the tonequest report

INSIDE
Timless classic tone…
You either have it or you
don’t.
The ‘65 AB165 Bassman
A very different
and toneful blackface
version that has been
overlooked until now…
5
Tom Colvin
from the Speaker
Workshop
on tone…
6
Bruce Clement’s
excellent
BC Audio Amplfiers
The BC
Numbers
9 & 10
9
Delta Moon guitarist Mark
Johnson
on the perfect
BC Audio
touring amp for Europe
11
The best 335 ever…
The Memphis Gibson
Custom Shop
Rich Robinson Signatue
335
11
Tom Guerra “All of the
Above”
The ToneQuest Interview
16
Nordstrand Tele Pickups
revealed
How Kenny G inpsired a
pickup winder
18
The Sawmill Jr. Overdrive
Not just another pedal…
Mountainview Publishing, LLC
the
The Player’s Guide to Ultimate Tone
$15.00 US, November 2014/Vol.16 NO.1
Report
TM
Timeless Tone
There are so many ways to get your tone – you can spend a little or a lot, but one things remains
unchanged… Your sound is either mezmerizing and memorable or not. When you play your audience will either become entranced by your tone, or they won’t. There is no inbetween in this regard
– no ‘almost’ or honorable mentions handed out for effort. You either captivate your audience with
the tone of your guitar or you don’t. What’s preferable – seeing a great player with bad tone or
someone perhaps not as skilled with mind altering tone? The answer is in the question, isn’t it?
Of course you must know the
difference between such
inspiring tones and the
ordinary as an artist. It is
your resonsibility to work
through the challenges of
using less than toneful
gear until you discover
the secret of using
tools that can move
people and inspire
them. To do any
less is a complete
waste of time. You
may be an incredibly talented player,
but if you sound like
a hack, it is all for
naught.
Now, if you think you
can’t afford to sound
good, you’re wrong.
We’ll prove it here.
May we suggest that
as a musician you
really can’t afford to sound anything but inspiring and exceptional? It would be better to know
12 chords and play them with passion than to know 96 and sound like shit. This is the bane of the
touring musician who sets up in unfamiliar territory every night where the variables are unknown.
Want to make it even more challenging? Use completely unfamiliar backline gear every night in
questionable condition. In this scenario why bother leaving home? Did you need the bread that
bad to humiliate yourself in front of thousands? Riverhorse and I once went to a soundcheck before a concert headlined by a major icon in rock music as both a singer, songwriter and guitarist.
www.tonequest.com
guitars
and looks old and worn in a good
way. Does it get any better than this?
No, it doesn’t. You can’t possibly do
better. In fact, this may well be our
favorite electric of all time – more
so than our Le Paul, Strat and Tele.
Stay tuned for our review of Tom
Holmes pickups in the 335. If you
need a new electric, this is one of the
best new old guitars you could possibly own and play, reasonably priced
at below $3,000. Quest forth…TQ
The Player’s Guide to Ultimate Tone
$15.00 US, November 2014/Vol.16 NO.1
GIBSON
Rich Robinson Signature 335
The 335 is one of our favorite guitar designs – our first
electric was a ‘67 Gibson 335, nothing else sounds like them,
and they are an essential ingredient in the guitarist’s palette of
tones. If you don’t own one you really need to…
The Memphis Rich Robinson 335 is an utterly
desirable classic rendered
from poplar/maple ply
with a Bigsby and Gibson’s Burstbucker 1 and 2
humbucking pickups. The
guitar we bought weighs
just 8.5 pounds and it is
every bit as good as any
335 built during any era
of Gibson production. We
particuarly love this guitar
because it neither feels or
looks brand new, as if it
were gently broken in and
ready to play. Of course
there was no Plek machine
in 1960 to dress the frets and nut to precise perfection, so our
guitar feels and plays better than an original ever could. The
neck shape is perfect – a classic full C in the style of a Les
Paul .The cherry finish is a classic, and the streaky and dark
rosewood fingerboard with ‘60s block inlays and medium
jumbo frets is utter perfection – far more forgiving yet precise
than ‘60s technology could allow. Key to the tone of the 335
is the maple center block and fully hollow body – a design
of genius first created in Kalamazoo 1958. Gibson’s designers understood both fluid design, function and tone, and the
335 is a timeless work of art that sounds like no other electric
guitar with an acoustic tone, yet the sustain of a solidbody. Freddie King. BB…
Nothing sounds quite like a 335 does it?
The Rich Robinson model embodies all
the tone of a vintage 335 and the and the
look and feel, too, which makes it the
best 335 they have ever built. Of all the
guitars we have acquired and reviewed
this is hands down one of our all-time
favorites, and the best 335 in terms of
tone, playability and visual mojo that we
have ever played. It’s new, but it feels
The ToneQuest Report Interview–Tom Guerra
“All of the Above”
We first spoke with
Tom Guerra back
in 2007, when he
was getting ready to
release a double album with indie rock
trio Mambo Sons
entitled “Heavy
Days.” Tom first
gained notoriety
by being perhaps the only “non-shred” player discovered
by Shrapnel Records founder Mike Varney, who profiled the
then twentysomething Guerra for Guitar Player magazine.
Like the rest of us, Guerra has spent his entire 30+ year
career making music and searching for tones to make it come
alive, and has amassed a fine collection of vintage guitars
and amps. For the past two decades, he has written about
all things guitar for many fine publications, TQR included,
and has interviewed some of the world’s great players as well
as created detailed gear reviews. In late 2014, Tom released
his first solo album “All of the Above,” a collection of tight,
hook laden 3 minute guitar songs representing a catalog of
classic guitar sounds.
TQR: The last time you spoke with TQR in 2007, you
were getting ready to record a double album with
Mambo Sons. After 15 years and 4 albums, why
did you decide to fly solo?
As you’d imagine, recording and promoting a double album
was a staggering amount of work, and after doing it, one
realizes why nobody does it anymore. But we had 20 good
new songs and wanted to get them out there, and we were
fortunate enough to be on a small indie label owned by a
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.16 N.1 November 2014
11
interview
great man named Marko van
der Werff who was more
concerned about promoting
us than making the big bucks.
He was responsible for getting our stuff on the charts in
Europe! Sadly, we lost Marko
a few years back, shortly after
he was hit by a drunk driver,
and that was the end of the
label. All this time, we were
playing the same clubs over
and over, and it felt like we were going in circles and not really going anywhere. We decided to put things on hold to see
if the live music scene would improve…but unfortunately, it
got even worse. And as you know, a lot has happened in the
music business over the past 10 years.
Flying solo was really the only option for me at this point, if I
wanted to keep on writing original music. From a songwriting
point of view, this wasn’t radically different from what I did
before, except this time I was writing for my own voice, so I
had to create in keys that supported my range, which is a baritone.
TQR: “All of the Above” is aptly named based on the variety
of different rock and roll styles and guitar tones from
song to song, yet everything hangs together. Talk to
us about the recording process, including how you
selected which guitar and amp to use for each song…
Many of these songs were
sort of sketched out “naked”
on acoustic guitar, and I
tried to use my imagination
as to which “clothes” would
look best on them, in terms
of guitar and amp sounds.
And that was the fun part! I
then tried to come up with
parts, arrangements that
made the songs interesting.
I probably have the world’s
shortest attention span, and
I knew if I could create
something that held my attention others would like it too. I
worked closely with the drummer Mike Kosacek on specific
grooves, which we developed in his studio outside of Austin,
Texas, and he had an instant understanding of what I was
trying to do. Coming up with the arrangements helped dictate
which tones I wanted for each part of a song. Although the
process of choosing a guitar and amp really differed by the
song, sometimes, as I was writing a song, I’d have an exact
vision of what I wanted to hear regarding a guitar and amp
combination. Other times, I’d experiment in the studio and
do multiple takes using different guitars and amps, and see
which hung best in the mix. The opening track “Get Offa My
Groove” is an example of the latter…I first recorded it with
a Strat, then a Gretsch 6120, and then my old ’66 Telecaster
which has an old Gibson T-top in the neck position. Not only
do these guitars all sound different, but they force you to play
in different styles too. I made mixes of each and listened in
my car for the next week or so, and it became clear to me
that the song sounded best with the raspy Tele, so that’s what
ended up on the album. A few folks have told me that the solos on “Groove” are sort of reminiscent of Big Al Anderson,
which is fine by me…
TQR:
As we covered in our first interview, you’re a
fan of vintage guitars and amps, and “All of the
Above” is very old school from a sonic perspective. Did you use all old gear on this record, or is
there anything new on it?
From my
perspective,
the peak of
album sonics
occurred in
the late ‘70s
with albums
like Steely
Dan’s “Aja.”
Although it’s
far from my
favorite album, I thought that the recording of the instruments
and mastering of that album were simply beautiful and pure
sounding. You could hear every instrument perfectly, and the
mastering was very warm and dynamic. To my ears, a lot of
what happened during the ‘80’s and beyond was sort of phony
sounding, with drum machines, synthesizers and tons of gated
reverb. Later on, it got even worse when it all became about
volume wars and brick wall limiting, which killed a lot of a
record’s dynamics. I wanted “All of the Above” to sound old
school, but big and yet real. And although it was recorded using digital technology, there
is a real “tube sound” to it, a
conscious decision.
In terms of the “vintage” vs.
“new” question, the majority
of the album was recorded
on vintage guitars and amps
as those are the tones I’ve always enjoyed most. The oldest pieces of gear I used were
my ’55 Les Paul TV Special,
and my ’58 Stratocaster,
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.16 N.1 November 2014
interview
both bone stock. However, right before I started recording
this album, I got turned onto to a great new amp called the
Colby dtb-50, the dual tone boost (profiled in TQR in 2013).
I really was blown away at what Mitch and Jim Weider had
created, and this amp sounds great both in the clean and dirty
modes and records really nicely as well. In fact, a lot of the
raw tracks for “All of the Above” are now on the Colby Amps’
website. It’s the first amp you hear on the album, and makes
appearances throughout.
The other new piece of gear that
I’ve been digging lately is a BrownBox voltage regulator, which allows
you to select and “brown down”
to the right amount of voltage to
your amp. This thing really makes
vintage amps sounds great, and I’ve
found that a lot of old amps sound
way better using 105-110 volts vs.
the 125 volts that’s coming out of
the wall. It definitely gives you
more sag too.
Lyrically, a lot of the songs deal with coming of age
and coming to terms with what life has laid out for
you, but there’s not a lot of nostalgia there. One in
particular is “Here’s Tomorrow,” with its distinct 12
string electric tone that is reminiscent of The Byrds.
What guitar and amp combination did you play on
that?
That song is about
a guy who runs into
an old high school
flame and wondering about the path
she took. I felt that
one deserved the
full Byrds treatment, and though
I’ve owned a few
different Rics
over the years,
I currently don’t own one, so I picked up one of the newer
Japanese Fender Stratocaster 12 strings. It was unplayable
when I got it, but I spent an entire day setting it up and now
it plays perfectly. I ran that through both a Barber Tone Press
into a Pure 64 Mean Streets 1x12 combo amp, and also direct
into the board, and blended the two tracks together. There are
5 distinct vocal parts and counterparts on that track too.
I was about 30 miles from the Sandy Hook Elementary
School the day the tragedy happened, and I remember picking
my then 9 year old son up at his school, walking uninterrupted into his classroom, and then seeing him, giving him a big
hug while fighting back tears. Like a lot of folks, I just felt
absolutely helpless by what had gone down and didn’t know
what to do. Two days later, with that event in everyone’s
mind, I woke up with the entire song in my head, including
the melody, the lyrics, the chords and the lead guitar line. I
went right over to the studio and laid the whole thing down. I
very carefully put together an accompanying tribute video as
a show of support to the families, and a week or so later I got
an email from the First Selectman thanking me for trying to
bring some comfort to her townsfolk. I don’t believe that a
song could truly help those people at that point, but it offered
a sentiment of support. Although from a sequencing perspective it appears last, it was actually the first track I wrote for
this album, and it started off a very productive period for me,
writing-wise.
TQR:
TQR:
TQR:
One of the album’s standouts is the dobro laden
“Love Comes to Us All,” about one of the heaviest
events America has been through in the past few
years. How and why did you tackle that?
There’s what sounds like reverse guitar on “Queen
of the Autumn Moon,” a sort of T. Rex vibe. What
were you playing and how did you get that effect?
There’s all sorts of mischief on
that track, using backwards guitar
parts. I have a great ’69 Fender
Stratocaster that’s one of my
whammy bar guitars, as the trem
just plays perfectly. I ran it into a
Keeley FuzzHead, into ’69 Marshall smallbox 50, and did alot of
whammy bar tomfoolery. It was
a bit clinical because when you’re
playing backwards, you need to
play start at the end of a passage
and play over the backwards
rhythm, to ensure you’re playing
over the right changes. It came
out really nice though, using that
Strat/Keeley/Marshall setup. The
crunchy rhythm really drives that
along, and for it I used the ’55 Les
Paul TV Special straight into ’69
Marshall PA20.
TQR:
Speaking of the PA20, the last time we spoke, the
boutique amp world seemed to be on a big 18 watt
/ EL-84 kick…do you think their popularity has
waned?
I don’t necessarily think that the dual EL84 / 18 watt movement is dead, as I do think they are absolutely great studio
amps, and my PA20 is one of my “go to” sounds. That being
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.16 N.1 November 2014
13
interview
said, in
a live
setting,
it is
very
tough
for
these
amps to keep up with a drummer. I’ve tried, and found that
I need a bit more headroom out of an amp before it mushes
out.
TQR:
There’s also what appears to be some backwards
guitar on “Indian,” one of the heaviest tracks on the
album which features tribal drums and a Deep
Purple type of riff driving the song.
The drummer did a great job on that one indeed. The rhythm
guitar on that is indeed Blackmore-ish, as it features a 1970
solid maple neck Stratocaster into the Colby dtb-50 dirty
channel. For the lead, I used that same ’69 Fender Strat with
the bar, straight into Colby dtb-50 dirty channel. You’re right,
there are also snippets of backwards guitar on this as well,
using the same lead setup for some “battle cries.”
TQR:
One thing that differentiates you from many modern
rock players is the fact that you don’t use a tremendous amount of gain on your guitar sounds. Care to
elaborate?
I’ve always
considered
myself a
“rock and
roll” player
vs. a “rock”
player and
have found
that for my
playing
style at
least, a
little overdrive goes along way. From a playing perspective, it
is way less forgiving than a high gain sound, but it allows you
to retain a lot more of the guitar’s natural tones and dynamics.
Have you ever heard a player playing a Strat with so much
gain, that if you closed your eyes, you’d never know it’s a
Strat? Talk about an insult to Leo Fender (laughs).
TQR:
It’s obvious that you’re influenced by 70’s rock and
roll, and you’ve got Mott the Hoople’s keyboardist
playing on “All of the Above.” How did that come
about?
I truly believe that Mott Live is one of, if not the greatest live
albums of all time, and Ian
Hunter is one of our truly
great songwriters. I met Mott
keyboardist Morgan Fisher
in London right before the
group’s now-fabled 2009
reunion concerts. We kind
of hit it off as I really have
always been a fan of his musical genius, and he seemed to
like what I was doing. When I
started writing for this album,
I got in touch and he delivered
some great keyboard tracks.
His piano really pushes the
song “Frankenstein Boots,” which is sort of my 21st century
version of the “Monster Mash.”
TQR: “Refrigerator Blues” features some heavy sawtooth
distortion and some pretty pointed lyrics. What
inspired that, and what guitar and amp combination
did you use?
About six months before he died, I met Philip Seymour
Hoffman on a city street. I say “I met” him but it was more
a matter of us walking by each other, and both of us stopping and turning around, simultaneously looking at each
other saying “hey man, howya doin’?” followed by a laugh.
Because he was human, he wasn’t perfect, and obviously had
his demons and addictions, but what a talented guy... Around
the same time as his death, I started reading about all of these
young kids that were dying of heroin O/Ds…And that’s what
“Refrigerator Blues” is about, cause after they take your body
to the morgue, you’re put in one. It’s really an ugly song
about an ugly topic, and that’s why I tried to use a real gnarly
sound. It’s not a preaching song, it’s more of a reality song.
You mess with that shit and it’s gonna get you…like my
friend Dave says, how many people can honestly say, “yeah,
that heroin really worked out well for me!”? For the rhythm
tracks, I used two P90 guitars, a 1976 Gibson Les Paul
Deluxe (with factory P90s) into a Fulltone OCD fuzz, into
’69 Marshall smallbox 50 and a ’63 Epiphone Coronet with
a slide into ’63 Gibson Discoverer GA8T, with the trem on.
For the solos, I used the ‘76 Deluxe into OCD fuzz into’69
Marshall smallbox 50, and you can hear when I change
pickups.
TQR: “Down on the Turnpike”captures a sort of '70's porn
funk vibe and also earned you an "Explicit" label
on the cd. Tell us about that one...
I thought that “Explicit” label was absolute bullshit…I wrote
this song as sort of a back story to the song “Dirty Son,”
and it’s about a very seedy strip called The Berlin Turnpike
in Newington, Connecticut. Before the interstate highway
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.16 N.1 November 2014
interview
before he left us and he was in great spirits, happy about
the way things had turned around for him. He was playing great again right up until the end…and you know what,
you’ll never see another like him. The business simply has
changed too much…
TQR:
system, it was the main road to New York City, and you could
find anything you wanted on it. I was told that the first line
of the song was the questionable verse… “Once upon a time,
way before the big box stores, the Berlin Turnpike was a
friendly place, for junkies, pimps and whores.” To me, there
is nothing explicit at all in that, it’s just telling it like it was.
Lyrically, it’s about a young boy growing up in the ‘70’s in a
rundown motel, and all the goings on around him, I thought
the sort of funk wah sound, heavy bass riff and clavinet
gave it a sort of throwback, Bootsy Collins type of vibe. I’ve
always loved Parliament Funkadelic, and that’s the vibe I
was going for on it, though some folks have said it sounds
like Frank Zappa. The wah rhythm guitar goes right into the
solo, and like lot of the solos on this album, it was done in
one complete take. I was playing the ’70 maple necked Strat
played through the RMC wah into the Colby clean channel,
and although I could have made the solo more screaming, I
kind of wanted to lay back a bit on it, like J.J. Cale.
TQR:
You were asked by Johnny Winter to write the liner
notes on his last few albums. Care to comment on
his passing?
What
can you
say…
Johnny
was a
legend
and one
of the
true
greats.
Like a
lot of
people, his career and his fortune waned due to bad business
decisions and substance abuse. A lot of guys my age don’t
even know he played at Woodstock because of a bad decision
to keep him out of the film. Despite this, just about every
great rock player you speak to worshipped the guy. I spent
some time with him over the years, the last time being shortly
Speaking of that, Gene Simmons of KISS declared
rock and roll dead in a recent interview. Do you
agree with that?
When I heard
about this
statement, I
was ready to
jump on Gene,
but after I read
the interview,
I realized he
was talking
about the
machine, the
music business, and he’s
right. The
industry has failed artists, songwriters and musicians. When
the first file sharing site came out, the industry did absolutely
nothing, and it gave millions a license to steal, and the idea
that music is free became the norm…In a nutshell, it devalued
music. By the time they started cracking down, the horse
was already out of the barn. In some ways, they are reaping
what they sowed. They no longer groom artists for greatness,
and it’s all about The Voice and American Idol. If you think
about it, it truly allows them to combine two bad concepts,
reality TV and instant pop stardom based on vocal histrionics.
You look at the greatest musical talents of our generation…
Lennon, McCartney, Dylan, Townshend, Stevie Wonder, Zeppelin… Do you think that ANY of these could make it today?
Can you imagine Steve Marriott on “Idol?”
TQR:
What do you think the future holds for the vintage
guitar and amp markets?
After three decades worth of unstoppable growth, I think the
vintage market was dealt a terrible blow in 2008 with the economic meltdown. Before that, anthing old was considered
collectible and “vintage.” Recovery has been way slower
than anyone could have anticipated, and it drove some of the
vintage dealers I know simply out of the business. That being said, the demand is still there for the classics… 50’s Les
Pauls, pre-CBS Stratocasters and Telecasters, at least with my
generation and the baby boomers. These are the instruments
that created the soundtracks of our lives.TQ
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