GB3 is a group of three outstanding British guitarists—Dave Bainbridge (IONA), Paul Bielatowicz (Carl Palmer Trio, Neal Morse) and Dave Brons—who are hitting the road in Europe next month.
So the GB could stand for Great Britain, while the B could stand for their three last names. The three probably just stands for three.
Anyway, you can check out all their currently scheduled 2015 dates right here.
We recently came across (hopefully you know by now that we come across a lot of interesting things on a daily basis) a new video of Brons imitating the sound and attack of Irish (Uilleann) pipes with his guitar. The song in the video, which you can check out below, is a cover of "Castlerigg" by IONA, which you can see and hear in the bottom video.
"This Irish reel is one of the hardest things I've ever had to learn," Brons said on his Facebook page on April 4. "[It's] seven minutes of high-speed guitar gymnastics!
"I'm at Jaden Rose Guitars in Wales, using these lovely guitars to get ready for the GB3 tour in May. I'd love you guys to hear this amazing song in all its glory on the tour. All shares appreciated!"
The rest of the GB3 band consists of Simon Fitzpatrick (Carl Palmer Trio, Jeniffer Batten) on bass and Collin Leijenaar (Neal Morse, Affector) on drums.
Back in December 2012, a talented British guitarist named Ben Higgins posted a video called "30 Shredders in One Solo!"
As you can guess, the video, which was very popular with all you GuitarWorld.com readers in 2013, shows Higgins imitating the styles of 30 famous shredders in one epic guitar solo.
He started things off with some Yngwie Malmsteen-style runs, moved into Eddie Van Halen territory and then payed visits to Steve Vai, Slash, Dimebag Darrell, Zakk Wylde, Uli Jon Roth, Paul Gilbert, Jason Becker, John Petrucci and many more.
Anyway, Higgins has posted a sequel video! He actually posted it in October 2014, but we were sleeping at the time, so we missed it.
Below, check out "Another 30 Shredders."
This time around, Higgins imitates the styles of Nuno Bettencourt, Steve Stevens, Reb Beach, John Sykes, Vivian Campbell, Guthrie Govan, Steve Morse, Eric Johnson, John 5, Herman Li, Warren DeMartini and several more!
"This track is just a bit of fun I cooked up," Higgins says. "The aim was to sound like the players in some way by either emulating some of their common phrasing ideas or referencing well known solos of theirs but not to directly cover or copy anything exactly."
Be sure to check out Higgins' new album, Mr. Badass, right here. For more about Higgins, follow him on YouTube. Enjoy!
Enter now to win a custom Bad Company Fender Squire Telecaster that was autographed by Bad Company Paul Rodgers! Just fill out the form and you're on your way!
Enter now to win a custom black Bad Company Fender Squire Telecaster that was autographed by legendary Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers!
Bad Company have helped shaped the sound of an entire rock era with iconic rock anthems like “Can’t Get Enough” and “Rock Steady,” plus the ever-popular ballads “Ready for Love,” “Seagull” and the Grammy-nominated “Feel Like Makin’ Love.”
The British rockers recently unearthed the original multi-track tapes from their first two albums and discovered previously unreleased tracks, takes and mixes from those sessions.
For the first time ever, the band has remastered Bad Company (1974) and Straight Shooter (1975) using the original tapes to create new Deluxe Editions, both of which were released today, April 7.
It was paramount to founding Bad Company member Paul Rodgers that the CD and LP be copied from the original tapes to guarantee the best sound possible. Each set includes a newly remastered version of the original album, along with a number of rare and unreleased recordings. The CD versions of these Deluxe Editions include all of the newly discovered bonus tracks, while their 180-gram vinyl counterparts offer a selection of the bonus material.
Five-time GRAMMY® Award winner James Taylor will release Before This World, the legendary singer/songwriter's first album of new songs since 2002's platinum-selling October Road.
Produced by Grammy Award®-winner Dave O'Donnell, Before This World features ten songs, nine of which are brand new James Taylor compositions, and is due out June 16th, 2015 from Concord Records.
In addition, the special 2-Disc CD/DVD Before This World Deluxe Edition includes the full-length album on CD plus "There We Were: The Recording of James Taylor's Before This World," a behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the album on DVD. Through studio footage and interviews (including Taylor and album guests Sting and Yo-Yo Ma) this beautifully rendered 30-minute film provides an intimate look into Taylor's creative process and the recording of this landmark album.
Recorded at his home studio TheBarn, in Washington, MA, Taylor enlisted the longtime members of his band for the sessions including bassist Jimmy Johnson, drummer Steve Gadd, guitarist Michael Landau, keyboardist Larry Goldings, percussionist Luis Conte, fiddler and vocalist Andrea Zonn and vocalists Arnold McCuller, David Lasley and Kate Markowitz. Taylor also called on close friends Yo-Yo Ma and Sting to add their remarkable talent to the new album, (Ma's cello is heard on "You And I Again" and "Before This World"; Sting added vocals to "Before This World.") Additionally, Taylor's wife Kim and son Henry sing harmony on "Angels Of Fenway" and the classic folk tune "Wild Mountain Thyme."
Watch the album trailer:
On Before This World, Taylor continues to explore many of the themes that have absorbed him throughout his career. "My sort of self-expression and the autobiographical aspect of my work is a thru-line that links all my albums together," he explains. "I think I have grown musically, and I think people can hear it in what I played in '68, and you can hear it in what I'm singing about now. It is ongoing, it's still me, but it's still evolving." Offering heartfelt reflection and insight from a life well lived, Taylor traces the road's healing allure ("Stretch of the Highway"), revisits themes of recovery, ("Watchin' Over Me"), offers a song for agnostics ("Before This World"), looks at love's mystical properties ("You And I Again") as well as the redemptive spirit of baseball ("Angels Of Fenway"), and the beginning of his remarkable journey, ("Today Today Today"), the album's first track.
"When I set out to record a new song, I have an idea, in my mind's ear, of how it should sound," he explains in the album's liner notes. "It is rare that the finished product entirely measures up, indeed, sometimes I'm utterly surprised by where the session takes it. This time I'm completely satisfied that each of these ten songs is where it's meant to be."
The past ten years have been full of an extensive tour schedule and notable achievements for Taylor -- including his acclaimed One Man Band tour and concert performance film, which aired on PBS and was nominated for an Emmy Award, his wildly successful Troubadour Reunion tour and Live at the Troubadour album with Carole King, two collections of cover songs Covers and Other Covers, a heartwarming Christmas album, James Taylor at Christmas and 2014's sold out tour across the US, Europe and the UK.
It will also be a particularly special summer for Taylor, as he will be performing a full-length concert with his All-Star Band for the first time ever at Fenway Park on August 6th, with guest Bonnie Raitt, which sold out 32,000 seats in one day.
One of the defining musical figures of our time, Taylor continues to express himself and touch our lives with the enduring songs he creates. "I really just feel as if I want to make music now," he said as he completed work on the new album. "I've done a lot of thinking about why I continue to be compelled to do this kind of work, but I still feel a huge connection with it."
In this month’s column, I’d like to demonstrate several licks that utilize natural harmonics.
A natural harmonic (N.H.) is sounded by picking an open string while lightly touching it with a fret-hand finger directly above a given fret.
The natural harmonics that are easiest to produce and are most commonly used are those found directly above the 12th, seventh and fifth frets.
When executed properly, a natural harmonic should have a bell-like chime that rings clearly and sustains. Let’s begin by lightly resting the ring finger across all six strings directly above the 12th fret and picking each string individually, as shown in FIGURE 1.
I then proceed to do the same thing at the seventh and fifth frets. (Remember, the finger must touch the string directly above the fret.) Some of my favorite natural harmonics—the ones I use most often to create cool-sounding licks—are found on the G string between the second and third frets.
As shown in FIGURE 2, I rest my ring finger directly above the third fret to sound a high D natural harmonic and move back slightly to a point just ahead of the midpoint between the second and third frets (indicated as 2.6 in the tab) to sound a high F natural harmonic. I then move back a hair more to just behind the midpoint (indicated as 2.4) to sound a G, four octaves higher than the pitch of the open string. I then play the natural harmonic directly above the second fret, which is a very high A. These higher, “stratospheric” natural harmonics are not as loud as those at the 12th, seventh and fifth frets and are more challenging to sound clearly. You can help bring them out by using your guitar’s bridge pickup and lots of gain.
For each of these harmonics, I use the whammy bar to add vibrato, which also helps the note to sustain a little longer. I can then depress the bar to get the harmonic to quickly drop, or “dive,” in pitch.
A very cool natural-harmonic technique—one that players like Dimebag Darrell, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have gotten a lot of mileage out of—is to pull off to the open G string while simultaneously dropping the whammy bar, and then lightly touch the string at different points while raising the bar to get a great ascending-harmonic sound.
In FIGURE 3, I quickly pull off with the index finger at the second fret of the G string to get the string vibrating, dropping the whammy bar simultaneously, after which I lightly touch the string directly above the third fret to sound the natural harmonic located there. This is often referred to as a “touch harmonic” and is indicated by the abbreviation “T.H.”
In FIGURES 4 and 5, I move slightly behind the third fret (2.6) and to the second fret to sound even higher, screaming natural harmonics.
Another great technique is to play the high G harmonic located above the fifth fret of the G string along with the high F# harmonic located above the seventh fret of the B string, as I do in FIGURE 6. Notice I again use the whammy bar to shake or lower and raise the pitch of the harmonics.
In FIGURE 7, I repeatedly pull off to the open G string from different points along the fretboard so I can add natural harmonics at the 12th, ninth, seventh, fifth and fourth frets, as well as just behind the third fret, adding two quick whammy-bar scoops as each harmonic sounds.
Lastly, in FIGURE 8, I use the same technique to get the G string ringing but quickly “flick” the whammy bar to get a fast warble on each harmonic, followed by a whammy-bar dive.
It’s been nearly 46 years since Black Sabbath emerged out of Birmingham, England, and defined the genre of heavy metal with detuned guitar riffs, occult themes and monolithic heaviness.
Think you know everything there is to know about the pioneering metal band?
Click through the gallery below to test your Sabbathian knowledge!
On the 45th anniversary of Black Sabbath's debut, and as their final gig draws near, Guitar World picks the best of the original lineup’s tracks—from “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and “Supernaut” to “Sweet Leaf” and “Dirty Women.”
Enjoy!
30. "Sabbra Cadabra" Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
“Sabbra Cadabra” closes out side one of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the band’s fifth studio album, originally released in December 1973.
Metallica frontman James Hetfield sites it as one of the albums most influential to his development as a guitarist, and Metallica covered “Sabbra Cadabra” on their 1998 Garage, Inc. album.
For this seminal track, Iommi tuned his guitar down two whole steps, resulting in (low to high) C F Bb Eb G C. When playing with tunings this low, he used slightly heavier strings (.009p, .010p, .012p, .020w, .032w, .042w).
With the guitar in this tuning, Iommi plays as if he’s in the key of E, with the opening riff based on the E blues scale as played on the top four strings within the first five frets.
30. “Behind the Wall of Sleep” Black Sabbath
Loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s short story of the same name, “Behind the Wall of Sleep” may be closer in sonic terms to the blues-based rock the band played when they were still called Earth, but the lyrics perfectly fit with the gothic imagery that distinguished Black Sabbath as the prototypical heavy metal band.
“Sleep” may not have aged quite as well as most of the other material on Black Sabbath’s debut album, but Iommi’s crisp, distorted power chords still sound more intimidating than much of what passes for metal these days.
29. “Changes” Vol. 4
Inventing heavy metal and singing sympathetic songs about Satan was ballsy, but recording a song like “Changes” after delivering three of the darkest and heaviest albums of all time may have been Black Sabbath’s ballsiest move ever.
Here, Iommi puts aside his guitar to play piano and Mellotron while Ozzy sings about lost love. Geezer Butler’s lyrics may be simplistic and unsophisticated, but paired with the sweet melody and pleasant accompaniment they come across as innocent and earnest.
The song was also a good way to get girlfriends hooked on Black Sabbath before bludgeoning their eardrums with “Supernaut.”
28. "Never Say Die" Never Say Die!
Ironically, Never Say Die! represented the death of the original Black Sabbath lineup, until the band’s reunion in 1997.
This straight-up fast rocker is played in standard tuning, which is unusual, as Iommi had been detuning his guitar at different increments—a whole step, a step and a half, and two whole steps—for years.
The primary intro/verse riff is built around an open-position A5 power chord, with a repeated progression that moves from A5 to B5 to D5 and back to A5. On the pre-chorus, Iommi introduces harmonized lines thirds apart.
On his subsequent outro guitar solo, he combines a melodic approach with chromaticism, relying on licks based on A minor and major pentatonic, along with the A Dorian mode (A B C D E F# G).
27. “Dirty Women” Technical Ecstasy
By 1976, Sabbath were unraveling from within and without.
The members were lost in a haze of booze and drugs, and were feeling the pressure of being viewed as musical dinosaurs as punk and new wave came into fashion.
The band responded by cleaning up its sludgy sound on Technical Ecstasy, with mixed results. However, the record did yield one classic cut with “Dirty Women,” on which Ozzy sings an ode to ladies of the night over a bed of menacing, layered guitars and swirling synths.
“Women” has endured and is currently the only Technical Ecstasy song to be included on the band’s recent reunion tours.
26. “After Forever” Master of Reality
Master of Reality was Black Sabbath’s sludgiest, doomiest album up to that point in their career, in no small part due to the fact that it marked the first time Iommi recorded with his guitar tuned down to C# (a move that would inspire generations of future metal and grunge acts).
And yet, “After Forever” is marked by one of Sabbath’s brightest instrumental hooks, a positively jaunty descending Iommi riff that is paired with some melodic “lead bass” work from Butler.
It’s a standout moment on Master, with the band veering shockingly close to pop territory—or as close to pop as you can get in a song with lyrics like “Would you like to see the pope on the end of a rope.”
25. "Warning" Black Sabbath
The last section of “A Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning” is actually a cover of a song originally released in 1967 by the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, formed by legendary British drummer Dunbar following his departure from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.
“Warning,” the A-side of Retaliation’s debut single, could easily be mistaken for an outtake from Cream’s debut, Fresh Cream, as it displays all of the signature elements of classic late-Sixties blues rock.
Black Sabbath build the original three-plus-minute single into a 10-and-a-half-minute excursion, slowing it down to a heavy, grinding tempo and incorporating an adventurous “free” middle section devoid of strict time, followed by a hard-rocking shuffle.
Between 6:20 and 9:03, Iommi performs an adventurous unaccompanied guitar solo that demonstrates his aggressive signature style. It’s interesting to compare the first section of the Sabbath track with the Dunbar original, as Iommi plays many of the guitar riffs virtually note for note.
24. “Into the Void” Master of Reality
“Into the Void” has earned high praise from many guitarists, most notably Eddie Van Halen.
“That riff is some badass shit,” he said.
“It was beyond anything else I had ever heard before. It was so fuckin’ heavy. I put it right up there with the intro to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The main riff where Iommi chugs on the low E string hits you like a brick wall. Every band on the planet still does that. It is a staple of rock and roll.”
23. “Killing Yourself to Live” Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
This track is, in a sense, two songs in one. The first two and a half minutes are straight-up hard-rock thunder, with Iommi unleashing one hooky riff after another (including one in the chorus that sounds something like a sludged-up take on Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4”).
The band then abruptly shifts gears and goes full-on blues-boogie-doom for the equally riveting second half. Interestingly, there are two versions of “Killing”—a pre–Sabbath Bloody Sabbath take, recorded at a show in 1973, appeared on the 1980 live album Live at Last.
While musically similar, the live version includes sex-and-drug references that were later excised. Another thing it doesn’t feature? The words “Killing yourself to live.” Instead, during each chorus Ozzy merely yells, “Yeah, you’ll die!”
22. "Sleeping Village" Black Sabbath
“Sleeping Village” is the centerpiece to the ambitious trilogy that closes side two of the U.S. release of Black Sabbath, the 14-plus-minute “A Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning.”
The song was also an important element in the band’s most acclaimed early gig, as it was performed live on John Peel’s influential Top Gear radio program in November 1969, three months prior to the release of Sabbath’s debut LP.
The dark, moody acoustic-driven “A Bit of Finger” abruptly shifts into “Sleeping Village,” a series of Jethro Tull–style transitions through different key centers, grooves and melodic signature riffs, arriving at a pair of dueling lead guitars at 2:14.
This track is not as well known as Sabbath’s biggest tunes, but in it one can hear the sounds that influenced grunge acts like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains.
21. “Electric Funeral” Paranoid
Black Sabbath could have easily called this song “Atomic Funeral” for its anti-nuclear war rhetoric, but their mark of true genius was calling it “Electric Funeral,” simply because that name was so much cooler.
Iommi’s use of a wah-wah pedal to accent the riff is equally brilliant, giving his guitar a voice-like quality that makes the relatively simple melody much more interesting.
The middle “rave-up” section may be a throwback to the band’s Sixties roots, but when Ozzy repeatedly chants “electric funeral” in a disembodied monotone, it somehow sounds futuristic.
20. “Snowblind” Vol. 4
Vol. 4 is generally considered Black Sabbath’s “cocaine” record, and no track better backs up this notion than “Snowblind,” a virtual ode to the white stuff.
Ozzy even whispers “cocaine” between stanzas in the first verse. For Vol. 4, Black Sabbath relocated from gloomy London to sunny L.A. and were expanding not only their minds but also their sonic and stylistic palettes.
Even so, “Snowblind” is for the most part a lean and concise midtempo rocker boasting a captivating arrangement and a pile-driving riff. Credit here goes to Iommi and perhaps, as the band specified in the album’s liner notes, “the great COKE-cola company of Los Angeles.”
19. “Cornucopia” Vol. 4
The murky, slow-crawling riff that opens “Cornucopia” stands as one of the best and heaviest moments on the largely experimental Vol. 4.
But it’s just one of many enticing components in the song. The oddly accented verse section, for one, reportedly flummoxed Bill Ward to such ends during recording that he feared he would be fired from the band. It’s an example of Sabbath pushing out on the boundaries of their music to such an extent that the members themselves were struggling to keep up.
As Ozzy wails midway through “Cornucopia,” “People say I’m heavy/They don’t know what I hide.”
18. “Sweet Leaf” Master of Reality
In addition to inventing heavy metal and thrash, Black Sabbath can also be credited with creating—or at least perfecting—the genre known as stoner rock.
This unabashed love song to marijuana, complete with Ozzy imploring listeners “come on now, try it out,” boasts a massive riff that is as thick and dark as the resin at the bottom of Trey Anastasio’s bong.
This song may be the best argument in favor of legalizing marijuana, but, then again, the creative output of James Franco and Seth Rogen suggests otherwise.
17. “Children of the Grave” Master of Reality
With a driving groove that gallops like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, “Children of the Grave” inspired countless metal bands, including Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Metallica.
Iommi tuned his guitar down one and a half steps to C#, making the already heavy riff sound even heavier and blazing a path for downtuned metal nearly two decades before the great unwashed masses caught on to this secret.
In his 2010 autobiography, Osbourne called it “the most kickass song we ever recorded,” a sentiment supported by the numerous times Ozzy performed the song during his solo career.
16. “The Writ” Sabotage
Perhaps one of the most underrated tunes from one of Black Sabbath’s most underrated albums, “The Writ” was inspired by the numerous lawsuits they faced at the time, particularly those filed by their former manager.
Butler’s lyrics are scathing and direct, but Osbourne’s emotional performance really drives the message home.
The slow-boiling groove of the song’s first half— particularly Butler’s trippy, percolating bass line—is truly menacing, but after about five minutes the mood shifts as Osbourne sings “everything is gonna work out fine” in a child-like voice.
15. “Wheels of Confusion” Vol. 4
This eight-plus-minute opening cut makes clear from the outset that Black Sabbath have shifted gears from Paranoid and Master of Reality.
The multi-sectioned song begins as if the listener has been dropped into the middle of an in-progress blues jam, with Iommi wringing anguished, squiggly notes from his Gibson SG.
From there it spirals through a maze of tempos and textures, wrapping with an extended double-time outro (sometimes titled separately as “The Straightener”) that finds Iommi unleashing some of his most fiery lead lines. It’s a roller-coaster ride of a song that showcases a looser, more adventurous Black Sabbath and portends the experimental music to follow on the rest of the album.
14. “Tomorrow’s Dream” Vol. 4
Though it was unsuccessful when issued as a single, “Tomorrow’s Dream” is an impressively direct and focused rocker and one of the few straightforward tracks on Vol. 4.
There are no double-time sections, no extended jams, no song-within-a-song transitions. Rather, “Dream” locks into a tight groove based around an Iommi E-minor riff and more or less rides it straight through to the song’s end.
And though the chorus section changes things up with some dreamy triad arpeggios—a move that produces the song’s biggest hook—Sabbath includes it only once in the entire song.
13. "Wicked World" Black Sabbath
Included on the U.S. release of the band’s eponymous 1970 album, “Wicked World” is a testimony to the disparate influences that contributed to the Black Sabbath sound.
The song begins as a fast swing—a rhythmic feel not often associated with metal—but the strains of progressive blues/rock innovations forged by Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson and Jethro Tull are also evident.
An arrangement technique exploited by all of these bands is the accent on unison guitar/bass figures, and “Wicked World” is constructed from a steady progression of powerful riffs played in sync by Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler. A testament to Iommi’s creative genius is the interlude section that enters at 2:15, with unusual chordal arpeggiations doubled by the same track played backward and followed by a virtuoso unaccompanied Iommi guitar solo.
12. “N.I.B.” Black Sabbath
Named after Ward’s “nibby” goatee beard (and not “Nativity in Black,” as many assumed), “N.I.B.” is a rare instance in Black Sabbath’s recorded catalog where the spotlight shines on Geezer Butler’s bass playing.
In fact, the song starts with a solo by Butler, who plays his bass through a wah pedal before settling into the main melodic theme, which he also wrote.
(The solo is credited as “Bassically” on the U.S. release of Black Sabbath, but it’s part of “N.I.B. on the U.K. version.) Iommi’s tasteful, melodic solo is another highlight of this tune about Satan romancing a woman.
11. “Planet Caravan” Paranoid
“Planet Caravan” is one of Sabbath’s most stylistically divergent cuts, built around a two-chord acoustic guitar figure, melodic bass work, congas and vocals that were filtered through a Leslie speaker for maximum warble.
The song’s laidback tempo and spacey vibe are so far removed from the traditional Sabbath sound that Iommi says, “It was almost…‘Um, should we do this?’ ”
Pantera grappled with a similar question when they decided to cover the tune on 1994’s Far Beyond Driven, leading Phil Anselmo to pen a perfunctory defense in the album’s liner notes: “It’s a tripped out song. We think you’ll dig it. If you don’t, don’t fucking listen to it.”
10. "War Pigs" Paranoid
The opening track from the band’s 1970 sophomore release, “War Pigs” evokes all of the dark and dramatic elements that define Sabbath’s greatest work.
At this early stage, Tony Iommi was not yet detuning his guitar, but even at standard tuning, his mammoth tone is truly demonic. The track begins at a dirge-like tempo, with overdubbed police sirens foretelling the terror to follow.
At 0:54, the song shifts to a faster tempo, with unison guitar/bass figures played in call-and-response fashion with Ozzy’s vocals. Iommi mirrored his rhythm parts with double tracking, but at 3:45 there are suddenly three soloing guitars, each venturing in a different direction.
His soloing style is earmarked by blazingly fast hammer-ons and pull-offs, as well as wide string bends, executed on his custom set of super-light strings (.008, .008, .011, .018w, .024 and .032).
A significant ingredient in the dark vibe of Iommi’s solos is the incorporation of minor modes. In his outro solo to “War Pigs,” he utilized the E Aeolian mode (E F# G A B C D) along with E minor pentatonic (E G A B D).
9. “The Wizard” Black Sabbath
Depending on which member of Sabbath you ask, “The Wizard” is either about a drug dealer or Gandalf from Lord of the Rings.
Either way, it doesn’t much matter, as the real star of the show is the uncharacteristic harmonica part that anchors the song, which is only rendered more striking by the fact that it was played by none other than the Ozzman himself.
Add in Bill Ward’s tumbling drums and Butler and Iommi’s open and airy riffing, which functions almost solely as an accent to Ozzy’s vocal and mouth harp, and you have one of the more unusual and, dare we say it, fun tracks in the Sabbath catalog.
8. “Under the Sun/Everyday Comes and Goes” Vol. 4
Ozzy begins Vol. 4“lost in the wheels of confusion,” but he ends the record with this treatise on self-reliance.
Whether or not you subscribe to the idea of Oz as self-help guru, “Under the Sun” is wholly convincing with its chugging riff and exotic guitar runs, not to mention its crushing rhythm.
The “Everyday Comes and Goes” section ups the tempo and gives Osbourne an opportunity to unlease his anxiety and paranoia, but Sabbath ends the song and, by extension, the album, on a confident note: “Just live your life,” Ozzy declares, “and leave them all behind.”
7. “Supernaut” Vol. 4
Although “Supernaut” apparently was written primarily as a vehicle for Bill Ward’s concert drum solos, it has endured over the decades for its truly mammoth guitar riff.
The song is simultaneously heavy and funky, driven in parts by a sizzling hi-hat pattern uncannily similar to the intro of Isaac Hayes’ “Theme from Shaft.” Iommi’s jittery guitar solo was probably the result of the massive amounts of cocaine the band ingested during the Vol. 4 sessions, suggesting a little Super Fly influence as well.
6. “Iron Man” Paranoid
When Ozzy Osbourne first heard Tony Iommi’s “Iron Man” riff, he allegedly commented that it sounded like a huge, iron man walking around.
Butler liked that image, so he based his lyrics on that idea as well as the Ted Hughes children’s novel The Iron Man, published in 1968.
“The title was from a comic book, Iron Man,” Butler told author Martin Popoff in Black Sabbath—Doom Let Loose.
“I was into English comics, but not really American comics. It was about this entity that turns into metal and is incapacitated at the end, just lying there. He can’t talk at the end of it, but he has this knowledge that can save the earth from catastrophe.”
5. “Paranoid” Paranoid
Speaking to Guitar World in 2004, Geezer Butler described Black Sabbath’s most famous song as “an afterthought.”
And what a glorious afterthought it is: a two-minute-and-53-second blast of heavy-rock angst, wrapped up in a hard-charging Iommi riff that seemingly anticipates everything from late-Seventies punk to early Eighties speed metal.
Today, “Paranoid” stands as one of the most recognizable and celebrated songs in rock and roll, having been performed everywhere from Buckingham Palace (by Osbourne and Iommi in 2002) to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary celebration at Madison Square Garden, where Ozzy joined Metallica onstage for a rendition.
And while, as Butler stated, the band members themselves initially didn’t think much of the song, Sabbath’s British record label certainly did. “Paranoid” was not only released as a single, rising to Number Four in the U.K., but the ensuing album, originally slated to be called War Pigs, was retitled at the last minute to capitalize on the song’s chart success. Oddly, however, the cover art of a helmeted man brandishing a sword and shield—a “war pig” come to life—was left untouched.
4. “Hole in the Sky” Sabotage
Black Sabbath may be best known for their heavy riffs, but they could also swing as hard as they pummeled. Perhaps the best example of this is “Hole in the Sky,” which strikes like a 20-ton wrecking ball.
Black Sabbath were seven years and six albums into their career by this point, and while outside forces threatened to tear them apart, the band, at least in a musical sense, was tighter than ever. Iommi’s guitar tracks marched in lock step with Butler’s bass lines and Bill Ward’s swaying drum cadences, and his multitracked rhythm layers sounded like an advancing army of guitars, resulting in some of the biggest and most powerful tones he ever laid down on tape.
Butler’s lyrics are unapologetically drug-inspired, written from the perspective of a pessimist, with psychedelic visions not far removed from those of Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan books. Although the lyrics seem like cryptic nonsense, Ozzy sells them with a commanding performance that convinces listeners that he’s truly experienced the magnificent visions he’s describing.
3. “Symptom of the Universe” Sabotage
The first four minutes of “Symptom of the Universe”—not including the 49-second acoustic guitar instrumental intro titled “Don’t Start (Too Late)” often considered part of “Symptom”—are the true beginnings of thrash metal.
Led Zeppelin may have previously featured a similar chugging low-E eighth-note guitar riff on “Communication Breakdown,” but “Symptom” had all the quintessential musical elements of thrash, including flatted-fifth dissonance, half-step intervals, manic drumming and a vocal performance on which Osbourne sounds like a demon possessed.
After those first four intense minutes, Sabbath shifts into an acoustic hippie-rock jam that, somehow, perfectly complements the previous onslaught. The contrast between the two segments makes the heavy section sound even heavier, a clever arrangement trick that countless thrash bands have used to great effect ever since.
Four short years after this song came out in 1975, Diamond Head recorded “Am I Evil?” which they admitted was inspired by “Symptom.” Four years after that, Metallica recorded an entire album, Kill ’Em All, that heavily borrowed from several elements of “Symptom,” including the main riff, the breakdown near the two-minute mark and the transition before Iommi’s fiery solo.
Tony Iommi once told Guitar World that “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” came together in a “spooky old dungeon” in a castle in Wales, and it certainly sounds like it.
The title track and opening cut from Sabbath’s fifth studio album is one of the band’s most chilling compositions, a murky, musty doom-metal workout with lyrics that seemingly depict a slow descent into madness—and which Ozzy delivers in a banshee shriek.
“Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” is also a study in extremes, with verses constructed from a lumbering and lurching Iommi riff juxtaposed against a chorus of smooth, oddly jazzy noodling. But it’s all just a warm-up for the song’s centerpiece, the crushing “Where can you run to?” midsection, which is built around perhaps the most devastatingly heavy riff in the Sabbath catalog, if not in all of heaven, hell and heavy metal itself.
1. “Black Sabbath” Black Sabbath
With its dissonant diabolus in musica tritone guitar riff, haunting slow-tempo mood and chilling lyrics about Satan, “Black Sabbath” is ground zero for the genre that became known as heavy metal.
While numerous other heavy metal contenders came out before it, “Black Sabbath” transcended the distorted blues guitar riffs and love-obsessed lyrics of its predecessors and introduced a new dark, menacing and evil sound.
“We were in the rehearsal room one day, and I came up with this riff,” Iommi recalls about the song, which was written in the summer of 1969. “We all went, ‘Bloody hell! That’s really different!’ That riff pointed us in the direction that we thought we should be going. We wanted to do our own stuff, and this was a direction that no one had tried before.”
The 1963 Italian horror film Black Sabbath starring Boris Karloff, which was showing at a theater across the street from the band’s rehearsal space, inspired the song’s title. This was also one of the few instances during Black Sabbath’s initial 1968–1979 chapter where Ozzy Osbourne wrote the lyrics instead of Butler.
Still, Osbourne was inspired by Butler’s account of seeing a dark, shadowy figure standing at the foot of his bed one night, a short time after a book of black magic that Osbourne had given to him mysteriously disappeared.
When the band members adopted Black Sabbath as their name in August 1969, they totally devoted themselves to creating the musical equivalent of a horror movie and became the founding forefathers of one of rock’s most enduring subgenres.
Photo: Chris Walter/WireImage/Getty Images; page 60, March 2015 Guitar World
In recognition of the 8th annual international celebration of Record Store Day, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) has announced the Blu-ray debuts of three classic music-themed films—<em>Singles, Empire Records</em> and <em>Detroit Rock City.</em>
In recognition of the eighth annual international celebration of Record Store Day, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) has announced the Blu-ray debuts of three classic music-themed films—Singles, Empire Records and Detroit Rock City.
Here's your chance to win all three films on Blu-ray. Just fill out the entry form below!
Also know that you can own all three films on Blu-ray April 7 or via Digital HD now.
For more information about each film, follow along on Facebook:
Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of a new playthrough video by Shattered Sun.
The song, "Hope Within Hatred," is the title track from the band's new album, which will be released April 21 by Victory Records.
The native Texans are currently heating up crowds on the “Dark Roots of Thrash Tour II” with Testament and Exodus. You can see the tour's current dates below the video.
Shattered Sun features Marcos Leal (vocals), Daniel Trejo (guitar), Jessie Santos (guitar), Joseph Guajardo (bass), Robert Garza (drums) and Henry Garza (keys/samples).
TESTAMENT, EXODUS and SHATTERED SUN “Dark Roots of Thrash II” Dates:
4/08/15 House Of Blues – Dallas, TX
4/10/15 Pop’s – Sauget, IL
4/11/15 Mojoes – Joliet, IL
4/12/15 Harpo’s – Detroit, MI
4/13/15 The Intersection – Grand Rapids, MI
4/15/15 Phoenix Concert Theatre – Toronto, ON – CANADA
4/16/15 Rapids Theatre – Niagara Falls, NY
4/17/15 Starland Ballroom – Sayreville, NJ
4/18/15 The Palladium – Worcester, MA, New England Metal & Hardcore Festival
4/19/15 The Paramount – Huntington, NY
4/21/15 Mercury Ballroom – Louisville, KY
4/22/15 Cannery Ballroom – Nashville, TN
4/23/15 Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
For your listening delight, here are Sarah and Charlotte of The Command Sisters performing the killer solo section from The Eagles’ “Hotel California.”
Sarah, our solo-nailing guitarist on the left, is a mere 16-years-old.
She and her sister Charlotte perform a boatload of wonderful originals too, chock full of gorgeous harmonies and some masterful playing.
In 2014 Charlotte and Sarah of The Command Sisters were winners of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and asked to perform at NAMM in Los Angeles and at the She Rocks Awards (honoring women in music such as Sheila E and Janie Hendrix).
They were also seen at the Sundance Film Fest 2014 and were honored to be chosen to perform for Jowi Taylor's 6String Nation. Summer festivals included Boots & Hearts, Cavendish and Blueberry, and performed at the Shanghai International Arts Festival in October.
These videos and audio files are bonus content related to the May 2015 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the Guitar World Online Store.
When Joan Jett recorded the title track to I Love Rock ’N’ Roll, which was a cover version of a song originally released in 1975 by the British band the Arrows, little did she know that this pagan battle cry would in time earn her status as one of rock’s most iconic figures.
Upon its release in 1982, the song stayed at Number One on the Top 100 chart for seven weeks and has since been named Billboard’s 56th greatest rock song of all time.
Now, more than three decades later, Joan is still rockin’ hard, and rock and roll is still alive and well. In this extended edition of In Deep, we’ll examine the roots of true rock and roll guitar and its essential, foundational elements that were chiseled into stone by the style’s founding father—the immortal Chuck Berry—the man whose playing would inspire and inform many of the world’s greatest rock bands, from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to AC/DC.
One of the small handful of records regarded as the “first” rock and roll song is “Rocket 88,” recorded in March 1951 by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats. Brenston was actually a horn player and singer in guitarist/keyboardist Ike Turner’s band, the Kings of Rhythm, and he is credited with writing “Rocket 88.”
roduced by Sam Phillips in Memphis and released on the Chess label, “Rocket 88” went straight to Number One and it’s incredible success enabled Phillips to launch Sun Records.
In the following video, legendary Yes guitarist Steve Howe shows you how to play the key riffs to several Yes classics, including "Starship Trooper,""Siberian Khatru" and "Mood for a Day."
Howe recently stopped by Guitar World HQ to answer readers' questions.
To find out more about his vintage guitar collection, the first song he learned to play and much more, head here.
Yes released their latest studio album, Heaven & Earth, in 2014.
Vox has announced its new AC10C1, a 10-watt tube amplifier that joins Vox's flagship lineup of tube amps, the Custom Series.
More portable than the AC15 and more powerful than the AC4, the AC10C1 provides an array of classic Vox tones and comes equipped with studio-quality reverb and a master volume.
The AC10 was one of the first amplifiers to bear the Vox name and was available only for a short period of time in the early 1960s. Long adored for its ability to achieve rich, articulate tube tone at very manageable volumes, the AC10 has become a highly coveted piece of Vox history since its discontinuation in 1965.
Now in 2015, Vox reintroduces the AC10C1 to provide players with an easy way to enjoy the legendary VOX top boost sound. The AC10C1 comes equipped with Gain, Bass, Treble, Reverb and Master Volume for sound-shaping flexibility to provide the classic Vox tone anywhere.
“This is the perfect amp whether recording, playing live or just messing around at home,” says Brian Piccolo, brand manager for Vox. “This is without a doubt one of the best-sounding amplifiers we've ever produced!”
For more information, visit voxamps.com/ac10c1 and watch the new video below.
AC10C1 Specifications
• Output Power: 10W RMS • Controls: GAIN, BASS, TREBLE, REVERB, VOLUME • Tube Compliment: 2 × 12AX7, 2 × EL84 • Speaker: 1 × 10-inch Celestion VX10 • Input Jack: INPUT jack • Output Jack: EXTERNAL SPEAKER jack • Dimensions (W x D x H): 520 x 210 x 410 mm/20.47”x8.27”x16.14” • Weight: 12.3kg/27.12 lbs
I realize you’re eager to dig out some tools and learn how to repair your faulty nut. Me too. We’re almost there, but, just for a moment, let’s take it down a notch. Think baby steps.
Those nasty string buzzes and rattles can also be caused by nut slots that are cut too low. In extreme cases, the string(s) might actually be sitting on the first fret; or often a string just has to be close enough to the fret to make contact when it’s struck open.
Your gut reaction might be to grab a hammer to beat the offending top nut to death and glue a new one in there. But wait. Just like a nut with worn or over-wide slots, you can repair perilously low slots with super glue.
Again, as Dick Van Dyke would say, diagnosis is everything. Don’t approach your guitar with any tool until you know A) what the problem is, and B) what you need to do to fix it.
Last time I mentioned that you should always make sure that a guitar is tuned up to pitch — or to any alternate tuning that it may be set up to handle. If the tuning isn’t right, it can affect the neck.
If the slots on the nut appear too low — you’re getting the buzzes and rattles when you play open strings, etc. — it could be that the neck needs to be adjusted. If the guitar is tuned too low, the neck won’t have enough tension on it and could be over-bent.
In layman’s terms, this means the middle of the fingerboard is higher than the headstock and body end. This can cause the strings to buzz over the first five or so frets.
To check if your guitar’s neck needs to be adjusted, you have to eyeball the neck itself. Hold the guitar by the body (See pic 1 in the photo gallery below), never the headstock. If you hold the guitar by the headstock (See pic 2), you’ll put pressure on the neck, which, although slight, will give you a false reading of the neck’s "straightness."
Now look down the bass side of the fingerboard (See pic 3). Try closing one eye. You’ll look like Popeye, but it will help you focus. You should be able to tell if the neck is straight, dipped or over-bent. Repeat the process with the treble side of the fingerboard.
Armed with this information, you can decide whether the neck needs to be adjusted. Speaking of which ...
Next time, I’ll show you how to finish adjusting the neck and begin the process of repairing the slots in a faulty top nut. For the latter job, you’ll need super glue, which doesn’t cost much, and nut files. You can buy a set of nut files of varying gauges (approx $140) from the likes of Stewart-MacDonald; or buy a single file (about $25) if you’re tackling a particular slot.
I would recommend investing in a full set. That way you’ll be able to build a top nut from scratch one day ... one of the most satisfying guitar maintenance jobs there is.
That’s something I’ll talk you through very soon. See you next time.
Got a gear-related question for Ed Mitchell? Add a comment below or on our Facebook page.
In this video, which was posted by Ibanez earlier this year, Paul Gilbert demos his latest signature guitar, the Ibanez FRM150.
"When I pick up my Ibanez Fireman, I know that everything is going to be all right," says the Mr. Big guitarist.
"It is truly a pleasure to be able to express my anger, explore my melodic imagination and simply play good rock and roll, with such a world-class instrument."
From the company:
Building on the classic foundation of his Fireman models before it, the FRM150 has some new features, including DiMarzio Air Classic humbucking pickups and a new black pick guard.
For more about the FRM150 and all of Ibanez's Paul Gilbert signature models, head here.
While Steve Howe is perhaps best known for his electric and acoustic contributions to the progressive rock band Yes, the über-eclectic axman has also played key roles in bands like Asia and GTR and released well over a dozen solo albums.
When Howe joined Yes in 1970, his classical influences, jazz-tinged electric guitar lines and general “experimental” musical nature had a profound impact on the band’s art-rock sound, resulting in a string of classic Seventies-era progressive rock records like The Yes Album, Fragile and Close to the Edge.
Furthermore, live Yes photos from this era show Howe wielding “unlikely” rock instruments, including a Gibson ES-175 electric and innumerable steel-, nylon- and 12-string acoustics. In doing so, he made many guitarists reconsider their own perceptions of what makes an “acceptable” rock ax.
While Yes has endured many lineup changes since then, the band—with Howe in the fold—is still active today and released their latest album, Heaven & Earth in 2014.
Let’s take a closer look at Howe’s acoustic output with this timeless prog act. Howe uses a pick-and-fingers (“hybrid- picking”) technique on “Clap” (The Yes Album, 1970), an acoustic solo piece that informs FIGURE 1.
Grip your pick between your thumb and index finger and pluck with your middle (m) and ring (a) fingers. Get the D/A pattern together first—downstroke the lowest note, pluck the highest with your ring finger (a) and then downstroke the chord’s middle notes—and pick/pluck the remaining chords in a similar manner. This figure’s last four bars feature E7 chord fragments shifted up the neck, played with a “banjo-rolling” technique and punctuated with a strummed E6/9 chord.
Howe’s intro to “Roundabout” (Fragile, 1971), not unlike FIGURE 2, is also performed using hybrid picking and is played in “free time” (with no discernible pulse) for expressive effect. After sounding the signature harmonics, “pre-fret” the third, fifth and seventh frets along the high E string, and pull off.
For Am, G and D/F#, pick the bass notes and pluck the B and G strings with your ring and middle fingers, respectively. Now let’s put the pick aside and focus on Howe’s fingerstyle chops. “Mood for a Day” (Fragile, 1971) is a flamenco-influenced (with Celtic overtones) nylon-string solo piece featuring counterpoint moves—upper-register scalar lines played over shifting bass notes—like those in FIGURE 3a.
Pluck each bass note with your thumb (p), using your middle and index fingers to sound notes on the top three strings. FIGURE 3b is reminiscent of another recurring theme in the piece and requires all four fret-hand fingers for high-E string pull- offs while low open strings sound beneath.
Our final examples are inspired by the song “Masquerade” (Union, 1991) and fall in open position, decorating a D chord.
Fret Dsus2 in FIGURE 4a with your index and middle fingers on the G and B strings, respectively; this frees up your other fingers to add hammer-on/ pull-off ornaments and comfortably grab later chords. FIGURE 4b embellishes the open D with sixths intervals (two notes, six scale steps apart), played with hammer-ons and pull-offs and plucked with the index (i) and ring (a) fingers, throughout.
Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll, created by and starring Denis Leary, will air on FX 10 p.m. Thursdays e/p, beginning July 16.
Leary stars as Johnny Rock, lead singer of a legendary early Nineties New York City band called the Heathens.
Known for living up to their name, the band partied so long and so hard that even the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards thought they needed to slow things down. The Heathens were on the brink of becoming famous for their kick-ass live shows and the release of their highly anticipated first album—until they broke up.
On the same day the album dropped ...
... because lead guitarist Flash (John Corbett) found Johnny in bed with his wife. So the band became legendary for all the wrong reasons—like self-destructing sooner than any group in rock and roll history.
Twenty-five years later, the only thing bigger than Johnny’s ego is his prostate. The drugs he really needs now aren't cocaine and marijuana—they're Crestor, Cymbalta and Cialis.
He's out of work, out of money and out of show business options. That's when a massively talented young singer named Gigi (Elizabeth Gillies) shows up—with a burning desire to be famous, a throwback appreciation for the Heathens' only album, and a stack of cash big enough to bring the whole band back into the studio.
Only this time, she's the lead singer and Johnny's just a behind the scenes songwriter. John Ales, Bobby Kelly and Elaine Hendrix round out the rest of this dysfunctional rock and roll family. The race is on to see who gets famous first—and for what reason.
And now, to explain the importance and focus of the music elements of the show, we turn the mic over to Leary:
"In the studio, we had the benefit of great musicians like Greg Dulli and Dave Rosser from the Afghan Whigs, and legendary New York guitarist Adam Roth from the Jim Carroll Band and the Del Fuegos. Not to mention Alec Morton from Raging Slab on bass, famed keyboard artist Tommy Mandell and ex-Ozzy Osbourne drummer Charly Roth.
"We've all known each other for decades and have a great studio shorthand, and Adam and Charly Roth were on-set as tech advisers. We aimed from the get-go to capture and use live vocals from the filmed performances, as well as live instrumentation in many of the scenes. I think the audience will recognize that almost every time Liz Gillies and I sing on the show, we are singing live—right in the room.
"I think film and TV audiences are savvy enough to know what's real and what's not when it comes to rock and roll. We also have a secret ingredient that no other music show has: comedy. There are a lot of really funny musical moments on this show—like our bass player Rehab's rock opera, 'An Gorta Mor'—a song cycle consisting of 29 songs about the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. It sends up the pretentious side of rock n' roll. He dreams of bringing it to Broadway like so many rock artists before him have—from Sting to Paul Simon to Green Day. The only thing missing from Rehab's plan? Talent."
"My character, Johnny Rock, writes a song combining the style points of Radiohead and Morrissey. I'm pretty sure its the first time those two names have been included in the same song. Liz Gillies is obviously a massively talented singer, John Corbett sings and plays guitar, and Elaine Hendrix has a gorgeous voice. Those were really non-negotiable requirements for all three of those roles. I do my usual combination of Iggy Pop and Axl Rose—I'm more of a screamer, with a limited crooning range. To their credit, Bobby Kelly actually learned how to play the drums, and John Ales got pretty good on the bass before we started shooting."
"The other thing that is essential on this show was my working relationship with Chris Phillips. We go back 35 years, when we started writing funny songs for the Emerson Comedy Workshop, at Emerson College in Boston. Chris co-wrote 'The Asshole Song' with me—and many others. Having him producing in the studio and co-writing some of the songs with me—as well as penning 'An Gorta Mor' all by himself—I could not have done this show without him."
Leary serves as executive producer along with Jim Serpico. Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll is produced by FX Productions and Fox 21 Television Studios.
Sample the sound of the Heathens. Check out the main title sequence for Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll right here:
Of the four Beatles, George Harrison brought to the group an assortment of electric and acoustic guitar approaches, flavors influenced by everyone from Chet Atkins and Carl Perkins to the Byrds and Bob Dylan.
Harrison’s pioneering use of the Rickenbacker 360/12 electric 12-string on songs like “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Ticket to Ride” added another dimension to the sound of Beatles music and left an imprint on Sixties-era rock: soon after, the Byrds, Beach Boys and Rolling Stones began to use 12-string guitars.
In the mid-Sixties, influenced by Indian culture and Hinduism, Harrison introduced the sitar and exotic scales into the Beatles’ catalog on songs like “Norwegian Wood” and “Within You Without You.” In essence, he played a huge role in stylizing the Beatles’ music.
But Harrison also contributed a wealth of guitar-centric hits to the band’s repertoire, many of which center around an acoustic guitar (his Gibson J-200). In this lesson, we’ll look at musical examples inspired by Harrison-penned Beatles classics like “Here Comes the Sun,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Something.”
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” revolves around strummed versions of the chords in FIGURE 1. Much of this song’s emotional power stems from its mostly chromatic (notes one half step apart, the distance of one fret) descending A–G–F#–F bass line. The song also features a famous, inspired solo by Eric Clapton.
Chromatic movement is a characteristic common to many of Harrison’s popular Beatles tracks, among them, “Something,” which informs FIGURE 2. While the original Abbey Road version is played on electric guitars (in the key of C), the original demo (key of A) on The Beatles: Anthology 3 is a solo performance by Harrison, who plays a hollowbody electric, warranting its relevance here. Use the picking pattern in bar 1 for the A, Amaj7 and A7 chords, and note the descending chromatic line on the G string. Similar chromaticism is also encountered in a later F#m–F#m(maj7)–F#m7 change.
Hands down, the most popular acoustic guitar “picking” riff in the Beatles oeuvre is the passage that opens Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun,” which gets its sparkling quality from the fact that it is capoed at the seventh fret. FIGURE 3 is a passage inspired by the song’s main riff, containing mostly D, A7 and G chords (use alternate picking throughout, beginning with a downstroke). FIGURE 4 features a variation on the chords used in the song’s bridge.
My last column generated so many replies that I’ve decided to take a brief step away from nut problems to delve deeper into the question of adjusting the straightness of your guitar’s neck.
This seems to be a hot topic for many of you. It all ties into the nut-repair thing, anyway.
Here’s the thing: If your guitar’s neck is not adjusted correctly, then all your hard work repairing the top nut slots, not to mention setting the action and intonation, will be a big old waste of time.
On old-school Fender guitars, there’s a crosshead bolt at the body end of the neck (See photo 2) that's dealt with using a screwdriver. You generally have to remove the neck to access this bolt (email me if you need advice on this: dragonskin52@hotmail.com). Gibson guitars have a nut that is adjusted with a box wrench. Most modern guitars have an Allen bolt that is adjusted with, you guessed it, an Allen wrench or key.
When you’re adjusting the truss rod, make sure the Allen key is seated properly in the truss rod nut; push it all the way in (See photo 3). If you don’t, the nut can be damaged when you try to turn the wrench. The same is true of Fender- and Gibson-style truss rod bolts. They can be easily chewed up by careless tools (in both senses of that term).
Always treat the truss rod with respect. If you turn it too far, it can snap, and that’s a damn expensive repair. You will cry. So always make small adjustments and constantly check your progress. If it feels too tight to adjust, don’t force it. Contact me and I’ll tell you what to do next.
If, when you’ve eyeballed the neck, it’s "over-bent" (higher in the middle than it is at the headstock and body ends) adjust the truss rod key, wrench or screwdriver, anti-clockwise. If the neck is "dipped" (lower in the middle of the fingerboard than at either end), increase the tension on the truss rod by using your tool to adjust it clockwise.
The idea is to get the neck straight as opposed to a banana shape. That doesn’t always mean dead straight. Guitars often play at their best with some relief — a slight dip. So you might have to experiment a bit to find the sweet spot where the action feels just right. I’ll go into this in a bit more depth when we get into adjusting the action (or string height) in a future blog post.
Again, in the meantime, email me if you need advice. Next time, I’ll get back on track with the nut job. I’ll show you how to select the right superglue to use for the repair of those pesky top nut slots. Bet you didn’t realize that there are different "viscosities" (try saying that when you’re drunk) of superglue.
Haunting and immediately memorable, Goffin’s luxurious vocal delivery is set in an equally luxurious location for “I’m Not Rich But I’m Not Poor.”
The song, co-written with her dad, Gerry Goffin, appears on her recent EP release Appleonfire, a collection of songs inspired by his passing.
Goffin shares, “I’m Not Rich But I’m Not Poor’ hung around quietly until I recently considered ‘what else shall I record on this EP?’ Gerry told me the title was a phrase his father used to say to him,” she says of the co-write with her dad, “which meant however humble your financial resources were, it wasn’t a reflection your quality of character.”
Within the song and video, you can feel her sense loss right to the bone. I actually felt a tear coming on. Watch now:
“For years I’ve been hearing the phrase, ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,’” says Goffin. Essentially bound by DNA to be a singer/songwriter, Louise is the first-born daughter of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, two of the most successful songwriters in American history (with more than 50 hit songs to their credit), so she was pretty much destined to hear the “apple/tree” comment from the instant she began playing piano at age six.
Hence the “apple” portion of the name of her new EP, Appleonfire (Majority Of One Records, February 3, 2015). “The choice of the word ‘fire’ is in reference to passing the torch, the creative fire, so to speak,” Louise notes, “which for me is an existential need to create in order to feel meaning in this world, and the drive and purpose that comes with honoring that need.”
With Appleonfire Louise invites the world to hear touchstones of her father’s lyrical inspiration, as she includes four songs for which he wrote the lyrics, including one song that she wrote with him, and two that she co-wrote with others. “His instrument was a spiral notebook” says Louise of her dad, “and he played it masterfully with his brilliant mind and an ordinary pen.”
Appleonfire, in fact, got its genesis following Gerry Goffin’s June 19, 2014, passing—even before her recent full length album, Songs From The Mine was released. “Two days after his passing, I performed a song he wrote called ‘It’s Not The Spotlight.’ Singing his lyrics made me feel like he was still with me. When I saw Barry Goldberg, who wrote ‘It’s Not The Spotlight’ with Gerry, I told him I had just played it live,” Louise recounts. “His response was, ‘We should cut it.’ A few weeks later this EP began in a Santa Monica studio as a celebration to Gerry’s spirit.
Appleonfire EP is ripe with six mid-tempo songs that harken back to the deep, ’70s California-rock well of her youth, including four with lyrics by Gerry Goffin himself.
Four songs are produced by Louise and Barry Goldberg, “It’s Not The Spotlight”; the Goffin/King nugget “Take A Giant Step” rounded out by two new Louise tunes, “Higher Than Low” and “Everything You Need’, both co- written at Steelbridge Songfest last June, the week before Gerry’s passing.
Louise produced two additional songs for the EP, a long-lost Goffin/King tune called “If I’m Late”; and “I’m Not Rich But I’m Not Poor,” a heretofore unrecorded gem written by father and daughter.
A guest list of musicians appearing on the record are Jim Keltner, Bob Glaub, Val McCallum, Barry Goldberg, Wally Ingram, Stevie Blacke, Billy Harvey, Butch Norton, Johnny Lee Schell, Joseph Arthur and Jakob Dylan. Jackson Browne generously contributed a day of studio time which, serendipitously, was available the one day the tracking band musicians’ schedules aligned.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in LA’s Laurel Canyon during its music halcyon days, Louise Goffin released her first album at the age of 19. Along the way she’s released six well-received albums of her own; she produced a Grammy-nominated record for Carole King, “A Holiday Carole” and some who have recorded her songs include Paul Thorn, Shawn Colvin, Terry Reid, John Parish, Lindsay Lohan and Carole King herself.
For many who grew up with "The Gilmore Girls" hit TV show, Louise’s voice can be heard with Carole’s on the duet in the opening theme “Where You Lead”. Tony Award winner Jessie Mueller and the cast of "Beautiful - The Carole King Musical”, recorded a seasonal song Louise wrote with Guy Chambers, “New Year’s Day” for Carols For A Cure, originally written for "A Holiday Carole." A multi-instrumentalist, Louise has also toured the world on electric guitar in Tears For Fears, and played banjo with Bryan Ferry.
She's got a few tour dates coming up...see her live!
APRIL 11 Black Crystal Cafe | Ann Arbor, MI
APRIL 13-15 Chicago (school of rock) | Chicago, IL
APRIL 15 Athenaeum Theatre | Chicago, IL
APRIL 17 Union County Performing Arts Center | Rahway, NJ
APRIL 18 Amazing Things Arts Center | Framingham, MA
APRIL 19 The Kate - Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center | Saybrook, CT
APRIL 26 McCabes | Santa Monica, CA
