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News Item: The Winery Dogs — Richie Kotzen, Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy — to Release Debut Album July 23

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:39:40 -0400

The Winery Dogs, a new power trio featuring guitarist Richie Kotzen (Mr. Big, Poison), bassist Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big) and drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, Avenged Sevenfold), will release their self-titled debut album July 23 via Loud & Proud Records.

The album was self-produced and mixed by Jay Ruston (Anthrax, Stone Sour, Steel Panther).

“I am so excited about the Winery Dogs and am proud and honored to be working with two of the greatest musicians on the planet," Portnoy said. "Richie Kotzen is such an unbelievable talent, as a vocalist, guitarist and songwriter. I think the Winery Dogs will finally get him the attention and recognition that he so richly deserves.

"What can be said of Billy Sheehan that hasn't been said already? He is one the true pioneers of the instrument and a legend. I am looking forward to working with the great staff of Loud & Proud Records, some of whom I worked very closely with during their time at Roadrunner and my time with Dream Theater. I look forward to continuing that relationship with the Winery Dogs!”

Stay tuned for U.S. tour news, which will be announced in the coming weeks.

For more information on the band, visit facebook.com/TheWineryDogs, twitter.com/TheWineryDogs and youtube.com/user/thewinerydogs.

News Item: Capital Cities' Ryan Merchant talks Safe And Sound, software and vintage synths

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:01:00 -0400

Read more about Capital Cities' Ryan Merchant talks Safe And Sound, software and vintage synths at MusicRadar.com

To say that Safe And Sound, the fast-rising single from the LA-based pop duo Capital Cities, is a cavalcade of catchiness would be something of a grand understatement. From start to finish, it's an epic hookfest, a fresh and irresistible one-listen winner that buries itself in the thicket of your senses and stays there.

So it's a little surprising, then, to realize that the track, which will be featured on Capital Cities' debut album, In A Tidal Wave Of Mystery (4 June), has actually been hanging around a while: it was the first cut on the band's 2011 self-titled EP. "It's a little strange seeing what's happening," says singer-keyboardist Ryan Merchant, who founded Capital Cities with co-singer and keyboardist Sebu Simonian in 2009. "This isn't the first time that a song had a slow build before it takes off. I just know that we're thrilled. It's pretty exciting."

Unlike some synth-based acts, when Merchant and Simonian hit the stage for their live show, they don't stand at their keyboards, with heads bowed and feet planted into the ground, like air-traffic controllers; the two kick up their heels and throw one of the sweatiest dance parties around. "People come to a concert to let loose and have a good time," says Merchant. "Sebu and I have no problem being entertainers. "

During a stop on the band's Dancing With Strangers tour, Merchant talked to MusicRadar about the group's synths and software, their love of Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees and Pink Floyd, and how Safe And Sound came together.

Safe And Sound is pretty remarkable for its sheer number of hooks: You have the dual vocal melody hook in the verse, the chorus, the synth bass line, the trumpet part – every part is a monster.

[Laughs] "Hopefully so, yeah! It started out as a one-minute piece of music that Sebu and I wrote, and we had the octave bass thing. But it was completely different at first; we probably went through 10 different versions before arriving at what it is now. In those previous versions, there was no trumpet. It was a synth line at first, but by the end we realized that the melody for that part was great, but it needed to be different. It needed a new sound to take it to an epic level, so we came up with the trumpet. That's what gave the moment more gravitas, if you will.

"All of the hooks in the song were written extremely fast; arranging everything in a certain way was what took the most time. Plus we knew we had to work out the sonic structure so that it all hit with the right impact. It probably sounds effortless, but it really wasn't. A lot of thought and trial-and-error went into it."

You have a live trumpet player on stage, but what about on record? Is it live or electronic?

"It's a real trumpet on the recordings; a guy named Brian Warfield recorded it. There's still a lot of effects on it, and it's mixed in a certain way, so it might be hard to tell if it's real or not."

Simonian (left) and Merchant (right) on stage at New York City's Irving Place, May 2013 © Jason Sheldon/The Hell Gate/Corbis

The band's dual vocal approach already feels like a signature sound. How did that evolve?

"That was a by-product of the fact that Sebu and I are both singers. We were both lead singers in bands before Capital Cities. We started working together on TV commercials and were writing these songs, and so we felt like we needed to start a band. Both of us wanted to sing, and when we started doing it, it sounded good to just have two lead singers. There's something similar about the timbre of our voices, yet when they're mixed they create this new, interesting kind of univoice."

When you and Sebu met through Craigslist, were you thinking about a band at all, or did you guys get together simply to work on syncs?

"No, I wasn't thinking of a band at all. I was mainly looking for somebody to help me produce some songs that I'd written, basically for a solo project. I just wanted to have some sort of product in hand. I saw Sebu's ad on Craigslist, which was the one and only ad he placed, and I went through his website. I saw that he had produced a bunch of bands, and I watched a couple of videos of him performing, and I really connected with his songwriting style. I felt like he was a kindred spirit in his approach to melody and chord progressions – that kind of thing.

"We got together, and instantaneously we had a great chemistry. We started working on my songs, and very soon after I fell into this jingle writing business. I asked him if he'd like to collaborate with me on that, and that's what we did for a while. Eventually, we had a bunch of songs and started Capital Cities."

When people form bands, they usually have some sort of template in mind. There's a common ground – "We want to be like Metallica" or whatever. What was your template?

"It's funny, because when we first formed the band and did a few shows, we weren't electronica at all; it was all live. We thought that was the direction we wanted to go in, to have live drums and two guitars, bass, all of that. Soon afterwards, we realized that it was harder to rehearse with a bunch of people in the band, but we also wanted to explore producing the songs in more of an electronica context.

"By doing this, it allowed us to go out and play smaller shows, just the two of us. We could perform with backing tracks and sing over them, which was kind of liberating. Over time, though, we've started to incorporate more instrumentation back into the project. Now we have a live bass player, a guitarist, live trumpet – eventually, we'll probably bring back the drums."

I was going to ask about that.

"Yeah, we'll do it when it sounds right. I think we'll do it. We want to wait till we're in the right venues. Unless you're playing bigger venues consistently – like Irving Plaza – the live drums can overpower the mix a little bit. Drums are loud, cymbals are loud. We like the cleanliness of the sound we get right now."

There's a very smooth '70s R&B vibe to the song Kangaroo Court. Are you and Sebu fans of that era?

"Yeah, we both love a lot of, for lack of a better term, funkier, more rhythmic music, stuff that has cool basslines. That song is one of our slower jams, I guess. But sure, we love Motown and Stevie Wonder. Jazz, too – that plays into our music a lot."

How does Pink Floyd fit into it all? I love your cover of Breathe.

"I'm a big Pink Floyd fan, but Sebu is a diehard, obsessive Pink Floyd fan. He would probably cite them as one of his primary influences. What he loves about them is how they explored the psychedelic side of music, which our stuff doesn't really have – we're more straight-ahead pop music in a lot of ways. Adding this sort of dreamy trumpet to some of our songs is, to me, a direct result of listening to Floyd. It's a spirit we get from them, a drive to experiment and not play by the rules."

What was involved with Andre 3000 guesting on Farrah Fawcett Hair?

"Our manager reached out to him and sent him the track. Andre listened to it, loved it and said that he was down for doing a verse on it. Conceptually, the reason why we went after him was because the song is all about things in life that we find to be undeniably good. Farrah Fawcett Hair, the title of the song, is the ultimate embodiment of something that is unanimously considered to be great. Everyone loves Farrah Fawcett hair. [Laughs] With that in mind, we wanted to have one of the undeniably great rappers busting with the verse. We went after Andre 3000, and before you knew it, he was recording our song. It's pretty amazing."

You and Sebu are particularly fond of the Roland Juno-106. Are synths like guitars? Do the older ones have something special about them?

"To be honest with you, we started using the Juno-106 because it was the only analog synth we had sitting around. Sebu kind of adopted it after a friend left it at our studio. Safe And Sound was the first song we used it on. We brought it out and played these huge pad chords on it, and it was then that we realized we had been missing the analog synth boat. There is something to the sound of the Juno. A lot of times, we'll program parts using software synths, but we'll replace them with the Juno-106. It fits in the mix with a fullness and a richness – it's warmer. I think people can subconsciously hear that."

A tambourine-shaking Merchant on stage at Irving Plaza, May 2013 © Jason Sheldon/The Hell Gate/Corbis

Are there any downsides to using the Juno-106? Because it is old…

"Yeah, well, when you work with software synths, it's so easy to save presets and program MIDI – the user-friendly elements are definitely a plus. The Juno-106 is cumbersome and it can't do all of the things that soft synths can do, but the sound is unbeatable. We use it for core bass sounds and pad sounds. We don't want to overuse it, but it's definitely a big part of the sound."

Speaking of software, what do you use?

"We use Logic – that's kind of our main digital audio workstation. We also use Native Instruments. Oh, and there's this one synth called Minimonsta. That one is great – it's our go-to soft synth. It's got a lot of great old Moog sounds. I like that one a lot."

As a kid, you were obsessed with Michael Jackson –

[Laughs] "Yeah, you could say that."

One can tell from your synth basslines. In terms of sound and structure, they're somewhat reminiscent of the bass parts on Thriller and Off The Wall.

"That's cool. Michael Jackson had so many amazing songs. Sebu and I are totally into him. I have to think that his music rubbed off on us. More than the bass, I think a lot of our guitar parts are very Michael Jackson inspired. We have a lot of funky, picked guitar parts that have a Thriller vibe to them, like on the song P.YT."

You guys are Bee Gees fans, too – you do a great version of Stayin' Alive in the set.

"Yeah, we love the Bee Gees. I'm not sure how we decided on that one, though. We try to cover songs that are somewhat ubiquitous but haven't been done a million times. With Stayin' Alive, there wasn't one that was the seminal cover, so we went for it. The trick is to do something interesting with it, take it apart and reconstruct it. It still has to be recognizable as the song, as Stayin' Alive, but it has to have our own stamp on it. We tried to alter the emotional quality of it; it's a little more serious and dark."

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Video: How To Play Bass To When Love Comes To Town

Wed, 22 May 2013 07:14:20 -0400

http://www.how-to-play-bass.com/blues-course.html Here's a how to play bass lesson on When Love Comes To Town by B.B.King and U2.

News Item: Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath Opens Up About His Battle with Cancer and the Struggle to Make '13'

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:28:47 -0400

This is an excerpt from the July 2013 issue of Guitar World magazine. For the rest of this story, plus features on Joe Satriani, Ghost B.C., Mick Jones of Foreigner, Joe Don Rooney of Rascal Flats, plus transcriptions of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and Jason Becker's "Perpetual Burn," check out the issue at the Guitar World Online Store.

2011 was well on the way to being one of the best years of Tony Iommi’s life. The guitarist was on a successful book tour to promote Iron Man, his revealing autobiography in which he talks about his life and his career with Black Sabbath.

At the same time, he was reuniting with the original Black Sabbath members—vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward—to write and record a new full-length album, the quartet’s first since 1978’s Never Say Die!

But celebration gave way to concern when Iommi discovered a lump in his groin. Doctors initially misdiagnosed the problem as nothing more than an infection, but when Iommi’s condition worsened, his doctor biopsied the mass. At a follow-up appointment, he told Iommi the result: We found lymphoma.

“Once I heard my doctor say that, my whole world changed,” Iommi says. “I thought, Bloody cancerous lymphoma? Well that’s it. I’ve had it.”

This news came as such a shock that even today, as Guitar World sits across from a healthy-looking Iommi in a cottage in rural West Midlands, England, the guitarist’s affable disposition darkens when he recalls that grim period.

“Once they diagnosed it, I had to start the treatment right away,” he says. “And it knocked me about. I’d go through stages thinking, Can I do this? And then: Of course I can do this. I don’t want to die. I want to carry on and do what I’m supposed to do.”

Iommi’s treatment included an aggressive course of chemotherapy and radiation that attacked the cancer but seriously taxed his immune system. He began to feel sicker, lose weight and weaken, and had to focus what little energy he had into fighting his illness. Plans for the Sabbath record were put on hold. But as the guitarist’s body began responding to treatment, Iommi’s creative spark was rekindled. Much to everyone’s surprise, he turned his attention back to writing the songs that would eventually make up Black Sabbath’s new disc, 13.

“They thought I would pack up,” Iommi says. “But I asked the doctor, ‘Is it okay if I work?’ And he said, ‘Yes, you’ve just got to be careful.’ So I’d go in the studio and play for a bit. Then I’d get tired and I’d have to go and sit down. The guys would tell me not to push it.”

Iommi was determined to get the album made. And as Osbourne and Butler tell us when we catch up with them in a Los Angeles recording studio, where they’re putting the final touches on the album, he rose to the occasion.

“We all rallied around him,” Osbourne says. “But it’s not like we’d be saying, ‘Are you okay? Are you okay?’ We just got on with it. Sure, he looked tired, but he was a soldier and marched on. He still had more riffs coming out of him than anyone. None of us would go, ‘Oh, he’s f---ing ill again.’ We’re bros. We grew up together. It’s like a family member getting sick.”

“It brought up how we’re all just mortal beings, and we aren’t gonna be here forever,” Butler adds. “Tony and I were on the Heaven & Hell tour with Ronnie James Dio, and six months later Ronnie was dead [from stomach cancer, in 2010]. We didn’t have any inkling that was gonna happen. When Tony got the cancer, obviously that was in his mind. We didn’t know how he’d respond to the treatment. So it was like, Let’s get the album done at all costs, as long as Tony’s up to it. So we’d write for three weeks, and then he’d go for his treatment and we’d all have three weeks off. But it didn’t affect his playing at all. In fact I think it really encouraged him and kept his mind off the cancer, which is the best thing you can possibly do if you have that.”

As Iommi got stronger, his future, as well as Black Sabbath’s, started looking brighter. The band continued writing and rehearsing, and making progress on the new album. On November 11, 2011, Sabbath held a press conference at Los Angeles’ Whisky a Go-Go to officially announce that they had reformed and would record an album of new material. But in early 2012, Bill Ward surprised everyone when he announced that he would not move forward with recording, saying he felt “ostracized” by the band and calling the contract he was offered “unsignable.”

“I was shocked,” Iommi says. “We were hearing stuff from lawyers, like, ‘I’m not happy with this. I’m not happy with that.’ We waited a long time for Bill and we wanted to sort it out. But at the end of the day, especially after I was diagnosed, I thought, F---ing hell, that’s it. We’ve got to get a move on. I might pop off next year! So I emailed him and said, ‘Bill, we can’t wait any longer. We’ve got to get on with it.’ And that was it.”

The band switched gears and began auditioning drummers but didn’t find the right fit until producer Rick Rubin offered the seemingly left-field suggestion of Brad Wilk, from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. “We had our doubts, because they play a different, funky sort of music,” Iommi says. “But after a few days of rehearsal, we knew Rick was right. Brad was a really good player, and he was getting it. We liked his style and the way he tried different things instead of being regimented. It was sort of jazzy and loose, like Bill.”

With Wilk in place, Black Sabbath set up camp at Rubin’s Shangri-La studios in Malibu to record the album. Rubin had the band cut the basic tracks live in the studio together to help capture the vibe of the early Sabbath records. These sessions were also the first time Osbourne had tracked a studio record with Sabbath since the contentious, drug-addled experience of recording 1978’s lackluster Never Say Die! Not surprisingly, the singer felt a twinge of performance anxiety.

“The pressure on us was terrific,” Osbourne says. “I didn’t want to sound hokey, trying to cop Paranoid or Master of Reality. But at the end of the day, you just have to go with your heart and ‘let go and let god,’ as they say. I’ll know if I’m cutting corners and if I can do a better vocal take or melody.”

Photo: Travis Shinn

For the rest of this story, plus features on Joe Satriani, Ghost B.C., Mick Jones of Foreigner, Joe Don Rooney of Rascal Flats, plus transcriptions of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and Jason Becker's "Perpetual Burn," check out the issue at the Guitar World Online Store.

News Item: Video Premiere: "Desire" by The Winery Dogs — Richie Kotzen, Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:04:20 -0400

The Winery Dogs — a band featuring guitarist Richie Kotzen, bassist Billy Sheehan and drummer Mike Portnoy — recently released a music video for a track off their new self-titled album.

Check out "Desire" below, and be sure to tell us what you think in the comments.

Last month, the band released a music video for "Elevate," the first single from the new album. You can watch "Elevate" right here.

For more about the Winery Dogs and the new album — which seems to be available as an import from Japan (We will check on the official release date) — visit the band's Facebook page and official website.

While you're at it, check out our interview with Sheehan from last month, right here.

The Winery Dogs Track Listing:

01. Elevate / 02. Desire / 03. We Are One / 04. I’m No Angel / 05. The Other Side / 06. You Saved Me / 07. Not Hopeless / 08. One More Time / 09. Damaged / 10. Six Feet Deeper / 11. Criminal / 12. The Dying / 13. Regret

Video: How To Play Bass To Mustang Sally (The Commitments)

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:36:44 -0400

http://www.how-to-play-bass.com This learn how to play bass tutorial is designed for the bass beginner. It's a quick look at how to play the main sections of Mustang Sally as played in the film The Commitments.

News Item: Pearl Jam's Mike McCready talks Layne Staley and Mad Season's Above reissue

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:30:00 -0400

Read more about Pearl Jam's Mike McCready talks Layne Staley and Mad Season's Above reissue at MusicRadar.com

"It was a brief lightning bolt of music that lasted six months, tops, and then it was gone," says Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready of Mad Season, the mid-'90s band he formed with Alice In Chains singer Layne Staley, Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin and bassist John Baker Saunders. "We did a lot of stuff in that short period of time. Luckily, most of it was documented."

There were a tight handful of Mad Season shows, such as those at Seattle's Moore Theatre and that city's famed (and now-defunct) RKCNDY nightclub, but most notably, there was the band's sole full-length disc, 1995's Above, an engrossing collection of moody, blues-and-jam-oriented songs that yielded the radio hit River Of Deceit.

Following the release of Above, McCready and Staley returned to their full-time bands, and while there was some talk of Mad Season reconvening, the deaths of both Saunders (in 1999) and Staley (three years later) effectively put an end to the band. Recently, Above received the deluxe reissue treatment, with the package including a DVD of both the Moore Theatre and RKCNDY gigs, along with three long-dormant, previously unreleased tracks that Screaming Trees singer Mark Lanegan wrote lyrics for and has now put vocals to. Also included in the set is Mad Season's version of John Lennon's I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier that the original band recorded for the 1995 John Lennon tribute album, Working Class Hero.

McCready recently sat down with MusicRadar to talk about the reissue of Above, how the band formed and functioned, along with and his remembrances of both Layne Staley and John Baker Saunders.

Artists don't usually listen to their own albums a lot. Had you listened to Above much, or at all, since it came out?

"I listened to it all the way through probably two times in the 16 years since it came out. I have heard River Of Deceit on the radio since then. But I haven't listened to the album because, for me, it's very sad. Baker and Layne both died, so there's a sadness that hangs over the entire record; I wasn't willing to live that again. Those couple of times I did listen to it, it was tough.

"When I went back and heard it again, it was freeing and sad. I cried and laughed and felt proud. I felt a real mixture of emotions that'd I'd never had with any other music I'd done, because two of the guys passed away, and I miss them."

So, obviously, working on this reissue was very bittersweet.

"It's kind of bittersweet, yeah. It's bittersweet talking about it – I wish that they could be here talking about it, too. I'd like to see what they'd be like now, when they weren't as young as they were 16, 20 years ago, whenever we made the record. But in terms of the music and getting it together, that was kind of the cool part.

"While bittersweet, there was also a feeling of closure, because we sort of put out everything we did. That was a big deal. To be able to do two DVDs from two shows, one at the Moore Theatre and one that I forgot we even had, at the RKCNDY, was pretty cool. It was good to just say, 'This is what we did in a short period of time. We were a quick flash, and then we were gone.' But it re-flashed with Mark Lanegan singing on a few songs."

Mark is a very different singer from Layne, but he fits with the music. I understand that you wanted him to sing these songs for quite a while. What took so long?

[Laughs] "That's a good question. I'm just grateful that he did it. I had approached him over the years, you know, 'Hey, man, would you be interested in listening to these songs and singing over them?' Mark was kind of the true right guy for it. In my mind, I couldn't think of anybody else. I know a lot of great singers and have luckily been able to work with Eddie [Vedder], Chris [Cornell], Layne and Star Anna, all of these great singers from Seattle, but Mark… he just wanted to do it now.

"The timing was never right before – I was on tour, Mark was on tour; he's got his solo thing and doesn't live here anymore. Maybe it just struck him as something he didn't want to do. And I didn't want to keep bugging him about it; if I'm working with somebody, I want them to be as excited about something as I am. You can't just go, 'Be excited about it.' [Laughs] And I think he was. Barrett approached him, and you know, they're very close – they'd played in The Screaming Trees together. Mark trusts Barrett's intuition on a lot of things, and I do, too. I think Barrett came to him in a cool way, and then Mark put those ideas down."

On Mad Season's formation, McCready (right) recalls, "I was like, 'I've got these guys. Let's try to do something. Let's just see what it is."

Help me with the chronology of how Mad Season came together. Were you talking to Layne first, or did it start when you met John?

"I was in rehab in Minneapolis in 1994, and I saw this kind of crusty old guy pull up to the place. He drove a Dodge Dart, and it had a bumper sticker that read, 'What We Have Here Is A Failure To Give A S---.' [Laughs] I just thought, 'This guy is awesome. I've got to meet him.'

"A couple of days passed, and we're doing whatever it was that we were doing, and then I heard Bob Dylan playing from this one room. I thought, 'Well, that's interesting,' because we weren't supposed to play music. I went in the room and said, 'Oh, cool.' And it was Baker. He and I started talking about Bob Dylan. We struck up a friendship, and when we got out, he was living in Minneapolis, and I just wanted to stay there for a while and not go back to Seattle.

"When it was time to come back, it was right around the time that we had to find a new drummer – that's a whole other story – and I just said to Baker, 'Hey, do you want to come back with me?' I don't think he had anywhere to go in Minneapolis, so I just moved him here. I had met him first, but I had called Layne from Minneapolis. He was receptive. When I got back, Layne was off the road, and Pearl Jam was off the road; there was Barrett from The Screaming Trees – I had always wanted to work with him because he's a fantastic drummer – and I was like, 'I've got these guys. Let's try to do something. Let's just see what it is. Let's jam and maybe do a record.' It was more of a jam thing at first."

So you and Layne hadn't talked about doing something prior to this; it definitely started with John.

"It started with John Baker Saunders, and I appreciate you bringing that up. He doesn't get talked about a lot in the history of Mad Season. It was pretty awesome when he moved to Seattle. He fit right into the scene here; he had a cynicism and dark side that worked with all of the Seattle guys. Jeff Ament was very nice to him and let him borrow a bass for a few things. Just recently, he gave me the bass that he borrowed, and I was very touched by that.

"Everybody sort of gravitated towards Baker. He was a real honest, really cool bluesman. I think that Layne felt that – the honesty and the realness – and so did Barrett. When we first got together to jam, it was a free-form, fun thing; there wasn't any pressure, like, 'This isn't my band, Pearl Jam.' I didn't have all of the insecurities that went along with that. Running back to that time, I definitely needed something to help me gain confidence in my songwriting. Mad Season was kind of the vehicle for that."

That's interesting. I've never heard you talk about that before.

"Well, I was in a band with some very prolific songwriters, guys who know what they want and know how to get it. I was not that way – back then. I've completely changed, of course, but for the first three records, I didn't really write anything on them. After Mad Season, I started writing my own music for Pearl Jam and brought it in. Given To Fly came out of that, and so did Faithful – those were on Yield, which came after Mad Season. I can draw a direct lineage in my confidence growth after we did that record. Mad Season changed my life in a million different ways."

So you were looking to boost your confidence as a songwriter. What about Layne? Did he ever tell you what he was looking for in Mad Season?

"That's a good question. I don't know. I can only interpret his lyrics and what I think they mean to me. I think they're him searching for a way… [sighs] to get out of the spiral he was in. Or documenting it – documenting the pain and the suffering he was feeling, knowing that he couldn't get out of it, the horror that goes along with it. But he's also being very honest about it; he's dealing with some very heavy stuff – some addictions, his girlfriend dying and things like that. It's very intense and artistic, how he did that. Wow… It's almost too heavy to think about at times.

"I think that he might have just felt like it was a good break from his band, as it was for me from my band, and as it was for Barrett. He might have felt as though there was more freedom in this. This was a jam. Baker brought this blues element to it that he hadn't had before; we were all heavier and more 'rock.' This was a new experiment: We were using cellos and vibes, Baker was a new element, and I was the only guitar player, but I think Layne was used to that with Jerry. Although I wasn't used to that; I was only used to two guitar players, sometimes three! It was very freeing thing."

River Of Deceit has an opening guitar figure – and tone, as well – that's very reminiscent of Pearl Jam. Were you maybe working on it for that band, but it wound up with Mad Season?

"It's hard to remember, but I think I so, yes. I think I had that part kind of hanging out. I definitely had the verse part. [Sings the verse guitar riff.] That part I had. I might have done the intro while we were doing Mad Season – it's hard to remember. But I definitely had chords like that going on, but I didn't really do anything with them until I was in the room with those guys. I was unafraid to go somewhere with it, whereas I might have felt that way with Pearl Jam at that time."

The riff for Lifeless Dead is a monster. Where did that come from?

[Laughs] "Thanks. I was way into Jimmy Page at that time, so I was trying to write a riff-type thing in the vein of that. The intro was maybe more Pink Floyd, but I did use the Gibson doubleneck SG, so the vibe is very Pagey – I think. That's what I was listening to back then."

What time signature is that song in?

"You are asking the wrong guy. I don't know! [Laughs] I'd have to ask Barrett – he would know."

The turnarounds in the guitar phrase are so unexpected. When I listen to it, I think, "He's going to miss that one note."

"That's Barrett and me. He's counting it out and playing in a certain way that makes it go like that. On my side, it's pure feel; I couldn't count it out like he does."

Who brought up the idea of doing John Lennon's I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier?

"That was me. We were approached by Hollywood Records, and I think it was John Dee, who is Mark Lanegan's manager now, who asked us to do a song for a John Lennon tribute record. It was a fat check, too, so we were like, 'Sure!' [Laughs] That helped pay for most of the Mad Season record. I can't remember where the idea of the song itself came from, but I always thought it was cool. Those guys gravitated towards it. Layne did a great job on that."

The band did some shows, but how and when did it all come to an end? Were you indeed looking to do another album?

"It's kind of blurry. It was mid-'94 to '95, or mid-'95 to '96, and we all went back on the road. Pearl Jam did the Yield record, and we got a new drummer, Jack Irons, at that time. I went back into that world, which was all encompassing. Barrett went back into the Trees. Layne was struggling, but his band went in to do their last record with him. I'd say the band ended right around the New Year's Eve show we did at RKCNDY.

"I haven't watched the live shows all the way through, but I want to watch the RKCNDY one again, because that's when Layne was feeling really good. I remember it as being a good example of us firing on all cylinders."

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News Item: Free music software round-up: Week 125

Mon, 20 May 2013 06:50:00 -0400

Read more about Free music software round-up: Week 125 at MusicRadar.com

We are, in general, starting to see more cross-platform free music software, but we're exclusively in Windows territory this week.

Mac owners, then, can look away now (or look on in envy); PC users should get their download fingers ready.

If you've got a new free music software release, make sure you let us know about it by emailing musicradar.pressreleases@futurenet.com with all the details.

Creatorum Genius Lab Imago

Platform/format: PC/VST Download

Designed for creating rhythmic pads and basses, this 3-oscillator synth sports two filters, amp and filter envelopes, delay, EQ and a flanger. There's also a 32-step sequencer and, if you're feeling lucky, you can randomise all parameters with a single button press.

Mildon Studios HUE-X + M4GIQ Plugin Bundle

Platform/format: PC/VST Download

Two freebies in one bundle. HUE-X is an EQ that's designed for people who like to experiment with sound, giving you ten descriptively named faders to tweak. M4GIQ, meanwhile, is a multi-effect that enables you to apply gain, panning and delay to each frequency band, so you can spread frequencies across the stereo image.

Tonebytes Harmonaut

Platform/format: PC/VST Download

This ad-supported instrument is based on additive synthesis technology and comes with four waveform types and 32 harmonics that can be drawn with your mouse. You can also adjust the attack, decay, sustain and release for each harmonic, while a low-pass/high-pass filter, an LFO and chorus can be called into play, too.

TA Programming SubSonic

Platform/format: PC/VST Download

Billed as "the synth that takes you back," SubSonic is a subtractive instrument that promises to give you a vintage sound. Among its tools are three oscillators, a graphical ADSR envelope, a multimode filter and reverb, delay, chorus, flanger and warper modules.

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Video: How To Play Bass To Musang Sally Wilson Pickett

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:33:16 -0400

http://www.how-to-play-bass.com Here's a beginners level how to play bass tutorial for the Wilson Pickett version of Mustang Sally - the bass line was originally played by the unheralded but very cool Tommy Cogbill!

Video: How To Play Bass To Born Under A Bad Sign Cream

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:41:09 -0400

http://www.how-to-play-bass.com/blues-course.html Here's a learn how to play bass lesson for Jack Bruce's bass line on Cream's version of Born Under A Bad Sign.

News Item: Review: Re-Axe's Axe-Handler Guitar Stands

Mon, 13 May 2013 06:04:58 -0400

The Axe-Handler by Re-Axe. Yes that’s a healthy display of the hyphen. And no, we're not talking about the kind of axe George Washington used to cut down a cherry tree.

What we are talking about is an American-made, mega-portable guitar stand that you can stash inside your case or gigbag to save your instrument from being the victim of a party foul at your next gig or living-room jam session.

There are two flavors of the Axe-Handler — the Original and the S/O.

What’s the difference? They both sit on the edge of your coffee table, desk, stool, amp or speaker cabinet and anchor your guitar or bass against gravity. But there are a few subtle differences. The Original Axe-Handler offers a pick holder. You’ll note the flat cutout that works best if you place your guitar strings-first into the holder.

The Axe-Handler S/O is a multi-tasker. The S/O stands for “strings out,” which means you place the back of the neck inside the soft V-shaped cutout. What I liked best about the S/O was that I could stand it upright on any table or even inside my guitar case and change strings or do minor tweaks.

Both Axe-Handler models are made from a durable rubber and are internally braced with steel. This ain’t no cookie-cutter nonsense! They stand about an inch tall and take up about as much space as a pack of guitar strings. The weight is comparable to full can of soda.

You can buy either of Re-Axe’s Axe-Handlers online, but the guys encourage you to check out a local music shop. In fact, the name of the Axe-Handler came from a music shop. Instead of dealing exclusively with the big commercial chains, they prefer to stick with local shops all over the US. Check their website below to find a list of dealers.

Web: axehandler.com
Street price: The Original, $17.95. The S/O, $16.95

You can't believe everything you read on the Internet, but Billy Voight is a gear reviewer, bassist and guitarist from Pennsylvania. He has Hartke bass amps and Walden acoustic guitars to thank for supplying some of the finest gear on his musical journey. Need Billy's help in creating noise for your next project? Drop him a line at thisguyonbass@gmail.com.

Mp3: Don't Make Me Show You, By Fight Nice

Dean Dunakin — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:58:41 -0400

by Dean Dunakin

Listen

Size 4.3 MB

Style Alternative

Equipment

Fender Deluxe American P Bass
Radial PRO48 DI
Digitech DF7
Ableton Live

Just an original rockin' bluesy rock song with a great bassline that's fun to play. www.fightniceband.com

News Item: Interview: Guitarist Gina Stile Talks JSRG, Vixen, Thunderbox and Her Twisted Sister Connection

Fri, 10 May 2013 16:22:55 -0400

Gina Stile has been involved in several successful projects over the years, including the '80s bands Poison Dollys and Envy.

She's opened for Aerosmith on a string of dates, and one of her albums was produced by Dee Snider of Twisted Sister. Her current all-female project, Thunderbox, is generating a lot of buzz in the New York area. And it doesn't hurt that she’s one hell of a guitar player.

In the mid-'90s, after the break-up of Vixen, Stile began working on a new project with Vixen drummer Roxy Petrucci and singer Janet Gardner. Although the music they made was never intended to be labeled "Vixen" because of its heavier edge, it was released as a Vixen album called Tangerine in 1998.

In 2012, Stile was already busy with Thunderbox when she was again approached by Gardner, Petrucci and now former Vixen bassist Share Ross about forming a new project, JSRG. With the lineup intact, Stile is performing with Petrucci and Gardner for the first time in 14 years.

I recently spoke with her about the new project as well as her playing and her other heavier edged group, Thunderbox.

GUITAR WORLD: How did JSRG begin?

Janet, Share and Roxy had been talking about doing a classic Vixen reunion for quite a while. They approached Jan [Kuehnemund, guitarist for Vixen], but she declined the opportunity. So rather than just not do anything, they decided to try something different. They asked me to come in, and we came up with JSRG. I'm excited to be a part of it.

Tell me about your involvement with Vixen and the Tangerine album.

After Vixen disbanded in the early '90s, Roxy contacted me about working on a new project. Although nothing became of it, she eventually introduced me to Janet, and the two of us started writing together. A lot of people may not realize this, but the music that we were working on was never intended to be Vixen. Janet and I began working with our own band here in New York with Mike Pisculli on bass along with another guy drummer. It was around that time when Roxy called asking about doing a Vixen tour.

Was doing the project as Vixen and recording Tangerine something you wanted to do at the time?

I wasn't really keen on it; mostly because the songs we were writing were much heavier than Vixen. They contacted Jan about doing the tour, but she turned it down. By that time, Janet and I had already been working together for a few years and were starting to get offers to do a record. Since Roxy and Janet owned the name (along with Jan), we decided to do it as Vixen. We did the Tangerine record, went on tour for a few months and then it ended.

Let's talk about your other current band, Thunderbox.

The Thunderbox girls have so much energy. When we play, it's shocking to people sometimes because we'll whip out Metallica or Iron Maiden [laughs]. But once people become a fan of the band, it then becomes normal. We're also working on an album. We've recorded four songs so far and made a video for the song “Cherries N’ Cream."

Tell me about your relationship with Kramer guitars.

I endorsed Kramer from 1985 to 1988. In 1986, I was asked to help develop a 3/4-size guitar geared toward women and kids. I remember they would pick me up on Long Island and bring me down to New Jersey to help them with the style of guitar. Everyone at Kramer was fantastic! I actually still have the first one ever made with my Envy design. I’m not sure why they never released the series, but it was a great experience!

What's your current setup like?

I use Mesa Boogie amps — a Dual and Triple Rectifier through a Marshall cab with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers. For guitars, I have my Les Paul and my Snake Guitar and Custom Kelly, which were crafted from my custom Kramer guitar style. For effects, I use a Boss pedalboard (Octaver-Chorus-Delay-Flanger) along with MXR Fullbore Metal.

When did you get started playing?

When I was 9, my Uncle Phil bought me a four-stringed guitar I started dabbling on. When I was 11, he found me a Japanese guitar, and that's when it really started. I got into a band with my sister when I was 13. At that time, a studio really liked us and made a recording and played it for Dee Snider. Dee played it for Twisted Sister's management, and they signed us to a contract. I remember my first big gig was opening up for Leslie West and Mountain when I was 14. We even had Mark Mendoza and Jay Jay French come down and do our sound when we played bars [laughs].

Eventually, we had some family issues and my sister had to withdraw. That's when I joined the Poison Dollys, which was my first experience with an all-girl band.

What's one of your best memories of that band?

I remember I was 19 when we opened up for Aerosmith. We did a nine-show string of dates with them in front of 15,000 people. It was amazing.

Tell me more about your Twisted Sister connection.

When I was 21, I got back together with my sister in Envy, and we were signed to Atlantic Records. Dee Snider produced our record and it generated a lot of buzz.

Is there a good piece of advice you can give about practicing?

Back when I was doing the Envy record, I really wanted to become more technical. Joe Franco did the drumming on the project and one of the things he encouraged me to do was to start practicing along with a metronome. If you can practice for a few hours a day using a metronome, you're going to get really good. One of the other things I emphasize is working modes in a three-note pattern (and not the typical "box" pattern). It's a bit more classical, but you'll quickly see your chops start getting better.

Guitar playing is your emotion. It's who you are. Once you get your technique down, it then becomes a matter of your influences. If you can get to the point to where your chops are good, your own voice is going to come out in your playing.

For more about Gina Stile and her current projects, check out the JSRG Facebook page and Thunderbox's official website.

James Wood is a writer, musician and self-proclaimed metalhead who maintains his own website, GoJimmyGo.net. His articles and interviews are written on a variety of topics with passion and humor. You can follow him on Twitter @JimEWood.

News Item: Five Awesome Robert Johnson Covers (Besides "Crossroads")

Thu, 09 May 2013 17:41:51 -0400

Robert Johnson, the man who Eric Clapton called "the most important blues musician who ever lived," was born 102 years ago this week on May 8, 1911, in Hazlehurst, Mississippi.

Although he lived only 27 years, his haunting singing, guitar skills and compositions have influenced generations of musicians and continue to fascinate the most gifted of guitarists.

Johnson created an essential body of blues guitar music, recording 29 songs in 1936/1937 that would exert a profound influence on guys like Clapton, Elmore James, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Peter Green, Mick Taylor and many others.

"Robert was the only guitar player with a little different style than all the other guys had," "Honeyboy" Edwards, Johnson's contemporary and friend, told Guitar World in 2011. "'Cause he had the turnaround to his blues. The turnaround is when you have a solo in betwixt the verses. You stoppin' to have a solo. But all the rest of the guys, like Tommy Johnson and them, they had a little short time. Wasn't enough for you to pay attention to. So Robert had a different style than the other blues players."

Below are five great covers of songs attributed to Johnson. You'll notice I've decided to leave out Cream's uber-famous 1968 live version of "Crossroads" because, well, isn't that choice a little obvious? Yes, it's a great recording, it's 100 percent classic, it's got great guitar and bass playing by Clapton and Jack Bruce, but enough already. You've heard it 9,037 times!

If you really need a Clapton fix, check out my far-less-obvious choice below, a track from his 2004 Johnson tribute album, Mr. and Mr. Johnson.

Enjoy!

Led Zeppelin, "Traveling Riverside Blues"

Big Joe Williams, "Hellhound on My Trail"

Eric Clapton, "Milkcow's Calf Blues"

Howlin' Wolf, "Dust My Broom"

The Rolling Stones, "Love in Vain"

Damian Fanelli is the online managing editor at Guitar World. Follow him on Twitter.

Video: How To Play Bass To Red Red Wine UB40

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:18:52 -0400

http://www.how-to-play-bass.com Here's a learn how to play bass lesson for the UB40 version of Red Red Wine. The original was done by Neil Diamond of course. The bass player on the original was Earl Falconer.

News Item: Rolling Stones: Keith Richards on the Making of 'Exile on Main St.'

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:19:45 -0400

Critics snubbed it upon its release in 1972, but Exile on Main St. has become one of rock’s greatest landmarks. Keith Richards recalls the making of the Rolling Stones' masterpiece and how the album’s new reissue project became a walk down memory lane.

"To me, Exile on Main St. was probably the best Rolling Stones album as far as the connection between the band members,” Keith Richards says. “We were coming up with song ideas like crazy. And the ideas were catching on. Everybody was going flat-out.”

The anniversary reissue of the Rolling Stones’ landmark double album this May will provide a heavy blast of nostalgia to those who were around when Exile was first released, in 1972. The newly remastered tracks, as well as the session outtakes, will also be a revelation even to those who know the album inside and out.

But perhaps no one feels the nostalgia, or the revelations, as profoundly as Keith Richards. There’s no denying that the album is quintessentially Keef in its swagger and the cocky sprawling grandeur of its musical scope. Hedged all about by rough edges, Exile’s elegantly wasted, slightly messy nonchalance is what imparts a frisson of raw truth to the overall beauty of the thing. Perhaps it’s not coincidence that Exile was recorded, amid scenes of legendary rock star decadence, in the vast, dank cellars beneath Richards’ home at the time, a palatial villa called Nellcôte, on the sunny French Riviera.

“I’m listening to these tracks, and suddenly I’m back in that old basement in the south of France,” marvels Richards, phoning in from another tropical paradise, a small island in the West Indies. “It’s amazing, especially for me, that ability to transport myself back in time.”

The Stones in 1972 (Photo Credit: Dan Volonnino)

The Stones guitarist played a key role in preparing the Exile reissue, which will be released in three formats. The basic package is a CD containing newly remastered versions of the 18 tracks from the original album. The Deluxe version includes a bonus disc with 10 previously unreleased tracks from the album’s era, while the Super Deluxe release adds on two 30-gram vinyl albums containing the original album and bonus tracks, a DVD on the making of Exile and a 50-page collector’s book with photos.

The Exile reissue project reunited Richards and his lifelong Glimmer Twin Mick Jagger with Jimmy Miller, the Rolling Stones’ late-Sixties/early Seventies producer who recorded and mixed the original album and many other great Stones records. A rock-solid drummer in his own right, Miller has always had some kind of primordial connection with the Stones’ profoundly rhythmic essence. Richards says, “I look back on it all, and I’ve got to say Jimmy Miller was the perfect producer for the Rolling Stones.”

Also onboard for the reissue project was the band’s present-day producer, Don Was, who sorted through hours of tapes to resurrect the bonus tracks. These include alternate takes of “Loving Cup” and “Soul Survivor,” plus an early version of “Tumbling Dice” titled “Good Time Women.” There’s also a cache of previously unreleased tracks, including “Dancing in the Light,” “Plundered My Soul,” “Following the River,” “Aladdin’s Story” and “Pass the Wine,” which has appeared on bootlegs under the working title “Sophia Loren.” For the Exile reissue, every effort was made to unearth fresh material from the vaults. In some cases, Jagger wrote and recorded brand-new vocals for what had previously been instrumental tracks. Richards overdubbed some guitar on a few tracks, but he stresses that he did as little as possible to the original recordings.

“I brushed a little acoustic guitar,” he says. “I can’t even remember on which song now. The original guitar track sort of stuttered and fell apart halfway through, so Don said, ‘Well, we better replace that.’ But that’s all I did really. As I said to Don, these tracks already are Exile, because they come out of that dusty basement. You can’t really screw around with them that much. Just tack them on. They are what they are, right from the same place.”

For Richards, the project triggered fond memories of those who have since departed the Stones, including original bassist Bill Wyman, and those who have since departed this life, such as session piano great Nicky Hopkins. “To hear Nicky Hopkins’ piano on ‘Sophia Loren’ was a treasure,” he says quietly. “And Bill’s solid as a rock, man. What a bass player! I’m actually more and more impressed with him, listening to this. You can get used to a guy, but listening back, going over this stuff to make this record, I’d say, ‘Jesus Christ, he’s better than I thought!’ ”

Richards also speaks fondly of his former Stones co-guitarist Mick Taylor, who joined in 1969 as a replacement for founding member Brian Jones. But Richards denies murmurings that Taylor, who left the band in late 1974, contributed overdubs to the reissue package. “That’s a rumor, babe,” he says. “If he was on there, I would know. We’ve had no contact with Mick for a long time.”

Keith Richards, circa 1972 (Photo Credit: Dina Regine)

Hearsay seems to be dogging Richards’ footsteps these days. There’s another story going around that he has completely forsworn alcohol and all other intoxicants. “That’ll be the day, honey,” he says. The remark is punctuated by one of those long, slow Keef laughs, a groundswell that starts as a faint rumble in the nicotine-coated larynx and terminates in a rheumy expulsion of breath. “Let me put it this way: the rumors of my sobriety are greatly exaggerated. Hey, I cut down a little.”

Perhaps these suspicions of temperance are fueled by the disciplined rigor of the guitarist’s schedule these days. Along with preparations for the Exile reissue and DVD, Richards has been the subject of a new film biography directed by his longtime friend—and most dead-on impersonator—Johnny Depp. Keef is also completing a book-length autobiography, due out in October, with co-writer James Fox. “It’s the story so far, so to speak,” he says. “James has really put me down memory lane. It’s weird, man, trying to remember everything, and then reliving it as the memory comes back. Like, ‘Oh God, I gotta go through this thing twice!’ ”

But one life experience that Richards doesn’t seem to mind reliving is the making of Exile on Main St. It would be difficult to overstate the album’s importance in the great scheme of rock music. It is the climax of the Stones’ four-album winning streak that began with 1968’s Beggars Banquet and continued to gain momentum through the superb Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers, as the Sixties gave way to the Seventies. On Exile, the Stones attained a perfect balance between the American roots genres that had inspired them all along: blues, country, R&B, early rock and roll, and gospel. In this regard, Exile is almost like an Olympian athletic feat, one of those rare moments when nature, human effort and sheer random happenstance all come into graceful cosmic alignment.

“All those musical styles were part of what we’d been picking up while touring America,” Richards explains. “To us English boys, hanging out watching guys in America play music was like a dream come true, man. We were soaking stuff up like sponges wherever we could find it—south side of Chicago, those downtown juke joints…anywhere. New Orleans… S---, man.”

Exile on Main St. is also one of rock and roll’s archetypal double albums. Although it was released a few years after the Beatles’ White Album, the Who’s Tommy and Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, Exile nonetheless had an immense role in establishing the double-vinyl album as a distinctive and unique art form. It’s an eloquent lesson in how open-ended jams like “I Just Wanna See His Face,” can slot in amid well-wrought rockers like “Rocks Off” and calypso-tinged acoustic ballads like “Black Angel.” Like all of rock’s great double albums, Exile takes the listener on an epic journey, one that commences with a sheer blast of energy on side one, moves into acoustic mode on side two and glides languidly to a stirring gospel conclusion over the course of sides three and four. In this regard, Exile represents the apotheosis of album rock—the move away from hit singles and into longer formats that had begun circa 1966.

“I think this is the first album where we didn’t have a 45 [rpm single] hit on it,” says Richards. “We picked some singles off it, but it was made for what it was. It was an album album. Of course, when it first came out, sales were not up to par to start with. But after six or nine months, they started to pick up as people got into it.”

Created with sublime indifference to the pop market, Exile on Main St. is one of the first DIY rock albums, recorded at the guitar player’s house at a time when that sort of thing simply wasn’t done. While Exile is not exactly lo-fi, there’s a delicious murkiness to the sound, a sense of mystery shrouded in messiness. It’s a sure bet that the New York Dolls were listening to Exile when they were getting started in the early Seventies. The roots of punk are right there in the snarling, brittle mesh of Keith Richards and Mick Taylor’s guitars. You can’t quite tell who’s doing what. It’s not too far a leap from that to the intertwined double-guitar approach of Television’s Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, which in turn gave rise to thousands of latter-day punk bands. And, of course, Exile also set the pattern for the dual-guitar dynamic that Richards and Ronnie Wood have pursued ever since Mick Taylor’s departure, a guitar style that Richards often describes as “an ancient form of weaving.”

So, many roads lead back to Exile on Main St. “The thing about recording Exile was it was the first time we weren’t in a studio to make a record,” Richards says. “It all sort of happened by circumstance, really. We all decided we were going to move out of England, due to great pressure from H.M. Government. So we said, ‘Let’s keep going. We’ll do it somewhere else.’ And we figured, Oh, the south of France sounds good. I mean what’s wrong with that?”

The “great pressure” he refers to came from Britain’s graduated tax laws, which required big earners like the Stones to pay some 90 percent of their income. That, combined with the band’s frequent drug busts and harassment from the police, forced them out of England. But the early Seventies were a time of heavy change for the Stones in many regards. They’d moved away from their manager, the notoriously belligerent Allen Klein, and launched their own label, Rolling Stones Records. Mick Jagger married Nicaraguan beauty Bianca Pérez Morena de Macias and settled down to a life of quiet domesticity in France, with the other Stones living nearby.

Richards had been together with Anita Pallenberg since 1969, after he’d won the striking blonde German/Italian fashion model away from Brian Jones. But, unlike Mick and Bianca, Keith and Anita had never felt the need to sanctify their union via anything as bourgeois as marriage. Their son, Marlon, was about a year and a half when they settled into Villa Nellcôte, a grand maison with stately neoclassical columns, capacious salons and a killer view of the Bay of Villefranche. Built in 1899, Nellcôte had been inhabited by a succession of financiers and diplomats before it became the domicile of Keith Richards and his bizarre ménage. “Anita and I went looking at a couple of places, but Nellcôte kind of chose us immediately,” he says. “It was just an incredible joint. It was like a mini Versailles, and it didn’t cost a lot.”

While the other Stones lived fairly quiet lives at home, Nellcôte quickly became Party Central, with an endless stream of friends, friends of friends, drug dealers, celebrities and gangsters passing through the villa’s grand portals. Guitars, amps, records, stereo gear, empty bottles, books, discarded foodstuffs and assorted pets were soon all over the floor and furnishings beneath Nellcôte’s magnificent crystal chandeliers. Richards says that Marlon, now in his early Forties, has no memories of the place. “He was too young, probably around two years old,” the guitarist says. “He was running around bare-assed. Although he probably remembers the smell.”

Nellcôte’s basement became the Stones’ recording studio by default. The original plan was to find a commercial facility nearby. “We figured there’s gotta be some decent studios in Cannes or Nice or somewhere around there, even if it was Marseilles,” Richards says. “But we checked them all out, and it was pathetic. This was 1971. No doubt they’ve got great joints there now, but then, no. It was, like, forget about it. So then it became, ‘Let’s rent a house and see if we can do it there.’ Which is where the idea of bringing our mobile truck came in.”

The Rolling Stones Mobile Studio

That would be the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. Though mobile recording facilities are now commonplace, they were in their infancy in the early Seventies. The innovative Stones had put their own recording truck together, income source than for their own use. The unit had been loaned out to Led Zeppelin for their third and fourth albums, and the Stones had used it when recording tracks for Sticky Fingers at Jagger’s home, Stargroves. It had also been used for “location recordings for TV and the BBC, and stuff like that,” Richards explains. “But suddenly we realized, We got a truck, man—a mobile control room. But then we couldn’t find a house to record in. So we ended up using my basement.”

Below Nellcôte’s ground floor lay three levels of basement, subdivided into chambers of various sizes and shapes. Together with pianist/road manager/de facto sixth Stone Ian Stewart, Richards set about hanging microphones and carpets to control acoustic reflections. Home recording was virtually unheard of in 1971. The equipment was bulky and expensive and, thus, strictly the province of rock royalty like the Beatles and Stones. People didn’t really know much about recording in spaces that weren’t acoustically designed for that purpose. The Stones were moving into uncharted territory when they ventured below stairs at Nellcôte.

“There were all these little subdivisions in the basement, almost like booths,” Richards recalls. “So what would happen was that, for a certain sound, we’d schlep an amp from one space to another until we found one that had the right sound. Sometimes the guitar cord wasn’t long enough! That was in the beginning, anyway. But once we started to work there, my little cubicle became my cubicle, and we didn’t change places much.

“But at first, it was just a matter of exploring this enormous basement, saying, ‘What other sound is hiding ’round the corner?’ ’Cause you’d have weird echoes going on. Sometimes we wouldn’t be able to see each other even, which is very rare for us. We usually like to eyeball one another when we’re recording.”

Summer came to the French Riviera as sessions got underway. The basement was very hot and humid, and keeping guitars in tune was sometimes a challenge. The environment no doubt inspired the album’s working title: “Tropical Disease.” But it’s the dust that Keef recalls most vividly.

“It was a dirt floor,” he says. “You could see somebody had walked by, even after they disappeared ’round the corner, because there’d be a residue of dust in the air. It was a pretty thick atmosphere. But maybe that had something to do with the sound—a thick layer of dust over the microphones.”

Despite the challenging environment, the songs came fairly quickly. Before leaving England, the Stones had started some tracks at Olympic Studios in London and at Stargroves. Down in France, they picked up these threads. Keith remembers the acoustic-driven country number “Sweet Virginia” as one of the first they worked on. “I can’t remember if that was the actual first,” he says. “That would be beyond even my phenomenal memory. But I recall that Mick had ‘Sweet Virginia’ prepared and ready to go. I have a feeling that we’d been playing around with that one on the last sessions. Maybe on Sticky Fingers, or whatever. So it was a work in progress.”

Another work in progress was the aforementioned “Good Time Women” which soon became Exile’s one big single, “Tumbling Dice.” “I know we did that one fairly early on in France because I remember the weather,” Richards says. “The basic idea, as you can hear from ‘Good Time Women,’ was already there. But it took a while for it to turn into ‘Tumbling Dice.’ We were stuck for a good lyrical hook to go with this really great riff, so we left it in abeyance for a bit. And then I think Mick came up with the title ‘Tumbling Dice,’ although he may have got it from someone else. Ha!”

The evolution from “Good Time Women” to “Tumbling Dice” is a classic example of the Jagger-Richards songwriting partnership at work. It also exemplifies the way the Stones will often allow a track to develop over time, re-recording it repeatedly and often in many different locales. “If you chase a song far enough, you’re gonna corner it—like a rat!” Richards says with a laugh.

But the pace was generally brisk. “Sometimes we’d get two tracks in a night down there,” he says. “And then there’d be other times when we’d be three days on one song.”
The work schedule was fairly regular, the guitarist recalls. “Charlie Watts was living a long way away, a six- or seven-hour drive, for some reason. But then drummers are quirky, you know. So we’d generally work for four days a week, five at a push. But the weekends would be off.”

Various Stones would sleep over at Nellcôte from time to time, but occasionally inspiration struck when some of the members were away. Such was the case when Richards’ signature track, “Happy,” came into being.

“It was pretty early in the afternoon,” he recalls. “Jimmy Miller was there checking on the previous night’s session tapes. I said, ‘Oh s---, I’ve got an idea, Jimmy.’ He said, ‘Well, just lay it down with the guitar.’ So I start laying it down, and suddenly Jimmy’s behind me playing the drums. He’d come down from the truck, and I hadn’t even noticed. I’m just hammering away, figuring this thing out. Suddenly I hear these great drums behind me, and now it’s starting to rock. It’s one of these ‘three feet off the ground’ feelings. And then, suddenly, I hear this baritone sax, and there’s Bobby Keys honking away. Suddenly it’s becoming very happy.”

Even the song’s lyrics sprang from that initial inspiration. “Most of ’em anyway, in some garbled form,” Richards says. “The whole idea was there. ‘I never kept a dollar past sunset…’ That was all there.”

The preeminence of “Happy,” at the top of the album’s third side, coupled with the preponderance of great Keef guitar hooks on Exile, has led some observers to describe the disc as “Keith’s album.” But the guitarist is having none of that. “I don’t really get that,” he says. “Mick was incredibly involved. Look how many songs there are. And he wrote the bulk of the lyrics. He was very involved. I don’t think I was putting in more than anybody else. Charlie was amazing. Everybody was in great form.”

Exile does contain some of the most sympathetic guitar teamwork that Richards and Mick Taylor ever committed to disc. They mesh seamlessly, almost telepathically, on track after track. With the exception of “Happy” and possibly “Ventilator Blues,” Richards left the bulk of the slide guitar work to Taylor. But where Taylor’s leads can stand out a little too assertively on some earlier Stones recordings—particularly the live Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out album—here he’s dug in deep, roiling along with Keef and fully integrated into the guitar juggernaut. Perhaps this is in part due to the album’s ad hoc recording circumstances, combined with the fact that Taylor had been a Stone for about two years at this point and was well settled in. And maybe by living close by and actually sleeping over at Nellcôte on many occasions Taylor had fallen into sync with Richards on some elemental level.
“I also think it was because we were writing songs on the spot,” Richards says. “So I automatically fell into doing the chording and figuring out the whole thing, which gave Mick Taylor a freedom. He just came up with line after beautiful line. What a player, man.”

Exile is also awash in great guitar hooks based around Richards’ signature five-string open G tuning (omitting the low E string and tuned, low to high, G D G B D). He’d first used this tuning on “Honky Tonk Women” in 1969 and had integrated it into his approach more and more thoroughly on Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers. But it really explodes on Exile and is the secret behind riff-mad classics like “Rocks Off,” “Tumbling Dice” and “Happy.”

“I was really bathing in that stuff at the time, finding out more and more about the tuning as I was going along,” Richards acknowledges. “In a way, with a lot of the five-string stuff on Exile, I’d just found that space. You’re listening to me in school!”

For a few magic months at Nellcôte, everything seemed to fall into place. With sax player Bobby Keys and trumpeter Jim Price right on the premises, the horn charts on Exile are a deeply organic part of the music, rather than an overdubbed afterthought, as horn parts all too often tend to be.

“I think that’s another one of the beauties of the album,” Richards says. “The fact that the horns are actually playing with the band. There is something to be said for having it all in one room. Bobby and Jim were amazing, ’cause they had to make up their parts virtually on the spot. The songs were coming out two or three a night. Sometimes I’d lay an idea for a song on them at the end of a session, early in the morning, so they’d have it in their heads by the time they got back the next day. There were only two of them, a sax and a trumpet, but Jimmy played great trombone as well, so we’d double them up until they became a section.”

Many extraordinary musicians passed through Nellcôte during the Exile sessions. The list of those who were there but didn’t play on the album is as impressive as the roster of gifted players who did. John Lennon stopped by at one point, drank a bottle of red wine and vomited. Country rock pioneer Gram Parsons and his girlfriend Gretchen were long-term houseguests. The American musician and tunesmith was a major factor behind the Stones’ pronounced country influence in the early Seventies; he was also a close friend and drug buddy of Keith’s. There has been much speculation about Parsons’ uncredited, behind-the-scenes role in writing many of the Stones’ country-tinged classics. But if he was hanging around Nellcôte for so long, how come he didn’t end up playing on Exile? Or did he?

“No, he didn’t,” Richards replies. “But why he didn’t play is a good question. Gram and I would play around a lot upstairs in the living area, and he would play with Mick [Taylor] a lot up there. So I don’t know… Gram was a little shy, and we were too busy to say, ‘Hey, Gram, come down here. We need another guitar.’ He would distance himself from us when we were working. He’d come and listen a bit, but that was it. But you know, if I have a friend—and Gram was my friend—Mick sometimes gives off a vibe like, ‘You can’t be my friend if you’re his.’ It could be a bit to do with why Gram’s not playing on the record.”

The basement sessions were a separate world from the ’round-the-clock party taking place upstairs and in a small adjacent guesthouse, where the roadies were residing. “Upstairs was a continual ball, if you know what I mean,” Richards says. “Unfortunately the Stones were rarely involved, ’cause we were busy working.”

But every party has its price and painful morning-after hangover. And on October 1, 1971, burglars got into Nellcôte and made off with somewhere between 11 and 17 guitars (accounts vary), purportedly in retribution for money not paid to dope dealers who had been supplying guests at the villa. For Richards, the memory is especially unpleasant.
“When they put the documentary ogether for Exile, they showed me some footage, and there I am, holding my favorite stolen guitar, a 1964 Telecaster. It was like, ‘Oh baby, don’t rub it in.’ There she was. Had a lovely sound. I just got used to that one, you know? I can play almost any Telecaster, but the more you play just the one, the more it becomes attached to you. I almost went into a blank after the guitars were stolen. I didn’t want to think about it. But I slowly started to build up a new collection since then. I haven’t lost one since. I learned my lesson: don’t leave them hanging around on a Saturday night!”

Just about every notable rock and roll junkie has a tale of guitars going missing, and Richards is no exception. It’s well known that he and Pallenberg were heavily into heroin during their tenure at Nellcôte. In one famous incident, the couple were so out of it that they accidentally set fire to their bed. Observers have marveled at Richards’ ability to be as creative and prolific as he was during the making of Exile while seriously strung out on dope.

“Well, I’m not going to get into those questions.” He laughs and then assumes a thick Northern English accent. “ ‘Did Charlie Parker play better because he was on the stuff?’ I found that [heroin] didn’t inhibit whatever it was I wanted to do. If I thought it was diminishing me or that I wasn’t putting my fair share into the music, then I’d have been off the stuff right away. And that’s a fact. I’m a funny kind of guy. I’ve got a metabolism you wouldn’t believe.”

Still, as the glorious Mediterranean summer gave way to winter’s chill, the idyll at Nellcôte was clearly drawing to a close. The local police were starting to get ugly, and the Stones’ phenomenal creative streak was wending toward a natural conclusion. Richards remembers “Casino Boogie,” as one of the last Exile songs to fall into place.

“I think when we got to ‘Casino Boogie,’ Mick and I looked at each other and just couldn’t think of another lyrical concept or idea for the song.” At that point Richards recalled another great junkie artist, the novelist William Burroughs. “I said to Mick, ‘You know how Bill Burroughs did that cut-up thing—where he would randomly chop words out of a book or newspaper and then try to sort them up?’ That’s how we did the lyrics for ‘Casino Boogie,’ and that was Bill Burroughs’ biggest influence on the Rolling Stones.”

At the end of November, barely one step ahead of the police, the Stones decamped for Los Angeles. Working at the historic Sunset Sound studio, they began laying overdubs onto the tracks they’d cut at Nellcôte. Billy Preston, who just a couple of years before had worked with the Beatles on Let It Be, lent his formidable piano and organ talents to “Shine a Light.” Pedal steel ace Al Perkins imparted a tearful country lilt to “Torn and Frayed,” and upright bass player Bill Plummer left his mark on no fewer than four tracks: “Rip This Joint,” “Turd on the Run,” “I Just Wanna See His Face” and “All Down the Line.” A phalanx of backing vocalists added loads of soul and gospel grandeur. Among their ranks, on “Let It Loose,” was none other than Mac Rebennack, better know as the celebrated New Orleans pianist and singer Dr. John. “He just walked in,” Richards recalls. “Mac Rebennack’s like that. If there’s music going on, in one way or another, he’s gonna get his a-- in there. I love the guy.”

By the time overdubs were completed, there were too many tracks in the can to do a single album. And so the Rolling Stones joined the Beatles, the Who, Jimi Hendrix and other classic rockers who have left the world with a monumental double-album statement.

“The fact that the Beatles had done it probably gave us a sense of, ‘Oh, there is a precedent,’ ” Richards says. “But our point was that we’d put down this body of work and when it came to chopping it down to one album, nobody could agree on which songs to cut. After a while, Mick and I looked at each other and said, ‘This is impossible. How about a double? This is all one piece. It’s gonna be unique just because of where it was recorded and the way it was recorded.’ We sort of nodded at one another and said, ‘Let’s go for it.’ Which gave us hell from the record company: ‘Aw, the public hates double albums,’ and all of that. But we insisted.”

Richards adds that mixing the album was daunting, “only from the point of view that there was so much of it. Mixing a double album was different than mixing a single album. So we were going into uncharted territory. Mick and I would look at one another and say, ‘How many more songs to go?’ mopping our brow, so to speak. But I can’t remember it being that difficult. I think we were so intimate with the tracks by then that, listening to the overdubs and mixing, it just put the icing on the cake. I remember it as being a very joyous couple of weeks. We were all on top of it. Jimmy Miller, all of us—we all knew what we were doing. It was just a matter of watching it fall into place. It was one of those rare things: a perfect mixing session.”

Sequencing the album, however, was more of a chore. As mentioned previously, much of Exile’s magic lies in the way the songs flow from one to the next. But that magic didn’t just happen spontaneously.

“Trying to get the track order down was murder, actually,” Richards says, laughing. “I’d be sending cassettes to Mick in the middle of the night—putting my version of what the order should be under his door. I’d come back to my room and there’d already be a cassette under my door with his version of what it should be. ‘Hey, Mick, that’s pretty good, but you’ve got four songs in a row in the same key. We can’t do that!’ You’d come across all these weird little problems that you never thought of. It was like making a jigsaw puzzle. By the time I got the final version, I didn’t give a s--- anymore!”

While the music on Exile is a product of that summer in the south of France, the album’s packaging and conceptual framework were largely inspired by L.A.’s late-Seventies aura of faded Hollywood decadence. The “Main Street” referenced in the title was a seedy thoroughfare in downtown Los Angeles, which harbored a Chinese restaurant that the Stones liked to frequent at the time. The black-and-white cover images—a bizarre and vaguely disquieting assortment of showbiz freaks and geeks from days gone by—were snapped from the walls of an L.A. tattoo parlor by photographer Robert Frank. All these elements contributed to a wistful fin-de-siècle mood that permeates the album packaging and perfectly reflects the mood at the time of the album’s creation. It was indeed the end of an era. The Sixties were dead and long gone by the time Exile was released on May 12, 1972; so were Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, as well as the Beatles, a band with which the Rolling Stones had long been associated. The hippie dream had failed to materialize.

And so on Exile, the Stones seemed to be enshrining themselves among the yellowing photos of yesteryear’s forgotten entertainers. A series of 12 postcards included with the original album—and faithfully reproduced in the Deluxe reissue—offered a comedic depiction, also in blurry black and white, like an old movie, of the Stones arrival “in exile.” The caption for the final card reads:

“Taylor realizes the fall is complete, ‘they’ll be Forever Exiles on Main Street.’ He suggests early retirement. ‘No better not, it’s getting quite late and we’ll be fogged in forever quite soon.’ ”

The reference to “early retirement” is especially rich 40 years on. But what was it that enabled the Stones to not only endure but also triumph when so many of their Sixties contemporaries had either dropped dead, split up or become woefully irrelevant?

“I’m probably the worst person in the world to answer that question,” Richards replies. “I suppose at that particular period, the early Seventies, everything else had run out of steam—the Beatles and whatever. And I think maybe it’s just the fact that we kept going that did it. At the same time, what was picking up then was stuff like Zeppelin. A whole new energy came in from another generation. There was a lot going on. As I think about it, we didn’t see any reason to stop, and we were on a roll. So we just followed it. And suddenly, you find you’re 66 years old.”

As for the possibility of the Rolling Stones or some younger band making a modern-day equivalent of Exile on Main St. today, Richards demurs. “I’m not saying it’s impossible,” he says. “But, hey, it’s probably highly unlikely.”

Video: How To Play Bass To Oh Pretty Woman By Albert Collins/Duck Dunn

Tue, 07 May 2013 13:08:17 -0400

http://www.how-to-play-bass.com/blues-course.html Here's a learn how to play bass lesson for Oh Pretty Woman by Albert Collins from the classic Born Under A Bad Sign album. The player on this track was the late, great Duck Dunn. And this track is one of the bonuses for my 30 plus lessons that form a comprehensive introduction to the blues. Click the link for more details on the course: http://www.how-to-play-bass.com/blues-course.html

News Item: Guthrie Govan talks Steven Wilson, Aristrocrats, gear and guitar hero status

Mon, 06 May 2013 12:01:00 -0400

Read more about Guthrie Govan talks Steven Wilson, Aristrocrats, gear and guitar hero status at MusicRadar.com

At the various guitar clinics he conducts, Guthrie Govan has a series of questions he likes to pose to attendees. "I find that knowing why you're playing helps to make all of the other questions disappear," he explains. "So I'll ask people things like, 'Why am I playing? What do I expect from my guitar playing? Do I want to be in a band? Do I want to write music? Do I want to be some YouTube god who just scares the other shredders?' These are all interesting things to consider."

Govan hesitates for mere seconds when asked to provide his own answers to the same questions. "I play because I can't help it," he says thoughtfully. "If you removed music from my life, there would be this huge gaping hole, and I couldn't think of anything else that I could use to fill that hole. I'm so used to music being one of the central driving forces in my otherwise unremarkable existence. I can't imagine not doing it."

Govan has been playing, he believes, since the age of three. "That's what they tell me," he says with a laugh. "I recall that I could always play a D chord; I grew up with it." And indeed, his performances through the years – on his 2006 solo album, Erotic Cakes; briefly as a member of Asia; with his own band The Aristocrats (which also includes drummer Marco Minnemann and bassist Bryan Beller); in a series of guest shots with acts such as Dizzie Rascal and The Young Punx; and lately, on Steven Wilson's album The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories) and as a member of Wilson's touring band – would indicate that the guitarist possesses skills and instincts that are almost preconscious.

His ruthlessly individualistic approach to playing has extended to instrument design: over the years, Govan's relationship with Suhr Guitars has yielded three signature models built to his exacting specifications. Earlier this year, however, Govan made waves with the reveal of a yet-to-be-named Charvel prototype, leading to all sorts of speculation: Had the guitarist severed tied with Suhr? Is the prototype going to be a brand-new signature model, and would there be more?

While on tour with Wilson, Guthrie sat down with MusicRadar to explain where things are at with Charvel and to talk eruditely and at length about his attitudes on guitar playing, as well as what's in store for The Aristocrats.

As you must know, a lot of people are saying that you're the best guitarist on the planet right now. How do you respond to such accolades? And how do you keep such chatter from going to your head?

"It's flattering that people say nice things like that. Some of the compliments have even come from players who inspired me, and that means a lot. But I don't think it works like that. I don't think there is a 'best' guitar player in the world. People ask me at clinics, 'Who do you think is the best guitar player? Who's your favorite guitar player?' And I always reply, 'I know who my favorite Hendrix is.' [Laughs] Or 'I know who my favorite Django Reinhardt is.'

"Really, I think the goal is to find your unique thing and then spend the rest of your life competing with yourself, getting better at crystallizing whatever it is that makes your musical voice special. So I don't subscribe to the whole 'best or worst' thing. Guitar playing isn't a sport."

I do think, however, that when people heap such praise on a guitarist, they're really saying, "This guy is shaking things up. He's making a difference."

"In that case, all you can do is be grateful that people are responding to what you're trying to do. When people stop saying it, I'll have to get a proper job." [Laughs]

"The guitar is pretty much all there," Govan says of the prototype he's been collaborating with Charvel on. "There's a few subtle tweaks we're still working on." © Future PLC

Well, I don't think you'll be filling out an application at Starbucks anytime soon. OK, let's talk about the prototype of the Charvel guitar you've been playing. There's been a fair amount of confusion about what's going on. Can you clear things up for me?

"There's a limit to how much detail I can go into. I've worked with the Suhr guys for a few years, and I think we've achieved some things that were mutually beneficial. They're a great company, obviously. We reached a point where we thought it was best if we saw other people [laughs] – to put it in clumsy relationship terms. There's no animosity or weirdness there.

"The Charvel guys seem very proactive and keen to find out what I was looking for in a guitar and to see how awesome an instrument they could make – obviously, based on a lot of the things I had figured out through trial and error in my Suhr days. I guess, in some senses, we started with that template, but on a lot of stuff we went back to basics.

"With the pickups, they got Michael Frank-Braun, who did the Eric Johnson Signature pickups; he built some cool, unique pickups for me, based on essentially me rambling in my hippie way about how I wanted pickups to respond and how I wanted to listen to the strings, variations on pick attack and that sort of thing. He heard what I had to say and then went into his lab and came up with something quite cool.

"There isn't a signature guitar yet because we're still working on it; we're trying out different things and trying to make sure it's the most spectacular version of that guitar that it can be."

You've been playing the prototype on tour with Steven Wilson, so I imagine it's feeling pretty good.

"Oh, yeah. It sounds great, and the neck is ridiculously stable. That guitar has been through so many time zones in the past few months, and I've never had to adjust the neck. Little things like that you can only learn by taking the guitar on the road and punishing it. I've also been able to provide various fussy details about how the fretboard markers respond in different stage lighting conditions, and they seem very receptive to those things. The guitar is pretty much all there – there's a few subtle tweaks we're still working on."

Let's talk about your work on Steven Wilson's The Raven That Refused To Sing. He gave you fairly fleshed-out demos. How faithful did you remain to what he had recorded?

"The demos were so good that anyone else would have just released them as is – and probably would have won some awards. Steven can't make a terrible demo; it's not in his nature. He's one of those 'big picture' guys who focuses on every detail. He sent the demos out, and I think the basic plan was 'learn every little thing. Internalize it.' Once you do that, then you can explore it and take liberties.

"In the studio, Steven wanted to record live so he could capture that old-school, '70s fusion vibe of a band playing together live in a room, which is the only thing he couldn't get capture on his own because there aren't enough Stevens. [Laughs] There was some direction that I got from him. For the opening of Holy Drinker, he'd say, 'I want something jagged and intense,' and it was up to me to interpret that. Or the solo on Drive Home, he said, 'I'm hearing a soaring guitar solo,' and I'd have to do what I could with the word 'soaring.' There was stuff like that. I think we communicate very well."

What's it been like to play with Nick Beggs? Does the fact that he plays the Chapman Stick on a lot of songs impact what you do on the guitar?

"It hasn't changed what I do, no. But there are times where I find myself looking around and thinking, 'That's a cool noise. I wish my instrument could do that.' The Stick really is quite a different beast from a guitar or a bass. Nick has obviously spent quite a lot of time figuring out which things sound good."

What I like about your playing is that I don't hear the craft – I hear curiosity. You don't play the same thing twice, but you don't get into what we would call "noodling."

"Right. Well, if you think of music as a language, which it is, it feels as natural to me as speaking English. My station with the guitar is to imagine what I want to hear and speak that through the instrument. It's more fun for me to never play the same thing twice; I would get bored with a gig like that, where I had to perform the same sequence of notes perfectly night after night."

You grew up during the initial burst of the shred scene. You've attained the same level of virtuosity that is associated with shred, yet you've escaped the clichés.

"Obviously, there was a lot of it that I didn't like. One of the pivotal things that made a big difference to me was hearing Yngwie. I know it's de rigueur to have a dig at him, but he's a ridiculous guitar player. Every note he plays, he really sounds like he means it. He has the same intensity and passion that the blues guys have. The tone is great, the vibrato is great, the phrasing, but there's a musicality and fire. All the other people in the '80s who decided to 'become Yngwie' didn't have that forceful personality."

Did you ever try to do that "swing-the-guitar-around-your-neck-and-catch-it" move?

[Laughs] "No. But I do remember some kids at school trying that. I watched a guitar lose a strap button mid-flight. That would never happen to my instrument. But Yngwie made it OK to me to play that many notes. It's in my nature – I'm a skinny, twitchy, coffee-drinking character."

What about guitarists like Keith Richards or Neil Young, or even The Edge – have guys like that influenced what you do?

"The Edge I totally get. I really respect the 'guitar anti-hero' thing that he did – like it's possible to reinvent the instrument without necessarily knowing how to play it. He was driving technology in a major way. Likewise, Andy Summers, although Andy Summers does know what he's doing; he's very musically astute. Some of the stuff that he brought to guitar culture doesn't require tons of chops. I guess you could argue that Tom Morello has contributed in this area.

"It's funny that you mention Neil Young. For years, I loved the mournful, acoustic balladeer Neil Young, the Harvest period of his work, but I always used to wince when he'd get the Les Paul out and do the Bigsby thing with all the fuzz and the Fender amp turned to 11. 'Neil, why are you doing this? It sounds horrible!' But I had an epiphany when I saw him playing live at Hyde Park. He had the best guitar sounds ever. I realized that I was wrong to doubt him, and I completely understood why that's part of his musical voice."

You mentioned Tom Morello. You've dabbled in the marriage of rap and metal by playing with Dizzie Rascal.

"Yeah, I really do subscribe to that school of thought that says, 'There are only two types of music: good music and bad music.' I'll do anything if it's done well. If someone is serious, and they have something to say, the genre is just a detail. It's fun to do stuff like that. Dizzie is huge back home in the UK. Every time he releases a single, it automatically tops the charts. He's a big deal where I live.

"For one glorious summer, I was in that band, a 13-piece group with a horn section and some awesome backing singers. I got to play some disco bass, some funk guitar and some heavy metal fretless guitar – it was like missionary work. We were bringing this huge, unwieldy, extremely competent band to a lot of people who had probably never seen a real horn section."

The Aristocrats have a new album coming soon. What can you tell me about it?

"It's coming in mid-July, I think. On this album, we had similar motivations, I believe. Because we had spent almost two years playing together, we knew each other a lot better as humans and musicians. Each Aristocrat had a better idea about how to bring out the best in the other guys. We had a clearer idea about where the Venn diagram overlapped.

"We trust each other. We had the same formula: Each member would write three songs and e-mail the MP3 demo to the other guys. The deal was that we would meet up in the studio – and it was Nashville this time, which felt right – and we'd work out how to do it as a live trio.

"This time, everyone had a slightly different angle they wanted to pursue. I became interested in certain harmonic things: How big you can make a chord sound by combining what the bass is doing with what the guitar is doing? I'm trying to come up with stuff that isn't difficult, but maybe a few guitar-plus-bass chord voicing things that you don't hear all the time.

"Marco, for his part, decided that he was going to produce things more and have more overdubs. He's going for a lavish, expensive sound. Also, rather than some of the crazy, rhythmically complicated stuff he wrote for the last album, some of this is more like dance music. You only have to count to four, which is a departure. [Laughs] His whole thing was, 'How solid can I make this groove?'

"And Bryan kind of surprised us. I don't want to spoil it too much, but he came up with a couple of very extreme, unexpected tunes, which are a huge amount of fun to play live. In general, we're a lot happier with this album than we were with the first studio album. It's more diverse, and it showcases how we play together – and why we play together."

"I'm sure there are ideas that haven't occurred to me yet," says Govan, "and I look forward to those ideas occurring to me in the future." © Future PLC

What's great about you guys is how you seem to be blowing each other's minds – at the same time you're wowing an audience.

"Yeah, I'm really pleased if that comes across. We have an unreasonable amount of fun playing together. Every 20 seconds, I'll hear something from one of the other guys that just makes me smile, or it terrifies me. But it keeps you on your toes. We all play for the same reasons. The message isn't 'Check out our awesome chops and tremble'; it's more about us being able to play our instruments and having these cheeky conversations while doing so. I hope that all comes across.

"There's so much clever instrumental music that… it's a little bit cold. It's a little self-obsessed. I can understand why it's not the most popular genre of music. Hopefully, we're doing it in an honest way. But yeah, you're right – we are blowing each other's minds. Let's hope these trends continue."

Any difference playing with the Marco in Steven's band from the one in The Aristocrats?

"Yes and no. He's such a defined musical personality. This is true of him in all fields of life – he's always the same guy. He lives the way he plays, with this childlike exuberance. He has a way of bringing that to a piece of music without trampling on it, and it always sounds appropriate, because he's not a drummer – he's a musician.

"Marco will always be Marco. I guess the main difference with Steven's gig is that there's more structure, and there's certain things going on with the projection and the light show and those aspects. Everything has to run through some kind of click. You can't speed up if you get excited; you can't stretch a solo section out if it's feeling good on a certain night – there's a rigorous framework to these things. Within that framework, however, everybody in the band gets to be themselves."

What kinds of things can you not do on the guitar that you'd like to? Anything you especially want to improve about your playing?

"This will be an infuriating answer, but I don't know yet. [Laughs] That's not in a conceited, arrogant way, because I'm sure there are ideas that haven't occurred to me yet, and I look forward to those ideas occurring to me in the future, because it's an exciting thing when this light bulb goes off and you say, 'Hang on. That would be an exciting thing!' It should start with an idea, because if you're determined enough, you can usually find a way to approximate that idea using your instrument."

So it's not technical things you're chasing – it's more like concepts.

"Yeah. It might be a technical thing. It would depend; you'd have to hear this idea in your head and crystallize it and then say, 'What's missing from my current armory of technical things? What skills do I need to acquire to generate this new noise?' One thing I'd like to do is experiment more with effects and soundscape-type stuff. I'd like to contrast that to the raw guitar straight into a valve amp thing that I've done for so much of my life. I wouldn't claim to be a rocket scientist in terms of signal processing, so I could definitely get better at that.

"Another thing would be classical guitar. To me, that's just a different instrument. I couldn't pretend to be able to play classical guitar. You hand me one of those things, I start looking for my pick. [Laughs] I'm a complete imposter on anything with nylon strings."

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News Item: Interview: Jason Newsted Talks New EP, 'Metal,' and Reconnecting with Metallica

Fri, 03 May 2013 16:22:23 -0400

Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted walked away from one of the world's biggest bands to explore his own music. In the process, he worked with the progressive metal veterans Voivod and played with Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and many others.

Now Newsted is back with a new band — Newsted, featuring Jesus Mendez Jr., Jessie Farnsworth and Staind's Mike Mushok — and a debut EP, Metal, which was released in January. The EP finds Newsted doing double duty on bass and vocals.

I recently spoke to Newsted about his EP and his past and current success.

GUITAR WORLD: You're on the road with your new band. What led to the Metal EP and the forming of Newsted?

In 2011, during the fall, I had put together my punk band, Papa Wheelie, to do some shows. We’d been playing improvisational slabs of metal since 1996 in the Chophouse [Newsted’s studio]. I played guitar and hollered a bit. I only played the top four strings and hacked around at it. We opened for Anvil and had some pretty cool shows locally in the Bay.

During those same weeks, Metallica was putting together the roster for their 30th-anniversary shows. Lars asked me to come and play some songs. I was really excited about that, mostly to see the family again. Most of the people that were with Metallica when I was there still work for them. They are a major reason they are what they are. I spent one third of my life with that camp, so they are my brothers and sisters.

It’s always fun to jam with the boys, so I wanted to do that. It was a fan-club-based show where there were representatives from many counties. I didn’t know what to expect, but they were all so happy to see me. I knew it was going to be fun, but I had no idea of the sheer joy and excitement. I got bit real solid. At that point, I thought I had to get back to this thing. This is what I’m meant to do. I just started thinking about getting serious.

Jesus Mendez Jr. and Jessie Farnsworth had already been with me for about five years at the Chophouse jamming. I asked them if they wanted to do something serious with me and if they’d want to commit. They said they’d support me. My wife at that time got me my very first computer. She got me an iPad for my art. It had Garage Band on it. I used to have to carry four or five cases of mixers and stuff in order to make music. Now I can carry a guitar, a bass and the iPad, and I can make whole songs.

Once I got bit by that, I was really taken in. The immediacy of getting my ideas on there is fantastic. So I put together 11 compositions by August 2012. I gave them to Jessie and Jesus, and they learned everything. I had played all the instruments and constructed the entire songs for all the instruments. I used to write the bass lines for Flotsam [and Jetsam] on bass, and then the guys would add their stuff.

One of songs was an acoustic song I played 12-string on, and we got a cello player and it was for my wife for a wedding present. Jesus and Jesse agreed to go and record it with me. We recorded at a buddy’s studio. We went in and played her songs I had “Soldierhead," “Skyscraper” and “Godsnake” in my back pocket, so we recorded those as well. The initial intention was to have a cool recording to blast in our cars and for my girl to have her song. It ended up that one person heard it and then another long-time guy from the Metallica camp let someone else hear it. About two weeks later, had label's calling my old management. I had to piece together a team of new management to handle this. I wasn’t going to let the opportunity get by if someone was interested.

It wasn’t really planned, but it is what transpired. Once we got that attention, I decided to do something myself and sell all the CDs myself through my website and iTunes. We have gotten really exciting reception by everybody. Everyone has been so supportive and positive. On January 8, we released it to everybody. Three months later, we have a world tour going. We have an LP with Mike Mushok [Staind] done. I wrote about 21 songs since August of last year. We put another batch together. I’m very excited about it.

What's it like working with Mike Mushok?

I didn’t really know about Staind. I wasn’t really a fan. I knew their radio stuff a little. I had no idea about their early stages when they were crazy heavy and down-tuned. He surprises me every day when he plays. He had such a shredder vibe from the Tony MacApline school. He's a great song writer as far as what goes under Aaron’s [Lewis] voice. But when he comes in and starts shredding, he brought a dimension I couldn’t have dreamed of for my songs. He does the 7-string, the baritone, adding color, making the heavy things heavier. Mike made such a difference. I’m very happy to have him as an addition to our band.

Obviously your name is recognized throughout metal from your prior work. Did the fan reaction to the EP take you by surprise?

I didn’t know what to expect because of what you mentioned with the bands I’ve played with before, and the styles I’ve played. Voivod, for example, was an underground thing. We knew how many records we would sell. There was a certain way to market it. I didn’t know who would be interested in my stuff anymore and who would give a crap. For the first time since starting Flotsam and Jetsam I’ve started my own band with my own songs, top to bottom.

This is a whole new role playing bass and singing vocals. Playing guitar and singing in Papa Wheelie is considerably different. There aren’t many bass-playing singers. It’s hard to lay down a line and keep a vocal melody going. I’ve been developing that for years and years. It’s very challenging, and I like that. I wanted to make sure on this that people knew what they were getting.

Newsted and “metal” ... those two words leave no room for confusion. When people see that, they know what they are going to get. It’s amazing to see people’s reaction all over the world on social media. I used to have to be in the town to ask the fans to know. Now I can find out by the push of a bottom. Quite a different world, but it really is overwhelming.

Can catch Newsted on tour in the US through May and in Europe in June. Newsted will participate in Gigantour 2013 with Megadeth, Device, Hellyeah and Death Division. For more information, visit newstedheavymetal.com.

John Katic is a writer and podcaster who founded the Iron City Rocks Podcast in 2009. It features interviews with countless rock, hard rock, metal and blues artists. In 2013, he started Heavy Metal Bookclub, a podcast and website devoted to hard rock and metal books.

Video: How To Play Bass To Rocking Down The Highway

Fri, 03 May 2013 09:02:22 -0400

http://www.how-to-play-bass.com Here's a learn how to play bass tutorial for the main parts of Rocking Down The Highway by The Doobie Brothers. (Originally played by the late, great Tiran Porter.)