Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 123 i Australian Guitar

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH PETER WALKER Peter Walker was a founding member of progressive hard rock band Bakery. After six years on the road, Walker migrated to the studio world via Charles Fisher and Trafalgar Studios, where he often worked with people he knew from his touring days. He engineered and produced numerous albums through the ‘70s and ‘80s, covering a wide range of music from rock, pop and country, all the way to film soundtracks and the like. These were heady days, with large budgets and long sessions. Walker was also a resident session guitarist, playing on many tracks and advertising jingles. Much of that work was uncredited, as his specialty was replacing existing parts – or beefing them up – for albums by well-known bands. His work…

The Melbourne Guitar Show is in its third year, and every year, it’s bigger and better than the one before it. As Rick Chadwick of CMC Music Australia told us during a visit to his company’s packed booth, “The first year was great, and the second year was a little busier. But this year, it’s been wall-to-wall people the whole time. We keep hearing about the decline of the guitar, but look around you. Does it look like the guitar is in trouble?” By far the most talked-about piece of gear at the show was the USA-made Peavey HP2 guitar. If it looks familiar, that’s because these are being made out of unfinished bodies that had been stockpiled when a certain famous endorser left the company a while back. This…

So, what’s it like growing up with Paul Stanley as your dad?” Don’t worry, dear AG readers, that’s the last thing we’d think of asking Evan Stanley in our interview with him and The Dives’ lead singer/co-guitarist Mike Lefton. The fact that his dad is a rock legend who stands out front of KISS every night is cool trivia, but it has no bearing whatsoever on the catchy late ‘70s/ early ‘80s-inspired power pop of The Dives (think The Knack meets Cheap Trick). As the band’s debut EP, Everybody’s Talkin’, makes clear, this is a musical entity with its own sound and its own set of influences that have very little to do with the Starchild. And Stanley neither relies on the family connection for attention nor uses it as…

MARCUS SEIPEN “We all looked at the guitars our heroes were playing on the posters and the records. For me, Maiden were always an influence, so it was the Stratocaster because Dave Murray was playing one. Thin Lizzy played a role for me too so I wanted a Les Paul. My first electric guitar was a copy of Michael Schenker’s black and white Flying V. It wasn’t a high-quality guitar, but it did the trick for me because it looked like one.” JENS LUDWIG “My first electric guitar was from a German brand called Hohner, and the second one was a Jackson Kelly. I had an Ibanez S Series axe after that, and then in ‘99, I started my first small endorsement with a French brand called Lâg Guitars.” WOLF…

“PEOPLE WERE REALISING THAT OUR BAND HAS TEETH, AND THERE’S SOME FLATTERY IN THAT” There’s an almost sad irony to the life of a punk musician: their most inspired work emerges when they have something to fight against and when they have a message to spread. In other words, punk bands are at their best when the world is at its worst. The thought of such an existence would make most people dive into the nearest corner and roll around in the fetal position, but bands like Rise Against relish in the opportunity to charge through walls and rip out the heart of outdated social and political positions. If it wasn’t for Donald Trump, their latest LP, Wolves, may not have packed the same potent punch. In 2016, the USA…

RRP: $1,799 The past few years have seen several companies touting integrated digital mixers as solutions for the multi-faceted technical requirements of live performance. The Ui24R is Soundcraft’s most extensive and full-featured offering to this market, and we reviewed its smaller cousin, the Ui16, last year. Even at 24 channels big, the Ui24R can only manage a smaller channel load than competitors from other brands. For those unfamiliar with these kind of units, the Ui24R can look a bit daunting at first glance. But the concepts behind it are quite simple – the key is understanding how they fit together. The core technology is built around 20 analog inputs, which are kitted with high-quality Studer preamps. These allow the artist and their crew to take whatever signals required, from drum…

It’s been great to see the return of Charvel since the brand was acquired by FMIC in 2002. FMIC has very carefully built the brand up to an interesting place in terms of product range: Charvel represents the ‘Superstrat’ segment, incorporating more modern player features, hotter pickups and flashier finishes on a somewhat traditional framework, leaving Fender free to explore the past and future of its classic models, and Jackson to handle the more metal-oriented stuff. For this issue, Fender Music Australia sent us three of their finest Charvels, each a take on the classic Telecaster shape but approaching it from a different perspective. Charvel’s Tele-like line is the Pro-Mod Style 2, and it’s an incredibly versatile platform as we’ll see. THE PRO-MOD SAN DIMAS STYLE 2 HH HT M…

Guitarists owe Dweezil Zappa a huge debt of gratitude. Not only is he a great player in his own right, but he’s also leading the charge in keeping the music of his father – the one and only Frank Zappa – alive for new generations. David Roy Williams, in collaboration with Principal Entertainment, will present Dweezil Zappa and The Others Of Intention – celebrating 50 years of Zappa with a series of concerts and exclusive guitar masterclasses in Australia and New Zealand come early 2018. In a pun-filled press release that’s too good to not share, the promoters say, “Freak Out! to some of the most inventive and wildly original music ever committed to tape! Discover Who Are The Brain Police? as Dweezil conducts immaculate explorations and excavations of Frank’s…

“For me, if playing one note through a chain of effects is the sound I’m after, I don’t feel any regret about that.” These might seem like strange words for a man routinely praised as the greatest art-rock musician to come out of the UK in a generation, but Steven Wilson has always had a conflicted relationship with progressive rock. He’s consistently pushed the stylistic and emotional boundaries of a genre that’s often ruled by the tastes of ‘70s-obssessed classicists. In simple terms, Wilson’s latest offering, To The Bone, pushes the clock forward one decade to the 1980s. The album’s songs are generally punchy and resplendent, with pop hooks that evoke watershed artists like Kate Bush, Tears For Fears and Talk Talk. But there’s much more depth to his musical…

“ONCE PEOPLE HEAR IT, IT’LL BE OBVIOUS THAT IT WAS A STRONG GROUP EFFORT.” It’s been a surprisingly long time since Paul Kelly has made… Well, a Paul Kelly record. He’s been enormously busy, to be clear, but on projects with very clearly defined boundaries. Since Stolen Apples came out in 2007, he’s written an autobiography ( How To Make Gravy, published in 2010) and featured in a biopic ( Stories Of Me in 2012), compiled his entire body of work in alphabetical order for the A-Z collection and related tours, and roamed the country swapping songs with Neil Finn – which was later released as the Goin’ My Way album in 2013. He’s also made a bunch of records, but they’ve all been somewhat conceptual in nature. 2012’s Spring…

FOO FIGHTERS Concrete And Gold SONY The Foo Fighters’ ability to consistently deliver a slab of wall-to-wall guitars has long been a source of both praise and criticism alike. They’ve always had rock on lock – it’s why they still headline the world’s biggest festivals, and when every other rock mainstay eventually jumps ship to the pop realm, it’s what we can depend on. But the Foos’ ninth LP is a curious beast indeed. For a band well into their second decade, they still manage a number of firsts. Long-time keyboardist Rami Jaffee has earned his status as a bonafide Foo (and a commemorative pin, probably) as he officially rounds out the band to a six-piece. It’s also the first time Dave Grohl has called upon a pop songwriter (Greg…

V OX has always been an innovator. The venerable AC30 was both visually and sonically distinct from the Fender amps that were coveted at the time, and they were a heck of a lot easier for British players to get their hands on, which is a similar story to how Marshall came to be. Their Teardrop guitars were a refreshing approach to guitar design at a time when the instrument was struggling with how to approach non-traditional shapes; the VOX Wah pedal was, and is still, iconic; the ValveTronix range was an early adopter for the blend of tube and digital technologies in a multi-effects unit; and the Night Train brought the boutique lunchbox amp head to the mainstream. Now, they’re doing it all over again with the MV50 line…

The Gibson Hummingbird square-shoulder dreadnought, originally released in 1960, is one of those guitars that invokes all sorts of images and emotional resonances. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger both used them, as did Thom Yorke, John McLaughlin and Chris Cornell. You can spy one in Almost Famous, where it provides a little visual indicator of the time-frame. They look equally at home on classic rock, country and alternative stages, and they carry a decently hefty price tag. Epiphone has taken the wallet-sting out of this notoriously beautiful model, and added some electronics to make it more stage-friendly. Let’s take a peek. IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY The Epiphone Hummingbird PRO looks very much like the original Gibson version, with the most noticeable difference being the larger and more…

It begins in the harsh winter of 2016, when the Novocastrian singer-songwriter dropped their second EP, I Just Have A Lot Of Feelings. The four-track beast came at a dark time in Cox’s life: they were wrestling with the grip of a destructive eating disorder, traversing the cracks of broken relationships and battling dire mental health issues. But the release not only served as an outlet of catharsis for Cox – it marked a turning point that would inform the evolution both of their personal life and their artistry. “In releasing [Feelings], I had made myself super vulnerable – those songs were like open wounds in a lot of ways,” they admit. “So having put that out there and having it be so well received made me want to write…

“WHEN YOU SEE HOW MUCH YOUR MUSIC TOUCHES THEM - THAT’S PRICELESS.” Ah, Germany: the land of pretzels, perfect beer and plenty of heavy metal. Where legions of headbangers, clad in black from head to toe, spend all summer roaming between an abundant number of festivals, and genre-defining bands remind everyone why the country’s music scene is held in such high regard. So many significant outfits – including Edguy, Blind Guardian and Accept – grew out of small towns or cities at a time when the world was turning most of its attention towards riff-masters in England and the United States. While the odds weren’t necessarily against them, they weren’t exactly stacked in their favour either. Despite it all, these legendary bands have reached veteran status, and are about to…

Most young journalists dream of meeting their heroes and being invited into a momentarily larger-than-life existence, being flung behind the curtain and ending up with wild stories of rock’n’roll excess to regale their inner circle with. But it’s not 1970 anymore, Toto. Everyone has a camera in their pocket, and media is immediate. An artist is often very much just someone who has a product to sell (sometimes begrudgingly), time is precious when you’re trying to hit every outlet, and the adage of “all publicity is good publicity” no longer rings true. The quotes are often well-rehearsed and polite, and the process runs according to plan – there’s usually a publicist a few centimetres away to get them back on course if it doesn’t. Music journalism is so streamlined in…

FENDER MONTEREY BLUETOOTH SPEAKER RRP: $799 | fender.com.au The Monterey channels 120 watts of power into a pristine quad-driver system; two woofers and two tweeters are precisely matched to reproduce your music with pure, clear sound. Included is a 3.5mm auxiliary input jack and a pair of RCA jacks to connect a RIAA preamp, so you can listen to music from almost any source – wired or wireless. The 33-foot-plus Bluetooth range, aptX and AAC wireless audio codec support – as well as an onboard mic with echo cancellation – ensure your phone calls sound as pristine as your tunes. The Monterey is designed to fit into any décor, inspired by the classic ’68 Custom amplifiers from the protective speaker grille to the ‘witch hat’ knobs, amp jewel…

Exhausted. Excited. Burnt out, but blown away. After releasing their self-titled debut in 2014, Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher’s lives went from zero to 100 almost overnight. The duo from Brighton, better known as Royal Blood, were being hailed as the saviours of rock and roll. Pub gigs turned into mega festival slots with audiences in the thousands; it was a wild ride, and one that the guys aren’t soon going to forget, but years of touring took their toll on Kerr. When the chaos of LP1 was all over, the singer/bassist went home, grabbed his instrument and slammed it into a door. It was obliterated, but Kerr seemed relieved. “That was probably me saying, ‘You can’t make us do this anymore,’” he laughs. “It was like, ‘We could have…