tampa two-fer

Transcription

tampa two-fer

17
L I S T E N
VOLUME 4, NUMBER 3 / JAN-FEB 2016
www.gearphoria.com
W I T H
Y O U R
E Y E S
®
a wrightside media publication
ALSO INSIDE: Cusack buys Mojo Hand and more...
COVER STORY
TAMPA TWO-FER
Inside Sublime Guitar Co.
and Blackbird Pedalboards
JOHN JORGENSON
Guitar master talks gear,
new compilation
NMGE WRAP-UP
A photo scrapbook from
the gear fest in Nashville
LIST-ERIA!
Our Top 5 groovy guitar
moments from Prince!
GEAR REVIEWS
Chase Bliss Spectre
Walrus Audio Vanguard
Tapestry Audio Fab Suisse
BARONESS
Our exclusive talk with
John Baizley
WHICH
pedaltrain
ARE
YOU ?
+
SHOW US ON TWITTER INSTAGRAM
#mypedaltrain
pedaltrain
USER PHOTO CREDITS :
left to right / top to bottom
®
@ PEDALTRAIN
| PEDALTRAIN.COM
@caseymoore_ @Spivakovski @filipedelbel @matthewhoopes @je_sj77
@iamgabrielvalenz @mccartney007 @reallybenwalker @joshhunt_
Hand Made Effects Pedals | Akron, Ohio
Visit Us at Winter NAMM 2016 | [HALL C] Booth # 4296 & 4197 | www.earthquakerdevices.com
17
Blake Wright
Publisher/Editor-In-Chief
Contributing Editor
Holly Wright
Special Contributors
Alison Richter
James Lebihan
Ian Anderson
Emanuele Semplici
Wade Burden
Thom Prevost
Creative
Seatonism - Josh Seaton
Cartoonist
Rytis Daukantas
8
GEARPHORIA JAN/FEB 2016
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 bimonthly by
WrightSide Media, Kemah, TX.
Mailing Address:
WrightSide Media
ATTN: Gearphoria
PO Box 1285
Kemah, TX 77565
COVER: Brand Devotion
Photo by Blake Wright. Arm belongs to Tyler Harper
GEARPHORIA is the property of WrightSide Media. All rights reserved. Copyright 2016. No content
of this digital publication can be republished without the express consent of WrightSide Media.
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
ADIOS 2015... and don’t let the door
hit you in the backside on the way out!
Man, was that a tough year... or was
it just me? For us, the year was filled
with dramatic change, loss of loved
ones and what felt overall like a down
year for MI across the board. But let’s
not dwell in the past. It’s a new year,
baby... and this issue of Gearphoria is
packed with goodies that’ll turn any
frown upside down.
For our shop tours (yep, there’s
two!), we made a pit stop in Florida
to check in on Blackbird Pedalboards
and Sublime Guitar Company — a
pair of former shop mates who have
recently gone their separate ways in
the name of growth and convenience.
Blackbird’s new digs offers up extra
space for their burgeoning PedalBoardShop.com online venture, while
Sublime’s new space will allow the
brand to branch out further into USbuilt guitars.
For artist interviews (yep, two of
those as well!), our Alison Richter had
a one-on-one chat with Baroness guitarist/vocalist John Baizley about the
bands stellar new album, Purple, and
the gear the boys used to create it.
She also chatted with multi-instrumentalist John Jorgenson about his
ambitious latest release, Divertuoso —
an offering of three albums of all-new
and diverse material in one package.
We had a great time in Nashville in
November for the latest installment of
the Nashville Music Gear Expo where
we got hands on with upcoming products from Dwarfcraft Devices, Xact
Tone Solutions and more.
Gear reviews this issue is an all pedal
affair. Our man Wade takes a dive into
the latest from Chase Bliss Audio —
the Spectre flanger, as well as a drilling down into the new Walrus Audio
Vanguard phaser. To earn my keep, I
had a chance to spend a little time with
Tapestry Audio’s new Fab Suisse overdrive... and share my thoughts.
Album reviews bring our takes on
new efforts from Jeff Lynne’s ELO,
Foo Fighters and more... with our ReLic’d album going back to one of my
favorite records from 2002 — Feeder’s
Comfort In Sound.
All this plus gear news, columns, a
Prince-centric List-eria! and more!
Happy reading!
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, Gearphoria
9
Contents
VOLUME 4, NUMBER 3 u JAN-FEB 2016
DEPARTMENTS
60 CYCLE HUM
12
POINT TO POINT
18
STRINGS ATTACHED
20
THE WAYBACK MACHINE
22
WORKBENCH CONFIDENTIAL 24
LIST-ERIA!
26
News from Cusack Music, PRS and more...
Time to swap those bad Christmas presents for something
with a little more tone!
There is no ‘I’ in team...
A look back at the Binson Echorec
The battery trilogy concludes with a look at sag
We love Prince! Here are our favorite five guitar
moments from his royal badness...
WHAT’S THAT DUDE PLAY?
Matt Dahlgren, guitarist for Aretha Franklin
27
GEAR REVIEWS
70
ALBUM REVIEWS
76
Pedal fun with looks at the new Chase Bliss Spectre,
Tapestry Audio Fab Suisse and Walrus Audio Vanguard
Jeff Lynne resurrects ELO, Foo Fighters surprise EP
release and a Re-Lic’d from UK’s Feeder
FEATURES
28
BLACKBIRD PEDALBOARDS
David Quinones and crew relocate and reset
the bar for growth with an ambitious plan for
brand expansion.
34
SUBLIME GUITAR CO.
New offices and a steady move into
US-built guitars finds this Floridabased company in growth mode.
42
BARONESS’ JOHN
BAIZLEY
A tragic bus crash, a new
album. We talk exclusively with
the Baroness frontman about
the making of Purple.
NMGE 2015
58
The Nashville gear party
returns and we’re in the thick
of it. Take a look at our scrapbook from the show.
62
JOHN JORGENSON
Multi-instrumentalist conjures up
three new albums and talks about
the work that went into creating
Divertuoso.
Pre-NAMM amp teases emerge
New gear en route in 2016 and beyond...
WITH THE 2016 Winter NAMM
show just a few ticks away, several
companies have teased new products slated to debut at the annual
trade show. At press time, many of
the teases have been from amplifier
manufacturers looking to get a bit of
a jumpstart on the buying season.
One of the more talked about teases
has been from LA’s Friedman Amps
and the new Dirty Shirley Mini -- a
more compact version of the company’s popular classic rock firebreather.
The 20-watt Dirty Shirley Mini
sports two EL 84 power tubes and
three-position gain structure switch.
The pre-amp stage is the same as its
big sister. There also is a 1x12 cab
loaded with a Celestion Creamback.
Elsewhere, amp guru Bruce Egnater’s Synergy SN1 preamp system
12
will use modules to replicate sounds
of classic amps. According to Egnater, preamps will be offered from
amp builders including Friedman,
Soldano, Diezel, Fryette, Morgan and
65Amps to name a few.
While skipping the big show this
year, Carr Amps still has a new amp
coming soon. According to Carr, the
Lincoln concept started with a mint
1964 AC10 purchased from a collector in England.
The Lincoln is loaded with a pair of
EL84 power tubes and four 12AX7
pre-amp complement. It looks to
expand on the tonal range of the
vintage amp and add the convenience
of channel switching. Reverb will be
available on both channels and a two
position attenuator for the full 18watt or bedroom-friendly 6 watts. G
NEWS u
Cusack Music acquires Mojo Hand FX
Brand will remain, expand
MICHIGAN-based Cusack Music has
closed a deal to purchase Mojo Hand
FX of Texas. Terms of the transaction
were not disclosed. Cusack plans to
maintain the Mojo Hand brand and
expand its line of diverse effect pedal
offerings in the near future.
The deal comes on the heels of
Cusack selling off its manufacturing
business Westshore Design, which
specialized in designing and building
electronic products for small companies that need low to medium volume
specialized circuit boards, components and products.
Owner Jon Cusack said at the time
of the sale that his plan was to refocus on the music-end of the business.
Mojo Hand owner Brad Fee called
his exit from the guitar gear business a
‘bittersweet moment’ after being part
of the industry for over a decade. G
Rest in peace, Lemmy
BUYING MOOD: Cusack’s deal to buy Mojo
Hand follows his 2011 deal to buy Reverend’s
amplifier designs.
IAN “Lemmy” Kilmister, the driving force
of metal stalwarts Motörhead, passed
away on 28 December after a short battle
with an aggressive form of cancer. He had
just turned 70 years old on Christmas Eve.
Kilmister started his career as the bassist for space rock specialists Hawkwind, a
gig he held for three years until exiting
the band in 1975. He soon formed Motörhead and began a 40-year run that saw
the release of 22 studio albums, including
2015’s Bad Magic. G
Pedalboards
Jacks
Power
Hardware
Cases
Accessories
www.PedalboardShop.com
(863) 940-3156
13
NEWS u
Celestion unveils Neo, more
Space Echo enters HOF
New guitar products to debut at NAMM
UK SPEAKER manufacturer Celestion is set to showcase its new Neo
Creamback -- a lightweight speaker
with authentic Creamback tone at this
year’s Winter NAMM show. According to the company, its engineers
have developed a ‘new and innovative way’ to harness the forces of the
neodymium magnet, in order to create
2 Levels
the new, lightweight guitar speaker.
Celestion promises that the low end
punch, warm, vocal midrange and
sweet refined highs the Creamback is
famous for remains in tact.
With an 8-hole pressed steel frame
and cream coloured rear can, the
Neo delivers an output sensitivity
(SPL) of 97dB and is available in 8
or 16 ohms.
Also debuting at NAMM is the company’s new Pulse 10 bass speaker.
According to the builder, these powerful new ferrite magnet bass speakers are built to deliver stunning bass
guitar tone with all the punch and
clarity needed to hold down the bottom end in any musical situation.
The new Celestion Pulse bass speakers will be available in 10”, 12” and
15” sizes. G
No Velcro
Curved Deck
The venerable Roland Space Echo RE-201
will enter the TECnology Hall of Fame
at this year’s NAMM show. The unit was
developed by Ikutaro Kakehashi, whose
Ace Tone company created organs,
rhythm machines and tape delays, so it
was no surprise he launched a line of
delay and echo products. In 1973, the
RE-201 Space Echo offered a certain
sound that soon became a favorite of
artists of the time, including Bob Marley, David Bowie and Pink Floyd, and
remains a staple in live performance
and recorded tracks today. G
Quick.Tight.Better.
Lifetime Warranty
Patents Applied For
The New Holeyboard Std. MKII
SeaFoam Green
www.chemistrydesignwerks.com
14
NEWS u
PRS, others form Digital Harmonic
Military, medical implications to new sound tech
FURTHER exploration of the science
of sound has prompted guitar-maker
Paul Reed Smith to join forces with
the scientific community and form
Digital Harmonic LLC. The company has developed a proprietary and
patented image and waveform technology that aims to revolutionize how the
medical community implements xrays. The company has already raised
$5 million and is seeking to raise
another $5 million to fund its growth.
The technology is the result of a decade of research that started with Paul
Reed Smith’s late father Jack Smith,
an applied mathematician. Combining
his understanding of precision mathematics and physics together with his
son Paul’s understanding of sound
and harmonics from guitar making
created this revolutionary technology.
“We figured out how to extract
previously undetected data out of
complex sound waveforms and then
applied that new theory to create
remarkably detailed images,” said
Smith. “The potential for the medical community to be able to get much
more precise images is exciting.”
The company is in contract talks
with a US Navy defense contractor. G
15
KICKSTARTED
Kurv Guitar
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kurv/kurv-guitar
BRANDS ON THE RISE
Needle Guitar Vibrato - Keep your Guitar in Tune Forever
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1944695465/needle-guitar-vibrato-keepyour-guitar-in-tune-for
Cusack Music
Holland, MI
After the sale of his manufacturing business and
the acquisition of Mojo Hand FX, Jon Cusack looks
to aggressively expand the MI side of his business.
EarthQuaker Devices
Akron, OH
Two separate booths at NAMM this year? Could
this mean we see an expansion of the amplifier
line that has been whispered about?
VFE Pedals Live Series - guitar pedals and DIY kits
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vfepedals/vfe-pedals-live-series-guitarpedals-and-diy-kits (SUCCESSFUL)
Fusion Guitar: iPhone Integration, Amp & Speakers
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fusion-guitar-iphone-integration-ampspeakers#/ (SUCCESSFUL)
Adventure Audio Whateverb
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1222937155/adventure-audio-whateverb
(SUCCESSFUL)
Ruokangas Guitars
Janakkala, Finland
Celebrating 20 years in 2015, Juha and the crew
at Ruokangas launched two new models, the
Aeon and Unicorn Supersonic, and had roles in
the film, The Spirit of the Guitar Hunt directed by
Mika Tyyskä, also known as Mr. Fastfinger.
Stomp Under Foot
Windermere, FL
With a step up in branding over the course of
2015, Matt Pasquerella looks serious about taking SUF to the next level. If you don’t believe us,
just check out the new Cosmonaut fuzz.
Revv Amplification
Ile De Chenes, Manitoba, Canada
NEW PEDALS
WEEK 52 of 2015
Alexander Pedals Jubilee - Silver Overdrive
Boredbrain Music Patchulator 8000 - 8-Channel Mini Patchbay
Elephant Electronics Echo Base
Lavielectro The Reverbear - Digital Reverb
Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay Deluxe
ModTone MT-VD Analog Delay
Oddfellow Effects The Bishop - Overdrive
Providence BTC-1 Bass Boot Comp - Bass Compressor
Providence HBL-4 Heat Blaster
Providence VFB-1 Vitalizer FB - Active Impedance Converter + Booster
Providence VZW-1 Vitalizer WV - Active Impedance Converter
Rougarou Bass Pedals The Rougarou - Tube Preamp
Sonic Research ST-300 Turbo Tuner Mini
Tone Gauge Pedals TGO41 Overdrive / Fat Booster
Dan Trudeau and his crew have a killer amp (The
Generator) that more and more folks are starting
to hear about. 2016 is set up to be a breakout
year for this Canadian amp shop.
SOURCE: www.effectsdatabase.com
16
The gift that keeps on giving...
Don’t settle! Turn those bad gifts into the gear of your dreams
TIS THE SEASON for bad gifts!
The lack of tonal enhancement in
your stocking this past Christmas
got you down? Fear not! We’ve got a
few suggestions that just might turn
that frown upside down.
First off, just because we get you,
doesn’t mean everyone in your life
is on the same page with you when
it comes to gifts of a musical nature.
Now, there is no magic wand we can
wave to turn that Jupiter Ascending
Snuggie into a Klon. Sorry. It doesn’t
work that way. But, I’m betting there
are plenty of local charities in your
area that would leap at that offering given the coldest months of the
season are still ahead of us.
18
Make a karmic decision and donate
that abomination to local homeless
shelter and help someone keep warm
this winter. That goes for that John
Mayer-knockoff knit neck wrap
thing too.
Now hold on... we realize good feelings don’t buy gear, but we’ve seen
waves of kindness reverberate across
the cosmos creating a wake of good
things as it passes by. Can’t hurt, right?
For more tangible results it’s going to take a bit more effort. Keep
an eye out for swap opportunities
online. There are plenty of local eswap meet type marketplaces strewn
across the world wide web these
days. One man’s Cracker Barrel gift
card could make for the beginnings
of another man’s Taylor GS Mini.
Trust us on that one.
There are also plenty of social
media groups that could prove useful for offloading the unwanted or
unexpected. And there is always
Craigslist or eBay. Like anything
else, trading white elephants for a
Blue Hippo takes persistence... and a
bit of skill. It might take a village of
bad gifts in order for you to graduate
up to a meaningful addition to your
sonic arsenal, but take solace in the
fact that back in 2005 some industrious young man made a series of
trades that started out with a paperclip and ended up with a house! G
J . ROCK
ET
UD
TA
IO DESIG
NS
19
There is no ‘I’ in team...
But there is one in ‘Craftsmenship’
GREETINGS Gearphornicators! As
gear aficionados we are all aware of
the various types of craftspeople and
companies that produce our gear.
Whether it’s a small one-person shop,
a smaller production shop of a handful of people, or a larger production
shop, to a full on factory. It has been
this way since time immemorial.
Having worked in all of these situations I thought I’d offer my perspective on things particularly relating
to the quality and the abilities of
dedicated specialists versus craftspeople who do it all themselves. There
are also job shops who specialize in
particular areas from finishing to the
actual building or machining of parts
that bear mentioning. This issue, I
want to delve into my thoughts on
these various situations.
One-man shops, or master level
craftsmen, are often considered to be
at the top of the hierarchy by many
Gearphorians. These are the guys
who have been doing it for many
years and have built up a reputation
20
and clientele over the years. The
household names of our microcosm.
These are the craftspeople who are
involved with every aspect of the
construction of their instruments.
From wood selection, to the fabrication of the various parts and pieces,
to the assembly, finishing, and
electrics.These are the master level
instrument makers who dip their
toes into the woodworker, machinist, electrical engineer, and finishing
trades. They wear many different
hats. It’s challenging to be an absolute master at them all and few rise
to the task.
I have not even mentioned marketing, and business skills among others. Let’s stick to the nitty gritty. It
is certainly a long road to producing
a master level instrument when one
is accountable for every last element
of it, which leads me to the main
point of this article.
That is the fact that it is highly
likely in some cases the production
employee is going to have superior
GUITAR TALK u
hand skills compared to the master.
That is going to lead to a more efficient job though not necessarily a
higher quality level. For all the flak
the larger companies receive there
is some remarkably great instruments being produced these days
when it comes to fit and finish in all
price ranges.
The production employee is generally going to be a specialist in one
area. Take binding for instance,
which takes a very high degree of
skill and talent to do. Generally
the binding crew of a production
shop will be selected based on hand
skills, and in many cases will be
younger with good eyes. There are
other reasons younger folks excel
at these types of jobs but I won’t go
into that here.
During my time at Taylor Guitars
I got to work with some incredibly gifted and talented folks who
were truly masters of their jobs. For
instance the binding crew pulled off
some amazing work, day after day
(and night after night). They can
knock work out in record speed at
a stellar level of quality. A spirit of
competition is a prime motivator in
a good shop that is absent in a one
person shop. The guys at the top
level tackling the higher-end jobs
have been at it for years. Any master
luthier would love to have that sort
of experience and skill burned into
their psyche after thousands of hours
of focused work, which leads to absolute mastery. That is not to say the
master luthier can not do as good of
a job. I just think in most cases the
efficiency is not there.
One other thing that comes from
jumping from job to job is what I call
“The Hesitation”. For instance, I may
not have done a fret job for two weeks.
It’s going to take me a bit to get back
into the rhythm of it. It used to take
me and others a week to get my flow
back after the two-week holiday shut
down at the big factory. This is a real
ting any luthier can tell you about.
Shifting gears can keep things
engaging and interesting, but it can
also affect productivity. There is
also something to be said about the
refinements in process that comes
from grinding work out day after
day, week after week, year after
year... non-stop. Now I am talking
about high-end work on high-end instruments like you would find in the
better companies and smaller production shops. Of course, there can
be an element of knocking it out on
the quick and dirty found in factories
and even smaller shops too.
So the Master craftsman, the one
man shop person obviously has the
advantage of having their hands in
every aspect of the build. It may take
them a bit longer, and their productivity might not be there with the
production crew, but there comes
that intangible quality, the ability
to see the struggle that some of us
share. It’s hard to put into words but
it’s often referred to with words like
vibe, or mojo. There’s a certain look
and feel you can get from an instrument. The flow of the contours. The
look of the lacquer. The detailing.
It’s the small intangibles that give it
a soul which are cohesive throughout
the instrument.
Having said all that, please support
your local, small, and family-owned
builders and shops. Like the exploding craft beer market, there is no longer a need to drink corporate brew!
Many of us reciprocate our business
right back into the artisanal community. Supporting small business
and craftspeople in this digital age is
paramount to keeping music, creativity alive and prospering. Also please
support music by going to shows and
buying CDs and albums it helps
the community as a whole. As they
say... a rising tide lifts all ships. G
Ian Anderson is a luthier and owner of Ian A.
Guitars in San Diego, California. See his handiwork at
www.iaguitars.com.
21
The Binson Echorec
Magnets, tubes and a sound from another world
The Binson Echorec is an old echo
device produced in the 1950s in
Milan (Italy) by Binson Amplifier Hi
Fi company. It’s based on a magnetic
drum system (called “memory disc”)
that was more durable and stable than
the magnetic tape used in the same
era in other delay/echo units.
The Binson Amplifier Hi Fi company
was founded by Dr. Bonfiglio Bini in
Milan in the 1940s. After tubes and
television production, the Binson factory in the 1950s started to produce
guitar amplifiers, mixers, and echo/reverb machines, until the 1980s, when
production was discontinued and the
company (Binson s.r.l. at that time)
went into liquidation.
The most famous and innovative
product geared towards musicians
was undoubtedly the Binson Echorec.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s,
many players and bands, like The
Shadows, Pink Floyd, Jimmy Page of
Led Zeppelin, etc… used it to obtain
that typical sound from outer space
that this magic machine can create
22
with his innovative magnetic drum
system (small heads with variable
positions around a rotating disc with
a thin steel band/drum on it), supported by a tube circuit (six 12AX7
tubes) with an electric motor that
produces the echo effect by a thin
steel recording drum around the disc
with the heads system arranged on
the edge of that drum when the disc
is rotating. One head is used to record
and other four heads for playback.
Binson Echorec has three input and
three output channels (with a jack or
Geloso socket), with a channel selector on the front panel.
The effect is really amazing: repeats
and feedback create a tridimensional
and enveloping sound, never heard
before, not even with tape modulation
(more accurate but not so characteristic and surprising).
Obviously, the 60s-era Binson
Echorec is now an old, big and noisy
machine. It has a maximum delay
time about 300-330 ms and maintenance could be difficult in some cases
PEDAL TALK u
due to rarity of replacement parts and
spares. Despite that, even today, the
fascination with this vintage machine
is intact.
The Binson Echorec was produced
in various tubes versions: first
Echorec in the mid 1950s, then Baby
Echorec (a smaller version for guitarists) and Echorec B1 and B2, and,
since 1960-1961, Echorec 2, T5, T5E
and T7E, etc...
Some export models were produced
with different languages on the front
panel and under a different brand,
such as Guild.
Later, other versions was produced
in more modern chassis with tube or
transistor technology — the Echomaster 2, PE603 TU, etc...
The most famous version was the
Echorec 2, used by Hank B. Marvin
(guitarist of The Shadows) and David
Gilmour (Pink Floyd). The Binson
Echorec 2 controls are:
Volume Reg: On/Off and Gain input level
Lunghezza Alo: Feedback control
Volume Eco-Alo: Volume level and Feedback volume control
Liv Reg: “Magic Eye” control
Tono: Tone control
Selettore Eco-Alo: Eco/Rip/Alo control,
Single repeat, normal repeat, reverb
Ritardi: 12-position selector, heads combination to control echo repeats/reverb
length and complexity.
The “magic eye” is an EM81 vacuum tube used like an indicator of
signal strength. It has a green light
that becomes more intense when
signal increases or overload.
Today, the lion’s share of delay
and echo effects for guitarists
are small digital pedals. Digital
technology has made great strides
and a lot of them can accurately
reproduce old tape echo sounds. In
my experience, pedals like Gurus
Echosex 2, Catalinbread Echorec
and Skreddy Echo can get close to
the old machine with some settings, but the tube circuit, components and magnetic disk make the
unique sound of Binson Echorec
from a galaxy all its own. G
Emanuele Semplici is the curator and owner
of Vintage Stompboxes, an online community where
to find info, pictures, video and best auctions or
sales about vintage musical instruments and guitar
effects pedals. The staff will help you if you need
info or have any questions about some of your loved
guitar effects or about your old piece of gear found
in your basement. Visit the Facebook page: http://
www.facebook.com/VintageStompboxes
23
Batteries included, Pt. 3
Inside EJ’s box of dead batteries...
I’M SURE YOU’VE all heard the story about how renowned tone magician
Eric Johnson keeps around a box of
partially discharged 9 volt batteries,
and can tell the state of charge from
the sound of his fuzz pedal. There are
plenty of people who are convinced
their gear sounds better with different
levels of battery charge. Some pedal
board power supplies even come with
controls that allow you to adjust the
voltage range on some outputs so you
can simulate a low battery. But does
this really work, and if so, how? In
this last installment in the Workbench
Confidential battery series, we will
find out.
First things first. Many effects
pedals, in particular digital effects,
include voltage regulators for many
parts of the circuit. Digital devices
such as microcontrollers, digital
signal processors, and others only
sometimes run on 9V, and are very
sensitive to the voltage variations.
5V or 3.3V are typical supply voltages for micros, so electronics elements
such as buck and boost convertors
24
are utilized to ensure they receive a
stable voltage, regardless of fluctuations in the supply. If the supply
drops too low for them to function,
they simply shut down. If the main
audio elements of the circuit in your
effects pedal are powered by a regulated voltage, then using a partially
discharged battery is going to have
no effect whatsoever other than to
reduce the run time of the device.
Some analog devices can also be
sensitive to voltage changes, and
the designer may choose to regulate
their voltage supply as well. The
case here is much the same as for
digital pedals; if the voltage is regulated, then using a half-dead battery
or reduced voltage power supply is
going to have no perceivable effect on the audio. This said, there
are some devices where varying the
input voltage might have an effect on
the audio. Let’s take a look at those
and see how it might work.
As a battery discharges, its output
voltage gradually reduces. Check out
the previous Workbench Confidential
TECH TALK u
articles for more information on how
this process works. If the powered
device is unregulated, it will be running with the reduced voltage. This
particularly impacts amplifiers such
as the op-amp, diode, and transistorbased circuits in effects such as
boost, overdrive, and fuzz pedals.
These pedals are basically amplifiers, and the load on the output, is being controlled by the power supply.
The signal from the guitar pickups is
modulating the power supply to provide the varying output current, but
the eventual output power depends
on the gain of the amplifier and the
limits of the input power supply.
As an example, lets take an amplifier with a gain of 2 and a 3V
power supply. If we provide a 1V
input signal, the amplifier will try to
increase this at the output to 2V. The
output is 2V and our power supply
can deliver 3V, so all should be well.
Now let’s increase our input signal
voltage to 2V. Again we’ll multiply
our input signal by our gain which
is now 2 x 2, or an output voltage
of 4V. Now the amplifier is trying
to increase the output voltage to 4V,
but the input power supply is only
3V. In this scenario the amp will
begin clipping. So, in these types of
circuits, reducing the input voltage
can make the effect clip earlier. It’s
worth trying your boost or overdrive
pedal to see if a lower input voltage
has this effect.
Distortion and fuzz pedals are
more likely to be always clipping to
some extent, so reducing the voltage will have a different effect. On
the traditional transistor-based fuzz
pedal, changing the battery voltage
causes a response very similar to
that of the volume control. Reducing the battery voltage, reduces the
signal level at the output. In combination with the existing controls and
a tube amp on the edge of breakup,
it gives you an extra knob to
twiddle, although does not provide a
dramatic change in behavior.
Testing with a Dunlop Fuzz Face
shows a proportional reduction in
output level as the voltage is reduced. The effect continues to operate down to about 5V at which point
the signal from a single coil passive
pickup begins dropping out.
Inside the Dunlop Eric Johnson
Fuzz Face, it’s a simple circuit utilizing a pair of BC 183 NPN transistors.
Here the battery input is connected up
to an external variable power supply
for testing. A variable power supply
allows precise control over the input
voltage to the Fuzz Face, simulating
a discharging battery. As the input
voltage reduces, the signal level at
the output reduces. Here we are setup
for 9V. The signal begins to drop out
at about 5V [FIG. 1].
FIG. 2 a nice clean 1KHz test signal with the Fuzz Face bypassed.
FIG. 3 shows output from the Fuzz
Face at 9V with the volume and fuzz
controls turned up around full.
Here’s the output from the Fuzz
Face with the input power reduced
down to 6V in FIG. 4. The output
level has reduced by about 50mV.
As with so many things, the story
of the discharged battery improving
tone, does have elements of truth,
but it helps to understand a bit more
about how it works to see what
benefits may be had. In some effects
pedals, this will have no impact at
all since the effect regulates its voltage. In others, there is some change
to the behavior either in output level,
headroom, or both. Try it out with
some of your pedals and see if it
works for you. G
FIG. 2
FIG. 3
FIG. 4
James Lebihan is the owner of Mission Engineer-
FIG. 1
ing in Petaluma, California. See his handiwork at www.
missionengineering.com.
25
LIST-ERIA! u
Causing gearhead discomfort since 2014
TOP 5 GUITAR MOMENTS FROM HIS ROYAL BADNESS!
In honor of our purple issue, we give you our top five guitar moments from Prince! If you’re shaking your head
wondering... “Prince? ...and guitar?” ...shame on you. Prince is one hell of a guitarist... with chops for days.
He’s proved it time and time again, including in these instances:
SUPERBOWL... IN THE RAIN
Yes, yes... the Colts topped the Bears
29-17 to be crowned NFL champs back
in 2007, but the real winner was anyone
who tuned into the absolutely stellar
halftime performance by Prince. In a
downpour, Prince ran roughshod over
hits from CCR, Queen, Foo Fighters and,
fittingly, his own ‘Purple Rain’. It was
quite a spectacle, marching band and all.
PURPLE RAIN
Even people that don’t like Prince are
nodding their heads to this one. If you
have a pulse, you’ve probably seen
Purple Rain -- the semi-biographical tale
of his royal badness released in 1984.
What the film doesn’t have in Oscarcaliber acting it makes up for with some
generation-defining music, and Prince’s
emergence as a full-fledged guitar icon.
THIS ALBUM...
RNR HOF: GEORGE HARRISON INDUCTION
With a red hat and his trademark Tele, Prince blazed through
the lead on George Harrison’s ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’
celebrating the former Beatles’ induction at 2004’s Rock And
Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony. Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff
Lynne and others shuffled their way through the classic tune,
but Prince’s appearance kicked the whole thing up to another
level with blistering fretwork and killer tone.
26
COVERING RADIOHEAD
At the 2008 Coachella music festival,
Prince pulled together a haunting, yet
electric cover of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’. It
popped up online for a while, but was
pulled as trademark wrangling commenced. It showed up again briefly just
last month, but again was pulled. If you
can manage to catch a glimpse of it, do
so. It’s pretty outstanding.
Recorded during his feud
with Warners, The Gold
Experience was Prince’s
first album released under
the ‘symbol’ name he
adopted for a while. With
its stripped down arrangements and blazing guitar,
this thing rocks! Tougher
to find nowadays, but well
worth the effort.
with TOMMY HORCHATA
MATT DALGREN’S gear collection may just be as eclectic as
his resume. Since 2007, his main
guitar gig has been working for
none other than the Queen of Soul
herself, Aretha Franklin.
Dahlgren has also worked with The
Platters, Carrie Underwood, Smokey
Robinson, and Stevie Wonder, international superstars Googoosh and
Siavash, Master P, and metal band
XYZ, among many more.
As far as tools of the trade, Dalhgren owns over 35 guitars. His
newest addition, a Dean Zelinsky
Tagliare, features the carved Z-
MATT DAHLGREN (Aretha Franklin)
Glide neck and Sidekick pickups
with a unique coil tap design. He
also has a Joe Pass guitar, and a
tricked out Ibanez RG.
“I’m a metalhead at heart,” he admits.
He also is clearly a Strat guy, and
owns four including a 1997 Eric
Clapton signature model and the
Jeff Beck model with Fender Hot
Noiseless pickups he uses with
Ms. Franklin.
Amps appear as important to
Dahlgren as guitars, as there are
too many in his arsenal to list.
Among his favourites are a Custom
Dr. Z Mazerati, Fender Twin, and a
Marshall Plexi that he drives with
EL84 tubes using Yellow Jackets.
His touring rig is a Rivera Venus 6
head with a cab loaded with Eminence Redcoat Series Private Jacks
and Governors.
He separates the time based
effects on his pedalboard to run
through the amp’s effects loop.
The signal chain goes: Ernie
Ball volume, TC Electronic tuner,
MXR D ynacomp, EP Booster, BB
Preamp, Fulltone OCD, Ibanez
Tube King... FX Loop: Boss TR2
and CE2, TC Flashback and EHX
Nano Holy Grail. G
27
Blackbird... fly
Blackbird Pedalboards, headed by David Quinones, has continued to evolve since its
2009 inception -- coverting from custom shop to retail sales, feeding growth that has
lead to both relocation and an OEM business expansion. This bird has taken flight...
IMAGES & WORDS BY BLAKE WRIGHT
FEATURE u
SOME BUSINESSES are born out
of necessity. Some are built out of
desire. Still others… are just flukes.
You’ll find by talking with many
of the smaller gear manufacturers
around, that their businesses were
born from first doing a little something nice for themselves… and then
that ‘little something nice’
catching the attention of a fellow musician, and snowballing from there. That was the
case for guitar instructor David
Quinones, founder of Floridabased Blackbird Pedalboards,
who was just looking for a
more comfortable solution to
mounting a volume pedal on a
conventional board.
“I was in a band and I needed
a board,” he recalls. “I couldn’t
use my volume pedal on a
sloped board. I just couldn’t
throw my ankle back that far. So the
very first Blackbird I design had two
platforms. One was flat for my volume and the other angled for the rest
of the board. We called it the Wah
Wedge. That is actually why I built
the first one.”
Quinones built the second one
when a fellow guitar instructor took
a shine to the creation and asked for
one of his own. More orders from
more instructors followed while others trickled in from a post he make
on a popular internet gear forum.
The year was 2009… and there was
“At the time, we were
really just doing custom
boards so it was really
feast or famine. Even a small
parts order, $20 to $30,
really helped.”
a recession going on. Lessons dried
up, so the pedalboards became an attractive outlet to make some supplemental cash. So where did the name
Blackbird come from?
“The band I was in… ‘Blackbird’
was the name of one of the first
Blackbird Pedalboards
songs we wrote,” explains Quinones.
“My drummer made me the logo as
a gift. He had a buddy that worked
in a metal shop so they flow-jetted
the logo out of stainless steel. The
logo was probably also the thing
that made it turn into a company. I
was, reluctantly, a business owner.
Everything just sort of fell
into place… and it’s evolved.
So I was in my garage every night until 3am making
pedalboards… wrapping them,
etc… We launched the website
in 2010 and it has just grown
from there.”
Grown so much that during
the second half of last year
Quinones and his crew pulled
up stakes from a shared space
near Tampa and moved the
company east to Lakeland
giving the company the square
footage needed for its own, dedicated CNC machine, spray booth, and
even a showroom.
It’s the showroom that greets you
when you enter the new space. The
room is appointed equally with both
Blackbird boards and items from
BACKROOM WORKHORSE: Blackbird’s CNC machine can cut around five boards in an hour.
29
FEATURE u
THE MAN WITH THE PLAN: A band Quinones was in back in the day had a song called ‘Blackbird’, which is where the company name comes from.
the company’s recently-launched
PedalBoardShop.com endeavor — a
one-stop parts and accessories destination for all things pedalboards,
from jacks, power supplies, premade pedalboards, cases and more.
Quinones got the idea for the venture
one day at his old shop while staring
at a wall of parts.
“I kept getting emails from guys
asking can we buy your jacks, I
need to replace ‘X’ on my board,”
he recalls “So I said why don’t we
just offer the parts… just have a
parts store? So I bought the URL and
threw some SKUs up there and it has
just kind of grown into its own thing.
At the time, we were really just doing custom boards so it was really
feast of famine. Even a small parts
order, $20 to $30, really helped.”
The shop has expanded to carrying competitors’ board, which might
seem a little odd, but so far it has
worked out for all parties.
“They buy more parts… we sell the
boards,” he says. “It’s been great.
That was probably the best turning
point for Blackbird as far as capital
30
and branching out into new ventures.
It’s really low overhead as far as
supplies. We’re already using them
anyway, so we just offer them to
everybody else. We’re branching out
into new SKUs just for PBS.”
Just off the showroom is the tolex/
vinyl station/office space. The
room features a large, flat tabletop
flanked by wall-mounted reams of
multi-colored, multi-textured wrap
— everything from classic black to
cowboy-textured and more extreme
animal prints.
Adjacent is the assembly station
where all of the final details — feet,
jacks and brackets — are added. The
finished boards are then stored on
nearby racks until shipped.
The back of the shop doubles as
both woodshop and warehouse…
and will be the future home of a new
spray booth. The space is dominated
by a CNC responsible for cutting all
of Blackbird’s boards.
“It’s been killer,” says Quinones.
“All of the boards, all of the tops,
get cut, routed… everything comes
right off that thing pretty much ready
to go. We use 3/4” birch… everything, all of the frames are natural
wood joints, which we glue and pin.
The machine takes about an hour
to cut five. Tyler can usually wrap
one in about 30 minutes. The week
before Summer NAMM we did 74
boards. There are three sizes that we
do. There is the 1530, which is our
big one. The 1224 is our best seller,
which is this middle size. Then, the
feather board which is our grab-andgo little guy. In addition, there are
three series for each. There is the
Tolex series, where we started off
with the vinyl. Then we introduced
the Lacquered series, which all of
these will be coated with a catalyzed
lacquer. Then our Hardwood series.
Kind of our answer to what some of
the boutique guys are doing. We’re
doing a maple and sapele hardwood.
It’s close to 32 SKUs. Three series,
three sizes… and there is some
variations in there.”
Since starting in 2009, Blackbird
has shipped well-over 2,000 boards
including customs, and the base
boards have evolved over time.
FEATURE u
WRAPPED AND STACKED: Blackbird boards come in three standard sizes with a myriad of covering options.
“A couple of dozen versions of
these boards exist as I’ve always
tinkered with the design,” explains
Quinones. “Just last week we started
adding an extra row of grommets to
our 1530. A dealer in Texas called
and had a customer that wanted
one with an extra row of grommets.
So we cut one on the CNC and put
the pic on Instagram to a bunch of
positive comments. Now we have
an extra row of grommets. Having
all the production in-house it allows
us to quickly bang out a prototype,
and if we like it we can run with it.
That’s kind of been the norm. I’m
naturally a tinkerer. I want to make
them better.” After standardizing the line, Blackbird halted its custom shop offerings… but just recently have begun
to reopen the door to specialized
requests, with caveats.
“We just recently reopened our custom shop, but it is not full custom,”
says Quinones. “Basically you can
take one of our standard sizes on
our stock boards and we’ll modify
it… add jacks, more power options,
more color options. So yes… and no.
The cool thing is that it is still the
same price as the stock price and we
just add any additional stuff. Having the custom orders have really
helped fill the gaps. We can get them
done pretty quick now since their all
based on stock boards.”
Evolution has been key for
Blackbird. The pedalboard business has changed dramatically
over the past few years. More
custom/high-end providers have
emerged, bringing new choices
and options into the market. While
it all started with the Wah Wedge,
that’s a model that Blackbird
doesn’t offer anymore.
“They’ve made us work harder
and kind of change our designs,”
says Quinones. “It’s been good. We
started in 2009, so that was right
when Rooster stopped doing anything custom, and stopped dealer
distribution. He was just doing
one-offs. It was really just Pumaboards out there doing anything
custom. When we started we found
a little niche in the market. Right
around 2011/2012, there was a
pretty good ground swell of builders, which is great.” It wasn’t too long after that when
Blackbird made the conscious decision to start packaging their boards
for resale and adding dealers.
“We were doing customs and then
we picked up Prymaxe pretty early
on… and Lava Cable, Tony (Cole) at
Lava was great to us,” explains Quinones. “They really took us under
their wing and handed us dealers.
I think it happened a little early
for us. I don’t think we were quite
ready. We were still in the garage.
Prymaxe was giving us like 40 board
orders… and we were like ‘What
are we going to do?!’ At the time,
we were doing four or five a month!
It was a little overwhelming, but I
think it really showed the potential
of what a retail network could be. I
got a little more aggressive with the
pricing. All the boards come with
cases. Stuff like that. When we did
that switch we really picked up a lot
of new dealers and distribution really got good for us.” G
31
FEATURE u
IN THE BACK: The warehouse area of the new Blackbird digs is dominated by the CNC machine (right), as well as new
spray booth (under construction) and storage.
32
FEATURE u
33
SUBLIME
N O I S E
Tommy Platt loves guitar. It was that love that lead him to pursue an early career
in audio engineering. After spending over a decade in recording studios, he had
the chance to step into the family business and help launch a new guitar brand.
The result was Sublime Guitar Company -- a Florida-based outfit with big ideas
and a growing footprint in the guitar and guitar accessory space.
IMAGES & WORDS BY BLAKE WRIGHT
FEATURE u
Sublime Guitar Company
DID YOU EVER hear the one about
the guitar start-up founded by a
drum company? In 2011, Terry Platt,
chief executive of Crush Drums and
company co-founder Chad Huang returned from the Winter NAMM show
in Anaheim, California, with the germ
of an idea: What if Crush started a
guitar line? Terry recruited brother
Tommy to help create what would
after several months of development
become Sublime Guitar Company.
“Calling it Crush Guitars didn’t
make much since to me so we spent
a lot of time on the branding side of
things and how it would work,” recalls Tommy Platt, who took over as
boss of Sublime in early 2015. “He
has a series of drums called the Sublime series and I suggested that Sublime Guitar Company sounded pretty
good. And he was like… ‘Yeah, that
would be a cool name.’ One of his
partners who is now creative director
for Gator Cases, Mike Swenson —
still a real good buddy of ours — he
is the one that designed our logo.
What’s funny is it was the first one
he did. He did it and showed it to
me and asked ‘What do you think?’
I was like… that’s it. It’s perfect! After that, he did design three or four
more… but that first one was the
one. He knew it too.”
Platt wasn’t overly keen about
jumping into the Strat and Tele copy
business, so early on he started in
with line drawings and Photoshop,
coming up with shapes that would be
familiar, but not dead-on copies. For
example, the Millennia is obviously
influenced by the Les Paul. The
Chieftain and Jayhawk would echo
the best parts of a 335 and a Tele.
After arriving at designs everyone
liked, there was still a problem in
Platt’s eyes.
“There was nothing that set any-
thing apart,” he says. “It was just
our versions of classic guitars…
and there is nothing wrong with
that. I wanted some identity for
the brand… and that’s where the
Tomcat came from. I love offset
guitars, but I don’t like how big
most of them are. I never felt comfortable playing one. So I wanted
to make an offset that’s smaller like
a Tele because that’s what I feel
comfortable playing. So that’s how
the Tomcat came about. That was
literally a last-minute guitar. I had
samples of the line from the factory
we were going to use. I was taking
these to NAMM within three weeks.
I took the line drawing to Ben Chafin (owner of Electra Guitars) and
asked if he can build me one… and
he did. That’s our identity and it has
become the most popular model… it
and the Chieftain.”
The majority of Sublime’s guitars
WALL OF SOUND: The wall of the new Sublime showroom is dominated by the brand’s different models, including a new US-built offering.
36
FEATURE u
are manufactured in the Far East,
then shipped to the US for set-up
and ultimate distribution. Platt says
the NAMM exposure has helped the
brand, but it has also picked up a ton
of regional exposure in central Florida.
“I have a ton of artists playing
import guitars and not one of them
have asked me to change out the
pickups,” says Platt. “A big focus to
us was to put out a guitar that is a
really good guitar with a little more
attention to detail. I spend close to
an hour on every guitar to make sure
everything is done as it should be before it ships. It is a benefit of being a
smaller company. Larger companies
just can’t do that.”
The growth of Sublime recently
prompted the company to relocate to
a bigger facility in the Tampa area.
The new space opens up into a
showroom for Sublime’s growing range of offerings. Would be
users can come in and test drive
every model, including some of the
very first, and as yet unannounced,
USA-build Sublimes — a market the
company plans to branch into further
in 2016. Currently, the guitars are
CNC’d in Knoxville, Tennessee.
“We haven’t really gotten heavy
into the USA guitar thing,” admits
Platt. “We started with imports. I
wanted to do USA from the very beginning, but we just didn’t have the
right process. Now I feel like we’re
getting one down and we’ll expand it
from there. If it does well we’ll get
a CNC in here and I’ll hire someone
to run it. We’re just not big enough
to do that now. I’m selling one or
two USA guitars every other month.
Our imports on the other hand… it’s
everyday… website sales, dealers, etc… The USA guitars… they
are not even on the site yet. I’ve
just been selling them to people
who have contacted me about one I
posted on Instagram or something
like that.”
You can also plug into one of four
Sublime effects pedals. The initial
range was made possible through a
crowd-funding campaign via Kickstarter that raised over $10,000.
Sublime’s original goal for the campaign was $5,000. The line currently
consists of the Mobin overdrive,
Hippie Joel overdrive, Pep Pep delay
and the Chunky Brogan distortion,
but there are more on the way.
“We are working on a couple of
new pedals, which is cool… to be
launched next year,” reveals Platt.
“Michael Blakemore (DMB Pedals)
is helping me now. We’re going to
do a few of his pedals… his compressor — the Spankenstein. It is one
of the coolest compressors… and
I’ve tried a ton. We have a prototype
that I’ll send to Korea and start the
WORKBENCH: Platt spends at least an hour with each import guitar that comes in to insure each meets quality standards prior to shipping.
37
FEATURE u
back and forth. There are a couple
of overdrives that are cool… and his
bass fuzz. He’s excited because he
just has to work on circuits. We’re
going to try and keep the price point
of the other pedals… $99. We’ve got
some push back that people aren’t
giving the pedal a chance because
they’re too cheap. So Michael and I
decided maybe to change it to $119.”
Just off the showroom is the office/
workbench area, which is tastefully
decorated with pop culture kitsch
from superheroes to Star Wars and
beyond. The bench work has slowed
during the second half of 2015 due
to factory issues overseas.
“We haven’t gotten any imports in
over the past few months because the
factory I was using closed down,”
says Platt. “I’m right now looking
for a new factory to build our import
models. I have pretty good stock of
every model except the Chieftain…
and I have another option for that,
but it is going to cost a lot more
money. I own the mold/jig for that
in Korea. It’s a molded maple body.
The factory that shut down was in
Indonesia, but all the bodies where
made in Korea then shipped to Indonesia. When we first started looking
for factories to make our guitars I
probably went through six or seven
factories before choosing. To me,
there is something about it… there
was some soul in them. They felt
great. The fret work was awesome. It
just felt good.”
All of Sublime’s pickups and wiring harnesses are manufactured by a
two-man team in Korea Platt affectionately calls the ‘Korean Custom
Shop’. The duo is friends with
Crush/Sublime co-founder Huang.
“We started with them from the
very beginning,” explains Platt.
“One of them is just a genius engineer… he can build anything. The
other guy is the tone freak. It’s a
great combination. They build all
of our pedals as well. They do the
pickups and wiring harnesses and
then everything is shipped to Indo-
38
RACKED: A series of Sublime bodies await their respective fates.
nesia (before now). It was all done
for them. They just had to solder
them in. It cost us more money to do
it that way, but I was able to control
the quality a little bit more. That’s
one of the good things we have going. No matter what factory we go
to, all of the electronics will stay the
same. Even the pots… I designed
them. Those guys make them.”
Sublime has tested the waters in
China, but Platt is keen on keeping the manufacturing operation in
Korea. A few samples sent to him
from new Korean shops vying for the
work were extremely solid, but that
quality came at an inflated price. “That was the good thing about the
Indonesian factory is that I felt like
the price was almost half as much as
FEATURE u
SOMEBODY GET ME A DOCTOR: Showroom shot [top], and current Doc Simons’ gear [bottom].
the Korean factory was and it was
made almost just as well,” he says.
If ironing out the factory situation,
expanding the pedal line and launching the US-built models wasn’t
enough, Sublime had another opportunity fall into its lap that will put
them in the guitar accessories market
as well. A friend of the family with
a chemistry streak came up with a
formula for new cleaning product
that does wonders on guitars. Platt
was given a few bottles to try out.
The end result was the birth of Doc
Simon’s Guitar Cures & Remedies.
“He gave me about 12 bottles of
it,” recalls Platt. “It was green in
color and smelled like citrus. So I
used it and it was unbelievable. This
stuff was crazy good… but I hated
the way it smelled… and it was
green. I went back to him and asked
what he was wanting to do with
it. He asked if he made it, would I
brand it and put it out. I was like,
I don’t know, man… I’ve got a lot
stuff going on. He asked me to think
about it. So I called him back and
asked if I could change the smell.
He was like we can make it smell
however you want it to smell. Then
I asked, can we make it not green?
He said the natural color is white. I
said ok. Can I change the formula a
little? He was like… you can change
whatever you want. That put me into
mad scientist mode, mixing stuff up,
coming up with different smells and
all of this. I changed the formula a
little bit so it works well with all finishes. It is a completely all organic,
water-based formula. You can use it
on pretty much everything.”
The excitement of the polish coincided with a request from partner
Huang in Taiwan for strings he could
sell over there.
“I found a company that supplied all of the core wire to GHS
and Ernie Ball, etc… they also had
state-of-the-art winders because they
make piano strings,” explains Platt.
“They started making guitar strings
about 10 years ago. A buddy of
mine said there was a company that
would wind the strings for me, so I
got with them and got some samples
from them and really, really dug the
strings. The way they felt. So basically for the Taiwanese market, the
strings and the polish, but it became
its own brand. We really haven’t really even launched it yet. There is so
much you can do with it. My Japanese distributor that I’m doing the
USA guitars for ordered 500 bottles
of polish and almost thousand sets of
strings right out of the gate… so did
the Taiwanese distributor.”
This year is setting up to be a pivotal one for Sublime as it sets itself up
for a major growth spurt in US-built
models, as well as with new pedal
and guitar accessory products. G
39
FEATURE u
AROUND THE SHOP: The back warehouse of Sublime’s new digs house stock of the company’s import guitars and will
soon be home to a new spray booth. Bottom, right is a close up of one of the company’s new USA-built guitars.
40
FEATURE u
WHERE DOES HE GET THOSE WONDERFUL TOYS?: Tommy Platt is not only a guitar nut, he’s a pop culture fiend as well.
The new offices of Sublime Guitars are tastifully decorated with pop references like Star Wars, DC Heroes, The Walking
Dead and video games like Halo.
41
Pulling
Purple
from
Black
WITH THE release of their new album, Purple, the members of
Baroness — John Baizley – vocals and guitar, Pete Adams – guitar and vocals, Nick Jost – bass and keyboards, and Sebastian
Thomson – drums — find themselves fielding an endless list of
media requests. Purple is, in many ways, a landmark album —
it’s the band’s first time writing and recording with Jost and
Thomson, their first with producer Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips,
Sleater-Kinney), their first on their own label, Abraxan Hymns,
and of course their first since 2012’s horrific bus accident, which
left permanent scars — physical and emotional — on the band,
resulting in two members’ departures, and Jost and Thomson
joining the group.
With so much in their past and their future, it’s no wonder that
press requests are mounting. The build-up to Purple generated a
high-level buzz from diehard Baroness fans; the band responded
with a series of documentary-style videos while the album was
in progress. They are active on social media — a change from just
a few years ago, when they turned those responsibilities over to
their record label. Despite the many outlets available for communicating with fans, Baizley still believes in doing interviews — hourslong ones at that — and notes the importance of utilizing all means
to network with listeners. “There’s a broader spectrum of avenues
through which you can reach an audience these days,” he says. “I
think it would be ignorant to neglect any one of them.”
INTERVIEW BY ALISON RICHTER
Photos by Jimmy Hubbard
INTERVIEW u
John Baizley of Baroness
GEARPHORIA: One of the articles I
read online describes Baroness as
“sludge-prog giants.” Is that apt?
JOHN: I wouldn’t necessarily call us
any of those things, although maybe
“prog” is the right word. I don’t
know about being a giant or being
involved in sludge, although I’ve
seen it written and I am highly aware
of that term.
Pardon my ignorance, but just what
is sludge?
There is a movement, primarily in
the southeastern United States, a
musical subdivision of a subdivision,
which has been dubbed sludge, I
believe by Europeans. It’s a reference to a very loud, very heavy,
distorted, overwhelming and, more
often than not, angry sort of misanthropic sound, which is why I don’t
think it’s an apt description for what
Baroness does.
I have been a fan of that, for sure,
but it’s so specific and niche-oriented and restricted that I don’t know.
It’s an easy way for people who are
familiar with that style to categorize
American bands, and I think it’s primarily a European description at this
point. They seem to apply that term
liberally and frequently, so I don’t
know. I’m at odds with it.
Ah, but we love labels! Granted,
labels helped to some degree when
we shopped in record stores, but at
the same time, how does one label a
band like Baroness when there’s so
much of so many things going on in
what you do?
Precisely. There lies the difficulty,
because part of our mission statement since day one has been to try to
promote the idea of inclusivity in a
music community and across several
genres which tend toward exclusivity. So, in part, some of our sound
is informed by the fact that we’re
making an attempt not to “fit” any
44
BARONESS (L to R): Nick Jost, Pete Adams, John Baizley and Sebastian Thomson.
specific label. That said, you would
never find us under hip-hop, jazz,
or blues, although all three of those
styles can be applied in some respect.
Like every musician in a somewhat
progressive band says, we want to
defy labels, but it would be difficult
to really be genre-less, because one
person who is familiar with your
sound would have a very difficult
time explaining what you do to
someone who is unfamiliar with it.
I’m always at a loss for words
when I try to describe what Nick
Cave sounds like, or what kind of
music The Pixies play, or what kind
of music is Steve Reich. I’m not
sure. They are innovators in some
regard, but that’s not to say that they
don’t beg, borrow, and steal from
whatever musical realm they see fit.
With that in mind, we’ve done that.
We loosely apply the term “rock,” or
“metal,” or “heavy,” and that seems
to be appropriate for most people.
It weeds out the people for whom
guitar-based music is not an option,
and I guess that’s OK. It suits the
need internationally for people to
have an open door or a first step to
listening to you — whoever “you”
are — with a description or category
that may or may not be interesting
to a relative stranger. I guess it’s a
necessary evil.
How much of this is due to the demise of radio as a place to discover
music you might otherwise not
have explored?
I think radio still serves a purpose.
It’s different, undoubtedly, because
new formats have jumped on the
INTERVIEW u
IN THE STUDIO: Purple was recorded at producer Dave Fridmann’s Tarbox Road Studios in New York state.
scene and revolutionized the way
that we, as listeners, digest music,
and understand and respond to it.
But there still is radio, and in my
mind it can perform an interesting
function in that people who work
all day on job sites, for instance, or
in restaurants, whether it’s satellite
radio or FM/AM, there is a presence
of radio that I’m aware of. It hasn’t
completely fallen off the map, but
it’s certainly not as relevant in this
era as it has been in the past.
It’s tricky. The subject itself has a
lot of potential involved, but I think
that the contemporary musician has
to be aware of not only radio and
print but also YouTube and Spotify
and everybody that I don’t intend to
endorse! It would be as pretentious
to ignore those formats as it would
be to wholly embrace them like they
are some sort of second coming of
musical revelation. The ultimate
format for me is still the vinyl record
and the ticketed performance in a
venue. That’s how I prefer to listen
to music, but it certainly is not the
only way that I listen.
Earlier, you said that part of your
mission statement has been to try to
promote inclusivity in a music community that tends toward exclusivity. How has touring with Baroness
impacted your worldview regarding
that community?
I should preface by saying that the
net result of that much travel has
allowed me to have that kind of vantage point or view on music. It didn’t
naturally occur, although from the
very earliest moments of this band
we’ve had the idea that there’s no
such thing as a bad type of fan, so in
an effort to speak boldly and honestly to the world at large, we’ve had to
gain an adaptable mentality toward
music formats. It’s easy for us, as
a species, to focus on the negative,
and it can be a little too romantic to
focus on the positive, so we in Baroness have spent most of our time in
the gray area. Meaning that, musically speaking, there’s an orthodox
and then there’s — let’s call them
9-to-5’ers, for lack of a better term
— people whose interest in music is
casual at best. It’s difficult to focus
your sights on either the orthodox or
the casual listeners.
Instead, what we attempt to do, and
what we continually try to refine
as a four-piece playing a somewhat
outdated parameter — that being two
45
INTERVIEW u
ON G&Ls: “...playing G&Ls, I realized that the ease with which I was able to be expressive through my instrument had quadrupled.”
guitars, bass, and drums 16 years after that was popular, really — is who
can we speak to, in what voice can
we speak, and how can we maintain
not only our creative integrity and
our focus as musicians, but how can
we reach people and share some of
our experience with them by association, and hopefully elicit a reaction
from them that in turn informs our
music in that circular, cyclical way
that music works. It has come after
many, many, many years on tour and
many shows played on a wide variety
of stages — everything from the first
five years playing in basements and
the dingiest bars in every town to occasionally popping up on some arena
or festival stage. The scope there is
pretty massive, so coming up with an
outlook that allows us to perform and
act in the way that is best suited for
us had to change over the years.
46
We’ve had to consider things differently as time has gone on. We came
in at the tail end of physical music,
and we’re now part of that transition
into the mostly digital realm. It’s
a lot to swallow and decipher, and
trying to make a living off of it is
nearly impossible.
Baroness has a history of transitions
— from basements to festivals, van
to bus, personnel changes, signing
with a label to starting your own,
and now from touring with two new
members to writing and recording
with them, as well as the transition
from being on tour to going back
into the studio.
Absolutely, and it is a huge transition that oftentimes doesn’t receive
the respect that I think it deserves.
It can be a massive change, and we
try to be as aware of that as possible.
It’s an interesting transition and it
can be jarring.
When we started off, the bread and
butter of the band, and the reason
that we did it, was so that we could
get out and tour and perform in other
countries, and do all the awesome
things that we’ve become accustomed to. As time went on and we
placed more of our professional
importance on our livelihoods as
musicians, we’ve had to grow accustomed to the actual writing process
and the fact that without some piece
of written material, there’s really
nothing compelling to do.
I grew up in the punk scene, and
there’s always a little hesitance
when beginning a record in that you
wonder internally if you’re going
to write something that is true to
yourself and honest and genuine, the
INTERVIEW u
way that you do when you’re 16 and
I look forward to recording because
that not only were we going to
there’s literally nothing on the line.
I’ve spent the past four or five years
continue, but we also had the idea
You wonder if you can still do that
developing and understanding and
that we would determine the success
as you’ve gotten older, or if there is
trying to learn the fundamentals of
of our recovery by the milestones
simply too much riding on it, meanengineering, and familiarizing mythat we passed in the band. Some of
ing the combination of your family,
self with the modern tools of produc- those included touring, writing, and
your friends, the relationships that
tion, microphones, audio interfaces,
recording a new record. These are
you’ve developed over the years as
the full spectrum of things that an
the means we’ve chosen for recova professional musician. You wonder independent musician can and should ery. We didn’t want to end up with
if in some ways you can satiate the
use in order to create music without
a bunch of hired guns or shills in
people who are depending on someassistance from somebody.
the band. I’ve seen it happen before.
thing of quality. Where that could
When we demo everything, we
We’ve all seen it. You can have the
have been difficult in the past, we’ve know what our album’s about. We
slickest players in the world, but it
learned to rely on gut instincts.
have a workable version of it, and
doesn’t mean that you have a good,
We’ve learned that the idea of an we can take it into a studio and increative interchange and people that
artist doing something that is true to vite somebody else in whose opinion are putting what they need to into
themselves has a more frequent reso- we trust and believe in, and then try
any musical project.
nance with the audience than if,
At the time they joined the
by some strange turn of events,
band, Nick and Sebastian were
we had figured out how to be succomplete strangers to one another
cessful in a formula. By not caring
and to us. We took the advice of
what other people’s expectations
our friends. One thing that we’ve
are and holding ourselves to the
learned in this community is that
standards that we set, we’ve found
your friends are talented and
that not only can we define sucare as good a help as anybody
cess in slightly different terms,
could be. You don’t have to pay
but that the more typical definitop dollar or go headhunting for
tion of success tends to be there.
the best people out there. If you
It’s a confluence of several things
have friends that you trust in this
working well together, but the
community, they will steer you in
foundation and cornerstone of bethe right direction. Two separate
ing in this type of band is that you
people steered us to our two new
members. We didn’t try out other
are expressing yourself creatively
musicians. These are the first
and without hesitance. There is
two guys to join the band and
no such thing as a bad idea. You
can prove that your idea is wrong PURPLE: The new one was released on Baroness’ own label. they worked immediately. They
clicked with one another, they
and that there are better ideas, but
clicked with us, they are two of the
constructually there’s nothing that to find something that lifts up what
we wouldn’t try on principal. If it’s we already think is working to a lev- hardest-working people to have ever
wrong, it hits the cutting room floor el that defies our expectations. When been in this band, and they found a
way to express themselves within
immediately, but if not, then “Hey, that works, we’re in good shape, but
the context of our music. All of that
we just discovered something new.” that’s a very ambitious sort of thing
together is a tremendous achieveThat type of discovery at this point in to go after and you don’t always
ment. I can’t take any credit for that.
our career is thrilling because I didn’t strike gold.
They’re the ones that showed up and
assume that we would tap into somehad the right feel and outlook. It was
thing like that for as long as we have. What was the key to striking gold
luck in a way.
But to answer your question, when
this time?
One of the cooler things is that
you sit down to write a record, that’s
neither Sebastian nor Nick come
the first thing you wrestle with. EvI’m not sure that I have a better anerything else is just “Does it sound
swer than we truly did catch lightning from the backgrounds that Pete
and I have. There are many differlike us? Does it feel good?” If so, we in a bottle. After the crash that we
ent backgrounds that you can come
move forward. If not, we reconsider
went through, our bass player and
from to arrive at a similar destinaor toss it. It can be that simple. Not
drummer left for very compelling,
tion point. Nick, having primarily
always, but it can be. At this point
good reasons. Pete and I decided
47
INTERVIEW u
been schooled in jazz, has played in
heavier bands and has an interest in
the type of music that we play.
Sebastian came up in punk rock,
but a slightly different permutation
of it. They both have been playing
music their entire lives and are probably more familiar with conventional
music than either Pete or I. Not only
were we able to take some of these
things that we’ve been building and
that have been hallmarks of our
sound for the past 10 or 12 years,
but we’re able to have conversations with these guys in the theoretic
sense where we can bring in new
influences that they have a deeper
understanding for.
In the past we’d take an idea that
we heard on a disparate-sounding
record and apply our filter to it very
quickly. Now we’re able to go a
bit further into the fundamentals of
rhythm — where has this particular
kind of beat been used in the past
— and I’m able to pose questions
to Sebastian about certain beats that
would never be considered appropriate for our style of music but which I
think are quintessential for us defining our intent.
It’s been interesting to have two
guys who have chops as more traditional players and sometimes as
less traditional players. For instance,
Nick plays jazz and obviously has
an understanding of intuitive playing, but he has also played in cover
bands, so he knows how to jump into
a song very quickly and find his way.
How do you and Pete communicate
as guitarists? You’ve known each
other since childhood. Has that language evolved over years of knowing each other as band members
and as friends?
Absolutely, unequivocally yes. We
discovered music together. At the
risk of sounding like I need a pat on
the back, when Pete and I were in
our “formative” years, I’m not sure
that either one of us had a very good
understanding of music in general.
We knew what we liked and we
appreciated rock in the broad sense
of the word. There was never an emphasis on learning scales or theory.
We liked Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr.,
Fugazi, Jesus Lizard, The Ramones,
all of the bands that were underneath
pop culture and doing something
that we thought was interesting that
spoke to us as angry young teenagers. As we got older we gained
appreciation for more complicated
delicate or intricate music.
Pete and I developed our own thing
together that was less about note
names and defining what kind of
chord inversion we were doing. We
had no idea. Of course as we got
older, that changed. I developed a
deep interest in theory and I want
to know what it is now, but it’s only
after I feel like I defined some of the
more important things that suit me as
a musician.
One of the things that Pete and I
have been working on over the past
BAIZLEY ON ADAMS: “We discovered music together... We liked Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr., Fugazi, Jesus Lizard, The Ramones.”
48
INTERVIEW u
couple of years is a more dynamic
got to bring their own flavor to the
be a bit more bright and all over the
relationship as two guitar players.
table, because if one person becomes place. He’s more about consistency,
Neither of us necessarily fulfills the
too controlling or pedantic in writand whether or not I want to be, I’m
lead guitar role nor the rhythm guitar ing, the songs don’t fill out the way
not the king of consistency. I like
role. Pete is more of a lead guitar
we want them to. I can hear when
things to feel sort of chaotic.
player than I am, for sure, but very
it’s working and when it’s not.
The blend of those two things
frequently what we’re doing is acting
allows us to sound the way we do
as a point and counterpoint. SomeHow do the two of you work out
simultaneously when we’re doing
times it’s in the way that maybe you
the parts and decide who plays
something right. So the parts are
would have an alto or tenor instrulead or rhythm? Is it based on who
usually self-explanatory. If somement speaking with one another.
wrote the song, is it instinct, does
thing is better suited by a Les Paul
Vaguely speaking, one of us is do- it reveal itself during the writand a loud amp, that would be Pete.
ing higher, more expressive, single- ing and recording? How does that
If it’s better suited by effects and
note things and one of us is doing translate onstage?
a single-coil sort of sound, that’s
the chunky, heavy, palate-cleansing,
generally me. That’s not to say we
real full things. But even saying There are no hard and fast rules to
do that all the time. It ends up where
that, it’s not exclusive, because one that particular issue. Because I have
it ends up, and we normally hammer
of the very obvious parts of our per- essentially a fully operational alout who’s doing what long before we
sonas is the idea of twin guitars and though ersatz studio in my basement, hit the stage. In terms of solos, I’m
the concept that neither of us
playing the melody and Pete
should play the same thing,
plays the harmony because it
ever, except in those rare mocan be much more complicated
“One of the things that Pete and
ments where doubling up the
to play the harmonies. If it
I have been working on over the
same voice has a greater impact
sounds higher on record, it’s
than doing something that’s
usually me, and if it’s lower,
past couple of years is a more
harmonically or rhythmically
it’s usually Pete. Not all the
dynamic relationship as two guitar
different. Ten years ago our
time, but more often than not.
language wasn’t an unspoken
players. Neither of us fulfills the lead
one. It tended to be that if I
makes a good rhythm
guitar role nor the rhythm guitar role.” What
guitar player?
played a root note, he played
a major or minor third, and
Rhythm is about nuance. They
then he or I would add a fourth
or fifth or sixth to that and come I tend to write music in multiple lay- don’t tell you that when you start
getting into music. They don’t tell
up with these strange chords that ers, a vast myriad of layers.
you that the rhythm is … well, they
could only be accomplished through
When we record, the idea is
probably tell bass players and drumboth of us playing simultaneously. whatever sounds better, if it’s fully
But as the years have gone on, he
composed and orchestrated or if it’s mers, but they don’t tell guitar players that it’s actually more difficult to
does inversions and his chords have
simple and pared down. Whatever
fleshed out and become much bigger suits the song. We try to remove the play rhythm than it is to play lead,
nine times out of ten.
things, and I try to use similar ideas
ego from it, and in part that’s one
As a rhythm player you’re not
and make them more complicated
of the reasons we don’t have many
dealing at all with your “personalor more refined. But at the end of
off-the-wall, wailing guitar solos,
ity,” and a good musical personality
the day, the relationship that he and
because sometimes they sound out
shown through an instrument can
I have is one of unspoken musical
of place.
cover up every bad mistake in the
communication. Anybody that plays
When it comes to recording, I like
world — unless you’re a drummer.
music understands that that type
to think that whoever’s best suited
However, in terms of guitar, we’re
of relationship is to be cherished
for the part plays that part. There’s
talking about microseconds and
because it doesn’t happen frequently
a simple sort of practicality at play,
ahead of the beat, behind the beat,
and it’s impossible to draft when it
which is if it’s something rhythmipushing, pulling, laying back, the
doesn’t exist. We’re very aware of
cally dense and I have to play and
difference between downstrokes, alour relationship with one another in
sing at the same time, that would be
ternate picking. There’s so many facthose terms.
the part that Pete plays. His sound
tors that come into play and they all
Sebastian and Nick know now that
is much warmer and heavier and
have such incredibly subtle, incredthere’s no pecking order. Everyone’s
rounder than mine, which tends to
49
INTERVIEW u
ibly nuanced, but critical roles in the
presentation of any and every song
that it’s much harder to play rhythm
than it is anything else because you
have to be consistent. You can’t drop
it without sounding a little foolish.
Even some of my favorite guitar
players, who are what you’d call
“loose” rhythm players, who have
a great sense of rhythm, it’s impossible to replicate their sound. Trust
me, I’ve tried. Kurt Cobain and John
Frusciante would be probably the top
two who have this very strange sense
of feeling like they’re off the grid, or
off rhythm, but never actually being
so. In fact, their sense of dis-rhythm
is so profound that it is nearly impossible to replicate, but those are
the special cases.
Then you’ve got Angus Young,
James Hetfield, and every blues
player on the planet whose job is de-
pendent on those microseconds and
whether they’re on top of the beat,
behind it, quiet, loud, aggressive,
soft. All those dynamic things come
into play and you can’t sit there and
think about them; those are things
that you have or you don’t have.
You get better at them by practicing, but if you don’t have rhythm,
you’re never going to be a great
rhythm player. It is impossible.
When did you learn that?
In the past couple of years, and I
mean that. For a long time I thought
rhythm was easy, but that’s because
Pete and I tended to write rhythmic
parts that were very specific, and the
bass and drums had no choice but
to follow that. There was no breathing room. When we realized that
there was that kind of artifice in our
BARONESS GEAR LIST
GUITARS
Baizley: G&L ASAT Special, G&L ASAT Alnico “S-series,” G&L Legacy Series S-Style, 1962 Gibson
ES-330, Rockbridge Acoustic, First Act Custom
Adams: Gibson Les Paul, First Act Custom
AMPS
Baizley: Fender 65 Twin Reverb, Fender 69 Custom Princeton Reverb, Premier B-160 Bass Amp,
Roland JC-120, Vox AC-30
Adams: Green Matamp, Budda SD-80
EFFECTS
Baizley: Tym - ODP 666, MXR - Super Badass Distortion, Philly Fuzz - Handbuilt Klon Centaur
Clone, Philly Fuzz - Heretic Fuzz (prototype), Philly Fuzz - Martyr Fuzz (prototype), Strymon
Timeline, Strymon Mobius, Mu-Tron II, MXR - Custom Shop Phase 99, Retro Sonic - Compressor, GigRig G2, Mr. Black - Thunderclaw, EHX - “Bubble Font” Big Muff, EHX Memory Man, DBA
- Echodream, Tym - Big Mudd (Ramhead), Spaceman - Spacerocket Fuzz, Schumann PLL, KNAS Ehkdahl Moisturizer, Ernie Ball Volume Pedal, Dunlop - Fuzzface, MXR - Blue Box, EHX POG II, etc.,
etc., etc., the list goes on for days . . . Adams: Fulltone OCD, Maxon AD-999, MXR Phase 90, Dunlop Volume Pedal, CMAT analog chorus STRINGS & ACCESSORIES
Baizley: D’Addario strings .010-.049, Dunlop Orange Tortex picks .60mm, Planet Waves cables,
Lava solder less cables (pedalboard), Lava Coiled Cable (guitar), Jaykco straps
Adams: D’Addario strings self-created set .011–.052 with wound G string (.021), Dunlop nylon
picks .88 mm, Divine Noise cables, Jaykco straps
50
rhythm, and we tried to pare it back
a little and play simple and more
effective lines, I started to realize
that it was really tough to maintain
a consistent or dynamic vibe across
the scope of a three-and-a-halfminute song — forget about the
five- and six-minute songs that we
write! To alternate-pick 16th notes
for three-and-a-half minutes is very
challenging. It’s almost like the more
clinical the rhythm would be, the
more difficult time we would have
playing it — or I would, at least.
When I first realized that, I started
gaining a new respect for the idea of
being a rhythmic guitar player. Once
we, as a band, started to contend
with those facts, we began to give
our bassists and our drummers more
room to express themselves. Sometimes to do that you have to play
less, and playing less is tougher.
Playing slow is difficult and playing
less is difficult. That’s my general
rule of thumb.
The videos and documentaries you
released about writing and recording
this album make it look so easy. How
seamless was it?
I actually think that the album was
in some ways very easy to record, so
I don’t disagree with you there. But
we had practiced the songs for a long
time, and we had recorded six different versions of the songs before we
set foot in that particular studio, so
we had done the heavy lifting on the
front end of it. This is a byproduct of
our collective obsessive-compulsion
and the fact that we never expected
to make it this far as a band to begin with. The fact that there’s still
people who want to record music for
us and help us release it is a fact that
we have a profound respect for, so
we’re not going to waste our time in
the studio.
We do leave open a huge element
in our studio recordings for surprises
and off-the-cuff moments, but you
can’t anticipate them, so we try to
INTERVIEW u
come into the studio with a very
good working model in mind that
can be accomplished easily so that
we can figure out some time to have
fun and to play around a bit. So there
were not too many takes. It’s not
very obsessive for most people. I
would do things until I feel they’re
perfect, but that’s not representative
of the entire band.
The other three guys, generally
speaking, are content with their parts
more quickly. I have a tendency to
get deep, deep, deep down a rabbit
hole. One of the boons to working
with Dave Fridmann in his studio is
that we lived inside the studio.
There were two consoles that were
on 24 hours a day, so in theory there
could be two teams of people recording at all hours. I made sure that we
were doing the legitimate, known
work during the day, and if something I had done was really bugging
me, I’d work on it at night so as not
to bog everybody down.
Also, because I have spent some
time learning how to record, I’ve
become almost more comfortable
tracking certain things alone than
with supervision. So I would track
all my vocals alone, and if I had
ideas that I thought were good
enough, I’d take them to the rest
of the band and Dave. We would
talk about something that I already
thought was working, and we’d
refine from there.
I’m not saying that I always had
the right idea. I’m saying that if I
had something I was comfortable
with, that would be the starting
point and we’d work from there. So
yes, the studio is fun. I think half
the band really likes being in the
studio and the other half prefers
being onstage and in the moment.
This record has a very good
blend of people with different attitudes that we could combine in
order to create a unique thing. The
record, to my ears, has the feel of
being on the cusp of not clinically
accurate but also having extreme
orchestration and very finicky attention to detail.
Working with Dave Fridmann was a
longtime dream for you. What did he
bring out in the band, what did he
help you find that you didn’t know
existed, and why was this critical in
recording with the new lineup for the
first time?
One thing that has become important, and a new thing for us over the
course of this record in particular,
is we have finally become confident
enough in our own songwriting to
ask a producer’s opinion. It sounds a
little backward, but in the past, if we
were unsure of anything, we would
have a tendency to circle the wagons
a little bit and stick to our guns. That
worked very well because it allowed
us to realize that without external
forces and outside opinions we could
do things that we were proud of.
With this record we had a lot of
new things going on, new attitudes,
and one of many new constructive
attitudes that we had was that we
wanted somebody to tell us what
they thought. Not that we wouldn’t
defend any idea we felt strongly
about, and that said, we felt very
strongly about everything on the record, so it was kind of like, We think
this is ready. Now let’s ask somebody’s opinion who, if I’m being
frank, has no real historical context
or perspective on us, and wasn’t
there and wasn’t paying attention to
us when we were young and involved in ‘xyz’ scene. Someone who
is a producer with the perfect blend
of engineering genius and creative
I-don’t-care-isms.
We had fully realized versions of
the songs, so we were able to cut
through a lot of the typical preproduction and get straight to the
nuts and bolts stuff. He would say,
“Would this song be effective if we
shortened this part? We’re not cutting
anything or dicing it up and rearranging anything. In the interest of ef-
ficiency, are there any improvements
we can make?” It turns out that
with the work we had done and the
transparency with which we allowed
him into our process, there weren’t
a whole lot of things that he thought
needed changes or too many ideas
that were shocking or bold to us.
We got to the refinement stage
incredibly quickly. It did free us
in time for us to play around a bit,
and we did stumble into quite a
few things that we didn’t anticipate, and that’s what we always
want. Every record, we do that.
We want to record enough stuff
that we can let something fun and
unexpected happen.
You set up your own label to release
this album. Why now?
When Baroness started, we had
neither the financial means nor
the technical know-how to release
records. It wasn’t of interest. We
were more involved with the creative
side of things. Musically, we were
confident, but from the standpoint
of production, marketing, and the
record label, we didn’t know how
things worked. We knew how to
book our tours, and we knew how
to survive in every respect besides
releasing records.
In the past couple of years, several
things happened. Most importantly,
the contract with our label was up.
We had a more than amicable relationship with them. Part of the reason we’ve been able to take matters
into our own hands is because we’ve
seen what worked and didn’t work
for Baroness through the label.
We realized at the end of the contract that we were, in our subjective opinions, more well-suited to
represent ourselves and release this
record than anybody else out there.
The most terrifying thing for us
would have been to end our contract with Relapse, an independent
label, and pick up with a major. I’ve
been in this business a long time.
51
INTERVIEW u
It chews people up. It can really
wreck the honest souls, and it can
take all the beauty out of music if
you’re not careful. If we had signed,
we still would have been careful,
but that would have been a job in
and of itself.
Rather than spend all that time
worrying about somebody else
misrepresenting us, we thought we
could spend that energy and use the
resources and facilities that we’ve
gained over twelve years of touring
to “do it ourselves,” with the help of
our talented friends.
The important thing to remember
is that none of this happens alone.
There’s an infrastructure that exists behind us of people who don’t
stand onstage or travel around the
world. They’re relationships that
we’ve fostered over the years, all of
whom I consider friends in one way
or another. They’re the people that
book our tours, that help us in every
respect, and everybody was supportive of the move.
That being said, a lot of it is truly
busy work. I’m an artist, and I’ve
learned how to become a designer by
necessity. That’s a huge portion of
the label work that now I don’t leave
in somebody else’s hands who could
screw that up. I’ve created enough
packages for records that I know
most of the major pressing plants in
the world. I know physically how
records are made. With the current
atmosphere of social media and the
democratic nature, or merit-based
nature, of Spotify and YouTube,
everybody’s got exactly the same
global reach as everybody else.
Marketing is a new thing that you
don’t have to buy into the way you
used to in the past. There’s a lot of
unnecessary stuff, so we cut out all
those middlemen, and what’s left is
just work. As long as we trust our
team — it has to be a team — who’s
going to do this better than we are?
The musical climate and culture is
such that if you’ve got the time, you
can do this very easily, and I’d rather
52
blame myself for a mistake than
blame a label or a business manager
or a lawyer. I’d rather own up to the
missteps that I make and not blame
everyone else around me.
You’re a painter and a graphic
artist. Is songwriting in any way
similar to working with paint or
pen and canvas?
The short answer to that question is
yes. I am seeing the same thing with
both outlets, but I would say that,
semantically, “seeing” doesn’t quite
cover it, because in the same way
that I see music, I also hear something visual. It’s more of a feeling.
A better way to put it is the impetus
and genesis of both visual art and
music for me is one and the same.
INTERVIEW u
ally speaking, I’m a little bit more
fluent, but it truly does come from
the same place. I feel the same thrill
completing something musically as
I do something visually, so to me
they’re two sides of a similar coin
and they inform each other and work
in tandem very well. That’s just
lucky for me.
To create musically, you rely quite a
bit on G&L guitars. What led you to
them and what makes them right for
your sound?
They’re simply vessels for me to put
my creative impulses. I’m not sure
of this, I’m just thinking out loud,
but I think if I had an interest that
was different than the arts, different
than music, I would put the same
thing into it. I’m not sure what the
outcome would be, but one fact is
simple: I have spent such a long time
playing music and such a long time
making art that technically you’re
bound to get good at your craft if
you put the requisite hours into it.
If you pass the 10,000-hour mark,
you’re going to be able to draw,
paint, or play the guitar. I owe a
lot of my technical capability as a
musician to that “time spent” thing,
because it wasn’t naturally easy for
me. I felt compelled to do it. Visu-
This was kind of arbitrary. I fell into
it and in the right way. I basically
see two different guitar styles. You
either play — and I’m being very
broad here — Gibsons or Fenders,
humbuckers or single coils. For
years I was a humbucker guy. I had
a Les Paul, and when First Act had
their custom shop, they would build
me guitars that looked like Fenders
but were voiced like Gibsons. They
were good and they worked well.
Pete and I had a similar sound, and
we intended to move away from each
other’s sound in order to complement one another better, but I wasn’t
quite sure where I would end up.
Pete really likes Gibsons, they’re the
shoes that fit for him, but they never
felt like that for me. I’d go to guitar
stores and try things out, something
would look nice but feel terrible or
look terrible but feel nice.
There’s a mom-and-pop music store
in the area that I live in called Roxy
Guitar. I heard that the guy who ran
it was something of a character and
that they had a lot of effects pedals,
so of course I’m going to go there!
They happen to be a G&L store.
They had most of the major models, I
picked one up, and it felt great — as
in the glass slipper for Cinderella,
like... This is it. What a revelation!
The sound is killer, the setup is great,
it’s solid, I love the way my fingers
are moving, I’m playing better than I
did at home five minutes ago.
I picked up another one — same
53
INTERVIEW u
thing. I tried a third, fourth, fifth
guitar, they all had the “it” factor.
They all felt extremely comfortable,
like instruments I had been playing for years, yet these were the
first moments I ever played them. I
looked into them, I liked everything
I read about the company, and most
importantly I liked the way they felt.
I contacted the company and got
my first G&L. I’m dependent upon
certain components and attributes of
gear, and upon my first few weeks
playing G&Ls I realized that the
ease with which I was able to be
expressive through my instrument
had quadrupled. It must have been
in large part due to the instrument
itself, and maybe some of it was psychosomatic, but they felt great.
I wanted to find those tones that aid
in expression. They don’t necessarily
have to sound good from a standard
perspective or anything like that. It’s
just got to be fluid. It happened to
be both at the same time. When Pete
came up from Virginia for the first
time to practice, I had them, and it
was obvious to me that our sound
had just taken a fork in the road and
we finally had two very distinctsounding instruments that happened
to complement one another. It’s been
no looking back ever since.
I love the company, I love the
consistency and quality of the builds,
and at the risk of sounding like I’m
totally endorsing them, which I
guess I am, they’re fantastic instruments and very well-suited for me.
They have a couple of additional
benefits that work for me philosophically. There are very few players in
my scene that play them, so I just
want to have something that nobody
else uses, and they’re not expected.
To tune those things down to the
ridiculous depths that we do sometimes — it’s a Fender, it’s Leo Fender’s company, and to see that playing
what you traditionally associate with
really modern guitars or Les Pauls,
which can handle it — I think some
of the new visual thing and appeal
54
becomes contrarian and it almost
looks too much like a jazz/blues
guitar for some people. I think that’s
cool. I don’t want to meet people’s
expectations. I want to do something
different. They’re awesome instruments. I can’t say anything bad
about them.
How long have you been playing them?
I got them when Nick joined the
band, so two-and-a-half years,
maybe. They’ve been a recent
discovery. They’re all I play on
this record, except for a couple of
specialty instruments.
You stated that you are “dependent
upon certain components and attributes.” Which ones?
I’m a guitar player, so I guess sometimes I want people to see me as well
as hear me! They are classy-looking
guitars and there are some embellishments you can add that give them
a little extra flash. I like a little bit
of visual appeal. There’s a certain
type of visual aesthetic that I like for
my instruments. It tends toward ’60s
stylings, and G&L has that in spades.
The quality of the build really is
bar none. I’ve played a lot of Fenders since then to see if I’m crazy or
not, but I find so many variables in
Fender instruments. G&Ls are midprice, I can afford them, they look
cool, they sound great, and they
hold up really well in demanding
tour environments.
I am not easy on my instruments.
I put them through the wringer.
They don’t stay clean very long, so
they have to be cleaned every day, I
sweat a lot, I bang them around a lot.
I’m a total scatterbrain, so they get
chipped, dinged, knocked, dropped,
pulled back, tugged, and they hold up
very well. That’s something I need. If
I have something that’s too finicky or
fine-tuned, it’s going to be a nightmare for me because I’m not good
with that. I don’t have good situ-
ational awareness, as people say. So
if they can take a little bit of punishment and keep on going, then great.
I’ve had great customer service and
artist support from G&L, and that’s
important. Flying around as much
as I do, and occasionally needing an
instrument or a piece of equipment
to be there, the artist support is important. If I don’t have that, it’s fine.
I’ll buy my own stuff. I don’t need a
discount. I’ll depend on myself. But
if someone is going to give me a deal
and I’m playing a company’s instrument, then I hope the consistency is
there and that there is a level of support. When I work with companies
where we each benefit in a certain
regard through the relationship, then
I think it’s a good one.
I like it when human beings make
my instruments, too. I like supporting smaller companies that don’t
have major contracts with Guitar
Center and things like that. I like the
boutiques, but they’re not always
convenient or affordable, and G&L
happens to be all of those.
Looking at your gear list, have you ever
considered [tongue firmly in cheek] trying some pedals and effects ?
Yeah, I’ve played with the idea of
using effects over the years. I’ve got
a bit of a … I know it’s a problem.
It’s a problem! I’ve gotten way too
many, and that list you’re looking at
is a very small snapshot. It is a little
bit of an issue, yeah, but I have chosen... look, I’m just trying to defend
myself or rationalize it! But there’s
no real rationale for it other than I
just plain like them.
I don’t collect anything else, but
I do collect equipment. I collect
amps, guitars, and pedals, and that’s
unfortunate because all of them are
expensive and I can afford almost
none of them. But I think of each
thing, each tool, in the way that I
think of an artistic tool.
Every paintbrush has a different
effect, and every pigment and color
INTERVIEW u
and different type of media can
achieve specific things. Some are
more comprehensive and flexible
than others. Some are very specific.
When we go in the studio, I take
everything, in case we need or want
to be specific.
I know at the end of the day there’s
a layman’s version of everything that
can be used and that’s what we’ll
tour with, but when you’re in the
studio and you’re recording something, this is what you leave behind.
The shows are momentary and fleeting. Even if you record it, you still
don’t capture the actual experience.
The recording is a captured experience. That is what we present to our
audience. As such, I feel it’s important that we’re limited by only one
thing, and that’s our imagination,
and so ergo if we have every paintbrush and tool and mixture of distortion and fuzz and phase shifting and
echoes and delays and reverbs and
modulations and octave multipliers,
if we have all of that, then there’s no
limitation imagination-wise.
There are, as we’ve mentioned, rabbit holes that you can fall down, and
you can waste a lot of time chasing
sound, but the band has learned to
deal with me and my obsession over
the years. I know how to self-edit and
stop when it’s going too far. I also
have a very thorough knowledge of
all these tools, so if we’re trying to
achieve something specific, I generally have a pretty good idea of where
to start, gear-wise. And it’s fun. I
don’t take it that seriously. I just have
all this stuff. A fuzz pedal is a fuzz
pedal is a fuzz pedal, and with a good
engineer you can get any one of them
to sound like any of the others.
But the other rule of thumb from a
recording standpoint is if it sounds
good without any treatment, then
you’re starting from a better place.
Then you have better consistency
of signal input, and therefore you
have more flexibility in terms of how
you mix something. So if it needs a
square wave fuzz, I’ve got twenty
different ideas for that, and if it needs
a silicon-based fuzz, I’ve got thirty
different things. What kind of delay
do you want? Do you want analog or
digital or a blend of both? Something
that emulates tape effects?
I actually run my signal in stereo,
so I do a lot of playing around with
stuff. It isn’t necessary, but it is fun.
When is too much too much? I don’t
know. I think playing music professionally is just too much. I’m a
man-child. I get to travel around the
world and stand on stages and make
loud noises and people enjoy that.
You’ve been candid in interviews
about the days when you struggled
to get out of bed, and your experiences with anxiety and post-traumatic depression after the accident.
This isn’t an attempt to rehash the
story, but rather to maybe present
some words of wisdom or strength
for readers who are dealing with
their own difficult situations.
Basically every day since then I have
to do that. It’s not fun, but all of that
stuff lingers. The mark that the accident left on me was a permanent one.
The severity and acuteness of the
pain that I have to live with is unavoidable. It’s impossible to ignore,
so I have to self-motivate through
those moments with frequency,
meaning daily.
I’ve been talking about it a lot
recently because we’re doing press
right now, and one thing that I’ve
noticed is that I’ve been fortunate
to go through this experience with
a certain amount of public profile
on it.
There are a lot of people who are
aware of what happened to us, and
I like to point the finger back and
point out that what we went through
was very serious and causes me great
pain that’s mine to deal with, but
there are people who have suffered
far greater things and have had to do
that without an audience and without
press and without the type of and
consistent support that we’ve gotten.
I can’t imagine that.
It’s difficult enough for me with
a loving family and a lot of people
professionally who care about me
and this band and what we do, and
who have been very helpful in giving
us the support we needed in order
to continue. I can’t imagine what it
would be like without that.
Sometimes that is how I “drag
myself out of bed.” You have to set
an example for people. If for no one
else, I have a young daughter and
she can’t see me suffer. That’s not an
option. She doesn’t deserve that. So
I go through it every day.
I’m lucky because I’ve got a cool
job that I love doing and that I
hesitate to even call a job or a profession, one, because I love doing
it, and two, because it pays really
poorly and offers no security. But it
is an opportunity for me to set an example, again, if for no one else, for
my daughter. I can show her that you
can follow your great passions in life
and turn them into lifelong pursuits,
and furthermore, it is possible to
sustain an injury on an irreversible,
life-changing level and continue doing that same thing you did the day
before you got injured.
You can persevere through fairly
difficult circumstances. I hope that
people who are suffering through
similar things see that it is possible,
because there were moments when
I did not think it was possible, and I
did look to examples of people who
had been through similar things, or
difficulties in general, and got out
better on the other side. Not just
better meaning back to normal, but
better as in improved.
Going through what we went
through, there was never any option other than improving. That has
been the bar we set for ourselves: we
must improve, we must push forward
through what feels like a potential
showstopper. But back to an earlier
point I made: It’s so easy to get entrenched in that side of life, and trust
55
INTERVIEW u
me, there are enough reasons in the
day to call it quits anyway.
To me, it’s miraculous that I’m still
as excited about doing this sort of
thing. Maybe I’m borderline ignorant. This might just be some sort of
perverse escapism for me, but I soldier on and I try as hard as I possibly
can not to get too down about things,
because it’s easy, and the easier it is,
more often than not the less likely
that you should be taking that easy
course. We have chosen to move on
with our lives and try to make things
better than they were, as difficult
and ambitious as that sounds.
Who knows if we will succeed,
but we’re not doing anything that
contradicts that as of yet, and so it
feels like we’ve been successful on a
personal level.
In an interview with Metal Injection,
you said, “I was only in art school for
three years, I dropped out because of
some personal and substance-abuse
related issues, and I stopped creating
anything at all for about a year and
a half.” What kept those old habits
from coming back when you were
dealing with anxiety and depression
after the accident? It would have
been so easy and understandable to
try numbing the pain.
Unfortunately I had no option but
to go back down that route, except
now it’s on doctor’s orders, and
that’s a tricky thing to deal with
because I have chronic pain that’s
beyond severe.
Based on the severity of my injuries and resulting surgery, I have
more nerve damage, tendonitis, and
difficulty as a result of internal hardware, scar tissue, a scar going up the
back of my arm, titanium all over the
place, and it never stops hurting. It
feels as if I have my arm in a bathtub
with a couple of toaster ovens in it
100 percent of my life.
It can be dulled, but it can’t be
entirely shut off, so I’ve had to learn
how to live with not just keeping the
56
demons at bay but actually embracing them in a way that’s not going to
destroy me, and that’s tough. That’s
a really difficult thing for me to do,
and I imagine for anyone else to do,
as well.
It is a struggle I will have as long
as I can see into the future. I’ve
spoken at great length with my doctors, and we have tried and tried, but
there is no alternative except dealing
with pain management the way it
needs to be dealt with. I have a very
severe, debilitating injury and I need
to treat it in the way that it is, which
is unfortunate because it’s prescribing things that I thought I had given
up long ago. There was a couple year
learning curve when I had to figure out how to be comfortable with
it, and that in and of itself was an
accomplishment that comes with difficulty and a little bit of sadness.
Ultimately, I have a higher standard
of living when I’m treating pain
than I do without it. If I’m miserable
because I’m in extreme physical pain
every moment of my life, then I’m
not productive, so I’ve learned how
to become productive while treating
it. I don’t know when or if that stops,
and nobody professional does either.
How have all of those experiences —
the accident, rehabilitation, fatherhood, the success you have with the
band — changed you?
In the basic, most simplistic way that
I can put it, it has strengthened my
convictions. There were no thoughts
I had prior to August 15 [2012] that
I don’t continue to have. I had those
thoughts and now I’ve proven them
right in one way. But the accident
has obviously changed me.
I know, just based on the pain,
trauma, and mental whatever, I look
at things more seriously. I’d like
to say that there’s a way for me to
get back to being all holly jolly like
before, but I never really was, so
I guess it hasn’t changed me that
much. I’m more of a workaholic
now because it’s the easiest way that
I have to deal with things, but the
work and the change is in turning
this reality I have now into something that’s workable and creative
and productive and sets a good
precedent for the people that I love
and who care about me and depend
on me, rather than letting it turn me
sour me and make me bitter.
I found in several instances in the
past couple of years that I’m able to
have a lot more fun than I used to
have. I used to say this a lot: I don’t
do any of this for fun, and in fact
some of it isn’t really fun. This is a
basic need of mine. I’ve got a voice
inside me, or something burning in
me, that leaves me no option other
than to express myself.
With the type of personality I have,
and the type of issues I have, I’d
rather channel all that energy into
something good and creative, even
if it focuses on the sort of negative
aspects of life.
I’d rather turn it into something
good and positive than allow the
opposite thing to happen and allow
that to control me. I think this is
true of anyone who’s gone through
something and come out on the other
side. You just can’t let it slow you
down or stop you.
I’ve walked away as similar as
I possibly can, but now I’m part
of that club of people who’s gone
through something severe. There’s a
little twinge of bittersweet nostalgia
for my 20s, when I didn’t care and
didn’t have as many responsibilities
as I have now, but I definitely don’t
see it as a bad thing.
I see opportunities now, because I
don’t have any other choice. A lot of
avenues were cut off for me that day.
Now everything that comes across
my desk is a potential opportunity.
I have to make the most of them
because it’s been made clear to me
that things can end much sooner
that you intend them to. With that in
mind, I’ve got to get as much done
as I can before my time is up. G
Add some Cream to your tone
Vintage Alnico voice, more power than ever
For guitar players hooked on the richest boutique vintage tones, the new
Celestion Cream combines the unmistakable sound of our legendary Alnico
speakers with a maximum power handling of 90 watts. From high-gain, high
volume stacks to low-wattage studio combos, experience crème de la tone.
Find out more
celestion.com
When you throw a gear party in Nashville, the masses make the trip. The crew at Creation Audio Labs proved it
once again with the 2015 edition of the Nashville Music Gear Expo. Vendors from across North America descended
on the Music City for an extended weekend of, ahem, gear-phoria and general good times. If you wanted to hear
what a Thorn Guitar sounds like through a Matthews Effects Astronomer into a Revv Amp... this was the place! We
were there and in-between hosting an exhibitors lounge, we put together a little scrapbook of highlights from the
show. Check it out...
WRAP-UP u
NMGE 2015
Whether your thing is test driving the range of EarthQuaker Devices pedals through their upcoming Sound Projector 25
amp, plucking a Sublime Guitar axe from the tree, blowing the door off the hotel room via the latest from Category 5 or
running your fingers across the excellent craftsmanship of Pete Malinoski... this year’s show had something for everyone.
59
WRAP-UP u
NMGE 2015
Risen Amps had their new stereo
Claymore head available to sample.
There were also a handful of Senn
Guitars around the show... as were
some prototypes of upcoming pedals
from the likes of Dwarfcraft Devices,
XTS Custom Pedals and Yellowcake
Pedals. A Saturday pedal builders
panel found Colt (Walrus), Josh (JHS),
Greg (XTS), Jon (Cusack) and Brian
(Wampler) debating everything from
cloning to who could take who in a
street fight. Josh has the reach, but I’d
think twice about betting against Jon.
60
WRAP-UP u
NMGE 2015
AROUND THE SHOW: There was always an impromptu jam happening like the one in the Warrior Effects room [above]...
as well as a never-ending raft of pedals (Seymour Duncan and Benado Effects) and guitars (Electra) [below].
61
A Confluence Of Strings
A CONVERSATION WITH MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST JOHN JORGENSON
INTERVIEW BY ALISON RICHTER
INTERVIEW u
John Jorgenson
While other artists release digital CDs and EPs, or sometimes singles in lieu of full-length discs, John Jorgenson has taken the road now much less traveled by releasing Divertuoso, a box set of new material. Three new
albums, three distinct styles, three different groups of musicians, released at the same time. Even he admits
that it is an unorthodox undertaking.
Jorgenson is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, band member, studio musician, solo artist, Grammy and
Academy of Country Music award-winner, and truly a guitarist’s guitarist. Divertuoso showcases the triumvirate of his current projects and endless musical skills. Gifts From The Flood, an electric-guitar solo album, was
inspired by the instruments that survived the devastating Nashville floods of 2010. Returning, an album of
gypsy jazz, features the John Jorgenson Quintet: Jorgenson – guitar and clarinet, John Jarvis – piano, Jason
Anick – violin, Kevin Nolan - rhythm guitar, Simon Planting - bass, Holland and Rick Reed – percussion. From
The Crow’s Nest, the bluegrass album, was recorded with J2B2, his bluegrass band: Jorgenson – mandolin,
Herb Pederson – banjo, Jon Randall – guitar, and Mark Fain – bass.
GEARPHORIA recently spoke to Jorgenson about this diverse collection of songs, and more...
GEARPHORIA: You play in three
bands, with three genres of music.
What do you have to bring to the
table with each one?
ence. I’ll be doing that, but I need
to represent everyone and make
sure everyone feels welcome, seen,
respected, and heard.
JOHN: I have a bar that I set for
myself, so what I’m striving to do is
bring something different, something
new. I need to be a clear leader for
each one of them and let them know
what’s expected material-wise. The
players that I pick are the very best
at their unique talents, so I need to
give them a good chance to play and
sing and do a good performance.
How does each group fulfill you
creatively?
What makes you a clear leader and a
good leader?
Before the shows, it means giving everybody all of the tools and
information they need, so that they
know what’s expected of them, and
also a good idea of what the material is going to be, so they can be
prepared. Onstage, it’s my job as a
leader to interface between the audience and the band and create a nice
atmosphere for everyone to be able
to play. The other musicians aren’t
really going to talk to the audi-
The bluegrass group has a lot of vocal opportunities. It takes me back to
my very first singing experience as a
young child being in choir. I love being part of a harmony trio or duo; it’s
one of my favorite things. When you
have vocals, you have lyrics, so I’m
careful about choosing which songs
we’re going to do. They have to be
something I can believe in and that
I feel strongly about sharing with an
audience. Also, you have that very
positive, uplifting element of bluegrass music, and I get to play mandolin in that format, which I love. I
play a little bit of guitar, but mostly
mandolin. The gypsy jazz music is
very energetic, but it’s virtuosic and
technical and has a completely different set of rhythms and tonalities
that are used within the ensemble. Of
course, it’s got a lot of jazz tonality, so the improvisational element
is there, the precision of a virtuosic
ensemble, and the romantic side of
the gypsy element. There’s emotion in that music, so I get a lot of
musical needs met there. I may sing
one or two songs, but it’s mostly
instrumental. The electric group is
powerful. It’s got the wild abandon
of rock and roll and blues. My electric set is probably half vocal and
half instrumental. I’m always most
interested in melodies and dynamics,
and there’s a whole slew of things I
can do with the electric guitar that
I can’t do with an acoustic guitar or
a mandolin, like sustain, changes
in tone, techniques like tapping and
harmonics and the whammy bar.
Between all three groups I exercise
a lot of my musical chops and ideas
and my feelings about music.
What is the connecting thread that
makes them all you?
Probably my melodic and arrangement sensibility, because even
though the styles and formats are
different, I’ve either chosen the
material or written it myself, so in
all the styles that one element is
63
INTERVIEW u
John Jorgenson
the same. There are certain elements of music that run across the
board, and that’s feeling, emotion, dynamics, tempo, and things
like that. I try to vary those things
within a show no matter what style
of music. So I think my personal
taste and my musical aesthetic are
the common thread.
do is ignore it, if possible, because
it’s never going to bring out the best
in the audience or the performer.
You have to get the audience on your
side. If I’m performing for a bunch
of guitar players that want to be
judgmental, I try to say or do something to remove that barrier where
they feel I might be different because
I’m onstage. I try to create a thing
like, “Look, we all play guitar, we all
know what this is, let’s move past it
and enjoy the experience together.”
From The Crow’s Nest was probably
done the quickest of all three. For
the last ten years or so of his life, I
played bluegrass with Earl Scruggs.
When he passed away, I really missed
playing bluegrass and I decided to put
together a band. Jon Randall played
with me with Earl Scruggs. Herb
Pederson played with me in the Desert Rose Band. Mark Fain I’d known
How do you communicate instrufor years, but he was mostly working
mentally with non-musicians in the
with Ricky Skaggs. Right about the
audience?
time I thought of putting this band
together, I heard that he had left that
That’s where melody and dynamics A three-CD box set of three new
job, so he was available. We recorded
have to come to the fore. Everyone albums — you don’t take the easy
the bulk of the album in Tennescan appreciate a good melody, no road with anything, do you? How did see at Sheryl Crow’s studio, and it
matter if it’s sung or played, and
came together pretty quickly.
a good melody can reach someThere was some mixing and a
body’s heart. The same thing with
few overdubs that took a while
dynamics. When you have a lot
because it was between touring
of dynamics in the performance,
and things like that. To get these
that reaches people, whether
three projects finished, with
you’re singing or playing. It’s
artwork and credits and all of
again the selection of material
those things, was a monumental
and the way it’s presented. I try
task, but overall I’m very happy
not to think too much about playwith it, and I’m happy to present
ing for other musicians, because
it in this way, where people can
I might get into a place where I’m
hear a lot of different sides of
trying to impress with techniques
my music.
and things like that, and that’s a
The gear is different on all
losing battle. As a musician and a
three, which is actually more
listener, if I’m listening to somefun for me. On Returning I used
one else perform, I want to be
mostly my 1942 Selmer guitar.
touched by their music, so I need
This is a French guitar, the same
to remind myself of what I would COLLECTED: Jorgenson merges styles with new release.
type that Django Reinhardt used,
like to hear if I was in the audience.
and I’ve had it for years. I was
all of this come together, and what
very lucky to get it. On From The
Have you ever faced “the sea of
was some of the gear you used in the Crow’s Nest I mostly played the Gibson F-5L mandolin, but I also used a
folded arms”?
recording process?
Kentucky KM-1000 mandolin I have
set up with an aluminum bridge. I
Oh sure. That’s part of being a guitar
It does seem pretty counter-intuitive.
use it more for crosspicking. I used
player. That happens not only in rock The music itself has come together
a Blue Ridge BR-260A, and that
music, but also in gypsy jazz and
over a fairly wide period of time.
guitar is pretty amazing. I think Jon
bluegrass. People want to compete
Gifts From The Flood was a jourRandall used it on a couple of cuts as
with the musician; they want to feel
ney that started with the big flood in
well, and Herb Peterson played it on
one-up, or something like that, and
Nashville five years ago. All of my
a couple of cuts too. On Gifts From
it can go one of two ways. If you,
instruments and amps were under
The Flood I used a lot of different
as a performer, buy into it, it can
water for a week, along with many
guitars, and I named each song for the
be intimidating, and you’re never
other people’s. I started the album in
going to play your best when you’re
Nashville, and in the process I moved guitar that it was written on. Usually I
recorded the song on the same guitar.
intimidated. You’re also never going
back to California and finished it
There was a 1961 Les Paul SG that
to play your best when you’re trying
there. Other than the drums, I played
had gone through the flood. It was my
to impress. To me, the best thing to
all of the instruments myself.
64
INTERVIEW u
John Jorgenson
GRAND OLE BLUEGRASS: Jorgenson says the new bluegrass record From The Crow’s Nest was done quickest of the three new albums.
first really good guitar that I bought
when I was a teenager, so I was very
happy that it made it through. There’s
a Paisley Telecaster from 1968, a
Sunburst 1983, 1962 reissue Telecaster that I got in Japan that I used
on all my early Desert Rose Band
material, and a 1964 SG Custom that
had gone through the flood; the fingerboard came off and lots of things
happened to that guitar. It’s a special
one because it had belonged to Allan
Holdsworth. I was able to restore
that and it has a really unique sound.
There’s a 1957 Strat with a hardtail;
that guitar I bought as a consolation.
I was feeling bad for all the instruments that were under water, I got
some insurance money, and I bought
that guitar and used it on a couple of
songs. There’s a Firebird that I put together with some parts that I had, and
a nice Olympic white Jazzmaster.
I used a lot of different amplifiers.
My favorite Vox AC30, a 1964 JMI,
went through the flood and I was
able to get it working again. Also a
1965 Marshall JTM45 head and Marshall 4x12 cabinet, a very rare Vox
730, which is a hybrid, solid-state,
front-end tube power section, a small
Vox Berkeley combo, and a more
recent hand-wired Vox AC15. I love
Vox. They have a particular response
and fidelity, a sweet high end, and
when they go into distortion, it’s not
harsh. It’s very musical. The fidelity is probably why I like them the
most. It gives the full fidelity of the
guitar, but also gives a very full and
forgiving sound as well, and they
seem to work with a lot of different
guitars. I used some pedals that had
been repaired from the flood. One
was a Colorsound tremolo pedal, another was a Matchless Hotbox, some
Tube Screamers, a TS5 and TS 808,
and sometimes I used a Boss Delay
DD-2 and a Boss Dimension C DC2. I used an unusual Vox Stereo Fuzz
Wah; I didn’t use the wah section,
but I used the fuzz section. On a
couple of cuts I used the Digidesign
Eleven Rack for a couple of solos. I
used the Andy Green Warmer Drive;
I’ve got two of his pedals and I used
those as well. I used a Danelectro
electric sitar, I played a lot of Hammond B3, and I used my Takamine
acoustic 12-string signature model.
On one cut I played the clarinet and
bassoon, and on that I used a Silvertone guitar from the mid-’60s in an
open tuning.
Many of your interviews reference the Disneyland gig. [Note: In
the late 1970s, Jorgenson played
rotationally in four bands at the
theme park, performing everything
from Dixieland music to bluegrass.]
That’s something a lot of musicians,
especially today, would scoff at and
turn down, yet you learned so much.
It introduced you to bluegrass, and
65
INTERVIEW u
John Jorgenson
it helped finesse your skills in many
ways. Is there something to be said
for never turning down a gig? Is
there a lesson in every gig?
Oh, I agree totally. Even if you learn
something that you don’t want to do,
it’s valuable. The only time when it
would be wise to turn down a gig is
if you know that it’s going hinder
your progress — if you know that
it’s going to take you away from
something more beneficial. But
usually in the formative stage of a
musician’s career, there’s not all that
many opportunities to choose from,
and certainly playing and performing, regardless of where it is, is better than not playing and performing.
There are certain skills that you
can only learn onstage. You’re
never going to learn performance
skills in your bedroom. It’s just not
going to happen. A player has to
go through some sort of training
ground performing in front of all
different kinds of people, and one
thing about the job at Disneyland is
that I was there every day, performing for people that did not particularly come there to hear music.
They came for other things.
If I was able to hold their attention with music, even for one song,
that was a good accomplishment. If
I could hold their attention for three
or four or five songs, that was huge.
It was an important step in learning
how to perform and how to interact
with an audience.
The scene you grew up in — the
Palomino Club, the circle of musicians there — was to that particular
sound what the Sunset Strip was to
hair metal...
That’s a good analogy.
Does anything like that still exist?
It sometimes seems like bluegrass
is the last bastion of jamming and
camaraderie. Today, you don’t have
to leave your bedroom in order to
66
JORGENSON: “I’m more interested in the overall soound than being the soloist.”
work with other musicians. You can
send files.
That’s true. I think there is some of
that going on probably in Nashville.
I think there’s a little bit of it around
Los Angeles, too, but not to the extent that it was in the 1980s. I don’t
know why. I guess things have their
time and then they change.
It is kind of amazing how many
very successful players came out
of not only the Palomino scene,
but there was also in Hollywood
a lot of roots rock and rockabilly,
including bands like The Blasters,
Los Lobos, Dale Watson, Rosie
Flores, Dwight Yoakam — a lot of
people that are still out there playing yet today.
Can you play everything you hear in
your head?
No. No, I can’t. I would love to be
able to, but that’s what practicing is
for. Sometimes it’s just refreshing
myself on the actual material that’s
going to be played. I guess that’s
more rehearsing than practicing. Really hard practicing would be when
I do hear something in my head and
I want to figure out how to get it on
an instrument. That’s what practicing
would be — figuring out how to do
it, if it’s possible.
Do the songs change during the
writing process, starting out one
way and ending up as something
completely different?
A couple of songs have, but not
within their creation. Usually in their
creation, they go in the direction that
they want to go, but I have had a
couple of songs... for example, there’s
one called ‘La Journee des Tziganes’,
which means ‘Day of the Gypsy’,
that I wrote for The Hellecasters and
recorded with The Hellecasters, but
I later adapted it to the gypsy jazz
quintet. So that happens sometimes.
You often work with other guitarists. While you could easily be “the
INTERVIEW u
John Jorgenson
The other is Davey Johnstone. You
recorded an album together [Crop
Circles, 1998] and performed at the
Acoustic Café during the 1999 winter
NAMM show. According to Davey,
you and he are “always threatening
that we’ll get together again and
do other projects.” Will we ever see
another album from the two of you?
FROM THE CROW’S NEST: New bluegrass album was recorded at Sheryl Crow’s studio.
guy,” you choose to have partners.
Why is that?
I like the sound of more than one
guitar, probably because I’m more
interested in the overall sound than
in being the soloist. My goal always,
from when I was a kid, was to be
part of an ensemble, part of a band.
I never set out to be a solo artist, but
life and careers have a way of doing
things their own way, not necessarily
as you intend. I still like to think of
being part of an ensemble in whatever part I’m playing. Whether it’s
the melody, the rhythm, a supportive
part, it all contributes to creating the
overall sound, and I like the sound of
more than one guitar.
Let’s look at two of those partners in
particular. We’ll start with Brad Davis.
Brad and I have been friends for a
long time. In fact, I have Brad to
thank for getting me in to play with
Earl Scruggs, so I really owe him a
lot because that was a fantastic ex-
perience. Brad is amazing. He has so
much energy, and he is always working on something. If we have a drive
somewhere, he might transcribe
three songs in the back of the van,
or write two songs. He’s always got
new material. He’s taken this picking
technique that he calls the “double
down” — it’s similar to a technique
used in gypsy jazz, where you do
two downstrokes in a row followed
by an upstroke — it’s a type of
crosspicking, and he’s really worked
that out to a very unique style. I
don’t know anybody else who can do
it like him.
Probably my favorite thing about
Brad as a player is his strong
rhythmic drive. He’s got so much
energy in his rhythm playing. It’s
super-fun for me to play with him,
whether I’m soloing or backing
him up. He’s got a wacky side to
his personality, which can come
out in the music, and we have a lot
of fun. We’ve done a lot of things
for Takamine, just the two of us,
and we have a blast.
I would love that. I would say it
depends on when we could do that.
We had a great time making Crop
Circles. Sort of the third party that
helped us create that album was
[keyboardist/composer/Elton John
band member] Guy Babylon, who
unfortunately passed away [in 2009].
It’s probably more dependent on
schedule than anything else. Davey
and I live not that far from each other, but we’re rarely home at the same
time. But never say never, especially
when the parties are willing.
I think Davey and I have a really
good rapport and an easy way of
creating music together. It’s a lot of
fun. It’s not hard, it’s not painstaking, although we did come up with
some things that were complex, but
I don’t remember it being a laboredover process. We had a lot of laughs
and the material came together pretty
quickly and easily for that project,
so I don’t see how that would be
any different now, except that we’re
older. Maybe most people don’t
know that he was originally brought
in for the first recording session with
Elton to play acoustic guitar, and he
has a pretty strong background in
Celtic folk music, too.
You were part of Elton John’s band
for six years. For Elton fans, that’s a
lifetime honor!
It had a lot to do with Davey, because we were friends before that
and I really enjoyed spending time
with him. I knew that we’d have a
lot of fun playing together. Even
though it sounds a little bit ludicrous, because Elton John is one of
67
INTERVIEW u
John Jorgenson
the biggest stars in the world, actually a bit more of the draw for me
was the chance to play with Davey
and work with him, because we
got along so well. Similar to Brad,
Davey plays with a lot of energy,
so when we play together and we
combine that energy, it can be pretty
powerful. We had a very good rapport that the audience could feel, and
I think that enhanced the show. We
recorded together on The Big Picture
[1997], and we recorded a lot of our
parts at the same time, as opposed to
separately. We enjoyed neither one
of us having to be alone on the hot
seat in the studio, and we knew that
we were going to create parts that
were going to work together anyway,
so there was a lot of ensemble spirit
between the two of us. A lot of times
onstage we would try to have matching guitars, and we would sometimes
play the identical parts just to have a
different sound. And a lot of times,
of course, one of us would play
acoustic or mandolin, or I would
play pedal steel. There were a lot of
options that could be covered guitarwise between the two of us.
Is there a learning curve when the
piano is the lead instrument?
Certainly one of the trickiest parts
about playing in Elton John’s band
is that he covers so much range
himself, just the piano, and obviously he can do solo shows with no
other musicians at all. The trick is
to find something that’s useful to
play, and that will enhance the song
and the arrangement, rather than
just fill holes. Also, the piano player
often chooses different keys, and
that forces the guitar players to play
in keys like E-flat and B-flat and
A-flat, which is good. That’s good
for your mind. You can use a different guitar in a different tuning, if
you want, but sometimes it’s nice to
use standard tuning and find innovative ways to play in those keys. So
yes, definitely, there was a learning
68
curve when I first started with Elton,
because there were only a few days
of rehearsal. We didn’t even go over
all of the songs that were going to
be performed on the show, so there
were a few songs that I was playing
for the first time in front of an audience. A little bit intimidating, but
you’ve just got to go with it when
you’re there. You don’t want to mess
with the Mona Lisa!
I searched everywhere for an interview about this, but I came up empty.
How on Earth did you get involved
with Strummin’ With The Devil?
It’s really bizarre. David Lee Roth’s
sister worked for a label that would
take someone’s catalog, hire a group
of bluegrass musicians to play
bluegrass versions of the songs, and
make an album with hopes of selling
it to the artist’s fans.
There was a bluegrass band that
were fans of Metallica and did
arrangements of Metallica songs,
and this company put it out. Since
it wasn’t a work-for-hire and these
guys were into it, there was a little
more thought put into it. David Lee
Roth’s sister showed him that album,
he liked it, and he said, “Why don’t
they do one of Van Halen’s songs
and I’ll sing ‘Jump.’” So it was kind
of his idea in a way.
I was first asked to maybe produce
two tracks for the album, because the
company knew that I knew bluegrass
and rock. I thought it would be fun.
I had a couple of Van Halen songs in
mind that I wanted to do. One was
‘Jamie’s Cryin’’, and the other was
‘And The Cradle Will Rock’. They
told me they had gotten Sam Bush to
do “Jump,” and I said that sounded
like a great combination. At the
last minute they said, “Can you add
‘Jump’ to your session? Sam can’t do
it time-wise.” When I turned in the
roughs, I had John Cowan singing
the David Lee Roth part and he was
only supposed to sing ‘Jump’, but
he liked what we did with ‘Jamie’s
Cryin’’ so much that he asked if he
could sing that one too. That’s how
it all came down. It was a fun chance
to put together some of my buddies,
like Brad Davis and Stuart Duncan,
and go in the studio and see what we
could make of Van Halen songs in a
bluegrass format. The performance
on the Tonight Show with David
Lee — he’s a unique performer. He’s
a funny guy. We did two or three
shows like that.
I asked him a musical question and
he said, “Music? You guys take care
of that. I’m just the guy up front to
sell beer and T-shirts.” I enjoyed
getting to know him a little bit
because he had interesting history in
that his uncle ran Café Wha in the
1960s, and people like Bob Dylan
and Jimi Hendrix and folk singers
went through there. That’s where he
learned his show business ethics.
Had you ever played Van Halen songs?
I had never played those songs
before. By the time that music was
out, I was on to other things, playing more roots music and playing in
original bands, so I was never in a
situation to cover Van Halen songs. I
remember when they were just coming up. I was also playing around
some of the same clubs, and I have
to say I was jealous of the reviews
that Eddie Van Halen got all the time
— until I saw him, and then I went,
“Oh, OK, I see why he’s getting all
that attention. He’s unbelievable!”
What makes you get up every day
and want to play the guitar? Can that
be put into words?
I guess it’s the sound. It soothes my
ears and does something for my being. I don’t know how to describe
that. It’s not necessarily calming, it’s
not necessarily exciting, it’s some
combination of all those things. Even
the most simple sound of open chords
on guitars pleases me, so I guess
that’s why — to hear the sound. G
t BRAND SPOTLIGHT u
䈀䔀䰀䰀圀䔀吀䠀䔀刀
䄀一䄀䰀伀䜀䐀䔀䰀䄀夀
眀椀琀栀䄀渀愀氀漀最䌀栀漀爀甀猀䔀渀最椀渀攀
圀䄀䰀刀唀匀䄀唀䐀䤀伀⸀䌀伀䴀
69
GEAR REVIEWS u
Chase Bliss Audio Spectre
A license to thrill
Chase Bliss offers up a full-featured flanger
BY WADE BURDEN
IF I REMEMBER correctly, a cheap
plastic flanger was the second effect
pedal I ever bought. I couldn’t really
play guitar, but that flanger made
it ok. All I had to do was feed it an
equally cheaply-made distortion and
it basically played itself! It had three
knobs and it sounded like airplanes
taking off on one end of the dial,
and alien laser blasters on the other.
A lifelong love of weird sounds was
birthed right there.
So when Joel Korte told me
months ago that a Chase Bliss
Audio flanger was in the works, I
started thinking about drive pedals to pair it with... the thick burly
riffs to slather it on... the delicate
little notes to drown in its shifting
choral-like goodness. I was excited.
The Spectre has a few more knobs
and switches than my old flanger,
and it’s built like a tank. A beautiful, carefully thought-out tank -six knobs, four toggles, two silent
70
footswitches, and after you have
mastered all that, you’ve got 16
dip switches and an expression/CV
input that can be assigned to control
almost any parameter of the Spectre.
If you are familiar with the Chase
Bliss Audio pedals you know that
all these controls can be a little
daunting, but as soon as it clicks for
you and you began to understand
how the controls interact, you have
an unprecedented level of control.
And with that control you can shape
your sound: subtle flange, chorus,
touches of vibrato, oceans of deep
rich ooze, beautiful self-oscillating
whale songs, lasers and whooshing
jet planes. Think of the Spectre as a
creative tool, a noise machine more
than a traditional flanger.
In the past, a Chase Bliss pedal
would come my way and I would try
to reassure people that all those knobs
and switches are nothing to be afraid
of. Just plug it up and go, it’ll sound
great... and that’s true. But I’m taking
a different approach this time. Joel
makes pedals for musicians who love
pedals; who really want to understand
the effect they are using and look for
unique sounds.
Yes, flangers have been around
forever. Yes, the controls are analogous to every other pedal you’ve
ever played. Yes, this is a great
sounding pedal. But it’s also the
Ferrari of flangers. If you love the
minutiae of effect pedals, if you
love flanger, the Spectre is for you.
There are simpler, cheaper options
if you don’t want to put in the time
to learn this pedal, because even
though you can plug it up, tweak it
a bit and sound ok, you’ll be missing out; and I think until you really
understand how the controls interact
together you will always be a little
frustrated with it. So when you
get it, plug it up, sit down with the
manual and turn some knobs.
GEAR REVIEWS u
So, first things first. Ignore the dip
switches. They mainly assign control
of the Ramp or Expression features,
and there is no need to mess with
that until you understand how to dial
in this beast. Rate, Mix, Zero, and
Regen (regenerate) are your color
controls. This is the tone of your
flanger. Width, Shift, and the two
wave toggles control the shape of
your flanger. Dial in a color, then
experiment with the shape.
Flanger started life as two tape
record decks: a lead and a follow
deck. The follow deck is just slightly
delayed, creating the flange effect.
The Zero knob simulates the distance
between these two decks. All the way
counterclockwise is as far apart as
they get. As you turn the knob clockwise they get closer together until
you reach the zero point around one
to three o’clock. This is when the
follow deck catches up and starts to
pass the lead deck. You’ll hear a little
cutout in signal as this happens. The
Regen knob is where things start to get
otherworldly -- counterclockwise adds
subtle choral tones, clockwise brings
those self-oscillating whale songs.
On the Shape side of things, the
Width goes from thin and shallow to
deep and warm. The Shift knob controls the center point of the waveform, or how fast the flange ramps
up and then down. Understanding
these four controls and how they
interact is the key to getting the most
out of the Spectre.
Chase Bliss Audio Spectre
Flanger: Beautiful, otherworldly,
distinctive, and possibly a little
overused by Eddie Van Halen at the
height of his sonic decadence. Like
the wah pedal, the popularity of the
Flanger may come and go, but with
a little taste, restraint and creativity,
it’s hard to find a more distinctive
and useful modulation effect. The
Spectre is never just a flanger; rather
that’s the starting point. Like all
Chase Bliss Audio pedals, the Spectre is for the adventurous. G
CHASE BLISS AUDIO
SPECTRE
Controls: Mix(Ramp), Zero, Regen, Rate, Width
and Shift knobs, three 3-way toggles
Dimensions: W: 3.75” H: 2” D: 5”
Weight: 1.9 lbs.
Price: $349
71
GEAR REVIEWS u
The new sound of yesterday
Tapestry Audio pulls a classic British circuit into the now
BY BLAKE WRIGHT
THE CLASSIC ROCK crunch that
guitarist push out of vintage Marshall amps can be a thing of true
beauty, whether your appetite leans
more towards 60s to 70s-era thunder
or somewhat more modern stylings.
In the 1990s, Marshall released the
first iteration of its Blues Breaker
pedal in an effort to offer that classic, vintage texture in pedal form. A
stomp to add a dynamic, yet tasteful
overdrive to your base amp tone.
Several modern pedal makers have
created their own version of the
Blues Breaker. Some using the root
circuit with modifications like the
JHS Pedal Morning Glory, Analogman Prince of Tone or Mojo Hand
Magpie, while others — like the
72
Snouse Blackbox — tried to stay as
true to the original as possible.
Florida-based Tapestry Audio has
taken cues from the classic Blues
Breaker circuit and mixed in a threeband equalizer, along with some
clipping options, to create the Fab
Suisse overdrive.
Whereas the Blues Breaker offered
three knob controls, the Fab Suisse
has five, basically replacing the Tone
control with an equalizer allowing
users to adjust Low, Mid and High
frequencies to taste. These are not
labeled, but you can figure out what
everything does what pretty quick.
The pedal also has a slider switch
that allows the user to select from
a trio of clipping options. There are
LEDs in hard clipping mode (left),
designed to produce a more open
sound with more headroom and less
compression. Move the switch full
right for the soft clipping options.
The center position is a no clipping
mode or boost, as Tapestry calls it.
Boost mode has the most headroom
as the distortion is coming solely
from the op amp. The Fab Suisse also
comes standard with kick-resistant
knob stops.
Plugged into the Fab Suisse, you
might quickly recall that the Blues
Breaker circuit is fairly low headroom… and that the best results
from most pedals based on that
circuit come with things turned up.
Rolling the Gain and Volume knobs
GEAR REVIEWS u
up past noon, you start to hear the
break-up bloom that fills in the gaps
between your notes and chords. The
range of the Fab Suisse is solid…
moving from light overdrive/boost
to chunky classic crunch without
muddying or getting fizzy. The
three band EQ helps bring out what
you like and tame what you don’t.
Through our test rig, just a bit more
bass gave us a great balance of body
and definition.
Tapestry wants the Fab Suisse to act
as a sort of Swiss Army Knife (thus
the name) for your overdrive needs,
and there are definitely varying tones
to be pulled out of its small enclosure. However, the more I sampled
the pedal the more I became enamored with the higher gain, punchier
settings than the lower drive sounds.
There also is the practical decision to include the knob locks with
the Fab Suisse. I’ve personally
never had much use for them, but
if the goal is to offer a wide palette
for exploration, why even offer a
mechanism designed to lock in a
single tone?
At $199, the Fab Suisse is a little
TAPESTRY AUDIO
FAB SUISSE
Controls: Volume, Gain, Lo, Mid, High
knob controls, clipping slider switch
Dimensions: W: 3.75” H: 2” D: 5”
Weight: 14 oz.
Price: $199
pricier than its modern Blues Breaker brethren, but the added optionality
and frequency controls make it one
worthy of consideration. G
73
GEAR REVIEWS u
Multi-functional phaser in boundary push
Walrus’ new Vanguard looks to change view on classic effect
BY WADE BURDEN
FROM A post-apocalyptic, windswept, barren wasteland comes the
Walrus Audio Vanguard: phasing in
and out of view, an oozing mirage
of sound hiding an ever-advancing
horde of 80’s dystopian future pirates coming for you.
Phasers are usually humble affairs.
My old Sovtek Small Stone had a
toggle switch and a knob. The toggle
switch always made it sound worse...
so it was more like it only had a
knob. But there is nothing humble
about the Vanguard. From its art
depicting a pair of ominous horseback riders, to its name declaring
it the head of the phaser pack. The
Vanguard knows what it is: weird.
Also daring. Unique. Hyperbolic. If
the Chase Bliss Audio Wombtone
is the perfect phaser for the player
who loves phasers, the Vanguard is
74
the perfect phaser for the player who
hates phasers. In another review in
this issue, I compared the beautiful Chase Bliss pedals to the highly
engineered Ferrari. The Vanguard
is more like Mad Max’s Interceptor: It’s mean. Familiar while being
unique. Utilitarian, yet surprisingly
packed with features. And also, generally badass. The Vanguard makes
no attempts to be a normal phaser;
rather it embraces its more base nature, giving you chaos and acidic and
decidedly low-fi tones at its most
drastic dual phasing, pitch shifting
craziness. But don’t worry, it can be
reigned in for the less adventurous.
The Vanguard is two phasers in series. The top row of controls sets the
first phaser, which is then fed back
into the second phaser, controlled by
the bottom row of controls. The first
control on the top row is Dry Mix,
which is your standard dry-to-wet
signal mix, and affects both phasers.
Next is Rate, which sets the speed
of the phase counterclockwise for
barely-there phase shifts, or clockwise for staccato waves. Depth sets
the intensity: counterclockwise for
subtle shifts, clockwise for tidal
waves. Regen feeds the phased signal back through the phase filters:
counterclockwise for gentle rolling
phase, or clockwise for solar flares
and power outages. Combine these
last three controls (Rate, Depth and
Regen) to determine how subtle or
drastic your phase will be. Lastly,
Wet Mix - this is a weird one. It controls the level of wet signal and the
output of the pedal, and affects both
phasers. Think of it combined with
the dry mix as a global dry-wet mix.
GEAR REVIEWS u
And paired with the Dry Mix, it determines the overall level of phased
signal you hear from the pedal.
The bottom row is where things
start to get interesting - Here we
have one of three types of phasers,
selectable by toggle switch, that
will be fed the phased signal that
you just dialed in on the top row.
Ten Stage Phaser with regeneration,
Six Stage Phaser with pitch, or Four
Stage phaser with filter. These are
followed by Rate and Depth controls
that perform the same functions as
their counterparts on the top row:
setting rate and depth. Then we have
a Tweak knob. In the Ten Stage
position this acts as a Regen control.
In the Six Stage position it controls
the level of detune in the wet signal.
If you find this to be more subtle
than you would like, push it with an
octave fuzz and hear how weird and
sickly the two can get. In the Four
Stage phaser position it acts as the
filter control. If you’d like to hear
just one of the Vanguard’s phasers,
set the others’ parameters to zero...
but what’s the fun in doing that?
In addition to all the knobs and
switches, you have an expression
control, stereo out, and presets. I
found the presets to be a bit confusing, but with practice I imagine the
three color coded presets would be
simple to use.
I personally found the Vanguard to
be a dichotomy: a familiar interface
with familiar sounds, but challenging to dial in exactly what I was
looking for at times. It’s tempting
with such a crazy pedal to max
everything out and listen to it warble
and sputter, but slow and washy is
where the Vanguard really shines:
acidic to sickly sweet and always
otherworldly, with simple, intuitive
controls that allow you to push the
boundaries of what a phaser is. G
WALRUS AUDIO
VANGUARD
Controls: Dry Mix, Rate, Depth, Regen, Wet Mix,
Tweak knobs, three-way toggle, preset switch
Dimensions: W: 5.625” H: 1.5” D: 4.625”
Weight: 1.4 lbs.
Price: $279
75
ALBUM REVIEWS u
ARTIST: Jeff Lynne’s ELO
ALBUM: Alone In The Universe
LABEL: Big Trilby Records
VERDICT:
ARTIST: Foo Fighters
ALBUM: St. Cecilia EF
LABEL: Roswell Records
VERDICT: Mojo Risin’
ELO is back!? Well, sort of...
A TRIUMPHANT return in the
stage in 2014 at UK’s Hyde Park
fueled the return of Jeff Lynne’s
ELO and its first album of new
material in a decade. The result
is Alone In The Universe — a
10-track slab on mid-tempo pop
numbers that bobs along effortlessly, but ultimately falls shy of
the classic pedigree.
Let’s face it. It would be difficult
to recapture the magic that was the
70s-era Electric Light Orchestra
without the majority of the players involved. No Bev Bevan. No
Richard Tandy. On Alone In the
Universe , as the title foretells,
Lynne played almost all of the
instruments himself.
The album opens with the reflective ‘When I Was A Boy’ and its
lilting piano hook hosting dreams
of rock star grandeur. ‘Love And
Rain’ is a more sultry mix of guitar
twang and silky backing vocals.
‘When The Night Comes’ bounces
harmlessly in a sort of reggae strut,
while the shimmer and main riff
on ‘The Sun Will Shine On You’ is
reminiscent of the Zoom-era songs
from Lynne’s last ELO offering
from 10 years previous.
The album’s second half starts
to sound more like a Lynne solo
76
effort with a Traveling Wilbury’s
B-Side tossed in for good measure.
That might not be a bad thing, if it
weren’t on an ELO record.
‘Ain’t It A Drag’ turns things up
a bit, but is pure Wilburys sans
Petty and the rest of the crew. It
could have easily appeared on Volume III as Lynne croons “I took
the last plane out just to see the
pretty view.”
‘All My Life’ is another lilting
ballad... solid, but ultimately forgettable, while ‘I’m Leaving You’
offers another Wilbury-esque shuffle, but interjects a bit of spacey
keyboard almost as a reminder to
the listener than this is, in fact, an
ELO album.
‘One Step At A Time’ is the
best ELO song on the record. It’s
bouncy, danceable groove is more
1970s than much of anything else
on the album. Solid harmonies and
spacey guitar lines hold the song
together nicely.
Alone In The Universe wraps with
the title track, which is neither
remarkable or wholly forgettable...
and that’s Jeff Lynne’s ELO in a
nutshell, and that’s too bad.
Lynne should get marks for creating a solid pop album, but it is kind
of a sham to call it ELO. G
WHEN a mysterous countdown clock
appeared on the Foo Fighters website
last November, fan speculation ran
rampant about its meaning: A new
album? A second season of the band’s
HBO experiment Sonic Highways? A
2016 world tour announcement?
When the clock hit all zeroes, the Foos
released a free EP called the St. Cecilia
EP -- a five-song offering recorded in
Austin, Texas, during the Austin City
Limits festival and named for the boutique hotel south of downtown where
the deed was done.
The offering opens with the title track
-- a door-blowing onslaught that tracks
similar to the band’s more recent songs.
‘Sean’ harkens back to the earliest Foos
material in its no-holds-barred pop/
punk presence.
The wordplay of ‘Savior Breath’ can
be forgiven in the wake of the tune’s
relentless buzzsaw guitars and propulsive rhythm section, while ‘Iron Rooster’
feels like a bonus track from Disc 2 of
In Your Honor...
The EP closes with ‘The Neverending
Sigh’ -- another angular thumper that
plays up the best qualities of the band:
explosive guitars, memorable melodies
and 70s-era bravado.
Grohl said that many of the riffs here
have been around a while. Good of him
to let them marinade, and ultimately
share with the rest of us. .G
ALBUM REVIEWS u
ARTIST: Peace & The Chaos
ALBUM: Peace & The Chaos
LABEL: Rock Army Records
VERDICT:
SPRINGING up from the Texas/Louisiana border, Peace and The Chaos
is a rock trio with a sonic signature
built around bluesy, detuned guitars
and deep, soulful grooves.
The band’s self-titled debut album
is a 10-track peek through an audio
kaleidoscope of sound ranging from
the raunchy thump of the lead track
‘Enemy’ to the delicate, more fragile ‘Future’ and back again.
RE-LIC’’D
ARTIST: Feeder
ALBUM: Comfort In Sound
RELEASED: 2002
VERDICT:
Guitarist/vocalist Billy Beaumont
shows off some blues rock balladry
chops with the lamentful, but driving ‘Life’, propelled by a four-chord
hook and tight harmony vocals from
bassist Len Sonnier and drummer
Ken Turner.
The album’s centerpiece arrives
with ‘Roses’ — a six-minute slab
of distorted zen that speaks to the
meaning of life without taking itself
EVERYONE deals with tragedy in different ways.
For UK’s Feeder, the band took the 2002 suicide of
drummer Jon Lee -- the questions, anger, frustration
and sadness -- and forged a layered masterpiece of
guitar-driven pop perfection... or damn close to it.
Comfort In Sound is doused with a volatile mix of
melancholy and aggression that many bands strive
for, but few ever attain.
From the first lines “Love in. Love out.”, singer/
guitarist Grant Nichols lets the listener know that
this going to be somewhat of a ‘therapy’ album for
himself and bassist Taka Hirose. The duo recruited
Skunk Anansie drummer Mark Richardson to fill
Lee’s shoes on the record.
Opener ‘Just The Way I’m Feelin’ sets the tone
early with its somber jangle and lyrics of loss. Toms
thump and guitar muscle step to the forefront in
‘Come Back Around’, as Nichols and company amp
up the aggression a bit.
‘Helium’ is a blistering grind of guitar chord
interplay, while ‘Child In You’ dials it back and
speaks directly to Lee and those burdened by
similar demons in a wave of guitar shimmer and
etheral organ lines.
The title track sports a simple, inviting melody
too seriously as Beaumont howls
“Here I am. I’m alive. Guess I
should take time to smell the roses
so I really know what it means.”
‘Second Time’ intertwines guitar
rock crunch with more bluesy interludes in a tale of repeat betrayal,
while the ‘don’t look back’ mentality of ‘Take Me Alive’ offers up one
of the album’s more straightforward
rock grooves.
The album closes with ‘The Beautiful Sea’ — a bluesy jaunt built
on Turner’s thump, a descending
guitar progression and the band’s
gang vocals.
Like New York’s Super 400 or
Chicago’s The Steepwater Band
before it, PATC doesn’t offer a
revolutionary new sound as much as
show early mastery of an emerging,
classic one.G
lifted by swelling guitars with Nichols urging all to
“ease back the strain’ and ‘come heal your pain’.
The album’s centerpiece is ‘Forget About Tomorrow’ -- a beautiful tribute to a fallen bandmate
complete with soaring strings and the pain and
grief noticable in Nichols’ vocal delivery as he begs
for another chance to see his friend.
‘Summers Gone’, ‘Godzilla’ and ‘Quick Fade’
continue as variations on the album’s main themes
fueled by aggression and loss.
‘Find The Colour’ is an uptempo tune that finds
the band pulling hope from different corners of life,
while ‘Love Pollution’ is another slow bloom of a
song focused increasingly on a less-illusive hopefulness and the strength to reset and move forward.
The album closes with ‘Moonshine’, a song that
shows Nichols coming to terms with realities, but
still reluctant to let go as he sings ‘Oh, won’t you
come back to me?’
Comfort In Sound is an album worthy of close
scrutinity by anyone grieving the loss of a loved
one, but it also stands on its own as a killer alt-rock
offering of its time.
Feeder remains active. The band released its
eight album, Generation Freakshow, in 2012. G
77
Gearphoria Magazine is wholly owned by WrightSide Media Group, Houston, TX. All rights reserved. Published January 2016.

tampa two-fer

Transcription

Similar documents

The Little Green Men - Berklee College of Music Archives

Famous Monsters 2014

MICHAEL ANGELO BATIO

El Mirage - Tao Guitars

ROCKSHOP SPECIALS APRIL 2012

Avenged Sevenfold

here - Dave Sharp

Downloadable Brochure - Kevin Michael by McPherson Guitars

Biographies - Trollstilt

PDF Rider - ArtistEcard