Guitar Player articles from March 2003

Guitar Player archives from March 2003

The dangers of sex. (Soundhole).
March 1, 2003... We've put three women on the cover of GP since I became editor of the magazine. Bonnie Raitt [July '98] was a no-brainer, and hers was a good-selling issue. Meredith Brooks [November '99] was controversial, but that issue moved very nicely off...

Santana & friends. (Feedback).
March 1, 2003... Carlos Santana, in the past few years, has made as beautiful music with his words as he ever has with his guitar. His sensitivity and insight into the soul of music has put into easy language that which has, until now, been inexpressible. His...

Auction Block. (Feedback).
March 1, 2003... First off, thanks for a great magazine. I've subscribed for over two years now, and I read GP cover to cover every month. I want to compliment you on Will Ray's "Auction Block" column. I enjoy hunting for gear bargains on eBay, and I have...

The Elms. (Feedback).(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2003... I just wanted to say a huge thanks for the article on The Elms ["Buzz Box," Jan. '03]. I am a Christan musician whose listening interests are in both mainstream and Christian music. I think there are many Christian bands whose music is...

Lessons. (Feedback).(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2003... Kudos to Jude Gold for noticing the musical sophistication that informs Jerry Garcia's playing ["Sonic Snapshot," Jan. '03]. The Dead's recorded legacy--thousands of hours of tape representing over 25 years of live performance--is unique. That...

Grading gear. (Feedback).(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2003... As a longtime subscriber, I'm sure I speak for more than just myself when I say that you strike a nice balance in being "all things to all guitar players." So this is just a reminder that there remains a strong contingent of us that acquire the...

Oops! (Feedback).(Correction Notice)
March 1, 2003... As astute GP reader Jeff Shirkey points out, we screwed up a chord in Ex. 4 of the Jim Campilongo Guest Guru column [Jan. '03]. In the tablature below F7[flat]9, the second string should read "7" (not "9") to reflect the G[flat], in the...

Fretwire. (Input/Output).(music industry)
March 1, 2003... First some Van Halen news: David Lee Roth filed suit against his former bandmates and Warner Bros. Records in December, claiming that they left him out of a deal signed in 1996 for increased royalties from album sales. Filing in California...

Performance notes: Kittie. (Input/Output).
March 1, 2003... In these days when musical genres are constantly mixed-and-matched, it's actually refreshing when one word describes a band's sound. With Canada's Kittie, that word is unapologetically "metal." The group's new EP, Safe [Artemis], includes...

Songcraft: Doug Martsch. (Input/Output).
March 1, 2003... Indie rock's resident guitar god, Doug Martsch, has always brought a clear love of the classics--Hendrix, the Stones, and Led Zeppelin--to his band, Built to Spill. But for his first solo release, Now You Know [Warner Bros.], Martsch spent some...

Encore: Michael Hedges. (Input/Output).
March 1, 2003... The late Michael Hedges stunned players and listeners alike with his utterly original artistic sensibility, his "harmonic slapping" (and other groundbreaking left- and right-hand techniques), his rethinking of tunings, and his resuscitation of...

Factory tour: Gibson's Custom shop. (Input/Output).
March 1, 2003... The Gibson Custom, Art, and Historic division was formed in late 1993 to shepherd the company's reissues and speciality works, and its Nashville factory is a Willy Wonka dreamworld for guitarists. You're barely past the factory's front office...

New gear.(musical instruments)
March 1, 2003... 1. MOTION SOUND The 80-watt AG-110H rotary amplifier ($899) utilizes a 10" speaker, a 3.5"x 3.5" ferro-cooled dynamic horn, and a multi-frequency "rotary animator" to give acoustic players 3-D sound without having to don the funny glasses....

Riding the open range: Tin Hat Trio's Mark Orton redefines Americana.
March 1, 2003... When they formed Tin Hat Trio in the late '90s, guitarist Mark Orton, accordionist Rob Burger, and violinist Carla Kihlstedt knew that their music would defy categorization. But in the intervening years, their sound has evolved in ways that...

Hypnotic riffage: the Music's Adam Nutter feels the noise.
March 1, 2003... Psychedelic guitar is alive and well in the U.K., thanks to Adam Nutter and his teenage cohorts, collectively known its the Music. On the band's debut CD, The Music [Hut/Capitol, Nutter wraps massive riffs and edgy, guitar-generated electronic...

Sorcerers' apprenticeship: how the Yardbirds launched Clapton, Beck, and Page.
March 1, 2003... The dominant musical emphasis of the 1960s British Beat Boom was on songs, but, today, most people regard the Yardbirds less as combined figureheads and background forces of '60s pop, than as a springboard for the nurtured prowess and...

Burning desire: Chrissie Hynde and Adam Seymour fire up The Pretenders.
March 1, 2003... You can praddle on about Keith Richards and Johnny Thunders and every addled street punk who ever wrapped his hands around a guitar neck, but who is really and truly tougher than Chrissie Hynde? And this challenge even leaves aside the...

The boss of sauce: Scott Henderson shares the savory riff recipes behind Well to the Bone.
March 1, 2003... Los Angeles is an amazing town. It's the only place where ten bucks will hardly get you around the corner in a taxicab or buy a hot meal, yet it will score you a seat at a jazz club where you can catch some of the best musicians in the world...

Billy Nershi's, flatpicking storm. (Guest Guru).
March 1, 2003... WINDING YOUR WAY through String Cheese Incident's maze of tour buses and tractor-trailers, it's hard not to be astounded by how truly monstrous this little jam band from Colorado has become. "Anybody who's in a good band that's doing well...

Neighbor note mojo. (Chops).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... AS GEORGE BENSON, LARRY CARLTON, Pat Martino, and the great saxophonist Charlie Parker have all proven over the decades, a simple melody can become very exciting if you know how to embellish it using neighbor notes. To show you how this is...

Goin' for baroque. (Reader's Challenge).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... IT'S ONLY FITTING THAT "ARPEGGIO" IS AN ITALIAN word, because this exciting sequence of arpeggiated chords comes to us from Stefano Tamiazzo of Milan, Italy. "This study sounds good played with a distorted tone," offers Tamiazzo. "It's easiest...

Various Artists: the Land Where the Blues Began.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... When folklorist Alan Lomax passed away in July 2002, his field recordings had already changed the world big time. His pioneering efforts to search out and record America's musical roots not only assured the documentation of our cultural...

Sonny Landreth: the Road We're On.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... No one blends Cajun grooves and Delta slide like Sonny Landreth. Whether digging into a bouncy, two-beat rhythm or laying down a loping rub shuffle, he makes his Strat wheeze and sing like the mutant offspring of a button accordion and fiddle....

Sigur Ros: ().(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... Sigur Ros must be the most enigmatic band on the planet. Their new album is named (), the album artwork consists only of ghostly images on translucent paper, the songs are all untitled, and guitarist Jonsi Birgisson sings in an invented...

Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Rust Never Sleeps.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... Of all the various concert DVDs sitting in the racks at your fave video haunt, Neil Young's brilliant 1978 concert film truly deserves your attention. The set design is tremendous (giant Fender amps, a mammoth RCA microphone, and cloaked "Road...

Randy Bachman: Every Song Tells A Story.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... This could be retitled "The former BTO and Guess Who guitarist tells a lot of really long stories about his songs." In this unplugged performance, Bachman talks almost as much as he plays. While you do learn just about everything you'd ever...

Lenny Kravitz: Lenny Live.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... Here's that striking-looking rock star in all his concert, backstage, and hanging-out glory. The bits of calculated cool will likely piss off most GP readers, but, man, the roar from that stage is pretty incredible. Kravitz and co-guitarist...

Reverend Slingshot. (Bench Tests).(electric guitar)(Product/Service Evaluation)
March 1, 2003... Plenty of guitar companies owe their existence to Leo Fender and his revolutionary concept of making guitars with plank bodies and bolt-on necks. Fender's blueprint inspired legions of imitators, as well as a few innovators. One of whom was...

Tube distortion pedal roundup. (Bench Tests).(Product/Service Evaluation)
March 1, 2003... Have you got an amp that cranks out cool clean sounds, yet can't compete in the overdrive arena? Would you like to put some genuine tube tones in front of your modeling amp or digital recording system? If you answered yes to either of these...

SMF 15 Watter. (Bench Tests).(guitar amplifier)
March 1, 2003... It's no secret that most boutique amplifiers offer craftsmanship that is beyond what can be delivered for a production-line price. Handwired circuits are expensive to build, and that's why some boutique manufacturers have begun to offer...

Martin DC-16RE. (Bench Tests).(guitar)(Product/Service Evaluation)
March 1, 2003... You've got to hand it to Martin. For a company that was founded when people were still shooting flintlocks, it has managed to bring Old-World guitar-making ethics solidly into the 21st century. Take the DC-16RE ($2,399 retail/street price N/A),...

Fender Stage 100 DSP. (Bench Tests).(Product/Service Evaluation)
March 1, 2003... If you've ever gigged in a city like San Francisco, you'll know what I'm talking about. You fight for a parking place high up on a steep hill, load your back with enough gear to make a pack mule groan, and then carefully wheel your prized...

Rickenbacker M-11. (Pawnshop Prize).(guitar amplifier)
March 1, 2003... Although Rickenbacker is best know for its innovative 6- and 12-string electric guitars, the company also made a number of amplifiers that were designed to go toe-to-toe with the best from Fender and Gibson. For example, the M-11 featured here...