Features

Guitar World Girls: Anna Sengthavongsa

Guitar World — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:25:29 +0000

Anna is the latest addition to our Girls of Guitar World Gallery.

All photos by Glenn Fricker, spectremedia.ca

Scroll down to see the complete photo gallery!

If you think you have what it takes to be a Guitar World Girl, simply email photos of yourself with a guitar to modelsearch@guitarworld.com!

Rex Brown Recalls the Making of 'Cowboys from Hell,' 'Vulgar Display of Power' and Other Legendary Pantera Albums

Jon Wiederhorn — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:26:20 +0000

While Pantera vocalist Philip Anselmo and the Abbott Brothers—guitarist Dimebag Darrell and drummer Vinnie Paul—were flinging insults at each other in the press throughout 2003, bassist Rex Brown remained largely silent.

His ex-bandmates viciously blamed each other for the demise of Pantera, the band that held the torch aloft for metal throughout the Nineties and paved the way for metalcore. But Brown refused to choose sides. By then, he and Anselmo were performing together in Down, and fans might have expected he would take the singer’s side. But Brown continued to say nothing. Instead, he let the resounding notes of his bass express the pain and frustration he felt for what had become of his band.

[[ Vote in today's Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time Readers Poll! "Floods" (Dimebag Darrell) Vs. "Hot for Teacher" (Eddie Van Halen)" ]]

“Vinnie drew this imaginary line in the sand,” explains Brown, who is currently wrapping up the second album by his new band, Kill Devil Hill. “He said, ‘You’re either on our side or not.’ I didn’t want to take sides. Every fucking day before Dime was killed [in December 2004], Vinnie would email me when Phil would say something stupid in the press and go, ‘See what your boy said?’ I was like, ‘Dude, why is he my boy? Because I wanted to get out of your bus because you were throwing fucking tacos at everybody because you’d lost your mind on booze?’ The whole thing was ridiculous, but I never talked about it.”

Until now. In his revealing new memoir, Official Truth 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera, Brown stops short of blaming anyone for Pantera’s breakup and the subsequent murder of Dimebag Darrell. Instead, he and co-writer Mark Eglinton spend the majority of the book addressing the formation and development of Pantera through five legendary albums. In the process, Brown analyzes how four musicians that were once closer than most families grew apart because of their differences in personality, musical tastes and choice of extracurricular activities.

Brown has particularly strong recollections of the six major-label albums he recorded with Pantera. In this Guitar World interview, he gives us an unvarnished, no-holds-barred look at the making of those records and of his life with the original Cowboys from Hell.

Cowboys from Hell (1990)

While we were writing the songs for Cowboys from Hell, we were listening to a lot of different kinds of music—a lot of Metallica, Slayer, Mercyful Fate and Minor Threat—and that changed our sound. We had grown such a huge following in Texas by then that we could play one set a night and draw 2,000 people. Since we didn’t have to play six shows a night anymore, we had more time to spend in the Abbotts’ studio [Pantego Sound], and we became total perfectionists.

Vinnie would lay down all the drums, then Dime would play guitar. We’d put the bass on last. We turned all the drum channels off, and I just played along with Dime’s track. That became known as “the microscope.” If something was off, we’d get a razorblade and cut and splice the tape. We didn’t have Pro Tools back then. And that’s what created our trademark sound, where the guitar and bass are just spot-on.

By that point, Dime had already surpassed all of his influences as a player, and we were making a lot of money playing Friday and Saturday nights within a radius of Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Shreveport and New Orleans. Then, after getting turned down 29 times, we finally got signed to Atco. The thing is, that actually made our financial situation worse at first. We weren’t playing shows, so we didn’t have any money coming in. So I had to get a job. Me and our lighting guy, Sonny, got gigs putting up lights for fashion shows. It actually turned out real cool. We met all these fashion models, got laid all the time and made a month’s rent a night.

But playing with Pantera back then was even better. We were such good friends, and our chemistry was undeniable. Dime would make these riff tapes on his four-track and bring them in, and we’d turn them into songs. One day, Dime came in with this tape loop of a lick he played over and over in a high register. It drove us crazy, because he wouldn’t stop playing it. That’s what became “Cowboys from Hell,” and it was the start of the power groove every band follows today.

As much as you still hear that song, when it came out no radio stations would play it. One of my favorite memories is when we did “Cemetery Gates.” Dime already had the riff in the song where it starts getting heavy, but we didn’t have an intro. One day, I picked up an acoustic guitar and messed around with a part, which we recorded.

We recorded a piano in reverse so that it created this big swell of sound at the end of the section. When we put the acoustic intro together with the heavy part, there it was. That was huge for us, and that’s how all those sessions went. We were all working together with Terry Date, who we liked a lot, even though our first choice was [famed metal producer] Max Norman. But he canceled at the last minute and we got Terry, who we bonded with from the start.

Vulgar Display of Power (1992)

When we got back from touring for Cowboys, the music scene had changed so drastically. You had Nirvana on one side and Metallica’s Black Album on the other. As good as that record is, it’s no Master of Puppets. We figured this was our chance to be the heaviest game in town. Dime had riffs pouring out of him. He’d bring them in, and it was hard to choose between them, because they were all so good.

One time, Dime and Phil walked out and smoked a joint and came back with the idea for “A New Level.” A couple hits of weed and we were all flying. It was so easy to play, but it was the chemistry we had that made it sound so good. That’s how it was with us. I mean, anybody can write something like “Walk,” but to play it like we did, with that groove—that’s pure chemistry. Even “Fucking Hostile” is totally brutal but hooky as hell.

This was the second record we did with Terry Date. He and Vinnie worked hand in hand to get the perfect sound, and Dime was writing riffs that were better than any band out there and taking his solos to an entirely new place. That record just came easy. All the riffs on Cowboys had been written by me and Dime.

Philip came in with his own ideas on Vulgar, and that made us even heavier. After it was mastered, we had a tape of the record and we put it in a cassette player and played it for everyone at the label, and their jaws hit the fucking ground. If you play an album for someone and they say, “Yeah, man, I fucking love it,” that’s cool. But when nobody says anything after it’s done and they all have blank stares on their faces, and then someone finally says, “Holy shit!” then you know you’ve done something great.

As blown away as everyone was by Vulgar Display of Power, it was the tour opening for Skid Row that changed everything for us. Vinnie had met up with them on tour and drank so much that he threw up all over their dressing room. But they had a good time, so they asked us to go on tour with them.

Philip was really resistant at first, and I told him, “Look, there’s two ways we can look at this. We can view it the hard way and say, ‘Fuck you all! We’re gonna tear you apart!’ Or we can take the crowd with us every fucking night,” which is what we did. We turned all these hair farmers into Pantera believers. Vulgar was our second real record, so no one could say Cowboys was a fluke. The songs came out at the right time, and we tore it up every night.

Far Beyond Driven (1994)

It would have been easy for us to write another Vulgar Display of Power, but fuck that. We wanted to try something completely different that was even heavier. We moved everything up to Jerry Abbott’s new place in Nashville, and that’s the first time we started taking breaks between recording. We’d do three or four songs, put them on tape, let them sink in and then go back in and do more.

That was about the time that Dime started messing around with the Whammy Pedal and Vinnie was getting completely crazy about getting this clicky sound on his drums, and that required a lot of takes and a lot of tweaking our sound. We drove Terry crazy. But we had been playing through the same gear for 500 dates between 1989 and 1994, so we felt it was time for experimentation, and we did tons of takes of everything, which is why it was our most expensive album to do.

“I’m Broken” was the first single. That was a classic southern groove, and we remixed that thing 16 times. But we were raging. Take a song like “Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills.” Where the fuck does that come from? Out of the blue! We just bashed it out. Dime came up with a lot of those riffs at soundchecks, and he wrote other ones on the shitter. He always had an acoustic guitar in the bathroom. He’d go in there to take a dump and come out with an amazing song. We also covered Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan.” I played keyboards on it and fretless bass. Vinnie played congas. And Dime’s solo…to this day, I can’t listen to it. Just talking about it chokes me up. And Dime did it first take.

Everything was happening. We renegotiated our contract with Warner Bros., and they gave us a huge amount of money each. When stuff like that happens, it can either ruin you and wipe the band out or you can bond together, which we did. Part way through the recording, we left Nashville and went back to Dallas Sound Lab, in Texas, and from then on it became one big fuckin’ party. We were boozin’.

Vinnie was doing a lot of Ecstasy. Me and Dime were just taking little dabbles here and there, but Vinnie was out of his mind, and he was co-producing this thing, so he’d sometimes get real crazy. It took a long time to finish the overdubs, because the brothers were partying so heavy, but we were still “all for one, one for all,” even though Philip had moved back home to New Orleans when he was done with his vocals. That removed him from the equation, which was probably a good thing.

The Great Southern Trendkill (1996)

Metal is a full-blown contact sport, especially the way we did it. So it was only a matter of time before Phil was gonna need something for the damage he caused himself. We used to jump 15 feet in the fucking air, and I’d usually land on my feet and feel the shock on my knees, which are shot now. But Philip would make these giant jumps and land on his fuckin’ ass. I used to always think, Fuck, man, that’s gonna hurt later.

Back then, we would wake and bake. That was just a given. So that made us a little foggy. But at one point, I noticed Phil was fuzzier than usual. One day when we stared doing The Great Southern Trendkill, he looked at me and slapped his armpit [a technique to inflate a vein prior to shooting heroin]. I went, “What!?” I’ve never stuck a needle in my arm. I used to watch some of my friends shoot up, but I would never do it. No way. I hadn’t seen that reference in 10 years, and Philip doing that at me made me go, Oh shit! I hope he’s not doing what I think he’s doing.

Sure enough, he was doing smack. And he was a wreck through the writing sessions of Trendkill. We were all so burned out by that point. A lot of the discipline and structure we used to have went out the window. I’m not crazy about two or three songs on the album, but there’s a lot of good stuff on it. It was all created very spontaneously. We didn’t go back and re-record anything.

That record was even more experimental than Far Beyond Driven. Far Beyond still had a coherent structure, and on Trendkill there was hardly any. Dime wasn’t even bringing riff tapes in anymore. So we winged it, and Terry just rolled tape, and a lot of the random stuff we captured is pioneering. And of course, the more we worked on them, the more cohesive the songs became.

It was the first time Philip didn’t track vocals with us, which left Dime leery, because he didn’t know what to do with the leads. But he got it done anyway, and it was killer. Just listen to “Floods.” That’s the three of us locked in, and it’s got all these different shades to it and all these dynamics, and Dime’s solo couldn’t be better. In the end, we were psyched about the record, and we toured it to fucking death.

Reinventing the Steel (2000)

Doing that album was closest we’d been in 10 years—since Vulgar or Far Beyond—to capturing what we wanted to do. We went, “Okay, let’s listen back and take the best elements of what we’ve done. Everyone pick your five favorite songs from each album, and let’s roll.” There were four different opinions of what we should do, but we tried to work within those confines, and we did a great record. But what we should have done instead was check into rehab and then, when we were all clean, get a real producer, instead of Vinnie Paul. At this point, Vinnie was trying to take control of everything.

His ego went through the roof. He didn’t want Terry Date involved. Where we used to drink for fun, we were drinking out of frustration, and during the sessions we were yelling at each other, throwing shit at each other, breaking stuff. Many times Dime was so fucking drunk, Philip would jump on him, and I’d have to jump on Phil. Somehow we made it through the record, and if you put it next to Far Beyond and Vulgar, you come out with something very close. Take a song like “Revolution Is My Name.” That could have been on Far Beyond Driven. And even though he wasn’t necessarily in a good place, Dime really came out of his hole and delivered.

During the recording, Dime had these cases of fucking ginseng. He would drink two or three of these bottles and stay up for days. Dime never did speed, cocaine or heroin. He smoked a lot of weed and did some acid. But he loved ginseng, and it made him fucking crazy. Rehearsal for the tour was surreal. Philip was so wasted, he’d be singing a different song than we were playing. He was always on for the shows, but touring was a nightmare.

Dime tried to get his own bus, because he couldn’t stand his own fucking brother anymore. Vinnie just kept booking shows, and we were touring with all the problems that went along with drug and alcohol abuse. Dime would blast the speakers out until 10 in the morning every day. You can’t sleep in a bus like that. So I went to Phil’s bus and stayed in the back lounge. He stayed in the front lounge, and we kept people out. Phil calmed down to a certain extent, even though he was drinking and smoking weed like it was going out of style.

We really all should have stopped, but there was so much money on the table, and that made everything worse. We’d drink so fucking hard trying to relieve the tensions of drinking so hard, and that sent everybody into a fucking spiral. After a show, I’d go smoke a joint and drink a glass of wine and go to bed instead of staying up and trying to get laid, which Vinnie was all about but couldn’t make happen. We didn’t know if we were coming or going. We just know we had another gig to do, so goddamn, you get up and you do it. None of us ever missed a show. Ever.

Photo: James Bland

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Jerry Cantrell Tells How Alice In Chains Buried Their Past with 'The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here'

Richard Bienstock — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:01:45 +0000

Jerry Cantrell tells how Alice in Chains buried their past with The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, a monster of an album unlike anything they’ve made before.

“We approach every new record the same way—by just fucking totally forgetting about the last one,” Jerry Cantrell says about the creative process within Alice in Chains. “You have to start from a zero every time.”

For Alice in Chains, of course, starting from zero hasn’t always been so easy. For a long time, the band’s past—both the highs and lows—has loomed rather largely in their present. Their last album, 2009’s Black Gives Way to Blue, was their first in more than a decade and had longtime fans champing at the bit to hear if it would stand up to Nineties-era classics like Facelift and Dirt.

It was also the band’s first release with singer William DuVall in place of deceased frontman Layne Staley. (In 2011, original bassist Mike Starr, who performed on Facelift and Dirt, also passed away.) But after such a long and tumultuous absence, Black proved to be a triumphant return for the band, debuting in the Top Five on the Billboard album chart and eventually going Gold.

Alice in Chains’ new and fifth studio album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, is perhaps an even stronger effort. Recorded with producer Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Rush, Deftones) at L.A.’s Henson Studios, the disc sports plenty of sludgy, piledriving midtempo rockers, like the mammoth first single “Hollow” and the harmonically skewed “Stone.” But several tracks—including “Voices,” “Choke” and “Scalpel”—exhibit the same type of beautiful acoustic/electric guitar blend and rich vocal-harmony work that characterized the band’s 1994 EP, Jar of Flies.

But Dinosaurs also pushes into more exotic waters, from the hypnotic and slow-building title track to the truly eerie “Hung on a Hook” to the crushingly metallic “Phantom Limb,” which boasts a minor-key riff that might not be out of place on a Slayer record—if it was being played at half speed. Essentially, it’s an album that sounds very much like Alice in Chains, but it also shows the band continuing to push forward.

“We’re really proud of this record,” Cantrell says. “It’s got all the elements of any record we’ve ever put out, but it’s also unlike any record we’ve ever put out.” Which is, he believes, as it should be. “The element that’s always going to remain the same is us,” Cantrell says. “And you have to trust that that element’s going to be there just from the simple fact that [bassist] Mike [Inez], [drummer] Sean [Kinney], William and I are in the same room playing together. We sound the way we sound. That’s not going to change. So you begin with that unified thing and then you just keep building. You start pulling shit out of your ass and see what happens.”

GUITAR WORLD: There’s been a really great response to the new material, in particular the first single, “Hollow.”

It’s just one of those nice surprises. It’s a big, meaty track, and it definitely displays a certain sound—the larger, more aggressive side of the band. We always like to come out with something like that first. So it was intended as a nice, fat, chunky album cut for the fans to get them excited for what’s to come.

That song is indicative of the Alice sound, but you also go in some different directions on this record. One song in particular that struck me is the title track, which cycles through a few vibes musically and has a lyric that delves into social commentary, touching on religion in particular. That’s a bit unusual for you guys.

As a band, whether you’re writing internally or whatever, you’re not only reflecting on what’s going on with you but also what’s going on around you. And I think that lyric element has always been there with us, if you’re listening for it. I would say “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here” is right in line with the spirit of Alice as far as the subject matter is concerned. You can go back to our first hit, “Man in the Box,” and there are elements of that same way of thinking. It’s always been kind of unbelievable and funny to us that a lot of stupid and hateful beliefs get perpetuated. And I remember with “Man in the Box,” we had a couple picketers here and there. But it’s like that old joke: What are the two things you don’t want to get in an argument with anyone about? Religion and politics. It’s a hot-button topic that ignites conversation and strong opinions.

What gear did you use on the new album?

My G&L Rampage and Les Paul were the main guitars, but I wasn’t married to anything specific. There’s also SGs, Vs, Teles, Rickenbackers, Fenders, Guilds—all sorts of things. A lot of baritone, too. Amp-wise, I’ve been using the Dave Friedman [the custom “Marsha”] amp for the last couple years. And I’ve always been a big Bogner fan and used a lot of those on the record, too. Between those two, that was the core sound, for sure.

But we probably used more amps on this album than on the last one. There’s Orange, Hiwatt, Soldano, some Marshall. There’s a bunch of [Vox] AC-30 on the record. We had about seven or eight heads hooked up and ready to go in any configuration we needed, and we just experimented as we went along. We could dial in whatever guitar/amp combo worked for whatever song, because the song generally tells you what it needs.

One of the hallmarks of your guitar style has always been your use of wide note bends, in particular the way you incorporate them into riffs. You can hear examples of it in new tracks like “Stone” and going all the way back to Facelift songs like “It Ain’t Like That.” Where does that element come from?

It’s hard to say. Really, it’s just what I do. I guess I’ve always been a fan of Tony Iommi, and that bend at the beginning of “Iron Man,” that’s an early example right there. But it’s just something I’ve naturally done for a lot of years. The riff in “It Ain’t Like That,” that’s based around a bend that was actually a joke. I remember at rehearsal, I got pissed off about something and I made some noise. I did that reverse strum on the E chord with a bend on the G. I was dicking around, and all the guys looked at me, like, “That was cool! Do that again!” And I was like, “I was fucking joking, dude!” [laughs]

Then when Layne started playing guitar a bit, he picked up on that element as well. He put some of those bendy riffs into “Hate to Feel” and “Angry Chair” [both from Dirt]. It’s something that’s always appealed to us sonically. There’s a real tortured element there when you slow bend into a note and hold it to get some sort of dissonance. It just sounds lumbering, like a sick fucking mammoth.

Another trademark of your sound is the use of drop D tuning. I spoke with Kim Thayil recently and he recalled having conversations with you about the tuning early on in both bands’ careers.

I’ve read a couple of times where he likes to take credit for teaching me that! [laughs] I’m a huge Soundgarden fan, and a fan of Kim’s as well, and we would have a lot of conversations about the tuning. But actually, I learned it from Eddie Van Halen, who used it on “Unchained.” That’s the first time I remember hearing it. Like, ‘What the fuck is that?’ Especially with the flanger on that thing as well. That was just amazing. But it’s just a cool tuning. It gives you that extra low weight, and you have the ability to chord across with a single finger while doing other things with your smaller fingers.

As much as you’re known as a guitarist, your vocals are just as essential to the Alice in Chains sound. Your voice and William’s blend really well on the new record.

We basically split the vocals, and we split them the last time, too. It’s always been a hallmark of this band—the dual-vocal blend, and also two guys who can carry a song as lead vocalists. And with William it totally works. He’s a really talented guy. Another aspect to William is the guitar. Layne played a little guitar, and he was playing more at the end. But William brings an added element there as well. He’s a very interesting and unique guitar player.

Do you feel that you still have to contend with people regarding him as the new guy?

I think there’s a handful of people that just can’t fucking move on and can’t get over the fact that we’ve got someone new in the band. It happened, people! You have to move on in life. And I think, with William, there are people that are looking at it unfairly. He’s not trying to be Layne, and he never has tried to be Layne. If you compare their voices, they don’t sound anything alike. Just like Bon Scott and Brian Johnson don’t sound anything alike, but it’s still AC/DC. That’s probably the best comparison I can make. There’s a way this band sounds and a way this band writes songs.

And William has lent his talent and gotten onboard to help us continue that legacy. We’ve continued to move forward without losing the identity of ourselves. That’s a tough thing to do but we’ve been able to do it. And I think we’ve proven ourselves. So it’s all laid to rest as far as I’m concerned. We’re making good music, and as long as that’s the case, there’s no reason to do anything else.

Photo: Kevin Scanlon

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Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time Readers Poll: Round 1 — "Floods" (Dimebag Darrell) Vs. "Hot for Teacher" (Eddie Van Halen)

Guitar World Staff — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:51:44 +0000

A few years ago, the editors of Guitar World magazine compiled what we feel is the ultimate guide to the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time.

The list, which has been quoted by countless artists, websites and publications around the world, starts with Richie Sambora's work on Bon Jovi's “Wanted Dead or Alive” (Number 100) and builds to a truly epic finish with Jimmy Page's solo on "Stairway to Heaven" (Number 1).

To quote our "Stairway to Heaven" story that ran with the list, "If Jimmy Page is the Steven Spielberg of guitarists, then 'Stairway' is his Close Encounters."

We've kicked off a summer blockbuster of our own — a no-holds-barred six-string shootout. We're pitting Guitar World's top 64 guitar solos against each other in an NCAA-style, 64-team single-elimination tournament. Every day, we will ask you to cast your vote in a different guitar-solo matchup as dictated by the 64-team-style bracket.

You can vote only once per matchup. The voting for each matchup ends as soon as the next matchup is posted (Basically, that's one poll per day during the first round of elimination, including weekends and holidays).

In some cases, genre will clash against genre; a thrash solo might compete against a Southern rock solo, for instance. But let's get real: They're all guitar solos, played on guitars, by guitarists, most of them in some subset of the umbrella genre of rock. When choosing, it might have to come down to, "Which solo is more original and creative? Which is more iconic? or Which one kicks a larger, more impressive assemblage of asses?"

Today, guitar solos by two bona fide guitar heroes go head to head: Dimebag Darrell's work on Pantera's "Floods" (19) is up against Eddie Van Halen's "winged" solo on Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" (46). Get busy! You'll find the poll at the bottom of the story.

Yesterday's Results

Winner: "Crazy Train" (74.71 percent)
Loser: "War Pigs" (25.29 percent)

Round 1, Day 9: "Floods" Vs. "Hot for Teacher"

19. “Floods”
Soloist: Dimebag Darrell
Album: Pantera—The Great Southern Trendkill (Elektra, 1996)

“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.”

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 second fret of the G string, a squeal at the fifth fret of the G and then I used a DigiTech Whammy Pedal on two-string squeals at the harmonics at the fourth 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.”

46. "Hot for Teacher”
Soloist: Eddie Van Halen
Album: Van Halen—1984 (Warner Bros., 1984)

“I winged that one,” says Eddie Van Halen. “If you listen to it, the timing changes in the middle of nowhere. We were in a room playing together and I kind of winked at the guys and said, ‘Okay, we’re changing now!’ Because I don’t count, I just follow my feelings. I tend to do a lot of things in threes and fives, instead of fours.

“My weird sense of time just drives my brother Alex nuts because he’s a drummer, so he has to count. But generally he’ll say, ‘Well, Ed, you did it in five again. If that’s the way you want it…’ But that’s not the way I want it, that’s just what feels right to me.”

Cast Your Vote!

Head HERE to see all the matchups that have taken place so far!

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10 Underappreciated Paul McCartney Songs

Damian Fanelli — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:50:48 +0000

"When I'm Sixty-Four"? That's so seven years ago. Paul McCartney turns 71 today, June 18.

With that in mind, you'll probably come across a host of online tributes that laud the former Beatle's longevity, countless achievements and best-loved songs.

But while the masses will most likely praise "Band on the Run," "Maybe I'm Amazed," "Live and Let Die" and "Silly Love Songs" (well, maybe not "Silly Love Songs"), I'd like to draw attention to 10 tracks from McCartney's solo career — a career that started 43 years ago, by the way — that just don't get the love and attention they deserve in 2013.

They are presented in chronological order, according to their official release dates.

"Oh Woman, Oh Why," B-side of "Another Day" (Paul McCartney, 1971)

In February 1971, McCartney released "Another Day," his first single as a solo artist. It was a mostly acoustic, observational, "Eleanor Rigby"-style affair — just light and fluffy enough for John Lennon to take a swing at in "How Do You Sleep?" from Imagine.

On its flip-side, however, was "Oh Woman, Oh Why," a fun yet lonely-sounding bluesy rocker in A. McCartney's gritty, screaming vocal, which is right up there with his work on "Oh! Darling," adds a healthy dose of authenticity to the track. The fake gunshot sounds have the opposite effect.

The song is the first in a long line of non-album McCartney B-sides that includes "The Mess," "I'll Give You a Ring," "Sally G," "Flying to My Home," "I Lie Around" and "Rainclouds." It has been included on several CD incarnations of Ram, including the 2012 Ram Special Edition.

[[ Did you miss the Guitar World with Paul McCartney on the cover? It's available now at the Guitar World Online Store. ]]

"Eat At Home" from Ram (Paul and Linda McCartney, 1971)

John Lennon wasn't too crazy about McCartney's supposedly lightweight early '70s output, but he did like "Eat At Home," calling it his favorite track on Ram.

The song, with its twangy riff and bountiful guitar parts, could've been a hit single for McCartney; instead, it'll go down in history as merely another album track. And while McCartney and his band have dug up and dusted off the album's opener, "Too Many People," on recent tours, the equally deserving "Eat At Home" is still waiting for its moment in the spotlight.

By the way, a previously unreleased live version of "Eat At Home / Smile Away" from Wings' 1972 tour is available on the iTunes version of the recently released Ram Special Edition.

"The Mess," B-side of "My Love" (Wings, 1973)

Excluding unreleased material, it doesn't get much more obscure than "The Mess," a live track recorded in 1972 and released as the B-side to "My Love" in March 1973.

It's a danceable ode (as the video below proves) that probably started out as several different song ideas that got grafted together in typical McCartney fashion ("The Pound Is Sinking" from Tug of War is another example of the McCartney patchwork method).

"The Mess" was originally meant to be included on Wings' Red Rose Speedway album (It was supposed to be a double album at one point), and there's even a studio version of the song out there somewhere.

"Big Barn Bed" from Red Rose Speedway (Wings, 1973)

Speaking of Red Rose Speedway, here's that album's opening track, "Big Barn Bed."

Like several of McCartney's much more successful tunes, "Big Barn Bed's" simplicity is its strong point, right down to Henry McCullough's basic guitar riff in the song's intro. The soaring harmonies, shimmering acoustic guitars and weird but fun lyrics about big barn beds (huh?) and leaping armadillos don't hurt, either.

As a side note, McCullough, Wings' original lead guitarist, recorded a new version of "Big Barn Bed" for his 2011 solo album, Unfinished Business. But, um, you should probably start with the Wings version.

"Famous Groupies" from London Town (Wings, 1978)

On 1978's "Famous Groupies," McCartney goes into semi-comedic storytelling mode to recount the tale of a fictional pair of notorious groupies who do some pretty horrible things to the music-biz gents they supposedly adore:

"There was a classic story of a roadie named Rory / who used to practice voodoo on the side / when the famous twosome suggested something gruesome / All that they found was a crater two miles wide / Which left the music business absolutely horrified."

"Famous Groupies" is joined by other gems on London Town, including the forgotten single, "I've Had Enough"; the Elvis-inspired "Name and Address"; and the deep, dark and awesome "Morse Moose and the Grey Goose."

"Spin It On" from Back to the Egg (Wings, 1979)

Although the Back to the Egg album cracked Billboard's Top 10 in 1979, it took a beating from critics, something McCartney still mentions in interviews. Big-shot reviewer Robert Christgau gave it a "C," and Allmusic won't budge on its tepid two-star rating.

It's all a bit incongruous, really, since many McCartney fans (myself included) consider it their favorite McCartney album. If nothing else, it is Wings' most rocking album, with heavy tracks like "Old Siam, Sir," "So Glad to See You Here" and "Getting Closer" setting the tight, overdriven, solid tone.

"Getting Closer" and "Arrow Through Me" got some FM airplay, and "Rockestra Theme," a thunderous instrumental featuring John Bonham, John Paul Jones, Pete Townshend and David Gilmour, earned a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. But "Spin It On," an unassuming little album track that clocks in at 2:13, is one of the album's hidden highlights.

It features some superlative playing by Wings' two newest members, drummer Steve Holly/Holley (I wish Steve would contact me and finally solve the Holly/Holley mystery) and the immensely gifted lead guitarist Laurence Juber, who's now considered a fingerstyle master. In fact, its too-brief guitar solo represents Juber's shreddingest moment as a member of Wings.

"On the Way" from McCartney II (Paul McCartney, 1980)

McCartney briefly topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1980 with "Coming Up," a song that battled it out with Lipps Inc.'s "Funkytown." (Why do I know this stuff?)

But besides "Coming Up" and, to some degree, the album's second single, "Waterfalls," the rest of McCartney II has faded into the land of early '80s obscurity. Which is a shame, particularly in the case of "On the Way," a stark, blues-based number that features McCartney on heavily delayed vocals, bass, drums and lead guitar.

And while no one is implying that the former Beatle is some great, unheralded bluesman, he does a pretty nice job on this track, especially in the terms of the guitar work.

For more examples of McCartney's lead guitar playing, check out this story about his top five guitar solos on Beatles songs.

"Souvenir" from Flaming Pie (Paul McCartney, 1997)

McCartney has released several "return to form" and/or "comeback" albums during his solo career, including 1982's Tug of War, 1989's Flowers In the Dirt, 1997's Flaming Pie and 2005's Chaos and Creation In the Backyard.

Flaming Pie, in particular, was lauded for its near-Beatles-level of quality (It even features Ringo Starr on several tracks and non-album B-sides). And while the album's title track and singles ("The World Tonight" and "Young Boy") enjoyed a good share of the spotlight, stronger tracks like "Souvenir" were generally overlooked.

This classy ode to Motown singles of a bygone era sports some gritty vocals and a meaty guitar riff during the choruses.

"A Love for You" from The In-Laws: Music from the Motion Picture (Paul and Linda McCartney, 2003)

The catchy "A Love for You" was recorded during the Ram sessions in 1971 but didn't make it onto the album, proof that McCartney throws away more decent songs than most artists write.

Fans discovered the song in the '80s when Cold Cuts, an official collection of unreleased McCartney songs recorded from 1971 to 1980, was leaked, bootlegged and finally abandoned by McCartney. The song didn't get its first proper release until 2003, when it appeared on the soundtrack album for The In-Laws, the so-so Michael Douglas/Albert Brooks comedy.

A different mix of the song turned up in 2012 as part of the Ram Special Edition release.

"That Was Me" from Memory Almost Full (Paul McCartney, 2007)

While Ringo Starr can't keep from making inane Beatles and Liverpool references on his last few solo albums, McCartney rarely looks back, lyrically, at least.

But in "That Was Me," a song from his critically acclaimed 2007 album, Memory Almost Full, the former Beatle recalls his early, sweaty days on the way up, basically saying, "You know that young mop-topped Beatle guy in those ol' B/W videos? That was me, this older guy you're looking at now. All that stuff actually happened, and sometimes I have a hard believing it myself."

But besides the fun blast from the past, the song has an ultra-cool bass line, a serious groove and a catchy, scat-style chorus reminiscent of "Heart of the Country."

[[ No band made a bigger mark on the 20th century than The Beatles. Guitar Legends: The Beatles takes you through the band's history, walks you through the making of three albums via interviews with the people who were there and gives you insights into the playing styles of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. It's available now at the Guitar World Online Store. ]]

Damian Fanelli is the online managing editor at Guitar World. His New York-based band, The Blue Meanies, plays "Eat At Home," "The Mess" and other forgotten stuff.

Additional Content

Creedence Clearwater Revival: A Step-by-Step Breakdown of the Guitar Styles and Techniques of John and Tom Fogerty

Guitar World Staff — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:15:22 +0000

Dave Rubin's Creedence Clearwater Revival: A Step-by-Step Breakdown of the Guitar Styles and Techniques of John and Tom Fogerty teaches the trademark riffs and licks behind 12 of CCR's biggest hits.

Songs include:

• Bad Moon Rising
• Born on the Bayou
• Down on the Corner
• Fortunate Son
• Green River
• Lodi
• Lookin' Out My Back Door
• Proud Mary
• Who'll Stop the Rain

... and more.

Creedence Clearwater Revival: A Step-by-Step Breakdown of the Guitar Styles and Techniques of John and Tom Fogerty is available now at the Guitar World Online Store for $22.95.

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Tapper's Delight: 20 Challenging Tapping Licks

Guthrie Govan — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:18:35 +0000

Fretboard tapping has earned a bad name in certain sectors of the guitar community. Some players dismiss it as a technique suitable only for perpetrating the worst possible kind of overblown, unmusical histrionics, preferably played through a wall of amps that “go to 11.”

If you feel that way, then you probably haven’t even managed to read this far. But for those of you who are still undecided about tapping, I would urge you to view the technique simply as an easy way to play notes you could never reach otherwise.

If you think of your tapping fingers as extensions of your fretting hand, you’ll find it easier to imagine how this technique can benefit virtually any style of playing.

Track Record

In the world of rock, Van Halen’s self-titled 1978 debut album heralded a tapping craze that soon caught on like wildfire. In the years following the album’s release, gifted guitarists such as Randy Rhoads, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai used the technique in their own landmark recordings. If you want to hear tapping taken to new heights of invention, check out Freak Kitchen by Mattias Eklundh and Normal by Ron Thal (a.k.a. Bumblefoot).

Tone

For tapping, many players opt to use their guitar’s bright-sounding bridge pickup and a heavily distorted, or at least overdriven, tone, which serves to compresses the dynamic (volume) range of the electric guitar’s signal, amplifying the quieter notes and increasing sustain, although players like Stanley Jordan manage to tap with a very clean, neck-pickup sound. When tapping with a clean tone, you’ll find that a compressor can even out dynamics and add sustain.

Technique

Most tapping is performed on one string at a time using either the middle or index finger of the picking hand, depending on if, and how, you’re holding a pick. Some players will momentarily tuck the pick into their palm or cradle it in the crook of one of their knuckles when they go to tap and maneuver it back into its normal position (typically between the thumb and index finger) when they go to pick again.

This magician-like sleight-of-hand can take a bit of practice to attain, and for this reason many players prefer to just keep the pick in its normal place and tap with the closest available finger, typically the middle. Experiment and use whichever technique works best for you. Eddie Van Halen holds his pick between his thumb and middle finger and taps with his index finger, and Rhoads tapped with the edge of his pick, which produces a very distinct articulation. (Listen closely to Rhoads’ classic solos in Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” and “Flying High Again” to hear the subtle difference in his tapping attack.)

Your speed and proficiency will increase if you minimize your movements and keep all relevant fingertips close to the strings when not in use so that they never have far to go at any given time. Depending on whether or not you’re holding a pick when tapping, you may find that resting, or “anchoring,” the thumb or heel of your tapping hand to the top side of the fretboard helps stabilize and steady the hand and increase the accuracy of your tapping movements.

The easiest way to train the fingers of your tapping hand is to learn from the way you perform hammer-ons and pull-offs with the more experienced fingers of your fretting hand. The following principles hold true for both hands:

• If you’re hammering a note, the force of your hammering motion will dictate its volume. The harder you hammer/tap, the louder the note.
• If you’re pulling off to a note, its volume is a function of how far you flick the string sideways (either toward the floor or ceiling) with the finger responsible for fretting the preceding note. This sideways flicking, or pulling, motion actually serves to pluck the string again and is what keeps it vibrating. If you were to just lift the finger directly off the string, the following note would be weak and barely audible. (Note that when tapping with a pick, the “pulled-off” note tends to be louder than normal due to the pick’s hard surface striking the string.)

Muting

Distortion amplifies the sympathetic vibrations of unfretted strings. When tapping, you should make a concerted effort to dampen any idle strings with various parts of both hands, something that requires a bit of practice and experimentation to figure out and master. To that end, many players will place a piece of foam or fabric against the strings in front of the nut. In addition, a cheap elastic-core hair tie stretched over the headstock and positioned over the fretboard is convenient for damping the open strings.

If you’re new to tapping, allow your fingertips time to toughen up and develop the necessary calluses. Hopefully, the rest will become clear as we go. We have a lot of licks to look at in this lesson, ranging from classic hard rock and metal lines to sequencer-like patterns and bluesy runs to jazzy arpeggios, so let’s dive in.

This is arguably the most versatile approach to tapping. A lick like this could sit comfortably in any rock, metal, blues, country or fusion context without necessarily invoking visions of Eighties-era spandex fashion statements. The recorded performance of this example on this month’s CD-ROM may sound reminiscent of Eddie Van Halen’s tone, but players of diversely different styles, ranging from Billy Gibbons, Brian May and Larry Carlton, have all dabbled in this approach.

There’s a strong argument here for using the middle finger of your pick hand to tap. By doing so, you can retain the pick in its conventional position and easily revert to picking at a moment’s notice. You can improve your accuracy if you anchor the heel of your tapping hand to the wound strings. This will also help mute unwanted string vibration while it allows you to keep a grip on the pick.
One tricky aspect of tapping a bent note like this is that the string moves closer to its neighbor (in this case, the D string), so you have to be extra careful to ensure that your tapping finger only makes contact with the G string. Try to bend the G string with your fret-hand ring finger while you simultaneously push the D string up slightly with the tip of that hand’s middle finger. This can help create more clearance between the two strings and provide a little more margin for error.

The following five examples serve as a great tapping primer, and there’s no other way to play arpeggio ideas like these with the same level of fluidity.

FIGURE 2 presents a classic Van Halen–style single-string triad tapping lick. This is the famous “Eruption” triad. To make this sound effective, the tapping finger must execute a strong pull-off as it leaves the ninth fret, thus ensuring that the Cs at the second fret rings out as prominently as its predecessor. You should also attempt to preserve a strict triplet rhythm, with every note equal in duration and volume.

Incidentally, there’s no single “right” way to execute a pull-off with the tapping finger. Some players prefer to flick the string upward, while others find it easier to flick it downward. Experiment with both approaches to find out which integrates more easily with the natural angle of your tapping hand and allows you to dampen the idle strings more effectively.

FIGURE 3 is a variation on the previous figure. Here, the order of two notes played by the fretting hand is reversed. It’s important that you become familiar with both approaches so that you can move on to ideas like the one shown in FIGURE 4, where the arpeggio goes all the way down and back up again, enabling you to move away from the ubiquitous triplet rhythm and phrase licks in even 16th notes.

Here’s another twist, reminiscent of Van Halen’s tapping licks in “Spanish Fly” and “Hot for Teacher” and Satriani’s “Satch Boogie.” In this lick, the first finger of your fretting hand has to pull off to the open A string, preferably without disturbing the D string in the process. As ever, careful attention to damping and accurate timing of each note are the keys to making this lick flow clearly. To sound the very first note, pluck the open A string with your tapping finger. Once you’ve gotten the string moving, all the subsequent open A notes are pulled-off to with the fretting hand.

FIGURE 6 demonstrates how you can outline a chord progression with triad inversions. Notice how the lick lets you arpeggiate four different chords without moving either hand far from its starting point. This is done by analyzing the component notes of each chord and placing them so that they all fit into roughly the same area of the fretboard.

The tapping sequence is similar to that found in FIGURE 5, but since we’re tapping the highest note twice, the sequence is now six notes long. Players such as Rhoads and Nuno Bettencourt have used this variation to great effect.

This next example isn’t reminiscent of any rock players and is intended to show how you can use tapping to create something a little bit different. If you start by looking purely at the B-string notes, you’ll see that the tapped notes outline a rhythm known in Latin music as the 3:2 clave: if you’re a fan of the bossa nova style, you’ll have heard this rhythm before. In this example, the fretting hand essentially does whatever is needed to fill in the gaps between the all-important tapped notes.

Once you’re familiar with the phrasing pattern, include the notes on the high E string, which adds a harmony to the B-string notes. Try tapping with either your index and middle fingers or the middle and ring (on the B and high E strings, respectively). The trickiest part here is arching your fret-hand fingers sufficiently so that the open E string is not muted by the underside of your index finger. Try to think like a classical player, keeping the thumb of your fretting hand based around the middle of the back of the neck.

FIGURE 8 demonstrates how you can use tapping in conjunction with finger slides to cover a lot of the fretboard in a short amount of time and achieve a smooth legato effect. The note choice here is derived from the A Aeolian mode (A B C D E F G), but you can design similar licks using the notes of any seven-note scale.

At slow speed, it can be tricky to squeeze seven evenly spaced notes into each beat—most of the popular music we hear tends to divide the beat into twos, threes or multiples thereof, so a grouping of seven might sound a little unfamiliar—but you’ll find that this becomes less of a problem at faster tempos. Simply aim to nail each new beat with a tapped note, and you’ll find that the notes in between will tend to distribute themselves evenly as you speed things up.

Here’s an interesting twist on the single-string scalar tapping approach. The first 10 notes look normal enough, but by the 11th you see that the fretting hand has leapt past the tapped note, to the 12th fret to perform a fret-hand tap, also known as a “hammer-on from nowhere.” The tapped note needs to be held at the 10th fret as the fretting hand quickly zooms up to the 12th fret, and you’ll need to be careful to ensure that the two hands don’t collide.

This lick won’t be for everyone, and it’s not particularly easy. On the other hand, it’s a useful approach whenever you’re trying to work out a fingering for something and it feels like you simply don’t have enough strings. This bypassing technique also has a certain flamboyant visual appeal, so it should come as no surprise to learn that Steve Vai was employing it as far back as the early Eighties.

This example is inspired by Bumblefoot. The important part here is the first half of bar 1; the lazy approach would be to play two evenly spaced groups of five, but you get a wholly different effect if you prolong the two D notes (at the 10th and 22nd frets) and squeeze all the other notes into a shorter space of time. If you’re having trouble with the seven-fret stretch here, you could instead play 13-15-16-17 on the first string instead of 13-15-17-20. It doesn’t sound quite as cool to me, but it’s still a great lick.

Regarding the rhythmic phrasing of this lick, in FIGURE 8 we saw how an odd number of notes tends to be distributed evenly throughout a beat as you increase speed. Sometimes, however, it can be fun to resist that tendency and preserve a more distinct rhythmic contour, as we do here. The ear can still identify distinctions between the rhythmic values of the notes even when they are played at ridiculously high speeds.

Here’s something a little more conventional. The idea is to play a blues lick with the fretting hand while highlighting certain notes by tapping them an octave higher. This is somewhat reminiscent of Nuno Bettencourt’s or Mattias Eklundh’s soloing styles.
The most challenging aspect of this lick is that you have to clearly and loudly hammer the first note on each new string with your fret-hand’s index or middle finger. This may feel a little weird at first, given that the index finger spends the bulk of its time acting more like a fleshy capo rather than as an independent hammering digit, so focus on executing the first-finger hammer-ons as cleanly as possible. This will be time well spent, as some of the subsequent licks will require much the same skill.

With regard to the final bent note: your tapping finger’s only role here is to hammer the note and then keep the string pushed down onto the fret while the fret-hand middle finger bends the string. As indicated, hammer the last note in the bar 1 with your middle finger, but once the tapped note has been initiated, there’s no harm in enlisting the fret hand’s ring finger to assist with the bend. As always, do whatever it takes to perform the job with the least amount of effort, pain and intonation issues.

Now for some more Van Halen–style fun. This lick is loosely modeled on a famous lick from “Hot for Teacher,” and it’s based on the A blues scale (A C D Ef E G). As with FIGURE 5, there’s a strong argument in favor of plucking the first note of the lick with your tapping finger. After that, each new string is greeted by a hammer-on, courtesy of the fret-hand’s ring finger. Hopefully you’ll find this easier than the first-finger hammering required in the previous example.

FIGURE 13 illustrates a scalar fingering approach favored by players like Greg Howe (who is featured in this month’s Betcha Can’t Play This, page 32). The fingering doesn’t incorporate any particularly wide intervals, and you could feasibly play the whole of the first two bars using strict left-hand legato, but by using the tapping hand to share some of the work you should be able to get more volume out of the lick while sparing your fretting hand from undue fatigue.

Here’s the downside: the tapped notes often fall in unusual places within the bar (rather than, say, on the downbeats), so this approach may feel a bit unnatural at first. Having said that, Howe’s exemplary playing is ample testimony to what can be done with this approach if you devote some time to it.

Here’s another scalar tapping concept. Most players would simply hammer the first note on each string with the first finger of the fretting hand, but the approach suggested in the tab here is based on the way Reb Beach (of Winger, Dokken, Night Ranger and now Whitesnake) would do it. Reb taps with his middle finger, so for ascending sequences he’ll use the ring finger of his tapping hand to pluck the first note on each new string. This may feel odd at first, but it undeniably gives you more volume and definition, particularly if you prefer not to use a lot of distortion.

If you go to any guitar show or music fair and head toward the “pointy guitar” booths, you’ll hear a veritable army of players churning out the following lick furiously and repeatedly. It’s a simple example of a “sweep-and-tap” arpeggio, which can be viewed in three sections.

Section 1 (the first five notes) involves dragging the pick downward across the strings in a single stroke to outline the first five notes of this C major arpeggio. Ideally, each fret-hand fingertip should relax slightly at the end of its designated note to ensure that only one note is ringing at a time. By moving the whole picking hand downward as you sweep, you should be able to utilize your palm for a bit of extra string damping. High-gain settings are pretty much de rigueur for this kind of lick, so you can never be too careful when it comes to muting unplayed strings with both hands.

Section 2 (beginning with the sixth note) requires that you hammer the G at the 15th fret while bringing your tapping finger into position. The first three notes of beat two should then remind you very much of what we did back in FIGURE 3.

Section 3 involves the last three notes of beat two. You could either sweep these notes with a single upstroke of the pick, or do what most players prefer and use fret-hand hammer-ons while repositioning the picking hand for the next big downstroke sweep on beat three.

Note that most of this lick involves techniques other than tapping, yet that one tapped high C note makes all the difference, adding a pleasingly soft quality to the top half of the arpeggio and contrasting nicely with the more percussive sound of sweep picking.

FIGURE 16 is an example of another approach to playing arpeggios, this one incorporating more taps, plenty of fret-hand hammer-ons and no sweeping whatsoever, resulting in a more fluid sound. Check out shredders like Scott Mishoe to hear this approach in action.
This example marks the first instance in which we’ve encountered a slid tapped note. You’ll find the key here is to slide with authority and to ensure the fingertip is constantly pushing on the string. Otherwise you run the risk of losing the note, particularly as you slide back downward. However, don’t press the tapping finger against the string any harder than is necessary, as doing so will create excessive friction that will slow you down and actually make the tap-and-slide more difficult than need be.

Here’s the same concept applied to a blues scale. Note that this and the preceding pattern are symmetrical, essentially featuring the same shape on each subsequent pair of strings.

This run starts out as a signature Paul Gilbert string-skipping lick, then moves into tapping territory. Musically, all the notes (apart from that pesky C in bar 2) are from a Gm7 arpeggio (G Bf D F), but the overall effect is closer to that of a warp-speed G minor pentatonic (G Bf C D F) blues lick. The slides toward the end of bar 1 span four frets, so they’re a little trickier than the single-fret slide in FIGURE 16, but the principle is the same.

Here’s another arpeggio-playing approach that incorporates string skipping and tapping. Michael Romeo of Symphony X is rather partial to this approach.

If you’re not averse to a bit of fret-hand stretching, FIGURE 20 offers a versatile approach to playing major seven arpeggios. It has the same symmetrical qualities as FIGURES 16 and 17 and incorporates string skipping by cramming each octave’s worth of Cmaj7 arpeggio notes (C E G B) onto a single string.

Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time Readers Poll: Round 1 — "Crazy Train" (Randy Rhoads) Vs. "War Pigs" (Tony Iommi)

Guitar World Staff — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:40:59 +0000

A few years ago, the editors of Guitar World magazine compiled what we feel is the ultimate guide to the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time.

To quote our "Stairway" story that ran with the list, "If Jimmy Page is the Steven Spielberg of guitarists, then 'Stairway' is his Close Encounters."

Note that you can vote only once per matchup. The voting for each matchup ends as soon as the next matchup is posted (Basically, that's one poll per day during the first round of elimination, including weekends and holidays).

Today's very Ozzy Osbourne-centric matchup pits Randy Rhoads' work on Ozzy's "Crazy Train" (9) against Tony Iommi's iconic solo on Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" (56). Get busy! You'll find the poll at the bottom of the story.

Yesterday's Results

Winner: "Little Wing" (77.62 percent)
Loser: "Jessica" (22.38 percent)

Round 1, Day 8: "Crazy Train" Vs. "War Pigs"

9. “Crazy Train”
Soloist: Randy Rhoads
Album: Ozzy Osbourne—Blizzard of Ozz (Epic, 1981)

Randy Rhoads employed a two-part process when recording his solos for Blizzard of Ozz. First, the classically trained young shredder would take his customized Jackson guitars to a stone room downstairs at England’s Ridge Farm Studios where he would work out each of his solos, among them “Crazy Train.”

“This was after we did the backing tracks,” says Blizzard of Ozz engineer Max Norman. “Randy had a Marshall and a couple of 4x12s, and we had him set up in this room with the cabinets facing up out into the main studio. They were miked at various points: close, at three feet and again at about 12 feet. I would make Randy a loop of the solo section and we’d just let that play into these big monitors downstairs, where he would just sit and jam away for hours and hours until he had composed his completed solo.”

With the solos arranged to his liking, Rhoads would then report upstairs to the control room to record them. “We’d plug the guitar directly into the console,” recalls Norman. “We’d preamp it in the console and send it down to the amp from there. That way we could control the amount of gain that hit the amp, which is always a problem when running a remote amplifier and trying to get a good enough signal to it."

56. "War Pigs”
Soloist: Tony Iommi
Album: Black Sabbath—Paranoid (Warner Bros., 1970)

Tony Iommi makes his first appearance in our Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time readers poll! Iommi once said "War Pigs," the iconic opener to Black Sabbath's Paranoid album, originated as a jam session.

Voting Closed!

Winner: "Crazy Train" (74.71 percent)
Loser: "War Pigs" (25.29 percent)

Please check out our current Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time poll at GuitarWorld.com!

Head HERE to see all the matchups that have taken place so far!

Additional Content

Get Note-for-Note Transcriptions of The Who's Greatest Songs

Guitar World Staff — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:39:29 +0000

Best of The Who (Hal Leonard) offers note-for-note transcriptions with tab for 25 classic hits from the Who.

The book, which is available now at the Guitar World Online Store, is available now for $24.95.

Songs include:

• Athena
• Baba O'Riley
• Behind Blue Eyes
• Eminence Front
• Going Mobile
• I Can See for Miles
• I'm Free
• The Kids Are Alright
• Long Live Rock
• The Magic Bus
• My Generation
• Pinball Wizard
• The Seeker
• Squeeze Box
• Who Are You
• Won't Get Fooled Again
• You Better You Bet

... and more!

This 168-page book is available now at the Guitar World Online Store.

Additional Content

Listen: Blackmore's Night Premiere New Song, "The Moon Is Shining (Somewhere Over the Sea)"

Damian Fanelli — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:31:29 +0000

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the premiere of "The Moon Is Shining (Somewhere Over the Sea)," a new track by Ritchie Blackmore's band, Blackmore's Night.

The song is from the band's new album, Dancer and the Moon, which will be released June 11 by Frontiers Records.

Good news for Blackmore fans: Dancer and the Moon, the band's eighth studio album, features several instrumentals, including "Galliard" and "Carry On… Jon," which Blackmore wrote as a tribute to the late Jon Lord of Deep Purple.

Dancer and the Moon will be released June 11 in North America and June 14 in Europe in regular CD configuration and deluxe edition in digipak, including a bonus DVD featuring a 40-minute "making of" documentary and acoustic versions of "The Spinner's Tale," "Somewhere Over The Sea/Moon Was Shining," "The Ashgrove" and "Queen For A Day".

For more information about Blackmore's Night and Dancer and the Moon, visit blackmoresnight.com.

Dancer and the Moon Track Listing:

01. I Think It's Going To Rain Today
02. Troika
03. The Last Leaf
04. Lady In Black
05. Minstrels In The Hall
06. The Temple Of The King
07. Dancer And The Moon
08. Galliard
09. The Ashgrove
10. Somewhere Over The Sea (The Moon Is Shining)
11. The Moon Is Shining (Somewhere Over The Sea)
12. The Spinner's Tale
13. Carry On... Jon

Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time Readers Poll: Round 1 — "Little Wing" (Jimi Hendrix) Vs. "Jessica" (Dickey Betts)

Guitar World Staff — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 11:43:01 +0000

A few years ago, the editors of Guitar World magazine compiled what we feel is the ultimate guide to the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time.

To quote our "Stairway" story that ran with the list, "If Jimmy Page is the Steven Spielberg of guitarists, then 'Stairway' is his Close Encounters."

Today's matchup pits Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" (18) against the Allman Brothers Band's "Jessica" (47), featuring the fretwork of Dickey Betts. Get busy! You'll find the poll at the bottom of the story.

Yesterday's Results

Winner: "Time" (80.52 percent)
Loser: "Alive" (19.48 percent)

Round 1, Day 7: "Little Wing" Vs. "Jessica"

18. “Little Wing”
Soloist: Jimi Hendrix
Album: The Jimi Hendrix Experience—Axis: Bold as Love (Experience Hendrix/MCA, 1968)

Covered by artists like Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Sting, “Little Wing” is one of Jimi Hendrix’s most beautiful and enduring compositions. It’s easy to see why. The original is seductively warm, poignant and light as a feather. Engineer Eddie Kramer explains how Jimi achieved the song’s ethereal glow in the studio.

“One of my favorite touches on that track is the glockenspiel part, which was played by Jimi,” says Kramer. “Part of the beauty of recording at Olympic Studios in London was using instruments that had been left from previous sessions. The glockenspiel was just laying around, so Jimi used it.”

Hendrix’s rich and watery guitar solo was, says Kramer, in part the product of a secret weapon. “One of the engineers had built this miniature Leslie,” continues Kramer. “It was like it was built out of an Erector set and had a small eight-inch speaker that rotated. Believe it or not, the guitar solo was fed through this tiny thing, and that’s the lovely effect you hear on the lead.”

47. "Jessica”
Soloist: Dickey Betts
Album: The Allman Brothers Band—Brothers and Sisters (Polydor, 1973)

Dickey Betts’ instrumental “Jessica” is as uplifting a piece of music as can be found in all rock. And that, says Betts, is no coincidence: the music actually began with his desire to express pure jubilation.

“My instrumentals try to create some of the basic feelings of human interaction, like anger and joy and love,” says Betts. “With ‘Jessica,’ I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t quite find it. Then my little daughter, Jessica, crawled into the room, and I just started playing to her, trying to capture the feeling of her crawling and smiling. That’s why I named it after her.”

Betts wrote the song’s melodic theme while emulating one of his heroes—the gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, who had the use of only two fingers on his left hand. “I came up with that melody using just two fingers as a sort of tribute to Django,” says Betts. “That the song turned out so well is very satisfying. In general, writing a good instrumental is very fulfilling, because you’ve transcended language and spoken to someone with a melody.”

Voting Closed!

Yesterday's Results

Winner: "Little Wing" (77.62 percent)
Loser: "Jessica" (22.38 percent)

Please check out our current Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time poll at GuitarWorld.com!

Head HERE to see all the matchups that have taken place so far!

Additional Content

Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time Readers Poll: Round 1 — "Time" (David Gilmour) Vs. "Alive" (Mike McCready)

Guitar World Staff — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 09:19:50 +0000

A few years ago, the editors of Guitar World magazine compiled what we feel is the ultimate guide to the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time.

To quote our "Stairway" story that ran with the list, "If Jimmy Page is the Steven Spielberg of guitarists, then 'Stairway' is his Close Encounters."

Today's matchup pits David Gilmour's work on Pink Floyd's "Time" (21) against Pearl Jam's "Alive" (44), featuring the fretwork of Mike McCready. Get busy! You'll find the poll at the bottom of the story.

Yesterday's Results

Winner: "Whole Lotta Love" (53.91 percent)
Loser: "Pride and Joy" (46.09 percent)

Round 1, Day 6: "Time" Vs. "Alive"

21. “Time”
Soloist: David Gilmour
Album: Pink Floyd—The Dark Side of the Moon (Columbia, 1973)

“Working with Pink Floyd is an engineer’s dream, so I tried to take advantage of the situation,” says studio wizard Alan Parsons. “Dark Side of the Moon came at a crucial stage in my career, so I was highly motivated.” Parsons’ attention to detail obviously paid off: He won a Grammy award for the best engineered album of 1973, and DSOTM went on to ride the charts for a record-breaking 14 years.

But while Parsons takes credit for many of Moon’s sonic innovations, he says the massive guitar sound on the album can be attributed to only one man: David Gilmour. “David was very much in control of his sound system,” says Parsons. “We rarely added effects to his guitar in the control room. Generally speaking, the sound on the album is pretty much what came out of his amp. As I recall, he used a Hiwatt stack, a Fuzz Face and an Italian-made delay unit called a Binson Echorec.”

Gilmour confirms: “For most of my solos, I usually use a fuzz box, a delay and a bright eq setting. But to get that kind of singing sustain, you really need to play loud—at or near the feedback threshold.”

SORRY, THE STUDIO VERSION OF "TIME" IS NOT AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE!

44. "Alive”
Soloist: Mike McCready
Album: Pearl Jam—Ten (Epic, 1991)

“Basically, I copied Ace Frehley’s solo from ‘She,’ ” says Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready. “Which, of course, was copied from Robby Krieger’s solo in the Doors’ ‘Five to One.’ ”

Voting Closed!

Winner: "Time" (80.52 percent)
Loser: "Alive" (19.48 percent)

Please check out our current Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time poll at GuitarWorld.com!

Head HERE to see all the matchups that have taken place so far!

Additional Content

Lift Off: Shock Rocket Guitarist Marty Favento Talks Roots, Gear and New Album

Dave Reffett — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 17:28:51 +0000

Marty Favento, who was born and raised in a small town called Koper in Slovenia, started playing guitar at age 10.

His father, an accomplished blues guitarist, got him into guitar playing and sent him to a private music school, where he spent five years studying.

GuitarWorld.com caught up with Favento to discuss his band Shock Rocket’s new album. Lift Off, which is getting some cool buzz in the European metal underground.

GUITAR WORLD: You recently did a video you jam with Michael Angelo Batio. Where was this and what was that like?

Yes, true! I jammed with legendary shredder Michael Angelo Batio in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It was totally amazing. I was so scared to stand next to such an accomplished guitar player and jam with him. I was really nervous at the beginning, but I made it through well, I guess. I had sent him a CD from my previous band. and he replied to me that he really liked it. Since then we've known each other. When he had a guitar clinic, we talked and then I randomly asked him if we could jam together, he agreed and we played "Nuclear Blues."

Who are your main influences?

Joe Satriani, John Petrucci, Michael Angelo Batio, Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Vito Bratta, Reb Beach, Guy Mann-Dude, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Angus Young, Frank Marino and many more.

On the new album, your lead chops are quite impressive. Do you have any advice for young players? Are there any particular practice routines or DVDs you'd recommend?

I appreciate it! Well, it's probably nothing you haven't heard before. It takes a lot of practicing, dedication, listening to music and trying to figure out some progressions. I always think, "OK, let's practice, so when I wake up tomorrow I'll be better than I was yesterday." I always loved to play and never struggled for inspiration to pick up my guitar.

I've got to send special thanks to Michael Angelo Batio because of his Speed Kills DVD, which taught me one very important thing: "In order to play fast, you’ve got to first learn how to play slow.: In my teens, I played fast but really needed to master the technique, and I did this through learning to play slow first and knowing what I was actually playing. That's the only way to learn how to play fast!

In the US, glam and '80s-style rock has become more of an underground sort of thing, but people still love that style of music. Is this music still big in Europe? Are the crowds very open to it?

Yes, absolutely, and I've noticed that somehow '80s rock & metal is coming back. I'm seeing 80's American hair bands doing reunions again and playing in front of huge crowds, and bands like Steel Panther are getting quite popular. Music from the '80s is timeless, and it's been listened to for many generations. In Europe I think it's doing well — especially in Scandinavia, the UK and Germany. For now, I’ve got to say that we're getting really amazing feedback from fans all around the world, and I'm really grateful for that.

What is your rig like, and what guitars do you use?

I've been using Jackson guitars since I was 15. They get a great rock and metal sound, have amazing necks, and the playability is at the top. I use a Marshall JCM 2000 with a Marshall cabinet that has 2x12 Celestion Vintage 30s inside. The only pedal I have is a T-REX M.A.B. overdrive, which is really good. I've been using the same rig live as for the studio, only in the studio I use my father's 1983 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe for some extra rhythm parts. That's It! I like to keep it simple. I use Dunlop Jazz III XL guitar picks, Elixir cables, DiMarzio pickups, DiMarzio clip-lock straps, original Floyd Rose guitar bridges — and that's really it.

What was the recording and writing process like for the new album?

It was really cool. I wrote the music for the album and I also produced. I always write riffs and melodies for Shock Rocket songs, and then we arrange it together. The singer, Andrew D, wrote most of the lyrics. The whole recording process took us only about three weeks, but the mixing process was long. Our mixer, Denis Scher, did a really good job!

In the CD booklet, you thank Guy Mann-Dude. Any news on him?

Guy is a great person. He's one of my biggest influences. While I was recording this album, he gave me tips about what to do and what not to do. He has a lot of experience from sitting next to Desmond Child, who produced Alice Cooper's Trash album, along with many other platinum releases. Guy played some guitar on that album and also recorded his solo album on MCA Records in 1989.

Unfortunately, he's not playing guitar anymore. That's really a pity because he had a great technique and his own style and sound. He told me he's playing jazz piano now as a hobby. He is a multi-instrumentalist. As a matter of fact, he played drums before guitar with Steve Vai and on Jon Anderson from Yes’ solo tour in 1982. He always has an honest opinion; sometimes it's not something you want to hear, but that's something that helps me improve all the time. I'm sure my future material will be even better because of his assistance.

Anything you want to say to everyone out there?

First of all, I want to thank Guitar World for this interview. It's a huge honor. To all of the readers, guitarists and musicians, I want to say this: Keep on dreaming and never give up. Keep on practicing and song writing. And check out my band, Shock Rocket. If you like the sound of bands like Ratt, Dokken, Extreme and Mr.Big. you will dig our music!

For more about Shock Rocket, check them out on Facebook.

Dave Reffett is a Berklee College of Music graduate and has worked with some of the best players in rock and metal. He is an instructor at (and the head of) the Hard Rock and Heavy Metal department at The Real School of Music in the metro Boston area. He also is a master clinician and a highly-in-demand private guitar teacher. He teaches lessons in person and worldwide via Skype. As an artist and performer, he is working on some soon-to-be revealed high-profile projects with A-list players in rock and metal. In 2009, he formed the musical project Shredding The Envelope and released the critically acclaimed album The Call Of The Flames. Dave also is an official artist endorsee for companies like Seymour Duncan, Gibson, Eminence and Esoterik Guitars, which in 2011 released a Dave Reffett signature model guitar, the DR-1. Dave has worked in the past at Sanctuary Records and Virgin Records, where he promoting acts like The Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, Korn and Meat Loaf.

Photo Gallery: Guitar World Magazine Ads from the 1980s, Part 1

Damian Fanelli — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:52:20 +0000

As you might've noticed, we occasionally post photo galleries that collect a particular year's Guitar World magazine covers.

We also post stories from Guitar World's past, including our final interview with Stevie Ray Vaughan from 1989 and our past interviews with Steve Vai, Frank Zappa, David Gilmour, Eddie Van Halen, Ted Nugent ... you get the idea.

But, as we dig through Guitar World issues from the late '80s, we can't help but, well, truly enjoy some of the old ads. I don't know — maybe it's just us — but take a look at this batch of ads from two random issues from 1987, and tell us if you want to see more!

There's a lot more where these came from ...

Additional Content

Professor Shred with Guthrie Govan: Tapping in 16th-Note Triplets

Guthrie Govan — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:45:04 +0000

These videos are bonus content related to the January 2012 issue of Guitar World. For full print reviews, lesson tabs and more, look for theJanuary 2012 issue of Guitar World on newsstands now, or purchase this issue in our online store here.

For the rest of the January 2012 video content, head here.

In this month's edition of "Professor Shred," Guthrie Govan covers tapping in 16th-note triplets and gives a little insight on how to play his song, "Bad Asteroid."

Part 1

Part 2