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Review: Dunlop Fuzz Face Mini Pedals

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These videos are bonus content related to the January 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now, or in our online store.

Of all the early fuzz-pedal circuits, the Fuzz Face is by far the sweetest sounding, with smooth and even sustain, harmonic overtones that complement the base note and chords (instead of fighting them), and compressed attack that provides violin-like tones.

This has made the Fuzz Face the choice of discriminating tone connoisseurs throughout the ages, including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Johnson, Joe Bonamassa and many other guitarists of note. Now Dunlop has updated the legendary Fuzz Face with its Fuzz Face Mini pedals, which provide the same timeless circuits in a much smaller round housing along with features modern players demand.

Dunlop has even lowered the price to match the reduced, pedal board–friendly size.


Metal for Life with Metal Mike: Exotic Blood, Part 2 — Soloing with Exotic Scales in Heavy Metal

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These videos are bonus content related to the January 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now, or in our online store.

Last month, I introduced a few unusual, exotic scales that I find useful and worthy of thorough examination for metal soloing.

Two of my favorite metal guitar players, Marty Friedman and James Murphy, have distinguished themselves with their incorporation of such exotic scales into their solos. The scales I’ve been discussing thus far find their roots in Arabian and Japanese music, and I’d like to continue this month with a look at another Arabian scale, Arabian pentatonic minor.

As its name implies, Arabian pentatonic minor is, like the standard minor pentatonic scale, a five-tone scale (penta means five and tonic means tone), but it offers a slight twist.

Fin O’ My Teeth: Trey Xavier’s MosaiAxe 'Jaws' Guitar

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Countless guitarists have cited Guitar World as an influence.

But when Trey Xavier of the progressive metal band In Virtue explained that the Jaws graphic on his Ibanez RG5EX1 was made from “thousands of tiny pieces of paper cut from the pages of Guitar World,” we didn’t know whether to feel flattered or creeped out.

After all, the act reminded us of a Seinfeld episode where Elaine left a TV Guide on the subway, and a nerdy stalker cut it up into a flower bouquet for her.

Fortunately, we discovered that Xavier is a dedicated fan of the magazine and not a disgruntled reader who wanted to slice up the editors and feed us to sharks.

“I’ve been reading Guitar World since I was 12,” Xavier explained. “I’ve always had issues lying around my house. It’s a well-printed magazine with vibrant colors and good-quality paper. I cut the pieces from 12 to 15 different issues, but I had to get multiple copies of certain issues to have enough pieces of colors I liked.”

Xavier says that he decided to replicate the iconic Jaws movie poster graphic because “it conveys a scene of conceptual horror very quickly to the viewer. The fact that the girl has no idea that she’s totally screwed is very scary to me. You get that feeling of imminent disaster, like seeing a glass teetering on the edge of a table, too far away for you to catch.”

The Jaws guitar was Xavier’s first decoupage guitar project, and he estimates that it took him about nine months of on-and-off-again work to complete it. “The biggest challenge is the sheer amount of time and patience it takes,” he says. “I’d watch an entire season of a TV show in the time it took to cover five square inches. But it’s entirely worth the effort. The texture it creates can’t be replicated by any other means. I had the artwork finished by a local luthier to protect it.”

Xavier started work on a second guitar with decoupage graphics, and he has plans to do many more. “I’m accepting commissions,” he says. “You can send me your guitar to get the MosaiAxe treatment, and I’ll also decoupage other things, like phone cases, jewelry boxes or anything else I can stick paper to.”

For more details, visit mosaiaxe.com.

Photo: Paul Robinson, rthreephotography.com

It Might Get Weird: Guitar World goes inside the minds of some of the world’s most creative custom-guitar builders.

Guitar World Visits Alter Bridge's Mark Tremonti and His Private Stronghold of Axes, Amps and Pinball Machines

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This is an excerpt from the January 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the rest of this story, plus several photos of Tremonti's gear and more — including the Beatles' 50 Greatest Guitar Songs, Andreas Kisser, Jimi Hendrix, a guide to new signature model guitars and John Petrucci's monthly column — check out the January 2014 issue at the Guitar World Online Store.

Castle Rock: As Alter Bridge release Fortress, their fourth studio disc, GW pays a visit to guitarist Mark Tremonti’s home and his private stronghold of collectible axes, amps, and pinball machines.

“That’s our first Alter Bridge Gold record,” guitarist Mark Tremonti says, gesturing toward a plaque in an upstairs room of his Orlando mansion.

It’s an unusually hot October day and Tremonti is showing Guitar World around his house. In the same room, he directs our attention toward a row of smaller, magazine-sized frames. “We’ve got some Guitar Worlds up there.

“We have bigger plaques,” he continues, shifting the focus back to the number of RIAA awards he’s received for his work with Creed, Alter Bridge and, his favorite, comedian Larry the Cable Guy.

“But I kind of screwed myself for space, because you can’t display anything bigger than a magazine cover in that area. It just turns out that once we started running out of space, records stopped selling in the world. Platinum records just don’t happen anymore. It kind of worked out.” He laughs, then points at a Creed display. “That one is for 20 million records sold.”

We’re in town today under the auspices of his hard-rock band Alter Bridge, who released their fourth album, Fortress, in September. The record contains some of the band’s hardest-hitting numbers to date, running the gamut from the metallic yet catchy single “Addicted to Pain” to the more reflective “Peace Is Broken,” which contains an impressively blues, partially fingerpicked solo by Tremonti. Tonight, some of those songs will get their live debut at the band’s first U.S. show in two years, held at the city’s House of Blues.

But prior to that event, Tremonti has invited us to his home, an expansive estate in a gated community in Orlando’s tony Windermere neighborhood. He lives next door to what’s known as the Versailles house, an as-yet-unfinished, 13-bedroom mansion that will have cost $100 million by the time it’s finished.

Notable neighbors include Shaquille O’Neal, ’N Sync baritone Joey Fatone and former New York Yankee Johnny Damon, the latter of whom will attend the Alter Bridge concert later tonight. But despite his locale and opulence, Tremonti comes across as humble. In fact, the 39-year-old is dressed like his fans, wearing black jeans and a T-shirt repping Projected, a band that Alter Bridge and Creed drummer Scott Phillips founded after the last Alter Bridge album.

As he takes us around his home, pointing out collector’s items—including a guitar that Stevie Ray Vaughan once played, and his many valuable pinball machines—it becomes evident that guitar gear has taken over his home. Cables are stuffed in cabinets, and tablature books brim to the top of dresser drawers. The hallway between his home recording studio and his bathroom houses a neatly stacked pile of amps and effects—his “giveaway pile.” He admits to becoming “creative” in his storage techniques, but that might also be because he’s the father of two boys.

His sons—Austen, age 8, and Pearson, 4—are the reason his house is so elegantly decorated for Halloween. A wraithlike creature with a jack-o’-lantern head graces his doorway, skulls sit on the table in his foyer, and an artfully positioned skeleton sits at his grand piano, just begging to bang out the chords to “Monster Mash” or some other seasonal song. As we settle into places at Tremonti’s kitchen table—the sun-drenched nook where he and Alter Bridge vocalist-guitarist Myles Kennedy jig-sawed together the songs on Fortress “like puzzle pieces”—he explains that home life for him revolves around fatherhood.

“I work hard to be a good father and husband,” he says. “I wake up at 7 o’clock in the morning to help feed the kids while my wife is making their lunches.” But at the same time, he works enough to instill his work ethic in his boys. “Sometimes my kids will ask, ‘Why do you have to work?’ ” he says. “And I’m like, ‘You see that cool toy you got right there? That’s because I work.’ ”

Photo: Justin Borucki

For the rest of this story, plus several photos of Tremonti's gear and more — including the Beatles' 50 Greatest Guitar Songs, Andreas Kisser, Jimi Hendrix, a guide to new signature model guitars and John Petrucci's monthly column — check out the January 2014 issue at the Guitar World Online Store.

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2013 Crossroads Guitar Festival CD, DVD and Blu-Ray Available Now

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Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013— the CD and DVD/Blu-ray souvenir of Eric Clapton's latest star-studded charity concert, which took place in April at Madison Square Garden in New York City — was released November 19.

Below you can check out a trailer for the DVD/Blu-ray.

The Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013 DVD/Blu-ray contains five hours of performances and includes 45 songs by Clapton, Jeff Beck, the Allman Brothers Band, John Mayer, Blake Mills, Jimmie Vaughan, Keith Richards and many more.

Video: Susan Cattaneo Premiers "Lorelei" from Upcoming Release 'Haunted Heart'

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Susan Cattaneo premiers the video for ‘Lorelei,” the first track from her upcoming release, Haunted Heart. The video was written by Susan and produced by the artist with By The Pound media. Filmed, directed and edited by BJ Mansuetti. The storyline of the song came from a close friend's betrayal.

“I lived with the pain and resentment of this incident for a good long while and kept hoping my bitterness would pass,” she says. “Finally, I decided to write about it, and the form that seemed most appropriate was a murder ballad! I kept it upbeat and in a major key, so it has a kind of gleeful madness to it.” Taking artistic license, Cattaneo came up with the concept of twin sisters — with a sinister twist.

“One twin steals something from the other twin and drowns her. But because they share a blood bond, the drowned twin’s spirit haunts the river and calls to the live sister to come and join her in the riverbed,” she says. “This event brings a shade of darkness to the soul of the drowned twin.” She continues, “In the video, to capture the conflicted feelings of the twin, I wore the same dress in white and in black. Filming the river scene was key to the story, so despite frigid temps, I took the plunge into the Mystic River near my house in Medford, Mass.!"

View the video here:


Get More:

Susan Cattaneo plans to perform shows through out the rest if 2013 and straight through 2014 in support of Haunted Heart.

2013 Appearances
12/08/13 - Sock it to me – Tribute to the music of Muscle Shoals in Cambridge, MA at Atwood’s Tavern
12/21/13 - Opening for Susie Brown and Scot Sax in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at Tin Angel

The album Haunted Heart will be released officially on January 21, 2014. Susan previewed it for her hometown fans last month, running through the album from start to finish at a sold out show at Club Passim in Cambridge, MA.

Haunted Heart was produced by Lorne Entress (Lori McKenna, Ronnie Earl, Mark Erelli) and features a stellar cast of musicians from the Boston and national Americana scene: Guitars: Duke Levine (Peter Wolf, J. Geils, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Garland Jeffreys), Kevin Barry (Peter Wolf, Ray LaMontaigne, Mark Cohn, Roseanne Casj), Lyle Brewer (Ryan Montbleau) and Stu Kimball (Bob Dylan); Bass: Richard Gates (Susanne Vega, Melissa Ferrick) Drums: Marco Giovino (Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale, Band of Joy) Keys: Kenny White (Peter Wolf)

For More Information for Susan Cattaneo, please check out her website: http://susancattaneo.com

Poll: Which Beatles Song Features the Best Guitar Solo?

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In honor of the all-new January 2014 issue of Guitar World — a guide to the Beatles' 50 Greatest Guitar Songs — we're asking you to choose the Beatles song that features what you feel is the all-around best guitar solo.

We've included 20 guitar-centric Beatles songs for you to choose from.

You'll find tunes with fancy fret work by George Harrison ("A Hard Day's Night,""Old Brown Shoe,""Something"), John Lennon ("I Want You (She's So Heavy)") and Paul McCartney ("Taxman,""Good Morning Good Morning") — and all three guitarists at once ("The End").

And, of course, there's one song featuring a very famous non-Beatle named Eric Clapton ("While My Guitar Gently Weeps").

We hope you understand why we haven't included every Beatles song with a guitar solo. For instance, the mini-solo in "I'll Follow the Sun" and the repetitive solo in "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" really have no business in this poll. Having said that, if you truly feel we've left out your absolute favorite, be sure to let us know in the comments below.

The results of the poll will be posted on GuitarWorld.com.

Thank you for voting!

For more info about the new Beatles issue of Guitar World, head to the Guitar World Online Store.

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Choose the Best Shredder and More: Take the 2013 Guitar World Readers Poll

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It’s time once again to take part in Guitar World magazine's annual readers poll!

Should Tony Iommi win MVP over John Petrucci?

Was Roger Waters’ The Wall the year’s best live show? Will Joe Satriani reign over Guthrie Govan in the Best Shredder category?

It’s up to you to determine the winners, so get voting now and help us determine the best of 2013! As always, the results will appear in a future issue of Guitar World magazine. Thanks for another great year!

You can access our 2013 poll RIGHT HERE.


Video: Randy Rhoads''After Hours' Soundstage Performance

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Legendary Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randy Rhoads was born on this date in 1956.

In honor of one of metal's greatest and most influential guitarists, we present this heavily edited YouTube clip of Rhoads performing with Osbourne on the After Hours TV soundstage.

In the video, all the scenes of Rhoads in action — and only Rhoads, if you get our drift — from the original TV footage has been edited together for eight minutes of pure Rhoads magic. Enjoy!

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Bob Dylan's Famous Newport Folk Festival Strat Sells for Nearly $1 Million

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This past Friday, December 6, a Fender Strat that once belonged to Bob Dylan sold for $965,000 at Christie's in New York City, setting a new world auction record for any guitar (not including private sales), according to a statement from the auction house.

A Christie's spokesperson said the sunburst '64 Strat was bought by an unidentified bidder.

"A tremendous amount of international interest was generated at the time of the sale's announcement, and [the] result justifies the mythic status of this guitar in the annals of music history," said Tom Lecky, Christie's specialist and the sale's auctioneer.

The guitar, which was expected to bring in from $300,000 to $500,000, was auctioned along with five sheets of handwritten and typed lyrics that would eventually wind up in "In the Darkness of Your Room,""Absolutely Sweet Marie" and other Dylan tunes. The lyrics were found inside the Strat case.

The famous guitar — the one with which Dylan "went electric"— had spent the past 50 or so years with the New Jersey family of Vic Quinto, a pilot who worked with Dylan's manager. As the legend goes, Dylan accidentally left the Strat on the plane Quinto was flying. According to Quinto's daughter, Dawn Paterson, Dylan's management company never responded to Quinto's questions about what to do with the instrument.

Although Dylan's camp originally denied the authenticity of the guitar, Paterson had it examined and certified on PBS's History Detectives TV show last year (See out the video below). In July 2013, Paterson ended a legal dispute with Dylan that allowed her to sell the guitar and lyrics.

Previously, Eric Clapton's black Fender Strat, better known as "Blackie," held the record for a guitar sold at an auction, selling for $959,500 in 2004, a Christie's spokeswoman told CNN. That price was later exceeded when American investor and philanthropist Paul Allen bought Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock Strat for an alleged $1.3 million in a private sale.

For more information about the guitar, including a photo, visit christies.com.

Photo: Screen shot from PBS's History Detectives YouTube video below.

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Dimebag Darrell: How to Pump Up Your Riffs

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This entry comes from Dimebag Darrell's classic Guitar World column, "Riffer Madness"

Hey, Dad! What's shaking? This month we're gonna rap about a few ways you can pump maximum heaviness into a riff.

DROP 'EM!

One of the simplest ways to get some extra low-end grind happening is to use what a lot of guys call dropped-D tuning. It can definitely inspire you to jam out some bad-assed riffs. Just drop your low-E string down to D and leave the rest of your strings where they are. Your axe'll by tuned, from low to high, D, A, D, G, B and E.

Check it out: hitting the three low strings open gives you a nasty D5 chord (Figure 1), and you can play any power chord you want just using one left-hand finger (Figure 2)! Pantera uses this tuning on the likes of "Primal Concrete Sledge" (Cowboys From Hell) and "No Good (Attack The Radical)" (Vulgar Display Of Power).

If the dropped-D tuning ain't heavy enough for ya, you can always tune you whole guitar down a tone-so your strings go, from low to high, D, G, C, F, A, D.

Doing this can make a riff sound heavier than shit, which is why we used it for "Walk" (Vulgar Display Of Power). I'll tell ya, if Phil (Anselmo, Pantera singer) had his way, I would play all our shit in this tuning! To me, though, it's much more effective when used once in a while-if we did it on every song, it'd get old real quick! So, whenever Phil gets on me about it, I just go, "Hey, Dad! Cut it!"

BAD-ASSED BENDS

Using string bends instead of just playing regular, unbent notes can definitely help give certain riffs a cooler, heavier edge. Take the opening riff of "Walk" (Figure 3).

If I played it without the string bend and release, it'd become figure 4.

I don't know about you, but the "real way" sounds far better to me, man! It's much heavier and nastier and that's what we're looking for, bud-weak riffs are out!

CUTTING CHORDS

You can do the same thing with power chords, too. Take a fairly mediocre riff-FIGURE 5A, for example.

To make it more interesting and evil-sounding, try this: instead of using a regular G5 power chord, bend an F#5 shape up to a G5, as in FIGURE 5B. Bending two different notes up exactly half-a-step at exactly the same time is kind of difficult, but stick with it 'cause it sounds great when you get it down. You can hear me doing this kind of thing at the end of "Hollow" (Vulgar Display Of Power).

SINISTER SLIDES

Sliding from one power chord to another can also help a riff sound more sinister. I got the idea from listening to Tony Iommi in Black Sabbath, and I do it a lot-check out "Mouth For War" (Vulgar Display...), for instance. So, if I wanted to make a riff like FIGURE 6A nastier, I'd throw in a chord-slide and probably a chord-bend as well (Figure 6B).

Which version sounds better? C'mon, there's no contest! figure 6B kicks figure 6A's sorry ass!

I hope these few ideas help you jam out a few crushing riffs of your own. See ya next time, bud-Timbale!

The "Dimebag Darrell Riffer Madness" DVD is available through Alfred here.

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Interview: Earl Slick, Rick Nielsen and Jack Douglas Tell the Story Behind John Lennon's 'Double Fantasy'

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From the GW archive: This feature originally appeared in the Holiday 2010 issue of Guitar World:

Last year's remastered and stripped-down versions of Double Fantasy offer a revealing glimpse into John Lennon’s spirit and artistry. In this Guitar World exclusive, session guitarists Rick Nielsen and Earl Slick and producer Jack Douglas discuss the stories and sounds behind Lennon’s final album.

I thought long and hard about this,” says producer Jack Douglas. “I asked myself, ‘Am I selling John out?’ ” Douglas is talking about his 2010 stripped-down remix of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1980 album, Double Fantasy.

The disc is part of the massive rollout of reissued Lennon solo material that EMI recently prepared to commemorate what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday on Oct. 9, 2010, and the 30th anniversary of his death on Dec. 8, 1980.

Double Fantasy was the last album Lennon released in his lifetime. It hit the streets about a month before his murder, a grim chronological juxtaposition that has always lent greater poignancy to the album’s songs. Double Fantasy was meant to be Lennon’s “comeback” album, his return to the music business and public life after five years of retirement during which he had focused on the simple joys of domesticity and raising his son, Sean.

Instead, the album became Lennon’s farewell to a vast and adoring fan base, many of whom had admired him since the earliest days of Beatlemania.

It was Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, who asked Douglas to revisit Double Fantasy on the occasion of last year’s anniversaries. “I got a call from her office asking if I’d be interested in doing something with Double Fantasy, not really knowing what,” says the producer. “I said yes. It shouldn’t be anybody else. I produced it. I pretty much knew where everything was on the master tapes.”

This left Douglas to decide what could or should be done with Lennon’s original masters. “I realized it couldn’t be an ‘unplugged’ album,” he says. “If you unplugged all the electric instruments, there wouldn’t be anything left. And John’s original rough demos for the album were already in circulation, either illegally as bootlegs or legally in a box set [1998’s John Lennon Anthology]. So I thought the best thing to do was break it down to the original rhythm section that we recorded live in the studio, and just discard a lot of the overdubs and production.

"While the album holds up well, I thought it sounded like an '80s production. And John was insecure about his vocals throughout his career, but particularly in this case, where he was coming back after a long time out of circulation. So we had buried his vocals in the mix, double-tracked them, and I put a bunch of slap echo and reverb on them. But I realized that it would be really compelling to bring his vocals really up front — and Yoko’s too, although to a slightly lesser extent — so you really hear the emotion in John’s voice and feel what he was singing about. So far, people who have heard the mixes are stunned by how much you feel like you’re right in the room with him.”

But is this what Lennon would have wanted? That was the question Douglas struggled with. Was he indeed selling John out? In the end, the producer decided he wasn’t. “I went back to John’s early solo work, when he first left the Beatles, the Plastic Ono Band stuff. And he didn’t mind pulling down his pants and being right up front at that point. That was because he was confident then, whereas he was just a little insecure when he did Double Fantasy, because he’d been away for a while. But in fact his voice was fantastic on that album, although I couldn’t convince him of that at the time. And now you get to hear it.”

So Douglas found himself returning to tracks he’d recorded 30 years ago. But by an eerie coincidence, he found himself transferring the original analog multitrack masters into the digital domain in the very same room where he’d last worked with Lennon, on the very last night of his life, completing a recording of Yoko’s song “Walking on Thin Ice.” In 1980, that 10th-floor room at 321 W. 44th St. in Manhattan had been part of the Record Plant. Today, it’s a Sony transfer facility.

“They called me, and said, ‘We want to tell you something, Mr. Douglas. This is really strange. The very room where we do the transfers is rumored to be the last room you and John worked in the night he was assassinated.’ So in fact I was going to start this project in the very same room where I left it 30 years ago. The room was the same, and it was completely by accident.”

But, as a longtime believer in karma, astrology and numerology, Yoko Ono might contend that such occurrences are no accidents. “I didn’t even invite Yoko to these transfers,” Douglas says. “I thought that would be too upsetting for her. That was John’s last elevator ride that he took downstairs. It was all just way too much. And in fact, in the two weeks that we spent doing the transfers, it felt like John was a ghost in the room with me. It was very disturbing.”

 


The transfer process itself was painstakingly meticulous. Douglas originally recorded the album on two 16-track analog multitrack machines, synchronized via SMPTE time code. These analog masters needed to be transferred to the Pro Tools digital platform at the highest possible sampling frequency, using the best A-to-D converters available. First, however, the original analog tapes had to be taken from their secure storage area and baked at a carefully controlled temperature in order to re-adhere the oxide to the magnetic tape stock, a standard restoration process when working with older analog tapes.

“The tapes are held under lock and key at Studio One [Ono’s production company],” Douglas explains. “They were taken from there to another facility, where they were baked, and then brought to us at the Sony transfer room. The masters would come in to us with an armed guard. We’d get four to six reels at a time to work on. The whole process took about two weeks. We took files of everything—outtakes, the works. And we brought it all to [engineer] Jay Messina’s facility, West End Studios. We started to analyze everything we had. At that point, John stopped being a ghost and became an active participant in this thing. He started to give us little clues of where we could find little gems—funny count-offs and pieces of comic business and one point where there was going to be a saxophone solo and John hummed the whole solo. So we took out the sax and put in the humming.”

Indeed, Lennon’s little snippets of banter between takes are one small treasure of Double Fantasy’s stripped remix. At the outset of the album’s opening track, Lennon dedicates the song to his rock and roll heroes, “This one’s for Gene [Vincent], Eddie [Cochran], Elvis [Presley] and Buddy [Holly],” establishing the mood of nostalgia and romance that wafts throughout all of Lennon’s contributions to this musical dialog that he shared with Ono.

“Those fun bits of business totally reflect what the album was about,” Douglas says. “The original idea was that the album was a play that you were watching onstage, or onscreen as a film—a dialog between a man and a woman. And it occurred to me at this point that you could take that, bring it off the stage and involve the audience in this dialog by making it very intimate, bringing John and Yoko into the room with you.”

Neat chronological decimals mark Lennon’s life trajectory with eerie regularity. In 1960, at age 20, he first left his native Liverpool and landed in Hamburg to play the rough clubs of that city’s Reeperbahn red-light district with an embryonic incarnation of the Beatles. It was the start of a chapter in his life that would climax in the worldwide hysteria of Beatlemania. Ten years later, Lennon celebrated his 30th birthday while recording his first solo album, The Plastic Ono Band, in 1970. He was glad the Beatles were now behind him and eager to commence another new chapter of his life. And in 1980, embarking on his 40th year of life, he completed Double Fantasy. It was meant to herald the start of a triumphant third act for Lennon. His troubled youth behind him, reunited with Yoko after a mid-Seventies separation and drunken, desperate Lost Weekend, Lennon was now a contented father and family man. He saw this as a new beginning, although fate would soon transform it into a bittersweet denouement.

After a long silence, during a vacation in the Bahamas, Lennon suddenly came up with a batch of new songs that reflected where he was at that point in his life, his love for his wife and son, the rough times he’d been through and the new equilibrium he had found. These songs would form the backbone of Double Fantasy. “John wanted the album to be the sound of a 40-year-old man with a kid,” Douglas says. “He said, ‘We’re going to get blasted for this: John Lennon is not rocking anymore. But that’s what this record is. It’s about me now. And it’s made for my people. I want my contemporaries in the room to record it with me.’ ”

To co-produce the album, Lennon and Ono chose Douglas, who had helped engineer some overdubs on Lennon’s landmark Imagine album in 1971 and had since gone on to distinguish himself with outstanding rock albums by Cheap Trick and Aerosmith. In keeping with Lennon’s wishes, Douglas recruited a top-drawer coterie of session musicians who were more or less in Lennon’s age group, including bassist Tony Levin, drummer Andy Newmark and keyboardist George Small, along with a few players who’d worked with Lennon in the past. Percussionist Arthur Jenkins had played on the 1974 Lennon album, Walls and Bridges album, while guitarist Hugh McCracken was a veteran of the Lennon’s 1971 single “Happy Xmas.”

McCracken has the added distinction of having played guitar with all four former Beatles. He’d previously played on Paul McCartney’s Ram album, in 1971. “John said to Huey, ‘Love your work with Wings. Very good.’ Huey said, ‘Oh thank you, John.’ And John said, ‘You know, of course, that was just an audition to play with me.’ ”

Working from cassette demos Lennon had made in the Bahamas, Douglas put together some orchestrations with arranger Tony Davilio and began to rehearse the band without Lennon. In fact, Lennon was so uncertain about the whole project initially that Douglas wasn’t even allowed to tell the musicians the name of the artist on whose album they were working—although a few of the players soon guessed. The cat was fully out of the bag when the location for the final rehearsal was announced—Lennon and Ono’s apartment at the Dakota building at 72nd Street and Central Park West in Manhattan.

 


At the very end of that rehearsal, as the musicians were walking out the door, Lennon suddenly announced that he had one last song idea.He sat down at a Fender Rhoads electric piano near the door and played “Just Like Starting Over,” a song that would become the lead and keynote track for Double Fantasy, celebrating John and Yoko’s joyous reunion after the Lost Weekend separation period and the start of a new phase of musical and artistic collaboration together. With sessions due to commence the very next day, Douglas opted to record this new song first, giving Lennon and the session players a chance to work spontaneously in the beginning, without pre-written charts or arrangements.

And he threw one more wild card into the band: guitarist Earl Slick, perhaps best known for his work with David Bowie. Slick had played on Bowie’s hit “Fame,” which had been cowritten by Lennon, and on Bowie’s cover of Lennon’s song “Across the Universe.” Both tracks had appeared on Bowie’s 1975 album, Young Americans.

“I think John wanted me on his album because I was the street rock guy,” Slick says. “Everybody else in there could read music. They were session guys. I was the loose cannon.”

And so Slick turned up for the first day of recording at the Hit Factory on 48th Street, between 9th and 10th avenues, unrehearsed and not sure what to expect. “I got there two hours early,” Slick recalls. “Not that I was excited or anything—ha! Nobody’s there. I walk out of the control room into the main studio and John’s sitting in the middle of the room on a chair, playing his guitar. The gear wasn’t even set up yet. I went over and introduced myself, and he said ‘Good to see you again.’ I said, ‘Really? Have we met?’ He said, ‘Well, the Bowie thing.’ I said, ‘I think we recorded at different times.’ He said, ‘No, no. We were in there together.’ We had this banter going on for about five minutes, and we were both laughing our asses off. Finally I said, ‘Look, let’s be straight here. You’re John Lennon, a Beatle! If I met you, I’m thinking I would remember that, unless I was so fuckin’ stoned.’ He goes, ‘Well that’s a possibility.’ ”

Slick vividly remembers his guitar and McCracken’s guitar contributions to “Just Like Starting Over.” “I played the [rhythm guitar] chops that go with the snare drum, and Huey’s playing that low melody line. And in the bridge, there’s a slightly heavier guitar in there and that’s me.”

Playing guitar with Lennon was a treat for both Slick and McCracken. “It was all pretty natural,” Slick recalls. “Things just fell into place. My rhythm style would have been closer to John’s, and Hugh had a lot more of the colorful nuances that would go rhythmically with what I did—because I played like John, very primal. And on solos, John would divvy up who he thought would be the best guy to play certain solos. Some of them were cut live. Like the solo on ‘Cleanup Time’ that I played. That was on the rhythm track, and John just liked it, so he kept it.”

“John brought all of his guitars to the studio,” Douglas recalls. “Every Beatle guitar that you ever saw him with was in the room—his Rickenbacker 325, his Epiphone Casino… There were about 20 guitars in the room: beautiful old Strats, Les Pauls, 335s and other things like that. But every time, John would end up using one of three guitars: a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic, Ovation acoustic or this electric guitar called the Sardonyx.”

The Sardonyx, a curious footnote to electric guitar history, was a very sci-fi-looking custom instrument, with a pointy headstock that somewhat resembled a Flying V’s, and a squared-off body with pontoon-like metal appendages affixed to either side of the body. It looked a bit like a Star Trek–era spaceship or, in the words of Earl Slick, “like a fuckin’ ski rack for a car.” Lennon’s affection for the instrument is very much a testimony to his restless quest for novelty. A man who’d quickly burned through LSD, Transcendental Meditation, heroin and radical politics, he was easily bored and always looking for the next new toy, belief system or lifestyle.

“The Sardonyx, Ovation and Hummingbird all lived behind John’s bed at the Dakota,” Douglas remembers. “John could just reach behind the headboard and grab one of those. Those were the guitars he played when we were working on preproduction for the album, and he gravitated toward them in the studio as well.”

Most of Lennon’s electric guitar work for the album was played through a Fender Twin miked with a Sennheiser 421, Shure SM57 and Sony C30 in a triangular configuration. McCracken played a Strat, Gibson ES-335 and Les Paul, while Slick employed a Les Paul and 1965 Gibson SG Junior mainly through a late-Sixties 100-watt Marshall head and one 4x12 cabinet.

The sessions’ level of guitar geekery hit a new plateau when Rick Nielsen, Bun E. Carlos and Tom Peterson of Cheap Trick came into the studio on August 12, 1980, to work on two songs for the album, Lennon’s “I’m Losing You” and Ono’s “I’m Moving On.” One of the world’s foremost guitar collectors, Nielsen was intrigued by the historical instruments Lennon had brought into the studio.

 


“I never called him ‘Mr. Lennon’ or anything,” Nielsen says. “It was ‘John.’ And we talked guitar stuff, gear. I got to the studio first. He comes walking in and says, ‘Oh, you!’ And I said back to him, “Oh, you!’ I think Jack had explained to him who we were. In 1980, Cheap Trick was pretty high on the charts. So it was just a musician-to-musician kind of thing. I brought a couple of my guitars, and John had his stuff. I was the first guy in America to have a Mellotron back in the Sixties, and John of course had his black, dual-keyboard Mellotron. So it was just gear talk.

“I brought a Les Paul and Hamer and a Fender Telecaster with a B-string bender on it. John had never seen one of those. So I ended up giving him that guitar. I was leaving for Japan the next day. I said, ‘Here, take it and try it out.’ I ended up getting it back three years after he was murdered. That was the guitar I used on the solo for ‘Baby Loves to Rock’ [from Cheap Trick’s 1980 album, All Shook Up].”

Nielsen was somewhat horrified when Lennon opened up one of his guitar cases and brought out a Veleno, another one of his novelty instruments with a V-shaped headstock and mirrored-chrome body finish. Lennon seemed intent on using this guitar for his tracks with Cheap Trick. “I said, ‘John, no. No. This is not right,’ ” Nielsen says with a laugh. “He had old, cruddy strings on it. But then he showed me his Rickenbacker 325, which I believe he’d played with the Beatles at Shea Stadium. It still had the song list scotch-taped to the side. I’m a guitar collector, so that was the coolest.”

Nielsen took some surreptitious measurements of the instrument’s short-scale neck and later had Hamer make a custom guitar for Lennon. Along with gear, fatherhood formed another bond between the two men. Rick’s son Dax, his first child, was born on the very day the session took place. Nielsen had a hard time tearing himself away from his wife at this critical juncture in their lives together, but an opportunity to play and record with John Lennon was an honor that the guitarist couldn’t pass up. “My standard joke is, had it been McCartney the answer would have been no,” Nielsen says, laughing.

Fatherhood was a big priority for Lennon at this point in his life too. The birth of his son Sean some five years earlier had been a major factor in Lennon’s decision to retire from music from 1975 to 1980. One of his first acts upon entering the Hit Factory to record Double Fantasy had been to tape a picture of Sean up over the console. Sessions generally had to end in time for Lennon to get home and tuck Sean into bed. Failing that, work would halt while John made a good-night phone call to his son. Naturally, John and Yoko were enthusiastic in congratulating Nielsen on the birth of his first son.

“I’d flown in from Montreal and brought some Cuban cigars down with me,” Nielsen recalls. “So we lit them up and celebrated my son’s arrival. John and Jack, we were all smoking the Cuban cigars I’d brought in. Yoko had one too.”

It’s somewhat surprising to hear of cigar smoke filling the control room during the Double Fantasy sessions. Most accounts of the dates stress the almost new-agey vibe of the sessions; all the players’ astrological charts had been checked in advance. There was a “quiet room” and a shiatsu masseuse on hand. Tea and sushi, macrobiotic food, sunflower seeds and raisins were on offer, but there was also junk food stashed in the studio maintenance room. There are also hints that cigars weren’t the only things being smoked in the control room.

“It wasn’t as strict as all that,” Earl Slick confesses. “John would chain-smoke cigarettes, and I was drinking like a fish. And he put up with me, God bless him. I mean, I never got drunk enough not to play, but that was back in my pre-clean days. And I was a bad boy. I remember going out with [engineer] Lee DeCarlo pretty much every night after the sessions and getting stupid. John used to think it was quite funny when I’d crawl into the studio the next day after being out all night and fucked up. He’d just laugh and say, ‘You’ve had a night out!’ I think he got a kick out of me because he was seeing a bit of himself in the old days and living vicariously through my dysfunction.”

As it turned out, the Cheap Trick versions of “I’m Losing You” and “I’m Moving On” didn’t make it onto the album. Ono is generally credited with vetoing the tracks. “She thought Cheap Trick were just some band I was trying to give a boost to,” Douglas says, “even though they’d been quite successful and were in the process of making an album with George Martin, ironically enough [All Shook Up].”

Accounts vary as to how the album version of “I’m Losing You,” with Slick and McCracken on guitars, was recorded. Douglas remembers playing the Cheap Trick recording in the studio musician’s headphones and having them play along, in order to duplicate the feel. Slick and McCracken have no recollection of this, but Slick does recall Lennon’s unique approach to recording the guitar solo for the album version of “I’m Losing You.”

 


“John said, ‘Okay, Slickie, you’re going to come in with the first part of the solo and Huey the second, Slickie the third and Huey the fourth.’ And once we laid our parts down, we tripled them, with each guy doubling the other guy’s stuff and adding harmonies over the top. As I recall, we had two small amps facing each other—little old Fenders, probably—with a stereo mic in the middle. John told us that that’s what he and George Harrison had done on ‘Nowhere Man.’ And if you listen to that song, even though the tone on the Beatles track is a much more high-endy AC30 sound, you’re still gonna hear a similarity between those two solos and how they were done. Because there’s like six guitars on there, all very clean and very compressed, which is something I never would have thought of doing. I learned an awful lot from being in there with John.”

In 1998, the Cheap Trick recording of “I’m Losing You” was included on the John Lennon Anthology box set. The performance is certainly heavier than the version of the song on Double Fantasy, an approach that well suits the song’s edgy qualities. Melodically somewhat reminiscent of the Beatles’ “Glass Onion,” the song features a lyric that seems like something from Lennon’s Lost Weekend period, but it was actually written during the same Bermuda vacation that yielded Lennon’s other songs for Double Fantasy. On his own in a strange place, without Yoko, the notoriously insecure Lennon began to fear that Yoko was slipping away from him one night when he couldn’t get her on the phone.

Yoko’s answer song, “I’m Moving On,” seems to justify all his worst fears, with its repeated accusation, “you’re getting phony.” It’s a moment you’ll find in any relationship. All couples have their ups and downs, and Double Fantasy captures the inner dynamic of one of the world’s most famous love relationships with the candor and honesty that characterizes most of Lennon and Ono’s work, individually and collectively.

Lennon got the album title from the name of a flower he’d seen at a botanical garden in Bermuda, and it became the work’s central metaphor. Double Fantasy is a glimpse into John and Yoko’s respective inner worlds. As much as the album celebrates the love that unites them, it also dramatizes just how different those two worlds were. While Lennon was enjoying domestic bliss and tranquility during his retirement period, Ono had taken on the management of the couple’s funds, increasing their wealth substantially while secretly working her way through a relapse into heroin addiction. John’s Double Fantasy songs tend toward the romantic—lyrics filled with moonlight, angels and tenderness, whereas Yoko’s lyrics tend to foreground cold, hard realities and the dark places of the mind. Compare for instance John’s “Beautiful Boy” with Yoko’s “Beautiful Boys.” The Lennon song is gentle and reassuring, whereas the Ono track offers the quizzical cold comfort of lines like, “Don’t be afraid to go to hell and back,” set to ominously foreboding gunshot sounds in the background.

Musically as well, Lennon and Ono are coming from very different places on Double Fantasy. John’s work is deeply steeped in musical nostalgia. From the Beatles’ 1968 White Album onward, Lennon became increasingly open about referencing his musical roots in Fifties rock and roll. He emerges on Double Fantasy as a man totally at ease with his own musical past, a 40-year-old guy who no longer cares if his tastes and preferences in music seem outdated.

With its piano triplets and somewhat schmaltzy chord progression, “Starting Over” offers frank homage to Fifties rock and roll balladry, a fact underlined by the stripped remix with its spoken dedication to “Gene, Eddy, Elvis and Buddy.” “Woman” fits comfortably alongside early Beatles-era Lennon ballads like “If I Fell,” a kinship that’s particularly apparent on John’s 12-string acoustic guitar demo of the song, included on the Lennon Anthology. By contrast, Ono’s contributions to Double Fantasy are quintessentially Eighties sounding. “Kiss Kiss Kiss” wouldn’t be out of place on a Lene Lovich album, and “Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him” could be an outtake from a Blondie disc.

“My feeling was that she had to sound like that,” Douglas says. “She always seemed to be cutting edge. There is no retro in her book.”

“On Yoko’s stuff, I tended to use more pedals and effects,” Slick says. “Boss made this black auto-swell pedal that would make things almost sound backwards. No disrespect to Huey, but I think I might have done more of the weird, outside shit on Yoko’s stuff, because my brain was more wired that way. And that comes from working with Bowie.”

Lennon and Ono worked separately on their respective tracks much of the time, coming into the studio at different times of the day and night, although sometimes they worked together. “When she was singing, John would be in the control room with Jack,” Nielsen recalls. “She’d be saying, ‘John, how should I do this?’ And he’d say, ‘Well, you do it this way, Mother.’ He called her ‘Mother.’ And they’d argue back and forth a little. She’d say, ‘Fuck you, John. Fuck you.’ Typical married couple.”

 


As part of Lennon’s mature level of comfort with his own musical past, he would sometimes reference a Beatles track while giving direction to the studio musicians. And he’d graciously accept it if one of the players couldn’t help playing a quote from some Beatles song or other—an inevitability in a roomful of musicians who all grew up loving the Beatles.

“You know what we’d do to the poor guy?” Slick rhetorically demands. “Once in a while one of us would start playing a Beatles song. And John would act like he hated it. But then he might join in. You can hear it on the box set from ’98. I think I’m playing ‘She’s a Woman,’ which is a Paul song. And you can hear John in the background saying, ‘Who’s playing that? Stop playing that fucking song!’ But once in a while, he’d sit down and join us. You could get him going. If one of us started playing a Beatles song, he’d chime in for a verse or something like that. Then he’d say, ‘Okay, that’s enough of that.’ ”

Slick also slipped the riff from Bowie’s “Fame” into the outro of “Cleanup Time.” “I’d never noticed that before,” Douglas says, “not until I did this remix. John would never stop reminding Slick that he [John] had cowritten what was Bowie’s only number-one hit at the time.”

The live dynamic of the sessions, with their sense of fun and interplay, comes across more clearly on Douglas’ stripped-down Double Fantasy remixes. “John would be in his vocal booth when we’d do a take,” Slick recalls. “Once in a while he’d have a suggestion for a guitar part and say, ‘Huey, you cover this and Slickie, you cover that.’ But a lot of times we were left to our own devices. John picked everybody in there for what they could bring to the table, as opposed to dictating to us. That’s what I loved about working with both John and David Bowie. In the time I worked with them, what each of them wanted was Earl Slick. And that’s the proudest work I have in my entire discography, and I’ve got my name on a number of albums in my time.”

“Most of the vocals on the master track itself were the live vocals that John recorded in the room during the tracking,” Douglas says. “There were only fixes if he sang the wrong lyric, wanted to change a lyric, sang off-mic or just did something completely wrong. Because he was playing guitar at the same time he was singing, either an acoustic guitar, which you can hear on the live vocals, or an electric guitar with an amp in another room, and you can hear the pick running across the strings on the live vocal track. Which is kind of fun.”

Douglas captured Lennon’s voice with a Neumann U47 or U87 or a Telefunken 251; he tended to favor the 251. As the vocals went to tape, they were processed with a little compression from a UR EI LA -2A and a bit of Pultec EQ. For the original album release, Lennon doubled all his vocal parts, but Douglas left the overdubs off for the stripped remixes. The result is a more intimate vocal feel.

But that’s not all the stripped remixes accomplish. With the schmaltzy choir overdubs and dated-sounding Eighties signal processing removed, the songs themselves come more clearly into focus. And, almost magically, the contrast between Lennon’s material and Ono’s starts to soften. Perhaps the new remix does an even better job than the original mix of realizing John and Yoko’s original vision. They show us how two very strong and distinctly different individuals could become as one in a love relationship. By clearing away aural clutter, the new mixes create a space where hopeless romanticism and hard-edged realism can indeed co-exist.

“Yoko helped a lot with these remixes,” Douglas says. “She’d come in every few days and listen to two or three mixes at a sitting. And she’d make some suggestions to us, which were all very good. Although she doesn’t speak in technical terms, she would notice little things. If I added a little Pultec high-end to the snare drum, she’d say, ‘All of a sudden the snare sounds like boof, boof, boof. Too much, too much. Too much Andy [Newmark].’ And it would just be a little bit of 10kHz on the snare. I’d say, ‘Okay.’ I’d totally respect her opinions, because she would hear every little thing we did.

“But mostly it brought her to tears. John being in the room was an unnerving experience. It was disturbing to her. But she absolutely loved it. I saw her the other night and she gave me a big hug and said she’s so thrilled with this.”

Photo: JohnLennon.com

Additional Content

100 Greatest Guitar Solos: No. 19 "Floods" (Dimebag Darrell)

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“That particular solo was thought-out in a more orchestrated fashion than some of the others I play where I just start ripping right off the bat,” says Dimebag Darrell.

“The thing that really makes the ‘Floods’ solo come across like it does is [bassist] Rex’s playing behind it. He’s using his fingers and he plays a whole bunch of cool licks and shit in there. He definitely adds to the vibe and feel of my lead because I’m playing off his part a lot — it was a great foundation for me to build on, man.”

To fatten up the sound of the catchy arpeggiated theme that fills the first eight bars of his lead, Darrell doubled the part.

“I picked up the idea of doubling from Randy Rhoads. It seemed appropriate to start off in a slow, melodic fashion and then build and build and build to the climax with the big harmonic squeals at the end.

"For that last big note I think there’s four guitars going on. There’s a squeal at the 2nd fret of the G string, a squeal at the 5th fret of the G and then I used a Digitech Whammy pedal on two-string squeals at the harmonics at the 4th and 12th frets of the G and B strings, I believe. That was one of those deals where I didn’t plan it out.

"I just sat there and fucked with it until it sounded right.”

Next: 18) "Little Wing"

Additional Content

Video: "Guitar Duel" Featuring Classical Guitarist and Female Seven-String Guitarist

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Below, check out a new video of classical guitarist Thomas Valeur performing Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen Op. 20 with a female seven-string guitarist from Norway called "The Commander-In-Chief."

The performance is interesting right off the bat because this piece is normally played on violin.

If you want some background info before diving into the video (which features shots of a nice Laney amp at various points), here's the information that is included with the video on YouTube:

"The two guitarists met when they performed at the Bergen [Norway] International Festival in June 2013. They agreed to cooperate and soon started to work on this piece of music. It took five months to prepare, and the recording took place in November at Modern World Studios in the Cotswolds in England."

The Commander is playing an EMG-equipped prototype Ibanez X Series Falchion 7, which is the only one of its kind (Only six-string models are currently available).

For more about the Commander-In-Chief, who we're liking a lot, visit her official website and Facebook page. For more about Valeur, visit thomasvaleur.com.

NOTE: The faster stuff starts at around the 5:41 mark. Enjoy!

Acoustic Nation's Holiday Gift Guide

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I’ll admit it. I’m always looking for another gadget that will enhance my guitar playing. From simple capos and tuners to more complex apps, pedals and accessories, there’s a boatload of cool stuff that we guitarists crave. And don’t even get me started on picks. They seem to disappear on a daily basis.

And of course, there's always another instrument to try. Whether its another guitar or something else with strings, like a ukulele or mandolin, putting your fingers on something new and different keeps things fresh and sonically interesting.

I bet you’re wondering what to get the acoustic musician in your life right about now. Or, of course, what to put on your own wish list. I reached out to our family of bloggers to see what they find to be the most useful. Here are our top picks for gifts for the acoustic musician in your life…or for yourself!


Favorites: Mutual Benefit’s ‘Love’s Crushing Diamond’

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After two minutes of gorgeous instrumental dips and swells, Jordan Lee introduces himself to you in “Strong River” by singing, “I clear my mind of joy and sorrow.” It is almost as if he is inviting you too to clear your mind of excess emotion before engaging in the next half hour of music on Love’s Crushing Diamond, the full-length debut from his songwriting project, Mutual Benefit.

Comprised of seven expansive, kaleidoscopic baroque-folk songs, the album almost lulls you into a state of blissful hypnosis before you even realize just how good it is.

First self-released by Lee in October, Love’s Crushing Diamond, has quickly gained traction in the music world. Its seven songs, delicate but endlessly optimistic, reward you with every return listen.

Lee’s beautiful, emotive voice is constantly enshrouded in a warm sonic palette of strings, piano, and light percussion. In his lyrics, Lee shows himself to be reserved and occasionally frustrated, but always looking toward the uncertainty of the future with a bright outlook.

He is almost naïve in his relentless pursuit of stability in a world that never wants to relinquish it to him; but he isn’t optimistic or delicate to the point of being coy. He strikes the perfect balance between reality and the unattainable in his vocals and lyrics; and the arrangements follow him flawlessly every step of the way.

“Golden Wake,” anchored by a simple, upbeat drum machine, is a brilliant highlight. Lee sings of quitting his job and being drowned in a sense of emotional emptiness. The dichotomy of Lee’s uncertainty and listlessness with the reassurance of the song’s impeccable melody is fantastic.

Listen to “Golden Wake.”

“Advanced Falconry,” more slow and resigned, is similarly gorgeous. The songs on Love’s Crushing Diamond, have a wonderful habit of stating their melodies early with vocals or guitar, then letting the strings restate it towards the song’s conclusion. The restatements give the songs all the more gravity and power, enabling them to hit home with incredible ease.

Here’s the brand new video for “Advanced Falconry.”

“Strong Swimmer” closes the album on an eerily wonderful note. A breathtaking, slow waltz revolving around a central banjo riff; it almost sounds like a modern update on an old Civil War folk ballad.

Love’s Crushing Diamond, doesn’t have the sky-high stature or established status of other year-end favorites like Kanye West’s Yeezus, or Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, but it deserves just as much recognition. It is an album that takes risks in its own, understated way, and delivers on every promise that it hints at.

More than anything, it doesn’t really sound like anything else that’s out there. So if you found little to get excited about in the landscape of new music this year, check this record out. It’s a uniquely underdog success story; an album that is at once both organic and homespun, but is possessed of an almost otherworldly beauty.

Upcoming tour dates for Mutual Benefit:
Sat. Dec. 14 - Brooklyn, NY @ Converse Rubber Tracks (130 Hope St.) w/ Waxahatchee
Mon. Jan. 13 - Boston, MA @ Great Scott
Tue. Jan. 14 - Montreal, QC @ Il Motore
Wed. Jan. 15 - Toronto, ON @ Drake Underground
Thu. Jan. 16 - Grand Rapids, MI @ The Bird House
Fri. Jan. 17 - Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall (Tomorrow Never Knows)
Sat. Jan. 18 - Minneapolis, MN @ Turf Club
Tue. Jan. 21 - Vancouver, BC @ The Cobalt
Wed. Jan. 22 - Seattle, WA @ Barboza
Thu. Jan. 23 - Portland, OR @ Bunk Bar
Sat. Jan. 25 - San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
Sun. Jan. 26 - San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar
Tue. Jan. 28 - Los Angeles, CA @ Centre for the Arts - Eagle Rock
Wed. Jan. 29 - Phoenix, AZ @ Rhythm Room
Fri. Jan. 31 - Austin, TX @ The Mohawk
Sat. Feb. 1 - Houston, TX @ Fitzgeralds (downstairs)
Mon. Feb. 3 - Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
Tue. Feb. 4 - Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
Wed. Feb. 5 - Washington, DC @ Black Cat
Thu. Feb. 6 - Philadelphia, PA @ Boot & Saddle
Fri. Feb. 7 - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
Sat. Feb. 8 - Brooklyn, NY @ Rough Trade
Wed. Feb. 25 - Berlin, DE @ Berghain Kantine
Wed. Feb. 26 - Copenhagen, DK @ Vega Bar
Thu. Feb. 27 - Hamburg, DE @ Molotow Bar
Sun. March 2 - Brussels, BE @ Botanique (Witloofbar)
Mon. March 3 - Paris, FR @ Point Ephemere
Tue. March 4 - London, UK @ St. John's Church

Find out more at http://mutualbenefit.bandcamp.com

Jackson Maxwell is a freshman at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is double majoring in history and journalism. He is a staff writer for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian and has his own music blog entitled “Two Dudes, Two Computers” with his friend Zach Newman. You can follow him here at twodudestwocomputers.tumblr.com/ or http://themotorcade.tumblr.com/

Boston Release New Christmas Single, “God Rest Ye Metal Gentlemen”

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Boston have released a new recording for holidays — “God Rest Ye Metal Gentlemen” — and you can check it out below.

The song, which was produced by Boston's Tom Scholz, is available now on iTunes.

It features Kimberley Dahme on bass and lead vocals, Gary Pihl and Scholz on vocals and guitars and Tom Hambridge on drums.

"This was my chance to Boston-ize one of my favorite Christmas carols," Scholz said. "I had so much fun with this one, I think I'll have to try a few more."

Boston released their latest studio album, Life, Love & Hope, December 3. The collection of new tracks, recorded at Scholz’s Hideaway Studio II, was produced, arranged and engineered by Scholz and is Boston’s studio first release since 2002’s Corporate America.

Check out our new interview with Scholz, who discusses the new album, gear, the wonders of analog and more, right here.

Additional Content

Hole Notes: The Pick-Style Nylon-String Work of Iconic Axman Willie Nelson

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These videos are bonus content related to the January 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now, or in our online store.

With a career spanning more than half a century, country music superstar Willie Nelson has had his share of highs and lows—from penning timeless classics like “Crazy” (as popularized by Patsy Cline) and relishing his reputation as a pothead (the Legalize It advocate is also the founder of the Teapot Party) to nearly losing his assets to the IRS in the early Nineties.

Since 1969, his trusty guitar—a weather-beaten, battle-scarred Martin N-20 nylon-string classical, nicknamed Trigger—has remained by his side, becoming part of Nelson’s sonic signature, as characteristic as the man’s distinctively nasal singing voice.

Nelson was influenced by western-swing artists like Hank Williams and Bob Wills as well as swing-jazz geniuses Louis Armstrong and, his favorite guitarist, Django Reinhardt (he plays Django’s “Nuages” at almost every concert).

Jason Simon of Dead Meadow: How to Find Your Own Guitar Sound, Regardless of Genre

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There's no set path for a guitarist to find his own sound.

Finding your own signature and take on what has come before will always be a subjective and personal endeavor.

Here's a short list of things I've managed to learn over the years, things that have helped me develop a sound and style I can call my own.

01. “Work with what you have ...”

In this age where every guitarist seems to have a mammoth pedalboard taking up some serious real estate at their feet, I find many young players feel they must invest a small fortune on pedals and equipment. As long as you have a somewhat decent guitar and amp, you’re ready to start creating.

I’m not dismissing how cool certain pedals can sound and their usefulness in kicking out some killer tones. I’m simply saying that your favorite guitarists will most likely sound like themselves no matter what they might be playing out of. Besides, working with limitations and striving to get past those limitations often will push you to develop in new and interesting ways.

The Beatles recorded Revolver on four tracks. Robert Johnson has nothing but an acoustic guitar and a slide. Their limitations pushed them to develop all sorts of new techniques and sounds.

02. ”It’s OK to show your influences.”

Developing your own sound doesn't necessarily mean you have to come out of left field with something absolutely unheard and new. There are no new emotions. Often, it's a matter of altering what came before just enough so that you can once again tap into that emotion.

Whatever you might be into, there's most assuredly a long chain of guitar players who have helped to shape the way you play. You don't have to forget these guitarists or pretend they don’t exist. It’s a question of putting together your various influences and adding to it. I don’t mind a guitarist who wears his/her influences on his/her sleeve, as long as he or she is adding something to it or changing it in some interesting way — and not simply copying.

03. ”Stay open wide and ready to receive.”

Not to get too deep, but creativity and the act of creation continually blow my mind. In some ways, it's the very apex of humanity and being human. Whether you are a physicist or a guitarist, the great ideas (or riffs) often seem to drop out of the sky.

Many times it seems to be more a matter of being open and ready to receive the ideas that come than a forcible act of creation. Jump up and take advantage of these inspired ideas when they come. Keith Richards woke in the middle of the night with the opening riff of “Satisfaction” running through his head. He promptly sat up and recorded it before falling back to sleep.

04. ”If it sounds good to you, go with it.”

If what you're playing sounds powerful and you're exciting to be playing it, then that's what you should be playing. Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing. You have to be your first fan. Basing your playing on what you think other people like misses the whole point and more importantly, it isn’t very fun.

05. ”Play as much as possible.”

This one is a “no-brainer,” but there's simply no way around putting in the playing time. Spend time playing by yourself and playing with anyone around who wants to jam. It’s important to do both. Learn your favorite songs, try writing some of your own, or just noodle around on the guitar while you're hanging on the couch. It will help. The more you play and mess with different ideas and styles, the more you'll start to carve out a niche for yourself.

Jason Simon is the guitarist/vocalist in Dead Meadow. For more about the band, visit deadmeadow.com and their Facebook page.

Are You Being Held Hostage by Your Guitar?

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This is my first column for GuitarWorld.com.

So let me risk it being my last one by offering a suggestion that goes against one of the deepest desires of guitarists and a basic premise of this magazine: Maybe you should rethink your dream guitar, because owning one can be a nightmare.

One of the contributors to a guitar forum I read owned a gorgeous original 1950s Telecaster. Every so often, he would post photos of it, just to get our hearts racing.

It was everything you could want in a classic, vintage Tele. The guitar was in nearly mint condition, with ash grain swirling in eddies beneath the surface of a flawless nitro finish. Light sparkled off shiny metalwork as it sat like a jewel in its original case.

That guitar was breathtaking, and we all coveted it. I needed both hands to count the number of commandments I’d have been willing to break to make it mine.

Yet its owner hardly ever played it. Why? From what he said, it sounded and played as good as it looked. But having bought such a pristine and valuable instrument, he came to realize that if he actually played the guitar, eventually it wouldn’t be quite so pristine or valuable anymore.

And so that wonderful Tele stayed mostly locked away, shown only to other guitarists who could appreciate its unmarred beauty, with perhaps a tune or two played gently on it before being returned to the safety of its case.

The last I heard, he was planning on selling his guitar, because he just couldn’t bring himself to use it.

Lessons are an integral part of Guitar World. The lesson here is that before you chase after the guitar of your dreams, think about what that dream really is. Is your ultimate guitar a piece of art, an investment to be held somewhere safe that won’t affect its resale value? If so, that’s fine; talk to your insurance agent, call your accountant, and if they agree, go for it.

But if you want to play the thing, let me suggest a different definition of a dream guitar: something to make memories on with your friends, at jam nights in bars, with your band — in short, wherever you want to create music with all the emotion that the right guitar can inspire in you. And that means a willingness to go out there and use it, wear it down in spots, get it dinged, and even take a chance that eventually it may get hurt or broken.

Yeah, something like your heart.

I have guitars ranging from a Squier Bullet to a pre-war Gibson. What makes each a dream guitar for me is that each gets played regularly, whenever and wherever I want. I’ve never bought a guitar — even a vintage one — that I wasn’t willing to take a chance with damaging or losing as long as it also meant the chance to play and enjoy it.

So consider whether your personal dream guitar will look as intoxicating in the sober light of ownership. You might fantasize about that $6,000 handmade acoustic. But will you actually play it more often than you brag about it? If not, maybe a $600 off-the-shelf model that you’ll play every day, everywhere, will give you more guitar happiness in the long run.

In the meantime, here’s hoping you get the guitar you truly want. Even if it’s a Martin with three humbuckers and a whammy bar.

William Baeck is a writer, photographer and hack guitarist living in London. You can check out his webpage at williambaeck.com and reach him on Facebook and Twitter.

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