Sick Riffs #57: We hope you're not getting tired of learning new riffs, as we've got plenty more on the way! Today, we bring you Sky Valley Mistress guitarist Sean "Starsky" Berry, as he teaches you how to play Punk Song - taken from the band's latest album, Faithless Rituals.
In this instance, Starsky plays a left-handed Burns Marquee electric guitar. "I picked [it] up for £170," he says. "A lot of the parts aren’t original but that’s why I love it - it has character." In addition, he plays through a 1976 Ampeg V4 amp head powering two 4x12 Hiwatt stack cabs, and a pedalboard featuring a DigiTech Whammy and a Black Arts Toneworks Pharaoh Fuzz.
"We released our debut album, Faithless Rituals, on March 20th 2020 - which for the UK was the day all schools closed," the guitarist says. "I think nationally, it was the first time the pandemic felt very real and serious.
"For us as a band, we spent the better part of five years putting our debut album together, writing it and ultimately recording at the legendary Rancho de la Luna in California - it felt like a real journey up the mountain.
"To have the promo tour cancelled, amongst everything else, has felt like we’ve hit a bit of a cliff edge. But we’ll find another way around when all this is over - we’ll get there. I think the main thing that really sucks is just not being able to get in a room with my mates and make some horrible noise."
While "horrible noise" is subjective, we find Sky Valley Mistress's work rather enjoyable indeed.
Support Sky Valley Mistress
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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.
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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.
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