Publication - Gearphoria

Transcription

RICH ROBINSON
PEDALS FOR CHARITY
Ex-Black Crowes guitarist talks
The Ceaseless Sight
L I S T E N
SHOP TOURS:
Collings Guitars and
Mojo Hand FX
Circuits to Cure Cancer raises
money for St. Jude’s
W I T H
Y O U R
REB BEACH
GREG EDWARDS
Failure guitarist talks reunion,
new music and gear
SUMMER 2014
Vol. 2, Number 4
E Y E S
Winger guitarist talks about
new album, his sound
GUITARS GALORE
The Dallas International Guitar
Festival swings into gear
GEAR REVIEWS
Category 5 Vera, BTMB Maggie
and more!
WHICH
pedaltrain
ARE
YOU ?
+
SHOW US ON TWITTER INSTAGRAM
# mypedaltrain
@ PEDALTRAIN
| PEDALTRAIN.COM
pedaltrain
Tools for
tone.
Our garage
is open
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Pickups, parts & accessories
@ the new emgpickups.com
Simble guitar pedals made by Mad Professor Amplification www.mpamp.com
Blake Wright
Publisher/Editor-In-Chief
Contributing Editors
Holly Wright
Special Contributors
Alison Richter
Adam Grimm
Bart Provoost
Creative
Seatonism - Josh Seaton
Cartoonist
Rytis Daukantas
Design consulting
Robert Macli
Contact Gearphoria - [email protected]
Advertising inquiries - [email protected]
Ad specs and rates available upon request.
www.gearphoria.com
Gearphoria is a free digital magazine
published quarterly by WrightSide Media,
Houston, TX.
Mailing Address:
WrightSide Media
ATTN: Gearphoria
PO Box 840035
Houston, TX 77284
ON THE COVER: Chalkboard, Texas
Concept by Blake Wright & Justice Fee
Art by Justice Fee
GEARPHORIA is the property of WrightSide Media. All rights reserved. Copyright 2014. No content of this digital publication can
be republished without the express consent of WrightSide Media.
In this issue of
GREETINGS gear faithful... and welcome
to the summer of 2014! It’s going to be
a hot one, and I’m not saying that just
because I’m in Texas. In this issue of
Gearphoria, we’ve gone a little Texas
crazy with shop tours starting with the
one of the state’s leading guitar brands in
Austin’s Collings Guitars.
We got the red carpet treatment from
Alex, Bill and the rest of the crew via a
private tour of the ever-growing Collings
complex. We talked at length about wood,
acoustics, electrics, cases... and hot rods!
From Austin, we wound up in East
Texas and within the walls of Mojo Hand
FX world headquarters. We spoke with
top man Brad Fee about the early days of
the business and a pair of new pedals he
has in the production pipeline.
On the artist front, Rich Robinson
(Black Crowes) filled us in on his new
album and life following the loss of
almost all of his gear in the floods following 2012’s Hurricane Sandy. Failure’s
Greg Edwards (born in Houston, TX...
by the way) gives us a preview of the
band’s 2014 headlining tour and what it
was like to re-team with his bandmates
Ken and Kellii after a 17-year absence.
Finally, Winger axe-slinger Reb Beach
spoke with our Alison Richter about the
band’s new album and his ‘sound’.
Other features this time out include a
trip to north Texas for the latest installment of the Dallas International Guitar
Festival, while our effects guru Bart
Provoost shows off a collection of the
earliest effects pedals from UMI.
In reviews, we take a look at the new
35-watt version of Category 5’s Vera
combo amp as well as pedals from Big
Tone Music Brewery and TC Electronics.
Luke Johnson takes us to the Tool concert
in Houston, while we take a closer look
at new records from Big Wreck, Oz Noy
Trio and Glenn Hughes’ new band California Breed.
This issue brings to a close our second
year here at Gearphoria... and changes
are a-comin’. Volume 3, Number 1 will
still be published in early September,
but it will have a fresh, new look as well
as be the first on our new bi-monthly
schedule. You heard right! There will now
be six issues of Gearphoria per year. I
guess I’d better stop typing and get busy.
I have a lot of work ahead of me.
To think, not 30 months ago the plan
was to close my little effects website
down and walk away. Life’s funny, ain’t it?
Thank you for being a part of the Gearphoria story so far... and I hope you’ll
come along as we write the next chapter.
Blake Wright
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, Gearphoria
Tube Converte rs
Convert your 6L6
or EL34 amp
to a Class-A
amp using
EL84s.
YellowJacketsTC.com
GEARPHORIA.COM SUMMER 2014
9
4
Contents
THERE’S CUSTOM... THEN THERE’S COLLINGS
Bill Collings has made guitars for four decades. He weathered many a storm, including the most
recent economic tussle of 2008 and has come out of each stronger than before. Gearphoria visited
the Collings shop recently to find the company back in growth mode...
Pg. 24
DEPARTMENTS
O
60-CYCLE HUM
12
POINT-TO-POINT
18
THE WAYBACK MACHINE
20
GRIMM’S REALITY
22
ALBUM REVIEWS
60
w/ Bart Provoost
w/ Adam Grimm
WHAT’S THAT DUDE PLAY?
Eagulls
45
GEAR Q
Category 5 Amps Vera
Big Tone Music Brewery
Maggie
TC Electronic Ditto X2
54
56
58
INTERVIEW: RICH ROBINSON
Former Black Crowes guitarist talks
about making his new record and losing
a ton of gear
32
PROFILE: MOJO HAND FX
We journey to Kirbyville, TX to talk
beginnings with the Mojo Hand crew
36
INTERVIEW: GREG EDWARDS
Failure is back... almost two decades
after they broke-up. We spoke with
guitarist/bassist Greg Edwards about
the reunion
40
WRAP-UP: DIGF 2014
A venue change gummed up logistics,
but the show was still guitar heaven
46
INTERVIEW: REB BEACH
Winger guitarist tells us about his
relationship with Kip and the new album
50
PHOTO: MATT MENDENHALL
FEATURES D
Circuits to Cure Cancer
raises around $31k
Timing snafu, big hearts benefit St. Jude’s in
second annual charity auction
THE SECOND annual Circuits to Cure Cancer auction brought
in about $31,000 to be donated to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. The auction consisted of effect pedals, guitar
straps and other gear goodies donated by builders, retailers and
others with 100% of the proceeds going to the hospital.
The 2014 effort consisted of over 50 pedal companies and 120
effects pedals - more than double the total from the 2013 auction.
The effort, spearheaded by Blakemore Effects’ top man Blake
Hickey, experienced a bit of a hiccup during its first ten day
run on Reverb.com when the listings ended a bit prematurely.
However, a group of winning bidders offered to let the organizers re-list their winnings in an effort to raise more money.
The auction’s run looks to have generated about $26,000
in revenues. Reverb then stepped up to donate an additional
$5,000, bringing the total around $31,000. Official tallies had
yet to surface prior to Gearphoria going to press.
“I’m just really pleased with how the entire event went,” said
Hickey. “There are no words!”
Top items in the auction included a pair of Fulltone Tube Tape
Echo machines, which went for $1,100 and $960, an Analogman King of Tone that went for $620 and a pair of Dr. Scientist
pedals that closed over $400 each.
In 2013, the group raised around $16,000 for St. Jude’s. While
there is no official word, the effort will likely return in 2015.
12
Amp Show comes to Texas
Fewer vendors, attendees don’t stop the rock
THE RECENT Dallas Amp Show was a
cozy affair both by demeanor and representation. Several of the manufacturers on
the preliminary exhibitors list ultimately
decided against setting up at the Embassy
Suites near Love Field, leaving only about
a dozen or so to for attendees to explore.
Even with the smaller footprint, quality
was not hard to come by. Regional builders like Category 5, Red Iron, Dynamo
and Longhorn had plenty of amps to
get excited about, including the latter’s
El Diablo - a 6L6-fueled Dumble-styled
fire-breather. Two other regional brands
showing for the first time anywhere were
Roach Amps and Square Amps.
Amp builder Austin Roach brought his
Sweet Elissa head/cab and combo tone
generators. The sexy, curve-fronted amps
were both long on looks and tweakability. The Sweet Elissa is a two-channel,
45-watt amp sporting a pair of 6550
power tubes, voltage (Loudness) controls
and a series of boost switches that can
dial up the gain.
Artisan builder Matt Richards of Square
Amps showed off his vintage radio
inspired builds. He builds Champ-styled
guitar amplifiers into the housings of old
radios and the results are both striking
and affordable.
Other notables at the show included
PRS, with guitarists David Grissom and
Lance Lopez in tow, Hovercraft Amps of
Portland, Oregon, Celestion with their
new American-voiced A-Type driver, and
Satellite Amps and their array of plugand-play scorchers.
It remains unclear if Loni Specter will
bring another show to Texas after lessthan-stellar results in both Austin a few
years back, and now Dallas.
AMP SHOW WHISPERS: There is something pretty cool happening with this
Hovercraft Amp. Unfortunately, under pain of death, that’s all we can tell you for
now. As for the Archon, PRS’ new high-gainer... wouldn’t a 25-watt combo of this
beauty be cool? Yeah... PRS thinks so too.
13
NEWS u
Neo Instruments ships Mk II of popular rotating speaker sim
Ventilator II ships in June
FULDA, Germany-based Neo Instruments is
set to begin shipping a revised version of its
popular Leslie rotating speaker simulation
pedal. The new Ventilator II is a second-generation stompbox that goes after the famed
Leslie Model 122 speaker sound.
Housed in a rugged metal chassis
measuring 6”x 5.25”x 2.25”, the Ventilator II boasts a smaller, pedalboard-friendly
footprint than its predecessor. Three knob
controls allow adjustment of rotor Speed
Control (slow to fast), Balance, and Drive.
Additional knobs control a unique
virtual mic placement feature - one for
the low bass rotor and one for the high
rotary horn - that simulates close to
distant microphone positions for each
‘driver’. Three footswitches provide Bypass, Speed Control, and Stop.
The Ventilator II is distributed in North
America by Gand Distributing of Northfield, Illinois, and is expected to carry an
MSRP of $499.
14
Moog updates the theremin
The new Theremini aims to marry old school feel
with today’s technology
MOOG Music is now shipping its updated take on the vintage
theremin - a quirky, no-hands electronic instrument used by
the likes of Jimmy Page and Joe Bonamassa to bend and warp
guitar notes and chords.
The new Theremini sports a sound engine that captures the
full, sonic vocabulary of Moog synthesizers and effects, allowing for a wide range of styles and tones.
The front panel features a multi function LCD screen, which
displays a chromatic tuner with real-time feedback of each note
as it is played - a useful tool for correcting a player’s position
and pitch for each note. The Theremini also features a portable
design with tabletop feet, bottom nesting pitch antenna, and a
built-in speaker for quick setup and rehearsal anywhere.
“Learning to play a traditional Theremin is extremely difficult
because there’s no tactile feedback, so you have to rely completely on your ears,” said Moog Music chief executive Mike
Adams. “The theremini has built-in tools that not only help
users learn to play, but also teach pitch recognition and scales.
Now anyone can play immediately.”
The Theremini is priced at $319.
EHX teases organ sim pedal
THE CREW at Electro-Harmonix is continuing the roll they have
been on since unleashing a rash of new pedals post-Winter
NAMM 2014 with a tease of yet another future release.
According to a post on the company’s web blog, this is the B9
Organ Machine. We’re short on details, but the name suggests
it might cover similar ground to pedals like the EarthQuaker
Devices Organizer. The blog post says if you dig The Doors Ray
Manzarek’s combo organ tone on ‘Light My Fire’ or the tonewheel organ tone of Booker T cooking up some ‘Green Onions’
with the M.G.s, you will like the B9. Stay tuned!
MIKE LULL has debuted his take on a classic tele body. Dubbed
the TX Chubby, Lull took the basic tele shape in mahogany, hollowed it out, added thickness to the overall shape and a maple
top for a unique feel and sound. The center section is solid, which
leads to options galore from humbuckers to P90s to Bigsby tremolo. The company calls the guitar light, as well as resonant and
warm, lending itself to styles from jazz to rockabilly and beyond.
15
KICKSTARTED
bnd / one : the world’s most portable guitar stand.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bnd/bnd-one-the-worlds-most-portableguitar-stand
BRANDS ON THE RISE
Guitar Pedals from Sublime Guitar Company: First Production
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/683775433/guitar-pedals-from-sublimeguitar-company-first-pr
Blakemore Effects
Portland, OR
Not only has Blake Hickey been the point man
for the Circuits To Cure Cancer fundraiser the
past two years, his pedal company has a new
stomp on the way... the Motor City Fuzz.
Creation Pedalboards
Asheboro, NC
One of the latest in the new breed of custom
pedalboard builders, Creation does some
eye-popping work that has a lot of pedal freaks
itching for a real estate upgrade.
Neo Instruments
Fulda, Germany
The rotating speaker sim specialists at Neo
Instruments have released the Ventilator II - the
successor to what many regard as the best Leslie
sim pedal on the planet (see story left).
Stone Deaf FX
Manchester, UK
The company that brought you the PDF-1 overdrive returns with two new offerings - the Fig
Fumb fuzz and Trashy Blonde distortion.
Ghost Effects Lunar Incantation Fuzz Pedal
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1834452670/ghost-effects-lunar-incantation-fuzz-pedal
Artist Series Guitar - Custom Guitars Designed by You
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/580938928/artist-series-guitar-customguitars-designed-by-yo
G.A.F. about D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1607754330/gaf-about-dilligaf
Help VFE Pedals launch a new, interactive custom shop service!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-vfe-pedals-launch-a-new-interactive-custom-shop-service
(SUCCESSFUL)
NEW PEDALS
WEEKS 20 and 21 of 2014
British Pedal Company Players Series The Zonk Machine
British Pedal Company Players Series Tone Bender Mark III
Electro-Harmonix Nano Bass Big Muff Pi
Electro-Harmonix XO Deluxe Big Muff Pi
Heavy Lid Effects Memphis Overdrive
TC Electronic Mini Corona - Mini Chorus
TC Electronic Mini Flashback - Mini Delay
TC Electronic Mini Shaker - Mini Vibrato
TC Electronic Mini Vortex - Mini Flanger
Wampler Pedals Latitude - Tremolo Deluxe
Allsound SCR-2 Stereo Chorus
Blackout Effectors Special Twosome Deluxe
SOURCE: effectsdatabase.com
MU-FX/Beigel Sound Lab
Encinitas, CA
Mike Beigel is bringing the old gang back to
tempt and entice a new generation of filter
fanatics. If you haven’t heard his Tru-Tron 3X yet,
what are you waiting for?
16
‘The dark areas...’
The knock-on effect of the Taylor McGrath Guitars hullabaloo is a bigger problem
WE’VE SEEN it a lot. Upstart gear builders, some with not much more than a
soldering iron and a dream, start soliciting the interwebs for orders on their
‘new’ guitar, amp or pedal that is sure to
revolutionize all of MI... or at the very
least, the would-be customer’s playing.
But somewhere in the murk between
the initial enthusiasm over having a hot
product and the widening grin once
real money starts rolling in, something
sinister lurks. A spark of an idea that, for
some, can grow into a raging inferno of
invincibility and greed. It is a temptation
the internet provides much too easily.
The right mix of upfront web marketing
can secure a handsome payday... while
18
the benefits of selective anonymity can
tempt a less-than-wholesome soul to a
quick bolt, slipping out of the world of
1s and 0s and into a getaway car headed
for Mexico.
Now, these cases are few and far
between, but they are out there and
fairly well documented in gear circles.
While the recent case against Californiavia-Australia’s Taylor McGrath Guitars
(TMG) doesn’t appear to be a brazened
smash-and-grab scenario, it has some of
the some effects. I don’t know Antonio
Taylor personally. Never met him. But his
background has its ‘dark areas’... referred
to in the company’s recent video interview attempting to clear the air... and
while he appears as if he will be trying
to make good on the ills brought on by
TMG, not many are ready to take that as
a guarantee. While an awful thing to go
through as a customer out the cash due
to an outstanding, undelivered order, the
whole debacle carries a more damaging
flip side.
Not 24 hours after the TMG stuff broke
on the now epic, multi-part Gear Page
thread, I had other boutique builders
e-mailing and messaging about how they
have to explain to others, their clients,
how they are legit, how they are good
to deliver on all of their pre-orders, how
they, basically, are not TMG. Given
that TMG is no fly-by-night operation
- they’re established, they’ve been to
NAMM, they’ve delivered product, received pro endorsements, etc... - makes
it that much worse. Boutique gear connoisseurs and others with high-end gear
fetishes will start asking themselves just
who is trustworthy out there? If this supposed established brand can pull this, is
there any safe bet?
It’s a natural question... and a frightening one. It can give pause to anyone before they click the ‘Proceed to checkout’
button on a small builder’s web store.
It can prompt them to rethink, or even
worse, abandoned the purchase. For the
smallest builders just starting out... with
a great product and a growing fan base...
it’s a black eye they don’t deserve.
TMG and others who have slid down
this slippery slope need to keep in mind
that the guitar-centric boutique MI business, while growing, is still fairly small.
Missteps will not only impact your ability
to generate business, it can hurt your fellow builder as well... and while that might
INTERVIEW: TMG posted an interview with Antonio Taylor (right), co-founder
of the guitar company, to answer allegations of wrong-doing and questionable
business practices.
not sound like such a bad thing (they’re
the competition after all) on the surface,
the consumer base - a small group too -
has a long memory, and if you turn them
off to boutique builds today and in the
future, everyone suffers. Everyone. G
19
with BART PROVOOST
The earliest days
Late ‘60 treasures from one of the first pedal manufacturers... UMI
IT’S ANOTHER eye candy edition for
Gearphoria's Wayback Machine. This
time I'd like to show you some pictures
of pedals made by UMI (United Musical Instruments).
The company was founded in 1967
by high school student Richard Soloway
20
who later also founded (and still heads)
NAPCO Security Systems.
First, he made amps for Gracin's
Music in Freeport, New York, but after
meeting musicians (including Jimi
Hendrix) he also started making pedals. Here you can see three of them,
all owned by French collector Rafmax:
the Buzz Tone & Volume Expander, the
Treble-Bass Booster & Mute and the Wa
Pedal. Besides these, UMI also made a
Tone Booster which also exists with different brand names, but I didn't find out
who manufactured them. G
PHOTOS COURTESY OF RAFMAX
21
AMP TALK u
GRIMM’S
REALITY
with Adam Grimm
The White mystery
A tribute? A learning tool? Just what was this odd-ball Fender build?
ONE OF MY all time favorite Fender
amplifiers is the White Model 80, also
known as the White Higher Fidelity. The
main appeal, beyond sounding great, is
that there is quite a bit of mystery and
mystique surrounding these amplifiers,
and their lap steel counterparts.
Forest White was the production manager at Fender back in the 1950s. He was
the guy that made everything happen.
As the story goes, Leo Fender decided to
make the White line as a surprise and a
tribute to his friend. Forest did not know
anything about the project until he was
handed an amplifier as it came off the
production line.
There is a picture of Forest’s amplifier
floating around. His had serial number
AS0001. People have assumed that this
was the first White amplifier ever produced. While I am sure it is a very early
one, I have seen at least two with an earlier
style serial number, and earlier date code. Inside of each White amplifier, there
was a schematic. It was almost identical to the Fender schematics of the day,
except it said White Amplifier company,
instead of Fender. The schematic is very
close to the 5F2A Princeton schematic of
the same time period. This schematic was well and good, except
that the amplifiers didn't always follow the
schematic. So far, at least four different variations on the circuit have been discovered.
They aren't major changes, but it is enough
22
to alter the feel of the amplifier slightly. During this time period, Fender was
using transformers from a number of
manufacturers. Supposedly, Leo would
use whatever was cheapest that fit what he
needed. Schumacher, Triad, and New York
Transformers (NYT) were the three more
commonly used transformers. They could
be mixed and matched in any variation.
You could have a Triad power with a NYT
output transformer. Voltages have been
clocked anywhere from a low of 320v to
480v on the B+. That is a huge difference. Speakers were usually the same as
what was available in Princeton and
Champs of the same time period. Most
often was an Oxford 8-inch alnico speaker. These all had orange-colored Los
Angeles tax stickers on them. Occasionally, a Jensen P8T would be used. There
doesn't seem to be much of a rhyme or
reason to which would be used. The cabinetry was standard Fender, but
the covering was most definitely not. The
covering of a White Higher Fidelity is a
thin, paper material. I believe this lends
itself to a livelier cabinet, compared to
the the thick blanket like covering of
tweed. There were a few slightly different
patterns to the covering, but all had a
similar coloring to them. The White's
used similar grill cloth to Fender, but in
a dark royal blue coloring. Blue leather
handles finished out the look.
To add an extra element to the confusion of the White amplifier saga, no one
knows if they were ever actually sold. As
far as I know, there were over 750 of the
amplifiers made. I have seen date codes
between 1955 and 1960. They might
have gone into 1961. There is no printed information that
has ever shown up. No catalogs. No
price sheets. No signs. No banners. No
displays or advertisements. The more
common theory is that these amps were
used in schools, or simply for teachers. I
don't know if we will ever know. G
Adam Grimm is the owner and founder of
Satellite Amplifiers. The Southern California-based amp shop specializes in high-quality, no-nonsense tone machines. Grimm also
is an avid amplifier collector with over 100
amps of various shapes and sizes to his name.
Check out Satellite’s range here... www.satelliteamps.com.
23
MADE
TO
ORDER
Behind the scenes at one of the largest boutique guitar
manufacturers in Texas... Collings Guitars
WE ROLLED into the Collings Guitars complex west of Austin, Texas, on Highway 290 the morning of ‘Salsa Day’. It was the day
when employees would bring in their own secret recipe salsa for judging by their peers and company management and, we suppose, ultimately reign as the guitar maker’s Salsa Champion, at least for 2014. Regrettably, we were not asked to judge.
Collings’ campus is made up of unmarked white buildings on a pretty good sized piece of land blanketed with wild grasses
and dotted with oak trees. Walking in the main entrance, we were greeted with a well-appointed reception area with a meeting
room off to the left.
That room’s hand-built, solid wood conference table is representative of everything Collings stands for - the best quality materials, uncompromised craftsmanship and a meticulous attention to detail. The buzz in the building is strong - a positive sign for
the veteran luthier who, like many, is still trying to shake off the last, lingering effects of the 2008 recession.
“Everything is doing ok,” says founder Bill Collings regarding the current state of play. “We have good people. We have a great
place to work. It is better now than it’s been in the past five years, I’ll tell you that. 2008... that was tough. It killed people. It
wouldn’t have killed us if it didn’t kill all of the dealers. There are some dealers that are really back now, but there are some who
just haven’t seemed to recover. I’m not sure what that is about.”
Currently, Collings employs around 95 people. Historically an acoustic guitar-focused operation, the company kicked off a
successful mandolin business in 1995. Ten years later, Collings added electrics to its roster. When the recession started to choke
off sales, the company added lower cost items, like ukeleles, to its offerings with hopes to ride out the storm and maintain its
core staff by keeping them busy.
The company builds about 3500 instruments a year, so it is not exactly a small operation, but it’s nowhere near the numbers of
a Martin, Taylor, Fender or Gibson.
IMAGES & WORDS BY BLAKE WRIGHT
FEATURE u
Into the shop.
sure is what a lot of them are going for, but
Exiting the front office area we entered actually making the material the best is a
the acclimating room - a moisture-con- whole different story.”
trolled area of the shop where rafts of
To the rear of this area is the workstawood ‘hang out’ for at least two to three tion of Bruce Van Wart, Collings’ master
months to achieve the best balance be- craftsman and the first person Bill Collings
fore it sets off on the road to becoming a ever hired. Van Wart’s area is littered with
Collings instrument. It is all here - mahog- yellow and green 8x5 cards, most slathany, alder, ash, quilted maple, rosewoods, ered in red ink. These are Collings build
koa... the list goes on.
“Generally, when we come across
nice, high quality wood, we stockpile
“It is better now than it’s
it because you never know if you’re
been in the past five
going to have that opportunity next
time you need it,” explains Alex Rueb,
years, I’ll tell you that.
director of marketing and business development for Collings. “We have a lot
2008... that was tough.
of wood out in the warehouse that we
It killed people.”
have been hoarding for a long time.
The highest quality stuff is getting used
up much faster than it is being replen- Bill Collings
ished. Wood is getting more expensive.
It’s getting a lot harder to source. Not
only finding the best quality material,
but you have to find somebody that knows sheets. They travel around the shop with
how to cut it just right, which is also some- each build from the point of raw materithing that can make as much difference as als to instrument completion. The red on
anything else. The woods need to be cut each card indicates customization choices
at the right angle to show off the wood, or made by the client.
maximize its strength. Surprisingly enough
Off to the side, stacked 30 deep, are a
there are cutters out there that don’t un- variety of acoustic guitar tops. Van Wart is
derstand the best use... There are cutters the person that picks out every single top
that try and maximize volume, which I’m for Collings’ acoustics, and has done so
Collings Guitars
for the last 20,000-plus guitars.
“He’s the true wood expert,” says Rueb.
“He’s the guy that decides what wood we
use from our suppliers and what we send
back. Every piece of wood is different.
Picking the right wood for the body size
and combination of features is hugely
important. He does that... as well as the
voicing of the all of the tops, getting them
to the right thickness to maximize the
vibrations... which he does largely by
feel at first. Judging stiffness... tapping
it to see how it reacts to vibrations.
Each gets sanded to a unique, uniform
thickness and then we’ll taper the
edges, which is done by hand, to really
maximize how well the top is ringing
out. That’s a big part of how we control
the consistency. Trying to get as much
as you can out of a piece of wood. Being the size that we are and being able
to have one person do this. It takes
advantage of the wealth of knowledge
amassed over time. Every acoustic
guitar goes through him.”
Van Wart initiates the build on roughy
30 to 35 guitars per week. These instruments will spend about five to six weeks
getting carved, sanded and otherwise
prepped to be assembled as a body.
As many as 30 Collings craftsmen and
women will touch a single Collings instrument during the creation process. No one
WAREHOUSED: Wood is kept in the warehouse
until needed (left), while other choice material
has already been blocked out for necks (right).
25
FEATURE u
Collings Guitars
person will build a guitar from start to
finish. Everyone is an expert of their own
discipline. Body builders will build the
bodies. Neck specialists will only work
on necks.
This area also hosts the beginnings of
each Collings mandolin and ukelele. The
company ships between 300 and 400
mandolins per year. That’s a lot of maple
and spruce. The ukelele craze has started
to ebb a bit, but during the rush there was
an 18-month period where the company
had to stop taking new orders due to
an inability to keep up with demand.
Currently, Collings produces somewhere
between five and eight ukes a week.
The mill.
One of the larger areas of the Collings
complex is the mill - the work area
filled with CNC machines, benders, jigs,
fixtures and other pieces of kit essential to
the building process. It is here that most
of the parts that make up Collings instruments are made.
“It is a pretty challenging job that these
guys have... to supply all of the parts for
all of the product lines that we offer on a
build-to-order basis,” explains Rueb. “Not
everything goes through in a predictable
schedule, but we try and operate as lean
as we can when it comes to making the
parts that we need when we need them.
We have 90-plus base models and then
lots of customization that goes in on top
of that.”
Certain machines in this area hold
to certain tasks. Systems are in place
throughout the shop area to keep things
running as smoothly as possible as pieces
move through the construction phase.
It is not uncommon to start a part on a
Monday and finish it on a Thursday.
CNCs are a big part of Collings’ operation. They do the leg work of getting most
instrument components roughed into
shape before the handwork takes over.
“These machines will cut within a
1/1000ths of an inch of accuracy and are
very critical to certain parts of the operation, like cutting fret slots and shaping
neck profiles,” says Rueb. “We definitely
couldn’t do what we do without them, but
they are not the only part of the equation.
It’s about utilizing the tools that you have.
Some things a machine can do better than
a person and some things a person can do
better than the machine.”
To the left of the main work area is
a row of stand-alone contraptions in
26
AROUND THE MILL: There is no shortage of grist and gadgetry around the
Collings shop floor. From clamps to side benders, CNCs to cutaway tools. Fixtures are a fixture... and a big part of the business.
various states of readiness. These are the
side benders that give the acoustics their
shape. The old school method was to apply heat and steam and work the curves
by hand. Bill Collings sought a better
solution and constructed his own benders
with longer arms for added leverage and
introduced pneumatics to more evenly
apply pressure to the wood. Collings applied a similar system on his hand-built
cutaway tools. In fact, he is responsible
for many of the jigs and fixtures the company uses on a daily basis.
“Bill is quite the inventor,” says Rueb.
“He is a metal worker as much as a
wood worker.”
Bill’s junk drawer.
Off the mill is a room filled with a fair
bit of tech, CAD-populated computer
FEATURE u
Collings Guitars
making jigs and fixtures. We could print,
say, a drill guide or something... all of the
things we would have had to use the CNC
for. It is going to pay for itself pretty quickly. It’ll be another month or two (for the
bigger one to arrive)... and we’ll be able
to do a neck upright... standing straight
up. A whole neck if we wanted. Isn’t that
funny? It’s quite a technology. For us, doing casting and stuff like that... even for
tailpieces... if I would have done that, that
would have got us a little closer. Knowing
that we can use the print as a plug for the
ceramic and then do lost-wax casting?
That’s bizarre! So rather than wax, they
burn out the plastic. That’s the wild part.
That’s where it gets wild. Not a lot of parts
like that on a guitar, but for the fixturing
and a lot of that stuff it is really good for.
Maybe pick-up covers... prototype it, mill
it out and see if that’s what we want.”
Who is Mercury Charlie?
THE MAN AND HIS TOYS: Bill Collings flips through paperwork related to his
new Makerbot 3D printer while work at Mercury Charlie’s revs up... and ‘Bill’s
junk drawer’ (right) could become street legal soon.
screens, a spanking new 3D printer... and
the shell of an old hot rod stuffed with old
guitars, cases, car parts and other dusty,
bric-a-brac. Rueb refers to it as ‘Bill’s junk
drawer’ - where the spark of future and
current projects reside until retrieved in a
fit of creativity... or simply discarded.
Collings himself is here, hands covered
in black paint he swears will not wash
off, going over the particulars of the latest
company acquisition - a $1700 Makerbot
3D printer. He has already ordered a bigger one.
“It’s for prototyping basically,” explains
Collings. “If we’re doing CAD work and
we want to see what something looks like
before we carve it and go through the
hassle of making it, we can print the heel
for a guitar... little stuff like that. Look at
shapes... or mechanical things if we’re
Towards the back of the shop is a
bonafide hot rod garage. Bill Collings love
for guitars is matched only by his affinity
for classic cars and hot rods. Mercury
Charlie’s Hot Rod Shop moved into the
building about a year ago, specializing in
restoration work. Bill used to race Miatas,
but doesn’t really have time for that anymore. That doesn’t mean however, that he
doesn’t still love rebuilding and driving
old classics. In fact, the 3D printer we just
saw? It wasn’t printing guitar components.
It was prototyping car parts.
“Bill splits his time doing car stuff...
fabricating and rebuilding engines,
frames... bending the metal, getting the
curves just right,” explains Rueb. “There
are a lot of similarities between cars and
electric guitars. The lines, the curves...
they are all really important.”
Collings says it’s about an 80/20 split, his
time in the guitar shop versus the garage.
He and Charlie are planning to show their
first car at the Grand National Roadster
Show next January in Ponoma, California.
“It’ll be one of two,” says Collings. “Either my 1936 Ford or the 1955 Nomad
- it’s a guitar hauler. One of the two... or
maybe both. It depends on how well it
goes over the next eight months or so.”
Mandos and electrics... and control.
Around the corner and down the hall is
the Mandolin shop and adjacent electrics
build area. It is at this point where the
instruments start to resemble the final
products. Mandolin necks and bodies
27
FEATURE u
Collings Guitars
THE CASE FOR CASES
ONE OF Collings’ passion projects over the past few years is something
a lot of guitarists (and guitar companies) probably take for granted
- the guitar case. He is looking to revive the craftsmanship and care
that was put into the classic Depression-era wooden cases, giving the
instruments inside the support and protection they deserve.
“I’m working on them right now,” explains Collings. “We worked through
a few issues and I think finally we are going to be able to make them.
They’re tough... believe me. We want to make it look like someone really
cared when they made that case. We want to put a better fitting case on
the inside. Everything has to fit very well. A lot of stuff is made so quickly,
you need to have like 10 clasps to hold that lid on. Really, they started
using those clasps because nothing fit well, so you had to cinch it down. I
just use a folding clip... and it has to fit well to do that.”
Collings is looking to achieve a level of standardization with the
new cases even though he intended to make them for every different guitar size... including non-Collings models.
“Your wood case has to be the same size and the padding has to be the
same every time,” he says. “The smooth vinyl I use is hard to stretch around
the radius corners and really make it look good. The seal that I use doesn’t
have any stitching in it... it is nailed like the old ones used to be, and it looks
like a fine suitcase rather than, you know, an afterthought.”
Collings has some advanced prototypes (see photo) built up and
the company is in the process of hiring and training staff that will be
dedicated to building cases. A new area of the shop earmarked for
case manufacturing should be ready to roll this summer.
get worked by hand and binding gets
shaped. The company offers about
a dozen different mandolin models,
each tweakable with a slew of customizable options.
“There is tons of hand work and detail
work in an F-style mandolin,” reveals
Rueb. “Some of them can get pretty
ornate. Tons of sanding... for an F-style,
there is eight or nine hours of hand sanding after everything is put together.”
Over in the electrics assembly room
next door, all of Collings’ set-necks
go through there hand-work and are
prepped for paint.
“Right now we’re building about 15
electric guitars a week,” says Rueb.
We do some solid wood, semi-hollow
and fully hollow. We’ve got quite a few
models at this point. There are probably
10 to 12 models that we’ve built up to
since we started doing this in 2005.”
With so many models, and so many
possible variants, it would seem logical
that there would be a documented set
of controls for each step of the process,
28
but that isn’t exactly the case. Much
like many art-based manufacturing
operations, documentation is second to
apprenticeships. Most learn by doing,
not by reading. However, the company
has implemented a plan to create more
control documents to outline the specific
and correct processes in the life cycle of
each Collings instrument.
“We’re trying to document as much as
we can,” confesses Rueb. “A lot of this
stuff gets developed so quickly that we
can’t keep up with documentation. A lot
of how these options present themselves
is that we have a customer that says ‘Oh,
I want to order this guitar, but I’d really
like this, this and this.’ We probably get
10 requests a day for things that we don’t
offer. We try and accommodate as much
as we can, but at the same time the options can get out of control if we don’t
say ‘no’ to some things.”
Waterloo rising.
At the 2014 NAMM show, Collings
showed off a new, more affordable acous-
tic guitar. Dubbed the Waterloo (the old
name for Austin, Texas), the parlor-style
guitar takes its cues from the old Kalamazoo brand and offers Collings’ attention
to detail minus some of the bells and
whistles that can go into making a more
expensive acoustic.
“There are a lot of guitars in history that
are just wonderful guitars that have been
passed up,” says Collings. “I have a Kalamazoo that I really like. Everybody that
has played that guitar loves that guitar...
so that was the beginning of that idea.
‘Oh, if I could have one of those for that
much, I’d do that.’”
The issue with many of the old Kalamazoo’s and similar acoustics of the era is
finding one in great shape. These guitars
were built for players, not collectors.
Those that are still around today would
likely need some potentially costly restoration work.
“I decided to make one... a guitar that fits
that purpose,” explains Collings. “It’s got a
minimal finish on it... it’s just a basic guitar.
Very fun... and sounds great. There are lots
FEATURE u
Collings Guitars
and lots of those guitars that have just passed
us all by that are just wonderful instruments.”
Collings is sitting on an inventory of
Waterloos right now and is building about
one per day. Once the company amasses
around 50 of them,it plans to start selling
them to dealers.
Set-up and ship out.
Nearing the end of the line, Collings
instruments reach the final set-up room,
and ultimately, the packing shipping
area. Most Collings acoustic instruments
will spend about three days in the set-up
room being prepped for playing... then
checked and re-checked. Nearby, a
hulking gray box is meticulously working across the fretboard of a Collings
I-35 electric. The machine is a Plek - a
computer-controlled fret dressing robot.
It can record fret height in relation to the
fretboard. The Plek’s main job is to eliminate fret buzz and add out-of-the-box
playability to a stringed instrument.
“The Plek is a really great tool that has
helped us take the precision of our fret
work to the next level,” explains Rueb.
“It’s nice to have a graph of everything
that is going on with our fingerboard.
It’s a great way to consistently measure
things. It does save some time, but it
has helped in other areas as well. We’ve
had it for a couple of years now. It’s an
expensive piece of equipment, but it has
paid off so far.”
The rest of the hardware dressing takes
place post-Plek and soon the instruments
will move into the shipping area. Here
each Collings creation gets cased, boxed
and loaded to begin their journey to a
Collings retailer, but not before a few
more once-overs to make sure everything
is in tip-top condition. For example,
acoustics get taken into an adjacent closet area with extremely harsh florescent
lighting to expose any potential flaws in
the finish.
Collings currently has about 80 dealers
in the US and another 40 to 50 internationally. Roughly 20% of the company’s
business is overseas with the UK and
Japan being the largest non-US markets.
“Almost everything we do is sold before
it’s started,” says Rueb. “We operate on
a build-to-order model. We don’t carry
inventory to where people can just call
us up and buy. It is nice to have more demand than we can produce, but we will
only increase our production if we can
keep the quality where it needs to be.” G
HUMAN TOUCH: There are some things a machine simply cannot do as
well as an experienced pair of hands. Top, left is a prototype of the forthcoming Collings Waterloo acoustic.
29
FEATURE u
Collings Guitars
Around the shop ...
Collings’ recipe for success is a potent mix of machines and manhours. While machines like CNCs and
the Plek are employed to excute some of the more precise tasks, the human element is never lost on
any guitar, mandolin or ukelele built. As many as 30 people have their hands on any single instrument
working its way through the shop towards completion.
ALL IN A DAY’S WORK: From washing wood finishes and troubleshooting with Bruce Van Wart (above) to CNCs and Alex Rueb
showing off a finished acoustic (below), you can see it all in a day at Collings. The company offers shop tours most Fridays.
30
FEATURE u
Collings Guitars
SHOP SIGHTS: The Plek works its magic on an I-35 (top, left) while work by both
human and machine take place all around it. Below is a shot across just part of
the bustling Collings mill.
31
...After the flood
WHEN IT CAME time to record his
third solo record, Rich Robinson had
lost his father and a treasure trove of
near-priceless gear, but not the passion for music or the fire of creativity.
He walked into Applehead Recording near Woodstock, New
York about as unprepared as ever
at the beginning of a new project,
but with the assistance of drummer
Joe Magistro and keyboard wizard
Marco Benevento, the month-long
process yielded The Ceaseless Sight a 12-track slice of bluesy Americana
drenched in shimmering rhythms
and deft fretboard work. It’s his most
mature and complete album to date.
GEARPHORIA spoke with Robinson about the recording process, his
dad, his gear and the ‘Great Cleansing of 2012’ just prior to the former
Black Crowes axe slinger hitting
the road in support of the newlyreleased record.
PHOTO: MATT MENDENHALL
How guitarist Rich Robinson took a nomadic spirit, the death of his father and a natural
disaster and created the best album of his career...
INTERVIEW u
RIch Robinson
GEARPHORIA: You entered the studio to
record the new album without much set
material. In hindsight, how would you
rate that decision?
RICH: I always like making different
records. The Crowes were always able to
do kind of whatever we wanted. We just
either forced it or it fell into our lap. We
never felt pressure to make any specific
kind of record. Being able to do that for 20
some odd years and now bringing that to
my solo stuff, it’s just a really good feeling.
I love the energy of being able to create
while I’m working. It’s cool to go in with
set ideas and you kind of know you can
map out where it will go and there is not
too many surprises. To me, I had so much
fun this time around just really saying
‘Well, fuck it, let’s try this... let’s do this.
That didn’t work. This worked. Let’s do it.’
It was much more fast-flowing for me and
I felt a lot more creative synergy with the
whole thing. When it was done I was really
happy with it. It really turned out great.
GEARPHORIA: You returned to Applehead in Woodstock for this one. How
long were you there and what is it about
Woodstock that calls you back?
RICH: We were there a month total. I really like the people that own it and work
there... they are really good people. And
for whatever reason, I really connect on
a creative level with Woodstock. Every
time I’m up there I just feel a connection with it... creatively and just how it
is and how it feels. There is definitely
something up there. I kind of always go
back. It takes me about two weeks to
work through... there is strong energy
up there. It is kind of like you have to
‘work through’ Woodstock... and then
once you are through it really opens up
energetically. I thought it was really cool
in that sense.
GEARPHORIA: The ghosts of a lot of
great music dwell up there.
RICH: Absolutely!
GEARPHORIA: You also brought in one
of our favorite keyboard players for the
session - Marco Benevento.
RICH: Oh man... he’s unbelievable.
GEARPHORIA: How did you two hook
IF IT AIN’T BROKE: Robinson hasn’t changed much
from his more recent Crowes rig or this one from
his last solo outing.
up? Was that at the suggestion of the
Applehead guys?
RICH: Yeah, it was Mike (Birnbaum) and
Chris (Bittner). (John) Medeski was going
to play on the record, but trying to pin him
down was getting more and more difficult.
We were looking around and trying to
get him in, but he couldn’t come this day
and couldn’t come that day. So we started
looking around and Chris Bitner and Mike
Birnbaum said ‘Hey man, fucking Marco
is like... the guy. Medeski is great. Marco is
like the new Medeski.’ So I was like ‘Ok,
that’s really cool... let’s try him out.’ I talked
to him on the phone and he was a really
cool dude... just great energy. He came on
in and just killed it. I was like ‘Fuck, man,
this guy is unbelievable.’ I was really, really
happy with him. It was just one of those
things where you just click. He knew what
I was doing. I totally trusted him. I was
just really happy about the whole thing. It
could not have been cooler.
GEARPHORIA: Marco brings a fairly
unique brand of alchemy to the piano.
RICH: Absolutely. Absolutely. Look, the
Crowes old keyboard player Ed Harsh
I always thought was just supremely
talented. Just a really talented musician
33
INTERVIEW u
Rich Robinson
“My new record follows the path of my musical journey I’ve
been on for 25 years. I feel a strong connection to where I’ve
been musically, but more importantly where I’m going.”
and a great dude. It is hard to find people
that you connect with, because Ed and
I really had a strong connection. When
he (Marco) first started playing I was like
‘Holy shit man! This guy is it!’ And to
be such a cool guy makes it better. But
the guy playing with me on tour is also
fucking unbelievable... Matt Slocum.
He’s played with Colonel Bruce Hampton, Susan Tedeschi, Jimmy Herring. He’s
an Atlanta dude... really fucking cool,
very gifted keyboard player. It is amazing to be able to play with these people.
I was trying to get Marco for the tour,
but his schedule is just so crazy. I was
like ‘Fuck man, how do I get someone
that can get close to that?’ So I talked to
Jimmy Herring and actually Tyler from
Tedeschi Trucks Band and I was like ‘Do
you know any keyboard players?’ and
he brought up Matt. He can hang with
Marco. He can take those things, and
interpret them, and deliver.
GEARPHORIA: Where did the album
title, The Ceaseless Sight, come from?
RICH: It’s a lyric in one of the songs...
and it kind of represents what thematical-
34
ly I thought the record was more about.
The song ‘Down The Road’ has the line
‘Ceaseless sight on the horizon’ and I
really just liked that instead of holding
on the past or always looking backwards
or holding on to useless shit. I really like
the concept of just looking forward and
have everything move out of that place. I
thought it was cool and it seemed to be a
permeating theme throughout the whole
record and I just said ‘Oh, fuck it, let’s
just call it this.’
GEARPHORIA: You’ve been on the move
quite a bit over the past few years yourself... from New York, back to Atlanta
and now Los Angeles.
RICH: We moved to Atlanta to be with
my dad for the last few years of his life.
My wife is from LA and when it came
time for me to go on tour last year we
just said... we have two babies... and
all of her family is out here and we just
needed the help. They are 16 months
apart. They’re a lot of work. I’d left
Atlanta for 12 years, so moving back it
was good to be up the street from my
dad and be able to help out and spend
time with him. He was in a lot of pain
for those last few years. I had always
felt good about our relationship, but it
is tough to see a parent, someone so
close to you, in pain and suffering like
that. Being able to be with him and help
I would not have traded for anything in
the world. I think it is what most sons
and daughters would want to do. And it
was cool in a weird way to have closure
with Atlanta. To go back to where you
came from is really interesting. You go
back and there are all of these places
that you’re familiar with, but you’re different. You’ve lead a different life and
had all of these different experiences...
and be at peace about never going back
there. As far as LA, it is definitely a different place for me. You can be in a place a
thousand times, but when you live there
it is different. It looks different and feels
different. It is funny how every city had
its own pace and flow that you have to
tap into, but I feel like I’m getting there.
GEARPHORIA: Hurricane Sandy
flooded the Crowes’ warehouse. How
many guitars did you ultimately lose as a
result of the storm?
INTERVIEW u
RICH: I think about 60... 50 or 60. Some
of them lived (laughs). Some of them
were like on top of wardrobe cases and
floated. When the rush of water came
in... the room was so packed with gear,
what was in the cases was drenched.
They would open my vault and seawater
would pour out. For whatever reason
because they were filled with air the
whole room just floated up. I have the
White SG that was one of my favorite
guitars... it lived. Even about six guitars
that were ‘destroyed’ were able to be
saved. My 335, my Goldtop, they were
both saved by this company RS Guitarworks. It took them over a year to fix
them, but they saved them. I have this
‘60s Guild 12-string that was really cool
that was fixed. They had to replace the
back, but the bracings and the rest of the
guitar was good. Steve Stern over at the
Gretsch Custom Shop fixed my Country
Gentleman and my ’56 Gretsch Streamliner. That was amazing. The Country
Gentleman was just on the floor. It took
the brunt of it... and he fixed it... and
it sounds great. It plays great. My Dan
Armstrong that was able to be fixed.
The neck was redone and the pickups
were kind of tweaked. One Zemantis
that I had... we plugged it in and it just
worked. We didn’t want to mess with
it... didn’t want to touch it again. This
works... don’t even talk about it! (laughs)
So yeah, 50 to 60 guitars... I lost a lot of
my amps. All of my Harry Joyces were
destroyed. But, sitting in Atlanta and...
that band (Crowes)... there is such a
built-up negativity in the band... well,
not everybody... really just me and Chris.
Just bad feelings and bad blood and all
of that shit. I really kind of felt really
relieved. In a lot of cultures water takes
away negative energy. I kind of felt like a
huge burden was taken off my back.
GEARPHORIA: You see this act as a sort
of cleansing?
RICH: Yeah, absolutely, 100%. It was just
like, fuck, man, because at the end of the
day they are great guitars to have and it’s
cool to have all of that shit, but none of
it means anything. It’s a piece of wood
with some strings on it, and there are
other pieces of wood out there that are
RIch Robinson
just as good. The important ones were
restored and brought back to me, but
after they were cleansed, the way I see
it. All of that energy just left, and it felt
so much better in a weird way, letting go
of all of that shit. I felt really good about
it. Now, obviously it is still a bummer.
When I was making the record I only had
about seven guitars to use when I would
have normally brought in 30... and I
would have 20 amps, but I only had three
amps that worked. It worked out. It was
a different way to make a record for me
because the choices were limited.
GEARPHORIA: As you prepare to hit the
road, do you know what your stage rig
will be this time out?
RICH: Pretty much the same as the Crowes. I have those Reason signature amps...
the 50-watt head with a 2x12 cabinet...
and I’ll take out either an AC-30 or recently I’ve been using a new Magnatone
which have been great. One of those...
and my pedalboard and that’s about it. I’ll
take out about 10 guitars, probably.
GEARPHORIA: Is your board still dominated by Way Huge stuff?
RICH: Yeah. That stuff is great. I really
like those guys. Those pedals are great.
That stuff.. and my Echoplexes and a
Fender reverb unit. I also have this Fulltone wah that I really like.
GEARPHORIA: What’s been your latest
gear acquisition?
RICH: I just got the first guitar off the line
of my new signature 335. That is really
cool. A couple of weeks before that I got
another Teye guitar called the Konstantinopolis. It is a fucking gorgeous guitar.
He just makes great guitars. Amp-wise,
the newest amp that I’ve been playing
has been that Magnatone... it’s a 22-watt
with slant speakers. It’s a got a really
cool clean sound and it works really well
with the Reason.
GEARPHORIA: You got a couple of
shows coming up. Then what?
LOST AND FOUND: Robinson favorite 335 was salvaged from the wrath of Sandy.
RICH: We’re going over to Europe. I’ll be
in England, Holland, France and Poland,
actually. I’ve never been to Poland,
which will be really cool. My grandfather
was Polish. G
35
MOJO
Risin’
East Texas pedal purveyor rides plugand-play success
IT WAS NO sure thing in 2012, when
Brad Fee took on his Mojo Hand brand of
effects pedals as a full time gig. He had
just sold his portion of popular boutique
effects retailer Tone Factor and knew he
had a tough road ahead to grow the small
brand into a daily breadwinner for himself, his family and staff. The seeds of Mojo
Hand can be traced back to around 2006
and the beginnings of the Tone Factor Custom Shop. Just a handful of years removed
from blowing up his first PAiA tube sound
fuzz kit, Fee had already befriended folks
like Robbie Wallace (Bad Bob Boost), Bob
McBroom (PedalWorx) and Brian Marshall
(Subdecay) when the first Tone Factor
pedal came into being - the McBroombuilt Hellbilly.
FEATURE u
“I didn’t even plan on it being a custom
shop thing, but when he sent me the
picture of the pedal it had ‘Tone Factor’
instead of ‘Pedalworx’ on it,” recalls Fee.
“I didn’t even ask him to do that. He just
did it. Shortly after, Brian approached
me about it. He was interested in doing
something together. About that time,
Radiohead was huge... so we came up
with the idea of doing the Analog Filter
440. That was the next one. We did a ton
of stuff. Little small runs of 20 pedals that
never made it into big production at all.”
Mojo Hand fully entered the picture
once international dealers showed interest
in carrying some of the Tone Factor pedals. Fee felt a little weird about shipping a
‘store brand’ for others, his competition, to
sell. The first iteration of Mojo Hand was
actually three brands: Mojo Hand, Sinister
Analog and Boomstick Audio.
“We broke it off into three that was
pretty much supposed to be subdivisions
of Tone Factor,” says Fee. “Boomstick was
bass-oriented stuff. Sinister Analog was
like noise maker, crazy circuit-type stuff.
Mojo Hand was just supposed to be the
middle of the road, classic rock, blues guy
stuff. For whatever reason, Mojo Hand
took off in a way that the other two didn’t.
And I quickly discovered that I didn’t
have the time or resources to juggle three
brands. It would take three times the effort
to promote and market. So we just consolidated everything into Mojo Hand and
registered it as a separate business from
Tone Factor all together.”
Fee was no genius circuit designer, but
he was a bit of an artist. Prior to Tone
Factor he would buy old Big Muffs and
Rats off eBay, give them a custom paint
job and flip them. He knew he would
have to outsource Mojo Hand’s creations
and approached it early on as a sort of
a collective. The first few Mojo Hand
pedals were rolled over directly from
the Tone Factor Custom Shop. Those included the Copperhead overdrive/boost
and the Huckleberry fuzz.
“Then we had a whole lot of little ones
that didn’t hang around long... just sort
of came and went - the 75 Special, the
THE BUILD: On the day we visited Mojo Hand HQ, Dewdrop reverbs and Mirror
Ball delays were under construction.
Mojo Hand FX
Fuzz Saw - several like that,” recalls
Fee. “It’s hard for me to even remember
which were labeled Tone Factor and
which were Mojo Hand.”
The first pedal that was completely
original to Mojo Hand and never a part
of the Tone Factor Custom Shop was the
Rook overdrive - a highly versatile take
on the TS-9 tube screamer.
“That was the first one that really did
well enough for us to really perk up and
start taking this serious as something
other than a hobby,” says Fee. “We’ve
shipped over a thousand. We’re still
not a huge company by any stretch. A
thousand pedals for us is pretty good.
We’ve since have pedals that have probably passed the Rook. The Iron Bell... we
sold over 1,000 of those last year. But the
Rook was really the one that put us on
the map as a distinct entity separate from
Tone Factor. It and the Colossus both did
very well initially, and they are still very
good, consistent sellers.”
After Tone Factor changed hands in
2012, Fee was faced with the prospects
of either landing another job or plowing
everything he had into taking his pedal
brand to the next level. He had already
relocated his family from Evans, Louisiana to Kirbyville, Texas, and, for a time,
even had a small Tone Factor store front
there, but the notion of stepping out into
the ever-crowded-and-still-growing boutique pedal game as a full-time player
was daunting at best. Coming from a
known place in Tone Factor would help
with recognition, but success on a lifesustaining level was far from guaranteed.
Still, with co-worker Zach Early in tow,
Fee set out to grow Mojo Hand.
“My background helped for sure, but
for the first year we did this full time I was
nervous,” admits Fee. “When Zach and
I left Tone Factor, it was a sink or swim
situation. We had to make it work. There
was no plan B, because neither one of us
were at the retail operation anymore. We
were doing this full time... immediately
after we left there. Our production had
to quadruple in only a matter of months
just to make enough money for us to live
on... and we did it. Thankfully, we had the
support of a few key retailers... and we
made it work. It was no sure thing by any
means. There was some concern there.
Tone Factor, at its highest point, was doing
really well. It was a fairly lucrative business at one point.”
Mojo Hand’s progress in 2012 was
37
FEATURE u
Mojo Hand FX
MOJOS ALL AROUND: Zach Early runs through the shop board under the watchful eye of mascot ‘Mojo’ the rooster and protection of the shop’s ‘mojo catcher’.
marked, and the Winter NAMM show in
2013 opened the brand up to a whole
new base of retailers who might not
have been familiar with the brand. The
company picked up a number of new international dealers at the show and those
have kept coming, keeping the Mojo
Hand machine humming for the better
part of half a year.
Today, Mojo Hand has about a baker’s
dozen worth of offerings, but that number
will be changing soon both due to the addition of new designs and the retirement
of a handful of older ones.
“We’re in the process of retiring a few
pedals now,” explains Fee. “The One Ton
38
Bee is going away. The Zephyr is going
away. The Analog Filter is going away. It’s
just those three for now. The One Ton Bee
is our most simplistic circuit and, to me,
it is not full-featured enough. I like what
it does and I think it’s cool... the fans of it
really seem to get it, but it doesn’t have that
broad of an appeal. It is definitely a niche
thing more than anything else we make,
for sure. It is kind of the same thing with
the Zephyr. I just don’t think that the Sam
Ash fuzz is a big seller for anybody that
makes a variant of it. People want fairly
traditional stuff... fuzz faces and tone benders... and it’s not either of those. I think the
Zephyr is a great pedal, but it takes some
explanation on how to use it properly.
It’s just not an easy sell. The Analog Filter
was one of the last pedals to still be made
off-site. It was made by Subdecay. Every
version has always been made by Brian,
who I think is a genius as far as filters go.
He’s busy enough to where he doesn’t
need the work and just the way that we’ve
grown the in-house operation, we want everything to be made here. It was a logistics
decision more than a sales decision.”
The in-house operation still involves
off-site circuit designers, chiefly former
Kaden Effects top man Jason Carr... who
is responsible for all but one current
Mojo Hand circuits.
FEATURE u
Mojo Hand FX
Coming soon...
BOXED AND READY: New builds line one wall in the Mojo Hand shop. Every pedal
here is already spoken for by the company’s dealer network.
“The guy has got great ears,” says Fee.
“He does the vast majority of our design
work. My thing is promotion. The marketing and promotion... the social media aspect... that’s what I do. It always has been.”
Even with a dozen plus products and
more on the way (see sidebar), Fee still
sees exposure as the biggest obstacle to
growth. With so many people building
pedals and new brands emerging every
week, the space is over-crowded. Finding
a niche, and a loyal base, is crucial.
“It’s insane,” says Fee. “Just look at
Effects Database’s weekly update of the
new brands. It’s not uncommon for there
to be six to 12 new brands... and that’s
probably not all of them. Bart is just one
guy. It’s just what he has been able to
track down. And I really don’t expect a
lot of those to last in the marketplace,
but just the amount of choices for the
consumer are overwhelming... and how
to make yourself the choice... the one
that stands out... that’s the key. Having
something that separates you enough...
that’s distinct enough. For us, we just
go for good sound primarily... that’s the
most important thing... and simplicity.
That’s a big thing for us. We try to have
very ‘plug-and-play’ effects. Something
a decent guitarist can plug into and get a
good sound right away.” G
NEXT UP for Mojo Hand is a pedal pair that
have more knobs than the usual, and will
be a bit more pricey than normal for the
company. The first out of the gate will
be the Magistrate - a sort of hot-rodded
Marshall-in-a-box with a fully active
three-band equalizer on board.
“It has much more gain than the other
Marshall-flavored pedals on the market,”
reveals Fee. “It is definitely aimed at high
gain sounds. It does ‘brown’ sound stuff
really well. Because the EQ is active, you
can boost or cut. You can scoop the mids
and easily do old school Metallica. That
kind of stuff.”
The second pedal on the schedule is a
filter tentatively called the Membrane.
Currently envisioned in a five-knob, two
toggle package, the pedal is described as
a Mu-Tron inspired, advanced filter.
“It’s not a straight-up clone... just
definitely in that vein,” explains Fee. “It
will please the Jerry Garcia guys... that
crowd... I hope.”
The Magistrate and Membrane are formally slated to debut at Summer NAMM,
but could arrive earlier.
Simplicity has always been a staple of
Mojo Hand stomps. So why the turn towards more complex configurations?
“We don’t want to be stuck in the rut of
just making Big Muff clones or whatever,
so we definitely want progress, but we
still want to keep the goal of simplicity
in mind,” says Fee. “While, both of the
new pedals are more elaborate in terms
of electronics, I don’t think they’re any
more complicated to use than our current
offerings. There’s more going on ‘under
the hood’, but I think people will still find
them to be intuitive and easy to use.”
39
A
FANTASIC
RETURN
It had been over 17 years since Greg Edwards and his bandmates in Failure hit the stage. They were
anxious, as well as curious about the prospect. What if the fans forgot? After selling out their comeback
show at LA’s El Rey Theater in mere minutes, the results were in... and Failure was as popular as ever.
INTERVIEW u
Greg Edwards
Guitarist/bassist Greg Edwards didn’t stand still for long after Failure, his band with Ken Andrews and Kellii Scott broke up in the mid1990s. He worked with bands like Lusk, and continues to be the driving force behind Autolux. But when he and Andrews rekindled
their friendship a few years back, talks soon swung to a possible Failure reunion. The band ended in a swirl of runaway drug use following its most successful and critically acclaimed album, 1996’s Fantastic Planet. Today, the reformed Failure is on the road performing its first headlining gigs in almost two decades. GEARPHORIA caught up with Edwards recently to talk about the success of Failure.
GEARPHORIA: Tell us about the El Rey
experience. Did you expect the positive
reception the band received after almost
a two-decade absence?
GREG: Pound for pound, absolutely the
most enthusiastic (crowd we ever played
for). Almost the whole crowd was singing
every lyric. The emotion in the room was
palpable. It was really kind of overwhelming. We didn’t expect for the show
to sell out the way it did and we didn’t
expect for the crowd to be so tuned in
the whole time. After this much time,
you’d think that maybe people would get
excited about the idea of it, but then the
actual experience sort of... it’s more for
the nostalgia and to say you did it. But it
really seemed like that people were profound experiences... and we were too.
It was great. One show after that many
years... it was a lot of pressure. It wasn’t
the loosest show for us, as far as really
enjoying ourselves up there, but I think
we’ve had some better shows than that
with some of these opening gigs we did
with Tool. With the upcoming headlining tour, we’re really looking forward to
that because we’re a lot more comfortable now. We know we can do it. I think
we’re probably better than where we
were at back in the day.
some of the more intricate guitar parts
at first or did you find muscle memory
kicking in?
GREG: Some of the blocky chord
changes that moved underneath a song
or on the first note of a chorus, we totally
forgot that stuff... but then we come up
on... and this happened to Ken and it
happened to me... we come up on this
intricate figure in a bridge or something
that is sort of an overlay part and our
hands would just go to it. It was really
odd. Then some parts we really battled
to find what the part was. We’d go back
and listen to the record. You could hear
the notes and figure out the notes, but
to find what the actual position was you
played it in or if there was an alterna-
tive tuning going on... it can be mindboggling. In the end though, when you
do figure it out, you’re like ‘Oh yeah!
That’s how I did it.’ A lot of things where
in the studio... in the studio for Fantastic
Planet in particular... a lot of the overdubs we would be working and I would
just strap on a guitar and put my fingers
on the neck and throw something down
that sounded good and then never think
about that part again. Those were parts
where we never played the songs or just
never worried about those parts back
when we were touring on Fantastic Planet. Now, as a point of pride, we wanted
to do absolute justice to the songs and
we wanted to learn all of that stuff.
GEARPHORIA: While Fantastic Planet
GEARPHORIA: How long had the band
rehearsed before the show?
GREG: We rehearsed for... we started
pretty far out... working up songs,
remembering parts, working through
arrangements... figure out what the most
salient or important element in some of
the more overdubbed bass songs was for
guitar, and stuff like that. We also did a
few days of total production rehearsal
where we ran though the whole set a
couple of times. We were feeling pretty
comfortable, but it still felt like such an
unknown... but it really couldn’t have
been any better.
NEW MUSIC: Failure releases its first new song in
18 years last month. ‘Come Crashing’ appears on an
EP the band is selling during its current tour.
GEARPHORIA: Was it tough to recall
41
INTERVIEW u
Greg Edwards
is... fantastic, we’ve always been fans of
Magnified. Can you take us back to the
time after that record leading into the
recording of Fantastic Planet? Where
was the band at the stage?
GREG: There were label issues... and
ultimately there were drug issues and
disfunction in the writing relationship
between Ken and me. Really, the overriding thing was what we wanted to do
creatively and the kinds of records we
wanted to make. With Magnified... that
was the first time that we realized that
we could sit down in a room and get at
what we wanted to get at and more...
and be beyond satisfied. On Magnified...
songs like ‘Small Crimes’. To me that was
a song that I just thought had everything
I wanted a song to do at that point. That’s
really the tops for me on that record.
There were a lot of other songs, especially when your talking about parts...
the arrangements... the guitars and bass
working together and even with the
drums. All of the original drums were
programmed on a drum machine and
then I went back and replaced them bit
by bit in the studio. That way of finding
how parts work together... that’s when I
think a lot of our ingenuity came in on
that record. When we came to Fantastic
Planet, we didn’t have to think about that
so much. We covered that. We could just
think about songs... and if the songs are
good and we like them then the parts
would be interesting. There are songs on
Fantastic Planet where the parts, the bass
and guitar, there is nothing special going
on, but all things considered the sound
of the band is still there. We were more
comfortable with our sonic identity and
we were able to just worry about writing songs. As we wrote, as that album
progressed, one thing that happened that
I think we did very well is that we would
look at what we had and then decide
what else we would need to balance
the record out. In the end, when we
sequenced it, I feel like the record really
has balanced from the pop end to the
stranger, weirder end.
GEARPHORIA: Fantastic Planet might
be one of the best sequenced albums of
the era.
GREG: I spent a few days just doing the
PHOTO: PRISCILLA CHAVEZ
“Almost the whole crowd was singing every lyric. The emotion
in the room was palpable. It was really kind of overwhelming.”
42
sequence... and this was before iTunes
and Pro Tools [sic]. It wasn’t so easy to
just shuffle stuff around and listen to it.
You really just had to imagine it in your
head. You knew the songs so well you just
had to imagine how the end of that song
would sound going into the next one and
make compromises to find the best balance. In a way, doing it internally in your
mind... somehow you get a better result
than when you just shuffle them all in
iTunes and listen down. Actually, the next
few records I do, I’d like to remember
that... and not default to the iTunes stuff.
GEARPHORIA: Are you a fan of the trio
format live as opposed to having that
fourth member there?
GREG: The trio is the ultimate I think
when you’re a live band. Obviously
you’re limited in what you can layer on,
but I think when it’s three people... that
triangulation of connection... it is very
direct. When you add a fourth of fifth person you can’t just look to the side and be
connected to the two other people. Also,
it simplifies things. You can’t get into too
much trouble... and the sound can actu-
INTERVIEW u
Greg Edwards
ally be more powerful with a trio. More
layers and more sound doesn’t always
equal more power. When you can actually hear the dynamic of the bass. When
you think of all of the classic rock bands...
Zeppelin, essentially a three-piece plus
the vocals. The Experience... Hendrix...
that’s a three-piece. Zeppelin is a great
example, because they used a lot of overdubs that couldn’t be recreated live. Live
they were just this raw, intense experience. If you’d have added another guitar
player there I think it would have taken
away from something... with the clarity
for the bass, the drums and Jimmy Page
on top. I’m definitely a fan of the trio.
GEARPHORIA: Fans have now heard
what a new Failure song sounds like in
2014 with the release of ‘Come Crashing’. How did the band approach the
new stuff?
GREG: We got into it slowly. It was not
like Ken and I got in a room after all that
time and said ‘Ok, let’s put all of this
pressure on us and make a record.’ We
made a few exploratory excursions out
into the void to see what would happen... and it was pretty easy and I think
that the material we were working on,
the first few ideas, had a lot of depth and
strength. We weren’t struggling in terms
of that. Filling out a record? Finishing a
complete record? From this point, that’s
a challenge. To see where we take these
core ideas and how we make a whole
record from that. I know that the expectation is high from our core fans. They’ve
stayed connected to the music we made.
They’ve been connected all along. A lot
of the songs on Fantastic Planet have
aged pretty gracefully, but they also
know what we’re capable of... or what
they believe we’re capable of... and that’s
a lot to live up to over the course of a
whole record.
GEARPHORIA: We noticed from the El
Rey show, and subsequent live shows,
that there didn’t seem to be the old huge
analog rigs for either you or Ken. What
are you using on stage now?
GREG: We’re both using Fractals. The
Autolux rig is huge and I’m still using
it in Autolux. You know, conceptually
I do not like the idea of a Fractal, but
I have to say that I think that, at least
in Failure, we’re losing nothing... and
CIRCA 1996: (L to R) Edwards, Kellii Scott and Ken Andrews
probably gaining a lot with the Fractal.
And when you take everything into
consideration with the ease of set up,
small footprint and being able to travel, I
definitely think it’s the future. In 20 years,
I don’t know how many guitar players,
even in big bands, will be using huge
analog systems. Maybe... I don’t know.
The fetish for a great amp... the classic
Fender Bassman or Twin Reverb... that
will probably never die, but it’s like plugins in Pro Tools. All of the audio people
at the top of their fields were saying it’s
just not there. It doesn’t sound great...
and then 10 years later they’re all saying
they can‘t really tell the difference in a
A/B test. I get fooled all of the time. Now,
everybody is fine and will use digital
plug-ins in Pro Tools, and if they have
any objections to it, it is more emotional,
theoretical objection rather than how it
really sounds. That is how the Fractal has
been for me. It is very responsive and
dynamic. The sounds sound great and
you can really tailor them to the sounds
that were on the records. When we’re
playing, if it feels great I don’t care how
it is being created. I am actually amazed
at how well it‘s worked out. There are
probably 15 to 20 different scenes that
I’m using between guitar and bass per
show. Ken is probably the same... but
more than that, it is really how you set
up the blocks in the Fractal... which is
what is so easy and allows for so much
flexibility... the routing... you can set up
things in parallel. There is a very nice,
pretty functional looper built into it. It
covers everything.
GEARPHORIA: How did you get exposed to the Fractal rigs?
GREG: It was Ken. He knew somebody
that used one. We actually tried both the
Fractal and the Kemper. Ken knew somebody that had a Kemper too. The guy
from M83 had a Kemper he let us borrow. We used that at first and it seemed
really pretty good... at first. Then we borrowed the Fractal and the Fractal just...
the ability of the Fractal was just on a
whole other level. In fact, the fidelity
of the Fractal out of the box was almost
too much. You have to shave off some
of that high end. It is full bandwidth
and you can get incredible, crystalline
attack happening. It really mimics some
acoustic-like sounds. It is totally versatile that way, but out of the box it didn’t
sound as ready to record or play as the
Kemper, but once you got into sculpting
the sounds, there is no comparison. Just
a straight, raw, distorted sound... or a
straight Twin Reverb sound on the Fractal
just blows away what the Kemper does.
GEARPHORIA: What is your #1 guitar?
GREG: My number one guitar in Failure
is a Les Paul. In Autolux, it’s an SG. I also
play a Telecaster on one song and I think
that is about it. We have an acoustic for
a few things too. It is mainly the Les Paul,
43
INTERVIEW u
Greg Edwards
which was what was mainly featured on
Fantastic Planet.
GEARPHORIA: Is it the exact same guitar that was on Fantastic Planet?
GREG: We have two now and it is the
same guitar on some songs. Ken and
I switch depending on how it works
logistically from song to song, but yes,
one of the Les Pauls is the one we used
on Fantastic Planet. I think it is a ’72.
Early ‘70s.
GEARPHORIA: We suppose you’re looking forward to the headlining tour. What
else are you looking forward to in 2014?
GREG: I’m looking forward to the tour.
It’s a chance to play more shows like that
PHOTO: PRISCILLA CHAVEZ
CIRCA NOW: Failure has already written new music with plans to release the longawaited follow-up to Fantastic Planet in early 2015.
44
El Rey show were you get to really have
that experience with all these people that
have continued to enjoy your music for
all of this time. Then I’m looking forward
to finishing the Autolux record, which
is just about finished which I’m really
excited about. And then of course there
is the Failure material... and see how that
fleshes out. We’re looking at next year.
Early next year hopefully. G
EAGULLS
Fitzgerald’s
Houston, TX
May 22, 2014
Leeds, UK-based Eagulls soared into
Houston recently on the back of their
debut self-titled album released in
March. The band offers up reverbdrenched guitar post-punk sonics
appointed by vocalist George Mitchell’s
nihilistic lyrics.
Guitarists Liam Matthews and Mark
Goldsworthy relied on the club’s back
line to push air, but each had a few
stomps in tow to help fuel the band’s
eardrum assault (...and we mean that
in a good way). Matthews’ line (below) included a Boss Turbo Overdrive
(OD-2), EHX Holy Grail Nano reverb,
Boss Super Chorus and EHX #1 Echo.
Goldsworthy’s rig (lower, right) also
included an OD-2, a TC Electronic
Hall of Fame reverb, a Boss Chorus and
Flanger, a EHX Small Stone Nano and a
Boss Digital Delay.
Matthews’ guitar of choice was a
Fender Squire Jazz Master, while Goldworthy’s wielded a Squire Strat.
Eagulls’ US tour continues on through
mid-June before they head back across
the pond.
45
L
L
A
D
:
N
O
I
T
A
N
I
T
S
E
D
LAS
Odd venue logistics and high price of admission mar experience at state’s biggest and best guitar show
THE 37th Dallas International Guitar
Festival held last month at Fair Park
showcased a healthy portion of vintage
and new six-strings, four-strings, pedal
effects, amplifiers, accessories, sports
memorabilia, pet adoptions, candied
nuts, indian jewelry and an aire of overall weirdness matched only by its new
venue. To say that the Fair Park grounds
produced a challenge over the show’s
old home at Dallas Market Hall would
be a bit of an understatement.
Housed in two separate buildings on
the fairgrounds... and those buildings
separated by a large, ornate, unbreachable fountain... moving freely between
the main halls should have been a lot
easier. Unfortunately, the rather long
structures could only be accessed by
walking around the fountain that stretched
the length of each building... making for a
longer walk on a hot Texas weekend.
Traffic on the Friday and Sunday was
lighter than many vendors expected, with
some arguing a lack of signage directing guests to the second building might
have kept some from knowing it existed.
Logistical issues were compounded by
the lack of strong identifiers for the main
entrance to the show. Signs for ticketed
entry hung near a few doorways, but it
was unclear if those who already had
tickets could use those egresses or if tickets were available to purchase at those
spots. Turns out it was both.
While the main building was dominated by guitar retailers and vendors, the
second was more of a catch-all for everything from guitar stuff to gummy bears...
digital recording aids to dog shelters. It
made for a truly bizarre bazaar!
The price of admission was also steeper
than in the past. A one-day pass on Sunday rang up $24.50... and that’s without
the extra $1 for the printed program.
If the show remains at Fair Park, one
would hope the crew at the helm will
learn from the misfires of 2014. G
BRANDS ON HAND: Manufacturers at the Dallas show included Wampler Pedals, Magnatone and Steamboat Ampworks.
47
WRAP-UP u
Dallas International Guitar Festival 2014
GUITARS...
Troubles aside, there were plenty of sexy six-strings to ogle at the
show, be it the retro F-style Fanos or the sparkle-riffic Tokai double
necks on offer. A few small shop luthiers made the scene as well,
including the retro-futursitc (yeah, we said it) stylings of Vanz Houser
Custom Guitars (left) and the natural classics of Brian Paul Guitars
(below). On the vintage front, the coolest thing we saw with strings
was this Gretsch Bikini double-neck guitar and bass.
We have to get these two kids together
JOPLIN, Missouri-based Homegrown Tone
brought its new range of hemp-tastic
combo amps to the Dallas International
Guitar Festival... and just across the way,
Houston-based Steamboat Ampworks
brought its brand new line of hemp-coned
drivers. Only in Texas! (or Colorado... or
Washington state.)
The Homegrown Amps has two current
models - the 420, a four-input 20-watt 5e3
circuit with a 1x12 speaker and The Roach,
a 5-watt 5f1 circuit with a 1x8 driver.
The Steamboat Hemp 100 is a 12-inch
speaker remanufactured from a large cache
of discarded, but valuable drivers and sports
a hemp-woven cone.
We have high hopes that these two will join
forces. The good news is that we understand
that both principals did talk at the show.
Fingers crossed!
48
WRAP-UP u
Dallas International Guitar Festival 2014
AMPS...
There was a good mix of old and new when it came to amplifiers at the show.
Premier Builders Guild had their Two-Rock and Tone King brands on display,
while 3rd Power split time in the Visual Sound booth. Older classics included a
good wealth of Gibson combos and this very likable Soundhouse Arbiter (right).
Leave it to Guitar Center to pull out a handful of custom grill clothed Marshall
half stacks that we’re pretty sure they had to pack back up at show’s end.
!
?
T
A
H
W
,
WAIT
Besides guitars, visitors to the show could have walked out with a variety of non-gear related swag, including an autographed
Johnny Manziel jersey from his days at Texas A&M. Autograph seekers of a more rock-and-roll lifestyle could queue up for a
chance to meet a tired Johnny Winter. Gearphoria’s editor is always on the prowl for his next Ibanez Talman at these shows. Sadly,
the only one he found during his Sunday search was already spoken for... and being played by Andy Timmons on the main stage.
49
Better
DAYS
HERE
Winger guitar slinger Reb Beach tells GEARPHORIA about
making the new record Better Days Comin’ and about his
relationship with the guitar and bandleader Kip Winger...
BY ALISON RICHTER + Special to Gearphoria
PHOTOS BY ANDRES MARTINEZ
INTERVIEW u
Reb Beach
IN THE 25 years since Winger released their self-titled debut album, everything and nothing has changed for guitarist Reb Beach.
He still makes music with the band’s original members, vocalist/bassist Kip Winger and drummer Rod Morgenstein, now joined by
guitarist John Roth. He still uses the same Suhr guitar and Marshall amp that he purchased over 20 years ago. He is still, in his words,
“an ’80s rock guitarist,” and an in-demand one at that, always busy recording and performing with his bandmates, as a member of
Whitesnake, and with his own group, The Reb Beach Project.
What has changed, of course, is the music industry. Once dominated by MTV and high-gloss music videos, today, fans can simply go
online and watch professional and audience-made clips of their favorite bands. Radio as we knew it during the so-called “hair band”
days is long gone, and with it the mystique that surrounded recording artists. Beach remembers when everything changed, and how,
almost overnight, Winger and other rock bands were cast aside as musical tastes made a 180-degree shift. He sold his house, his
guitars, moved home, and rebuilt his career, beginning with a call to join Alice Cooper. Through it all, the members of Winger never
lost their friendship or their desire to make music together.
Even as poster boys in consumer music magazines, Winger earned respect and adulation from fans and gear publications. Beneath
the surface of glossy press photos and videos that had the band fluffed and puffed for the cameras were schooled musicians, educated and trained in the craft of playing, writing and performing. More than two decades later, Winger’s members have maintained
and even expanded their credibility, and rightfully so.
Reb Beach describes himself as “a pretty happy guy,” and it comes through in his interviews. Serious about his music, he doesn’t take
himself too seriously. He’s sharp, witty, quite the conversationalist, and clearly passionate about his work.
GEARPHORIA: Vocal harmonies have always been a big part of Winger’s sound.
Was having that ability a prerequisite
for joining the band?
REB: We came out in 1989 and big
harmonies were the thing. That’s what
everyone was doing, so you had to write
a chorus with harmonies, and when it
comes time to go out onstage, you’ve
got to be able to sing those three-part
harmonies. It’s really important to Kip
that it be tight, because it brings us up
another level as a band and it’s what
people listen to. They listen to the vocal,
and it’s the most important thing in the
music. When Paul [Taylor] left the band,
we were looking for a singer more than
anything else. Winger music is not easy
to play, so you have to be able to play
it and sing. We found John Roth and he
was perfect. It’s really hard to find a guy
who sings his ass off and can play the
complicated Winger stuff. The fact is that
not many good guitar players can sing.
As a matter of fact, most guitar players
can’t sing, or suck at it. They say they
sing and they’re not singers. Think about
it. How many really good guitar players
sing their ass off? There’s Richie Kotzen...
and Richie Kotzen! There’s really not
many. You need a guy who can sing like
Kip, with that powerful, gutsy voice, because I sound like Dennis DeYoung and
that just doesn’t work. It’s really clean
and not rock, so he has me doing all the
falsetto stuff, so you can’t really tell. The
reason I’ve kept my job in Whitesnake
for twelve years is not because of my
guitar playing. It’s because of my singing.
It would be hard to find a guy to replace
me. I couldn’t sing out of tune if I wanted
to, and the vocals are a really important
factor to ’80s music.
GEARPHORIA: Let’s go back to “We
came out in 1989 and big harmonies
were the thing. That’s what everyone
was doing, so you had to write a chorus
with harmonies.” Did you really feel
pressured to write a certain way?
REB: Yeah, we did, from the label and
from [producer] Beau Hill. There was a
formula to the songs and we were definitely pointed in one direction. On our
second album [In the Heart of the Young,
1990], we branched out a little bit, and
they told us they were going to release
‘Miles Away’ as the first single, which we
put on the album for Paul. It was a good
song, but we were worried about releasing it as a single at all because it was a
schmaltzy ballad, and it was a time when
bands were getting shot down in flames
when they would release their schmaltzy
ballad; they were all of a sudden known
as a schmaltzy ballad band, i.e., Night
Ranger, Extreme, and other bands.
They’re known for their ballads.
The great thing about Winger is we’re
not known for our ballads. We had six
Top 40 singles that were mostly rock
songs. Anyway, they told us, “We’re
going to release ‘Miles Away’ first,” and
we knew that was going to be the kiss of
death, so we wrote ‘Easy Come Easy Go’
and ‘Can’t Get Enuff’ in one day. That
was a good thing because they did really
well. On the third album [Pull, 1993],
we broke away from Beau Hill and we
did whatever the hell we wanted. That
album, to this day, remains the favorite of
most Winger fans that are musicians. It is
definitely a masterpiece. I’m not saying
that I’m great. I’m saying that [producer]
Mike Shipley, who died last year, was
great. He did Back In Black, for God’s
sake! The budget was $300,000 and
we had two 48-track digital Otari tape
machines running at the same time. It
was just insane. But getting back to the
harmonies and choruses, I couldn’t write
a song that’s not catchy. That’s not my
style. You want a good hook, you want
people to sing along with it, and you
want to make them feel a certain way,
but if they can’t remember it, there’s no
point in it.
GEARPHORIA: Speaking of Winger fans
who are musicians, they all want to
know what you use, every detail, from
the guitars — everyone knows you’re a
longtime Suhr player — to the picks and
51
INTERVIEW u
Reb Beach
“Kip and Mike Shipley taught me everything I know.
I used to rush all over the place. I’d play after the
beat. It’s a typical guitar player thing.”
the cables. Do some of them put too
much importance in the gear that’s being used? Are they obsessing too much?
REB: Yeah, for a lot of people. A lot of
it is in your fingers, but if you’ve got a
crappy amp and crappy pickups, it’s
tough to make that sound good. It would
still sound like me if I did that, but I use
a pickup that sounds very fat. I use EMG
pickups and always have, and they’re
fat-sounding. That’s probably the most
important key. If you want to get my
tone, you’ve got to have EMGs, or else
it won’t work. I use a John Suhr Custom
Audio head. He modded the amp that
I’ve been using; he’s been modding my
same Marshall and it sounds exactly like
the Custom Audio head. It’s the same
thing; it’s the John Suhr mod that sounds
humongous and amazing and you don’t
have to touch any knobs. You can put
them all at the middle and it sounds incredible. I don’t use effects, really, especially when I’m with Winger. I don’t even
have a clean sound. I have one sound,
and when I’m in the studio with Kip, all I
use is a Suhr distortion pedal, the Shiba.
52
I go into the distortion pedal and into the
amp and that’s it, and Kip adds a little
delay. I really love making cool, crazy
noises, like Tom Scholz [The Reb Beach
Project was a month away from opening
for Boston at the time of this interview],
but I’m meat and potatoes.
GEARPHORIA: How long did it take you
to find what you needed for your sound?
REB: If I plug into an amp, I know immediately if I can make it sound good
or not. You just know right away. When
we started, I was a session player first.
I came in to do the first session of my
life at Atlantic Studios and it was on
a Fiona record. They had a Marshall
there. All the Marshalls at SIR, Beau Hill
would write down the serial numbers
that were the good heads, and eventually so did I. That first day, I had never
played through a Marshall, so I didn’t
know how to make a Marshall sound
good. I didn’t even know how to make
it have distortion. Beau called in Kane
Roberts, who was the guitarist with Alice
Cooper. They were in Studio B and we
were in Studio A. He taught me how to
use a Marshall. He was like, ‘Gain on 6,
Master Volume on 3, Treble on 6, Mid on
4, Bass on 10. That’s it. Just do that every
time. You’ll be fine.’ And that’s what I
did. I ended up being a session player
for Beau and it wasn’t because I was so
good. It’s because I did it for 500 bucks.
I wasn’t in the union. I was a kid. I was
real nice and totally green and easy to
work with, but I was a good player. That’s
how I ended up doing all those sessions,
at least starting, because I didn’t know I
was getting totally ripped off.
GEARPHORIA: In addition to being a
good player, you need people skills in
order to be a session player.
REB: Oh my god, yes! Oh my god!
You’ve got to go in there and, “Man,
this track sounds great! Oh man, this is
rockin’!” even if it’s a piece of crap. If
you want to work again, you’ve got to
be a joy to be with and remain positive
about everything.
GEARPHORIA: In listening to the new
INTERVIEW u
album, there is definitely some different stuff going on there. The title track
for instance. What can you tell us about
that song?
REB: Some people hate it because it’s a
departure for Winger, for sure. I had that
lick, and Kip liked it because he’s an old
hippie, so we started messing with it. I
picked up the bass and said, ‘What if we
did this?’ and Kip liked it. Then Kip wrote
the chorus — it came to him, it beamed
into him — and it’s on video in the ‘Making Of.’ That video [the DVD is available
with the Deluxe Edition of the album]
really shows how we write together.
Basically, Kip hits the drum machine
and plays a beat. Then he’ll play a single
note, like E or A, something that guitar
players like, and he’ll thump on the bass.
It’s up to me to come up with a guitar
riff. We always start with a guitar riff because I’m really good at writing them. It’s
something I’m great at. I can sit there and
play and I don’t even know if it’s cool or
not. I know at the end of the day if it is,
but Kip’s the one who has to go, ‘That!
What’s that?’ and I say, ‘I have no idea.’
We have to rewind, because he has to
record me all the time because I play
and I have no idea what I just played.
It’s all improv and screwing around. He
plays it back to me and I learn it. Kip
is a master arranger. He studies arranging, he arranges for 76-piece orchestras,
so he knows exactly where to go, and
that’s why it happens so quickly. We
write a song a day, basically. Kip is a
workaholic. We eat at 10:00, we’re in
the studio at 10:30, and we work until
we’re fried. We’ve been doing it the
same way since 1989.
is just guitar, guitar, guitar, and all they
do is talk equipment. I’ve had the same
equipment for twenty years. I’ve never
changed my guitars or changed my
amps. Once I find something, that’s it.
I’ve never found anything better.
GEARPHORIA: The musical complexity
that people comment about regarding this album is nothing new. Those
elements, which some people are now
calling ‘prog rock,’ were present on the
first album. ‘Seventeen’ is full of them.
Had the lyrics not been about a girl, do
you think that the level of musicianship
would have been more obvious?
REB: Yes. That song is not easy to play.
Guitar players have a really hard time
with it because it’s all on upbeats, and
for me, that’s really natural. I hear things
in upbeats. If you watch me onstage, my
head is going up while everyone else’s
head is going down. That’s the explanation on ‘Seventeen’. Everyone does the
lick wrong. There’s one note that everyone does wrong, and that’s the coolest
part of the lick. Winger has always had a
progressive side to it — always. Always.
The stuff isn’t easy to play, but it’s a little
Reb Beach
bit masked. The early stuff, especially, is
totally masked by the poppy melodies.
My thing was to write riffs that weren’t
necessarily that easy to play, that weren’t
that basic, and put the radio melody over
it. ‘Rainbow in the Rose’ was on the second album and that’s progressive as hell.
Even ‘Headed for a Heartbreak’ is kind
of progressive in that it’s such a great
arrangement. It’s actually better than
typical Kip Winger arrangements. It’s one
of his best arrangements, now that I think
about it.
GEARPHORIA: How does Kip make you
a better musician?
REB: Kip and Mike Shipley taught me
everything I know. I used to rush all over
the place. I’d play after the beat. It’s a
typical guitar player thing. In Winger, especially when you’re recording, you have
to play perfectly in the pocket, or else
Kip won’t accept it, so you have to play
through the music. It took me a while
to learn to do that. I had to train my ear,
and Kip was a big part of that. I know so
much more about music than I used to
know and I didn’t learn it at Berklee. I
learned it from Kip. G
GEARPHORIA: How would you say your
relationship with the guitar has changed
over the years?
REB: Zero. It hasn’t changed at all. It’s
exactly the same. I still play the exact
same licks. I never practice. Guitar is
the least important thing to me, honestly. I never play guitar unless I have
to. I write songs on keyboards, mostly. I
don’t take it for granted, though. I love
the guitar. I just don’t have that spark
that I had when I was a kid and my
whole life was guitar. I played all day,
every day. I know guys who are still like
that, who carry a guitar around with
them everywhere, and the whole thing
THE NEW ONE: Winger’s Better Days Comin’ was
released in April, the first new studio album from
the band since 2009’s Karma.
53
GEAR REVIEWS u
Category 5 Vera
E
IV
EXCLUS
Hurricane force tones
The triple threat 35-watt Vera is a potent sonic storm
CATEGORY 5 has been making their
own special brand of classic-voiced
fire-breathers in the Dallas area for
the better part of decade, targeting the
vintage punch and smoothness seen
in earlier rock and roll era tones both
stateside and across the pond. With
many of the amps taking their names
from storms, the company has not only
been busy building amps for the likes of
Joe Bonamassa, Warren Haynes and Tab
Benoit, but also is a champion for charities, including those that raise money
for storm-ravaged areas.
We visited with Don Ritter and Berry
Dickson of Category 5 at the recent Dallas International Guitar Festival and once
again came away impressed with the volume of new amp ideas springing from the
shop. We also came away with the new
35-watt Vera combo... the cathode-biased
design amp versus the company’s 50-watt
Vera, which is fixed bias.
The heart of the Vera is based on an
amp the company did for Govt. Mule’s
54
Warren Haynes, who was looking for a
single amp that could cover the ground
of both his stalwart SLO and Diaz for
shows where taking both amps wasn’t an
option. The 35-watt Vera is a two-channel
amp where Channel 1 offers higher gain
sounds with robust sustain and a midboost option, while Channel 2 is a clean,
open tone with a gain boost option.
On the front plate, Channel 1 offers up
knob controls for Gain, Volume, Treble,
Middle, Bass, while Channel 2 boasts
knobs for Volume, Treble and Bass. There
are also global controls for Reverb and
Voltage. On the back, you will find three
toggle switches - Clean/Drive allows the
user to switch between channels sans
footswitch, Drive Mid Boost for Channel
1, and a Clean Mid Boost for Channel 2.
There is also a separate 1/4-inch input
allowing the user to operate the Clean
Boost via a footswitch.
Inside the 35-watt Vera, the tube
complement includes Tung-Sol 5881
power tubes (but 6L6s can also be used).
CATEGORY 5 AMPS
VERA
Two channel, 35W all-tube amp
Tubes: 12AX7s pre-amp tubes, TungSol 5881power tubes
Dimensions: W: 24”, H: 20”, D: 10”
Weight: About 50 lbs.
Price: $3,295 combo ($2,995 head)
GEAR REVIEWS u
Our review combo was loaded with a
1x12 Jensen Neo speaker.
Plugging into Channel 1, you quickly
learn that the Vera smokes. At the lowest
gain settings, the Vera offers up a solid
crunch... and as you roll the Gain knob
clockwise, the crunch morphs smoothly
into a tasty distortion tone that hits its
ceiling just south of ‘80s era metal territory. Hit the toggle on the back for an
extra mids bump, if desired. Channel
2 offers a clean, open chime without a
lot of compression, allowing chords to
ring out a bit more. A gain boost, which
is accessible via either backplate toggle
or footswitch will add grit that sends the
amp into a JTM-esque style overdrive
neighborhood. Vera’s Channel 1, Channel 2 and Channel 2 plus gain boost configuration gives the user three separate,
footswitchable voicings to tap into.
Dialing back the Voltage control reins in
the power (and output) of the Vera... getting it down to bedroom volume levels. As
the sound goes ‘brown’ it still preserves a
lot of what makes the amp cool.
The Vera’s versatility is matched by its
heft. Weighing in at around 50lbs, the
stout combo might not be the ideal graband-go alternative for a player heading
out to a quick club gig. This is a heavy
amp... and we mean that both metaphysically, and physically.
If the weight isn’t an issue, then the price
Category 5 Vera
tag could be. At $3,295, the Vera combo is
an investment, but one we believe would
pay dividends for someone looking to add
a bit of firepower to their tone arsenal.
The 35-watt Vera combo huffed and
puffed and blew us away. What more
could we ask? G
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GEAR REVIEWS u
Big Tone Music Brewery Maggie
Prothonotary warbler
Big Tone’s Maggie is the judicious, vintage-voiced vibrato you’d expect
TONE HOUNDS and sound-smiths have
been chasing the Magnatone pitch-shifting vibrato for a long time... maybe even
before the likes of Buddy Holly and The
Beatles embraced the soft, lush warble
effect fused into their vintage amps. With
the resurrection of the Magnatone brand
only two years ago, guitarists once again
have the tone in their hip pocket, but like
all things... it comes with a price.
Pedal builders have sought the classic
Magnatone 280 sound with mixed results
over the years, but one of the best reproductions of the vintage sound we’ve ever
heard comes from the Big Tone Music
Brewery’s Maggie - a true-bypass stereo
vibrato that pulls off that vintage Magnatone warble with flying colors.
The Maggie sports a simple control
spread. A pair of knobs allow the user to
adjust both Speed of the pitch bends and
Intensity, or how far the pitch bends up
and down. A mini-toggle between the
knobs lets the user switch between stereo
56
and mono output, basically adjusting the
phase of the Right output on top of the
pedal. The jacks at the top include 1/4inch Input and a pair (Left and Right) 1/4inch Outputs. The Maggie’s outputs sport
vibrato circuits that are independent of
one another for a true stereo effect. You
can plug both outputs into any amp that
has two or more inputs and dial in the
vintage tones of the Magnatone 280.
There also is a 9VDC power jack, but the
Maggie will also run on a 9v battery.
Plugged in mono mode, the Maggie
can move from rapid-fire, pulsing trem
sounds with the knobs dimed full right to
subtle, ebbing vibrato once you backed
off the Speed control. You can also
achieve more ambient, warped record
tones with the Intensity pegged and
the Speed slowed down. We walked a
BIG TONE MUSIC BREWERY
MAGGIE
Controls: Intensity and Speed knob, Stereo/
Mono toggle switch
Weight:12 ozs.
Dimensions: 4.75 x 3.7 x 2.7 inches
Price: $219
GEAR REVIEWS u
Telecaster through The Beatles’ ‘It’s Only
Love’ and some obscure, 70s-era Neil
Young hitting the sweet spots with a bit
of tweaking.
In stereo mode, the Maggie can either
get you the 280 feel out of one cab or
flow seamlessly across a pair of amps.
The further you space the amp pair the
wider and more impressive the sound
field... a swirling whirlpool of thick,
watery goodness.
Of course, the question remains... is it
dead on accurate to the classic 280 tone?
Well, to our ears, it comes damn close.
The Maggie might carry a touch more
brightness, but that’s nitpicking. In a band
setting, or mixed into a song, any difference would very likely be indiscernible.
Comparatively, the sound is pretty
much apples to apples... but how about
price? A vintage 280 would likely run
you anywhere from $1500 to $2000,
depending on shape. A new Magnatone?
The most affordable new model with the
pitch-shifting vibrato is the Twilighter at
around $2200. The Maggie? She’s $220.
Sounds like a helluva deal to us! G
Big Tone Music Brewery Maggie
SONGBIRD: The Big Tone Music Brewery Maggie is everything you’d want in a
pitch-bending, signal-sending, heart-mending vibrato.
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GEAR REVIEWS u
TC Electronic Ditto X2 Looper
BAND IN A BOX: The Ditto X2 has stereo functionality to go with its USB port for file import and export.
The little looper’s big brother
The Ditto X2 dials up the control while keeping intimidation factor in check
LOOPERS are daunting prospects to
legions of guitar players that would much
rather ‘set it and go’ than muck around
with footswitches, knobs and the like.
The beauty of the original Ditto from TC
Electronics was its streamlined controls
and small footprint. It simplified looping
to the bare essentials and won over many
a loop-weary musicians.
Loop fanatics loved it too, but wished it
had a bit more control. After all, it is somewhat tough to have a single footswitch in
control of arming, recording, overdubs and
wiping. Enter the X2 and its bounty of real
estate that not only houses the sought-after
second footswitch, TC has also added onboard effects (reverse and half-speed).
The main control on the X2 is the Loop
Level knob, bigger in size than on the
first Ditto and thus easier to adjust on the
fly with your foot. The left toggle allows
users to store backing tracks and adjust
backing track volume. The right toggle
makes the right footswitch assignable to
either a dedicated loop-stop switch or an
58
effect engagement switch. The X2, unlike
its predecessor, also boasts stereo outs.
Fresh from the box, the X2 is intuitive enough to plug and play. The box
showed off its song-writing assistance
ability right away. There was no difficultly in layering a pair of rhythms and a
lead line inside of the first two minutes
of use. The X2 gives you a healthy five
minutes of loop time.
The second footswitch was set up as a
dedicated stop out of the box, but if you
grew comfortable with the Ditto’s twoclick stop procedure, you can reassign
the right switch to engage the effects. The
reverse function gives the user a fairly
wicked tool to sculpt soundscapes either
ambient or aggressive. The half-speed
function can have a similar mind-warping
effect, but is also useful for change-ofpace sections, like breakdowns and solos.
The X2 runs about $40 more than the
original Ditto, but for what you get with
the new range of controls and functionality, it is money well spent. G
tc electronic
DITTO X2 LOOPER
Controls: Loop Level knob, backing
track level toggle, FX toggle, loop
footswitch and FX footswitch
Weight: 1 lb, 2 ozs.
Dimensions: 5.7 x 4.5 x 2.3 inches
Price: $169
ALBUM REVIEWS u
ARTIST: Tool
VENUE: Toyota Center
Houston, Texas
DATE: March 25, 2014
T
R
E
C
N
O
IN C
VERDICT:
Tool is simply one of the best live shows out there. Go.
SEEING TOOL perform live these days is,
necessarily, a trip down memory lane...
or maybe it’s more like a flashback. The
band has not released any new material
in more than eight years, but even without a new record to support, Tool can fill
an arena in the blink of a third eye. That
was certainly apparent when tickets went
on sale at the Toyota Center in Houston
-- within minutes, it seemed, the only
seats left were behind the stage.
For this brief tour, focused mostly on
the West Coast with a stop in Mexico
and a couple dates in Texas, Tool brought
along old friends Failure, the recently
reunited alt-rock stalwarts. In their opening set, Failure blasted through a handful
of fuzzy mid-90s gems - ‘Dirty Blue Balloons’ and ‘Heliotropic’ were standouts pulling generously from their 1996 classic Fantastic Planet and filling the arena
with their special brand of head-bang
shoegaze. It was a welcome return.
Tool took the stage to thunderous
cheers and erupted with a razor-sharp
rendition of ‘Hooker with a Penis,’ the
band’s excoriating take on misguided
sanctimony. Maynard updated some of
the 18-year-old lyrics to encapsulate the
evolution of his own professional ambitions, namely his burgeoning winery
business: “In between sips of coke wine,
he told me that he thought we were sell-
60
ing out,” Maynard growled, reminding
the “dip shit” in question, “I sold my
soul to make a record... Then you made
me a millionaire!”
There are many reasons to go to a Tool
show, but on-stage antics by the band
are not among them. Guitarist Adam
Jones and bassist Justin Chancellor rarely
change position from their statuesque
poses, plugging away at whatever
polyrhythmic passage is in front of them.
Maynard stands on a platform set back
from the others, shrouded in shadow. His
movements are hypnotic, but hardly animated. Danny Carey, whose unmatched
drumming prowess alone is worth the
price of admission, was on this day
donning a Rockets-era Tracy McGrady
jersey as he sat perched high on a throne
surrounded by a staggering array of skins.
Carey makes the most convoluted drum
riffs look effortless.
The setlist was a sampling of some of
Tool’s best work. Long-time standbys
‘Sober’ and ‘Schism’ set the stage for the
emotional release of ‘Pushit,’ the original
version from Aenima. It’s a song that has
ripped my heart out on multiple occasions. By the time Maynard declares “I
must persuade you another way!” in the
song’s wrenching climax, there is no option but full submission. The Fibonacciinspired epic ‘Lateralus’ closed the first
half of the set in a stunning laser light
show replete with the ever-present psychedelic imaging of Alex Grey.
Carey emerged on stage after the
11-minute intermission to play a drumsonly cover of King Crimson’s ‘B’Boom’
(Tool doesn’t do encores, but divides its
set into two easier-to-digest halves). That
was followed up by ‘Jambi,’ showcasing
Adam Jones, rocking the talk box, and
Maynard, crooning for the “benevolent
sun” to “shine on forever,” in a display
of ritualistic magnificence countered
with heavy licks of dark metal. They
wrapped up, as usual, with the defiant
‘Aenema’ -- a nod to the great Bill Hicks
that took on special significance in the
home town of the late comedian -- and
the scatologically sardonic ‘Stinkfist’,
always a crowd pleaser.
It’s hard for me to watch Tool, simply
because the music hits me so deeply that
I spend much of the concert with my
eyes closed, succumbed. As a result, I
may have missed some of the transcendent visuals on stage - and there were
countless - but the light show cascading behind my sober eyelids lasted well
beyond the show’s close.
Tool live is nothing short of mindexpanding. Spiral out, keep going.
- Luke Johnson
ARTIST: Big Wreck
ALBUM: Ghosts
LABEL: AEG/Rounder Records
FROM THE fuzz-drone opener ‘A Place
To Call Home’ to the more pop-infused
‘I Digress’ and the Zeppelin-flavored
acoustic stomp of ‘Hey Mama’, Canada’s
Big Wreck covers a lot of ground with its
fourth-studio album Ghosts. Ghosts is the
second album with the current line-up of
Big Wreck, which includes only frontman/guitarist Ian Thornley and guitarist
Brian Doherty from the original band.
As one would expect, Ghosts has more
in common with 2012’s Albatross than
the earlier material, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Thornley continues
to grow from his early days as a tasty
parts-writer to a full-fledged songwriter,
as evident in new songs like ‘Still Here’
and ‘Off and Running’.
The musicianship on Ghosts is everything you’d expect from Big Wreck,
from the 12-string strum to the accented
shimmer and slide work on the standout ‘Diamonds’ or the barrel-roll chord
progression and blistering snare thwack
on ‘Come What May’. Ghosts feel like a
more complete package than Albatross,
and that’s not a knock on the 2012 record
as much as it is praise for the new one.
If there is a weak link on Ghosts it is
probably the spoken-word style slink
of ‘War Baby’, a rambling tale of love
gone sweet, and sour... but even this
late track boasts a solid Thornley solo
and tasty swells of guitar ambience.
As thick, syrupy and foreboding
as the album begins, it ends with a
clean, crisp and stunted reprise of ‘A
Place To Call Home’ fueled by harmonized lead vocals punctuated by
the question ‘Where is the place that
you call home?’ left hanging in the air
at album’s end.
There are no shortage of guitar
champions out there, but Thornley
and his crew bring a renewed spirit
and drive to guitar-based rock music
in a band setting that might only be
rivaled today by Dave Grohl & Co.
Big Wreck’s music is smart without
being smart-assed... pomp without
being pompous.
Ghosts should be the album that
puts Big Wreck back on the international radar and scores the band a major tour outside of their native Canada.
They deserve it... and so do we.
ARTIST:California Breed
ALBUM: s/t
LABEL: Frontiers Records
ARTIST: Oz Noy
ALBUM: Twisted Blues Vol 2
LABEL: Abstract Logix
VERDICT: Mojo
VERDICT: Mojo
FRESH from a run of albums with blues-rock quintet Black Country Communion, frontman/bassist Glenn Hughes and drummer
Jason Bonham recruited 23-year-old guitar upstart Andrew Watt
and formed California Breed. The power trio dropped their debut
self-titled album recently fueled by riffs ranging from vintage AC/
DC as present in the single ‘Sweet Tea’ to the Zeppelin-like swirl
of ‘Chemical Rain’ or the Stone Temple Pilot’s styled progression
of ‘Spit You Out.’
For the 62-year-old Hughes, the album represents a statement
of life and death, having survived complications from a heart
procedure last year. Songs like ‘All Fall Down’ and ‘Breathe’ are
evidence of his recent trials.
On the whole, the debut is delivered raucous and raw without
apology and gives Hughes exactly what he ultimately was after
with his last band, a group bent on conjuring fire and mayhem,
and bringing it to the masses in a live setting.
THE prospect of sameness can be concerning to a creative artist.
It can also mean a windfall. AC/DC anyone? But for New Yorkbased guitar wizard Oz Noy, the sameness of his unique brand of
taut rhythms and free-flowing, effects-ladened lead lines might be
catching up to him on his new album Twisted Blues Vol 2. Upon
first listen it was as if we had heard these tracks before... except
that we hadn’t. Ok... two of them we had. Both ‘Get Down’ and
‘Just Groove Me’ appear of Noy’s 2006 live record.
The sameness doesn’t mean there are not some stand-out tracks
here. ‘Come Dance With Me’ might be one of Noy’s best, while
‘Slow Grease’ just feels right. Vol 2 also is ladened with guest
spots ranging from Eric Johnson and Chick Corea to Warren
Haynes and Allen Toussaint. We’ve never been big on these types
of ‘all-star’ albums as it tends to take away and not add much to
the host artist’s groove. It works more than not here, but overall
Vol 2 comes off as a slightly mixed bag.
61
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Gearphoria Magazine is wholly owned by WrightSide Media Group, Houston, TX. All rights reserved. Published June 2014

Publication - Gearphoria

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