Publication - Gearphoria

Transcription

HELLO PORTLAND!
PHIL COLLEN
We travel to the PNW to see what
the fuss was about
L I S T E N
SHOP TOURS
Koll Guitars, Catalinbread
and more...
Def Leppard/Manraze guitarist
talks new music, gear
W I T H
Y O U R
SHOW ROUND-UP
Highlights from Guitarlington and
the Nashville Amp & Gear Expo
WINTER 2013
Vol. 2, Number 2
E Y E S
GEAR REVIEWS
Exclusives from Kauer Guitars,
Risen Amps and SynapticGroove
VERTICAL HORIZON
Frontman/guitarist Matt Scannell
talks new record, Neil Peart
DO YOU HAIKU?
Josh Elmore does... in this issue’s
One From The Road
Blake Wright
Publisher/Editor-In-Chief
Contributing Editors
Bart Provoost
Holly Wright
Special Contributors
Adam Grimm
Alison Richter
Josh Elmore
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: ‘Hello Portland!’
Concept and art by Theresa Bramblett
www.theresadawn.com
GEARPHORIA is the property of WrightSide Media. All rights reserved. Copyright 2013. No content of this digital publication can
be republished without the express consent of WrightSide Media.
In this issue of
Greetings Gearphorians... and welcome
to Volume 2, Number 2 - or as we call it
around the HQ... #6! This issue was probably our most ambitious to date.
Like no other publication, we truly enjoy
getting out in the MI world and mixing it
up with builders and small manufacturers
on their own turf.
It was a mission from the very early days
to not let a plane ride get in the way of
us being able to tour a shop, talk with the
brass and bring you a full report, including
a bevy of exclusive photos.
With that in mind, we decide to go for
broke and head to Portland, Oregon - the
likely center of the universe for small shop
MI. We lined up not one, not two... but
seven shop tours/builder interviews!
When all was said and done, we amassed
nearly 20,000 words of raw interview
content. We took to boiling that down to
the essentials and were still able to put
together an impressive 34-page special
spotlight on Portland-area builders.
We’d like to take a minute and thank the
companies that invited us in during our
stay. It was an awesome and exhausting
experience.
Elsewhere in this issue we have a pair of
artist Q&As. Our favorite freelancer Alison
Richter is back with a one-on-one with Def
Leppard/Manraze guitarist Phil Collen.
We also had a chance to talk with Matt
Scannell, self-professed gear nerd and
frontman/guitarist with Los Angeles-based
Vertical Horizon.
We also took in a pair of trade shows
well worth the wrap-up treatment. First,
we journeyed to Tennessee for the Nashville Amp & Gear Expo. The show is back
after a year hiatus and remains one of the
best for sampling gear from all walks of
boutique-dom. In October, we took a drive
to Dallas and attended the Guitarlington
show, which offers one of the best spreads
of both quality and oddball six strings west
of the Mississippi River.
On the reviews front we have a trifecta
of exclusives, including the world premiere
of the Kauer Guitars Crusader model (of
recent Kickstarter fame). We also dig into
[OL9PZLU(TWSPÄJH[PVU9H]LYZH[PSL
Marshall-inspired box of rock, and the
SynapticGroove Snapperhead overdrive.
We also take a brief look at the new EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid pedal.
The bow on this Christmas present is
provided by our friend Josh Elmore, guitarist for Cattle Decapitation. He was kind
enough to take on our One From The Road
entry this time out offering tour lessons... in
Haiku form! Happy reading... and Happy
Holidays everyone!
Blake Wright
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, Gearphoria
THE AWARD-WINNING ROOK OVERDRIVE MADE BY MOJO HAND FX IS THE MOST
VERSATILE OF ITS KIND. COURTESY OF A 3-WAY TOGGLE, YOU CAN CAPTURE CLASSIC
OVERDRIVE TONES TO HIGHER GAIN AND ALL POINTS IN BETWEEN. USE THE ROOK
AS A DRIVE BOOST FOR HIGH GAIN AMPS OR CRANK THE GAIN UP FOR A GREAT
FOUNDATION TONE ON CLEAN AMPS WITHOUT SOUNDING LIKE A DISTORTION PEDAL.
Works well with other pedals and all amps
None
Brad Whitford (Aerosmith): “The Rook has
basically taken the place of my Klon. It’s
not quite as transparent as the Klon, but it’s
‘untransparent’ in a beautiful way. It adds a
great degree of fatness to the sound.”
Mark Tremonti (Alter Bridge/Creed/Solo):
“The Rook sounds AMAZING! It really helps me
get the smooth, fat lead tone I’ve been searching for.”
!"#"$%&'()*+"!
(%+,-"".*+"!/!"#"$%&'()
01200,3*+"!/!"#"$%&'()
GEARPHORIA.COM WINTER 2013
5
4
Contents
THE DREAM OF THE ‘90s
Portland is hot! Not weather-wise
mind you, it is still pretty cool and
damp. Puddletown’s public profile
is off the charts however. There’s
a TV show, a ton of ‘diverse’ living opportunities and one of the
highest concentrations of boutique MI builders in the world.
Pg. 18
DEPARTMENTS
O
60-CYCLE HUM
8
POINT-TO-POINT
12
THE WAYBACK MACHINE
14
GRIMM’S REALITY w/Adam Grimm
16
ALBUM REVIEWS
74
ONE FROM THE ROAD
76
Cattle Decapitation’s Josh Elmore
GEAR Q
Kauer Crusader Risen R45
SynapticGroove
Snapperhead
EQD Arpanoid
68
70
72
73
FEATURES
'
SHOP TOUR: PORTLAND!
Koll, Catalinbread, M-Tone, Hovercraft and
more! We saw a lot. It starts on page...
22
INTERVIEW: MATT SCANNELL
Vertical Horizon frontman lays a gear
confession on us
52
INTERVIEW: PHIL COLLEN
Manraze/Def Leppard guitarist talks gear,
new EP and Ded Flat Bird!
60
ON LOCATION: GUITARLINGTON &
NASHVILLE AMP EXPO
Wrap-ups from a pair of gear shows
56 & 64
It s the most wonderful time of the year
THE ONE THING that is almost as enjoyable as actually
being at the Winter NAMM show and reveling in all of the
new gear goodies that will put a strain on our wallets later
in the year is wading through the gossip, rumors and social
media prognostication leading up to the annual event.
Each year, the scuttlebutt leading up to the late January
party in the OC reaches a fever pitch right about now, as
some things get ‘pre-announced’, while others drop cryptic
(and not so cryptic) hints about what will be on display at
the show. The 2014 edition of the exhibition has been no
different. Let’s try and separate the ‘What we knows...’ from
the ‘What we’ve heards...’
Maryland-based Knaggs Guitars will debut a new series
of guitars at the show. The new Creation range will eventually evolve into a custom order program allowing players
[VM\SÄSS[OLPYPUKP]PK\HSWYLMLYLUJLZPUHULU[PYLS`J\Z[VT
built instrument drawing upon Knaggs’ Chesapeake and
0UÅ\LUJLZLYPLZN\P[HYZ
The most buzzed about amp news pre-show is the imminent return of Supro. Like last year’s splash made by the revitalization of the Magnatone brand, Supro will use the Winter
5(44ZOV^[VSPM[[OL]LPSVUP[ZUL^HTWSPÄLYZ;OLYLPZH
teaser already in place at www.suprousa.com.
The past few Winter NAMMs have seen the debut of well
over 200 new effects pedals. It remains to be seen if that
number is equaled or surpassed in 2014, but one boutique
company we know is planning to have at least three new
stomps is Mojo Hand. The crew is keeping the identities close
to the chest, but we believe one of those pedal is a delay.
One rumor swirling around the internet is the possibility
of tc electronic introducing a new, updated Nova System
multi-effects system. Another possibility is Catalinbread’s
debut of the new reverb pedal. How about a stripped-down
HUKJOLHWLY.LTPUPMYVT[OLJYL^H[9OVKLZ(TWSPÄJHtion? We’ll know all the facts in just a few short weeks!
8
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BYPASS EVERYTHING!
NPOPNPOTUFSXPSEQSFTTDPN
"MTPBWBJMBCMFBT0&.
Red Witch launches new chrome series Offspring of the Seven Sisters range shines for Kiwi builder
SHOWN to a select crowd as a prototype
at Winter NAMM 2013, the Red Witch Violetta delay is hitting stores now, packing a
full-featured, 1000ms delay into one of the
company’s super compact enclosures.
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Red Witch’s new Original Chrome series.
The pedal boasts four knob controls - Delay,
Mix, Mod and Repeat and top jacks for input and output. According to the specs, the
Violetta offers interactive modulation, snapback, self oscillation and runs off either a 9V
DC wall wart or its internal rechargeable battery, like the company’s Seven Sisters pedals.
The pedal also has an expression out to
control repeats. The Violetta is street priced
at just $119. Top witch Ben Fulton recently
confessed that he believe the pedal is the
best he has ever designed.
It will be interesting to see, since the Violetta is being marketed as part of the new
Original Chrome series, if Fulton brings another tiny box of shiny (or two) to the 2014
NAMM show in January. Stay tuned!
9
NEWS X
MotorAve reveals The Special
New McQueen trim level joins the original
NORTH Carolina-based MotorAve Guitars
is introducing a new model to join its
range of hand-built offerings. Dubbed The
Special, the guitar is a variant of its Les
Paul-inspired McQueen model and will
feature a mahogany body, set mahogany
neck and rosewood fretboard.
Builder Mark Fuqua calls the new addition to the line a ‘little mahogany monster’.
“It’s got that wide open, mahogany sound,”
he tells Gearphoria. “Traditional Les Pauls
can be a bit more clamped and restrained.”
/LHKKZ[OH[OLI\PS[[OLÄYZ[VULH[[OL
request of a customer, but he really wanted
[VZLL[OL4J8\LLUPUHM\SS`ÅH[MVYT
;OL:WLJPHS^PSSZOPW^P[OHMVYTÄ[[PUN
case and are expected to run $3,250.
The new guitar will also have options,
such as alternate wiring for those who prefer the simpler controls of a master volume
versus independent volumes controls.
Koch debuts Jupiter combo
Netherlands-based Koch Amps has a new 2x12 combo on offer that is designed to ooze vintage rock tones. The Jupiter is a
45-watt amp that features independent volume and gain controls for both the clean (Cool) and overdrive (Hot) foot-switchable channels. The overdrive channel features a Boost, which
when engaged gives the Jupiter a third channel. The shared
EQ section (Bass, Middle, Treble) can be further sculpted with
the Contour switch, allowing either a warm, mid-rich vintage
tone, or a scooped more modern and open sound. The amp
also boasts a Dimmer control which acts as an attenuator to
allow players real tube-saturated tone at any volume.
10
KICKSTARTED
Liquid Ambience // A boutique atmospheric guitar effect
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/556577677/liquid-ambience-a-boutique-atmospheric-guitar-effe
BRANDS ON THE RISE
Moog
Asheville, NC
Kelly Electronics | Liberator Fuzz Pedal
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2118598779/kelly-electronics-liberator-fuzzpedal
USA Made Fiberglass Guitar Bodies. Dream. Build. Play Loud.
Moog has been around for decades and has always
been on the leading edge of MI innovation. Now, with
the introduction of the Minifooger pedals, it shouldn’t
be long before everyone has a Moog on their board.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/109054170/usa-made-fiberglass-guitar-bodiesdream-build-play
3rd Power Amplification
Franklin, TN
Kauer Guitars Acadian and Crusader (FUNDED)
Jamie has been busy of late not only cranking out
the new Dream Weaver, but also developing his new
HybridMaster-Plus volume control that includes both
stage and studio modes.
Fryette Valvulator GP/DI Tube Guitar Recording Amplifier (FUNDED)
Roadie Tuner: the ultimate guitarist tool
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/roadietuner/roadie-tuner-the-ultimate-guitaristtool
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1080051677/kauer-guitars-acadian
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/9179415/fryette-valvulator-gp-di-tube-guitarrecording-amp
Soul Breaker Distortion guitar pedal (UNSUCCESSFUL)
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/soul-breaker-distortion-guitar-pedal
Knaggs Guitars
Greensboro, MD
Joe has consistently produced sensational guitars, and
if the recent NAMM teases are any indication of the
future, the trend will continue.
Electro-Harmonix
New York, NY
The effects veteran, a mainstay on pedalboards for
decades, has cranked up the ironworks with several
new pedals emerging over the last few months.
Category 5 Amplification
Dallas, Texas
Don and his crew have always impressed, but introducing seven new amps at the recent Nashville Amp
Expo... and all of them winners?! Bravo!
Vemuram
Tokyo, Japan
There is a bit of controversy with this brand, but the
new Shanks 3K pedal, named from producer and
gearoholic John Shanks and based on the Dallas
Rangemaster, sounds all kinds of excellent.
NEW PEDALS
WEEK 47 of 2013
Amsterdam Cream CQ Compressor
Amsterdam Cream Space Reverb
Arcane Analog BMP-73
Arcane Analog Buzzsaw - Buzzaround
Arcane Analog FaceBender - Rangemaster + Fuzz Face
Audible Disease IN-3 Infection
Blackout Effectors Cadavernous - Randimensional Reverberation
BSM Albuquerque
Creepy Fingers Mostratono
Electro-Harmonix Nano Big Muff Pi
Free The Tone RJ-1V Red Jasper
Overdrive
JD Stomps Gray - Dynamic Overdrive
JD Stomps Peacemaker - Parallel Drive
JD Stomps Tap-A-Lay
Jimi Hendrix JH-1D Signature Wah
Keeley Bootlegger Overdrive
Ken Multi MME-7 Multiple Effects
Maza FX Temptation - Echo Tape Delay
Mojo Hand 1978
MXR Custom Shop CSP-099 Phase 99
One Control Granith Grey Booster
Sky Pedals Cloud 9
Sonus Pedals 1968 Fuzz
Stanley-FX Gold Mine - Reverb/
Shimmer
TSVG Dying Batt
Uecks Tremolo
VL Effects Bullit Tone Invaders Fuzz
VL Effects OD-One GreenTone
Overdrive
Wattson Classic Electronics Escape
Velocity
SOURCE: effectsdatabase.com
11
The value of value
Vicious cycle turning... the gear flip is a tough decision become a way of life
ONE OF THE most memorable segments
from Brink Film’s 2007 pedal documentary
Fuzz: The Sound The Revolutionized The
World was the conversation with Jack Waterson at Future Music when he proclaimed
the number one quality an instrument has
to have to make it sellable was resale value. Some were taken aback by the notion,
but Jack was absolutely right. He gives his
reasons, but there is more to it than that.
Sure, there are some musicians who can’t
keep their shit straight and need cash for
dope or rent or food, like Jack said... then
there are the gear addicts whose kryptonite
is this week’s ‘next big thing’. In order to
NYHI [OL OV[ NLHY PUZ[HU[ NYH[PÄJH[PVU
hounds will rummage through their road
cases, closets or rehearsal spaces looking
MVYHU`[OPUNVM]HS\L[VÅPW0U[OVZLPUZ[HUJes, true value supplants perceived value.
12
Then there are the speculators. Scum to
some, value creators to others... they treat
boutique MI like a lawyer treats his stock
portfolio. These are the folks that will gobble
up a limited edition offering solely due to its
value potential. They will never even plug it
in. These are the guys that get on wait lists
for new pedal releases early with every intention to sell it on the secondary market for
HUPUÅH[LKYH[L[VHN\`KVÛ[OLSPZ[ZPTWS`
because that guy is impatient and can’t wait.
There are also the opportunists that see
niche gear as the road to greater things. It
is like that kid a few years back that took a
paperclip and via a Craigslist ad and a series
of escalating trades ended up with a house!
These folks see gear as a means to an end.
Let’s face it, would you rather spend $7,000
cash on that ’72 Dodge Dart Swinger you
really, really want... or work the waitlists for
the next Strymon, Spaceman, D-A-M pedal
or the like and roll a $3,500 investment in
those into the $7k needed for the cruiser?
So, how can you, the average consumer
of boutique gear, stop this atrocity!? You already know the answer. You can’t. It is the
nature of the beast.
Most small shops will never be equipped
to crank out the volume necessary to quell
the excitement over a truly epic product. If,
by a stroke of luck, they are able to reach
that goal, it would most certainly be well
KVÛ[OLYVHK0UH^H`P[»ZÅPWWPUN[OH[
has kept the boutique scene vibrant and
sustainable over the past several years. It
JHUYHPZL[OLWYVÄSLVMUL^LYIYHUKZ0[JHU
motivate existing brands. It can push closeted builders into the commercial scene,
giving gear heads even more variety.
It’s not right. It’s not wrong. It just is.
Stop waiƟng for someone to design your
perfect overdrive...
...and just
dial it in yourself.
True InnovaƟons in Tone
www.bigtonemusic.com
with BART PROVOOST
!
Efectos de América del sur!
FOR THIS trip in the Wayback Machine I would like to zoom out
and not talk about any single pedal or individual brand. Instead,
I want to give you some visual stimulation in the form of a photo
archive of some lesser known vintage pedals.
When we talk about vintage pedals, especially from the 1960’s
and 70’s, we usually think about pedals from the US, the UK, Japan
and Italy... but South America, especially Argentina and Brazil, also
had a very active musical instruments industry, including several
brands of effects pedals.
Both countries also have some very early boutique pedal brands,
so the list of brands I have at EffectsDatabase for those countries is
pretty impressive: Almost 40 brands from the 1970’s through today
for Argentina and more than double that total for their neighbors
in Brazil.
(ZVULTPNO[PTHNPULP[PZYLHSSÒHYK[VÄUKHU`PUMVYTH[PVU
about those early brands due to any number of factors, including
the scale of the brand itself, lax record-keeping and, of course, no
Internet for the brands to share their information globally.
Finding information on more obscure brands has always been
a key mission of EffectsDatabase, and success allows me to share
a little list of those early brands from South American and some
pretty nifty pictures.
AROUND THE HORN: South
America had a number of brands in
the 1970s that sported looks that
would be familiar to the US market.
Argentina’s Audio-Phonic released
a Mu-Tron III under an agreement
with the rights holder. The company
also released its two-knobed “Funk”
fuzz. Beatsound, also from Argentina, offered a Mu-Tron clone with
its Sintesis 1060. The company’s dual
transistor Distortion Booster (left)
was released in both standard pedal
form and in a treadle format.
14
For more information:
ArqueologÌa ElectrÛnica Argentina:
https://www.facebook.com/
groups/273191669463839/
Run by AndrÈs Galeotti from Cluster Pedals
Handmades
http://www.handmades.com.br/
forum/
Brazilian DIY forum with a lot of pictures
of old pedals
Argentinian brands at FXDB:
http://www.effectsdatabase.com/
country/argentina
Brazilian brands at FXDB:
http://www.effectsdatabase.com/
country/brazil
DOUBLE-TAKE: The CH-A3 Chorus
(top, left) looks very Ibanez-like, while
the Pro/Wat Reventardor (above)
looked like part of the Electro-Harmonix line-up... and was a possible Big
Muff clone. The Oliver Heavy Metal
was part of a Brazilian joint venture
with Boss in the 1990s.
Bart Provoost is the curator and owner of
Effects Database (FXDB), the single, biggest
source for information regarding pedal effects
both old and new on the internet. Visit the site
at www.effectsdatabase.com.
15
AMP TALK X
GRIMM’S
REALITY
with Adam Grimm
A Tale of Two Tubes
A soft spot for KT66s spawns an appreciation for a reissue
I HAVE HAD a love affair with vintage
2;ZL]LYZPUJL0OLHYK[OLTMVY[OLÄYZ[
time. They have an articulation that is
SPRLUVV[OLY0OH]LI\PS[HML^HTWSPÄLYZ
based around vintage sets, but never made
a real production model based off of them,
as the cost is very prohibitive. Dealers
rarely have them, and when they do get a
set the cost can be upwards of $750.
About a year ago, a good friend of mine
called me up and told me that he recently
got a pair of the new, reissue Gold Lion
KT66s and they acted identically to vintage
ones. I was skeptical, as I had tried all of
the other reissue brands and none of them
stood up to the originals. The other brands
all did what most reissue tubes do. On paper, they function close to what vintage deZPNUZ ZWLJPÄLK I\[ ZVUPJHSS` [OL` HS^H`Z
sound different. Not always better or worse,
just different. Ok... occasionally worse.
I ordered a pair of the Gold Lions and
put them in a vintage Marshall (which has
a pair of vintage Gold Lion KT66s in it for
comparison), and hit an open A chord. The
sound was right there. Perfection. I played
for close to two hours, something I rarely
have the time to do these days. I went back
upstairs to my work desk and started building our latest model - the Barracuda.
;OYLLKH`ZSH[LY0OHK[OLÄUPZOLK
HTWSPÄLY0^V\SKSH[LYTHRLHML^TPUVY
revisions to it, but it sounded glorious
right out of the gate. I then ordered twelve
more pairs of the Gold Lion reissues, just
[VTHRLZ\YL[OPZ^HZU»[HÅ\RLWHPY,]LY`
one was spot on for their sonic qualities, as
well as their bias.
I built a second Barracuda, and weeded
through some new old stock KT66s. I
16
TASTE TEST: One head had vintage
KT66s, the other a pair of reissues.
Many sampled both... and the results
were surprising.
SUBJECTS: In a tone battle of old versus
new, who do you think would win?
landed upon a pair that biased and performed identically to a pair of the reissues.
I did some A/B testing with the guys at the
shop and a few customers that I know and
trust their opinions. All of us preferred the
reissues in our blind test. Hesistant to accept the results, I wanted more proof. This
Q\Z[KPKU»[Ä[PU[VT`KLLWS`PUNYHPULKSV]L
of vintage KT66s.
So, at the last LA Amp show, I set up a
Radial ToneBone amp head switcher, with
two Barracudas into one cabinet. I loaded
up one Barracuda with vintage Gold Lion
KT66s, a Phillips ECC83, a MinWatt ECC83
HUKH4\SSHYK.AYLJ[PÄLY;OLZLJVUK
Barracuda was loaded with reissue Gold
Lion KT66s, a Gold Lion ECC83, a Sovtek
(?>)HUKH:V][LR(9YLJ[PÄLY
,SLJ[YVUPJHSS`[OLHTWSPÄLYZ^LYLHZJSVZL
as I could possibly make them. The bias
between the two amps was .005mA apart
(5mA is considered a “matched” pair). I
went to see my friend Nial McGaughey
from Solid Cables and bought brand new,
identical cables for all of our testing.
To say the results were telling would be
an understatement. After having 30 people
in a row all choose the amp with the reissue tubes in it, I thought maybe there was
something odd going on. Then one person
chose the vintage tubes. This was about
how the whole test went. End result was
out of 130 people, 12 chose the vintage
tubes. (There was one gentleman who
nailed everything in a matter of seconds.
I believe he preferred the reissues, but he
knew which was vintage with no hesitation. Very cool). Of the dozen who chose
them, I did ask a few afterwards why they
chose the ones they did. They all essentially said they wanted something with a little
SLZZKLÄUP[PVU
At the end of the day, the exercise showed
to me that there is still hope for the world.
The new Gold Lion KT66s nail the vintage
ones. No other brands have. The other reissues are good tubes, but they don’t act like
the old ones. If you put a pair of vintage
KT66s in an amp and watch them distort
on an oscilloscope, you can see how they
act different than any other tube. If you put
most reissues on a scope, they act and look
more like a 6550 or a 6L6 tube. Not bad...
just different.
The new Gold Lions look, act and sound
just like the old ones. Better actually.
Adam Grimm is the owner and founder of
Satellite Amplifiers. The Southern Californiabased 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.
17
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IMAGES AND WORDS BY BLAKE WRIGHT
It has many names: Stumptown, Bridgetown, Puddletown,
the City of Roses, PDX... the list goes on, but the fine folks that
track such things may want to consider yet another moniker for
Portland, Oregon - MI-ville, or Boutiquesburg, or Guitariana...
or something like that. With little argument, it’s this Pacific
Northwest destination that has become the de facto US capitol
of small builder guitar gear. Think of a boutique brand of either
guitars, amps or pedals. Go ahead, think of one. Now think
of three. There is a good chance that one of those that crossed
your mind has roots here. It’s hard to keep count of just how
many builders call the area home. More than a dozen? Yes. Two
dozen? Probably. Three dozen?! Not out of the question. GEARPHORIA made the trek to P-town to check in on a few builders
across the boutique spectrum to find out how things were going,
what the future holds and most important of all... Why Portland?!
DREAMS of the west coast usually center
on the warm and more glamorous climbs of
southern California, with its miles of scenic
beaches dotted with quaint, comfortable
coastal burgs offering equal amounts of
sunshine and serenity. Let’s face it, as you
TV]L UVY[O HSVUN [OL 7HJPÄJ *VHZ[ /PNOway things start to get dicey. The sun fades
in a cloak of persistent gray and a general
gloom becomes the harbinger of the days
HOLHK>LSJVTL[V[OL7HJPÄJ5VY[O^LZ[
And yet, for all of its climate issues, from
the I-5 corridor between Eugene, Oregon
up through Seattle, Washington then west
to the coast is some of the most picturLZX\L PU [OL UH[PVU ÄSSLK ^P[O YP]LYZ HUK
smaller waterways, forests and mountain
ranges. While Seattle lays claim to being
the jewel of the region, it is Portland, Oregon that has emerged as the most desirable destination, especially for the artisan
crowd. Portland is today what Austin, Texas
was in the 1990s - a mecca for art, music
and handmade goods/services.
In the boutique MI game, Portland is Valhalla. There are countless pedal, amp and
guitar builders that call the area home...
some of which moved great distances to do
so. But why? Why Portland? Why is this city
of over 600,000 ground zero for so many
small music instrument manufacturers?
¸7VY[SHUKH[[YHJ[Z^LPYKVZ¹L_WSHPUZ5PHS
McGaughey, head honcho for Solid Cables
y
h
W
PHOTO: TRAVEL PORTLAND
?
PORTLAND SPOTLIGHT u
Introduction
FILLING GRAY DAYS WITH MUSIC: Sure it’s gloomy, but Portland is home to some of the coolest gear shops in the nation. Online
juggernaut ProGuitarShop calls Portland home, as does the eclectic Centaur Guitar and local favorite Old Town Music.
and Hovercraft Amps. “It’s an environment
where you can be weird and it is socially
acceptable. It’s a safe zone, creatively. It’s a
nexus of many things. It’s a nexus of cheap
rent, cheap entertainment... cultural activity. Most importantly there is an ecosystem in
place with people that are receptive to cultural, creative individuals... whether it’s art,
theater, amps, bands, whatever. The same
ecosystem here is the one I saw in Seattle
in the ‘90s... in San Francisco towards like
2000. People can move here with not a lot of
money. They can get a job as a barista parttime and still do their art, or be in a band.”
The roster of builders that call the area
home reads like a Who’s Who in the business. On the guitar side there is the likes
of Koll, M-Tone, Greven, Ergo and Doolin.
Looking for a Portland-built amp? Try Hovercraft, Benson, Miller Ampwerks or Wolff to
name a few. Pedals? There are many... How
about Catalinbread, Spaceman, Mr. Black,
Prescription Electronics, Subdecay, Devi
Ever, Wrightsounds or Audio Menagerie?
“Portland’s quality of life attracts a young,
creative class that is interested in making
and creating,” says Laura Shepard with the
Portland Business Alliance. “Dedication to
independent, small craft products is part of
Portland’s ethos and is very much a part of
who we are as a city. We have a vibrant independent music scene as well as popular
support for the arts in general so it is not surprising this niche is taking hold in Portland.”
Portland has become a perfect storm of
affordability, eclectic lifestyles and limited
barriers to entry when it comes to starting
a small business. It is smaller than Seattle,
and cheaper, yet still attracts the same attention from say... a touring band.
The one question that permeates the air
on either side of Burnside Street? How long
will it last? Today, the town is fertile ground
for the creative-minded, but as more people
move to the area - an estimated 50,000 in
the past five years - some folks are seeing
the beginning of the end for the scene. Fresh
crowds could drive up costs, including rent,
food and other essentials that make PDX living
attractive today. However, for now, the house
lights remain low and the band plays on.
“It’s a magical time, and like every other
place I’ve ever lived, it will come to a
close,” laments McGaughey. G
This is your brain.
This is your brain on drugs.
www.mrblackpedals.com
21
The Custom Shop’s Custom Shop
Luthier Saul Koll licensed his main design to California-based Premier Builders Guild about
four years ago, but you will still find him in his workshop almost everyday sating his passion
for building guitars
PORTLAND SPOTLIGHT XKoll Guitars
NESTLED in a converted garage on the
southwest side of Portland is the world
headquarters of Koll Guitars. The 700-plus
square foot space is packed to the rafters
^P[OOHSMÄUPZOLKN\P[HYZZH^ZZHUKLYZ
various hand tools and stacks upon stacks
of raw wood. It looks like a very frenetic
^VYRLU]PYVUTLU[I\[SVVRZPU[OPZJHZL
are very much deceiving. This is Saul Koll’s
ZHUJ[\HY`/PZ-VY[YLZZVM:H\SP[\KLPM`V\
^PSS(WSHJLÔLYL[OPZZLSMKLZJYPILKSVULYJHUWYHJ[PJLOPZHY[^P[OHIP[VMT\ZPJPU
[OLIHJRNYV\UKHUKML^PU[LYY\W[PVUZ
The shop is an environment of controlled
chaos sporting a mix of old and new
technology. For every pair of pliers and
ZVSKLYPUNPYVU[OLYLPZHIP[VMOLSWM\SLSLJ[YVUPJZPUJS\KPUNHZTHSS*5*THJOPUL
>OLUZWHJLILJHTLHJVUJLYUK\L[V[OL
footprints of some of the larger pieces of
LX\PWTLU[2VSS[VVR[V[OLZR`TV\U[PUN
his pantograph router (where he carves his
[VWZHIV\[MLL[VMM[OLNYV\UKPUVUL
JVYULYVM[OLZOVWPUHZVY[VMOHSMÅVVY
JVUÄN\YH[PVU>OLUOLULLKZ[V\ZLP[
OLJSPTIZVU[VHULHYI`[HISL[OH[PZQ\Z[
the right height to give him the vantage he
needs to operate.
;OL*5*THJOPULPZZTHSSI\[OHZ
ILJVTLPUJYLHZPUNS`]P[HSQ\Z[V]LY[OLWHZ[
`LHY[VIHUNV\[ZVTL[OLTVYLWYLJPZL
cuts needed on his guitars.
¸0OH]LILLU^VYRPUN^P[O[OL*5*
SH[LS`KVPUN[OPUNZSPRLMYL[ZSV[Z¹L_plains Koll. “Some of the other things that
HYL[YPJR`[VKVIÒHUK0»]LILLUKVPUNVU
this thing now. What occupied the space
ILMVYL^HZHSHYNLWPUYV\[LYI\[0OHK[V
have shelves and shelves of hard templates
MVYP[[V^VYR5V^0IHZPJHSSÙLLKH
[O\TIKYP]L0»SSJ\[[OLWYLJPZPVU[OPUNZ
V\[VU[OPZHUK[OLU0»SSÄUL[\ULP[(NVVK
L_HTWSL^V\SKILVU[OLULJRZ0SL[[OL
YVIV[J\[[OLMYL[ZSV[ZZV0RUV^P[»ZNVPUN
to play in tune. I’ll let it cut the holes so I
RUV^T`[\ULYZHYLNVPUN[VÄ[L]LY`[PTL
The truss rod slot is perfectly cut. From this
WVPU[VUP[»ZHZJ\SW[\YL0[»ZHOHUKZJ\SW[\YL[OH[0NL[V\[T`LKNL[VVSZZJYHWWLYZ
HUKÄSLZ0[Y`[V\ZL[LJOUVSVN`ÔLYLP[
matters and try and use my craftsmanship
ÔLYLP[TH[[LYZ¹
2VSSOHZUV[ÔVSS`HIHUKVULK[OLHY[VM
I\PSKPUNN\P[HYZ^P[OHU,_HJ[VRUPMLHUKH
IHJRZHÎ\[[OLWYLJPZPVUNHPULKI`LTWSV`PUN[OL*5*VUZLSLJ[QVIZPZOHYK[V
ignore. Now every truss rod slot and cavity
looks perfect.
¸0[HJ[\HSS`[HRLZSVUNLYVU[OL*5*I\[
the difference is that with the machine it
ZP[ZPUVULWSHJLHUKP[»ZYLNPZ[LYLKZV0
know everything is going to line up every
STILL BUSY: Even though Saul Koll
licensed his main design to Premier
Builders Guild, and stopped doing
repairs almost eight years ago,
things remain extremely busy at his
southwest Portland shop. One-offs,
SLM[PLZHUKV[OLYVKKIHSSZZ[PSSÄUK
there way to Saul. Left is an early
itertaion of his ‘Glide’ shape.
23
.,;;05./0./!;VZH]LÅVVYZWHJL2VSSLSL]H[LK
one of his larger saws. To use it, he now stands on
an adjacent table.
[PTL¹OLZH`Z¸>OLU0KVP[[OLVSK^H`
at every station it’s a different tool. Slotting
PZVUL[VVS(UV[OLYQPNMVY[OL[Y\ZZYVK
ZSV[0[»ZHUV[OLY[OPUN[VJ\[[OLWYVÄSL
There’s a chance for error when you move
it from station to station to station. That’s
VULVM[OL[OPUNZ0SPRLHIV\[[OL*5*0[PZ
VWLUPUN\WUL^[OPUNZ[OH[HYLKPMÄJ\S[[V
KV^P[O[YHKP[PVUHS[VVSZ¹
A 20-year veteran of the Portland music
ZJLUL2VSSOHZILLUHZ[LHKMHZ[VIZLY]LY
of its evolution and the changes that have
[HRLUWSHJLZPUJLOLILNHUJYHM[PUNOPZ
original guitar - a predecessor to his popuSHY.SPKLTVKLSK\IILK[OL:\WLY:[YL[JO
The inspiration for the guitar came from an
VSKIHUKTH[LÔVMHJLKHJOHSSLUNLÔLU
it came to guitars that sat well on his frame.
¸0^HZPUHIHUKÔLYL[OLV[OLYN\P[HY
WSH`LY^HZZP_MVV[MV\YWS\ZWV\UKZ
HIPNN\`¹YLJHSSZ2VSS¸/LWSH`LKH
at times. It looked good. The scale was
YPNO[)\[ÔLUOLWSH`LKH;LSLJHZ[LYP[
looked so small on him. We were drinking
ILLYVULUPNO[HUK0ZHPK0»TNVPUN[VKLZPNUZVTL[OPUN0Z[HY[LKQ\Z[WSH`PUN^P[O
the Les Paul and Telecaster... moving things
HYV\UK0IYV\NO[PUHSP[[SL1HaaTHZ[LY
Moved the lines around on paper until I
24
came up with the Super Stretch. So I made
P[MVYOPT;OLUZVTLIVK`LSZL^HU[LK[OH[
guitar... so I made another one. I made a
ML^([ZVTLWVPU[0[V[HSS`YLÄULK[OH[
ZOHWL0[»ZUV[L_HJ[S`H.SPKLI\[P[^HZ
[OLÄYZ[PUJHYUH[PVU0[^HZ ¹
6]LY[OLLUZ\PUN[^VKLJHKLZ2VSS
^V\SKYLÄULHUKLUOHUJL[OL:\WLY
:[YL[JOPU[V[OL.SPKLZLYPLZVMN\P[HYZ
IVYYV^PUNZVTLJSHZZPJ[V\JOLZMYVTIV[O
guitars of the past and the model’s motorcycle namesake. Koll’s identity grew into
the Glide series. It allowed him to keep
OPZMVJ\ZVU[OLZWLJPÄJZVM[OLTVKLSHUK
would help temper his enthusiasm to making other random stringed instruments... for
IL[[LYVYMVY^VYZL
“Over time it evolved into the Glide
ZOHWL¹OLL_WSHPUZ¸0SPRLTV[VYJ`JSLZ
ZV[OL:\WLY.SPKL+\V.SPKLHYLHSS/HYley models. I try to throw in certain icons
of guitar... like the F-hole has a certain
MLLSPUNZL]VRLKHIV\[P[0[PZSPRLL]LY`WVW
song writer is given the same three chords
and they craft hits off the same three
JOVYKZ0[PZIHZPJHSS`[OLZHTL[OPUN^P[O
me. You’ve got a round section. You’ve got
H^HPZ[@V\»]LNV[HJ\[H^H`6RZVUV^
ÔH[KV`V\KV^P[O[OH[&;OPZOHZIHZP-
JHSSÌLJVTLT`HLZ[OL[PJ¹
Koll matured the Glide into a fullyÅLKNLKWYVK\J[PVUN\P[HYHJVOLZP]LMHTily of instruments - with variations on the
[OLTLZJHSLKI`JVUÄN\YH[PVUHUKWYPJL
;OL:\WLY.SPKLPZ[OL[VWVM[OLSPULMVSSV^LKI`[OL+\V.SPKL[OLU[OL1\UPVY
.SPKL;OLYLHSZVPZHZ[YPUN]LYZPVUHUK
HIHZZ]LYZPVU\ZPUN[OL.SPKLMVYT;OL
SPUL^HZZVSPKPÄLK+LTHUK^HZVU[OL
YPZLHUK2VSSOHKHWYVISLT
¸0KLZPNULK[OPZZLYPLZ[VILHWYVK\Jtion guitar... and I discovered that I was
UV[HNVVKTHUHNLYVMWLVWSLHUK[OL
VUS`^H`[VPUJYLHZL[VNYV^[OPZ[OPUN
^HZ[VPUJYLHZLWLVWSLZWHJLHUK[OH[ZVY[
VM[OPUN¹ZH`Z2VSS¸0KPKU»[^HU[[VILH
THUHNLY0^HU[LK[VILH^VVK^VYRLY
0^HU[LK[VILHN\P[HYTHRLY/V^KV0
do that? I worked for Gretsch for a little
while... at the Terada factory that makes
the Pro-line guitars. I talked to those guys
HIV\[THRPUNZVTL[OPUNMVYTLI\[0Q\Z[
KPKU»[MLLSNVVKHIV\[NVPUNVMMZOVYL0
didn’t want to do that. At a certain point
0^HZHWWYVHJOLKI`[OL7).7YLTPLY
Builders Guild) people and they wanted to
NL[ZVTL[OPUNNVPUN;OL`^HU[LK[VI\`
[OLJVTWHU`HUK0ZHPK^LSS[OLYL»ZYLHSS`
UV[T\JO[VI\ÒLYL0»THK\KLPUHNHYHNL0SH[LYJHSSLK[OLTIHJRHUKHZRLKPM
[OL`»KILPU[LYLZ[LKPUSPJLUZPUNZVTL[OPUN
I’d taken it to a certain level... where it is
RUVÛI\[0JHU»[WYVK\JL[OLU\TILYZ
that I want. I can’t support dealers. I can
IHYLS`Z\WWVY[[OLVULKLHSLY0OH]LPU
Destroy All Guitars. So that’s what happened. We reached an agreement where
[OLÌ\PSK[OLN\P[HYZHUKTHYRL[[OLTHUK
0NL[HWLYJLU[HNLVM[OLZHSLZ¹
You might think that licensing the line
would diminish Koll’s need for his own
^VYRZOVWI\[[OH[^V\SKU»[IL[OLJHZL
quite the opposite in fact.
Now that PBG has spread the Koll line
[OYV\NO[VHIV\[HX\HY[LYVMP[ZWS\Z
KLHSLYUL[^VYR^VYSK^PKL[OLKLTHUK
for custom Koll handiwork has increased.
;OL7).SPJLUZLJV]LYZ[OL:\WLY+\V
HUK1\UPVY.SPKLZ[OLZLHYLI\PS[PU(YYV`V.YHUKL*HSPMVYUPHI\[[OL`HYLUV[
ZL[\W[VI\PSKZH`HSLM[`.SPKL2VSSZ[PSS
I\PSKZ[OVZLPU7VY[SHUK0UMHJ[[OLYL^HZ
VULOHUNPUNPU[OLWHPU[IVV[OÔLU^L
KYVWWLKPU/LHSZVOHUKSLZIHYP[VULZHUK
V[OLYZWLJPHSI\PSKZ2VSSHSZVJVU[PU\LZ[V
I\PSKOPZM\[\YPZ[PJ9,TVKLSPU7VY[SHUK
;OL9,PZHTP_VM]PU[HNLQHaaHLZ[OL[PJ
HUK[OLZWHJLHNLZ[`SPUNPUZWPYLKI`[OL
old Klein guitars.
¸;OLÄYZ[VUL^HZKLZPNULKMVY9VU
,ZJOL[L¹YLJHSSZ2VSS¸/L^HZ[LHJOPUN
at GIT (Guitar Institute of Technology) and
VULVMOPZZ[\KLU[ZIYV\NO[PUH2SLPU/L
MLS[P[HUKYLHSS`SPRLK[OL`^H`P[MLS[I\[
he needed a 7-string and didn’t want the
ÔHTTÌHY/LHZRLKTLPM0JV\SKTHRL
VULHUK0ZHPKZ\YL0JV\SKWYVIHIS`KV
something like that. So looking at the Klein
ZOHWL0SV]LKP[I\[0JV\SKU»[WPJ[\YLP[VU
9VU/L»KILLUWSH`PUN)LULKL[[V.\P[HYZ
+»(UNLSPJVZIPN[YHKP[PVUHSZ[\MM;OL
M\[\YLLZX\L2SLPUKPKU»[Ä[:V0[VVR[OL
[OPUNZ[OH[9VUSPRLK[OLULJRWYVQLJ[PVU
and the way it sat on his leg... and added
an F-hole guitar on the other side. So if
`V\^HSRPU[VHZTVR`QHaaJS\IV\[VM[OL
corner of your eye you’d see the hour-glass
ZOHWLHUK[OL-OVSLHUK`V\NL[`V\Y
KYPURZP[KVÛHUKLUQV`[OLT\ZPJHUK
HSSPZYPNO[PU[OL^VYSK0[»ZILLUHYV\UK
HZSVUNHZ[OL.SPKLI\[P[»ZHT\JOTVYL
LZV[LYPJ[OPUN0[»ZT`MYLHRÅHNN\P[HY
:VTLOH]LOHKMHUMYL[Z:VTLOH]LILLU
LPNO[Z[YPUN¹
Koll recently launched a newer model
[OL;YV\IHKV\Y/LJHSSZP[OPZº-LUKLY
styled’ Glide with its distinct Southern
*HSPMVYUPH]PIL
/L]PZP[LK[OL7).ZOVWQ\Z[YLJLU[S`[V
OLSWV\[^P[O[OLSH\UJO;OL;YV\IHKV\Y
THYRZ[OLÄYZ[ºVMMZP[L»UL^N\P[HYTVKLS
MVY2VSSTLHUPUNOL»KUL]LYI\PS[VULPU
OPZ7VY[SHUKZOVWWYL]PV\ZS`0[KLI\[LK
at Winter NAMM early this year and next
TVU[OH[>PU[LY5(447).^PSS
KLI\[H[^VWPJR\W]LYZPVUHUKH:[YH[
like three pick-up model.
He also continues to tinker with new deZPNUZPUJS\KPUNHUPUJOQHaaN\P[HY;OL
QHaaIV_^V\SKILHKLWHY[\YLMVY2VSS
>OPSLOLOHZI\PS[HYJO[VWZPU[OLWHZ[OL
OHZUL]LYI\PSKHU`[OPUNZVIPN
¸0»THS^H`ZZRL[JOPUN\WZVTL[OPUN¹
explains Koll. “That’s a given. Basically
T`NPNOHZU»[JOHUNLK0Q\Z[KVU»[OH]L[V
make Glides all of the time. I’m the custom
shop for a custom shop! It’s a really cool
^H`[VIL0MP[»Z^LPYKZLUKP[[V:H\S;OH[»Z
NYLH[;OH[»Z[OL^H`0SPRLP[¹G
INLAYED: Koll embraces his CNC to do some of the
more precise cuts on his guitars. The machine allows
him to do some interesting custom work, including
the ‘D’ shaped inlays seen left.
25
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After a decade of making pedals, Catalinbread has become a one of the most successful effects builders on the
West Coast... but that wasn’t necessarily the plan
IT HAS BEEN 10 years since a 20-something living in Seattle, Washington, took
his tinkering with guitar effects to the next
level and released a clean boost/line buffer
that would be the cornerstone for one of
the most successful pedal companies in the
boutique arena. The pedal was the Super
Chili Picoso - a crackle-free boost that
doubled as a unity buffer for long cable
lines - and the company is Catalinbread.
After relocating to Portland seven years
ago, company founder Nicholas Harris
began to grow the brand, which today
boasts a range of near 20 effects pedals
- one of those remains that all-important
clean boost.
“I never had this idea that I was going to
start a business and get to the scale that I
have right now,” admits Harris. “I started
it as a way for me to not have to work...
HUKWSH`T\ZPJ([ZVTLWVPU[HYV\UKÄ]L
years ago I decided to try and run it as a
‘real’ business.”
That ‘real business’ has bloomed to
become one of the most visible, and
recognizable, brands in the effects pedal
26
industry. A few years back, Catalinbread
issued several ‘amp-in-a-box’ pedals that
were very successful, led by the Marshallinspired Dirty Little Secret (DLS). More
recently, the company has been on a delay
kick with the release of both the Echorec and Belle Epoch. Overall, however,
the company has become more focused
regarding what it wants to say with each
release. The idea of ‘message’ has taken
center stage.
“This year, and in the last couple of
years, I think the thing we’ve done really
well is just think about the way we’re
going to message what we do,” explains
Harris. “It was really easy for us to come
out with the Dirty Little Secret in 2008...
the original version of it, because it had
Marshall knobs on it. So people were like...
that’s a Marshall pedal. I know that. We
went away from that and tried to make our
own sort of brand image that we brought
to NAMM (in 2012). But we didn’t really
bring much of our message. It wasn’t until
the Echorec that we really started honing in
on message. The Echorec was a huge help
because the original unit has a legacy of its
own, but I really think we did a damn good
job of putting that thing together in terms
of messaging, video, getting it in the right
distribution hands. I feel like it’s legend. It
just doesn’t slow down for us. We did the
same thing with the new DLS and then the
Belle. Basically just trying to be as genuine
as we can be about the real behaviors of
the real things. You actually have to have
to real things... and multiples if you can.
You can’t just look at a schematic and say
‘I bet it’s like this. I’m going to put JFETs in
here.’ We had two Binson Echorecs in the
shop while we were working on the pedal.
That’s pretty nuts. That’s like a used car
(cost-wise). I hope that it has transcended
the ‘Gilmour’ thing.”
With a staff of near a dozen, Catalinbread
is already threatening to outgrow the new
space it moved into just last year. The curYLU[ZWHJLPZHZ[VYLMYVU[JVUÄN\YH[PVUSVcated in the Montavilla neighborhood in
south-east Portland. Walking through the
front door to the ‘By appointment only’
shop, you are greeted by a series of con-
PORTLAND SPOTLIGHT XCatalinbread
]LU[PVUHSVMÄJL^VYRZWHJLZHUKHUPTWYLZsive wall of amp heads, echo machines and
various other relics of a bygone age of tone.
( X\PJR ZO\MÅL [OYV\NO H ZPTWSL KVVY^H`
reveals the nerve center of the company.
Walls on either side of the big, open room
are lined with work stations carrying out
various aspects of the build. The center of
the room is lined with dual-facing racks
which act as parts and shipping storage. The
racks are capped near the entrance by an
impressive slate-gray ping pong table. In the
back, there are separate rooms for testing
pedals (away from the din of the workplace)
as well as a room occupied by an army of
drill presses. Working at capacity, and running low on space, Catalinbread will face
some key decisions sooner rather than later.
“We can always add shifts,” remarks
Harris. “That’s always an option. We can
HS^H`ZILTVYLLMÄJPLU[>LJHUHS^H`Z
consider whether or not it is necessary for
us to manufacture it still. It depends on
what path we want to go down. Probably
we’ll go down the ‘continue making it ourselves’ path. There’s the control issue. Then,
there’s the fact that you can’t get a remote
manufacturer to care what the damn thing
sounds like. I’ve heard enough horror
stories about that. Plus we’re really picky
about our parts choices. Some people
think it’s smoke and mirrors or whatever.
We don’t really advertise the shit we put in
our pedals. It’s not like we’re, look at this...
new, old stock... carbon composition, blah,
blah... We don’t talk about our technology.
It is only in there because it is necessary for
the end result.”
On the day of our visit, and for most days
since they were released, the team was
feverishly assembling, testing, boxing and
shipping Echorec and Belle Epoch pedals.
While the Belle was a fairly new release at
the time of our visit, the Echorec had been
out for months and still going strong. Harris
said he expected to ship 1,000 Echorecs in
2013. By October, they had already moved
4,000 units. The move towards more eclectic offerings, but ones with stories, seems
to have paid off for the company... and that
was by design.
“It basically evolved out of conversations
(Catalinbread designer) Howard (Gee) and
I would have about old sounds, old records... and what kind of equipment they
used,” explains Harris. “A lot of times I think
that when people approach these pieces of
equipment they don’t understand that it is
not just a coating for your guitar sound... it
is literally what inspired that sound. There is
a feel to that device that if it didn’t have that
feel and only had the sound it’s not going to
28
PING PONG AND SOLDER: Catalinbread
HQ has everything... and thensome. There
is even a new ‘jam’ space in the back of the
room... and the ping pong table can double as
a lunch table. Belle Epochs were on the menu.
be the same thing. It is not going to inspire
you to play the same kind of music. We’ve
gone down a lot of paths... with the Echorec, Belle Epoch, the DLS or the 5F6... all of
our amp boxes have gone down that path.
Some of them were better received than
others, but the amp thing... eventually, is a
dead end street. I’d like to do some more
experimental stuff. It is hard to tell a story
about experimental stuff. ‘Well... this thing
makes you sound like a spaceship!’ Those
are mostly just fun. Fun stuff in our business, like our Heliotrope pedal or Teaser
Stallion, they are still cool and I love every
time I hear one... but there is no story about
P[5V[OPUN[V[LSSWLVWSLHIV\[(IV\[Ä]L
years ago we decided to change the way
we present things to the world. From this is
cool and neat and we hope you like it... to
actually telling a story about it. Old gear...
[OH[»ZHULHZ`VUL[VÄUKZ[VYPLZHIV\[HUK
0 ^HZ KHTU JVUÄKLU[ [OH[ ^L JV\SK KV H
good job.”
With the popularity of the Echorec, and
early indications of a repeat performance
with the Belle (a tribute to the sought-after
magic of the venerable EP3), it begs the
question what else the company might
have on offer in the coming years. More
‘tribute’ pedals? A return to the amp-in-a-
box model? Or perhaps something totally
unexpected. So where does Harris see the
JVTWHU`Ä]L`LHYZMYVTUV^&
“There are certainly a lot of ideas that we
have that we can work on just going down
this path we’re on of paying tribute, homage to old things,” says Harris. “I think very
quickly we’re going to outgrown whatever
technologies we’re using in terms of DSP
stuff. We’re already outgrowing it. We’ve
had to put some of our more complicated
PKLHZVU[OLIHJRI\YULY0UÄ]L`LHYZ
maybe not in that shop. I might sell it... I
don’t know. If somebody offered the right
money for it I might sell the business!” G
YOU KNOW THE DRILL: The C-bread machine has churned out over 4,000 Echorec
pedals so far in 2013. If early popularity is any
indication, the company has another winner
in the recently released Belle Epoch.
29
LET’S PLAY: Harris created a jam space in the
rear of the shop to bring folks together... in the
name of music.
Music... for everyone
TOWARDS the back of the Catalinbread
shop’s main room is a Gretsch drum kit. It
sits silent... idle... and looks more than a little out of place in a land of electronic noise
makers. But, as with most things Catalinbread, there’s a plan for the kit. Founder
Nicholas Harris was a military brat growing
up. His father was in the Air Force and for
almost eight years his family called Japan
home. Inspired by his experiences in the land
of the rising sun, Harris launched a scheme
to bring together musicians from all genres
for a single, unifying purpose... To play.
“There was this bar I would go to called
Wood Company,” he recalls. “One of those
places where you had to know how to get
there. It was 11 kilometers away from base
and when you got in there it smelled like
kerosene heat. There was a back line of old
tube amps and a drum kit. Basically the
people that would go there would just show
up and play music together. Didn’t matter
what language. Japanese. English. Most of
the time no one could understand each oth-
30
er, but we still played... and it was fun. That
was a particularly creative and fun time in
my life so I wanted to re-create it.”
Enter the Gretsch kit. Harris intends to
recreate the Wood Company experience
right in Catalinbread’s headquarters. He
sees it as the sort of hang - a liberating experience for players from all walks looking
for new challenges... new motivations.
“I have these lofty ideas sometimes, but
most of the time they are there to help
reconcile issues in my life... I’m not a huge
fan of owning a business,” he admits. “I
don’t really like making the decisions I
have to make in order to keep the business
going, but it’s a necessity right now. So I
started working on this concept. About two
years ago I thought about it and said yeah,
I could do that. That would be cool. Then
life changes happen, but just a few weeks
ago I decided that I was going to make it
happen... for real.”
For Harris, it is simple. It is an invitation
to friends to participate in music.
“The mission statement is literally that...
a community of people who want to
express themselves as individuals to make
music,” he says. “It is also inspired by what
Jonathan Wilson did to revitalize the whole
Laurel Canyon thing near LA. He had
people showing up of all different calibers
and a lot of cool music came out of that. I
don’t expect it to be that lofty, but I do expect it to be a good opportunity to connect
people that would otherwise not connect.
There is a bit of romance in it in terms of
always hearing older guys talk about the
ºZHUKºZ)HZZWSH`LYZNV[HÅH[[PYL
and can’t make it to the gig and another
guys is like ‘Hey man, I’ll sit in with you
guys’ rather than ‘The opener can’t play
so our set is longer now!’ That kind of shit
that just really gets on my nerves. We’ll
see what happens. It’s a good opportunity
to give back to a community that we exist
because of. The cool thing is people don’t
have to worry about hauling in their back
line. It will be there.” G
;/,*633,*;065!*H[HSPUIYLHK»ZMYVU[VMÄJLZWHJLOVZ[ZHYHJRVM\UPX\LLJOVTHJOPULZHTWOLHKZHUKV[OLY\UP[ZVM[OLWHZ[
Above is the Binson Echorec the company used to voice its pedal. Below are more units including a pair of German-made Echorettes.
31
TONE...
!
D
E
M
I
A
L
REC
Nial McGaughey is a used equipment omnivore who puts as much focus on seeking out the weird and the
wonderful as he does melding those finds into true one-of-a-kind tone monsters
The red-bearded leader of Solid Cables got
bit by the amp bug years ago, but it wasn’t
until his understanding of circuit architecture grew and the world of possibilities revealed itself to him that he fully embraced
the notion of launching Hovercraft Amps
about a year-and-a-half ago.
The premise was simple, yet fairly risky.
-HU V\[ [V [OL ÅLH THYRL[Z NHYHNL ZHSLZ
and area bargain bins to search out any and
all components that could be used in an
HTWSPÄLY LP[OLY I` KLZPNU VY ZVTL[OPUN
that could be repurposed. Then, take that
mash of parts, combine them with others
that were donated or salvaged elsewhere,
HUK JYLH[L VULVMHRPUK HTWSPÄLYZ [OH[
are unique in both sound and sight... while
being easy on the wallet. The risk wasn’t
32
necessarily in the procurement or execution, but in the acceptance. After all, the
boutique amp connossieur isn’t exactly the
forgiving sort. Guitarists with a taste for
tube amps expect quality across the spectrum. McGaughey hoped his amps would
be embraced. So far, so good.
“I’m an unending scrounger,” he confesses. “I’ll go to garage sales, yard sales...
they’ve got this place here called The Bins.
That’s where Goodwill takes the stuff that
is kind of at the end of the line... the stuff
that never sold in one of their retail stores...
and dump them in these huge, 40-foot long
dumpsters, essentially. You go scrounging
through it with gloves and a dust mask on
and you pay by the pound. That’s where
I’ve gotten books and fabric and materi-
als... just all kinds of stuff. It is pretty amazing what you can get your mitts on for not
much money. The trade off, at this point, is
my time versus keeping the cost down... and
I totally understand how for large manufactures it makes sense to have one design and
pump out 10,000 of them. For me, to do
a one-off amp, create a custom schematic
MVYP[ÄUK[OLWHY[ZHUKTHRLP[^VYRP[»Z
kind of crazy for the price I charge. Some
of these guys are getting a one-off amp for
$550. It’s easy to throw expensive hardware
at stuff and end up with an amp that cost
I\[PM`V\JHUÄUKZVTL[OPUNSPRL
a Crate Blue Voodoo that’s been blown up
a couple of times, gut it and then drop in a
different board and few other things, cool
shit happens.”
PORTLAND SPOTLIGHT X+RYHUFUDIW$PSOLÀFDWLRQ
McGaughey cut his teeth working on
amps during a brief stint at 65amps back
when he lived in Hollywood. Owner Dan
Boul phoned him up and asked if he was interested in a bit of work that had come up...
mainly wiring amps and performing modiÄJH[PVUZ4J.H\NOL`HJJLW[LKHUKP[^HZ
under the tutelage of the builders at 65 that
he overcame his fear of being electrocuted.
He recalls: “Seeing those guys, and how
[OLPY^VYRÅV^^HZHUK[OLZVY[VMRUV^Sedge... like ‘Yeah, you can run the amp
with no tubes in it. I’m like, what? What
do you mean you can run an amp with no
tubes in it?! Isn’t something going to burn
up? No, no... they are designed that way.’
So this whole like rule of thumb, being
at ease about being around high power,
valve-powered equipment totally changed
everything for me. I had always been
Mr. Low Voltage with pedals and cables.
500-volts? I didn’t want to be anywhere
near that! Now I’m like whatever. If I get
bit, I get bit. It pushed me out the nest and
helped me in a huge way, doing the 65
thing. I really wish there had been a way
that I could have kept on there, because
every day I was learning what by myself
would have taken me a month to learn.”
Watching 65‘s top tech Mike Franceschina working on the amps of the rich
and famous (Nial suggests Metallica and
Guns-N-Roses) became inspiration to the
M\[\YLI\PSKLY0[NH]LOPT[OLJVUÄKLUJL
he needed to step out on his own, though
his does admit using the ‘phone a friend’
option when Hovercraft was still gestating.
“I sent some of my original hand-wired
amps down to Mike at 65,” he explains.
“I was at the end of my rope. He’s worked
on thousands of amps. He’d look at it,
move two wires and send it back. I had
just forgotten to do ‘X’. That was a huge
safety net for me. No matter how bad I’d
fuck something up I had some help... some
amazingly experienced help.”
Prong Song.
Life came close to going in a completely
different direction for McGaughey before
BELLY OF THE BEAST: The bowels of the Hovercraft lair is a potent
mix of MI necessity and yard sale fodder distributed throughout
the converted garage in a swirl of organized chaos. The main work
bench is a testiment to the company’s ‘reclaim and rebirth’ mantra.
34
he left Los Angeles for Portland. The opportunity arose for him to try out for Prong, a
West Coast metal trio that might be known
best for supplying the bass rift that stood
as the intro music to MTV News segments,
back when the cable station cared about
music. McGaughey auditioned and was
called back. He played again... and was
called back. He ultimately missed out on
[OLNPNI\[OLYLJHSSLK[OH[P[^HZOPZÄYZ[
true brush with the harsh realities of being
a ‘semi-famous’ rock musician. At the auditions, he recalled drummer Dan Laudo
showing up, followed by vocalist Tommy
Victor.
“I didn’t have any expectations,” says
McGaughey. “Laudo rolls up with his drum
kit in a beat to shit Hyundai Excel. The very
ÄYZ[VULZ[OH[SVVRSPRLHILLYJHU^P[OHU
opener in case of a crash. Tommy Victor
rolls up in a Pontiac LeMans that there is
not a shred of original paint on... and four
mis-matched wheels.”
Being ‘famous’ and ‘having money’ have
never been the same thing. McGaughey
Z[PSSJHSSZP[OPZºKLÄUPUN;VW9HTLUTVment’.
“Prong was like one of my heroes,” he
says. “That would have been a big step up
for me. Being able to audition for that band
^HZKLÄUP[LS`HI\JRL[SPZ[[OPUNMVYTL
I didn’t get the brass ring, but I got damn
close.”
The Shop.
The Hovercraft shop is the converted garage of a home in north-east Portland that
McGaughey shares with an audio engineer
friend. The scene is surreal... one part Radio Shack distribution center and one part
mad scientist lab. Everywhere you look
is a shelf, bin, basket or pale brimming
with parts - caps, wires, fabric, chassis...
you name it. Up near the rafters is a host
of chassis from Houston-based Diamond
(TWSPÄJH[PVU
“They were moving from LA and they
had a bunch of stuff they didn’t want to
schlep,” recalled McGaughey. “I got a list
from Sam Austin and he said ‘What do
you want off this?’ I basically highlighted
three-fourths of it and basically asked how
much for all of it... just to keep it simple,
so they didn’t have to piecemeal it out. So
I gave them a bunch of money and I got
transformers and other stuff.”
The main work bench is a scramble of
small part receptacles, wires and hand
tools. Spin around and you’re faced with a
row of shelving stacked with head shells...
some populated, some not. On the opposite side of those shelves are the current orders in various states of completion. Closer
to the house from the under construction
amps are storage for reams of fabric - some
classic, some gaudy, but all useful. Hanging above this area towards the exit to the
backyard is a massive metal sign - threefoot, independent letters that spell out the
word ‘tone’ - another salvage job accomplished by McGaughey and a friend that set
him back $20 from a thrift store on Division
Street in Portland (The lettering a relic of a
former Firestone tire store sign).
Recently, Hovercraft built and shipped its
[OHTWSPÄLYHUKÔPSLHML^THÒH]L
had similar guts, the outer aesthetic for every single one had different elements to it.
A ‘build bible’ hangs over the work bench...
every circuit, every owner, every mod is in
that little book. At one point, McGaughey
thought about just building 100 amps,
then shuttering it. It wouldn’t be because
he’d grown tired of it. For him, it would be
something akin to killing a band after the
last good album, instead of turning into a
tribute band that only releases live albums.
CREATIONISM: From something comes something more...
Above is a Farenheit 451-inspired head, the orders shelf and a
bass monster dubbed the Elder Giant.
35
DECOR, REPURPOSED: Yes, that is a portion of a former Firestone Tires retail store sign that was salvaged by Nial & Co., and
now hangs in reminder of the company’s ultimate goal.
“It’d be like, we hit it... this is our peak,”
he says. “The thing that I was always cognizant of is that little dip where we’re not
innovating... where we’d be just regurgitating the same crap. Getting bored. Like
punching holes in pieces of paper. It hasn’t
happened yet. We’re kind of at the phase
ÔLYL^L»]LKVULV\YÄYZ[KLTVHSI\T
and that blew up. Now we’ve done our
ÄYZ[YLHSYLSLHZL¹
The future of Hovercraft.
With the brand gaining traction it would appear the only true limitations to its continued
growth and success is a stale imagination or
a waning work ethic. Given his appreciation for the eclectic and his near ravenous
36
desire to create, it doesn’t appear that either
will be a problem for McGaughey and the
Hovercraft crew for the foreseeable future.
“We’re at the other end of the microscope,” explains McGaughey. “A large
scale producer is like ‘What parts are the
cheapest? Which caps are the cheapest?
What can I get quickly... and in bulk?’
They’re driving it via cost. This is something
completely different. Every now and then I
[OPURÔLU[OLÄYZ[WLYZVUÔV»ZNVPUN[V
copy this stuff is going to happen. There are
a lot of people that repurpose amps, but
I’m thinking about a large manufacturer
that offers like a custom, custom, custom
shop... then I realize they can’t do it. They
can’t do it for overhead reasons, labor rea-
sons... it doesn’t scale. They’ll blow their
WYVÄ[THYNPUZL]LY`[PTLHUK[OH[»ZRPUK
of cool to me.”
School is always in session for McGaughey, who remains as passionate about
learning as he is creating the next one-of-akind Hovercraft.
“The creative aspect of coming up with
all of these things... I love it,” he confesses.
“I love it so much. I realize now after doing
20 years in software development that this
is what I was meant to do. It’s creative. It’s
awesome. I love sound. I’ve always been
the guy sticking my ear in the speaker.
Who knows in 10 years time, but right now
there is nothing else I’d rather be doing...
except maybe motorcycles.” G
AROUND THE SHOP: Scanning the grounds, there’s more to take in than a casual
NSHUJL^V\SKYL]LHS+PK`V\ZLL[OLMVYTLY+PHTVUK(TWSPÄJH[PVUJOHZZPZPU[OL
YHM[LYZ&/V^HIV\[[OLYHKPVSVNÒHYK^HYLVU[OLILUJO[OH[PZILPUNÄ[[LKV\[
as switchers for company’s two channel amps? What about that Hello Kitty amp
that Nial is having a hard time parting with? (...and not because he doesn’t get
daily calls from folks looking to take it off his hands.) Oh... and then there are the
mototcycles? Wait, what?! Yep... the crew brings those back from the dead as well!
37
ENTER STELLAR
Spending his youth an as obsessive tinkerer, Spaceman Effects founder Zak Martin discovered the guitar in high
school. After doing ‘the band thing’ and touring nationally. he found himself in a dead-end corporate gig. He
would later quit and live in rehearsal space all the while continuing to study, learn and create with electronics. A
pedal he built for friend soon became five... then five more... and one partnership later, Spaceman was launched.
PORTLAND SPOTLIGHT XSpaceman Effects
SPACEMAN Effects is a polarizing entity,
and nobody knows that better than founder
Zak Martin. His fuzz-heavy pedal line-up
has been the talk of the internet forums
since the company splashed onto the scene
in late 2008/early 2009, as much for its
craftsmanship and tone generation as for its
price and scarcity. To discover why Spaceman is the way it is, you need go back to
very beginning.
At age 8, Martin showed a penchant for
electronics... at least the art of tearing them
apart. He would pull apart an old VCR (Editor’s Note: That’s a video cassette recorder,
kids. Ask your parents.) just to see how it
worked. The habit would get him in trouble
in his youth. A television remote would
wind up missing only to be discovered
later in pieces underneath his bed... or a
telephone would be found gutted and scattered across the house. He began cobbling
together a small collection of motors and
circuitry he would keep stashed in a cardboard box. He would keep this box through
his early teen years, all the while dabbling
with motion detectors, fans and the like.
Then, at 15, he picked up the guitar.
“That pretty much became the most
important thing I had going on,” recalls
4HY[PU¸/VTL^VYRKLÄUP[LS`^LU[KVÛ
on the priority list... pretty far. So playing
guitar and... in high school my focuses
were music class and shop class. They had
a metal shop class apart from the wood
shop. We had a pretty cool one with milling machines and lathes. Once you got to
a certain level you could just kind of make
whatever you wanted. So I did a lot of that
and I actually... maybe for a year... they
started up an after-school thing where, I
know one was building robots. I wasn’t actually part of that. I think I was too young
at the time, but I would show up anyway
and watched the older kids. They ended
up building something pretty cool... this
human-sized robot that could roll around
and talk.”
Free reign over the spare parts collection
of the high school shop teacher spurred
his interest further until the day he and a
friend sent away for a pair of fuzz pedal
kits offered in a magazine. The kits arrived
and the pair started to work. In the end, the
friend’s pedal was a dud. Martin’s pedal
worked, but it sounded like a blender full
of cats.
“I still don’t know if it was the build or
the kit,” he confesses. “Probably both. It
sounded broken. I was 16 or 17. I’m sure
I built it wrong, but it does have a unique
sound. I don’t think it would be useful to
anybody.”
:/677,+!AHR»ZÄYZ[I\PSKL]LY/L
Z[PSSOHZP[HUKOHZUV[M\SS`Y\SLKV\[
YLSLHZPUNP[ZVTLKH`
During high school, Martin joined a
band that toured a bit along the West
Coast. Then, in 2001, he joined Woke Up
Falling - another group that managed to
put out a couple of records and tour the
country. During that time, the band took
precedent over his electronics habit. Then,
one Christmas, he received a gift that
would change everything.
“I got a green Russian Big Muff,” he
explains. “I remember when I got that
WLKHS0^YV[LSPRLÄ]LZVUNZ[OH[KH`;OH[
for me was the beginning of the idea that
a pedal could inspire. From then on, every
time I’d get a new pedal, there would be
new songs written... because of the sound.
So I started getting pedals when I could.
Obviously I had to save up for them... and
I’d still always have to buy the cheap ones,
but they were never quite right. It would be
some two-knob job and I could never get
the tone just right. I’ve always been very
into sound. I’m picky about it. I remember
calling around town to store with amp
repair guys asking if they’d tweak a pedal
for me and nobody was interested. No one
would touch it. It wasn’t worth it, I guess.
That basically led me to the internet and
discovering how to do the different mods
that were out there. That is how I really got
into pedals... modifying every pedal I had.
6UJL0ÄN\YLKV\[P[JV\SKILKVUL0^LU[
out and bought a soldering iron. I started
^P[O[OLJOLHWLZ[WLKHSÄYZ[VMJV\YZL
and worked my way up.”
After the band broke-up, Martin tried his
hand at freelancing... audio recording, web
and print design... whatever he could get.
,]LU[\HSSÒLSHUKLKHQVIH[HZTHSSÄYT
doing some woodworking. He hated it. He
hated his boss, but he points to this experience as key in learning the ins and outs of
running a small business. But when push
came to shove, he walked away.
“I had a moment where I just sort of quit
everything, sold all of my stuff and moved
into a practice space,” he says. “I lived in
a practice space for a while. I didn’t really
39
(56;/,9-09:;!:WHJLTHU»Z]LY`ÄYZ[
WYV[V[`WL[OL9\TISLM\aa;OPZ^HZ
[OLWLKHS[OH[Z[HY[LKP[HSS
have anything. It was a zen moment where
I realized I was not happy working in an
VMÄJLLU]PYVUTLU[0YLHSS`^HU[LK[VKV
something on my own. I told myself I was
going to start fresh, study and start my own
business making music electronics. It actuHSS`[VVRHIV\[MV\YVYÄ]L`LHYZ[VOHWWLU
after that. That’s when the freelance stuff
really came in. I could live in a practice
space and still go and be an audio engineer or a part-time mastering job.”
In 2008, a friend who had a retail store
HUK RUL^ HIV\[ 4HY[PU»Z ÅLKNPUN WLKHS
I\PSKPUN^H`ZHZRLKOPT[VI\PSKÄ]LWLKals that he planned to hand out as gifts to
friends. After the friend gave him an over]PL^VMÔH[OL^HZHM[LY4HY[PUI\PS[Ä]LVM
what would become the Rumble Fuzz. The
friend loved it... and bumped his order to 10.
“He gave them out to some people and
they loved them,” recalls Martin. “He actually came back to me and approached me
with the idea of starting a business with it.
I told him that was kind of what I wanted
40
[VKVI\[0^HZZ[PSSÄN\YPUNV\[OV^[V
get from Point A to Point B. He said ‘What
if we go into it together and I give you a
SP[[SLIP[VMTVUL`[VKV`V\YÄYZ[Y\U&»
So I said ok, signed on the line... made a
little contract. So the business was formed,
\UVMÄJPHSS`PUSH[L[OLUVMÄJPHSS`PU
early 2009.”
It wasn’t long after launch that SpaceTHU»ZWYVK\J[ZZ[HY[LKÅ`PUNVMM[OL
shelves. The release of the Mercury III
was the turning point. The limited run of
around 120 pedals sold like hot cakes.
As more and more gear heads discovered
Spaceman, the more frustration began to
build with those eager to reach back and
discover old pedals in the line. With the
builder long sold out, any available would
be found - and sparingly at that - for big
bucks on an unforgiving secondary market.
“I will say that when I started the
company I did want our pedals to have
resale value,” admits Martin. “I didn’t want
them to go down. I wanted people to be
able to get their money back, because
you know musicians... sometimes you
need money. I’m a musician too. I would
rather make my money back and not lose
money when I sell something, but it has
gotten out of hand. Some of those prices
are pretty ridiculous. I do feel bad though.
The main reason that I do this is the inspire
people. I want to inspire the musicians. If
somebody can’t get it because some rich
guy buys it to put it on a shelf to sell it for
more some other day, that means those
pedals are out of circulation and are not
being used. That bums me out. The other
part of it is when I make a pedal... they are
not cheap when they come out due to the
extremely detailed, hand-crafted natural
of the way we do things. There are a lot
of handmade pedal companies out there,
but I’d bet there are not a lot that do the
things that we do. We do things that could
be automated. We could by machines for,
but we chose not to. Would it make it way
LHZPLY&@LHO>V\SKP[THRL[OLTJOLHWLY&
Sure... but everybody else does that. I want
to do something different. Our pedals are
expensive, but they are worth that price.
It’s not like we up-charge a lot on the pedals. We’re not rich, by any means.”
Today, Spaceman is a three-man effort
and looking to grow. Martin along with
friends/co-builders Dan and Morgan have
plans to move away from fuzz following
the just-released Sputnik.
¸>L»SSKLÄUP[LS`NL[PU[VZVTLTVK\SH[PVU¹JVUÄYTZ4HY[PU¸0[TPNO[ILLHYS`
next year before we get the next thing out.
I’m excited about it. We’re a growing business. Every year we’ve doubled what we’ve
put out. At this moment, I am maxed out,
completely. I’m wearing so many hats I can
barely stand. Things are going to change a
bit. I feel like we’ve kind of grown out of
what level we’re at and it’s time to take the
next step. These things happen in waves,
and we’re on a wave right now. We’ll bring
in another person to help me build... and
ZVTLVUL[VOLSWHYV\UK[OLVMÄJL;HRL
that next step. The main goal that I have is
to dramatically reduce lead times on our
pedals. I would like to try and make things
more affordable, but that’s something I
can’t guarantee because each pedal is it’s
own story... and I don’t want to make the
Wow Signal mistake again (See Pg. 42).
This next pedal, whatever it might be, it
needs to be the best it can be and then
we’ll price it accordingly, but it should be
worth it. It’s worked that way in the past.
We’re putting ourselves into every pedal.
There is some little magic, mojo element to
that, in my opinion. Art inspires art.” G
FAILURE TO LAUNCH
A pair of ‘lost’ Spaceman products shown at past NAMMs may yet see the light of day after being shelved
MOST MANUFACTURERS approach their
products with equal amounts of spirit and
enthusiasm, but that vim and vigor doesn’t
always carry over to the buying public...
and Spaceman has not been immune to
this phenomenon. The company showed
at least one new product at the pair of
NAMM shows where it exhibited that was
LP[OLYUL]LYYLSLHZLKVYIYPLÅ`YLSLHZLK
and quickly shelved. In the ‘never released’
category falls the Moon Base. The Moon
Base was Spaceman’s attempt at a headphone pre-amp that would allow apartment dwellers to turn it up to 11 and still
get a nice, robust sound.
“It was personal,” recalls Spaceman’s
Zak Martin. “It was something that I would
love. At the time I came up with that I
was living in an apartment building and I
wanted to rock out. I wanted to be able to
rock out while my girlfriend was watching TV or whatever... in the middle of the
UPNO[PM`V\NL[PUZWPYLK`V\RUV^&0
OHK[YPLK]HYPV\ZOLHKWOVULHTWZ@V\
can plug into a computer, but then you’re
staring at a screen. That’s not good for
inspiration or creativity in my opinion. I
didn’t want to hook up a bunch of junk
with bright lights or whatever. The commercially available headphone amps just
didn’t sound good. So the idea was to have
a really good-sounding, small apartment
amp that sounded like a tube-amp.”
The Moon Base derailment started after
the prototype brought to NAMM did not
survive the trip from Portland to Anaheim
and ended with the unit being overshadowed by Spaceman’s other noisemakers.
“There are two reasons I think the Moon
Base got shelved,” explains Martin. “One
was that the attention wasn’t quite there
and two it is not what people were expectPUNMYVTTL7S\Z[OLYL^HZHÄHZJV0Q\Z[
threw the prototype into my suitcase and
by the time we got it to the show there was
something wrong with it. It got messed up on
the plane ride. The master volume or something. So I couldn’t show it off. Plus I had
the Gemini and the Aphelion at the show
and people were just losing it over those.”
One product that did get released, but only
for the briefest of times, was the awkwardly-named PX250, Spaceman’s stab at the
silent A/B box.
“I really wanted a name with letter and
numbers in it, something really roboticsounding, but looking back on it it was
a really dumb name,” says Martin. “All
that was was an A/B box, but it wasn’t the
switching jacks kind of thing. The idea
behind that was basically a silent A/B box.
We did release it... at the same time of the
Gemini. What happened there was everyone jumped on the Gemini and scoffed at
the A/B box. I think I sold one. Or maybe
none. When I saw how much demand the
Gemini had and no attention for the pedal
that didn’t have a sound of its own we
decided to shelve it. That is something that
I do want to release. I have had pro players, session guys complain about needing a
silent A/B box for studio use.” G
41
SPACEMAN SPEAKS!
Spaceman Effects founder Zak Martin tells Gearphoria his thoughts on some of his pedals
Rumble Fuzz
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THE NEW KID... INTRODUCING SPUTNIK!
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L_JP[LKHIV\[P[¹
The Sputnik in the photo, left is the Russian red variant. Only 69 were made.
The total Sputnik run was around 250.
43
The Guitartist
Matt Proctor has spent his entire life working with his hands. Early on it was carpentry, then a decade and a
half as a sculptor. Today, he is one of the more unique (and affordable) luthiers in the Pacific Northwest
PORTLAND SPOTLIGHT XM-Tone Guitars
ON THE BASEMENT level of a quirky,
multi-colored house that spent part of its
early life as a tile and carpentry warehouse
is the global headquarters for M-Tone
Guitars - artist Matt Proctor’s ambitious
marriage of his passion for art and his love
of music. Situated east of downtown PortSHUK[OLZOVWPZÄSSLK^P[OT\JOVM[OL
normal equipment one would expect from
a luthier’s digs, but Proctor is no ordinary
guitar maker. He spent much of his life as
an artist specializing in sculpture, and a
selection of his handiwork appoints the
corners and walls of the M-Tone shop.
¸0[^HZ[OLÄYZ[OV\ZLPU[OLULPNOIVYhood,” recalls Proctor. “The guy built it and
used it as his shop and built all of the houses around here back in like 1902. Since
then, it has been all kinds of things. When
we got it… it was pretty trashed. I bought
it in 1987. This was a really undesirable
neighborhood... it was very cheap property
back then. Nobody wanted to live here and
I’d been working in Alaska and had some
cash… I did construction work for years.
I did construction work and carpentry for
a long time. Then I moved here and did
sculpture for about 15 years.”
It was a meeting with established Portland luthier Saul Koll at a party that set
Proctor on the path to building his own
guitars. Building guitars brought together
Proctor’s love for sculpture, music and carpentry. Undeterred by the fact that he had
never built a guitar in his life, he set out on
his initial build with the encouragement
VM2VSSÔVHZRLK[VZLL[OLÄUHSWYVKuct once completed. In the fall of 2008,
after about three months of labor, Proctor
ÄUPZOLKOPZÄYZ[I\PSKHUKPTTLKPH[LS`
took it to Koll.
“I took it over to him and he was really
surprised that I had actually made it,”
recalls Proctor. “He sat down with me and
showed me how I could have done certain
things… like how to do the frets right.
When I walked out I had this perfect, playing guitar. I was like ‘Wow! That’s cool!’
From there I just started making them for
friends and family… then it just started
taking off.”
M-Tone came into being just a few years
SH[LY;OLJVTWHU`»ZÄYZ[TVKLS^HZ[OL
Stackpole - which favors a Strat that has
been softened up and pulled in new directions. NAMM 2012 was the big coming
out party, for the brand, but it had been
established regionally a bit before that.
¸;OH[^HZ[OLÄYZ[[PTL0»KNV[KLHSLYZWSHJing orders… from people I didn’t know!”
says Proctor.
The shop is a large, but tidy space with
high ceilings and a good amount of natural light (even in rainy Portland). For every
saw, sander or buffer in the room, there
is a piece of Proctor’s original art. Dominant in the room as you enter from the
house is a 10-foot tall, cylindrical sculpture that is one part chimney and one part
giant milk jug. One wall supports a large,
ZX\PKSPRL ÄN\YL HKQHJLU[ [V VUL VM [OL
windows. Just to the other side is a chain
of urchin-like, silver balls scaling the wall.
Exiting the main build room, the shop has
its own spacious bathroom that doubles
as wood storage. Next to that is a smaller
space where Proctor has wedged a full fourWPLJL IHUK ZL[\W ;OL ÅVVY L]LU OHZ HU
ART SPACE: M-Tone’s large shop area has ample room for
building guitars as well as showcasing some of Proctor’s
unique sculptures.
45
BENCHED: Proctor’s bench only sees about 20
guitars a year move across it, but that could
soon change with the growing popularity of his
new Counterpunch model (bottom).
46
old car lift, which is now used for storage.
Proctor’s approach to guitar making thrives
on uniqueness, which can be a doubleedged sword when your customer base
tends to gravitate to the known classics, or
at least their form and function. Beyond the
striking shapes of the M-Tone bodies, Proctor also hand-cuts his own pick guards into
HT\S[P[\KLVMKPMMLYLU[JVUÄN\YH[PVUZ
“I try to change stuff up as much as possible so no two guitars are exactly alike,”
says Proctor. “With the pick guards I mostly
use steel, some aluminum… it’s pretty low
tech. I’m just cutting them out with a jigsaw, but that way… It would be a lot faster,
I mean… I could order a million of these
water-jet cut or something, but I like to
change the shapes around. They change a
little bit for each guitar, just to keep things
interesting. I don’t want to be a production shop cranking out the same old thing.
I think that would kill me after a while.
Some people don’t really care about, but
some really get it. If you have one of these
it is a #1 of 1… even if it’s the same model.
I draw it out. Cut it on the band saw… and
sand it down, so even the contours are going to be different.”
Proctor is the lone builder for M-Tone,
which means his output is still fairly small.
Any given year he only churns out between
12 and 20 guitars. A ’12’ year would be
ÄSSLK^P[OHSV[VMJ\Z[VTVULVMMÄYZ[
time projects. It takes about three months
MVYOPT[VNVMYVTZ[HY[[VÄUPZOVUHU`
given guitar. The company only has two
KLHSLYZ0UÄUP[`.\P[HYZPU/V\Z[VUHUK
Rebel Guitars online - and Proctor remains
somewhat hesitant to grow that base. He
enjoys being able to interact on a personal
level with a potential customer to ensure
that they get exactly what they want.
Beyond aesthetic, another thing that sets
M-Tone apart from other boutique luthiers
is price. For the product produced, Proctor’s prices are extremely reasonable...
almost cheap.
“I didn’t quite realize that,” he admits. “I
did a little survey and looked at everyone
I considered in my range and I’m pretty
down at the bottom price-wise. Pricing
has always been hard for me. I wish I
could just give them away. You can’t just
decide one day that your prices are low
and double them or something, especially
PU[OPZLJVUVT`;OH[Q\Z[^VU»[Å`:V0»T
ÄN\YPUNV\[OV^[VKLHS^P[O[OH[¹
Proctor will have new pricing in 2014
when he introduces a new, ‘fancier’ model
[V[OL4;VULSPUL\W/LJVUÄYTZP[PZH
different shape than the existing range, and
that he has built only one of them in the
SPACIOUS: The basement shop can support some of Proctor’s larger creations as
well as a rehearsal space for his band and
HUV]LYÅV^HYLHMVY^VVK
past. A deluxe make-over for the existing MTone models also is in the cards for next year.
“In the art world, art costs a lot because
you have people making these individual
things,” says Proctor. “That didn’t transfer
over well to the guitar world, but now I’m
sort of deciding that it does so… When I
go and look at what is comparable to what
I do it is usually some sort of knock-off
of something – bolt-on neck, this number
of pickups… It’s not really comparable
because there is a lot more involved with
mine. I spend a long time working on each
guitar and making it this individual, cool
thing. I’m just not a great business man. I
just want to be down in the basement making really cool guitars for people.”
His most recently addition to the line - the
Counterpunch - has been a swift seller.
“This is the one that everybody wants
because it sort of looks like a Tele,” admits
Proctor. “I tried to stay away from that for a
long time. It is pretty different if you really
look at the lines. It is my thing. In the art
world, if you do something that looks like
somebody else’s work they hate you for it.
In the guitar world, they like you for it.” G
47
GROWING
PA I N S
Chris Benson started his company
just as the global economy tanked.
Unable to sell enough of his handwired guitar amplifiers, he is
diversifying into pedals with a
partnership planning its first
release in early 2014.
A VETERAN of Verellen Amps in Seattle,
Connecticut native Chris Benson moved to
7VY[SHUK[^V`LHYZHNVHUKIYPLÅ`ÅPY[LK
with the idea of becoming a teacher, but
his desire to build amps full-time put
that notion on hold. While an apprentice
at Verellen and ultimately running the
company’s repair shop, Benson would start
honing his own amp designs.
“Verellen is really, really good at heavy
amps… stoner metal-type amps,” says
Benson. “I’ve always been more interested
in dirty clean sounds, touch-sensitivity and
stuff like that. I had an investment partner who pushed me into doing a whole
line. He put in a bunch of money and
we started developing in earnest. I had a
bunch of designs from before that I always
really liked, so it was a chance to put some
of those things out.”
As he moves to grow his brand, Benson
works at the repair shop of Olde Town
Music. Benson currently has three products
available. The Monarch is the company’s
ÅHNZOPWHTW(^H[[HSS[\ILKLZPNU
with retro aesthetics and the versatility to move from British-inspired crunch
to American warmth. Benson offers the
Monarch with either 6V6 or EL84 power
tubes. There also are choices for output
[YHUZMVYTLYZHUKYLJ[PÄLY[\ILZ
The Gnostic is the range’s bass amp,
IVHZ[PUN^H[[ZVMM\Y`M\LSLKI`H
48
PORTLAND SPOTLIGHT XBenson Amps
X\HY[L[VM2;ZVYZ;OLOHUK^PYLK
beast is designed to be a no-nonsense
thumper with knob controls for Volume,
Bass, Mid and Treble and toggles that introduce brightness and a low-end boost.
The Tallbird is an all-tube standalone
reverb unit based on what Benson terms
ºILH\[PM\SMHPS\YLZ»VM[OL ZHUK Z
A fourth product is due soon.
¸0»TKL]LSVWPUNH^H[[JVTIV^P[O
reverb, because that appears to be what
most people are buying,” says Benson.
“Combo amps are just so conveinient too.
I like the head/cab look, but it might be
more practical to have a combo. I’m also
looking at pro audio stuff as well… microphone pre-amps and recording gear. We
might be coming out with some of that.
I kind of fantasize about doing a stereo –
an all-tube receiver. I kind of started the
company about a year after the economy
had collapsed, so I started in the trough.
Hopefully I’ll start selling more amps as the
economy gets better.”
Like many amp builders struggling to grow
sales, Benson is looking to diversify further
into a more affordable tonal solution for
potential customers... he’s partnered with a
friend to start a pedal company.
“I’m doing a lot of design work,” says
Benson. “I’m partnering up with a guy
named Steve Harmon who owns Synthrotech and we’ll be doing a line of guitar
pedals. You know… clones of stuff that
you really can’t get anymore… and a few
original designs too. We’re going to ofÄJPHSS`MVYT[OLI\ZPULZZPU1HU\HY`>L
have prototypes of everything, but it looks
SPRL[OLVMÄJPHSSH\UJO^PSSIL1HU\HY`0[»Z
called Harben. (Harmon and Benson).”
Harben’s early releases look to be a Fuzz
-HJLJSVUL[OH[^PSS[HRLHYLN\SHY)VZZ ]
power supply and a homage to the Colorsound Overdriver that will sport a master
volume control.
“I’d love to only build amps, but sales are
kind of few and far between right now,”
confesses Benson. “I do a lot of repairs. The
ÄYZ[`LHY0^HZH[6SKL;VÛ0^HZKLZPNUing chassis and transformers, just all of the
leg work for the Benson Amps launch.” G
/(5+0>692!)LUZVU»ZÅHNZOPW4VUHYJOHTWHUK_JHIVUM\SSKPZWSH`
H[6SKL;VÛ4\ZPJPU7VY[SHUK)LUZVU^VYRZPU[OLZ[VYL»ZYLWHPYZOVW/L
J\YYLU[S`VMMLYZ[OL4VUHYJOHZ^LSSHZ
HIHZZHTWHUKYL]LYI\UP[(^H[[
JVTIVPZPU[OL^VYRZ
49
BLACK JACK DOUBLES DOWN
Jack Pineda was an auto mechanic by trade in early 2007 when he was invited by a friend to pay a visit to
Portland. His sister already lived in Puddletown, and it wasn’t too bad of a haul from his Oakland home, so
he agreed and headed north for a few days. By the end of the year, he was a resident.
PINEDA’S journey towards becoming a
pedal builder started about two years prior
to the move. While working at a Honda
dealership in the Bay Area, he began to
JVU[LTWSH[LOV^N\P[HYHTWSPÄLYZ^VYR
His curiosity led him to the internet and
other resources, and eventually onto buildPUNOPZÄYZ[HTWSPÄLY;OL[HZ[L^HZLUV\NO
to spike his creativity further and to investigate effects pedals.
“I started looking at effects circuits and
didn’t understand anything,” confesses
Pineda. “Stupid ass auto mechanic... that’s
a simple 12v DC system. So I read up on
them and built a couple of Rangemasters.
I gave one to a friend... and he loved it.
Simple little ugly ass pedal... it worked,
50
but inside it was just a fucking crude build.
;OLMYPLUK^VYRLKH[HT\ZPJZOVWHUKOL
said his boss wanted one... how much? I
told him $20... just pay for the parts. So I
build it and take it to him and he hands me
a $50 check and says thanks. I said ‘Wow,
that was nice of you.’ He said he thought
I’d made a nice gesture with the build. So I
go back to the shop a couple of weeks later
and see the same pedal for sale for $120!
I’m like son-of-a-bitch! You didn’t tell me
you were going to sell it?!”
After relocating to Portland, Pineda
started working on a pedal that would
eventually turn into the Dark Echo. Soon
thereafter, a friend referred Pineda to the
folks at Catalinbread, who were looking for
builders. He worked for the company briefly, building pedals for them after hours. In
2008, Pineda started Jack Deville Elec[YVUPJZHUKYLSLHZLK[OL+HYR,JOV;OH[
pedal would eventually be joined by the
Buzzmaster fuzz, Mod Zero modulation
multi-effect, Deuce Coupe overdrive and
;\UULS^VYTÅHUNLYHZ^LSSHZHZLYPLZVM
clickless switch and tap tempo boxes.
;OLUPU7PULKHMVYTLK4Y)SHJR
Pedals, which is considered a ‘special
KP]PZPVU»VM1HJR+L]PSSL,SLJ[YVUPJZ;OL
changed confused some folks, and it is still
a bit of a sore subject with Pineda. So why
the change?
¸;OH[»ZH[V\NOVUL[VHUZ^LY¹OLZH`Z
“It was time.”
PORTLAND SPOTLIGHT XMr. Black
Flash forward to today and Mr. Black has
HYHUNLVMÄ]LLMMLJ[Z[OH[HYLJVUZPZ[LU[S`
being sold through as quick as they are
made. His latest addition is the Downward
Spiral - a sort of delay with a twist.
“It’s a pretty fucked-up pedal with
a fucked-up story behind it,” explains
Pineda. “It’s a delay, but... it’s modulated
and every successive repeat there is a slight
WP[JO[YHUZWVZP[PVUKVÛ;OLPU[LUZP[`VM
the pitch transposition has to do with how
far the Regen (knob) control is set up. If it’s
low, there are just a few repeats. It’s a very
minor shift down.”
;OLPUZWPYH[PVUMVY[OLWLKHSJHTLZLYLUdipidously via the combination of a muchneeded smoke break and an irate driver.
¸;OLPKLHJHTLÔLU0^HZZP[[PUN
outside smoking some cigarettes at the old
spot... and some asshole was just laying on
his horn as he went by... it’s the Doppler
thing,” he recalls. “I thought... why is it that
everyone that does echoes never incorporates that? When is the last time you
heard an actual echo and the pitch stayed
[OLZHTL&;OH[^HZRPUKVM[OLWYLTPZL
When I started writing the algorhythm for
it and started realizing that eventually it is
going to converge to zero. It’s a 1/x type
M\UJ[PVU0[^PSSKLJH`[VaLYV;OLYL»ZH
problem there. Zero is off... it’s nothing.
It’s boring. But there is something pretty
cool that happens when you add a very
subtle delay onto it... like the principle
VMHÅHUNLYHZOVY[KLSH`ÔLYLZVTL
frequencies are emphasized and some are
eliminated depending on if its summing or
Z\I[YHJ[P]L0UHÅHUNLYP[^PSSTVK\SH[L
so the frequency that is getting emphasized
or eliminated changes. If you take that and
run it back in... regeneration, you can start
to emphasize certain frequencies if the
ÄS[LYPUNPZWYVWLY;OLPKLH^P[O[OPZ[OPUN
is that every time it shifts down, to keep
it from converging to zero, there is some
ÄS[LYPUN[OH[OHWWLUZ:VTLNL[J\[SPRL
zero... just anything inaudible... and some
are softened so you don’t get bad sounds.
When they start overlaying on top of each
other they start generating higher frequencies as well. Like taking two waveforms
and adding them together... you’ll have
the one plus and one minus. So lower
MYLX\LUJ`PZÄS[LYLKV\[HUKNV[[LUYPKVM
but the higher remains. With this circuit,
as it starts going through it, it will start to
replicate itself on top of itself, but up high
and it will shift down successively. So you
end up with this neat little loop that happens, where it’s highs that just keep shifting
down... kind of like the Shepard tone idea.
It’s like a constant down-sound. Like the
/ [OH[,]LU[PKLI\PS[;OH[Z[HPYJHZL
[OPUN&;OH[M\JRPUNºZTPYHJSL¹
Pineda says he has all of Mr. Black’s 2014
releases already in the can, but he wasn’t
quite ready to share what all of the new
goodies will be. We’d expect some more
detailed reveals after the new year.
“It is all done... all of the designs,” he
says. “We still have to do artwork. I need
to buy some more drugs and come up with
ZVTLTVYLUHTLZHUKÄN\YLV\[HSSVM
the copy. But I have to limit drug consumption because that’s not healthy. Hopefully
no more ideas come in, because that will
[OYV^L]LY`[OPUNVMM;OLVKKZVM[OH[HYL
]LYÒPNO\UMVY[\UH[LS`;OL+VÛ^HYK
Spiral was like that. It was like ‘oh, this
sounds like fun’ and then, there it is. A dirt
box too... we’ve got to do one of those.” G
DOING WORK: Mr. Black’s Justin
Brown tests footswitches on a batch of
new pedals. Above is the new Downward Spiral delay and the breadboard
where the magic happens.
51
EVENT HORIZON
Vertical Horizon’s Matt Scannell loves gear. He’s been amassing an impressive horde of vintage instruments
ever since a little money started coming his way... which would be around the time of his band’s breakout hit
‘Everything You Want’ in 1999. Since that time he has loaded up on old Marshalls, Parks, Gibsons, and pedals of every flavor in an effort to broaden his sonic palette. The collection has helped him crank out smartly
crafted rock songs over the past decade and a half. Scannell spoke to GEARPHORIA about his gear and the
band’s new record, Echoes From The Underground.
GEARPHORIA: How would you sum up
the recording process for the new record,
Echoes from the Underground. Did you
change up the approach at all from the
band’s last release, Burning The Days?
MATT: By the time I started this record I
really had this sort of system down as far as
my studio, the ins and outs, the ways that it
works and the ways that it doesn’t. Burning
The Days, our last record, was in some
ways an experimental process trying to
dial it all in. When we started Echoes From
The Underground all of that busy work
had been done so we were able to just
get down to business. Everything is set up
for ease of use and to be ready to capture
inspiration whenever it may hit.
I have dedicated lines to guitar cabinets,
microphones, vocals... it is ready to go at
a moment’s notice. It is really one of the
beautiful things for me having my own
recording space. When we used to go into
big studios to make records, that was pretty
cool and had a different kind of energy...
a sort of frenetic pace that was both a
positive thing and a crazy thing. There are
things like that I try to impose on myself
here, but it is kind of nice to allow yourself
to explore a bit more and not be thinking
about the clock or how much money just
flew out the window as you were trying to get
the delay sound just right on that last track.
GEARPHORIA: It must be nice not to
have a label watching the clock and the
money... and cracking the whip.
MATT: In some ways it is a double-edged
sword. You have to drive yourself... because the clock is not ticking. You need
to keep yourself moving along. For me, I
INTERVIEW u
Matt Scannell
produced this record as well, so I had to
wear both hats. Songwriter, guitar-player,
artist-type guy... but also the producer, so
I had to keep the thing moving. I did a fair
bit of the engineering myself as well. So,
many hats... but I love it.
GEARPHORIA: Rush drummer Neil Peart
played drums on two tracks on Echoes, but
he’s been a friend for a while, playing on
three tracks on the last record. Where did
you guys meet?
SIX STRINGS OF CHOICE: Scannell speaks highly of his ES-345,
his PRS Hollowbody II with piezo pick-up and his trusty Taylor
acoustic. His latest addition is a battered ‘56 Les Paul.
MATT: It’s a long story, but the short version
is we met through a friend. A friend of mine
owns a BMW dealership in Dallas, Texas...
Classic BMW. Neil was buying a car from
him... and trading one in. My friend asked
me to go over to his (Neil’s) place and take
pictures of his car to send to him. It’s just
this crazy thing. So I said alright, sure...
cool... Now, my favorite band growing up
was Rush. They are my favorite probably
even now. So I’m sitting there trying to figure out what to say. How do I be honest and
say that I really love his music and that his
band’s music has been such a big part of
the soundtrack of my life? Just as I’m starting to spit this out and fumble the moment,
he reaches down - because he’s like seven
feet tall - he reaches down and says ‘I’m a
huge fan of your work. It is so nice to meet
you.’ In that moment I felt like I was either
just going to keel over and die because my
time here is clearly done, or what a beautiful thing... to have one of the people that I
have looked up to the most in my musical
career give me that kind of support and validation. It was really wonderful.
Over a couple of years we grew to be really close friends. Now, he’s like a brother
to me. We talk a couple of times a week, if
not more. We try and see each other when
we’re home. He is one of the best people I
have ever met in my life... period. The best
human being... who also happens to be the
greatest drummer in the world.
It is kind of strange I think for friends
who are also musicians. Invariably there is
that moment where, you know... ‘Should
we jam sometime?’ There’s that one part
of you that’s like ‘No, no, no... no. Don’t.’
The friendship is great. Things are great...
and music is an entirely different type of
dialogue. And I remember at one point
he just said ‘You know, we should write a
song together.’ I thought that’d be terrific,
let’s do it! So we ended up getting together.
I have always written... my collaborations
have always been come to the table with a
little bit of an idea, the other person comes
with a little bit of an idea, see which one
53
INTERVIEW u
Matt Scannell
TURN IT UP: Scannell makes no bones about
being a Marshall guy. He has an impressive collection of vintage heads. And pedals? He is a selfprofessed stompaholic.
you’re both feeling... one over the other,
then you just work on that and maybe
both ideas can work together, but if not
that’s cool. You still are building something
together. Well, Neil came into the room
with a finished document of lyrics... like he
does with the Rush guys. It was very well
thought-out, extremely clever... it’s a song
called ‘Even Now’, which had this beautiful play on words... ‘So even now you’re
still thinking about me... Even now I still
cross your mind... Well then, I guess we’re
even now.’
I loved Neil writing from a slightly different place... a more relationship-based
place, which I hadn’t heard from him quite
so much in the songs with Rush. He was
using a different type of vocabulary. Part of
that was he was writing for my voice. He
just showed up at the studio and put this
beautiful document... with borders and a
nice font... gorgeous stock, the paper was
not printer’s stock. It was suitable for framing. I thought... Oh God, now the pressure’s on. Half the work had been done...
and done well. In that moment, I literally
just sat down with a guitar and started
playing a chord progression and started
54
singing the words... and that was the song.
It came out just like that... except for a solo
section we added. One of his fundamental
rules with me, if he is going to play on a
song, is that it has to have a guitar solo
(though I think I snuck it past him on one
song on the new record). He feels like I
don’t take enough guitar solos. So I’ve taken that to heart and I think the new record
has... five. Everything else came together
incredibly quickly... and beautifully. It was
a total thrill.
Once we had written the song I said to
him that I’d like for him to play drums on
it. I didn’t know how he would feel about
that. He said no one else can play on it. It
was very much an edict, which I loved. I
snuck two other songs his way and he was
into it, so he played on three songs on the
last record. When we were getting ready
for this one he asked me to save him a few,
which I was thrilled to do. For the song
‘Instamatic’ I had no ideas or preconceived
notions. I literally just said here’s the song,
what do you want to do? And he just blew
it out completely. Nailed it beyond belief.
For me it is one of his finest drum performances in his career... which is wonder-
ful to say because it’s on my record! It is
almost like a journey... there are elements
from the beginning of his time with Rush,
in through the Subdivisions... Signals period... just classic moments. I asked him to
do his signature ride pattern for the chorus,
and he said ok... though we inverted it a
bit. Not to get too far off topic, but I was
so happy... he had told me during their last
record, Booujzhe (aka Nick Raskulinecz),
their producer, was in the room with
him when he was cutting drums. Being a
drummer, your in the room and you’ve got
a bunch of people behind glass staring at
you when you’re supposed to be rocking
out and doing your thing. That’s really not
rock. The essence of a band are people in
a room together and the energy that comes
from that. Booujzhe had been in the room
with him and sort of conducted him in a
way because some of these arrangement
Neil was very happy to not over-think
things, which I think he felt at times in the
past he arranged himself into a corner. I
think he wanted to surf the moment a little
bit more... so he asked me to do that same
thing. It was a total joy. Unbridled joy. It
is the anthesis of the sterile, staid, serious
recording session. It was anything but that.
We just had blast.
GEARPHORIA: Walk us through your studio. What is some of your favorite gear there?
MATT: The biggest thing for me would
have to be the Marshalls. I knew from a
pretty early age that my desert island amp
would be a plexi. So when some money
started coming my way from the hits like
‘Everything You Want’, instead of buying
Ferraris I bought Marshalls! I have a... not
crazy collection... but I have nice solid collection of vintage Marshall heads. I have
a ’67 Black Flag Super PA, a ’69 Super
Bass, three small-box ’68 50-watt heads
(two bass-voiced, one lead voiced). It just
kind of goes from there. I have a beautiful,
beautiful, beautiful ’69 transition period
Park 75. The front panel is plexi and the
back panel is metal. It is just a killer sounding amp. A lot of the guitar sounds on the
record are just good ol’, honest-to-God
Marshall amps.
I have two AC30s - a ’62 and a ’63.
The copper panels... non top boost amps.
I really love those. I have a old Fender
brownface Vibrolux that I use because I
just absolutely adore that tremolo. I have
a brown Deluxe as well. I have a Matchless Lightning 15, a Clubman 35... a Suhr
Badger 18, which is a great, all-purpose
small-wattage amp.
INTERVIEW u
I’m a huge Divided By 13 fan, so I have
the JJN 50/100, the RSA 23 and the JRT
9/15. A lot of the clean tones on the record
is the 9/15 on the EL84 setting. It’s got a
switchable output for the tube section...
6v6s for a more American feel or the EL84s
for that kind of Voxy thing. Now, I have
always been kind of a total nay-sayer on
the low inputs on an amplifier. I mean, if
you’ve got a high input, why would you
not use the high input! (laughs) I want
high. I don’t want low! Somewhere along
the line I just started messing around and
I plugged into the low input on that amp
when it was on the EL84 side and it’s just
a beautiful, fantastic, perfectly voiced for
recording clean sound. I really like it a lot.
With pedals and guitars, it’s just an embarrassment of riches really.
Another great Marshall-style amp is
Heritage Colonial. Paul Cochrane, who
makes the Tim pedals, was working as an
amp designer for a while with Heritage and
he made me a 50-watt amp of theirs that
is just so fantastic. You can switch between
a tube rectifier to get that JTM50 kind of
sound... or use the solid state rectifier. It’s
got the different tone stack voicing options.
You can switch to a more modern sound. It
is a very flexible Marshall-styled amp.
Pedals... I have a problem with pedals.
I love the Prescription Electronics stuff.
Jack has made some fantastic pedals for a
long time. I remember the first time that
I plugged into an Experience. I was like
wait... I didn’t understand fuzz. I really
didn’t get it... but I knew it was killer! His
vibe units are still my favorite Univibe. I’m
a huge fan of the Boss VB2 vibrato. I don’t
know of any modern pedal that can do
that. I have a Malekko that gets close. That
Boss is one of my absolute favorites. The
DMB Lunar Echo is a really terrific analog
delay. They make a killer compressor called
a Spankenstein. My favorite pedal compressor ever is the Retrospec Squeezebox.
When we were recording ‘Everything You
Want’ the studio had one and I tried to buy
it off of the studio, but they wouldn’t sell it
to me. Years later I was working at Henson
Recording in LA and I met Michael Thompson and I was just having a freak out telling
him how great I thought he was. He was
just coming right back at me and mentioning songs, deep tracks on our records. He
had obviously spent some time with our
music and that was another of those ‘Oh
my God!’ kind of moments. We got to talking about gear and literally I swear to you,
we were talking about all kinds of stuff and
the subject turned to compressors and I
said ‘Yeah, My favorite has always been the
Squeezebox, but I have never been able to
get one.’ The company went out of business or just stopped making them... I can’t
recall. I was on the search for a while and
just kind of gave up hope. And Michael just
got this big smile on his face and said ‘You
want a Retrospec Squeezebox? Come with
me.’ We walked into Studio A and walked
up to his pedalboard and he took it off his
board and he gave it to me. That’s just the
kind of guy he is. Just a sweetheart of a
man on top of being an incredible player. He
knows how to play for the song. Now, that
pedal is right here. I use it all of the time.
I love the Kaden Fluttertone tremolo
pedal, which I probably shouldn’t say because I’m trying to by all of the ones I can
find. I’m crazy about it. Moollon has some
cool stuff. I love their line booster... the
clean boost pedal. I use their version of the
Octavia pedal... the Lotus I think. It’s on my
board when I need ‘that’ sound.
The Hot Cake is another. That’s the first
pedal I ever bought two of. I like the ProAnalog gear. The Power Driver is a great
pedal. I have a couple of his Scary Face
pedals... his version of the Fuzz Face. Then,
you have got to give props to MXR and
Dunlop... the Phase 90. That sound at the
beginning of ‘Everything You Want’ is just a
Phase 90 rolled down to that sort of Eddie
Van Halen position where it’s a really slow
sweep. That stuff is great.
The Lazy J Cruiser Deuce is a two-channel overdrive pedal made by this guy Jesse
over in the UK... and it is brilliant. I absolutely adore this thing. It sounds fantastic.
The Vemuram Jan Ray is another pedal that
I think is really cool.
GEARPHORIA: What is the latest addition
to your gear arsenal?
MATT: I just bought a ’56 Les Paul that had
some issues with it. It’s had a headstock
break and the neck got pulled out of the
pocket somehow. It’s lived a difficult life so
far. I’m leaving it as a wrapped tailpiece,
but I’m putting humbuckers, PAFs, in there.
I’m really excited about that guitar. There
is just something about the great, old Gibsons. The ones that just feel terrific and special in your hands. I have a ’59 ES-345 that
kind of opens my eyes every time I pick it
up. I don’t think I have blinders on when
it comes to vintage stuff. I think you do
have to go through them and find the great
ones, but once you’ve found one it is hard
to beat. Great PAFs have a thing... a chime
on the top that I think is often missed although I did just hear some David Allen
pick-ups out of Northern California that
Matt Scannell
I thought were brilliant. I’m going to be
putting some of his pick-ups into some of
my other guitars. That chime, that click on
the top of the note... it is just spectacular.
A great Les Paul reminds me of a big Telecaster. I never heard that when I played Les
Pauls growing up... or friend’s Les Pauls.
They were all these dark-sounding beasts.
They weighed a hundred pounds and still
felt kind of lifeless. Now I’ve played some
old great ones. Now I know what that
is. I’m good friends with (producer) John
Shanks and I’ve become friends with Joe
Bonamassa.
GEARPHORIA: There’s a couple of guys
with serious gear habits.
MATT: Totally!
GEARPHORIA: What about other guitars?
Scannell: When we play live, for me, one
of the most important things is the Paul
Reed Smith Hollowbody II with the piezo
system in it. I first heard Alex Lifeson play
an electric with a piezo bridge on the Test
For Echo tour. I remember thinking... what
the hell is happening there?! How is he
doing that!? It was the most brilliant thing
I’ve ever heard... and no, it doesn’t sound
exactly like an acoustic, but in the context
of a rock band it doesn’t really matter. It is
just the sort of strummy, high-end information that gives the illusion of another guitar
player on stage.
For us, we use two of them at a time
sometimes and it is just this big, massive
wall of guitars. It has been such an awesome way to perform live. I used to have
to bring the acoustic and the electric and
switch them out the whole time. This way
you just turn them on one at a time or both
at the same time. I absolutely love it. For
when we play acoustic shows, it’s Taylor.
I play acoustic shows with Richard Marx.
He’s a really, really good friend. Another
brother. We do these shows where we play
his songs and my songs together. I’ve used
Taylors for years and years.
GEAPHORIA: What does 2014 hold for
Vertical Horizon? The record is out, so
we’re guessing you’ll be hitting the road?
MATT: We will be going out... I know
we’re playing Sundance. I think we start
up around February 1st. It is going to be
a busy year, which will be great. I’m not
sure it’s nailed down yet, but we’re talking
about doing some dates with Tonic. That
would be fun! G
55
Welcome to Gui
tarlington!
The Four Amigos put on several guitar shows
around the country each year, and the one thing
that is a guarantee at pretty much all of them is
the availability of a very divergent set of stringed
instruments. You want Strats, Les Pauls, Teles,
PRS, Gretsch, etc...? Of course they’ll have it...
but how about prototypes? Or one-offs built for
one of the baddest mofos from the Lone Star
State? Or futuristic fusion fun from Pflugerville? Well then... you must be at Guitarlington!
GEARPHORIA explored the goodies at the north
Texas show this past October... and here’s a bit of
what we saw...
WRAP-UP XGuitarlington 2013
GUITARS, GUITARS, GUITARS: The Four Amigos’ Arlington,
Texas guitar show had no shortage of six strings to tempt even
the pickiest picker. We ran into Chris Forshage (above) offering his wares to the public while strumming his unique Orion
TVKLSN\P[HY;OL7Å\NLY]PSSL;L_HZIHZLKS\[OPLYHSZVI\PSKZ
more conventional archtops and hollowbodies. Missouribased luthier Steve Weller was also on hand with several of
his original builds including the striking Stageliner and Riveria
Classic (below). To the left, we found a 2003 Gibson Firebird
WYV[V[`WLHSVUN^P[OHJLY[PÄJH[LVMH\[OLU[PJP[`MVYZHSL
VUS`[OH[ZWVY[LKHISHJRÅHTLWHPU[QVIV]LYHNYLLU
ZWHYRSLÄUPZO>LK\N[OLJVTIVI\[HYLU»[[VVZ\YLHIV\[
the ‘V’ shaped head stock.
57
A WALRUS IN DALLAS?: Brady Smith and his crew from Walrus
Audio were the only pedal manufacturer we saw at the show.
Magnatone Amps were there too... along with Rockfoot Custom
Pedalboards. Top, left is one of the last Reinhardt amps built before
Bob changed careers, according to the owner.
58
AMPS TOO... AND PRETTY IN PINK?: One of our favorite things to do at guitar shows is to scout old amps. We found the two
combos above hanging out together. The space-aged Peavey Wiggy (below) was inked by Dweezil Zappa. The pink Gibson was said
[VILHJ\Z[VTQVIMVYAA;VW»Z)PSS`.PIIVUZHUK[OH[4VZYP[L^HZHILH\[
59
A
V
I
V
PHIL
CO
LLE
N!
BY ALISON RICHTER
Special to Gearphoria
As 2013 comes to a close, guitarist Phil Collen can look back
on an eventful year. Def Leppard enjoyed a successful residency in Las Vegas that culminated in the October 18 release
of Viva! Hysteria, a two-CD + DVD deluxe edition capturing
the concert and the Hysteria album performed in its entirety
for the first time. The DVD includes sets by the ‘opening band’
Ded Flatbird (just the Leps in disguise!). Viva! Hysteria was also
screened in cinemas worldwide.
Collen is involved in several other projects. Manraze, his trio
with Paul Cook and Simon Laffy, released a three-song EP, I
Surrender, on November 12. The disc features vocalist Debbi
Blackwell-Cook, with whom Collen has a blues project, Delta
Deep, and an album in the works. He is also working on his
autobiography.
On October 26, he was awarded Vegan of the Year at Last
Chance for Animals’ benefit gala, an honor that surprised and
thrilled him.
In the midst of all this, he underwent surgery to repair a tendon
on one of his fingers, sidelining his guitar playing, but giving
him time for some much-needed rest and recuperation. With
his ability to bend notes and hit power chords on the back burner, he began studying slide guitar, with an eye on incorporating
that new skill into his upcoming recordings.
Shortly before a physical therapy appointment, Phil Collen took
some time to talk gear, enthuse about Viva! Hysteria and Def
Leppard’s loyal fans, and offer some insight about his three bands.
PHOTOS BY HELEN L. COLLEN
INTERVIEW XPhil Collen
.,(97/690(!;OLUL^4HUYHaLWYVQLJ[
is a three-song EP. Why stop at three? Is
it because people buy songs instead of
albums?
PHIL: It’s the timing, really. With Def Leppard, we’ve thought it would be great to
get a song out because an album takes so
long. With Manraze, it’s a different thing.
It’s a quicker process. But I agree — in this
day and age, it’s an odd time for music,
and it’s very rare that even I buy a whole
album. I just do a song at a time. So yes,
attention spans, and unfortunately, that’s
what people want. I know there are people
who’d love an album, but the majority
wants just a song at a time.
GEARPHORIA: How does this affect Def
3LWWHYK&;OLYL»Z[HSRVMUL^TH[LYPHS0Z
there an album in the works?
PHIL:(IZVS\[LS`>L»YLKLÄUP[LS`NVPUN[V
do some Def Leppard recording in January
and February, when my hand is better, so
I can start doing some proper guitar playing. We’re going to be writing and we’re
probably going tour as well next year. If we
can get enough stuff for an album, we’ll
release one probably in 2015, but if not,
we’ll just release the odd song, like we do
in Manraze.
GEARPHORIA: A lot of fans come to a show
and want to hear the songs the way they
know them. When Def Leppard performs,
are the arrangements etched in stone?
PHIL: We stick very close. We do our own
vocals, not like a lot of guys where it’s so
fake. We actually really sing. When we did
Viva! Hysteria, we tried to stick as close
as we could to the record. We’ve done
different version of ‘Hysteria’, ‘Sugar’, and
strayed a little bit, but still close enough
that the fans would recognize them. With
Viva! Hysteria, we stuck very faithfully
to the recordings, even tempos. That was
important for that particular project. The
DVD has just come out, the movie’s been
out, and you can hear that. I think there’s
ÄYLWV^LY[OH[^L»]LUL]LYOHK^P[OHU`
live recordings before. It went somewhere
even more special. With Manraze, we
can experiment with a jam or a solo. You
can’t do that with Def Leppard because
the songs are etched in people’s minds and
there are so many of them. People want to
hear them pretty faithfully.
GEARPHORIA: You are clearly pleased
with the results of Viva! Hysteria. It was
4,5(;>692!4HUYHaLPZ7OPS*VSSLU:PTVU3HMM`HUK
Paul Cook. Plug-ins and a MacBook Pro are put to use during the recording of the I Surrender EP.
a residency — eleven nights, same show,
ZHTLZ[HNL@V\»YLWYL[[`ZHMLPU[LYTZVM
consistent sound, but at the same time, it
sounds almost too comfortable.
PHIL: It’s actually even more exciting than
going on tour, and here’s why: because on
day one, I met someone from Chile in the
elevator. I met someone from Singapore,
someone from Europe, from countless
American states, so every single night you
had a multi-international audience. It was
more than just playing Vegas. It was a residency, but the fact that it was so diverse,
and that every day you would meet people
from all over the place, kept it exciting. It
was great. We also had this opening act,
Ded Flatbird, which was us, and which
also made it exciting because a lot of these
songs we didn’t know. We hadn’t played
them as much as the other stuff, and ‘This
could be a train wreck at any moment.
Someone’s going to forget to end,’ which
did happen. So there was an excitement
that kept that going and was very different,
going out there and being a support band.
That was really super-cool.
GEARPHORIA: Whose idea was it?
PHIL: Joe (Elliott) thought it up. He said
we should be the opening act and put up a
curtain and have limited space and a different backline and drum kit and do all these
61
*633,5»:305,<7!(ML^VM7OPS»ZMH]VYP[LZP_Z[YPUNZK\YPUN[OL,7ZLZZPVUH5HZO:
;VULH[Y\Z[`<::[YH[VJHZ[LYHUKH1HJRZVU7*3HJL^VVK
songs. Because here’s the thing: Everyone
goes, ‘I don’t like the newer stuff’ — newer
stuff that’s 20 years old. They go, ‘Oh, I like
[OLÄYZ[HSI\T»>LNVº62»HUK^L»]L
done this before, we’ve gone and done
‘Wasted’ and all this stuff and it goes down
like a lead balloon in an arena somewhere.
Thirty people are going crazy and 10,000
are going, ‘Why are you doing this? We
want to hear Sugar.’
So it was cool to do both and give everyone who came there an angle of what
we’re about. It was very interesting.
.,(97/690(!;OLYLHYL]PKLVZVM`V\VU
@V\;\ILWSH`PUNHJV\Z[PJ]LYZPVUZVM+LM
Leppard songs. Is the acoustic guitar a big
part of your repertoire?
PHIL: It’s really interesting. I never started
playing guitar to get chicks and stuff. I
didn’t have a problem getting chicks before
I started playing guitar, so it was never
about that. It was almost like, sometimes
62
you can’t express yourself, especially when
you’re a younger person; you struggle
communicating. I know adults who
struggle communicating. Music, or artistic
expression, allows you to communicate
in an otherwise sterile environment where
you wouldn’t be able to do that. For me,
I realized that this thing was all about a
tool of expression, and I really think that
the acoustic guitar is more of one. It’s like
someone who has these banks of keyboards and synthesizers, and they go back
to their piano because they can just get
something out. Again, with me, the acoustic guitar is almost a percussive instrument.
It’s like playing drums almost, and guitar,
and if you sing on top of that, it’s like three
instruments.
Back in the day, Bob Dylan did this
scratchy acoustic thing and the harmonica
and he would sing over it and that was
fantastic. I loved the sound of it. I’m such
a guitar freak. I love the sound of the
instrument. It constantly turns me on, the
acoustic as well, the body, the room that
it’s recording in, but ultimately it’s a tool of
expression. In this blues thing I’m doing,
a couple of the songs are acoustic-based,
for sure. I can’t play guitar properly at the
moment, so I’ve been learning slide. I’ve
always loved Joe Walsh. I looked up a tenminute slide tutorial on YouTube and it’s
Joe Walsh and he went [Joe Walsh voice],
º62ZV[OPZPZOV^`V\WSH`ZSPKLN\P[HY
Duane Allman said to me this is how you
do it. Tune the guitar…’ I literally followed
[OPZ[OPUNHUKÄ]LTPU\[LZSH[LY0»TWSH`PUN
ZSPKL]LYÌHKS`H[ÄYZ[I\[0»TNL[[PUN
into it. I’ve always loved Ry Cooder, of
course Duane Allman, and Joe Bonamassa
is a great slide player. Again, all these great
teachers. For me, learning guitar was about
learning from Ritchie Blackmore, Mick
Ronson, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Al Di Meola — I learned so much just
by listening to them play. Now, as an adult,
I’m doing the same with the slide. I’ve already recorded a song on the blues album
that’s kick-ass, and it’s all slide guitar, so
I’m loving that.
)<:@4(5!*VSSLUUV[VUSÒHZ
Manraze and Def Leppard to tend
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called Delta Deep.
GEARPHORIA: What were you looking for
in your guitars and amps when you joined
Def Leppard and what do you look for now?
PHIL: I actually was looking for the same
thing that I do now. I was looking for a
lot of overdrive. I play really hard and
aggressive, so that factors into the sound.
I use guitar picks made of steel, the strings
are 13 to 54, and so they’re pretty heavy
gauge. I dig in. And with titanium locks
and saddles, it makes it sound even broader. I have that on all my guitars now.
Amp-wise, I sound exactly the same. I
had this brilliant 50-watt Marshall when I
was in Girl, and I used it because Michael
Schenker was using one. It was a straight
50-watt head and I loved it. Stuff like
‘Photograph’, ‘Rock of Ages’, ‘Stagefright’,
‘Foolin’, all those solos were that 50-watt
head. Then someone stole it, and that really pissed me off, obviously. I get the same
sound when I’m going through digital,
and for the last three years I’ve been using
Guitar Rig when I record. All the Manraze
stuff, the Def Leppard stuff on Mirrorball,
the studio stuff, it’s all Guitar Rig 5, to the
point people can’t tell the difference when
I’m playing a valve head miked up in a
room or plugged straight into a Macintosh,
which is the case most of the time. When
I do acoustic stuff, I just set a mic up and
have headphones on and move to where it
sounds best.
(TWSPÄLY^PZL P[»Z ÔH[ THRLZ `V\ MLLS
good. Live with Def Leppard I use a Marshall JMP-1, a rack mount, EVH cabs, and
a Randall solid-state 1980s 120-watt power
amp, and for the last few tours the Fractal
Axe-Fx. When I play with Manraze, I have
EVH cabs and a Fender Cyber-Twin, which
I go DI to the mixing board and I use the effects off of that. The guitars are all the same,
the Jackson PC1’s, and I’ve got a beautiful red Fender Strat with DiMarzio Cruiser
pickups that I’ve had for a few years. That’s
the main guitar on the new Manraze single,
and I’m using it on the blues stuff.
GEARPHORIA: When did you begin using
steel picks?
PHIL: I’ve used metal picks since the early
’80s, when I was in Girl. A guy from a
Japanese band gave me one. When I was in
/VUN2VUNH*OPULZLZLZZPVUWSH`LYNH]L
TLHIYHZZWPJR[OH[OL»KÄSLKKVÛMYVT
a coin. I used that for years, obviously inspired by Brian May, who used a sixpence.
/LOHKHO\NLPUÅ\LUJLVUT`WSH`PUN
style, and just a lot of different things I took
from him. All of these things end up coming out. Now I use Dunlop stainless steel
picks, because with alternate picking, the
metal pick adds a presence to it, almost a
click to it, especially when you’re playing
fast.
.,(97/690(!(YL`V\\ZPUN[OL1HJRZVUZ
with Delta Deep?
PHIL: I’m using the Jacksons and my Strat.
We’re doing a Humble Pie cover, and I
played the Jackson PC1 on that and it’s
great. Debbi Blackwell-Cook sings her ass
off. She’s this beautiful 60-year-old woman,
she has 10 grandchildren, and we really
get off on performing together. It’s different.
A lot of singers sing in the blues style, but
this woman actually sings with pain. She’s
been through so much, and when I play
and perform with her, it’s something else.
GEARPHORIA: How did you meet?
PHIL: She’s my wife Helen’s godmother.
She sang an Ella Fitzgerald song at our
wedding. She looks after our house and
our dog when we’re not there. We started
singing one morning. I was playing guitar
and we were singing Smokey Robinson
and Stevie Wonder songs. We began performing them. Then we decided to do an
album, we started writing original stuff, and
before you know it, here we go.
.,(97/690(!@V\Y ÄYZ[ N\P[HY ^HZ H YLK
Gibson SG. What is your most recent guitar?
PHIL: I’ve got this Jackson PC Supreme;
they make them for custom order. I got
one just as we started the Vegas thing and
it has become one of my favorite guitars.
It’s got the biggest neck that either Jackson or Fender have ever made. It’s got the
humbucker, the sustainer, and the Floyd
loaded with titanium. It’s like a hot-rodded
car. It’s red. It’s so gorgeous. That is just an
amazing guitar. Obviously, I can’t play at
the moment, because I use heavy strings
and it’s got this fat neck and I like bending
strings and digging in, so I can just admire
it, which I do. I take it out and hold it and
look at it because it’s like a work of art.
That’s my latest one that I really dig. G
Alison Richter is a freelance journalist specializing the music industry.
63
THE NASHVILLE Amp & Gear Expo returned after taking a year
off with a mission to serve more than the normal guitar, amp
and pedal crowd. Still the brain-child of Gary ‘Sarge’ Gistinger
and the crew at Creation Audio Labs, the 2013 effort, held for
the first time at Hotel Preston near the Nashville airport, had
a number of pro audio vendors as well as a drum maker or two
added to mix, creating a sort of one stop tone shop for gearminding guys and gals in attendance. The show’s extended
hours made it tougher to discern crowd volume for those
64
confined to their showrooms, but the overall mood of the 2013
celebration was upbeat and, best of all... selling appeared to be
up over past shows. Gearphoria was there, in an official capacity
this time out, to take a look at the new products on offer. Vendors
included guitar-makers like Montarado, Malinowski, Whitfill and
G’Zan... ampsmiths like 3 Monkeys, Immix Eleven, Sommatone,
Hi-Tone, Toneville, Category 5 and Mahalo... and pedal purveyors
like Mojo Hand, EarthQuaker Devices, Xact Tone Solutions, Cusack
Music and Wampler. Here were just some of the highlights...
WRAP-UP XNashville Amp & Gear Expo 2013
Take me back to Toneville...
MAKING the journey from Colorado, the crew
from ToneVille Amps settled in their amp
show room with a quartet of new combos
and a stand alone reverb/tremolo unit. Company founder Matt Lucci is the owner of Lucci
Music - a lesson studio in Colorado Springs.
The Rio Grande is the reverb/trem box that
offers the ability to turn on/off reverb and
tremolo effect simultaneously. Tube specs
in the unit include two Mullard 12AX7s, one
RCA BP 5965/12AT7 and one RCA BP 6K6. The
unit is priced at $1,095.
The Sunset Strip is the company’s highfidelity take on Led Zeppelin’s classic Supro
sound. The 10-watters tube complement includes one 12AX7, one 6V6GC and one 5Y3GT.
The Sunset Strip is priced at $1,995.
The 15-watt Beale Street combo is the company’s flagship and offers the best of both
worlds, designed as a cross between classic
British and American rock-and-roll amplifiers. The Beale Street runs $2,495.
The Broadway is a Vox-ish 15-watter
loaded with one Mullard 12AX7, one Japan
Mullard 12AX7, a pair of Mullard EL84s and
a Mullard GZ-34. The amp carries a price tag
of $2,295 and offers a tighter break-up and
ample headroom.
Toneville also offers an 1x12 extension
cab built exclusively to work with their line of
combos. The cabinet has a closed back with
the option to remove panels for any open back
combination. The unique Toneville shells and
cabs are made from high-quality black walnut
and hard maple. And yes, these amps sound as
good as they look!
.<0;(9HTWSPÄLYZHYLHS^H`Z[OLTHPUZ[H`VM[OL5HZO]PSSLZOV^HUK[OLYL^LYL
WSLU[`MVY[VULJOHZLYZ[VKPNPU[V[OPZ
NVHYV\UK;OLJYL^MYVT5VY[O*HYVSPUH
IHZLK4VURL`ZIYV\NO[[OLYLYHPUIV^
VMJVTIVZ[V[OLZOV^ÔPJOPUJS\KLK
[OL6YNHU.YPUKLYHSS[OL^H`\W[V[OL
YLJLU[S`YLSLHZLK_:VJR4VURL`
0[^HZNVVK[VZLL[OL+P]PKLK)`HTWZ
H[ [OL ZOV^ )\PSKLY -YLK;HJJVUL»Z OHUKP^VYR OHZ SVUN ILLU H MH]VYP[L VM ZL]LYHS
[VULVIZLZZLKT\ZPJPHUZPUJS\KPUN=LYP[JHS
/VYPaVU»Z4H[[:JHUULSS(Read more about
Matt’s /13 collection on Page 55)
(SZVPU[OLMVSK^HZ+HSSHZIHZLK*H[LNVY`(TWSPÄJH[PVU+VUHUKOPZJYL^
KPKU»[IYPUNVULVY[^VUL^HTWZ[V[OL
L_OPIP[PVU[OLÌYV\NO[ZL]LU(TVUN
[OLUL^VMMLYPUNZ^HZ[OL3PaaÒLHKYPNO[
I\PSKLZWLJPHSS`MVY;OPU3Paa`)YV[OLY
*HULN\P[HYPZ[+HTVU1VOUZVU*H[LNVY`
OHZHSZVI\PS[HTWZMVY[OLSPRLZVM1VL
)VUHUTHZZH>HYYLU/HÙLZHUK;HI
)LUVP[PU[OLWHZ[
6[OLYHTWI\PSKLYZZOV^PUN[OLPY^HYLZ
[V[OL5HZO]PSSLJYV^K[OPZ`LHYPUJS\KLK
YK7V^LY.VVKZLSS0TTP_,SL]LU-\JOZ
*VSI`,HZ[,K^HYKZ9PZLU9LK7SH[L9L[YV2PUN*\ZHJR/P;VUL0UKPNV1HJRKH^
4HOHSV3HUN3PJRSPNO[LY;VTHZaL^PJa
HUK:VTTH[VULHTVUNV[OLYZG
65
New pedals debuting at the show ranged from Option 5’s yet-to-be released Destination Reverb Deluxe, the
XTS Javelina (which is undergoing a name change) and the currently available Cheshire Cat from Amzel Electronics. Wampler was fine tuning its new Ace Thirty at the show, but it was these protos (lower, left) that
caught our eye. One is a tremolo, while the other is another dirt pedal. More info should be released soon!
VISUAL SOUND GOES EXPERIMENTAL
The VS-XO is the first Visual Sound pedal to
incorporate true bypass, but done a bit differently. Visual Sound head honcho Bob Weil invented new footswitches which look traditional, but interact with gold-plated relays, and
will last forever. Designer RG Keen invented a
TENNESSEE-based Visual Sound lifted the
veil on its new overdrive pedal at the show.
Dubbed the VS-XO, the two channel stomp
is the result of a ton of experimentation in
trying to harness the perfect dirt tone.
According to the builder, the right channel
is designed to have a pronounced mid hump
66
without being honky. Controls include Drive,
Tone, Volume and Clean Mix knobs, a threeway toggle for selectable clipping diodes and
a three-way Bass switch. The left channel also
has Drive, Tone and Volume knobs, along with
a Bass knob, but with flat mids, making it
sound more amp-like.
circuit to keep them quiet. A defeatable buffer
is also included. Sampling the new pedal at
the show, it delivers on its promise. The VSXO’s channels are independent and stackable.
Plus, you can choose which channel you want
to slam first. The pedal was clearly capable of
both country quack and rock amp stack. The
VS-XO is available now and retails for $179.
PLAYERS PLAY: Like most shows of this nature, the Nashville Amp &
Gear Expo is all about getting players to sit down with a new bit of
gear... whether they play guitar, or a pocket piano (upper, left)! A lot
of equipment gets put through its paces at shows like this, and while it
doesn’t always wind up as an instant sale for the vendor, players have
long memories about what they like and don’t like and there are always
stories of post-show purchases from attendees who just couldn’t get a
particular sound out of their heads!
67
GEAR REVIEW u
Kauer Crusader
E
R
E
I
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E
LD PR
WOR
A Beauty of a Beast
Kauer’s latest is a wide-neck, long-scale lover’s dream
DOUG Kauer admits that his new Crusader
model was a bit of an afterthought. Deep
into the development of his new thin-line
jazz guitar, the Acadian, he had a bit of a
revelation... seeing beyond the jazz application into the possibilities of offering a
solid body version with the ability to cater
to an opposite genre - the de-tune-happy
metal scene. He saw the scale, a healthy
26.25”, as a plus for those shorter scale guitar players whose tone gets flubby and hard
to manage once you de-tune past C.
The Crusader is made up of a Spanish Cedar body with a maple cap and neck. Our
review guitar - a prototype - is outfitted with
a 2Tek bridge and Wolfetone humbuckers.
The first thing we noticed about the Crusader once we had it in our hands was the
neck. The maple felt fast and even, but the
size was larger than we expected and could
be off-putting to some. The width was close
to classical acoustic territory... easily bigger than most of the ‘baseball bat’ Les Pauls
we’ve come across. Once we got com-
68
fortable with the larger neck, it was easy
to settle in with the guitar. Aesthetically,
it’s a stunner... and digging into the Wolfetones did not disappoint. We were able to
achieve a myriad of tonal color... rounded
cleans through an American-voiced amp
to gritty dirt though a British-voiced blazer.
Tuning the guitar down to C and tossing in
a ‘metal’ pedal in front of a crunchy Marshall-styled amp was an unadulterated joy.
True to form, the Crusader kept much of
its response and definition in tact at lower
tunings, meaning the crispness and character the guitar offers at standard tunings were
still very much present.
Kauer recently wrapped a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to make both
the Crusader and Acadian a reality. At press
time, he was working on a 7-string, fan fretted version of the Crusader, which moves
him into a total different universe from his
company’s historic offerings. If this prototype Crusader is any indication, he should
be welcomed in that space with open arms.
KAUER GUITARS
CRUSADER
Body: Spanish Cedar w/Maple cap
Neck: Maple
Scale Lenght: 26.25 inches (22 frets)
Pickups: Wolfetone
Tuners: Sperzel Openback Trimloc
Weight: 7.75 lbs
Price: $3,199
GEAR REVIEW XKauer Crusader
THE COMMITtEE
A couple of our experts weigh in
on the Kauer Crusader...
“The Crusader is built really well and
sounded really good. I thought the wider
QHFN©DQGORQJHU©VFDOH©OHQJWKRQ©WKH©
JXLWDU©LV©UHDOO\©ZKDWVHSDUDWHGWKH©JXLWDU©
from others on the market. This guitar
would be great for those players who
SOD\©½QJHU©VW\OH©JXLWDU©OLNH©P\VHOI©EHcause of the wider string spacing. It really
was close to playing a classical guitar. The
thickness of the neck, in my opinion, was
UHPLQLVFHQWRI©WKH©³V©/HV©3DXO²
Bill Solley, Guitarist
www.kimandbill.com
PHOTOS: JOSH SEATON
“The wide neck isn’t my thing, but the
JXLWDU©ORRNV©DQG©VRXQGV©JUHDW²
Jeff Mikel, Guitarist
Vintage gear enthusiast
69
GEAR REVIEW u
Risen Amplification R45
IVE
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C
X
E
Harnessing a classic
Risen’s homage to a toneful icon is worthy of your attention
INDIANA’S Risen Amplification has been
building amps since early 2010. While he’d
been into modding his own equipment in
an attempt to get his ‘best sound’, owner
and primary builder Drew Tooley took the
electrical engineering technology degree
he earned from Purdue University and put
it to work across the MI spectrum. Early
on he built a guitar and later branched out
into some basic effects pedals. Eventually
his gaze turned to amplifiers... and after his
first build, he was hooked.
Risen’s flagship is the R45 - a take on the
Marshall’s JTM45-style circuit. The JTM45
itself, first built in 1962, was Marshall’s
answer to the Fender Bassman. The Risen
faceplate sports a familiar layout: two toggle
switches, six knob controls and four 1/4-inch
inputs. The toggles are Power and Standby.
The knobs from left to right are Master Volume, Bass, Middle, Treble, Bright Vol and
Norm Vol. There are a pair of inputs (hi and
70
lo) for both the Bright side and the Normal
side (These are not footswitchable channels). The rear of the R45 has two 1/4-inch
speaker inputs, switchable impedance (4, 8
and 16), a pair of fuses and the power input.
Inside, the R45 tube complement consists of
a pair of EL34 power tubes, two 12AX7s and
a 12AT7 in the pre-amp and a GZ34 rectifier.
Diving in with a Les Paul (Bright channel), the R45 does not disappoint. With
the Master Volume dimed and the Bright
Volume at around 2 o’clock you start to get
a nice break up that exudes early 1970s
rock swagger. The further right you go on
the Bright Volume knob, the richer the
crunch. There also is solid tonal breadth
and bloom, which if overdone can really
muddy things up... but we didn’t find
that here. Over on the Normal channel,
the same dimed Master with the Normal
Volume up really pushes air and warmed
things up right to the brink of being boomy.
RISEN AMPLIFIERS
R45
Single channel, 50W all tube amp
Tubes: two 12AX7s, two EL34s and
a GZ34
Dimensions: W: 22”, H: 9”, D: 8.25”
Weight: 28 lbs.
Price: $1,875
GEAR REVIEW X5LVHQ$PSOLÀFDWLRQ5
(YTLK ^P[O H :[YH[VJHZ[LY [OL 9 JHU
go from Clapton to Cobain. Rolling back
on your guitar’s volume knob can thin out
some of the bluster for those quieter passages, but the bonus is knowing that the classic Marshall-esque howl is just a pinky twist
away. Both chords and notes sing through
[OL90M`V\ÄUK[OL[VWLUK[VVKHYR[OL
EQ will get you to a lighter place. The range
and response of the Bass, Middle and Treble
controls ensures a sweet spot or two for any
interested party.
;OL9PZHNYLH[YVJRHUKYVSSHTW[OH[
packs plenty of punch. Based on tonal and
physical aesthetics alone, it’s a winner. Add in
the fact that you’re getting a hand-wired, all[\IL^H[[<:THKLHTWSPÄLYMVY\UKLY
HUK`V\»YLÅPY[PUN^P[OHJOHTWPVU
71
GEAR REVIEW u
SynapticGroove Snapperhead
IVE
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Get your groove on!
Oklahoma builder bursts onto the scene with chewy, dirty goodness
IT HAS become a fairly common occurrence in the online world of boutique gear
for the masses to glom onto a sort of ‘flavor
of the week’, have word of that particular
item shoot like a bullet across the expansive interwebs and then flame out spectacularly on the other end, never to be heard
from again.
For all intents and purposes, it appeared
early on that this would be the path for
newcomer SynapticGroove’s Snapperhead
overdrive. Springing to life from a small
shop in Edmond, Oklahoma... a region
with known pedal roots established by the
likes of Robert Keeley and perpetuated
by the crew at Walrus Audio... SynapticGroove seemed to be everywhere all at
once a few short months ago. Even on
a cursory patrol of the top gear blogs,
forums, etc... it seemed there was at least
one person talking about the new company
and their magical dirt box. So when SynapticGroove’s Ben Harrison offered to send us
a Snapperhead to put through its paces, we
had to see what all the fuss was about.
The Snapperhead is a dynamic overdrive/
72
SYNAPTICGROOVE
SNAPPERHEAD
Controls: Level and Drive
Weight: 7.1 oz
Dimensions: L: 4.5”, W: 2.5”, H: 1.3”
Price: $189
distortion sporting just two knob controls
- Level and Drive. Harrison said he left the
Tone control off because ‘the tone is in
your fingers!’
Plugged in, the Snapperhead offers
plenty of body, even at lower Drive settings. As you increase the Drive, the signal
blooms into a chewy, tasty distortion that
maintains a good amount of clarity through
the saturation cycle. The pedal was equally
at home with humbuckers and single-coils
offering a beefy crunch and soaring lead
lines no matter the pick-up configuration.
The lack of controls might turn some off
to the pedal, but it shouldn’t. The Snapperhead is rife with useable dirt... and
the simplified controls make it that much
easier to get to the goods.
Overall, the Snapperhead is a very capable, versatile drive pedal from a relative
newcomer to the scene. It may just be the
box that kicks your favorite dirt pedal off
your board. It certainly keeps our interest
long enough to be very curious about the
future of SynapticGroove and what Harrison might be cooking up next.
GEAR REVIEW X(DUWK4XDNHU'HYLFHV$USDQRLG
Joyful Noise
EarthQuaker gets weird... again
EQD’S ARPANOID is a multi-mode polyphonic pitch arpeggiator that is capable
of generating some interesting ‘sweeps’ of
both ascending and descending nature.
The pedal is dominated by a rotary Mode
selector that offers eight (four major and four
minor) modes that include a random pattern
setting for each. Wet and Dry controls effect
the appropriate signal’s level. Rate adjusts
sequence speed. Step selects the number of
notes in the sequence. The mini-toggle controls the direction of the sequence.
Like most effects of this nature, experimentation is the key to achieving desired
YLZ\S[Z0[PZKLÄUP[LSÙV[HZL[P[HUK
forget-it pedal. It’s for the tweakers that
SPRL[VNL[KVÛPU[OLÅVVY^P[O[OLPYNLHY
and coax absolutely everything they can
out of it. Exploration of the Arpanoid will
lead you to discover the unique musicality
within... and in the company of a looper,
you can easily lose your day with this
KL]PJL(TIPLUJLHIV\UKZ
EARTHQUAKER DEVICES
ARPANOID
Controls: Rate, Wet, Step, and
Dry knobs. Rotary Mode selector.
Sequence toggle.
:HLJKW©©R]
'LPHQVLRQV©/©²©:©²©+©²
Price: $225
www.tortugaeffects.com
100% hand-built in-house in the USA for only $199
British Drive
British-Stortion™
Metal-Stortion™
73
ALBUM REVIEWS X
ARTIST: Rush
ALBUM: Clockwork Angels Tour
LABEL: Anthem/Roadrunner
VERDICT:
ARTIST: Pearl Jam
ALBUM: Lightning Bolt
LABEL: Monkeywrench/Republic
VERDICT: Serious Mojo
Rush offers up an uninspired live album title, but a sufficiently
inspired performance
THERE WAS a time in the history of recorded music that the ‘live’ album was a sort
of rite of passage. Not unlike the cash-grab
‘Greatest Hits’ packages, the live album
HJ[LKHZHZVY[VMÄSSLYIL[^LLUZ[\KPV
efforts. There are some that are instant classics out there - Kiss Alive, Neil Young and
Crazy Horse Live Rust, and Talking Heads
Stop Making Sense come to mind - but others, possibly most, are largely ignored by
the masses as bonus material for the most
rabid of fans. As time progressed, the notion of the live album matured. Instead of a
re-hash of songs you likely already owned
being played near note perfect to the studio
recording, bands started populating live
recordings with fresh arrangements, acoustic versions, guest musicians and the like...
anything that would raise an eyebrow
and encourage the separation of that fan
on the fence from his $15. Today, the live
album is a bit of an enigma. It has been
well-documented that album sales are in
[OL[VPSL[HUK[OH[[OLVULZ\YLÄYL^H`MVY
any performer to make money in the music
business is to tour. So where does that
leave an album of live recordings?
Canadian power trio Rush is no stranger to
the live album. Over the course of the band’s
45-year career, it has formally released 10
live albums... including their latest, Clock^VYR (UNLSZ;V\Y;OL /HSS VM -HTLYZ ÄYZ[
four live records, dating back to the 1970s,
all went platinum in their native Canada.
Since then, not so much. The new one is a
31-track monster recorded in Dallas, Texas,
during the group’s successful Clockwork
74
Angels tour. The disc kicks off with a straight
set of 10 band favorites. It opens with ‘Subdivisions’ and sticks mostly to ‘80s and ‘90s
material including deeper cuts like ‘Grand
Designs’, ‘The Body Electric’, ‘Bravado’ and
the instrumental ‘Where’s My Thing?’
Geddy Lee’s vocal range is noticeably
more narrow than back in the day, but he
can still belt out faithful renditions of most
of the earlier songs. The band itself is spot
on, with assists of a few loops here and
[OLYL(SL_3PMLZVU»ZWSH`PUNPZHZÅ\PKHUK
dynamic as ever, while Lee and drummer
Neil Peart continue to prove why they are
one of the most potent and deft rhythm
sections in rock and roll.
For the second set, the band is joined
by the Clockwork Angels String Ensemble,
which assist in the navigation in much of
the band’s latest studio record, Clockwork
Angels including the title track, ‘Seven
Cities of Gold’ and ‘Carnies’. The string
ZLJ[PVUTHYRZ[OLÄYZ[[PTL[OL[YPVOHZ
brought additional musicians on the road
with them. The highlight of the string section contribution is the double shot of ‘Red
Sector A’ and ‘YYZ’.
Sans strings, the album’s encore is stalwarts ‘The Spirit of Radio’, ‘Tom Sawyer’
and ‘2112’. As a bonus, the band also
includes a soundcheck version of ‘Limelight’ and a live version of the rarely-played
‘Middletown Dreams’.
Clockwork Angels Tour serves as a solid
performance snapshot of a band that is
ÄUHSS`NL[[PUN[OLYLJVNUP[PVUP[KLZLY]LZ
outside of its extremely loyal fan base.
IN THE early ‘90s, there was no
band bigger than Pearl Jam. One of
the jewels of the grunge movement,
the Seattle-based quintet produced
three extremely well-received
records before plunging into a more
experimental phase during the late
90s and early 2000s. In 2009, the
band released Backspacer - a torrid
return to its early taut, unabashed
rock and roll sound. With the band
and its fan base rejuvenated, Eddie
Vedder and company emerged in
October with Lightning Bolt - a
12-track effort recorded under the
direction of long-time producer
Brendan O’Brien and the best Pearl
Jam album in over a decade.
The new one opens with ‘Getaway’,
a driving tune that hits its stride early
and stays there. ‘Mind Your Manners’ was the pre-release single
and shows the band can still call
on its punk chops when required.
‘Sirens’ is the album’s cornerstone
and the one of the best Pearl Jam
songs... period. Mike McCready’s
lilting 12-string strum is supported
by Stone Gossard’s reverb-soaked
vibrato bar ambience and Vedder’s
confessional vocals. Songs like
‘Infallible’ and ‘Pendulum’ harken
back to the best of Versus.
‘Yellow Moon’ is another great PJ
song, fueled by an acoustic jangle and
Vedder’s lyric-bending vocal delivery.
If you have avoided Pearl Jam for
a few years, Lightning Bolt proves
there is no time like the present to
get reacquianted with the band.
ALBUM REVIEWS u
ARTIST: Echo Letter
ALBUM: Echo Letter
LABEL: Self-released
ARTIST: Death On Two Wheels
ALBUM: Death On Two Wheels
LABEL: Self-released
VERDICT: Mojo
VERDICT: Mojo
PATRICK Matera’s pop credentials are pretty impressive. A solid
guitar player without any additional hype required, he found himself recruited by pop sensation Katy Perry and toured extensively
with her band over the past several years. He recently released an
album of his own music under the name Echo Letter - a polished
pop effort that includes guitar goodies scattered throughout in
tunes like lead track ‘Tarot Cards’, the electronica-ladened ‘One’
and acoustic-flavored ‘Violet’. Knowing his ability, the overall
guitar effort falls short, but many of the songs are more dance
floor-ready as opposed to jukebox favorites. Matera also handles
the vocals on Echo Letter and shows he can handle a party tune
like ‘DJs’ as well as a more delicate tune like the aforementioned
‘Violet’. Echo Letter is neatly-packaged modern pop, with all of
the benefits and drawbacks that come along with it.
“YOU think you’re looking for the one, you’ll never find it,” howls
vocalist Trae Vedder on ‘Look At The Sound’, the lead track from
Georgia’s Death On Two Wheels’ new self-titled album. Vedder,
of course, is referring to the one time that the band takes a breath
on this 11-track onslaught of guitar-driven, keys-accented stomp
and grind of a record. Unlike the band’s last effort, Separation of
Church and Fate, which had its softer moments, there is really
none of that to be found on the new one. Delays with the release
and turnover in the band probably added to the angst that runs
roughshod across most of the songs. Vedder’s throat-rattling wail
could be a bit much for some, but it truly fits the grimy ‘southern
un-comfort’ the band is peddling. If you like your rock raw and
built on a foundation of boogie, you could do a lot worse than the
boys in DO2W.
RE-LIC’’D
ARTIST: I Love You
ALBUM: All Of Us
RELEASED: 1994
VERDICT:
WHEN GRUNGE exploded in the early 1990s,
it left a lot of rubble in its wake. Rock and
Alt-rock radio stations flooded the airwaves
with the ‘Seattle-sound’ leaving little room
in the daily rotation for any other purveyors
of guitar-driven rock. As always, there were
exceptions to this rule. Guns-N-Roses made
its return in the early 90s with the Use Your
Illusion follow-ups to 1987’s Appetite for
Destruction. Blind Melon rode ‘No Rain’ and
its bee-girl video to success in 1992. But for
every one of these examples, there were 10
others that were lost in the wave of 20-something angst that fueled the music of the time.
One such band is Los Angeles-via-Florida’s I
Love You. Signed to Geffen Records in the late
1980’s, the band released two albums for the
label, 1991’s self-titled affair and 1994’s All
Of Us. The debut scored a little traction with
a video in circulation on MTV for the song
‘Hang Straight Up’, but the follow-up went
widely unnoticed.
The Chris Goss-produced All Of Us has a kind
of ‘60s rock swing to it that the debut didn’t
have. From the intro of the lead and title track
the old school vibe is apparent. Vocalist Chris
Palmer used to call the band’s music ‘Stoned
Aged Rock’, which fits well. Weed is a com-
mon theme in a lot of the band’s material as
is a sort of stream of consciousness lyric style.
On the lead track, Taylor sings the non-sensical
“All of us - we drive thee jive Lincoln. Jump
ahead sunrise - know what your enemy’s thinking. On an autumn wave we feel it.”
‘Blood’ and ‘Want Something’ are bouncy
psych jams, while ‘Delilah’s Razor’ is a bit on
the darker side and a little closer to the more
metallic sound of the band’s debut.
‘Slippery’ offers up a bit of twangy blues
as guitarist Jeff Nolan (who would later join
the Screaming Trees) throws some interesting
shapes into the mix. ‘You Don’t Know Dick’
is a spacey, octave-fueled stomp supporting
more lyrical WTF? such as ‘Got strength for
the visible age. You’re layin’ down in the realm
of the rage.’
‘Stone’ opens with a bit of bass boogie that
gives way to a slow and wicked wah sweep.
The album closes with ‘2011’, an acoustic
clap-along that stands as a prime example of
the band’s pop craftsmanship.
I Love You was dropped by Geffen not long
after the release of All of Us and official broke
up in 1995, but it left behind a couple of
unique and enjoyable albums that flew well
under the radar of the time.
75
f ro m
ONE FOR THE ROAD
Tour stories: Haiku edition
By Josh Elmore
He takes the
top bunk
Remember fe
et towards th
e front
God, it’s a fa
rt barn
He: Olive Garden
Me: down with Panera Bread
Why such resentment?
Cousin at the show
Met his gal and her roommates
What’s cost on hoodies?
76
e late
Head-liners ar
lly backline
ta
to
We should
shole
Not so fast, as
Girl w
a
There nts a free
’s no o
shirt
ne
She sa
id “Ew in the thir
d
ww, g
ross d stall
ude!”
that both celebrate and lament the rewards
HUKYPNVYZVM[OLYVHK-YVT[OLIHZLTLU[Z
to the stadiums, touring musicians can all
PKLU[PM`^P[OÔH[0ZWLHRVMILSV^,UQV`
HUKRLLW[OLÔLLSZYVSSPUN
Josh Elmore plays guitar in the metal band
Cattle Decapitation. He lives in San Diego with
his wife and their bulldog Rumboldt.
Bus call is at four
Man, trust me, I know Antwerp
Dude we’re getting left
?
irthday
g her b ar in a row
in
s
is
M
ye
email…
econd
Yeah, s raight to voic
t
s
Weird,
So
,
Th coo
Ge se g head
t o uy lin
in
s
ut
of are g?
ou ch
r r ill,
oo
n
m o pr
ent?
rings
or st ndorsem
f
h
s
f ca
ad e
Out o ht you h rick
g
t
u
g
o
I th at boilin
h
t
y
Tr
ob
lem
Sharing the Green Room
Local bands entourage nests
Rider Vanishes
PHOTOS: JORGE CAZARES & JOSH ELMORE
right
left
drives
ell next
Taco B e over-night
or
buck
Two m
ipes a
W
t
r
a
Wal-M
Promo
te
Screw r wants m
er
h
Did w im, he cut ch
e get
c
paid y atering
et?
[OLIHUKWLYMVYTZÅH^SLZZS`ÔPSLHUHW
WYLJPH[P]LJYV^KYVHYZHSVUN
We put up with all the stress and in
JVU]LUPLUJLPUZLHYJOVMHML^ÅLL[PUN
TVTLU[ZVM[YHUZJLUKLU[HSWLYMLJ[PVU
To combat the rollercoaster of turbulent
emotion, one has to be able to laugh at
themselves and poke fun at the ridiculous
ZP[\H[PVUZ^LÄUKV\YZLS]LZPU
In that spirit, I have penned some haikus
Ev
Go er
W od yo
he O ne
re K Re
is cu ad
th e y?
e ou
sin r
ge int
r? ro
FOR THOSE of us that put in a decent
amount of time on the road, whether it is
PUH]HUHUK[YHPSLYI\ZVYÅ`PUL]LY`[V\Y
PZWV[LU[PHSS`HJVTLK`VMLYYVYZ6\[ZPKL
VIZLY]LYZUL]LYZLL[OLPUULYIHUKZ[YPML
transportation issues, deadbeat promoters,
zero sleep and less than perfect conditions
^LHSSLUK\YL/V^L]LY[OL`HSZVUL]LY
get to see or experience the great sense of
ZH[PZMHJ[PVUÔLUHSSWPZ[VUZHYLÄYPUNHUK
77
Coming in the Spring 2014 issue of
- We’re heading back to NAMM to bring
you the scoop on all the goodies from Anaheim
- Another round of exclusive shop tours
- New gear reviews
...and much more!

Publication - Gearphoria

Transcription

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