guitar

Rival Sons — DARKFIGHTER

Rival Sons -- DARKFIGHTER cover

There will be fuzz! Scott Holiday will make sure of that! The first single, “Nobody Wants to Die,” indicates tightly written, high energy, fuzz-fueled retro hard rock.

Steve Vai — Vai / Gash

Vai/Gash cover

The long-shelved mainstream hard rock album from Steve Vai and singer John “Gash” Sombrotto will be released after 32 years in the vault. New old stock music!

Joni Mitchell and Pat Metheny, “Furry Sings the Blues,” from Shadows and Light (1980)–Part 2

Joni Mitchell and Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny’s presence in Joni Mitchell’s touring band is one among his rare appearances as a sideman to an artist from outside the jazz world. Well before his 1979 gig as Mitchell’s lead guitarist, Pat Metheny had in place a sound and style very much his own. Throughout much of the show, he presses his well-known tone—via a Gibson ES-175 into a pair of clean Acoustic combos, gently enhanced with asymmetrical delay settings—into the service of songs distant from his own.

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Joni Mitchell and Pat Metheny, “Furry Sings the Blues,” from Shadows and Light (1980)–Part 1

Joni Mitchell and Pat Metheny

Joni Mitchell’s “Shadows and Light” is a brilliant performance document that brings together stage translations of the singer/songwriter/guitarist’s mid-70s period. During this interval, Mitchell released one after another adventurous album: Court and Spark (1974), The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975), Hejira (1976), Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (1977), and Mingus (1979). In contrast to the folk and softer rock leanings of her earlier recordings, the brief on this sequence of albums was strongly informed by jazz, and Mitchell brought aboard some of the most cutting-edge jazz musicians of the era, perhaps most notably electric bass innovator and virtuoso Jaco Pastorius.

Although Mitchell herself is the essential guitar presence on her albums, she invited occasional additions from jazz-rock lead player Larry Carlton and Robben Ford. By the time of the late 1979 gigs that led to Shadows and Light, her live band included one of the most innovative young jazz guitarists of the time: Pat Metheny. Four years out from his 1976 debut and close to the cusp of releasing American Garage, Metheny was in what have proven to be rare circumstances in his lengthy and still-evolving career.

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Jefferson Starship’s “Jane,” from Freedom at Point Zero” (1979)

Jefferson Starship--Freedom at Point Zero

Say what you must about the group that shapeshifted from the band that made “Somebody to Love” to the band that made “We Built This City,” but anyone who wants to dis them too hard has to reckon with the high points of their output. While never a megahit, “Jane” has been an FM radio staple for four decades and may well be the most identifiable single from the Jefferson Starship incarnation. Much of its enduring appeal resides in the contributions of rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner and, especially, lead guitarist Craig Chaquico.

Beginning with a clean, phase-shifted arpeggiated Em7-Gmaj7 riff, the guitarists quickly kick on crunchy sounds and cue the rhythm section with a pick-up that precedes the tight and punchy main riff. The riff is simple, but the song resists reduction to a bonehead riff with dramatic chromatic climbs, a faux-Carribean breakdown, and a key change leading into the guitar solo.

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Baroness Plays Small Gigs Ahead of Gold & Grey

John Baizley & Gina Gleason

In the week before Gold & Grey dropped, on June 14, Baroness played a series of small gigs, including an in-store appearance at Vintage Vinyl and a full-on electric performance at the Gutter, a Brooklyn, NY, bar.

Below are videos of both above-mentioned short sets, each of which is totally worthwhile, along with some thoughts about them. Please share your comments!

● I can’t think of any other band that does two-guitar harmonies in which both guitarists use single-coil pickups. The reduced sustain (as compared to humbuckers) and the pokier high frequencies of single-coils emphasize the sound of two guitars together. With some bands, I frequently hear guitar harmonies as two players trying to sound like one. I dig that sound a lot, but there are other possibilities.

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