Sony just released a two-disc CD of David Bowie’s 2004 Reality Tour, giving us a chance to check in with guitarist extraordinaire Earl Slick about his stompbox fever. “I’m currently excited about Guitar Fetish GFS pedals—great retro tones at cheap prices—and the unbelievably cool Soundblox Multiwave Distortion by Source Audio,” says Slick, “but here are the main boxes for my Bowie tones on the live album.”
 

Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler. “Great for really long, David Gilmour-type lines. The reverse delay kicks ass, too. I used that for ‘I’m Afraid of Americans.’”

Boss DD-6 Digital Delay. “One of the settings has a subtly weird effect where the delay reverses itself as it trails off—that’s what you hear at the end of ‘Sunday.’”

Ibanez CF7 Tone Lok Chorus/Flanger. “The Wack’d setting is amazing—it really bends your pitch out. I’d always use this instead of conventional chorus—it’s way more twisted.”

Ibanez DE7 Tone Lok Delay/Echo. “A real analog-sounding delay that I used for slapbacks.”

Fulltone Octafuzz. “I like how fuzz gets people’s attention. I find most overdrives are boring, and I get most of my overdrive from the amp, anyway. A good example of the Octafuzz is on ‘Battle for Britain.’”

Creation Audio Labs Holy Fire. “Okay, this is an overdrive, but it throws around a lot of really fat bottom end—it doesn’t have the honking, thin mids I hear in some overdrive pedals—and it definitely gets into the fuzz area of interesting tonal colors.”