Courtney Barnett is the latest artist to be spotlighted in the ongoing Fender Sessions video series, showcasing her technical but heartfelt guitar style on both a Stratocaster and a Jaguar. However, it's the latter of those two electric guitars that has had the biggest influence on her career.

The 37-year old Australian singer-songwriter released her debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, in 2015, and has since released two more studio albums, as well as a collaborative LP with Kurt Vile and End of the Day, the soundtrack to Anonymous Club, the 2021 documentary about Barnett. She’s also picked up several domestic and international awards along the way, and a Grammy nomination.

Barnett's woozy indie-rock stylings, characterized by effects-warped Fenders and her intricate fingerpicking, have won her plaudits, but she downplays her skillset in the new video.

“I'll always call myself a guitar player before I call myself a singer or a songwriter or whatever, 'cause I think it's just my comfortable state,” she says. “That natural and comfortable state is playing music.”

Over the years, she’s become most synonymous with her employment of a Fender Jaguar. It was an instrument, she says, that came to her in time of need as she suddenly became greatly exposed as a guitarist and found its tonal versatility to be a lifesaver.

“We used to tour a lot as a four-piece and always had another guitarist,” Barnett explains, referring to her former touring guitarist, Dan Luscombe.. “Then there was a point where my friend Dan couldn't tour anymore, and so I had to learn both guitar parts.

“While I was in the process of learning how to do that, I was like, 'I need a different guitar.' Up until then, I was playing a Telecaster, so I went out and I bought myself my first Jaguar. It just was easier; something about the sound. I could make both worlds work.

That change came in tandem with her recognition of her creative pitfalls.

“Over years of playing live, I’ve recognized that one of my safety fallbacks was to use a lot of distortion pedals,” she told Guitar Player in 2022. “When in doubt, just make a big noise. I recognized that it started to feel a little bit lazy and repetitive.

“Obviously, it’s fun to do that, and a lot of the songs called for it, I was looking for different angles: different ways to show emotions and find dynamics in the songs.”

That saw her leaning into meditative moments, peeling away from a constant craving for loudness, and she used lessons learned from visual arts school to her advantage.

“The visual stuff and music inspire each other,” she says. “Just like the power of silence in music, there’s the power of negative space in visual art. It all overlaps, and there’s no formula. It all depends on the song and the moment.”

Being left-handed, though, her search for a new guitar was greatly limited. That drew her to a reissue of Kurt Cobain's famed 1965 model. The stock model comes with DiMarzio DP103 PAF and DP100 Super Distortion pickups and a Chrome Adjusto-Matic bridge with a vintage-style floating tremolo. Here, she uses it for a frentetic take of “Turning Green”.

Elsewhere, she plays an American Vintage II 1961 Stratocaster for "Before You Gotta Go," which showcases her Neil Young in Crazy Horse-inspired fingerpicking, and she's recently taken her love for the artist one step further by covering "Lotta Love".

The dreamlike rendition is featured on the forthcoming tribute record, Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young, which also includes contributions from Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Sharon Van Etten and Brandi Carlile.

Fender has unveiled a new generation of its Player Series of top-selling mid-price electric guitars.

The simply named Player II Series aims to “up the ante” on all the features that made the series, first introduced six years ago, so successful, by upgrading specs and materials, offering new colorways, and bringing more options for chambered bodies to the table.

Tailored to guitarists looking “to take that next step in their musical journey,” the company hopes to set “a new benchmark for quality and performance in the mid-price points,” by further pushing the envelope of its winning formula.

Indeed, as options in the beginner guitar market continued to expand, and premium guitars continued to seduce long-term players, Fender had seen the middle ground between those ranges neglected and subsequently filled the hole with its Player Series.

The Player Plus Series, which offered modern takes on the original Player builds, arrived in 2021 – the Player II Series may be treated similarly soon.

Three features – modern C-profile necks, 9.5” radius fretboards, and medium-jumbo frets – remain key parts of these builds, with maple and rosewood – formerly pau ferro and maple – fingerboards now on offer.

The re-introduction of rosewood ‘boards is, according to Fender's EVP of Product, Justin Norvell, “a restoration of the ‘original Fender recipe’ and will no doubt be a fan favorite.”

The fingerboard edges have now been rolled for a broken-in feel, while improved, parchment, plastic-free bridges and ClassicGear tuners – in lieu of cast and sealed tuners – offer hardware bump-ups.

There's nothing new about its pickups, with its Player Series Alnico V pickups returning after impressing first time out. A Guitar Player review of a first-gen Player Strat described them as having “gutsiness and sustain” in equal measure, adding that “this guitar and a high-gain amp is really all that’s needed to cover a lot of gigs.”

The series models also offer four never-released vintage colorways, Coral Red, Aquatone Blue, Hialeah Yellow, and Birch Green. These finishes are inspired by classic car colors of the ‘50s and ‘60s, with aged white pickups adding extra nuance to the vintage chic.

“We listened to the feedback from musicians around the world and incorporated their insights,” says Norvell.

“The Player II Series is not just an upgrade, it's a detailed re-imagining of our core silhouettes, highlighting our dedication to quality and the continuous refinement of our instruments.”

The range includes SSS ($799) and HSS ($829) Stratocaster models, with the former also available left-handed.

There are SS ($799) and HH Telecaster options ($829), again with the single-coil-only model extended to lefties.

In addition, there are Jazzmaster, Jaguar, (both $829), and Mustang ($799) body shapes available. These offer Alnico V single-coil Jazzmaster, Alnico V, Alnico II Single-Coil Jaguar, and Alnico V Single-Coil Mustang pickups, respectively.

Bass players can choose from Precision, Jazz, and Mustang shapes, all of which cost $799.

New options for chambered ash and mahogany bodies for the Player II Stratocaster and Telecaster models will arrive in October.

Head to Fender to learn more about the Player II Series.

Though the Smiths lasted a mere five years, from 1982 to ’87, they may be one of the most influential rock acts of their time. Much of this acclaim stems from the indelible fretwork of guitarist Johnny Marr. 

Influenced by everything and everyone from Motown to Jimi Hendrix to African highlife music, Marr’s playing shifted the focus from the massive blues-based riffs of ’70s rock guitar to a more nuanced approach that combined the chime of ’60s jangle-pop bands with the pared-down musicality of players like Nile Rodgers and Keith Richards.

After the Smiths’ breakup, Marr went on to play with Talking Heads, Billy Bragg and Pet Shop Boys, among others, and launched a successful solo career, influencing guitarists like Jonny Greenwood and Noel Gallagher.

In this lesson, we’ll break down the elements essential to Marr’s eclectic approach, including his use of elements such as open strings, arpeggios, rhythmic syncopation and melodically layered chord progressions.

Since this lesson leans heavily on chord voicings and fretboard movement, be sure to note the picking/strumming and fret-hand fingering prompts included in each of these examples.

Marr's Rhythm Guitar

Being the Smiths’ sole guitarist, Marr had a lot of sonic ground to cover. In the studio, he could overdub multiple guitar parts to achieve the multilayered textures he wanted, but onstage, he had to combine the essence of rhythm and lead textures into his playing (although the Smiths did add a second guitarist on their final tour). 

To do so, Marr would seamlessly meld both lead and rhythm guitar when he played. Part of his genius was in writing rhythm parts that incorporated functional melodies within them, and crafting leads that retained the necessary harmony that a rhythm guitar would normally provide.

Example 1 demonstrates this kind of integrative approach to rhythm guitar. Inspired by the intro to the Smiths’ “Cemetry Gates” (The Queen Is Dead), the example utilizes an upbeat 16th-note rhythm guitar pattern with a simple but catchy melodic motif woven into it. 

We start by playing a standard open C chord before moving into a far less standard Dadd4-9/A (voiced, low to high: A, F#, G, D, E). You make this transition by simply taking the C chord shape and moving it up a whole step (two frets) on the neck while removing your 3rd finger from the A string, leaving it open, along with the G and high E strings. You then head into bar 2 playing an open Gmaj7 chord (voiced G, D, G, B, F#).

As you strum this chord, alternate the high F# note, played at the 2nd fret on the high E string, with the open E note, momentarily transforming the chord to G6 (voiced G, D, G, B, E). Adding this simple but effective melodic motif on top of the chord progression gives an otherwise okay-sounding rhythm part an additional layer of interest.

Informed by one of Marr’s finest solo tunes, “New Town Velocity” (The Messenger), Example 2 delves deeper into this concept. Throughout the figure, you alternate between strumming open chords on the beats and picking out single notes on the eighth-note upbeats, forming a descending melody on top of the chords, all in 1st position. 

These single notes are played above each chord while you hold the lower chord tones.

We begin by strumming Am7 (voiced A, E, G, C) on beat 1, then add the single notes G (high E string, 3rd fret), open high E and D (B string, 3rd fret) on the upbeats – or “and” counts – of beats 2, 3 and 4. From there we switch to an open Em7 chord (voiced E, B, E, G, D) and continue adding high melody notes in a similar fashion. 

In bar 3, we shift the melodic pattern slightly: Over an open G chord, fretted with the 2nd and 3rd fingers on the bottom two strings, we proceed to “walk down” the B string starting from D at the 3rd fret to C at the 1st fret, which we then pull off to the open B note, followed by A on the 2nd fret of the G string. 

In the final bar, we strum the power chord D5/A (voiced A, D, A) for the first two beats, with only the open A note taking the place of the strummed chord on beats 3 and 4, as the melody descends and crosses over to the D string with the notes F and E at the 3rd and 2nd frets.

Two additional hallmarks of Marr’s approach to rhythm guitar are his use of 7th chords and 16th-note syncopations, both of which helped produce the kind of unique, almost jazzy sounds that set the Smiths apart from their rock contemporaries. 

Inspired by the band’s masterpiece “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” (Hatful of Hollow), Example 3 starts with an Emaj7 chord (voiced E, B, D#, G#) strummed in a funky, staccato fashion that evokes the rhythm playing style of one of Marr’s biggest influences, legendary funk and disco pioneer Nile Rodgers.

When strumming, keep your pick hand moving back and forth across the strings in a flowing, unbroken, down-up-down-up motion, even during the rests. (This highly useful technique is called 16th-note pendulum strumming, and it’s the key to making riffs like this groove and feel “in the pocket.”) 

Strum this rhythm through the next two bars as you shift to C7 (voiced C, Bb, E, G), and A6 (voiced A, A, C#, F#). As you enter bar 4, hold on the chord F9 (voiced F, A, Eb, G), then play a funky, sliding triple-stop lick through beats 3 and 4. Barre your 1st finger across the top three strings at the 8th fret, then slide up a whole step to the 10th fret and continue strumming in 16th notes. 

On beat 4, mute the strings by releasing your fret-hand grip on them, letting the index finger gently sit on the strings to keep them from ringing out as you shift back down to the 8th fret on the second 16th note of the final beat.

Once you have these techniques down, it’s time to move on and tackle Marr’s lead sound.

Marr's Arpeggios

Like the Pretenders’ James Honeyman-Scott and Siouxsie and the Banshees’ John McGeoch, Marr rejected the notion that guitar leads needed to be showy and bombastic to be impressive and impactful. 

He played lines as catchy as any of Morrissey’s swooning vocal melodies while providing the harmonic support a rhythm guitarist would normally supply. 

Marr often did this by building his single-note parts around arpeggios – chords broken up into single notes – and using scale tones to melodically stitch everything together. 

Taking cues from the Smiths’ classic, “Still Ill” (The Smiths), Example 4 begins with an arpeggiated open Am7 chord shape, with each chord tone ringing out until you hit the C note on the “and” of beat 4 in bar 1.

From there you play an ascending and descending melodic line based on the A minor pentatonic scale (A, C, D, E, G). In bar 3, slide from F on the D string’s 3rd fret up two frets, to G, which becomes the root of an arpeggiated G major chord (G, B, D), played in eighth notes that ring together and fill out the rest of the bar. 

At the end of bar 4, a couple of legato finger slides are used in conjunction with sliding 6th intervals to create a sweet, slippery-sounding ending to the phrase. The use of triads and dyads in this example is demonstrative of Marr’s melodic approach to chord movement. 

Instead of simply strumming chords, he’ll break them up into single notes and connect them together via melodic phrasing.

Next we will look at the influence of African highlife music on Marr’s playing. Highlife is driven by one or more guitarists playing parts based on syncopated arpeggios and dyads (two-note chords), typically using diatonic 3rds or 6ths. 

Considered by many to be one of the guitarist’s greatest musical achievements with the Smiths, the single “This Charming Man” is the song most heavily influenced by highlife guitar work in his catalog, and features some of Marr’s most technically challenging playing.

Example 5 uses a similarly fashioned highlife-style syncopated uptempo eighth-note feel and arpeggiated approach. 

Note the use of legato finger slides in bars 1, 3 and 4, which lend expressiveness to the figure. When playing this example, also notice the varying articulations and durations indicated for certain notes. 

Some are to be held as long as possible, or played tenuto, as indicated by a horizontal dash over the note, while others are played short, or staccato, indicated by a dot. The push and pull of these two contrasting articulations is the key to achieving the intended feel and phrasing of the example.

Opening Up

Another device Marr loves to utilize is the use of open strings. Example 6 is a flowing eighth-note riff inspired by his playing in “Hand in Glove” (The Smiths), and driven by open-chord arpeggios with shared common tones (tones that are shared between neighboring chords) that ring throughout.

Again, notice how foundational open-chord shapes are held and allowed to ring while being embellished with both open and fretted notes on the higher strings. 

The combination hammer-on and double pull-off in the final bar can be a bit tricky to perform smoothly and cleanly, so practice it slowly at first, using the prescribed fret-hand fingerings and striving to make these slurred notes project loudly and clearly.

Example 7 is inspired by one of the Smiths’ poppiest singles, “Ask.” While this track is notable for featuring a massive number of separate guitar parts intertwining to create an almost orchestral sound, we’ll be focusing on one technique Marr employed to great effect in this song: the open-string pedal point. 

A pedal point is a single note that’s either sustained or rearticulated with a series of chords, arpeggios or melody notes. In this derivative example, you’ll see the open high E string used as the pedal point throughout. 

Notice how two- and three-note fretted chord and/or arpeggio shapes are pitted against the open E note, which enriches both the harmonic color and texture of the line, especially with the Bbadd#11 and G6 arpeggios in bars 3 and 4. 

Also, note the use of economy picking in these bars, which helps make all the string crosses sound and feel smoother than they would if you attempted to use strict alternate picking here. 

Finally, let’s take this open-string idea to its logical conclusion. Example 8 is performed in open D tuning (low to high: D, A, D, F#, A, D) and is a reworking of one of Marr’s greatest musical moments, the main riff from the Smiths’ “The Headmaster Ritual” (Meat Is Murder). 

Here, we’re playing mostly on the bottom three strings and adding color tones at the 3rd and 5th frets to the foundational open D5 chord (voiced D, A, D), with the C note on the 5th string’s 3rd fret providing the minor, or “flatted,” 7th (b7), and the hammered-on G note at the 5th fret on the 4th string supplying the “add4,” which lends an exotic flavor to the part. 

As with some of the previous examples, notice again the sprightly picking pattern and frequent string crosses, which lend rhythmic flair and energy to the figure. Be sure to try playing any of these examples with a capo, placed at various frets, to transpose everything up to a higher and brighter-sounding key, as Marr himself is often inclined to do. 

Visit the Johnny Marr website for tour info, music, merch and more.

***The following appeared in the February 2020 issue of Guitar Player***

Devendra Banhart gave his 2019 album from Nonesuch Records the title Ma, and true to that word, the subject matter on the record is largely concerned with the ties that bind people to one another and to the world at large, be they maternal, spiritual, cultural or geographical.

However, Banhart says there was another, more specifically musical motivation behind his choosing that title.

“Right before we began recording, I was in Japan and I came across this word, ma, a philosophical term for essence, or space,” he explains. “The example for ma is an empty cup, and the essence of that cup is the empty space.

“So I began thinking about that in the context of music. The essence of the song is not just the notes but the space between those notes. And space is so hard to achieve musically for me. I just want to fill it up!” He laughs.

“So I had this word, and it felt like it really worked well as a title. And it happened to be the appropriate word for a record that was so much about maternity, but it also was so appropriate for what I wanted to achieve musically.”

What Banhart achieves musically on Ma is, in fact, quite impressive. The record’s 13 songs are adorned with all manner of synthesizers and saxophones and strings, not to mention wind and percussion instruments and even the sound of the Pacific Ocean.

And yet, despite the rich instrumental tapestry, there’s also plenty of ma to be found in the mix (even if Banhart, as he tells Guitar Player, tends to disagree).

At the center of it all are Banhart’s hushed, conversational vocals and deft acoustic nylon-string and electric guitar work, which display the influence of a lifetime immersed in the sounds of Delta blues, traditional British folk, Brazilian tropicália, American primitive and other folk styles.

On Ma, the U.S.-born, Venezuelan-raised guitarist continues to weave those diverse influences into a style that is distinctly his own. And though this is Banhart’s 10th studio album overall, he sees this endeavor as a journey with no end.

“There’s no actual destination with playing the guitar,” he says. “There’s no, ‘Oh, I’ve arrived at mastering the guitar!’ It doesn’t work that way. It’s an ongoing practice. And I think that kind of humbles you, like, ‘Wow, there’s so much to this thing!’ The guitar is terrain for endless exploration.”

When you begin the process of writing and recording a new album, is it with a clear idea in mind of what you’re looking to achieve? Or do you tend to write words and music as the inspiration hits?

It works more like I’m accumulating material. I’m kind of collecting fragments and rubble, and odds and ends. And then at some point I reach for the notebook and start to contribute to this slow trickle of accumulation.

I start to write things down, and it’s very slow at first. But then it becomes a daily practice, and eventually I’ve got quite a few notebooks full. So at that point I dive into it and ask, “What’s here? What is this story about?”

So what is the story about?

For a long time now, I’ve been surrounded by my chosen family, people I’ve known since they were kids and who now have kids, and I’m now like an auntie to their kids. I’m observing my friends in a new way when I’m seeing the relationship between them and their children, and it’s a beautiful relationship. And then I’m coming home to write about that. I’m seeing that in the notebook.

Then, at the same time, I’m seeing Venezuela, the country I grew up in, totally on fire. Literally. I’m seeing an apocalypse. I’m seeing a mass exodus of over 2,000 people a day trying to leave the country that I grew up in, and it’s a country I cannot disassociate from my own mother. And actually, while we’re talking right now, it’s still happening.

So I’m seeing that in the notebooks. And then I’m also seeing that when I’m feeling that sort of frightened and insecure and heartbroken feeling, and experiencing that kind of struggle, I’m still listening to the same music I always have.

I’m still listening to Vashti Bunyan and Bert Jansch and Davey Graham and Nick Drake and Carole King and Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. I still turn to that music for comfort. That’s amazing to me.

Also, I did a tour of Asia and spent a lot of time in Japan, and all of those things make it into the materials that make up the album as well.

Early in your career, your music was centered around just acoustic guitar and vocal, but you’ve expanded your range of instrumentation considerably since then. These days, what role does the guitar play in your writing and recording?

Well, in the beginning I was obsessed with Mississippi John Hurt. And I thought, Okay, this is it. This is the kind of guitar playing I want to play.

But then at the same time I also became really obsessed with Brazilian guitarists – Luiz Bonfá, Antônio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, Jorge Ben and, of course, Caetano Veloso. I just really loved them.

And then it led to this kind of British folk thing where I’m obsessed with Davey Graham, Nick Drake, John Martyn, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, and then the American kind of counterparts like John Fahey, Leo Kottke and Tim Hardin.

That’s not really answering your question, but the point is that I was really going for this, like, “guitar world,” where what I have is my guitar and it’s kind of all I need. Then things began to expand, and I had access to other instruments, and we kind of went nuts with that. I realized, Wow, this is a whole world. The records can be more orchestrated and there can be a lot of different instruments. But throughout every single record, it all begins with just me and an acoustic guitar.

What were your primary guitars on Ma?

I used a Hofner flamenco guitar for all of the nylon-string playing, and I had my mid-’60s [Fender] Jaguar that I used for all of the electric parts. And I had two amps: a small Danelectro DM10 and a Magnatone Varsity Deluxe.

Where did you record the album?

Well, we started at Honen-in, a temple in Kyoto, which is obviously not a recording studio. But we had one hour there, and then we continued in Northern California.

How did you wind up recording for one hour in a temple in Kyoto?

It was a total fluke. A friend of mine is the professor of calligraphy at Kyoto University, and she was telling me how she was hanging out with the monks that day, showing them calligraphy. And I said, “Can you ask the head monk if we can record at the temple?” I’m just kidding, basically. And she goes, “Sure, I’ll ask.”

And then she gets back to me and Noah [Georgeson, producer] while we’re on tour in China and says, “You guys have an hour.” And we had already been to Honen-in. We know that temple. It’s an incredible space. It’s one of the oldest Zen Buddhist temples in Kyoto, which is, of course, known for its temples.

We recorded in the Zendo, where you sit, and it was just the best. We recorded this song that didn’t make it on the record, but it helped us realize what we wanted to capture on the album, because there were no walls in the Zendo. There’s the ceiling and, of course, the floor. It’s just a garden. So the distinction between inner and outer is gone.

We wanted to approximate that at home as well. We needed to be in the country, and so we recorded a lot of the record in Big Sur and Stinson Beach [California]. And the first thing we did was open all the windows and record the Pacific Ocean for 24 hours. And that’s in every song, although it’s only audible on “October 12.” You can hear a little bit of it.

There is a strong element of “seeking” in your words and music. You’re always looking for new sounds and unique recording spaces and fresh lyric concepts. Do you feel driven by any artistic muse?

Well, on this album it was something that I failed to get close to. Something I failed to manifest. But I failed to do it in a way that I’m satisfied with. And that’s the idea of space that is, ironically, in the title of the record.

Loren MazzaCane Connors [a.k.a. Guitar Roberts] is my favorite guitar player, and he really creates space with his playing. It’s so beautiful watching or listening to him play guitar. There’s a sense that he is not even playing the instrument. There’s no object and subject. There’s no guitar and guitarist. It’s just like that temple: There’s no real division between the outside and the inside. It’s just a part of him, and he’s playing the silence as much as he’s playing the notes.

That’s ma.

I did not achieve that space, but that’s something that I’m still striving for. So thank you for reminding me of what a failure everything I’ve done is!

Order Devendra Banhart's latest solo album, Ma, here.

Born into a musical family in 1933, Roy Clark took up guitar at 14 after receiving a $14.95 Sears Silvertone model for Christmas.

In just two weeks, he had mastered open chords and was performing with his father, a government worker who moonlighted playing guitar, banjo and fiddle at Washington, D.C.-area dances.

A local TV appearance in 1955 led to Clark receiving a radio job with singer Jimmy Dean, then a star on the Washington, D.C. scene.

“I was with Jimmy for close to two years,” recalled Clark. “Because of him, I had my first bona fide network television exposure.”

In the end, Dean axed him for constantly arriving late, saying, “You’re the most talented person I’ve ever fired.”

Clark then became frontman for country singer Wanda Jackson and played lead guitar on her hit “Let’s Have a Party.”

An insanely fast guitar picker, Clark, like his dad, was also fluent on fiddle and banjo. 

In 1969, he achieved national fame when he and guitarist Buck Owens became cohosts of the TV comedy variety show Hee Haw. 

The program went into syndication after CBS canceled it in 1971, and soon became the most popular syndicated show in TV history.

By the mid 1970s, Clark was among the most well-known entertainers in America, seen by 35 million viewers each week on Hee Haw and another 15 million when he would guest host The Tonight Show.

He also made many guest TV appearances in addition to performing some 250 dates per year.

Clark made an unprecedented sweep of the major country awards in 1974, when he was voted Entertainer of the Year by both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music.

That same year, he was named Country Music Star of the Year by the American Guild of Variety Artists.

Clark lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, up to his death from complications of pneumonia on November 15, 2018, at the age of 85.

***The following interview extract originally appeared in the December 2018 issue of Guitar Player***

Recording artists tend to get locked in a cycle. An album is followed by a tour, which is succeeded by a break that leads to another stint in the studio. And on and on it goes.

Kurt Vile has found his own way out of that rut.

The guitarist and songwriter cut his 2018 studio album, Bottle It In (Matador), at various studios in between road dates with his band, the Violators, travelling with his wife and daughters.

During those more than two years on the road, the Philadelphia native also recorded an album of duets with Courtney Barnett (2017’s Lotta Sea Lice), opened for Neil Young and saw his single “Pretty Pimpin” (from 2015’s B’lieve I’m Goin Down…) go to number one on Billboard’s Adult Alternative chart.

If life has been busy for Vile, it hasn’t hampered his productivity.

“Touring is a big part of why you end up anywhere in the world,” Vile explains. “So it’s fun to utilize that moment. You play a gig in a random place where they booked you, and then you could start your adventure from there and travel a little bit.”

The guitarist has become something of an indie-rock god in recent years. Following a brief stint in the War on Drugs, which he cofounded in 2005 with Adam Granduciel, Vile went solo in 2008, signed with Matador Records and began releasing a string of ever-better-selling albums.

Through discs like 2011’s Smoke Ring for My Halo and 2013’s Wakin on a Pretty Daze, he became known for his droll vocal delivery, riff-oriented songwriting, and a musical range that stretches from lo-fi folk to sprawling electric guitar jams.

Back in 2018, the guitarist took time out from a European excursion to talk with Guitar Player about the making of his eighth studio album, Bottle It In, his deep love of acoustic guitar tones and his longing for simpler times.

What’s the appeal of mixing studio dates in with your touring schedule?

You know, even if I play just one show and go into the studio, it feels more natural to me.

In what way?

When you play live, it’s the most in tune with the music you can be. When you record while you’re on the road, you can carry that energy into the studio.

Obviously, most artists cut records between tours.

There’s no way I could do that. I do everything all in together. I like to go into the studio even for a day or so, in between things. I think you can get just as much done that way as you can if you stay in there for two weeks and work on the same song.

The more time you have, the more you waste. I just figure if I go in and out of the studio while I’m touring, it makes it more natural.

I imagine that also gives you time to listen to what you’ve done and tweak things if you want.

We would definitely tweak the recordings later on and add some things. But ultimately what I wanted was for it to be as live in the studio as possible – get the basics down and then figure the rest out later, if I had to, if it wasn’t, indeed, already figured out.

Your way of touring and recording makes me think about Jackson Browne’s album Running on Empty, which he recorded live, at soundchecks, in hotel rooms and even on the bus while he was on tour.

Wow! I respect Jackson Browne, for sure. That’d be cool to actually record on the stage at soundcheck.

In some ways, when you’re traveling, you’re more relaxed. Somebody can just put a microphone on you at any point, and you’re more comfortable with it. For me, it’s a constant battle of trying to make things feel as laid-back as possible, even in the studio for this record.

Things like, if you can get away with not wearing headphones, don’t wear ’em – sing live while the band’s playing. There are all kinds of ways to make it feel more natural.

Todd Rundgren has recorded his vocals from behind the mixing console for years. He’s like, “I can do it right from here while listening off the monitors.”

Yeah, I did that for “Bottle It In,” while my buddy Stella [Mozgawa], the drummer from Warpaint, was playing drums in the next room.

That’s what this record’s all about, just interacting when I’m with somebody or, when I’m by myself, just getting the part down, like an organic moment captured. That’s what I shoot for.

It’s about knowing your town like the back of your hand. And I really do things like that in my hometown, where I can pull up to the record store and there’s a loading zone across the street, one of many in the city where I know I can just run in, get what I’m looking for and get out before I get a ticket. [laughs]

You have your own way of doing things. The leadoff song, “Loading Zone,” seems to be about that – about making the system work in your favor. What inspired that tune?

And that’s a way of life, in general. It’s like getting by on the backstreets. It’s like you’re just sticking it to the man a little bit – ’cause, obviously, the man’s always sticking it to you anyway.

Why did you choose to name this album after “Bottle It In”?

“Bottle It In” is definitely the album’s centerpiece. I’m definitely proud of it, and it’s like some kind of new territory that I stumbled onto.

When I name my albums – like Smoke Ring for My Halo was named for my favorite song on that record. I had a feeling it needed to be highlighted, otherwise it would just be a song passing by. It’s an important song.

And you know, if you get back to the heart of the matter with artists you respect, usually their classic albums are named for a song on the album. Like Neil Young: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, On the Beach. And those songs are such classics in themselves that you don’t forget them, because they’re each like a statement on their own.

So “Bottle It In” – I just had to roll with it, and I just didn’t want the song to go unnoticed.

Your songs are almost inevitably built on catchy riffs that could stand on their own, without vocals. Do you think in terms of riffs when you’re writing?

Yeah, I like blues licks and melodic folk-tinged riffs. They’ve got to be melodic, a little bit pretty, but like with the blues in there. I like to make them as hypnotic and as melodic as possible. I get lost in most of the riffs that I find myself coming back to.

On a lot of your songs, acoustic guitars provides the structure while heavily effected electric guitar adds sonic interest. Do you prefer one instrument over the other?

Well, if I had to pick a main tool, it would be the acoustic guitar. In fact, certain electric guitars that I fall in love with – and even new electric guitars that I buy – I won’t even plug them in for days sometimes after I get them. I’ll just sit on the couch and listen to how they sound acoustically and how they feel.

I kind of like the idea of sitting on a couch and hearing all the nuances. Acoustically, you can’t beat that. But then, in the studio, you can put it through an amp and all these effects – filters, phasers, delay or any kind of weirdness. Or just a punchy amp sound. It’s just an option to the guitar itself.

What are some of the effect pedals that you used on this album?

I’m not as particular with effects as I used to be, but I tend to just like to put some kind of filter or phaser on there if I can get away with it. One pedal I used was the Moog MIDI MuRF. It’s kind of an envelope filter, but a little more than that.

And the amps are really important too. These days I’m into these little brown ’50s Fender Champs. Just crank those up.

What effect are you using to make that strange vocal-like guitar sound on “Loading Zones”?

It’s a Ludwig [Phase II] guitar synth. It’s the same one used on “The Diamond Sea,” which is one of my favorite Sonic Youth songs.

Do you own that or did you borrow it from Kim Gordon?

No, I’m pretty sure their’s got stolen back in the day. I bought one. It wasn’t cheap.

What’s your main acoustic guitar on this album?

I used these little custom-made 00 Martins that Vintage Instruments in Philadelphia had made. They’re based on their favorite vintage guitars of the day, but they’re made really well.

The first one I had, I’ve been using since “Wakin on a Pretty Day” [from Wakin on a Pretty Daze]. I used it on that song, in fact. It’s a Philadelphia Folk Festival 50th Anniversary guitar. And then I have another custom 00 from later.

You have some great electric guitar tones on the record as well, like those solos on “Skinny Mini.”

That was the last song I wrote for this album. I was on tour with Courtney Barnett for Lotta Sea Lice and I developed a real sound with my pedalboard.

I was using the Moog Minifooger Chorus pedal, which I really love, and there’s something about that with my most recent white 1966 Fender Jaguar. But I’m also getting some really good sounds out of just an old green Big Muff and another crazy pedal called the [Wren and Cuff] Box of War.

For “Skinny Mini,” I played that setup through a 1950s Fender Bassman that we borrowed from a guy. He said it was an original speaker, so be really careful, and we just completely cranked it. So that’s basically just a loud 1950s Fender Bassman with a Big Muff.

You seem to have a fondness for the past. The cover photo for Bottle It In looks vintage, and you even have ringwear on it. In “Mutinies” you sing, “I think things were way easier with a regular telephone.” Other songs describe a fear of flying, and the video for “Loading Zones” is full of old cars. Do you have issues with the modern world?

Yeah, I yearn for simpler times. I’m a victim of my psyche being shocked by a million things at once. I definitely remember, in the old days, we could memorize things, like phone numbers and everything. Now my mind is much more scattered.

I always like to be surrounded by vintage gear with multicolored buttons. And I like the way guitars look when they’re old and used. When I get a new guitar it feels weird. I almost want to throw it against the wall, just to make it look normal.

I like old amps, and I have a lot of old Korg synthesizers from the ’70s. They all look so good, and they all sound good. “They don’t make ’em like they used to” is certainly true in a lot of ways. I like things to be a little worn.

Kurt Vile’s latest album, 2022's Watch My Moves, is out now on Verve.

With rehearsals for his tour just a week away, rising indie-rock star Bartees Strange is surrounded by his favorite guitars and amplifiers. From all indications, this is the hard part of the job.

“If you could see me right now, I have all of my amps in a circle around me and, like, five guitars,” Strange says over the phone from his home in Virginia. “And I’m just like, ‘What’s going to be the perfect combination?’ I can’t figure it out.”

Whether he’s strapped with his Gibson ’59 ES-335 Reissue, ’67 Epiphone Casino or ’59 Fender Jazzmaster, Strange will show up ready to blaze.

Over the past year, he’s toured with indie vanguards like Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Car Seat Headrest.

But as one can tell from his latest album, Farm to Table (4AD), his own music is a fusion of styles and influences stretching back to his youth, when hardcore and emo bands ruled his playlists and fueled his creativity.

“I got into guitars and playing music from having hardcore bands and punk bands expand my understanding of what you can do with a guitar,” he says, “the ethos of guitar playing and sounding like yourself being more important than sounding like anybody else.”

Strange’s music is rooted in the emotional heft of emo, but he pulls R&B and hip-hop into the layered madness of “Cosigns” and explores acoustic pop on “Tours” and “Black Gold.”

There is also a hint of Fleetwood Mac balladry on “Escape This Circus” and some fine dueling guitars on the surging and lyrical “Heavy Heart.”

On the eve of touring for Farm to Table, Strange spoke with Guitar Player about his journey to indie-rock stardom.

How and when did music come into your life?

I remember the first real moment that I was like, Oh, what is this? It was a Norma Jean concert. To see everyone react to it reminded me of church, like the spirit moving through a room and people going crazy, moshing. The music was so loud, and it was such a different context for me.

I went to some all-Black churches and heard some pretty wild, awesome church bands, but I’d never seen anyone making – let alone playing for an hour and half – music that was that intense. It really changed what I thought you could do with music and made it more accessible for me, because I was always so intimidated.

That was my on-ramp to getting into guitar-based music and finding the blues, falling in love with Albert Collins and Freddie King and Rosetta Tharpe, and copying all those licks.

Then I heard those same licks in country music and fell in love with Chet Atkins and Waylon Jennings and Brad Paisley.

Seeing TV on the Radio perform “Wolf Like Me” on [Late Show With David] Letterman and hearing those Telecasters on Bloc Party’s “Helicopter” completed the circle. I knew what I wanted to do with guitars.

What about Telecasters spoke to you?

Teles resonate with me and my guitar philosophy. I’m not a super-fast, technical player. I don’t really know how to read music. I like to write songs – I think about chords and the song construction and what the section means and why it’s there.

I need a guitar that’s not in the way, that I can treat just like a tool. Like, this is a hammer and I build houses with this hammer, and who cares what brand of hammer it is? That’s how I like to think of guitars, and that’s how I think of a Telecaster.

You can play jazz or country on a Tele. Some of my favorite emo bands, like American Football, Joan of Arc, Cap’n Jazz – these guys are all Tele players. And whenever I make records, there’s always two or three Teles in the room. They record really well, and I know what it’s going to sound like.

It certainly lends itself to the intricate picking you do.

I don’t really play with a pick; I play with my fingers. So every time I play a chord, I’m kind of picking it out and finding the loop within the chord, finding the lead.

Sometimes I’ll write a riff and build the song around it, but most of the time I write the chords and come back and solo on it.

It is literally just me with a looping pedal playing the chords and following along with it. I don’t put too much thought into it. I’m just playing what feels good.

What are your favorite guitar moments on Farm to Table?

My favorite is the end of “Heavy Heart,” where the solo kicks in. I just love that freaking guitar part and all the tones involved with that song. It’s a guitar symphony. It’s such a fun song to write and play. Every guitar line is a solo.

And then on “Hold the Line,” there is a guitar line at the end, which is a solo slide part played by my friend Dan Kleederman.

But my favorite part about the song is how the two guitars interact with each other. I’m playing the rhythm part on the left side, and the part is sneaky confusing. It’s a slow song, so there’s all this space, and you just have to sit in it. You can’t play through it. It took many years of overplaying to get a song like that.

On the song “Escape the Circus,” there is a guitar moment on the bridge where a cacophony of guitars swirl around each other and result in these weird bloopy tape loops, and oversaturated sounds that fade in and out. That’s probably the most Bartees guitar move of all time.

There’s just a combination of a lot of things I love smashed into that section, and then we leave it and move into this big Blink-182, nine-million-guitars, big-drums moment, which is the only moment like that on the whole album, but it’s a throwback to some of my favorite music.

What was your main rig on the record?

My ’67 Epiphone Casino, my favorite guitar, is on everything. There’s also a 1963 Gibson ES-125T, the slim one, with some funny quirks added to it. For that song it had flatwounds on it, and the string slots on the bridge were rubber, so it created a sound that was different from the other 125 I had played. It has the stock Gibson P-90, and so when you hit it, it crunches in a really unique, nice way on the hollow body. I played that guitar quite a bit.

I also used a 1964 [Fender] Jaguar all over the record. For the outro of “Escape the Circus,” I played a Danny Gatton Telecaster and that Jaguar through a Tone King amp and a Benson Vincent amp in stereo, with different ribbon mics on each.

I’m not really big on dynamic mics for guitar amps, ’cause I like how an amp breathes and sounds in a room. Sometimes when a mic is right on the cone, it can be a little too much for me. So I always use a ribbon mic about a foot away, just to catch the darkness and the air.

The amp I used the most on the whole album is an early ’70s [Fender] Vibro Champ. I think it’s my best-sounding amp. Almost every song starts on that amp. I actually broke it on this album, and I still haven’t gotten it fixed, which is killing me. But it’s also forcing me to use some of my other amps.

You were a football player before you took up music. Are there parallels between your days as an athlete and your career as a musician?

I don’t know if there are parallels, but there are definitely things I took from athletics that I apply to music. I’m a competitive person; I have goals of what I want to do with music. I’m extremely grateful that I get to make music, but it doesn’t stop there for me.

Ultimately, I think there are a lot more Black kids from Oklahoma and Arkansas and Missouri and Texas who are great artists and deserve opportunities like I have. Seeing Tunde Adebimpe [of TV on the Radio] on Letterman blew my mind, like, “You can do that?”

It’s like, you can’t tell a Black kid to be a doctor if they’ve never met a doctor before. They’ve got to see it, and I hope people see me and they’re like, “Oh, he did it! I’m going to do it better than he did it. I’m going to do it bigger than he did it.”

That’s really my dream with all of this.

Order Farm to Table by Bartees Strange here.

In 1962, Fender rolled out the Jaguar, a new top-of-the-line electric guitar that company literature said offered “faster, more comfortable” playing.  

The Jag’s offset waist gave its body a look that was very different from a Strat, and it went offroad with a 24-inch scale neck that had a bound rosewood fretboard and pearloid block inlays, a pair of tall single-coil pickups with “sawtooth” shields on both sides of their white covers, and an elaborate switching system that occupied three separate chromed plates and gripped a total of eight controls: two knobs, two thumbwheels, and four slider switches. 

Fender was on a roll in 1962, and the Jaguar’s eye-popping array of colors, chrome, and controls signaled that a new sheriff was in town. The 60th Anniversary Jaguar adheres to the original format and features a lacquer-finished body and neck, and a faux-tortoiseshell pickguard, and it comes in Mystic Lake Placid Blue or Mystic Dakota Red sparkle colors that look fantastic with the matching painted headstock.

The 60th Anniversary Jaguar series also includes the modernized Ultra Luxe model that has a pair of humbuckers, a 25 ½–inch scale neck with a 10- to 14-inch compound radius, and through-body stringing, with no trem. The 60th Anniversary Jaguar on review here is a time capsule affair that suggests what it must have been like to open the case and revel at the radical new Fender back in the day. 

At the time it seemed a perfect bomb to drop on the Southern California surf scene, and was even promoted by Brian Wilson. However, the Jaguar didn’t meet sales expectations and lasted only until 1975. But in the ’80s and ’90s, guitarists like Tom Verlaine, Thurston Moore, Kevin Shields, Kurt Cobain, John Frusciante, Johnny Marr, and PJ Harvey were slinging Jags (which were relatively inexpensive and made good candidates for modding), and this helped the Jaguar enjoy a sort of cult status among alternative rockers.

Fender reissued the Jaguar in 1999 as part of its American Vintage Reissue series, and it has since gone through numerous iterations in the company’s Signature and Custom Shop branches, as well as the American Original, Vintera, and Squier Classic Vibe lines. 

At over nine pounds, our 60th Anniversary review model finished in Mystic Lake Placid Blue is a heavy guitar, but it feels good sitting or standing, and it’s well set up and plays great thanks to the neck’s ’60s “C” shape and the easy feel imparted by the slightly shorter scale. 

The evenly crowned and polished Vintage Tall frets help too, as do the low, buzz-free action and tuneful intonation. The Jag’s floating vibrato (or tremolo, as Fender calls it) is incorporated into the tailpiece, which has a section of bent steel rising from it that the strings load into on their way to the separate bridge, with its six threaded-steel adjustable saddles. 

The vibrato has a soft feel, and it returned to pitch reliably when worked with the long push-in bar. It adds lovely expression to chords and melodies, and it sure sounds vibey through a blackface Fender drenched in reverb. You can also lock it in place via a mechanical button, although for some reason that function wasn’t working on our test guitar.

As per ’60s spec, there’s a mute that works by pushing a piece of rubber against the strings behind the bridge pickup, for a decidedly “plinky” tone. 

True to form, the pickups feature Alnico 5 magnets. They’re clear and balanced, and produce a cool variety of tones via the adventurous switching system, which operates as such: With the upper slide switch in the down position, Lead mode is active, and you use the first two slide switches on the lower-cutaway control plate to turn the neck and bridge pickups on and off, controlling volume and tone with the fluted knobs. 

The rearmost slide switch activates the bass-cut “strangle” circuit, which makes the pickups sound skinnier and a little more funky when they’re on together. With the upper slider switch in the up position, the Jag reverts to Rhythm mode, in which only the neck pickup is active, and you control its volume and tone via the two thumbwheel pots. 

The tones in this mode are thicker, a little darker, and cool for jazz and old-school blues, and it’s convenient to be able to preset two distinct tones and toggle between them for rhythm and lead. Played clean and overdriven using a selection of grind boxes, and amplified with either a Fender Deluxe Reverb or a Victoria Double Deluxe, the Jag was fun and easily deployable on everything from alt-country to rock, soul, R&B, jazz, and world music. 

Kudos to Fender for celebrating the Jaguar in this 60th Anniversary rendition while also providing a different spin with the Ultra Luxe version, which – with its dual humbuckers, 25 ½–inch scale, and no trem – highlights what a great platform the Jaguar is for those who love hot-rodded classic Fenders.

Specs

PRICE: $2,499 street, hardshell case included
NUT: Bone, 1.650” wide
NECK: ’60s “C” profile maple with lacquer finish
FRETBOARD: Round-lam rosewood with white binding, 24” scale, 7.5” radius, white pearled block inlays
FRETS: 22 Vintage Tall
TUNERS: “F” stamped vintage style
BODY: Alder with lacquer finish
BRIDGE: Vintage-style adjustable six-saddle with threaded steel saddles. Vintage-style floating tremolo with lock button and push-in arm
PICKUPS: 60th Anniversary Jaguar single-coils
CONTROLS: Lead circuit controls (slide switch down): On/off slide switches for neck and bridge pickups, volume, master tone; two-position slide switch for bass-cut “strangle” circuit. Rhythm circuit controls (slide switch up): Two thumbwheel controls for neck pickup volume and tone
EXTRAS: Embroidered 60th Anniversary case. Available in Mystic Lake Placid Blue and Mystic Dakota Red. Also offered in Ultra Luxe version which has two humbuckers, a 25 ½” scale, and no trem
FACTORY STRINGS: Fender USA 250R nickel plated steel .010–.046
WEIGHT: 9.4 lbs (as tested)
CONTACT: fender.com

Along with an abundance of hooky grooves and catchy vocal lines Warpaint’s signature sound is defined by six-string twins Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman, whose ethereal guitar tones render the band immediately identifiable.

The pair are known for using mainly Fender offset electric guitars – Kokal a ’66 Olympic White Jaguar gifted to her by John Frusciante, and Wayman a '66 Dakota Red Mustang. 

Recently, however, Wayman has also taken to using a Jaguar, something she says she hopes will expand her sound even further.

Earlier this month, Guitar Player caught up with the co-frontwoman while the band was on the road in Europe promoting their new album, Radiate Like This.

Here, Wayman gives us the scoop on her current touring rig as she continues to evolve her unique sound…

Guitars

Usually, I’d play with my Fender Mustang, but I started playing this Jaguar and it’s been really interesting. There’s just so much you can do with the different pickup options and the tone switch. 

I basically decided to go with a Jaguar because I have a lot of single note lines and I was thinking it would have a more rounded sound than the Mustang, but also the ability to get a stronger attack in the high end.

I miss the Mustang, so maybe I’ll bring that out as well for the next tour.

I want to try experimenting with thicker strings on the Jaguar. Maybe a set of .011s would be a really good way to go. We got it set up, but this one doesn’t have the Mastery Bridge [Kokal's has been fitted with a Mastery Bridge.] 

I've realized I don’t like having the whammy bar there because if I want to jump around the thing just starts moving about and it’s really annoying.

Also, there were a few dead frets that needed sorting out. Emily said she had the same thing with her Jaguar.

Amps

I’m splitting my signal using a Radial unit into two different amps to try and broaden the tones. There’s been a lot to wrangle but it’s been really fun.

Having that versatility is great because there’s more I can do, although I feel like I’m just scratching the surface. At first it took more concentration to be dialed in but once I got into the flow of it it’s been so much more satisfying.

I’m excited to keep honing the tone. I’ve been finessing the combination of the amps. I wanted to create a really thick sound that has a lot of layers of character, but also definition.

The idea was to have a decent attack along with some length with the reverb, and a little bit of a delay too, so it almost sounds like there are two guitar players playing the same part.

I wanted to use a Fender Princeton Reverb as my second amp along with a Vox AC30, but I ended up with a Deluxe Reverb instead. And it’s actually really nice. I’ve always liked the tone of those Fender amps and I’m really enjoying what’s happening there. I have more effects hitting that amp. It seems to handle the pedals really well.

Pedals

I have a couple of pedals – a compressor and a distortion – that hit both of the amps (placed before I split the signal.) It’s an old peach colored Ibanez compressor. I was looking for something to help with sustain and I found that in a shop in Manchester [U.K.] 

That Ibanez compressor pedal works really well in combination with the [Electro-Harmonix] Holy Grail reverb, which I love. Right now, I’m thinking I might want one on both sides, but I don’t want to be too reverbed out.

My Boss [DS-1] Distortion pedal is really, really cool. I use that with the Jaguar bridge pickup to get a cool kind of wiry sound. 

I’m also using an EarthQuaker Devices Dispatch Master. You can use it in a subtle way or you can go really extreme with it but it always sounds good.

I’ve also got a couple of Boss Digital Delay pedals – a DD-6 and a DD-7. One I use to extend the sound and the other [the DD-6] I use for a reverse effect. 

One of my favorite pedals at the moment is a hand-built fuzz called the Classy Jen [by GlenCo] that was made by a guy from L.A. I use that on “Hips.” It’s so powerful. But I use it in a subtle way because Warpaint’s not really a crazy fuzz pedal band. [laughs]

Order Warpaint's latest album, Radiate Like This, here.

This is a 1958 Fender Precision Bass. It has a white transparent blond finish over an ash body with a solid maple neck. It comes with its original tweed case and a matching 1958 Fender Bassman amplifier – both in impeccable condition.

This bass has a gold anodized pickguard, which Leo Fender started using in 1954 on special orders. They thought a metallic pickguard had good shielding properties, but the 60-cycle hum continued to be a problem.

In ’59, the [gold anodized] pickguard was replaced by the more familiar tortoiseshell [cellulose nitrate] ’guard and rosewood ’boards became standard.

In the late '50s, a variety of custom colors were available, but the regular Precision Bass finish was sunburst, moving from a two- to three-tone sunburst in February 1958.

This beautiful guitar has had two owners before me, both of whom are still alive. The instrument was originally purchased in Vermont. And it has virtually no wear at all. The case and the amp, too – they have barely a scuff.

The headstock and neck are completely straight, and it’s never needed any fret-dressing or filing. A lot of the time on these instruments the headstock will lean [forwards] because of the tension on the neck over the years. But this P-Bass has been stored properly.

It even has the original Fender flat-wound strings that it was shipped with. Suffice to say it’s in virtually ‘as new’ condition.  

The original receipt shows it was bought along with the [narrow panel 50-watt/4x10 tweed] ’58 Bassman from the same store. It was a ‘swimming supply and music store’. Back in the day, travelling salesmen would walk into stores and ask, ‘Would you be interested in selling Fender instruments?’ That’s kind of how things happened back then.

I’m not really old enough to remember stores like that, but I’ve seen many receipts over the years that had a mixture of different types of businesses under one roof, like furniture stores that also sold Gibson instruments, for example.  

The blond/ash body, maple neck and gold anodized ’guard spec P-Basses are kind of the Holy Grail pieces for some people. As are the Stratocasters. In fact, I recently sold a blond ’56 with a black anodized pickguard.

The [1957] prototype Jazzmaster was a Desert Sand finish with a black anodized pickguard. And I personally own an early ’59 Stratocaster with an anodized ’guard and Fullerton Red finish – the predecessor to Fiesta Red.

It’s very Pee Wee Crayton-looking. His was also Fullerton Red, although people often call it Fiesta Red. ’59 was the year Fender transitioned to Fiesta Red.  

This P-Bass is one of the scarce colored ones you’ll see from the era. Blond Fender guitars have an ash body, even after they switched to using alder in ’56, because the grain just looks so much better.

And with the gold ’guard it’s a super, super look, although I love them with tortoiseshell ’guards, too.

Blond is such a great color. There’s something specific about ’57 and early ’58 blond finishes; it’s a very white blond and very translucent looking.

If you look at, say, an earlier Blackguard, it’ll probably have much more of a honeyed color, and if you look at a ’59, they have much more white in the color and are less translucent. On this guitar, you can see the ash grain as if you’re looking through a slightly foggy window.

It made sense for Fender to move the P-Bass design away from the original slab-body ‘Telecaster’ bass to the Stratocaster-style contoured body [in 1954].

The Stratocaster was very popular in the late 50s – way more popular than the Tele. When the P-Bass changed again in ’57 [to also include a Strat-style headstock] it was because of the Stratocaster.

Similarly, the Jazz Bass [released in 1960] exists because the Jazzmaster’s offset body design was such a huge hit after it came out in ’58. By 1960, that was their number one-selling electric guitar, so they figured their next bass should mimic the look of the Jazzmaster.

Fender basses kind of followed that logic. Then, of course, the offset VI came out in ’61, followed by the Jaguar in ’62.  

I think the P-Bass is the quintessential rock ’n’ roll bass. The split-pickup design was a really interesting thing to do at the time [from 1957]: the location of the pickup on the body and the way it accentuates the bass in the lower two strings, while the coil for the higher two strings that sits further back towards the bridge gives it its unique voicing.

They even carried that split-pickup design on to the Electric XII model [released in 1965].  

The Jazz Bass pickups maybe do more tricks, but the P-Bass is often the instrument of choice for the person who wants that real thump and bottom-end.

That’s what makes the Precision Bass special for so many.

Vintage guitar veteran David Davidson owns Well Strung Guitars in Farmingdale, New York.

info@wellstrungguitars.com / 001 (516) 221- 0563

This Friday, February 25, Johnny Marr is set to release his fourth studio album as a solo artist. Titled Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 this expansive and sonically adventurous work of 16 tracks came to fruition during the pandemic, though some of the initial ideas were seeded just prior.

“It was time for me to make a new record and I started it just before the pandemic,” reveals Marr, “but I didn’t know I’d be breaking off to do the James Bond movie [No Time to Die.]

“That happened before the lockdown. Days after the music for the Bond movie had finished, we went into lockdown, so I continued writing my record.”

Having just finished his latest collaboration with score composer Hans Zimmer, Marr was on a creative roll and picked up where he left off. Within the confines of his recording studio located in a converted Victorian-era factory in Manchester, England, Marr spent most of his time alone in broad daylight, as depicted on the cover of Fever Dreams Pts 1-4.

“I had the first part of the record pretty much mapped out, so then I just had this expanse of time and space to make it,” he continues.

“I already had most of the first song – “Spirit Power and Soul” – and I’d written “Receiver” while I was on the set of the Bond film. And I had the lyrics for “Lightning People” and bit for “Hideaway Girl.”

“The very first song on the album – “Spirit Power and Soul” – is, on the face of it, a full-on, upbeat, electric banger. But if you took the guitar riff off, it would be missing a big part of the signature of that song. And I think that’s pretty much the same for every song on the record. There’s a signature riff that comes in somewhere.”

Pre-order Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 by Johnny Marr here.

Where other guitarists have bags of technique, Kevin Shields has originality. As the leader of My Bloody Valentine, he led the group through a pair of albums – 1988’s Isn’t Anything and 1991’s Loveless – that remain alt-rock cornerstones and ground zero for shoegaze.

But it was on their 1990 EP, You Made Me Realise, that Shields found his secret weapon. Wielding a borrowed 1964 Fender Jazzmaster with a tremolo, he discovered he could use the device to make his notes warble and drop.

Applying backward reverb, he created waves of sound that made the whole production teeter woozily as if in a dreamscape.

The resulting “glide guitar” became his plaything. “It was like a new toy, really,” he says.

Shields influenced many other alt-rock mainstays, including Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis and Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, and went on to work with numerous acts, from Yo La Tengo to Patti Smith.

No less than Vernon Reid declared of him, “He achieved a wholeness and a unity. He created his own sound.” In doing so, he tremendously expanded guitar’s sonic palette for everyone else.

In this 2018 Fender film celebrating 60 years of the Jazzmaster, Shields’ love for the original Fender offset electric guitar is evident.

When asked how many Jazzmasters he owns, the American-born Irish guitarist replies, “Not a lot. Not millions… Ten, I think. Maybe eleven or 12. Probably 12. There’s more, but I’ve got lots of other ones. Made up ones, Japanese ones, copy ones. So maybe 25. But 12 good ones…

“I need them. I need more.”

We hear you, Kevin!

Browse My Bloody Valentine's catalog here.

Ten years ago, on this day, legendary session guitarist, singer, songwriter and arranger Billy Strange passed away at the age of 81.

The Wrecking Crew member may not be a household name, but he is the talent behind countless songs hummed, whistled and sung in households across the country since the 1950s.

His list of credits reads like a who’s who of rock ‘n’ roll and includes the likes of Elvis Presley, The Everly Brothers and Ricky Nelson.

Of course, us guitar players are more likely to be aware of the session guitarist's masterful touches to such universally loved hit records as The Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B,” to which he added electric 12-string. Or perhaps the haunting, tremolo-drenched Gibson ES-335 accompaniment on Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).”

From vocal accompaniments to large orchestras, Strange did it all. 

“I have played every kind of music in the world,” he once told an interviewer. “I played rock ‘n’ roll, did all the surf records, played with big orchestras...

“They needed somebody in a small group that knew what the hell they were doing in a studio, you know, and that was me.”

As well as lending his talents to other artists, Strange released a ton of material under his own name, beginning in the early ‘50s with numerous Capitol Records singles.

Among his catalog of guitar-centric albums from the ‘60s and ‘70s are several James Bond-themed releases as well as a number of notable collaborations that some readers may wish to explore.

Strange is credited as being one of the earliest proponents of the fuzz sound, as heard on Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans top ten single "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." 

According to Strange, the track’s fuzzed out electric guitar tone was achieved “by pulling two 6L6 tubes out of my amp."

Speaking of the 1962 recording session he goes on to say, “I remember that very well. [Phil] Spector was looking for a new sound and, boy, it fuzzed up.”

That same year, the world’s first fuzz pedal – the Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone – was released. Similarly, the genesis of this sound lies in malfunctioning electronic musical equipment (a faulty recording console in the case of the Maestro pedal.) 

Slow to catch on at first, the fuzz sound exploded in popularity following the Rolling Stones’ 1965 hit "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction."

And in this entertaining clip from the mid-‘60s music variety television show Hollywood a Go-Go, Strange performs a rendition of the Rolling Stones classic which is featured as the opening track from his 1965 album Billy Strange Plays the Hits!

With their long-awaited new album – Radiate Like This – due to land in May, Warpaint are currently warming up to hit the road again.

It’s been a while. The quartet’s latest long-player follows up 2016’s Heads Up and, like so many other lockdown records, was tracked with band members in separate locations.

“It’s the first time we’ve ever made an album like that,” said founding guitarist and vocalist Emily Kokal. “But in a weird way, it made us take our time with everything. The process felt more meditative, less rushed.”

And while the music world eagerly awaits the release of Warpaint’s most recent studio effort, here Kokal takes time to reminisce about some of her earliest musical memories.

What are some of your earliest memories of music?

My parents had the Police album Ghost in the Machine and I remember “Spirits in the Material World” being one of my favorites. But the first thing I sang along to was the song “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” [from Zenyatta Mondatta.]

My mom says they were some of my first words. [laughs] After a few weeks of hearing it, one day I just started singing along!

Also, she used to sing “Sweet Baby James” by James Taylor to me every night. She would sing five or six songs to me every night and I think that’s a big part of why I became a musician.

What made you want to write songs?

When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I remember listening to the War album by U2, being struck by the seriousness of the lyrics, and asking my mom, “What does it mean, ‘We eat and drink while tomorrow they die?’”

To me, as a kid, it was a powerful image. As was the album cover. I was just so transfixed by it as a child. I was attracted to how much it made me feel a little bit afraid.

That was a turning point. I realized then that music can be rebellious, but also something people can use to help and educate each other.

What was the first song you learned to play?

I come from a pretty musical family and my grandmother had a piano. There were all sorts of books in the bench – stuff like Frank Sinatra and Engelbert Humperdinck – so I learned a little bit about music from that.

As far as guitar goes, my mom had a Beatles book and I learned “I Will.” That was the first time I taught myself guitar chords.

What was your first band, and did you do any covers?

When I was 20, I was in a band called Little Two’s in Eugene, Oregon. And if you listen to the record, I sung a little moment of “Strawberry Fields Forever” on the song “Shabasta.”

The first song that I ever covered properly was “Looking for You” [by Nino Ferrer.] Theresa [Wayman, Warpaint guitarist and vocalist] and I played it together when we were teenagers in high school. That was the first thing we ever did together. We learned it together, played the same chords and sang in harmony.

Which of your songs would you play to someone who’s never heard your music before?

“Burgundy.” I think it’s one of the most live-sounding recordings we have. The vocal was recorded at the same time as the music. I think it lands close to our vibe.

Is there an electric guitar solo you’d hold up as one of the best there is?

“Maggot Brain.” George Clinton told [Eddie Hazel] to think of the saddest thing he could – that his mother had died. I get emotional even thinking about it. It’s so powerful. It has such a primal voice.

Is there a riff you wish you’d written?

“1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)” by Jimi Hendrix. I didn’t know he wrote riffs like that. I always thought Hendrix was cool, but when I heard that song it instantly became my favorite.

Is there a song that reminds you of home when you’re out on the road?

My mom is a huge fan of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Jackson Browne so I grew up with a lot of really emotional, heavy folk music, and the Bonnie Raitt cover of Joni Mitchell’s “That Song About the Midway” gets me every time. I can’t even remember a time in my life without that song. 

Bonnie Raitt nailed it in a bluesy fashion. It’s beautiful. I have a soft spot for the musical sincerity of that time. I miss the sincerity of that era, but I think it’s coming round again. It’ll be less cool to be cool as the political climate gets a little bit darker.

Have you got any songwriting tips?

To any aspiring songwriters, I would recommend trying to have your lyrics ready as soon as possible because once you have the melody it can be really hard to go back and try to plug in phonetically. Try to come with your purpose right away.

I often write in rhyme naturally, so that happens almost of its own accord. But I think trying to come in with an emotion later is tricky. I personally try to capture the feeling of the lyrical content, but I have made things very difficult for myself in the past trying to figure out lyrics later. I can change a melody easily if the lyrics are already there.

Are there any Warpaint songs you had to really fight to get finished?

“New Song” nearly didn’t make it. It was one of the last songs to be included [on Heads Up.]

Jen [Lee Lindberg, Warpaint bassist] gave me her demo which was mostly the whole song, and I was trying to work things out lyrically, but I got a little intimidated by it. I changed it a lot and I kind of gave up on it. But then I played it to Jake [Bercovici] our producer and he was like, ‘Are you kidding me? This song is done!’

Ultimately, I like to feel the least amount of resistance when it comes to writing music. Otherwise, I feel like I’m getting in my own way. I just want to be a conduit for whatever’s coming through me.

Pre-order the new Warpaint album Radiate Like This here.

Two decades after Kurt Cobain redefined mainstream rock with his raw, uncompromising songwriting and anti-guitar hero way of playing guitar, a left-handed guitarist and art school student in Hobart, Australia, took inspiration from his example.

Courtney Barnett knew the rock music of several eras, thanks to a neighbor’s mixtapes, and her own modest CD collection consisted mainly of Nirvana albums.

While playing right-handed guitars upside down at first (due to the unavailability of good lefty guitars), she developed a unique way of playing rhythm and lead with her thumb and fingers, since she didn’t like the sound of a pick against the strings.

By the early 2010s, Barnett was playing in bands and appearing as a co-writer and guitarist on recordings by local singer-songwriters.

After a stint as a slide guitarist and co-lead singer in the psych-country-folk group Immigrant Union (you can hear her on their sophomore album, Anyway), Barnett released her debut EP, I’ve Got a Friend Called Emily Ferris in 2012 on Milk! Records, a label she cofounded with fellow artist and then-partner Jen Cloher.

The 34-year-old’s widely eclectic take on indie rock can be gleaned from a playlist of influential songs she curated for a streaming service for many years following those first band experiences.

Her selections show a wide tapestry of musical input, ranging from her parents’ favorite jazz singers to the ’90s bands of her generation, like the Lemonheads, EMF, Pavement and the Breeders, as well as Jimi Hendrix, Yoko Ono, PJ Harvey, Leonard Cohen, Sonic Youth, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings.

Barnett signed with Marathon Artists in 2013 and combined her first EP with a new collection of songs as The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas.

Momentum quickly built. The international music press picked different tracks as their “favorite of the week,” while Barnett got booked on American late-night TV shows and landed a slot at the Coachella festival.

Her 2015 debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, became her commercial breakthrough and was lauded as a rock – not indie-rock – classic.

Her infectious songs were a meeting of uncompromising noise rock and American roots music, combining an exhilarating mix of sharp stream-of-consciousness lyrics and humor, delivered in an instantly recognizable half-singing vocal that sometimes recalls Lou Reed.

The album was accompanied by a series of fun music videos that revealed a self-deprecating artist who also played many of the album’s fills and solos on her black Telecaster.

You don’t see that too often, and people welcomed her with fervor.

It’s not hard to grasp what intense adulation can do to a person who suffers from anxiety and depression, as well as to their art, where it can be tempting to keep giving the audience the musical identity that they love, but that you are starting to outgrow.

And so Barnett started to expand her ways of expression on her 2018 follow-up, Tell Me How You Really Feel. This new direction is also noticeable on her new album, Things Take Time, Take Time, a lockdown memento born of change and calamity.

Barnett was struggling following her breakup with Cloher, the pandemic lockdown and the terrifying Australian bushfires of 2019-2020, known colloquially as the Black Summer.

When a friend suggested she make a list of what she looked forward to, Barnett gave it a try, focusing on small things: a cup of coffee, sunrise. That, in turn, gave birth to the songs on Things Take Time, Take Time, a collection of sprawling songs built from the minutiae of everyday things.

To record it, Barnett chose a studio that was new to her – Golden Retriever in Sydney – and worked without her usual gear or her band featuring bassist Bones Slone, drummer Dave Mudie and guitarist Dan Luscombe.

Instead, she created and coproduced the record with Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa, who had previously performed on Barnett’s 2017 collaboration with guitarist Kurt Vile, Lotta Sea Lice.

“Maybe that was a subconscious effort to push myself out of my comfort zones and try something different,” Barnett says of her decision to work amid so many changes. “I wanted to work with Stella again, and the timing was perfect because both of us were in the same country. If the pandemic hadn’t been there, we would’ve been busy with our other projects.”

The time is ripe for Barnett to enjoy a resurgence.

She’s the subject of director Danny Cohen’s brand-new documentary, Anonymous Club, which offers insights into the creative process and struggles of an artist Cohen refers to as an anti-influencer, a recluse acclaimed by audiences, and a strong female performer in conflict with herself.

We recently spoke to Barnett in Los Angeles, as she was kicking off her recent U.S. tour together with Sloane and Mozgawa.

Is surprise an important component to your music?

Not so much trying to surprise other people, but I think embracing the spontaneity. I’ve often gotten the majority of the song ready, where I know what it’s gonna do, but there are always bits that I don’t have planned.

Normally it’s things like guitar solos. A lot of the time, I leave them until the last minute to see what happens. Often, it’s that first thing you do that ends up being the best one. And every time I try to overdub a better guitar part or solo, it never has that same energy.

I think that’s what I try to capture; sometimes that’s what that slightly deranged thing is. There might be wrong notes and small things that aren’t completely right, but it captures a certain energy, and I try to trust that first-thought mentality.

“Small Poppies” [from Sometimes I Sit…] is a great song filled with beautiful ’50s retro guitar references, even though they also have that twist.

That is actually my friend Dan Luscombe who played on the song. I played pretty minimal rhythm guitar on it. Dan played on my first few albums, and I listened to that song the other day. His guitar playing on it is so incredible.

But after I finished that album and was ready to go on tour, I found out that he couldn’t join me, so I had to learn all of his amazing parts and all these different skills. It really pushed me as a guitar player, and I find him to be really inspiring.

How did you develop your playing style? Were there any influences, choices, or decisions on what not to do? We’re thinking of St. Vincent, who once said in an interview that she really tries to avoid playing “muscle memory licks.”

It’s hard to see what my own style is, because it’s what I know and what I’ve figured out over the years.

The muscle memory comment is a really good one, because I think it’s easy to fall into that comfort zone. I guess I try to keep myself on the edge of it, so that I’m not too comfortable but always learning new things.

Part of my style is playing rhythm and lead at the same time. I was 18 when I started my solo career shows; I played acoustic guitar and had to bridge this gap between rhythm and lead.

Over the years, as I started bands, I always tried to get a second guitarist to do the lead bits, but I’ve played as a three-piece for so much of my musical career that I had to learn how to blend the two out of necessity.

How would you describe your guitar aesthetic?

I would probably avoid doing that. It’s a combination of lots of ideas and trying to find the perfect blend of everything.

On Things Take Time, Take Time, you’ve moved away from the rock songs with punchy hooks and the feedback-driven solos that made your debut album a huge hit with fans and critics. This work is a lot more low-key, with a warm and comforting sound palette that mirrors the ruminating lyrics you’ve written. What brought about this new direction?

Over years of playing live, I’ve recognized that one of my safety fallbacks was to use a lot of distortion pedals: When in doubt, just make a big noise. And I recognized that it started to feel a little bit lazy and repetitive.

Obviously, it’s fun to do that, and a lot of the songs called for it. But – thinking of that thing St. Vincent said – I was looking for different angles: different ways to show emotions and find dynamics in the songs.

It’s easy to rely on the same tricks in songwriting or in the studio. I wasn’t trying to change patterns completely but just be aware when something came up that felt familiar and try a different way.

How did you and Stella work out the song arrangements?

For this album, we tried to use different instruments, and when things were sounding familiar or just a bit same-same, we would mix them up.

I only took one electric guitar into the studio, my sunburst Fender Jag [Kurt Cobain model with stock pickups]. I always get the best sounds out of that guitar. I also used a lot of acoustic guitar [a custom Maton] to thicken up guitar parts.

But a couple of times, we’d work on a song that sounded like it had too much guitar, and so I’d take the guitar totally out of it, highlight a Wurlitzer [electric piano] or something else instead, and replay the song from that angle. And that created a sonic space that allowed the lyrics to breathe differently.

You used a drum machine and percussion instruments, and throughout the album one can hear these little rhythmic accents popping up in the songs. It seems like they’re a central part of the arrangements because they sound like hooks, but in an understated way.

Yeah, I wanted that to be a feature. It created a meditative, repetitive feel that would build over the course of the songs. A big part of this album is the percussion, and a lot of the rhythms are the equivalent of a riff or a refrain. I thought it’d be so cool to find a different approach instead of using a melodic guitar riff or piano line.

Stella is an amazing drummer and percussionist. The rhythms might sound simple at first, until you tune into all the little things happening and realize how complicated it is, without being over the top.

You once said in an interview that you look for left-field sounds to make things interesting in headphones. Did that apply to this album as well?

I mean, always. That’s the fun part of recording. Doing the weird things, like banging a case against the floor and affecting sounds in ways that we aren’t used to hearing.

On my last album, I recorded the sound of my kettle boiling [on “Hopefullessness,” which also features a great feedback-driven solo]. It comes in halfway through the song and slowly creeps up and up like a weird, anxiety-inducing, drone sound.

On this album, we did a lot of field recordings. I’m not sure they made it onto the album, but they were inspiring to capture and hear. On one part of a song, I played my guitar with a cello bow to create a droning, synthy string sound.

Parts of your album are about healing after a breakup, and one of the songs, “Here’s the Thing,” has an instrumental passage that feels very cinematic and blue. It has lush rhythm guitars and these otherworldly-sounding notes that are floating above the chords. Is that a vocal or a guitar?

That’s actually the song with the cello bow. There are strings underneath it, and sometimes they sound like trumpets. It was just a weird frequency. But that main melodic door-bell type of sound that you’re referring to is an Omnichord [an electronic autoharp-synthesizer] that we had in the studio.

We messed around for quite a while, trying to find the right sound and the right idea, and then we probably put it through some effects as well just to make it more wobbly, like it was underwater.

What amps and effects did you use on the album?

I didn’t take any gear with me besides my electric guitar. I know I used the studio’s Mesa/Boogie and Roland Jazz Chorus [JC-120] amps. I also didn’t have my usual pedals, which forced me out of my comfort zone.

I used their [Death by Audio] Reverberation pedal a lot, and the [Electro-Harmonix] POG for the chorusy, wavy and wobbly sounds. The studio also had a vintage vibrato pedal and some overdrives that I used.

Are all your songs and solos created through inspiration by just staying open to whatever comes, or do you ever set up any sort of framework?

No, it’s normally pretty feel-based. I try to just trust that instinct and feeling.

You’re known for your lyrics, which tend to be conversational, often with a dry or wry sense of humor, and full of great observations about people and mundane things. Do lyrics inform your guitar playing in any way?

It happens sometimes. It’s fun to find the emotional match. In “Take It Day by Day,” which is a bass-driven song, the lyrics are slightly playful and cheeky, and the guitar kind of matches that. The bass is a little bit overdriven and bratty. When the guitars and the synths do the riff [sings a staccato melody], it also has a bratty quality to it.

You also went to a visual arts school when you were 18 to 20 years old, and you’re often involved in the making of your music videos and album cover art. How does art influence your music?

The visual stuff and music inspire each other. Just like the power of silence in music, there’s the power of negative space in visual art. It all overlaps, and there’s no formula. It all depends on the song and the moment.

And when one creative avenue dries up, it’s good to explore another one until the ground gets more fertile again.

Exactly.

Danny Cohen has made a documentary about you called Anonymous Club, where he followed you on the road for a couple of years. How did you connect?

Danny is a really good friend of mine, and he’s made a couple of my video clips. He came on tour with me pretty much from the album cycle for Tell Me How You Really Feel. He was on and off tours around the world, and made this really beautiful and pretty simple film.

What did you talk about, and what was the filming experience like for you?

We talked a lot about the art-making process and the fears behind being an artist. There was so much deep and personal stuff. So even if there was some confronting, for the most part it was an interesting process.

Browse Courtney Barnett's catalog here.

Happy birthday to alt-rock legend Lee Ranaldo!

While guitarists like Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine established the protocols for alt-rock guitar, the players with the most direct influence on the alt-rock movement that emerged in the 1980s were Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo.

As part of New York City’s post-punk no-wave movement, they were a tonic to punk rock’s recycled rock riffs. Their unusual tunings, bold harmonic experimentation and pioneering application of noise and textures made Sonic Youth an inspiration to countless bands and players.

And if any group served as a bridge between punk and alt-rock, it was Sonic Youth, who created the template for how an indie band could grow in popularity without losing credibility.

“We felt very liberated in the early ’80s,” Moore said, “because suddenly it was okay to be interested in anything – 20th-century composition, avant-garde jazz – rather than having to have that ‘punk rules, everything else sucks’ mentality.”

Wielding Fender Jaguars and, toward the end of the ’80s, heavily modified Jazzmasters, Moore and Ranaldo combined punk rock attitude and song structure with open-tuning techniques, and invented one of the most radical approaches to electric guitar in the history of rock.

“We’re interested in textural sounds and the blendings of instruments in ways that don’t fit into the standard lead and rhythm guitars and rhythm section backing it up,” Renaldo told Melody Maker in 1985.

“The music’s got the emotion, the sentiment and the lyrical thinking of rock music. We’re a rock band and proud of it. We’re not an art, noise or extreme band. We just do what we do.”

He could have been speaking for the entire alt-rock nation.

Browse the Sonic Youth catalog here.

Though it has been said 'tone is in the fingers' some might argue that using a Fender Jaguar to play jazz with is pushing things a little too far. Nevertheless, as this incredible video of Joe Pass (1929-1994) clearly shows, the offset that once sat proudly at the top of Fender’s pricelist is capable of doing far more than just surf-rock in the right hands.

Joe Pass probably isn’t the first name that springs to mind when it comes to the Fender Jaguar, however. After all, the great American jazz guitarist was one of the most famous endorsers of the Gibson ES-175, having played a 1962 ES-175D model for the best part of two decades almost exclusively prior to the launch of his Ibanez JP20 signature guitar in 1981.

A professional performer since childhood Pass was a jazz guitar prodigy. Unfortunately, the young musician developed a raging opiate addiction in his early 20s for which he eventually sought help via the Synanon treatment program. Down on his luck and without an electric guitar to his name, Pass borrowed a Fender Jaguar before acquiring the Gibson jazzbox he later became synonymous with.

“I’ve stuck with the same basic kind of Gibson, like the model I play now, an ES-175,” Pass told Guitar Player in 1976. “It’s the only kind of electric I’ve ever played when I had the chance. I’ve had this one since my Synanon days. I didn’t have a guitar of my own; all I had was a solid rock ‘n’ roll guitar that belonged to Synanon.

“I was playing a gig at a local club when this guy named Mike Peak came in and saw me playing jazz with a rock guitar. A few months later, on my birthday, I came home and there was this brand-new ES-175D that he had bought for me.”

Browse the Joe Pass catalog here.

There is a new sound seeping into the world of country guitar. Drenched in slap-back delay, fuzz, reverb and tremolo, it displays more mood than chops but is firmly grounded in serious technique. Records by Lee Ann Womack, Aubrie Sellers, Andrew Combs and Elizabeth Cook feature guitar sounds closer to Daniel Lanois, Neil Young or even Sonic Youth than to Brent Mason or Dan Huff.

At the forefront of this wave is Ethan Ballinger, whose edgy work on the Womack and Combs records grabs the ear, provoking a WTF reaction and the question, “How does he get away with that?” Taking a seat in his East Nashville kitchen, Ballinger attempts an answer.

“My parents played in a bluegrass band called the Cluster Pluckers, so I never had a shot at being normal,” he explains. As it turns out, his raising was assuredly atypical. Not many guitarists’ parents hosted picking parties attended by the likes of Chet Atkins, John Hartford and Roy Acuff. “There’s a picture of me at three years old with a little toy banjo, jamming with Chet,” he says.

That kind of upbringing would normally lead to childhood playing bluegrass festivals, but at age five Ballinger became obsessed with his older brother’s music. “I was a grunge kid, and electric guitar was my true love,” he explains. Still, bluegrass called him back. “As a teenager, I stole my mom’s mandolin and got way into it. It was then that we started playing together, and now we tour and play as the Ballinger Family Band.”

While bluegrass helped him hone his considerable chops, his own music swerves in a different direction. “I’ve always tried to expose myself to a wide variety of things,” Ballinger explains. “Old country and bluegrass is in my blood, but rock and roll is also my roots. They both feel like home to me.”

He describes his 2012 recording, Don’t Lose It, as a meeting of Elliott Smith, Paul Simon and Pink Floyd. For his 2019 EP, Misery Hill (Bandcamp), he explains. “I was trying to be as melody driven as possible and less chordal. These goals are what make me wake up in the morning. I want to keep writing and exploring sounds.”

If there is a thread that binds Ballinger’s records to his studio guitar work, it’s a deep affinity for the way those sounds create emotions. On the aforementioned recordings, and 2015’s Tennessee Spring, feelings are evoked by the layering and processing of guitars, as much as by lyrical content.

“I’ve been obsessed with movies since I was a kid, which probably plays into it,” he says. “I think of music as organized sound instead of as a set of strictly regimented notes. I’ve always responded more emotionally to sound than to Western harmony.”

To that end, outboard pedals and effects play a big role in Ballinger’s guitar work. On Tennessee Spring, he signal-processed everything, even his acoustic instruments. As an example, he points to the solo on the track “ldky.” 

“I played that on a Gitane Selmer-style guitar, like the one used by Django Reinhardt,” he reveals. “I play in a gypsy swing band called Hot Club Time Machine, and I find you can dig into that guitar in a way you can’t on an electric. I played the solo on the Gitane and ran it through a bunch of effects after the fact.

Ballinger brings his love of sonic experimentation to his session work, as well. When the solo arrives in “Heart of Wonder,” a track on Andrew Combs’ Americana-based Canyons of My Mind record, his guitar explodes in a wash of fuzzy noise, culminating in some screaming bends. Apparently, more than letting him get away with it, the producers with whom he works actively encourage it.

“I would have an idea and they would push me to make it weirder. We’d arrive at something I never would have thought of,” he says. “We did that record at Battle Tapes Studio in East Nashville, where they have many pedals. It’s fun to try gear you’ve never used before; it can make you react and respond in different ways. I was trying different combinations of fuzz pedals. I can’t even remember what guitar I played on that. It was all recorded pretty quickly.”

A similar philosophy was at work during the sessions for Lee Ann Womack’s The Lonely, the Lonesome, & the Gone. “The only direction producer Frank Liddell would ever give is ‘Don’t do anything obvious,’” Ballinger says.

The resulting solos on “Sunday” and “Wicked” are more Hendrix than Hank, played on a three-pickup Silvertone 1454 semi-hollow strung with a D’Addario .010–.046 set. “That was my main axe for years. I played that guitar exclusively because it’s versatile,” he explains. “I also have Tele- and Jaguar-style Danocasters.”

Ballinger’s taste in amps and effects are influenced by his love of ambience. “I used my Gibson Falcon amp from the ’60s. I was going through a solid-state Echoplex, which warmed up the amp. The reverb and tremolo on that amp is special. I’m a pretty big reverb whore. I love amp spring reverb. It is darker and more saturated. I will use a short subtle delay or have a long delay as a wash underneath everything.”

On Ballinger’s road board, his signal path is tuner, volume pedal, DigiDelay, EarthQuaker Devices Spires double fuzz, Walrus Audio Julia chorus/vibrato, EarthQuaker Devices Palisades V2 overdrive and Strymon Flint tremolo and reverb.

“It’s relatively simple and allows me to get a good range of sounds,” he says. “For the studio, I bring my whole bag of goodies. I recently got a Maestro Phase Shifter, which I used on Aubrie Sellers’ new record. When you have new gear, it keeps you fresh, so I’m always acquiring things that sound weird.”

Ethan Ballinger is forging a career as a studio player, producer and solo artist by combining “weird” with a solid, but not obsessive background in traditional technique.

“I feel blessed that anyone would ever call me to mess up their record,” he says. “There’s a place for perfect, clean chicken picking. I spent a lot of time as a teenager chasing the technical things. But I wanted to do too many other things to pursue the virtuoso path. Also, I realized that most of the guitar players I liked weren’t the guys who could do anything. I think your style comes more from your limitations than from being able to play every style perfectly.”

My first Fender guitar was a Jaguar. When I was a child, I used to check the local buy-and-sell newspaper every day and one day, among a garage sale, I saw the words ‘Gibson guitar’. That’s all it said. I was nine years old, so I asked my dad to drive me over there with my $40, which I had made delivering newspapers.

It was an ES-125TC. They wanted $100 for it and my father broke these people’s chops relentlessly until I got it for $40. I was so excited. You know, a Gibson guitar!

Anyway, after having that guitar for about a year, I decided I wanted to sell it because I wanted to save some money for a Stratocaster. So, with my parents’ help, I put an ad in the same buy-and-sell newspaper and I asked $100 for it. This guy asked me, ‘Would you be interested in a trade?’

I had never even heard of Fender Jaguar, but then he came by with a [first year of production] 1962 Burgundy Mist Jaguar. I was just blown away by the fact I had a Fender guitar in my hands. My father went to the negotiating table for me, and the guy said, ‘How about I give you my Jaguar and $40 for the Gibson?’ So, I got my $40 back and a free Burgundy Mist Fender Jaguar, which I still have.

I was obsessed with surf music and thought it was a really cool electric guitar. You’d see photographs in magazines of people playing Jaguars all the time. Even Roy Clark was playing one, it was crazy – Fender just put them in everyone’s hands.

This was around 1973/1974 and I was just a kid. They stopped making them in 1975, but production had ground almost to a halt by 1970. I think the purpose of the Jaguar was to try to tweak the Jazzmaster with a faster neck and an extra fret. The idea was to shorten the scale from 25.5 inches to 24 inches and to keep working with the separate Rhythm and Lead circuits.

Later on, they tried to make those guitars fancier. In late 1964 and early 1965 they started using pearloid dot inlays, and then they went to the neck binding in late 1965. Finally, block markers were added in the first quarter of ’66. I think the idea was to have a competitive look similar to the block inlays Gibson started putting in their ES guitars in 1962. I think it took a little while for Fender to catch up, but when CBS took over the company it was like a war. Everything was reactionary.

The Environmental Protection Agency had changed the rules and Fender suddenly found themselves using heavy wood that they wouldn’t have used before. They were obsessed with trying to get a lighter guitar. I have a lot of other prototype Fenders from that period: a Marauder, a thinline Stratocaster, a spruce-top hollowbody Telecaster, and a Telecaster Thinline prototype. These were all [Roger] Rossmeisl ideas they were trying out, while attempting to come up with something lightweight and usable.

The ‘smuggler’s’ Teles were in ’67, and the Tele Thinline came in ’68, so they were obviously experimenting with trying to make lightweight guitars. They worked out a lightweight Tele, but after 1966, Jaguar and Jazzmaster sales fizzled greatly. By ’67, both of those guitars were an afterthought because Hendrix appears with a Stratocaster.

This guitar is one of the most unusual instruments I’ve seen. Just the angling of the bridge pickup is saying, ‘We need to get more Stratocaster out of the Jaguar.’ You know, a hybrid. But obviously it never happened. The slotted polepieces of both pickups are adjustable. That’s the first Fender guitar with adjustable polepieces. They work differently from any other pickups and it sounds completely different to a regular Jaguar; it’s much thicker sounding. Regular Jaguar pickups sound kind of midrange-y and almost nasal. And yet these pickups give it that lower end. It’s a combination of that and the fact it’s chambered that changes the sound.

In [the lower bass bout] there is a long, somewhat hockey stick shaped rout. In [the lower treble bout] there is a doughnut-shaped hole. And underneath the pickguard there is an extra-wide channel routed. It still has the belly contour, but no forearm contour.

It has a flat alder top that was glued on after the alder body was routed, and the seam is disguised by single-ply white binding. The only thing that would have put the icing on the cake with the guitar is if it was a [custom] color instead of sunburst. I mean, if you’re going that far, why not just paint it some crazy color?!”

Vintage guitar expert David Davidson owns Well Strung Guitars in Farmingdale, New York.