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Podcast 569: Fake Names’ Michael Hampton and Brian Baker
Today, we take a deep dive into hardcore history with guitarists Michael Hampton (The Extorts, The Faith, Embrace, One Last Wish) and Brian Baker (Bad Religion, Dag Nasty, Minor Threat).
These two legendary DC musicians make up one half of punk supergroup Fake Names, whose third album, Punk Ruins, is out now on Epitaph.
Our guest interviewer for today’s show is John Drenning, who recently penned a feature on Baker for the 60th issue of our magazine. Read some highlights here.
During this chat, the duo reminisces about the early days of hardcore, Gibson SGs, Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye, The Decline of Western Civilization, the formation of Fake Names, and so much more.
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The post Podcast 569: Fake Names’ Michael Hampton and Brian Baker first appeared on Fretboard Journal.
Robert Keeley: 25 Years of Changing the Guitar Pedal Game
It all started with a two-knob compressor 25 year ago. Robert Keeley and his innovative team have sold over 1-million pedals developing a legendary brand that continues to influence and inspire stompbox builders and guitar players alike.
The company's founding wizard Robert Keeley sits down with PG's John Bohinger discusses the ups-and-downs of his career, details what still excites him as a designer, and shares his greatest joy as a business owner.
Sponsored by Stewmac
Visit stewmac.com Wintergrass Sessions: The Fretless
The Fretless is a Canadian folk ensemble redefining what it means to be a string quartet. Though this is the Fretboard Journal, we couldn’t resist asking these amazing, fret-free players to perform for us at Wintergrass 2026. They delivered three compositions: “Lost Lake,” “Little Snake” and “Caledonia” (featuring vocalist Madeleine Roger).
We also asked the quartet about the instruments used on this session.
Register now for Wintergrass 2027. The lineup in 2027 will include Sierra Hull, Jerry Douglas Band, East Nash Grass and other bluegrass favorites.
Video by Brad Wagner, audio by Juan M Soria.
We’ll be sharing more highlights from Wintergrass 2026 on a weekly basis here and on our YouTube channel.
The post Wintergrass Sessions: The Fretless first appeared on Fretboard Journal.
Luthier on Luthier: Mike Doolin
Mike Doolin is a guitarmaker whose curiosity and willingness to challenge convention have led him down some fascinating paths in guitar design.
Mike has never been afraid to rethink how guitars are built, from pioneering double-cutaway acoustic guitars and exploring the possibilities of seven-string instruments to harp guitars, adjustable neck systems, and, more recently, Ken Parker-inspired archtops.
We talk about his unconventional journey into lutherie, the technical problems that have shaped his designs, and the discoveries that continue to drive his work.
https://www.doolinguitars.com/design.html
Luthier on Luthier is hosted by Michael Bashkin of Bashkin Guitars and brought to you by the Fretboard Journal. This episode is sponsored by the Looth Group, Dream Guitars and StewMac.
Want to support Luthier on Luthier? Join our Patreon to get access to exclusive photos and content from Michael and his builds.
The post Luthier on Luthier: Mike Doolin first appeared on Fretboard Journal.
NAM compatibility is coming to the Fender Tone Master Pro
Fender has confirmed that Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) A2 compatibility is on the way to the Tone Master Pro, in what could be the modeller’s most significant update yet.
The news comes as Max Gutnik, Fender’s Chief Product Officer, addressed rumours circulating online in a post on the official Tone Master Pro Users forum. The post was later shared on Reddit, yet no release date has currently been announced.
Gutnik said Fender’s in-house team is testing the feature, with the company trying to bring it to market quickly without rushing it. He said the aim is to make the Tone Master Pro “an amazing platform to play NAM.”
According to Gutnik, NAM captures will sit in the signal chain just like any other ramp. They will also work with the pedal’s touchscreen and companion app and users will be able to give each capture its own graphic.
NAM A2 launched in June. It’s an open-source architecture that lets players capture their own gear, as well as browse amp, cab and pedal models made by brands and other users. Its developers describe it modestly as the most accurate and best-sounding amp modelling technology in history and it reportedly outperformed several leading rivals in a blind listening test.
Fender joins a growing list of manufacturers adopting the tech. Devices with NAM access, including Zoom’s new Neurig and the Blackstar BEAM Mini, can tap into thousands of professional and user-made tones through the TONE3000 platform and that library keeps expanding. Fender is also one of the first major modeller makers to commit to NAM A2, ahead of rivals such as Neural DPS, Line 6 and IK Multimedia.
NAM is unlikely to replace the amp models built into modellers entirely, but it significantly widens the tonal options of any unit that supports it.
The Tone Master Pro’s last major update arrived in December 2025. Fender’s decision to announce the NAM A2 feature before its ready suggests the company is keen to get ahead of the competition.
The post NAM compatibility is coming to the Fender Tone Master Pro appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Seymour Duncan adds Janick Gers signature Strat set to Iron Maiden pickup range
To celebrate one of heavy metal’s most influential band’s 50th anniversary, Seymour Duncan has launched a Janick Gers signature Strat pickup set and loaded pickguard with maiden coded collectible packaging.
The Janick Gers Signature Strat Set pairs a JB Jr. for Strat in the neck and bridge positions with a Hot Rails for Strat in the middle. Seymour Duncan says the combination delivers the lead tone and rhythm crunch Gers has brought to Iron Maiden’s live performances. It’s also available as a loaded pickguard.
- READ MORE: How Californian car, surf and skate culture inspired Powers Electric’s revolutionary guitars
The new set joins the existing Dave Murray signature Strat Set and Loaded Pickguard and the Steve Harris Signature P-Bass pickup. Seymour Duncan says the range captures the tones behind Maiden’s music across five decades, from Murray’s fluid lead playing to Harris’s aggressive low-end attack.
The Murray set uses Hot Rails for Strat in the neck and bridge positions with JB Jr. in the middle, the reverse of Ger’s layout. Harris’s signature P-Bass pickup is a medium-output design originally developed in Seymour Duncan’s Custom shop. It has hand-ground Alnico 5 rod magnets and is wax potted to reduce noise and it’s a drop-in replacement for the split-coil P-Bass pickups.
Every pickup set and loaded pickguard in the collection now ships in its own individually illustrated box. Each is a different take on the brand’s official artwork and features Eddie, Iron Maiden’s mascot. Seymour Duncan is pitching the boxes as collector’s pieces, marking more than five decades of the brand’s history.
To purchase and for more information, visit seymourduncan.com.
The post Seymour Duncan adds Janick Gers signature Strat set to Iron Maiden pickup range appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Death By Audio x Rainger FX Amp Crash Review
Some of you are lucky enough to avoid bouts with the guitar doldrums. Me? I get stuck in ruts more than I would like. Death By Audio’s wares have bailed me out these troughs more than once. And the company’s new Amp Crash, designed with fellow mad scientist David Rainger of Rainger FX, is yet another device, full of surprises, that can awaken jaded musical hearts.
The Amp Crash is many things—none of which seem all that crazy on the surface. It can be an overdrive or a fuzz. It can be a reverb, delay, or chorus. As the grate on the pedal’s face suggests, it can be a little self-contained amplifier that will make your Pignose nervous. You can use it as an amp out in front of your DAW. And because it’s a real amplifier, it can drive an 8-ohm passive cabinet. So where’s the weird, you ask? Well, DBA and Rainger had the good (sick?) sense to wire a microphone into this circuit—one that picks up the sound from the tiny 2" speaker, as well as ambient room sound, and folds it back into the circuit, generating feedback, unexpected overtones, and sound warpage that can be mangled further with the onboard effects.
This opens up a lot of possibilities. At times playing the Amp Crash was like getting locked in Lee “Scratch” Perry’s lunchbox. Other times it was like wandering a house of horrors hosted by psych-punk thugs. But the Amp Crash is also very happy making sounds that fall within the range of conventional—most notably saturation that’s redolent of a vintage low-wattage amp set anywhere from warm to boil.
A Meeting of Melted Minds
DBA is not afraid of building less-than-petite effects. But given how much is stuffed in the roughly 5 ½" x 3 ½" x 2" enclosure, the Amp Crash’s dimensions don't seem like an indulgence. Like many DBA pedals, it looks like it was pinched from the Space: 1999 props department, and in this case the mutant retro-futurist styling is heightened by the speaker grate, which gives the Amp Crash the look of a vintage com-link unit.
The speaker works, of course, because the Amp Crash has a true power amp inside—two, actually. (This accounts for the relatively heavy 300-milliamp draw, and you’ll definitely need a dedicated power supply.) One drives the small speaker. The other, which drives an additional op-amp section along its own signal path, is routed via the output that you plug into a guitar amplifier or a DAW. (A second output is dedicated to driving an external 8-ohm cabinet if you want to go that route.) The pedal’s gain range spans surprisingly clean tones and filthy ones. But the drive it generates—particularly through a guitar amp—is uniquely flavored.
The output for the speaker is shaped by the gain and tone controls. The same controls configure the gain and tone profiles of the second opamp-assisted section, where they are complemented by the DI-out level and the mic-out level controls. The last of these governs how much of the onboard microphone signal is mixed with the DI-out.
Through the whole tone knob range (which is pretty extensive), the output is colored by a snorkely mid range—sometimes in hints, sometimes boldly. Living at the brightest or darkest end of the range doesn’t really eliminate this emphasis as much as it stacks something else on top of the midrange bump. I struggled to think of exact tone parallels. At various times I heard traces of DOD 250, a less screechy Tone Bender, a Way Huge Red Llama, a fixed wah pedal, and the fuzz section in a ’60s solid state Vox amplifier. More commonly, though, the midrangey-ness suggested one, or some combination, of those devices, driving a 8" speaker in a low-watt tube amp. At lower gain settings, these qualities lend the output an edgy growl. At its fuzziest settings, it is brutish and nasty but focused.
“At its fuzziest settings it is brutish and nasty but focused.”
Mutant Zones
All of these sounds can be reshaped, both subtly and radically, by adding feedback via the mic-out control, and zest from one of the three onboard effects. The mic-out control and effects (as well as the mic gate toggle) are very interactive. The feedback from the mic can generate and emphasize various overtones in the output—to subtle, pretty ends if you’re mellow with the mic-out level and effects, or with chaotic outcomes if you lay either one on too thick. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t push it, though—in true DBA and Rainger FX fashion, some of the most rewarding tones live at these nearly out-of-control extremes.
While the Amp Crash is unorthodox, it is not just a studio tool. There’s no reason you can’t use the Amp Crash as a fuzz or drive in live situations without fear of unwanted surprises. The payoff in distinctive tones could be considerable. But unique sounds are just one possible studio attribute. It’s often the methods Amp Crash encourages that yield the most interesting studio dividends. The strange tone composites you hear in the combination of onboard speaker and guitar amp speaker, for instance, can be recast by varying a microphone’s position relative to the two sources—or by miking amp and pedal speaker in different spaces entirely and sending those signals to two desk inputs. Similarly, endless variations on this effect can be enabled by miking the internal speaker and sending the output to your DAW and whatever sound processing tools live downstream.
The Verdict
We talk a lot about sliding scales here in the “verdict” section. A pedal that is a font of inspiration for one player might confound another. And like many DBA products that commit to a genuinely different approach, the Amp Crash resides in that category. Those inclined to use its tasty drive and reverb/delay/modulation section exclusively will probably find the $395 price hard to justify. Those who delve into the fullness of the Amp Crash’s potential could end up considering that a bargain—particularly if the sounds on tap here become a foundational part of their sound palette.
But that is a very plausible scenario, because the Amp Crash is as rich with distortion suited for common musical settings as it is brimming with strange, esoteric tones. For players who can make use of sounds from both sides of its flavor spectrum—and you can count me among them—the Amp Crash might merit rounding up on all the performance scores listed here.
Death By Audio x Rainger FX Amp Crash
Fairlane Zephyr Review: “sell every guitar you own and buy one of these”
£3,480, fairlaneguitars.co.uk
Rock stars are famously demanding customers. And when it comes to their gear, who can blame them, really? After all, they’re the ones stepping out on stage in front of thousands of people every night, and the last thing they want is to look silly ’cause their guitar won’t stay in tune or something.
This is perhaps why the names of Kevin Williams and Reuben Gotto are mentioned with a certain knowing nod in the upper echelons of the UK guitar world. For a combined half a century, the pair have been taking care of the guitars of some of the biggest names on the planet – either on tour, or back in the workshop.
The pandemic was, to say the least, quite a rough time for people whose livelihoods were based on serving the needs of touring musicians, but it was out of this situation that the company that was originally called Providence Guitars was born.
As our recent cover feature with Williams and Gotto explained, they started doing repair work – first at homes and then in a dedicated space in London. The pair quickly built a reputation for stellar work, and before long the great and good of the capital’s guitar scene were clients. Inevitably, they started contemplating doing more than just set-ups and repairs.
The pair alighted on a Non-Reverse Firebird-inspired design called the Cardinal, and eventually evolved it into the more distinct guitar you see before you: the Zephyr.
It didn’t take long for the pair’s musician clientele to start asking questions about the weird guitars they had on the wall of their workshop. As word got around about how good these guitars were, in relatively no time at all they had an artist roster that much bigger brands would kill for: Ed O’Brien, Stuart Braithwaite, Conor Curley, Beabadoobee, Dallas Green… even Billy Bragg.
So, what’s all the fuss about?
Image: Adam Gasson
What is it?
Like the Cardinal before it, the Zephyr is a guitar that clearly owes some of its visual identity to the oft-neglected Non-Reverse Firebird – a shape that is desperately in need of some love from Gibson and everyone else here in 2026, in my opinion.
The Zephyr takes the Firebird shape and makes it more overtly offset-y – there’s a more pronounced swoop down from the upper horn to the lower one, and the whole thing is a little more rounded and balanced as a result.
The headstock is a Firebird-style six-in-a-line affair, and the ebony ’board here has a Gibson-style 12-inch fingerboard radius, though that’s where the Gibson similarities end when it comes to the neck – the roasted maple neck is bolted on to the tempered pine body in Fender style, while the scale length is a longer 25.5-inch scale.
The hybrid Fender/Gibson vibe is continued on the body itself, where a Mastery bridge and Jazzmaster-style tremolo are paired with a simple Gibson-style two-pickup pairing. Here we have a custom Monty’s P-90 in the bridge with a Monty’s Firebird pickup in the neck.
In terms of looks, we have a stunning white-over-sunburst heavy relic job here, complete with heavy lacquer checking all over the body and headstock, while the neck has been sanded down to the wood across most of the usable area.
Fairlane guitars are made to order, so the spec options here are pretty broad. You can choose between pretty much any combination of Monty’s pickups you desire (Williams worked for Monty’s Matt Gleeson before he moved his operation out of London), various bridge and vibrato options, and of course whatever level of relic (or not) gets your particular rocks off.
My only tiny issue is that it sports a heel-adjust truss rod, which will make any seasonal adjustments more of a hassle than you’d like. That said, given the pair are vastly more qualified to talk about guitar maintenance than I am, I will assume there’s a good reason for that over a more straightforward adjustment option.
You can save yourself £200 and spec it without a case if you’re happy to go to London and pick it up, but this review model arrived in the reassuring embrace of a Mono M80 gig bag.
Image: Adam Gasson
Build Quality & Playability
Firstly, let me make this clear – the Zephyr is not a small guitar. Put atop my own Jazzmaster, it’s slightly longer thanks to that big ol’ headstock, and has more overall body mass thanks to chunkier horns. It’s also not a guitar that’s stripped down on the hardware front, rocking a set of vintage-style sealed-gear Gotoh tuners, and a full Jazzmaster-style bridge and tremolo.
I say this because somehow, this guitar weighs barely 7.4lbs – for an offset guitar of this size with this much hardware on it, that’s rather remarkable. This is no doubt greatly helped by the guitar’s tempered pine body – Dennis Fano has extolled the virtue of pine as a guitar body for some time now, and it’s great to see more makers use it.
The light weight hasn’t made the guitar unbalanced in any way, however – it sits much more comfortably than a Non-Reverse Firebird does in the lap, and there’s no hint of neck dive on a strap either. It’s supremely comfortable.
Comfort really is the order of the day when you start playing, too. As someone with smaller hands, I often wince when I see words like “chunky” used to describe a guitar’s neck profile, but here I needn’t have worried.
While there’s a little more heft than a generic C here, it’s a beautifully sympathetic carve that sits wonderfully in the hand – allowing you to really get hold of the thing without feeling like you’re going to have sore hands at the end of a long playing session.
And play it long, you will certainly want to, because the wonderfully sanded and oiled neck feels about as smooth and inviting as any guitar I’ve ever played – even where the finish transitions to gloss at the top end of the board, it’s still remarkably smooth and un-sticky.
The fretwork is absolutely flawless, with a beautifully executed transition from the ends into the rolled ’board edges – from the first fret to the 21st, you won’t find the merest hint of friction here.
Image: Adam Gasson
That also applies to the frets themselves, which are expertly levelled and polished – bends are as smooth as on any guitar I’ve ever played, with no hint of choking anywhere to be seen.
This guitar also earns bonus ‘pour one out’ points for rocking Jescar’s EvoGold fretwire – this halfway house between stainless steel and regular nickel-silver is beloved by luthiers because it’s easier to work with, but still very hard-wearing.
Unfortunately, the company that made the alloy used in its construction stopped producing it, so when current stocks of EvoGold are gone, that’s it. Reuben tells me they likely only have enough left over for another one or two builds, so if you want it – get in there asap!
You may well have strong feelings about artificially ageing guitars, and if you hate the look, I’m unlikely to convince you of its merits in a few sentences here. If you’re less closed off to such things, however, I can confirm that the finish job here is beautifully done – with nicely haphazard checking all over, and a very convincing colour-over-sunburst wear job, especially on the neck.
It looks great, in my opinion, but more importantly it all feels very worn in – like a broken-in pair of jeans, it adds an extra layer of playing comfort to an already very inviting instrument.
Image: Adam Gasson
Sounds
The Zephyr has a resonant and lively quality about it even before plugging in – the tempered pine vibrating rather tellingly across the guitar’s large body in a way that usually means good things.
You would expect that for the thick end of three grand you were going to get a great-sounding instrument. I’ve played plenty of expensive boutique guitars to know that this isn’t always the case, but generally good pickups plus good wood makes for an enjoyable sonic experience.
I wasn’t quite prepared for just how good the Zephyr sounds when plugged in. In fact, it’s the sort of transcendent guitar playing experience that will stick with me long after this guitar sadly heads back to Fairlane at the end of this test.
The combination of a P-90 and Firebird pickup is a well-known one of course – Neil Young’s Old Black has become legendary with this arrangement – but generally speaking it tends to be a P-90 in the neck and Firebird in the bridge.
Fairlane has flipped that script, and it might be a stroke of pure genius. Because what you’re left with then is the fat, humbucker-adjacent power of a P-90 screaming away like a great old Les Paul Junior, mixed with the brightly-accented precision of a Firebird pickup where things usually get woolly.
The results are some of the most compellingly balanced, articulate solidbody sounds I’ve ever heard. The Full Monty P-90 is a wonderfully snarly take on the classic P-90 formula – with more midrange punch and general output than a vintage unit, but still retaining the dynamics that make soapbars so beloved by many.
And then there’s the neck pickup. I have a colleague in this industry who will tell anyone who listens that the Firebird pickup is the most underrated and unfairly ignored pickup design of all. Brothers and sisters, I am a believer; come join me.
The genius here, I think, is that Monty’s take on the form is slightly overwound compared to a classic Firebird unit, meaning that it’s a little beefier and less shrill in practice, while still maintaining an impressive level of articulation.
Running through a Deluxe Reverb, both pickups offer warmth in abundance and subtly different flavours of chiming cleans – and wonderfully balanced with it. But it’s when you step on a dirt pedal that the true magic happens.
Fuzz especially really reveals the wonder of the Firebird neck pickup, delivering wonderfully punchy, scuzzy fuzz tones that still have a remarkable level of string-separation and clarity. You can get into the deepest Jack White or Dan Auerbach-shaped hole with this thing, and unlike almost any other neck pickup I’ve ever played, it neither shirks on the power nor loses itself in the noise.
The Mastery tremolo system only further encourages you into these sort of wig-outs, providing wonderfully musical and expressive wobbles to punctuate the impressive sustain as you let your notes ring out.
Image: Adam Gasson
Should I buy one?
There is a mindset that a lot of smaller boutique builders seem to hold that if you simply take the best possible raw materials and put them together in a logical way, an electric guitar worthy of boutique prices and boutique acclaim will magically appear at the end of it.
But the work of Kevin Williams and Reuben Gotto is a powerful reminder that a great electric guitar is so much more than the sum of its parts. Yes, the components and materials used here are first-class. Yes, it is a visually stunning instrument that threads the rare needle between vintage veneration and doing your own thing.
But the reason that the Fairlane Zephyr is one of the very finest electric guitars I’ve ever played is about so much more than that. It’s the informed craftsmanship that focuses on the small details that sets them and this guitar apart.
These are the details that separate good from great, and the pair’s wealth of high-level experience means they’re clearly aware of this. This sweating of the small stuff is what elevates this guitar to a level that very few small builders can operate at.
Unquestionably, this guitar is no small investment – but that doesn’t mean it’s not great value. You could take the better part of a grand off the price of this guitar by removing some of the cosmetic flourishes (like the heavy relic job) and bring it down to a price that’s not much more than the top end of Gibson and Fender’s USA production-line stuff.
And with respect to both brands, the level of workmanship and attention to detail on this Zephyr blows that out of the water. You’d have to go to the scarier end of the Custom Shop at both brands to get an instrument that feels close, and that’s gonna basically be double the price.
I’ve played a lot of great guitars in my time in this job, but I am also a killjoy – it’s vanishingly rare that I don’t find enough negatives to knock a mark or two off the score. This is not one of those occasions – the Fairlane Zephyr is a truly superlative instrument. Maybe those rock stars know what they’re on about…
Alternatives
The lack of Non-reverse Firebirds in the Gibson line-up is, frankly, a national disgrace, but there is one – the Gibson Custom 1965 Non-Reverse Firebird V Reissue ($4,499/£4,399) is a lovely bit of 60s nostalgia complete with two Firebird pickups and a Maestro Vibrola. Despite the boutique guitar world being a cornucopia of interesting and unconventional guitar designs, there’s a real dearth of Non-Reverse ‘Bird-inspired designs, but one really good one is the Fano Alt De Facto PX6 (from $3,499) – now under the stewardship of Dennis Fano again, one of the very finest builders on earth. If you want to keep it UK-based, the scene is in rude health right now. Trent’s Model 1 (from £2,095) is another cool offset thing with some big-name artist endorsement – Elliot Trent even machines his own unique JM-style tremolo system.
The post Fairlane Zephyr Review: “sell every guitar you own and buy one of these” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
A New Era In Guitar Tone?
Three Pitch Engines Running at Once, in Stereo | Hotone Freqlux
Hotone’s Freqlux runs three independent pitch voices at the same time, each with its own effects and its own position in the stereo field. PG Contributor Tom Butwin details the Tri-Pitch Engine, from polyphonic tracking and key aware harmony through to the Flux footswitch that turns the pedal into something you play rather than something you switch on.
Each voice gets assigned to one of five modes. ‘Poly’ handles polyphonic shifting that keeps chord structure intact. ‘Key’ generates harmonies that follow whatever key you set, though Tom makes the case for deliberately mismatching it. ‘Detune’ covers drop tunings and baritone territory, and with tracking at 4 to 5ms of latency it reads as a real tuning change rather than an effect. ‘ARP’ turns pitch into sequenced motion. ‘Mod’ steps away from pitch shifting and runs modulation instead. Every voice then carries its own effects and tone shaping, including drive, tremolo, chorus, delay, level and pan, which is where the stereo layouts come from. Tom builds one with crunch on the outer voices panned hard left and right and a clean voice down the middle.
The controls stay manageable despite the depth. Side buttons handle global routing and per effect editing, a knob scrolls through 200 preset slots, and the three top knobs map to the three voices. Holding both footswitches drops into Flux, where the right switch becomes a real time pitch controller for gliding shifts and arpeggiated movement. Auto Flux does the same thing from your picking dynamics instead of your foot. Connections cover stereo in and out, USB-C, MIDI in and out, and an expression pedal input, with free desktop editing software if you’d rather not dial everything in from the screen.
Freqlux Pitch-shift
Stereo Pitch-shift Guitar Pedal with H1, H2, H3, Preset, Mix, Select, Alt/Menu, and FX Controls, 3 Harmonized Voices, Delay, Modulation, Arpeggiator, MIDI, and USB
Dinosaur Jr.: Back to the Noise
J Mascis has so many guitars that at least one of them has no obvious job. “It’s not good for songwriting, playing live, or recording. It’s not good for any of the real things we do. That leaves just playing it,” says the Dinosaur Jr. frontman, sporting a gray beard and red-framed glasses, via Zoom from a St. Louis hotel. “That’s kind of interesting: to play, knowing nothing will come out of it.”
The axe in question is a Gibson Les Paul Custom that had a broken headstock when Mascis bought it. “The guy at the shop said it was his bandmate’s,” Mascis recalls. “You could tell he just played it so much that it was somehow awesome. You could feel it was worn in just right.” Mascis had the headstock repaired, but he maintained everything else about it, including the “20th anniversary” letters stamped on the fretboard and its overall battered quality. “It’s beat up, and it’s been played at shows. It has a good feel you can only get from playing all the time. Somebody’s favorite guitar for years—it’s cool.”
The guitar has almost nothing to do with the reason Mascis is on this Zoom: to promote There Near, Dinosaur Jr.’s first album in five years. For this project, Mascis mostly employed a 1959 Fender Jazzmaster, after taking a multi-year break from the model. “I’m getting back to my roots because I never seem to,” he says, “and [playing] leads with it and stuff.” He retired the Fender from touring when he realized the guitar was worth tens of thousands of dollars, which freaked him out: “I’ll just play it when I’m recording,” he says.
Befitting Dinosaur Jr. since the Amherst, Mass., trio’s debut album, Dinosaur, in 1985, There Near is packed with Mascis’ solos and distinctively slacked-out voice meandering over the din. What’s slightly different about There Near, compared to the band’s previous album, 2021’s Sweep It Into Space, is a foundation of precise, Who-like power chords; the opening track “Several Got Away” has the feel of “I Can’t Explain” or “My Generation.” Mascis has zero theories about why that might be so: “Yeah, that’s just the songs I came up with,” he says. “At the time, I’m not sure where they came from.”
One physical piece of inspiration for There Near: a Mesa/Boogie Mark I amp, similar to the one Mascis used for the Dinosaur album 41 years earlier. Mascis purchased the more recent one secondhand, learning that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame had once utilized it for bands onstage. It had hemp cone speakers, and he plugged it into a Marshall cabinet he miked for the recording. “It was an interesting, clean sound that I hadn’t gotten again—this thicker-than-a-Fender sound,” he says. In 1985, he “didn’t know anything about amps,” he adds. “I had a Yamaha solid-state amp, because I saw Bob Mould had one. I thought, ‘How bad could it be?’ But my friend, the good guitarist in town, told me how terrible it sounded. I just used the amp they had at the studio”—the Mesa/Boogie Mark I.
The band’s core—Mascis; bassist Lou Barlow, who would go on to front acclaimed indie-rock band Sebadoh; and drummer Emmett Murphy, known as Murph—has been together off and on since 1984, following the breakup of Mascis’ and Barlow’s hardcore band, Deep Wound. The new trio developed a distorted, sludgy sound that would resonate amid the ’90s alt-rock and grunge explosion.
The group put out Dinosaur on an indie label, Homestead, which employed a young Boston punk-zine publisher and show promoter named Gerard Cosloy. He had briefly managed Deep Wound and, after joining Homestead—also home to hardcore heroes Big Black and Naked Raygun—offered to release a record by Mascis’ new band. “Back then, the Minutemen were a band we liked, and they said, ‘You need an album. That’s like a flier for the gigs. It’s better to have an album than a tape if you want to get gigs,’” Mascis recalls. “It seemed more legitimate or something.”
After the first album gave Dinosaur Jr. a reputation as noise-rock innovators—their concerts reinforced this perception by cranking up the volume beyond healthy human-hearing capacity—the band shifted to a new label. Mascis had always admired SST Records, which had signed Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, and the Minutemen, so he left Homestead to go there. “That kind of ruined my relationship with Gerard,” Mascis recalls. “He kind of got pissed off and jumped ship. But I had to follow my dreams.”
In 1990, Cosloy went on to join Matador Records, which released landmark indie-rock albums by artists like Pavement, Guided By Voices, and Liz Phair. Did Mascis ever reconcile with him? “Yes and no,” he says. “I mean, we’re not great. We never were as good of friends after that. But we definitely hung out a little bit.”
Mascis’ early professional bridge-burning had little impact on Dinosaur Jr.’s career. The band’s first SST album, 1987’s You’re Living All Over Me, was simultaneously more focused, song-wise, and more insanely packed with innovative guitar leads. The guitar-rock masterpiece was one of many crucial albums that soon revolutionized MTV and radio while helping the band become a touchstone for the Lollapalooza generation. (Dinosaur Jr. was on the storied festival’s 1993 bill with Alice In Chains, Rage Against the Machine, and others.)
“As I get older, my attention span gets less and less. I can’t play guitar for eight hours straight in the studio like the old days.”
The original Dinosaur Jr. lineup, though, was fraying. Mascis and Barlow were silently feuding. Mascis maintained tight control, writing almost every song, but Barlow was evolving into the band’s George Harrison, and he needed an outlet of his own. In 1987, Barlow released a four-track cassette of home recordings under the name Sentridoh, with his friend Eric Gaffney contributing percussion; that project helped lay the groundwork for Sebadoh and the lo-fi aesthetic at the core of the band’s music. Tensions within Dinosaur Jr. continued to grow: As the story goes, Mascis informed Barlow he was disbanding the lineup, but he put a new version together instead, initially with a rotating cast of bassists.
Both entities kept moving forward: Dinosaur Jr. signed with a major record label, Sire, and released their Mascis-produced 1991 album, Green Mind; Sebadoh was prolific, peaking with 1994's electrifying Bakesale, and Barlow formed several other projects and collaborations, including the Folk Implosion, best known for the 1995 Kids soundtrack hit, “Natural One.”
Mascis and Barlow continued on their separate trajectories until 2005: Indie label Merge Records reissued their early albums, and they reunited for a tour, which led to a 2007 record, Beyond, with the original lineup.
How has the Dinosaur Jr. dynamic between Mascis, Barlow, and Murphy changed over the years? Mascis pauses for a long time before responding: “Um. It’s hard to remember. At some point, it seemed like Murph and Lou flipped. When we first started, Murph wasn’t sure he wanted to do it all the time, sometimes. He’d quit for a week, but me and Lou were super-dedicated to the band.
“When we got back to the band, it seemed like they had switched the roles. Murph was way more into it than Lou,” Mascis continues. “Other than that, it seems similar. I’d write the drum parts and Murph learns them. Or, for Lou songs, me and Murph would both drum—just try to write some drum parts, because Lou doesn’t think of drums.”
The band created There Near in bursts over the course of a year at Bisquiteen Studio, in Amherst. That’s a function of age, says the 60-year-old Mascis: “As I get older, my attention span gets less and less. I can’t play guitar for eight hours straight in the studio like the old days. Now we just figured—[don’t] push it at all. Record for an hour and a half, four days a week. At that schedule, it takes a while.”
The approach, Mascis says, tightened the album and made it easier to focus on a unifying sound. There Near follows Dinosaur Jr.’s nearly 40-year formula—moaned and mumbled Mascis lyrics set to a stomping rhythm, which is especially pronounced on the faster songs like “Several Got Away” and “Gone Off,” but slower tracks such as “Walk Me Back” open up to sharp torrents of shredding as well. “It’s good for quality control because you have time to weed out what you don’t like and see if you still like the thing four months later,” he says.
The two songs that deviate from this style are the Barlow-written “Blowin’ Up” and “No One’s Ready,” which have a softer, more melodic feel, with more space to accentuate the pointed lyrics: “You’re about as dumb as they come / and telling stupid stories every day,” he begins on “Blowin’ Up.” Mascis cedes control on Barlow’s compositions, playing guitar and bass as needed. “I just step back a bit and see what he wants me to do on the song,” he says.
“Back then, the Minutemen were a band we liked, and they said, ‘You need an album. That’s like a flier for the gigs.’”
In the early days, Dinosaur Jr. put out a new album every two or three years; more recently, in part due to the band members’ solo projects, the gap has expanded to four or five years. But there’s no strategy for the timing of There Near, according to Mascis: “We just kind of do ’em. There’s no rhyme or reason. It just feels like time to do a new album. You’ve played all these places already, so it feels like you need a new album so you can play all the same places again. I guess that’s the logic in our head. That’s how we grew up.”
During the mixing process, Mascis adds, he wrote a couple of other songs “that were on the back burner,” and recorded them in the studio living room. Eventually, Dinosaur Jr. will release a seven-inch single as an addendum—but Mascis refuses to divulge any information about these additions. “Like what? What do you say about a song?” he asks. “Songs that didn’t quite make it. The one song sounded a lot like all the other songs. There were three that were vying for the last slot on the album, and one was just slower. It seemed to be good to have a slower song.”
At one point during the half-hour interview, Mascis refers to a Fender Super Champ as his “favorite around-the-house amp,” which he uses to “just watch TV and play the guitar and hope for the best.” He adds: “It sounds really good at a low volume.”
It’s one of many public references Mascis has made over the years to his lifelong passion for watching television; in 1997, he informed this reporter, for a Billboard story, of his obsession with MTV’s The Real World. The streaming-and-bingeing era hasn’t changed his habits much—including one specific and unexpected technical characteristic of his TV time. “I still watch it on my computer. I like the computer because it’s 15 inches—and that’s the size of the TV I had when I was a kid in our kitchen,” he says. “It was an odd size back then, but somehow I’m always drawn to 15-inch screens.”
All this talk of TV leads Mascis to an even more passionate subject: guitars. He brings up his Gibson Les Paul Junior in TV Yellow, which, he says, “supposedly looks white on TV, because white guitars would get blown out. You wanted the look of a white guitar on TV, you get the TV model.”
Did Mascis ever play the “TV Model Junior,” as he calls it, on TV? Dumb question, as it turns out. “Well, it’s black-and-white TV,” he says with a small smile. “So I don’t know if that would work now.”
J Mascis’ Gear
Guitars
- 1959 Fender Jazzmaster (leads)
- Gibson Les Paul Junior, TV Yellow (rhythm)
- Rickenbacker 620-12 12-string
Amps
- Mesa/Boogie Mark I
- Marshall JCM800 Model 4104, 50-watt 2x12 vertical-input combo
- (All amps miked through a Marshall cabinet)
Pedals
- Tone Bender MkI-circuit fuzz (“I’ll use that as a base and then add other fuzzes to it.”)
MXR Flanger/Doubler Review
Some pieces of gear become legendary because everyone used them. Others become legendary because one person used them, relentlessly, until the sound became inseparable from the player. The original MXR Flanger/Doubler—the M-126 rack unit, a fixture of studios and touring rigs throughout the ’70s and ’80s—belongs mostly to the second category. Yes, it swept through countless studio sessions in its heyday, doing the jet-engine swoosh work flangers are built for.
But its most famous devotee wasn’t chasing psychedelic swirl. Dimebag Darrell, who used the M-126 as a staple of his live rig, utilized its doubler function as an always-on thickener that let his single guitar occupy the space a fleet of overdubs would otherwise fill up. That’s a strange kind of legacy for a rack unit: famous not for a given solo, but for making one guitar sound like more than one guitar, subtly of all things, in the background of some of metal’s most iconic tracks.
Of course, Dimebag’s stealth-thickener case is only one half the story this mono circuit tells. Dial the flanger mode toward more classic, chorus-style settings, and you’re squarely in the territory that defined an entirely different corner of ’80s guitar: the shimmering, liquid clean tones of Andy Summers’ work with the Police, Adrian Belew’s otherworldly textures with Bowie and King Crimson, Eddie Van Halen’s more atmospheric flourishes (think “In A Simple Rhyme”), and the deep, gothic swirl Robert Smith built entire Cure records around.
It’s a testament to the original circuit’s range that it served both the gated-guitar bombast of Pantera and the shimmering clean-tone architecture of “Walking on the Moon.” And this pedal captures that split personality faithfully.
Two Voices, One Bucket-Brigade Heart
The new Flanger/Doubler is unambiguously analog, built around genuine bucket-brigade devices rather than a digital approximation. A dedicated doubler button toggles between the pedal’s two personalities. Flanger mode delivers that sweeping, metallic, jet-engine swoosh, all shimmering comb-filter movement and swirl. Doubler mode does something subtler and, frankly, more useful for many working guitarists. It splits your signal, delays one copy just slightly, and recombines it with the dry signal to create the illusion that you tracked the part twice. There’s no pitch drift (as long as the width control is set to zero,) no irregular pick attack like you might encounter in an actual double-tracked take—just an instant, single-pass thickening that can turn a thin single-coil strum into something that sounds like it’s already been mixed.
Once you’ve picked your mode, the real sculpting happens across five very interactive controls. Manual sets your base delay time—essentially, where in the frequency spectrum the effect’s comb-filtering sweet spot sits. It works hand-in-glove with width, which determines how far that sweep travels from the manual-set center point. Speed, unsurprisingly, governs how fast that sweep oscillates back and forth, ranging from a glacial .03 Hz crawl all the way up to a frantic 18.5 Hz flutter that starts to resemble ring modulation.
“There’s no pitch drift, no irregular pick attack like you might encounter in an actual double-tracked take—just an instant, single-pass thickening that can turn a thin single-coil strum into something that sounds like it’s already been mixed.”
The Regen Generation
Regen is where the personality really lives. It’s a feedback knob, feeding a portion of the delayed signal back into itself. Pushing it from 0 toward 100 percent takes you from a smooth, mellow coloration to aggressive, metallic resonance. And then there’s invert. Flip it, and the wet signal’s polarity reverses entirely, which sounds like a spec-sheet footnote until you actually hear it. Suddenly your settings range from open and vocal to mid-heavy and filtered using the same control settings you had before you flipped polarity. It’s a clever way to expand the pedal’s usable palette without adding a single additional knob.
A mix knob blends wet and dry to taste, and MXR was smart enough to include two LEDs that visually track delay time—a small, thoughtful touch for anyone who’s ever tried to dial in a flanger sweep onstage while a screaming PA drowns you out. CV in and out jacks let the Flanger/Doubler talk to modular synths, sequencers, and CV-enabled expression pedals. And a line-level switch keeps it well-behaved when you feed it hotter studio-level signals rather than a guitar’s comparatively polite output.
The Verdict
At $333 street, the MXR Flanger/Doubler is priced somewhere between boutique premium and mass-market affordability. That said, it’s not strictly a “character” pedal that’s useful for just an occasional outré moment. Just as it did with the late, great Dimebag, it has the potential to become the very heart of your tone, and the pairing of the doubler and a tight gate is pure magic for riffs. If you’ve spent years chasing a “how did they get that thickness?” tone on a favorite record, there’s a significant chance that this box can provide an answer.
MXR Flanger/Doubler
D'Addario Introduces Artist+ Carbon Capo and Updated Artist Capo
Adding to the company’s broad range of guitar accessories, D’Addario has introduced a pair of new capo models: the new Artist+ Carbon Capo, featuring the company’s first-ever carbon fiber design, and an updated black Artist Capo.
Both capos feature D’Addario’s patented FlexFit Technology, which automatically adapts to different fretboard radii and string gauges, distributing pressure evenly across every string and fret. The net result? Improved tuning stability.
Together, the two capos are designed to give guitar players more control and fast, one-handed operation. Both capos feature an adjustable spring tension micrometer, which allows players to achieve the exact pressure they need for clean, buzz-free fretting without pulling the strings out of tune. And both capos include a built-in pick holder that keeps a spare pick conveniently within reach.
Assembled in the USA, the new Artist+ Carbon Capo pairs these features with ultra-lightweight carbon fiber construction, delivering pro-grade strength without adding unnecessary weight and bulk to the neck of the guitar. The updated Artist Capo brings the same FlexFit performance to its original design, so players have two distinct options built around the same proprietary tech.
Key features include:
- Adjustable Spring Tension Micrometer: Allows players to achieve the ideal, specific pressure they need for clean fretting and better tuning stability.
- Patented FlexFit Technology: Automatically adapts to fretboard radii and string gauges, distributing even pressure across every string.
- One-Handed Operation: Makes capo placement and position changes fast and easy.
- Built-In Pick Holder: Keeps a spare pick conveniently within reach.
- Ultra-Lightweight Carbon Fiber Construction (Artist+): Combines durability with minimal weight.
- USA Assembly (Artist+): Assembled in the U.S. for long-lasting quality.
D’Addario’s Artist+ Carbon Capo is available at a street price of $29.99. The updated Artist Capo carries a street price of $25.99. For more information visit Daddario.com.
Artist+ Carbon Capo
Adding to the company’s broad range of guitar accessories, D’Addario has introduced a pair of new capo models: the new Artist+ Carbon Capo, featuring the company’s first-ever carbon fiber design, and an updated black Artist Capo.
Boss launches Katana-25, a compact 25-watt home practice amp for $199.99
Boss has announced Katana-25, a 25-watt combo amp aimed at new and returning players who want Katana tones in a compact package for home playing. It’s available now from authorised BOSS retailers for $199.99.
The amp is the latest addition to the Katana range, which BOSS launched in 2016 for guitar and bass.
Sound and design
The Katana-25 pairs a custom eight-inch speaker with an open-back cabinet and a 25-watt reactive analog power section. Boss says it is built on its Tube Logic design approach, which aims to capture the feel and response of a tube amp.
Players get six amp characters covering pop, blues, country, classic rock and high-gain metal. One is voiced for acoustic-electric instruments. There are also more than 60 effects from the Boss library, with up to five usable at once.
Presets and controls
The amp has 20 factory presets and 10 empty slots for custom tones. Players can recall memories and adjust basic preamp and effects parameters from the panel without the app. There’s also a tap tempo button for delay effects and a built in tuner.
A Power Control switch toggles between full power and a half-watt mode, intended to give a cranked-amp feel at bedroom volumes. BOSS says the feature is inspired by its stage-class Katana models.
Bluetooth and Tone Studio
Onboard Bluetooth lets players stream songs from a phone or tablet to jam along and connects the amp to the BOSS Tone Studio app. The app offers more detailed effects editing and access to BOSS Tone Exchange, where users can download new sounds.
Tone Studio’s Session feature lets players browse and play YouTube videos in the app. They can also set points on a song’s timeline to trigger automatic memory changes during playback.
The Katana-25 is available now from authorised BOSS retailers, for more information visit boss.info.
The post Boss launches Katana-25, a compact 25-watt home practice amp for $199.99 appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Rig Rundown: Chelsea Wolfe
PG’s Chris Kies caught up with Chelsea Wolfe and her longtime collaborator Ben Chisholm at Marathon Music Works in Nashville, where they were playing in support of Wolfe’s new record, The Dark. Have a look at some quick highlights below, and tune into the new Rig Rundown for all the details.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Hollow Victory
Wolfe was given this Gretsch Broadkaster years back and keeps coming back to it—she’s drifted further into hollowbodies over time, which she says is a shame given how much she likes her solidbodies. She likes the resonant feedback and the low end, and feels a bigger guitar suits her frame. Managing that feedback is a nightly adjustment depending on the room.
Cold Comfort
The ES-335 has long been seen as Wolfe’s signature electric, and it’s still on the road, though at the moment it comes out for one song—“Cold.” She figures every tour ends up with one guitar you play the most, and this time it isn’t this one.
Dolly’s Pickguard
Her Taylor 416ce sports a custom pickguard inspired by a photo of Dolly Parton with a similar one. Taylor gave her this one and sent it to a maker in Nashville to have the pickguard made. People point out she rarely uses a pick on the acoustic. She thinks it looks beautiful anyway.
Grayscale
Wolfe’s amp is a Fender Bassbreaker combo, which she believes is discontinued. She likes how it takes pedals, and she likes the look: slightly vintage but in grayscale rather than the usual tan. She has the head and cab as well, but it’s the combo on this tour.
Chelsea Wolfe’s Pedalboard
The top row of Chelsea’s board stays on all night: a JHS NOTAKLÖN for general gain, an EarthQuaker ZEQD-Pre she landed on after a long search for the right preamp, a UAFX 1176 compressor, and an EQD Dispatch Master. The heavier end runs a JHS Hard Drive for most of the newer material, an EQD Acapulco Gold that’s been on her board since the Hiss Spun era, and a Death by Audio Apocalypse. A Korg tuner and a Dunlop volume pedal round it out.
Her Happy Place
The left half of the floor is all vocals. Wolfe’s father gave her pedals as a kid and she ran her voice through them with an adapter she rigged for the mic cable, which is where all this started. A Radial Voco-Loco gets the mic into the chain, feeding a DigiTech DigiDelay and a Boss RV-6 she calls her ride or dies, an EQD Afterneath, a JHS Octave Reverb, and a Boss RC-20XL. Not seen here: the Third Man Troika, a Jack White and JHS design built for singers—the one piece of gear she admits to impulse-buying.
Florida Man Special
Chisholm found this Peavey T-40 on Reverb, sold by Drew Storcks of Shy, Low, already fitted with an Electrical Guitar Company aluminum neck by someone he’s never identified. He’d wanted a T-40 since seeing one at a session with the Armed, and wanted an aluminum neck for the sustain. It’s brighter and meaner than anything else he’s played, enough that he had to calm down his existing tones to accommodate it.
The B Team
The Nash bass was his main for years and he used it a lot on the new album, before the Peavey turned up. It’s the backup now, and picking it up after the T-40 is a shock—mostly because of how light it is.
Quad Squad
Chisholm abandoned a full pedalboard mid-rehearsal once a Neural DSP Quad Cortex arrived. It’s running Ampeg models, fuzz, overdrive, compression, and chorus, plus the modulated-delay patch behind the whale noises he makes between songs. A clean channel runs parallel at 50 percent, so the low end survives the worst of the fuzz. A Dunlop Volume (X) 8, Korg tuner, and Walrus Audio supply round things out.
Two Fifteens
A Quilter Bass Block 802 powers the rig, with its EQ bypassed entirely — he’s using the effects return and letting the Quad Cortex do the amp work. The cab is a Tyrant 2x15 he got from Sean at Tyrant years ago, after deciding an 8x10 wasn’t delivering the sub frequencies he wanted.
Fender and Kim Gordon team up for a signature Jazzmaster with a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker
Fender has launched the Limited Edition Kim Gordon Jazzmaster, a signature model developed with the Sonic Youth co-founder and priced at £1449/$1099.99/€1699.
The guitar has an Olympic White alder body with a matching headcap and a Modern C maple neck with a 9.5” radius rosewood fingerboard. The guitar pairs a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker in the bridge with a Player Series Alnico V Jazzmaster single-coil in the neck. Fender says the combination is designed to cover everything from “articulate textures” to heavier, more aggressive tones.
Other features include rolled fingerboard edges and white pearloid block inlays, plus a vintage-style floating tremolo and a Jazzmaster bridge with Mustang saddles. Tuning duties go to ClassicGear machine heads with an 18:1 gear ratio.
Fender says the guitar reflects Gordon’s long relationship with the Jazzmaster and her approach to the instrument, which it describes as defined by “dissonance, texture and restraint.” Gordon is best known as a bassist, but has regularly returned to guitar in the studio and onstage and the Jazzmaster has long been associated with the no-wave and noise rock scenes she emerged from.
“One thing that’s great about the Jazzmaster, if you have a guitar that sounds good by just plugging it into an amplifier, it doesn’t need effects,” said Gordon. “That’s really satisfying.”
Justin Norvell, Fender’s Chief Product Officer for Guitars and Basses, said the company wanted to “capture that sense of individuality and experimentation while staying true to the character and feel of the Jazzmaster.” He added that the two pickup types give players “the freedom to explore” whether they’re chasing noise, writing songs or looking for new sounds.
The model is the latest instalment in Fender’s The One. For All. campaign, which celebrates artists who reinterpret the company’s instruments. Fender has also released a demo video of the guitar featuring Lauren Andino, alongside a launch film in its Artist Signature Series.
The Limited Edition Kim Gordon Jazzmaster is available to order via fender.com.
The post Fender and Kim Gordon team up for a signature Jazzmaster with a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“It’s a way of lightsabering people!” why Getdown Services’ Josh Law loves playing guitar
Getdown Services have earned their (tongue-in-cheek) self-styled monicker as Britain’s Best Band
thanks in no small part to the Minehead duo’s chaotic live shows, where Ben Sadler and Josh Law strip off, get sweaty and proceed to, in their own words, “go mental”.
- READ MORE: Hudson Freeman wants to soundtrack the end of America. All he needs is a nylon-string guitar
When things really need to go up a gear and really get raucous, Law reaches for the guitar he’s loved since he was a kid, to “lightsaber” the audience with monster riffs and frenetic solos – as he says, “when you want to rock out, there’s no better tool for the job”.
But while he’s unhinged on stage, off it Law’s guitar playing reveals his love of Jack White and classic rock, with some delicately tasteful banjo chops adding a very different element to his style as he shows us his two favourite instruments – a tried and tested Dano, and his beloved custom guitar from UK maker, Ancoats.
Indeed, in the latest episode of My Guitars & Me, Law reveals a much less bombastic side of his guitar playing than we’re used to seeing from him on stage, with his beloved Danelectro in hand, he reveals that his interesting right-hand technique developed as a result of a pandemic dalliance with learning the banjo.
“Covid came, and I wanted a new thing to learn,” Lord tells us. “And I wanted to get an instrument where I was like, ‘I’m actually going to practice this.’ So, I picked up the banjo. But it really jumped my guitar playing forward ’cause I could do the roving thumb thing. And I tried to not get in the habit playing the banjo like a guitar. I tried to pick up new techniques and it’s it’s really changed my whole thing with guitar.”
It’s a far cry from the “commanding” sight of Lord and his bandmate Ben Sadler stripped to the waist, screaming commands at their audiences during Getdown Services’ legendarily feral live shows. The climax of these moments is usually when Lord reaches for his guitar to blast a sick riff or shred an aggressively kinetic solo – but that wasn’t the original plan.
“When we started the band, one of the things I wanted to do was not play guitar,” he admits. “The shows started getting a bit raucous but that wasn’t really the intention – we were just kind of crooning and stuff! And then it kind of went a bit chaotic and we started going insane on stage. But if you want to rock out, there’s no better instrument than the guitar. It’s the best thing for it. It’s the best tool for the job.
“So we got like three or four years into the band and I was like, ‘Ah, I should probably play guitar, ’cause I can actually play that one.’ I can’t I can’t sing or really dance or do anything really. But guitar I can play a bit. If you get to a point in the set where the crowd are loosened up. They’re all going mental. We’re going mental. Everyone’s sweaty. If you pick the guitar up, it’s another way of beaming energy out.”
Watch the full episode of My Guitars And Me with Getdown Services’ Josh Lord
The post “It’s a way of lightsabering people!” why Getdown Services’ Josh Law loves playing guitar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Elan Audio Lab Introduces the SoundBakery Reactive Load Box, Attenuator and DI
Elan Audio Lab has released the SoundBakery, a passive analog reactive attenuator, load box, and DI designed to let players run tube amps at high output while controlling speaker volume. Handmade in the USA, SoundBakery builds on the design legacy of MetalHead Electronics.
SoundBakery uses a reactive load designed to mimic a speaker cabinet’s changing impedance. Its attenuation knob adjusts speaker output from approximately 25 percent of full level down to silence. A dedicated Attenuator Bypass switch connects the amplifier directly to the speaker cabinet for full, unattenuated output. The balanced XLR and 1/4-inch line outputs remain connected even in bypass mode.
With the reactive load engaged, SoundBakery operates without a speaker cabinet for silent recording, direct-to-PA use, and in-ear monitoring. The line outputs can also feed another amplifier. They carry the amp’s signal without cabinet simulation or EQ, allowing players to add impulse responses or cabinet simulation in their recording software. One level control adjusts both line outputs.
SoundBakery requires no batteries or power supply.
Features:
- Reactive load for tube amplifiers up to 100 watts
- Three dedicated 4-, 8-, and 16-ohm amplifier inputs
- Speaker attenuation knob
- Dedicated Attenuator Bypass switch
- One 1/4-inch speaker output
- Balanced XLR and unbalanced 1/4-inch line outputs
- Shared line-out level control
- Silent load-box operation
- Aluminum chassis, approximately 4 lb.
- Dimensions: 5.9 x 7.9 x 2.75 inches (150 x 200 x 70 mm)
SoundBakery is available directly from Elan Audio Lab for $479. For more information, visit elanaudiolab.com.
SoundBakery
Elan Audio Lab has released the SoundBakery, a passive analog reactive attenuator, load box and DI designed to let players run tube amps at high output while controlling speaker volume. Handmade in the USA, SoundBakery builds on the design legacy of MetalHead Electronics.
Boss Announces Katana-25 Guitar Amplifier
Boss has introduced the Katana-25, the latest addition to the company’s popular amplifier lineup for guitar and bass. Offering the Katana sound in a compact 25-watt amp for home playing, Katana-25 is designed for new and returning guitarists. It offers six unique amp characters and over 60 onboard Boss effects provide studio-grade sounds, while onboard Bluetooth and the companion Boss Tone Studio app enhance daily sessions with support for song streaming, effects editing, playing with YouTube videos, and downloading new sounds on Boss Tone Exchange.
The new Katana-25 expands on a well-established legacy. Introduced in 2016, the Katana series has become a go-to solution for guitarists with its responsive feel and versatile features. The new Katana-25 brings this technology to guitarists who want to explore different styles in practice and home use.
Key to the Katana series is the Boss Tube Logic design philosophy, which delivers the authentic tube sound and feel. Like classic tube designs, Katana-25’s 8” speaker, open-back configuration and 25-watt reactive analog power section work in harmony to create a highly interactive playing experience with solid bass, high-end detail, and punchy dynamic response.
Katana-25 encourages experimentation and creativity without requiring additional gear. Six unique amp characters allow players to take on any musical genre with authority, from pop, blues, and country to classic rock and high-gain metal. One amp character is tuned for acoustic-electric instruments, further increasing the amp’s versatility. Users also get access to over 60 effects from the historic Boss library (up to 5 simultaneously), with detailed sound editing available in Boss Tone Studio.
The Katana-25 panel allows users to save/recall Tone Setting memories and tweak basic preamp and effect parameters without opening the app. The amp includes 20 ready-to-play presets with dialed-in pro sounds, plus 10 empty slots for storing custom setups. There’s also a tap tempo button for delay effects and a convenient built-in tuner, an essential tool for every guitarist.
Inspired by stage-class Katana models, Katana-25 features a Power Control to achieve expressive, cranked-amp tone at modest volumes. With the flip of a switch, users can toggle between full power punch and a half-watt mode that produces bedroom-friendly levels without sacrificing sound quality or feel.
Katana-25 is equipped with onboard Bluetooth connectivity for audio streaming and communication with Boss Tone Studio. Players can connect a mobile device and jam along to songs from their device’s library, use the app to edit tones in detail, explore additional sounds on Boss Tone Exchange, and more.
Boss Tone Studio includes a powerful Session feature that lets users browse and play YouTube content in the app and set up points on a song’s timeline to trigger automatic memory changes while playing. Several hardware options are also available for controlling sounds in real time, including an FS-series wired footswitch, the FS-1-WL Wireless Footswitch, or the EV-1-WL Wireless Expression Pedal.
With its user-friendly interface, versatile tones, and integrated practice tools, Katana-25 is an easy choice for players looking to explore their sound, as well as anyone shopping for a gift on their behalf.
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“You can’t choose to be an artist. It’s something that you have to compulsively do” Tough Cookie are mastering their own vision of intimate guitar music
It’s a quiet afternoon as two-thirds of East London act Tough Cookie (vocalist and guitarist August Tse, fellow guitarist Jess Ayres and bassist Daniel Hvorostovsky) are settling into Denmark Street’s buzzy guitar shop, Regent Sounds.
On a street that is overflowing with music history, Regent Sounds takes some topping – before it was a guitar shop, the space was a studio used by everyone from Hendrix to the Stones, and in its life as a guitar shop it continues to attract music fans from across the world.
- READ MORE: Hudson Freeman wants to soundtrack the end of America. All he needs is a nylon-string guitar
It’s hard not to feel the weight of the place when T-Bone Walker’s 1949 Gibson ES-5N (currently up for sale on Reverb for £1.5m) sits in its temperature controlled case next to where we’re sitting down to get to know one of the UK’s most intriguing new guitar bands.
On their emotionally-wrought new EP, Devotion, Tough Cookie enshroud you in a cathartic release, one that needle points moments of devastation, acceptance and healing. Taken from the title from a Patti Smith book, the band cycle through tracks which feel like excavating grief as you watch the familiar warmth of someone close fizzle out.
Together, primarily, August and Dan created detailed, nuanced songs that capture the storytelling of Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith, all of which were recorded in a haunted East London church basement. We sat down with Tough Cookie to hear more about their must-listen new record.
Image: Press
It’s been a while since you released your 2025 project The Countryside Is Good For You. How have things changed for Tough Cookie since then?
Jess: “So much has changed. It was so great to get that initial bit of music out, but it’s been even better to get this next EP out because it feels so much more authentic to who we are now as a band.”
Dan: “It’s more a concise piece of work than the previous which was written over so many years, and then we took it into a studio and re-recorded everything in the space of two days to make it sound cohesive. We love it as a piece of work, but, as musicians, we are looking back on it thinking it feels disconnected because of the narratives, the songs and the instrumentation and style of play on each of the songs. This time we tried to make it concise by keeping the guitar sounds consistent on this project.”
You recorded the EP in a church basement and it feels like a more formative project for the band. How do you feel you’ve grown as musicians?
Jess: “It was like learning of an identity, to be honest. Our first mixtape was quite literally a mixtape – it was songs from different eras of this band’s life. Whereas making the EP was like ‘okay, cool, this is Tough Cookie’s identity now.’”
Dan: “It feels like we’re able to write the emotions out onto paper and into the music itself and have everything sort of back itself up.”
August: “I think understanding the relationship between the music and art has changed. It was all trial and error for the first mixtape, and there was the decisive direction we went with at the time, but I don’t think it matched the music we were creating because the music was disconnected. I think a lot more preparation was done with this EP because we knew what we wanted it to sound like, so it forced the things I was painting so the whole world feels more concise.”
How did each of you get involved with the guitar as an instrument? Do you have any special anecdotes tied to learning to play the guitar or any notable artists that influenced you?
August: “I remember hearing Maroon 5 in the She Will Be Loved era. Guitar music wasn’t really part of my world until I became a teenager. I listened to Green Day and My Chemical Romance, more emo/punk stuff. People I was friends with in Asia didn’t listen to guitar music, so I wasn’t exposed to it. My family didn’t either so moving to England was the first step into it.”
Dan: “For me, it wasn’t that late. I got my first guitar when I was 13 and I taught myself because my mum really liked the Beatles, and she got me the Beatles songbook, which had the chords above the lyrics. It had standard music notation, which I could already read because I started by playing the piano so I started learning all these Beatles tracks. After playing acoustic guitar and listening to things like Guns N’ Roses, I want an electric guitar and got into heavy metal music.
“I was trying to play Avenged Sevenfold songs and stuff like that. When I met August, we decided to switch instruments because August used to play bass in another band and I also played a guitar, and then I got infatuated with the bass guitar. August got infatuated with the electric guitar, so we kind of swapped and pseudo taught each other to play those instruments.”
Jess: “Around the same time that they were teaching each other their instruments. I was figuring out the alternative direction I wanted to go in because I was playing acoustic guitar for ages.
“I was playing rhythm mostly. I was trying to do the neo-soul thing, and it was quickly becoming apparent that was just not gonna be my thing, so I started playing in a punk-inspired riot girrrl band and thought electric guitars were fun, probably for the same realisation Dan had around at a similar time which is interesting. We were all in the same place, but it was happening in parallel.”
How does guitar music come into the fold of Tough Cookie’s discography? Are there any artists or styles of playing the band have learned or taken inspo from?
Dan: “Leading on from when August and I were teaching each other our instruments, we were both studying music at different unis in Leeds. I was studying harmony and classical harmony and then that sort of opened doors into modern music. Radiohead became a massive influence in terms of the songwriting in the production and soundscape of the whole thing.
“It’s more of how can we make the world and the ambiance with the guitar with the pedals that we’re using so there isn’t a normal sort of lead [guitar] line. We wanted to focus more on the feeling rather than the parts.”
Jess: “They talked a lot about what a part of a song elicits in terms of emotion as well as the track and how it’s played.”
Dan: “You can play a lead part in so many ways. It’s about the emotion, the feeling and the mood of it.”
Image: Press
Your debut mixtape The Countryside Is Good For You was “a journey of self discovery amid chaos”. This era is detailed with stories of painful choices and moments of self-preservation. How did you tap into that deep emotional part of yourselves?
Dan: “I think it’s just the way we were all feeling at the time. That sort of chaos from the first record is still there, and I think we’ll always still be there in the way that we feel, especially mental health-wise. I don’t think anyone’s perfect, and people go through phases. People go up and down all the time and that’s definitely reflected in the record and the way that it feels in the lyrics, which are predominantly August wrote. It’s very much from their perspective and the way that they’re feeling. As much as we chip in with stuff as well, but it’s also it’s all just to reinforce this main storyline.”
The EP takes its name and emotional thread from Patti Smith’s book Devotion. Are there any other books that fed your creativity?
August: “A lot of William Burroughs and Devotion influenced it quite heavily. Not so much in what happens in the book, but I think some of the themes are definitely reflected in the record.
“The book is about an ice skater and there’s this man watching her, but the whole point of it it’s talking about her devotion to ice skating. I think that was quite important when it came to this EP – how devoted we are as people to making music and doing this, because it’s not an easy industry, and there are lots of things that get in the way and to still be doing it is quite a lot.”
Dan: “There’s also other themes that are carried through like the lack of spirituality or losing spirituality, which is definitely reflecting some of the songs like Mercy. The EP is also about the compulsion to make music. It’s like in Patti Smith’s Devotion, it’s about how you can’t choose to be an artist. It’s something that you have to compulsively do. Something that you don’t you don’t have control over, and this is the only way that you can express yourself and be alive and exist.”
Do you each have a song that’s a particular favourite from the EP?
Dan: “My favourite is Tragedy Frontline. This is a song that I worked really, really hard to bring to the band and make everybody understand. It took a while for people to understand it, but as soon as soon as they got here, things started flowing in the right direction.”
August: “The lyrics came really quickly too. I wrote them in a day. Mercy was done really quickly too.”
Dan: “Although we were fighting about the chorus because August didn’t like it at first, so we sat on it. We sort of slept on it overnight. The next day, you were like, ‘Oh no, actually, this slaps!’”
August: “I liked it, but I couldn’t write a vocal for it because I just didn’t know what to do. I think I was watching this Bob Dylan movie. I say that the melody came into my head from above, but maybe I’m just stealing Bob Dylan’s. I don’t really know. My favourite is Let Me Die, probably. I like it because it’s got double meaning. I think it doesn’t mean what people think it means.”
Jess: “I’d say that’s mine as well. August and Dan are heading up the writing, so when the songs came to me it was almost a fully fleshed out song. I get the privilege of listening to something and having my own first impression of it without really knowing where the creative decision has come from. There was an emotion within me that I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but it was pulling something. It definitely elicits the most emotion for me.”
Now the EP is out, how are you hoping the music is received?
Jess: “This EP is the embodiment of mental health so I hope listeners can see themselves in it. That’s the best way I can think of because that’s how it’s meant to be.”
August: “I want people to take the time to understand it rather than just listening to our face value, because the reason it took so long to write some songs is that there usually is a deeper meaning behind each one. It would be fulfilling to know people have put some thought into the lyrics as much as I did writing them.”
Devotion is out now on Capitol Records UK
The post “You can’t choose to be an artist. It’s something that you have to compulsively do” Tough Cookie are mastering their own vision of intimate guitar music appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
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