Guitar Playerの May 2022 の目次

IN THE WORLD of instantly recognizable custom guitars, perhaps none stands out more than the aptly named Cloud that Prince played in the final scenes of the 1984 film Purple Rain. Luthier Dave Rusan designed and built the Cloud, with its whimsical curves and distinctive prong on the upper bout. Rusan grew up in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, and became interested playing guitar as teenager. He says he didn’t think of it as just a musical instrument, however, but as a beautiful and mysterious machine. “Soon after my dad bought me my second guitar, a Mosrite, I took off the neck and removed the pickguard to see what was going on inside,” he recounts to Guitar Player. “I started modifying my guitars, but with almost no books to refer to, my…

BY THE MID-1990s, Joe Satriani had things pretty much sewn up career-wise. Four of his six studio albums had gone either Gold or Platinum, and his touring dance card was filled for much of any given year. But despite his spectacular success, something had started to feel a little…off. He wasn’t having the kind of fun he had imagined years before, when he was a budding guitarist dreaming about rock stardom. “I thought there would be more camaraderie among other players than what I was experiencing,” he says. “As a teenager, I had this idea of what things would be like if I ever hit it big. There would be parties, and I’d get to hang out with my guitar friends. We’d jam and talk about music all night long…

IT’S SAID THAT adversity breeds opportunity, and for Eric Johnson, the pandemic created just such an opportunity in 2020 to make a record — two in fact: The Book of Making and Yesterday Meets Today (Sire). So how did he manage to pull off recording a trove of songs — 25 in all, including seven tracks that will appear on a third album called Take Outs — at a time when simply being a room together with actual musicians wasn’t possible? “When my tour got cut two weeks short in March 2020, I came home, and everybody was kind of holed up,” Johnson says. “So I went to the studio and started going through my tape vault and finding bits and pieces that were anywhere from two-inch analog tape to…

AS WE IMPR OVISE or compose melodies, we learn that repeating and developing a motif, or phrasing idea, can lend structural cohesion to the music and help it “make sense.” It also can have the benefit of grouping notes into easily workable chunks. How we use scales to create these usable melodic fragments is a pretty wide-open topic. To the ear, playing the notes of the underlying chords, using arpeggios, will always sound correct and pleasing, and regardless of where you start within the framework of the key, your ear should guide you to those correct sounds, with the related scales tones serving as transitional “fill.” For example, if we’re in the key of C major, and the chord of the moment is Dm, playing a simple ascending fragment of…

SOME MUSICIANS HAVE a love/hate relationship with their hit songs. Not so for guitarist Pat Travers and his 1980 flamethrower blues-rock smash, “Snortin’ Whiskey.” “I’m totally good with it,” he says. “It’s a really cool and solid rock song. It’s not supposed to be profound. In fact, its silliness is one of the great things about it. “Plus, it’s got a killer opening riff. The second I start playing it, I get an immediate response. What’s not to like about that?” BAD BEHAVIOR That riff is one Travers had been toying with a few years before he wrote “Snortin’ Whiskey.” A friend had shown the guitarist a country lick, and over time he added a blues-rock flavor to it. Several years later, in 1979, Travers and his rhythm section —…

EONS AHEAD OF its time when introduced in 1963, Gibson’s original Firebird has represented an iconic example of modernist guitar design ever since, remaining timeless and contemporary in equal measure. And from the time Johnny Winter started setting stages ablaze with this revolutionary electric in the late ’60s, the blues legend has served as the key reference point for what this radically angular and eclectically appointed guitar can do. The Gibson Custom Shop has created the ultimate tribute to both the man and the instrument in the new Johnny Winter 1964 Firebird V, and it’s a doozy of a guitar for anyone who has ever appreciated the equally unique look and voice of this classic. The Johnny Winter 1964 Firebird V isn’t merely a period-correct reissue of the original model;…

AFTER DECADES OF WORKING with artists like the Mavericks, Bob Seger, Kenny Chesney, Willie Nelson, Buddy Guy and Taylor Swift, 2012 ACM Guitarist of the Year Kenny Greenberg has released a record of his own, Blues for Arash (We R They Records). But we would still be waiting had not screenwriter Arash Amel requested music for a prospective film about a blues fanatic from West Africa. “He was looking for a combination of African rhythms and American blues,” Greenberg says. “Slide guitar and some cinematic stuff.” Greenberg ensconced himself in his home studio and began recording. For the West African flavors, the guitarist had invaluable help from Justin Adams of Robert Plant’s Sensational Shape Shifters, but the blues is all courtesy of the Nashville session ace. Some of the aforementioned…

Back in the early spring of 2020, Joe Satriani was conducting business much as he had been for the past 30 years. He had a new record, Shape-shifting, set for release, and his concert schedule was full. “And then the pandemic hit, and everything went upside-down,” he says. The guitarist went ahead with release plans for the album, but he was forced to reschedule all of his 2020 dates. “Not as easy as it sounds,” he points out, “because you don’t want to be hit with cancellation fees. Fortunately, we had great relationships with promoters and we were able to work things out.” He sighs. “And then we had to do it again.” With the COVID pandemic proving to be a stubborn beast, Satriani was placed in the unenviable position…

AN ADVENTUROUS PEDAL to say the least, Totally Wycked Audio’s original Triskelion debuted in 2010 as an updated reproduction of the Systech Harmonic Energizer used by Frank Zappa, Greg Lake, Joe Walsh and other ’70s-era icons. As described by TWA, the Triskelion was essentially a parametric midrange filter with adjustable peak and an obscene amount of gain. You could vary the mids to create cocked-wah sounds, and its powerful output allowed for massive distortion and infinite sustain. It also offered extended highfrequency range and the option of expression control over the filter sweep. The Triskelion Mk. III (or TK-03) is the latest incarnation and features a more compact Hammond 1590B chassis, as well as several functions that were absent on the Mk. II version when it was released in 2015.…

AFTER RECORDING SPOON’S previous few albums on the East and West coasts, guitarist, songwriter and frontman Britt Daniel decided it was time to head home to Austin, Texas, where he started the band with drummer Jim Eno three decades ago. The results were immediate. “The Hardest Cut,” the first song written after the band returned to Texas, is the hardest-rocking tune in the Spoon catalog. Built on a boogie rhythm inspired by ZZ Top and a deceptively simple riff, and featuring a blistering solo from co-guitarist Gerardo Larios, “The Hardest Cut” set the tone for Lucifer on the Sofa (Matador). Recorded at Eno’s studio, the sessions were marked by spontaneity, as heard throughout the album. The final takes include pre-song noodling, and that’s Daniel calling out section-change instructions to his…

ERIC GALES EXPLODED onto the music scene at the age of 16 with his 1991 debut album, The Eric Gales Band. Inevitably, as with any Black blues guitarist adding a little rock to the mix, the “next Hendrix” tag was duly applied. Indeed, it did seem Gales was channeling a strong Hendrix vibe, not only by the way he played but also in how he looked. A clip on YouTube shows him winning a local battle of the bands contest in 1989, at the age of 14, with an incendiary rendition of “Spanish Castle Magic.” Featuring his brother Eugene on bass and vocals, the performance showcases a staggeringly gifted guitarist, able to peel off face-melting Hendrix licks with ease. Likewise, Gales’ first appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show, in 1991,…

INVIOLATE, STEVE VAI’S new album, delivers everything fans have come to expect from the guitar wizard in terms of sonic innovation and ever-expanding creative horizons. But it also throws in a few curve balls with the use of clean Gretsch and Strat tones, and the introduction of the Hydra, a beast of a guitar with three necks and enough onboard gizmos to land it on the moon. Vai’s philosophy about making music is simple in theory but considerably more difficult in practice. “I always say to myself that, for at least one point in every track, I have to do something that I haven’t done before,” he reveals. “And it has to sound like music.” The guitarist underwent shoulder surgery to repair an injury around early 2021, which allowed him…

“THE IDEA IS TO HIGHLIGHT ITS BEAUTY BY FEATURING THE OVERTONES AND OTHER ELEMENTS THAT YOU CAN’T GET OUT OF THE ELECTRIC” SCOTT METZGER IS known for kicking out Grateful Dead grooves and whooping up cosmic electric licks in Joe Russo’s Almost Dead tribute act, as well as jamming with improv maestros like Nels Cline and John Scofield. But when the live scene went dark due to COVID, Metzger followed a vintage Martin down an acoustic rabbit hole to create a cool, understated solo album. Too Close to Reason (Royal Potato Family) is mostly moody and spacious, rather than chock full of burning chops, although Metzger is capable of conjuring fire. Check into the Showdown Kids to hear his proficient gypsy jazz hands, as well as those of his violinist…

LIKE MANY MUSICIANS, I’ve made an iPad a critical piece of my music gear. I travel quite a bit, so I rely on it to collect my musical thoughts for songwriting and arrangements, and I’ve learned that you don’t need a high-powered DAW to make music while you’re on the go. In most cases, even GarageBand for the iPad can get the job done, but relying on the tablet’s built-in microphone, while useful for some situations, can be limiting. So I was happy to see PreSonus engineers had figured out a lightweight and ultra-compact design for a mobile 2x2 audio interface, and I couldn’t wait to check it out. The new AudioBox Go is USB powered, so there’s no power supply to plug in. It offers two inputs: one combo…

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