Sick Riffs: Carl Marck teaches you the dreamy, bend-laden intro line of Advertisement's Pretty Money

Sick Riffs #131: Advertisement have become known throughout the Pacific Northwest underground music scene for their elaborate, free performances, that often feature as many as six or seven members on stage at once.

Teaming up with record producer Trevor Spencer for their debut full length American Advertisement, the Seattle outfit have put together a sprawling collection of tunes, from the dreamy, retro-inspired Days of Heaven to the harmony-rich She Was Dead.

Guitarist Carl Marck joins us today to take you through the intro lead riff of Pretty Money, the album's second track. This one is characterized by its precise bending articulation, so it's a great opportunity for you to work on your phrasing.

He plays a Gibson SG Standard electric guitar through a 1995 Fender Bassman amp, an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail reverb pedal and an Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer overdrive.

Says Marck, “COVID-19 unfortunately stalled most of our plans for the new LP – we had to cancel a full US tour, and more or less pivot to selling the record exclusively online. 

“If there’s a silver lining, it’s that this period of quarantining has opened up a lot of time for writing new material, which probably wouldn’t have existed if we were busy touring. 

“Our hope is that everyone in the concert world who’s lost their source of income gets the support they both deserve and need in the coming months – there’s definitely going to be a surge of amazing music coming out in the next year or two with all of the down time on everyone’s hand, so we’re trying to stay optimistic and hopeful that there will still be places to play when everything finally lifts.”

Support Advertisement

https://thisisadvertisement.bandcamp.com/album/american-advertisement
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3MtjpQAQmSVUoG1GJuz4yU
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/advertisement/363951945

Sick Riffs is a Guitar World video series designed to help guitarists affected by the coronavirus. Self-isolating players around the world have each filmed a lesson where they teach you one of their own guitar riffs, up close and personal. If you dig the lesson, we encourage you to buy music and merch from the artist or stream their music.

Thank you for reading 5 articles this month**

Join now for unlimited access

US pricing $3.99 per month or $39.00 per year

UK pricing £2.99 per month or £29.00 per year 

Europe pricing €3.49 per month or €34.00 per year

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Prices from £2.99/$3.99/€3.49

Sam Roche

Sam was Staff Writer at GuitarWorld.com from 2019 to 2023, and also created content for Total Guitar, Guitarist and Guitar Player. He has well over 15 years of guitar playing under his belt, as well as a degree in Music Technology (Mixing and Mastering). He's a metalhead through and through, but has a thorough appreciation for all genres of music. In his spare time, Sam creates point-of-view guitar lesson videos on YouTube under the name Sightline Guitar.