, for good reason, not a hired gun by trade — sure, that’s one perk of being a world-famous rock star, but it’s also due to his sonic thumbprint. You get this dude because you want that David Gilmour touch (and, let’s be honest, you’re also comfortable being overshadowed on your own track). When he wasn’t conquering planet Earth with Pink Floyd or working on his own music, Gilmour did rack up an impressive amount of session credits — everyone from enormous pop stars (Paul McCartney, pictured above with Gilmour in the mid Seventies) to art rock legends (Robert Wyatt) to…

I STARTED OUT primarily as a bluegrass mandolin player, an endeavor for which Olympian levels of flatpicking are often required to perform the melodies and solos you will hear from great mandolin players like Sam Bush, Bill Monroe and David Grisman. When I switched to guitar, I worked hard to keep my alternate/flatpicking technique up to speed, and I also started using hybrid-picking techniques associated with country guitar while also incorporating various “rock” articulations, such as hammer-ons and pull-offs, and also using double-stops (two-note chords) and finger vibratos. I find that doing this enables me to expand my musical vocabulary and “speak” on the instrument in a variety of appealing ways. In the previous two columns, I offered examples of ways to bolster your flatpicking technique via the relentless alternate…

HELLO, AND WELCOME to my new column for Guitar World! Over the course of these lessons, I'll discuss everything from my pick- and fret-hand techniques to my approaches to rhythm guitar and soloing, as well as some of my biggest influences. The first thing I’d like to address is that I’m exclusively a fingerstyle player, and in my case it stems from the fact that I’m left-handed. Everything I do in life is left-handed, except for guitar playing. I think this is part of the reason why using a plectrum never felt comfortable in my right hand. I realized early on that I needed to come up with my own way to play, and fingerpicking felt like the most natural approach. I use my thumb for downstrokes and my first…

IT IS NO overstatement to describe the Martin dreadnought as the definitive acoustic steel-string guitar. A Martin dreadnought is probably the image that instantly appears in one’s mind whenever the words “acoustic guitar” are spoken. The company’s D-18 and D-28 models have remained best-selling standards since their introduction in the mid Thirties, and the familiar square-shouldered Martin dreadnought body is quite possibly the most copied design in the history of the guitar industry. It’s probably impossible to measure and prove, but it’s highly likely that the Martin dreadnought could be the most recorded guitar in history. Interestingly, Martin’s first dreadnought models weren’t Martin guitars at all but rather instruments they built for the Oliver Ditson Company starting in 1916. These large-body Ditsons weren’t exactly a rip-roaring success — only a…

READER ART OF THE MONTH If you’ve created a drawing, painting or sketch of your favorite guitarist and would like to see it in an upcoming issue of Guitar World, email GWSoundingBoard@futurenet.com with a .jpg or screenshot of the image. And (obviously...), please remember to include your name! DEFENDERS of the Faith Dave Byers AGE: 59 HOMETOWN: East Liverpool, OH GUITARS: Fender American Ultra Strat, ’52 Hot Rod Telecaster, 1959 reissue Les Paul goldtop, Guild D-55 SONGS I’VE BEEN PLAYING: Covers as a solo, duo and trio and with a Fleetwood Mac tribute band — plus the originals I’ve written since 1979 GEAR I WANT MOST: A time machine Emmett Braun AGE: 13 HOMETOWN: Edmonton, AB GUITARS: Jackson JS Series Dinky Arch Top JS22-7 DKA HT, Epiphone Les Paul Power Players,…

MIKE CAMPBELL WAS Tom Petty’s right-hand man throughout his career. They started playing together as teenagers in Mudcrutch, moved to Los Angeles together and honed their music together, along with keyboardist Benmont Tench, the other band member who was there from Petty’s beginning. Campbell wasn’t only the Heartbreakers’ lead guitarist; he was the only band member Petty regularly co-wrote with, and that includes landmark songs like “Refugee,” “Here Comes My Girl” and “Running Down a Dream.” Campbell also co-produced many of the band’s albums and did some landmark work with others. He wrote and played on Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” and Stevie Nicks’ “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” and worked with a range of other artists, from Bob Dylan to Aretha Franklin. When Petty died in 2017, Campbell…

THE ACOUSTIC GUITAR and electric guitar may share the same DNA, but they couldn’t be more different. It’s like how my older brother has a short, stocky build and red, wavy hair while I’m tall and somewhat slim (okay, that’s debatable) and have straight blonde hair. However, many guitarists who own acoustic-electrics make the mistake of plugging their guitars into amps designed for electric guitars and then wonder why the sound is so artificial and disappointing. Because the pickups, acoustic properties and frequency ranges of acoustics are dramatically different than those of an electric, acoustic-electrics really need their own specialized amps to optimize the sound in ways that an electric guitar amp and even a standard PA system can’t match. Acoustic guitar amps have become increasingly prevalent over the years,…

IN A UNIVERSE filled with constellations of stompboxes, the one where Interstellar Audio Machines resides continually shows signs of life. You may have already encountered Interstellar Audio Machines’ unmistakable pedals online and in social media feeds if your search history consists of words like “Klon” and “fuzz.” Each pedal is painted with eye-popping sci-fi artwork and an accompanying thematic backstory involving an interplanetary extraterrestrial that ties into the pedal’s name. One pedal in particular — the Octonaut Hyperdrive — has become one of the most talked about or, if you will, “hyped” stomp-boxes out there because of its reputation as one of the more noteworthy “Klone” overdrives. You don’t have to take my word for it, because all-stars like Phil X, Jimmy Herring, Derek Trucks and Richard Fortus have sung…

LAST MONTH, WE discussed 1960s-era Eric Clapton, focusing on his work with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers and Cream, and his predilection for relying on Gibson guitars during that time. As of 1970, Clapton had turned to the Fender Stratocaster as his primary ax of choice. His #1 Strat was a 1956 two-tone sunburst with a maple neck. This now legendary instrument earned the nickname “Brownie.” In 1971, Eric’s main axe became a “parts” guitar, with a black body that he bought at Sho-Bud’s Music in Nashville, which carried the moniker “Blackie.” He has continued to favor Stratocasters ever since, so we’re talking 54 years that Eric has been primarily a Strat player. Eric almost exclusively set that guitar’s three-way blade toggle switch wedged in between the bridge and middle…