Author Archives: destroyerofharmony

Music

Bon Jovi’s What About Now drops from #34 to #50

Well its week 4.  As predicted, the worst ever Bon Jovi album has proven to be just that.  It’s moved 2,383 units for the week but the tour is selling out.  That alone should tell Bon Jovi that the music they put out, is completely garbage.  The fans coming to the shows have totally ignored it.  In most cases, i can see fans running to the toilet or to buy a drink when any new song appears in the set.

This album debuted at Number 1 four weeks ago.  It went to number 7.  It went to number 34.  Now it is at 50.

There are fans that are angry at the absence of Richie Sambora due to drinking and partying.  If i was Richie, i would be drinking as well, especially when in the lead up to the album release he was saying that it is the best thing Bon Jovi has ever created.  With a statement like that, i will be hitting the booze as well, as all street cred goes out the window.

Trust is more important these days than sales.  Bon Jovi is moderating its own forums so that they paint a rosy picture.  What are they trying to say to their fans?  We don’t care about your views?  We don’t want to connect with you?  We just want you to give us all of your money, like the one way street of old.  It’s different these days Jon.  It’s a two way street.  If you want to be relevant, you need to write great songs again and again and again.    You need to release them more frequently or just stop releasing new crap music and live of the legacy you created sort of like the Eagles.

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Music

Andy Johns – Rest In Peace and Thanks For the Music

Does anyone remember the band Cinderella?  Tom Keifer had the best blues rock voice ever.  Andy Johns, produced and engineered their first two albums, Night Songs and Long Cold Winter.  Both albums where hits.  That was my first introduction to Andy Johns.  He nailed the glam hard rock sound for Night Songs and then he got he got the blues rock (Bad Company/Aerosmith) inspired sound that the band was going for on Long Cold Winter.

Then came For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge by Van Halen.  Ted Templeman was on board to record Sammy Hagar, as Andy Johns was too demanding for Sammy.  Eddie returning to his hard rock roots and Andy Johns on board to capture it.  It spawned the hit Right Know.

Majority of music lovers will remember the artists and the songs attached to them.  Key players in the history of recorded music are the producers, engineers and the mixers.  They are the ones tasked with getting the ideas of the artist recorded.  They need to please the artists and the record label at the same time.  They do not get the credit they deserve. Alan Parsons deserves more credit for his engineering role, especially on Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd.  Martin Birch should be credited as the god father of heavy metal and hard rock.  Andy Johns alongside him.

Rest in Peace Andy Johns and thanks for contributing to my soundtrack

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music

Periphery – Ragnarok – Classic Song Waiting to Be Discovered

Djent.  Who comes up with these terms for music?  Do people really need music to be labelled and categorised to like it.  Why can’t music just be music? It’s not like we are walking through super market isles with a list of what to get.

Seriously I grew up on 80’s hard rock / metal bands.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t like glam rock, thrash metal, pop rock, pop, death metal, technical metal, progressive metal (yawn as more labels come to mind)etc…   See how ridiculous it is.  The problem is when a niche explodes, it becomes mainstream and like it or not its part of the mainstream music machine.  Does anyone refer to Pearl Jam or Alice In Chains as grunge bands or Limp Bizkit as NuMetal anymore?  No they are just bands releasing music and playing shows.   

Coming back to Djent and Periphery.  I saw these guys live at the Annandale Hotel in Feb 2013, as a sideshow they did from the Soundwave tour.  They were good.  Very good.  Technical and melodic.  Technical and aggressive.  Technical and progressive.  Technical and rocking.  Technical and serene.  Technical and mechanical.  It was a pleasure to be there.  To me it is music.  I don’t see it as a Djent movement.  I don’t see it as a niche where only an elite group of fans can participate because they all like Djent style bands and everything else out there is crap.  Its music, that encompasses all the terms I mentioned. 

Periphery was formed in 2005 by guitarist Misha Mansoor.  It wasn’t until 2010 they released their debut album.  Are people prepared to put in 5 years of service these days without making a dime from music and working a full time job to support the dream of being a musician?  

Misha got traction by connecting.  He had a Soundclick account that he regularly updated with riffs and songs.  He went on to forums that mattered.  He didn’t spam everyone.  He went after the people that had a similar interest in the style of music he was into.  In this case, it was the Meshuggah, Dream Theater, John Petrucci and Seven String forums.  He met other musicians like this?  Those other musicians would end up as members in Periphery.  So from just Misha and his computer originally, now it is a band of six musicians.  Vocals are provided by the gifted Spencer Sotelo.  Where did he come from?  In the first two minutes you think he’s singing from the depths of hell and then the angelic melodic voice carries the outro of the song. 

Ragnarok.  The end of the world in Norse mythology by submersion of the world in water.  Afterward, the world will resurface anew and the world will be repopulated by two human survivors.  Does this sound familiar to all the Christian’s out there?  I will be clear from the outset, I am not a fan of screaming guttural vocals.  I appreciate what they bring to a song and what they try to add to the message/context of a song however I don’t really like them.  However, I like how the music is technically aggressive from the outset but to me this song explodes from the 2.20 minute mark to about 4.30.  I remember playing this song to people that like more of a commercial sound.  They were looking at the ceiling and then from the 2.20 minute mark they are paying attention.  Is this the same band they ask me.  I answer yes it is. 

Somewhere in time…
Off in the distance we can see, shining, clear, our demise to be.
We’re not listening to ourselves.

The end of the world.  We can see it, but we failed to stop it.  Allowing Corporations to influence legislation so that it protects their bottom lines and takes away from our liberties.  We need to stop it.  Allowing politicians to serve the lobby groups instead of the people that voted them in.  We need to stop it.  Allowing our privacy to be stored and traded on hearsay evidence.  We need to stop it.  Experience the end of the world with Periphery.  Be amazed.  For the ones that don’t like the death metal vocals, hang in there until the two minute mark.  

You Tube

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music

Undivided – Another classic Bon Jovi song waiting to be discovered

This is what music is about, writing about experiences. September 11, 2001 changed everyone. That event changed everything. For those that saw it, we felt fragile and we felt afraid. This lead to anger. We wanted revenge.

Undivided was written by Bon Jovi, Sambora and Billy Falcon. Falcon actually pops up on a lot of Bon Jovi songs that have been missed. Falcon was an artist who really hadn’t released anything worthwhile, until Jon signed him to a deal with Jambco Records. Does anyone remember that label? Jambco was a record label started by Jon Bon Jovi, under Mercury Records in the late 80’s. I remember it released Aldo Nova’s – Blood on The Bricks and Billy Falcon’s – Pretty Blue World. Both albums did nothing. Aldo Nova couldn’t capture the magic from the Fantasy album, even though JBJ co wrote all the songs on the album, and even produced the album. In the case of Falcon, all the songs were written by Falcon, with JBJ co producing. In the end even JBJ’s name couldn’t get it to sell.

Undivided is probably the heaviest song Bon Jovi has recorded. The producer was Luke Ebbin (who was introduced to JBJ by A&R legend John Kalodner) and the song was originally called One. For those that don’t know, John Kalodner was the guy that broke Whitesnake in the US and relaunched Aerosmith in the 80’s (both via Geffen Records). He also signed Foreigner and AC/DC to Atlantic Records in the seventies.

They should have kept the One song title. Maybe they thought One belonged to U2. The stomping groove grabs you from the outset. Its mean and its angry and you can feel it coming out of the speakers that way.

That was my brother lost in the rubble
That was my sister lost in the crush
That was our mothers, those were our children
That was our fathers, that was each one of us
A million prayers to God above
A million tears make an ocean of

It could relate to anything, a terrorist attack, a war front, a natural disaster. The message here is to stick together. We can rise back up, but we can’t do it alone. We need each other. We need to do it together. Even though we are connected to each other 24/7, we are alone. We don’t stick together anymore.

I found spirit; they couldn’t ruin it
I found courage in the smoke and dust
I found faith in the songs you silenced
Deep down it’s ringing out in each of us

I know that this song is about the twin towers. When I listened to the song back in 2002 that was not how I related to it. Being from Australia, the Bali Bombings happened on the 12 October 2002, and the Bounce album was released on the 6 October 2002. This song to me is about Bali. I even wrote a song called Mourning Sun, about the two terrorist acts.

When people are hurting they turn to music. All the fund-raising is aided by musical benefit concerts and compilation albums. When I couldn’t make sense of what was happening in the world I turned to music.

Hearing this song again in this day and age, one day we will stand as one against the copyright maximalist, against the greedy politicians and the lobby groups that influence them, against crime and violence in the family. One day Bon Jovi will release another song as powerful as Undivided, instead of the C Grade elevator music they released with What About Now.

For those that don’t know, here it is

For those that know it, revisit it, put it in your mp3 player and spread the word on it.

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Music

Black Sabbath must have the same marketing team as Bon Jovi

Black Sabbath

I am going to watch Black Sabbath towards the end of April.  The way I got into Black Sabbath is through Randy Rhoads.  He was my idol.  The Tribute, Blizzard and Diary albums became my bibles in relation to guitar playing.  I needed to learn every riff, every lick, every bass line and every vocal melody line.  It was an obsession.

On Tribute, I heard three songs that where not written by the usual Ozzy, Randy and Bob Daisley combination.  I actually feel sorry for Bob Daisley.  Sharon tried her hardest to write Bob out of the Ozzy history and to give the barely sober Ozzy a bigger role in the song writing process.  It’s common knowledge that Randy wrote the music, Bob the lyrics and the melodies where Ozzy’s.

Paranoid, Iron Man and Children Of The Grave where the songs.  On the album sleeve it mentioned that the songs are written by Osbourne, Iommi, Butler and Ward.

This is the pre internet era, so you couldn’t just Google the names.  You needed to read the album sleeve, buy magazines or ask older people if they know anything about the artists.

It was Children of The Grave that got my attention.  The way it’s done on Tribute, the original Black Sabbath version sounded lame when I heard it.  The tempo was slower and it didn’t have the wonderful Randy Rhoads Guitar Hero solo.

So Black Sabbath is about to release a new album.  The first one with Ozzy since 1978’s Never Say Die.  It’s called 13.  They even got Rick Rubin involved.  What he actuakky dies these days is open to discussion.  Ozzy calls the album, mind blowing.  It’s the usual approach of the old school of marketing.  Talk up an album before its release.

Ozzy’s last great album was No More Tears featuring the wonderful bass playing of Bob Daisley.  His musical career has been slowly declining however his net worth has been increasing due to Ozzfest and reality TV.  Does anyone remember any songs from Black Rain, Scream and Down To Earth.  Do people care about a new Black Sabbath album?  Heaven and Hell (the recent Dio fronted Sabbath) made their money through ticket sales, which focused on the legacy created by the first two Dio fronted albums.

One thing that Black Sabbath doesn’t seem to know is that this is a new era.  They are doing it all wrong, like how it was done in the old days.  Top down marketing.  Hit the fans across the head with a sledgehammer of marketing propaganda and hope they spread the word.  No one in the streets is spreading the word.   Yeah its all over the usual music websites and the band is doing radio interviews, but no one is really pushing it socially.  Black Sabbath has fans, there is no doubt about that but it does it know any of them.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music

Last Man Standing – Classic Bon Jovi song waiting to be rediscovered

I have been critical of Bon Jovi, especially around their latest release What About Now.  However, the band has created a lasting legacy and a lot of great songs along the way.  Everyone knows the hits.  They are the songs we go to the live show to see.  However, there are a lot of songs that deserve more attention than what they have received. 

This song has had some history.  It is written by Jon Bon Jovi and Billy Falcon.  The studio version was meant to be on 2003’s This Left Feels Right greatest hits package, however, it ended up on the 100,000,000 Fans Can’t Be Wrong box set released in 2004.  It was a laid back acoustic style ballad with slide guitar and all the country twang you can get into a song.  An acoustic live version of the song was added to the This Left Feels Right DVD.

It was then re-worked into a great rock song for the 2005 Have A Nice Day album.  The intro grabs you and makes you want to pay attention.  It’s no longer a ballad, but a real rocker.  This is the beauty of music.  You can try different variations of the same song.  The rockier Last Man Standing leaves the original version in the dust.

The theme of the song is about kids turning up to a circus/freak show act to see the last real performer of live music.

Come see a living, breathing spectacle
Only seen right here
It’s your last chance in this lifetime
The line forms at the rear
You won’t believe your eyes
Your eyes will not believe your ears
Get your money out, get ready
Step right up, yeah you, come here

I live in Australia.  In most cases, the bands that come down are the large arena bands.  Normally around Soundwave (February each year), I will get to some sideshows of the medium sized bands to come down for this festival.

This year I caught Bullet For My Valentine and Periphery sideshows.  Last year I caught Machine Head, Times of Grace, Shadows Fall and Chimera side shows.  I paid like $60 for those tickets.  I saw Motley Crue and Kiss last month and paid $200 a ticket.  I’m going to see Black Sabbath in a few weeks’ time and that is $160, compared to Coheed and Cambria at $60 the week before.

Basically the larger bands will try and grab more of the punters dollar as they have a larger entourage and then it will be the last man standing in the audience.

Once upon a time, rock shows where exactly that, people lined up around the side of streets just to get in.  These days, it’s not like that.  I have been reading articles where a lot of artists state that no new band can become a mega star like the artist of the old, and they always make reference to Led Zeppelin, Eagles, Bon Jovi, etc…

Bullshit, I say.  Artists are just as relevant today as they were in the past.  The difference is, in the past, artists created music and followed their muse.  If they sold a million or sold a thousand it didn’t matter.  These days, artists are in it for the money only.  If they sell a thousand, they see it as a failure.  The ones that are in it for the music end up breaking through.  Adele’s first two albums where so personal, she wrote those songs as a sort of therapy to get over her relationship problems.  She didn’t write them, thinking Rolling In The Deep will sell millions and 21 will move 13 million units plus.  The question is what Adele will do now.  Will she become another corporate money making slave?

You ain’t seen nothing like him
He’s the last one of the breed
You better hold on to your honey
Honeys, don’t forget to breathe
Enter at your own risk, mister
It might change the way you think
There’s no dancers, there’s no diamonds
No this boy he don’t lip synch

The debate, live vs. lip synch.  These days, it is acceptable to lip sync if you tell the people buying the tickets that you will be lip syncing.  However it is not acceptable to lip sync if you are telling the people that you are performing live.  There was that whole Britney Spears debacle here in Australia when she toured last time around, as she was lip syncing and didn’t tell the paying customers that is the case.

See those real live calloused fingers
Wrapped around those guitar strings
Kiss the lips where hurt has lingered
It breaks the heart to hear him sing
The songs were more than music
They were pictures from the soul
So keep your pseudo-punk, hip-hop, pop-rock junk
And your digital downloads

Artists used to play a tonne of live shows, to build an audience, to create a buzz and to get a recording contract that promised to make them mega starts.   These days, it’s not like that.  Artists can create something magical in the bedroom on a laptop, and reach a global audience of millions.  There is no need for the gatekeeper.   Bon Jovi wrote this song around 2002/2003 and you can tell he is trying to hold on to the old ways.  He’s even gone on record saying that Steve Jobs destroyed the music business and the album.  What he should have been saying is that Steve Jobs added money to the music business because the legacy record labels where too stupid and clueless to innovate and do it themselves.

If you like the country style of Bon Jovi, check out the ballad version.  It’s a live version that has Jon’s message in the intro about the song.

If you like the rock style of Bon Jovi, check out the rock version.

If you are a fan of Bon Jovi, check out both.

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Music

Bon Jovi’s What About Now drops from #7 to #34

Bon Jovi’s What About Now drops from #7 to #34

Well it’s week 3 of Bon Jovi’s new album release, What About Now.  In three weeks, it has gone from Number 1 to Number 7 to Number 34.  What a drop off.  Sales for weekending 4 April 2013, came to 16,154.  So sales have dropped from 101,000 to 29,000 to 16,000.

Even Richie Sambora has dropped off the tour due to personal issues.   It looks like the elevator music album they created is going down.  To make it worse, the Bon Jovi website has a moderator that is deleting posts from angry fans.  Talk about living in a fantasy land. Lets make everything look okay, because we can.

Babel from Mumford and Sons is still moving 37,000 units, and Night Visions from Imagine Dragons is moving 47,000 units.  Both albums have been on the charts for 27 and 30 weeks respectively.

Another artist using the old mainstream hype of hitting people across the head with a sledgehammer is Justin Timberlake.  He dropped from 1,000,000 in sales to 317,000 in sales.  That is a 68% drop off.  Let’s see how long Justin hangs around.

The people need to feel like they can relate to the album, that they own a part of it, and the old top down approach is not how it works these days.  It is reversed.  It is the people at the bottom that spread the word and make it go viral.  No one is doing that for Bon Jovi.

The shows are selling out.  But the new album is not selling.  Does JBJ care?  I don’t think so.

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Copyright, Music

Creative Accounting = Piracy Losses

There is an excellent post over at the excellent Techdirt that talks about DRM’s in gaming and how it really doesn’t stop people from copying the game, however what it does do is hinder the real paying customers.

The part that got my attention is the comments about the losses due to piracy.  I am one of those people who doesn’t believe the crap the MPAA, RIAA and others spin on losses due to piracy.  If a movie comes out that i really want to watch, i will take my family and pay $80 to watch it.  If a band releases a song or an album that is worth buying, i will buy it.  There are also the bands that i buy before i even listen to a song.  I have a PAY TV subscription, that doesn’t cater for my needs and timetable, however i still keep it.

The reason why I am mentioning all of this, is that there are millions of others that are just like me.  Fans of art.  Fans of culture.  However, we the FANS of art are ignored by the legacy industries and their stupid lobby groups.  We the FANS are the PEOPLE and we form the PUBLIC.  We the PUBLIC are not mentioned when the legacy industries try to extend copyright or pass stupid far-reaching bills like SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, CISPA, etc…

In the post, the Super Meat Boy developer mentions that, “Team Meat shows no loss in our year end totals due to piracy and neither should any other developer.”

That’s the whole argument in a nutshell.  How many profit and loss statements or balance sheets are issued that show a loss due to piracy.   How can the record labels or movie studios quantify accurately what a piracy loss is, so that it can be an audited item on a balance sheet.

Commentor Josef Anvil suggested the following;

Since lawmakers have swallowed the “loss” argument from the content industry and want to pass more enforcement, then they should walk the walk.  They should begin allowing companies to write off their piracy losses on their taxes every year. One year of that and we would see if governments actually believed in those “losses”.

Can you imagine that?  A few years back the MPAA stated that piracy losses amounted to $58 billion.  Imagine the taxman seeing that amount as a loss on a profit and loss statement from Disney.  I am sure it will raise a few eyebrows.  Do you reckon the losses that Bon Jovi will get on their new album What About Now is due to piracy or due to a really bad album? 

What about the losses Disney suffered on John Carter?  It’s funny that when a movie is really bad the talk about piracy disappears.  $200 million is a lot of money to lose.  Let’s blame piracy.  The money that EA Games is going to lose over its stupid DRM on Sim City. Let’s blame piracy.  The money that Bon Jovi is going to lose over its crap album.  Let’s blame the pirates.

I remember seeing that Transformers 1 (T1) and (T2) where the most pirated movies over Bit Torrent.  Guess what T1 made $710M and T2 made $840M.  T3 wasn’t even on any all time torrent list and it made $1.3 Billion.  Why is that?

Maybe because the people that downloaded a torrent of T1 and T2 became fans and paid to watch T3.  Maybe those little kids that downloaded T1 and T2 because their parents wouldn’t take them to watch it, became fans and are now old enough to go to the cinema on their own and watch it.

One thing is certain, piracy is a load of bullshit, designed by the lobby groups so that they can get stupid legislation passed that puts them back in control of the distribution.

 

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Music

Update – The Old Hype Nets Bon Jovi a Number 1 album. Will it still be there after a month? Place your bets.

Week 2 sees Bon Jovi’s What About Now (aka What About Its Over) slip from Number 1 to Number 7.  Sales of 101,000 units in week one to sales of 29,000 units in week 2.  This is what happens when you deliver a crap album to your fans.  Yes we will buy it (like I have), so that I have it in my collection, but we wont sing its praises.  And apart from your hardcore audience, that is all you have these days.

They should take a note from Mumford and Sons who after 26 weeks on the chart are still moving 27,000 units of their album Babel.  In total, Babel has sold 2,122,000 copies.  How many copies will Bon Jovi be moving in 26 weeks times?  Babel knows who their audience is.  They are users of social media, they tour relentlessly and they actually meet and greet their audience the way a band should, without a list of DO NOT’S, which is what Jon Bon Jovi has for his meet and greets.    

Another band that is in the Top 10 is Imagine Dragons and their Night Vision’s album is moving 29,000 units after 29 weeks on the charts.

I really hope JBJ will pull his head out of his arse and get back to what he did best.  Find good songwriters to deliver a rock record.  Use James Michael, DJ Ashba and Nikki Sixx from Sixx AM, get John 5 into the mix, fly to Sweden and get the dudes from The Night Flight Orchestra.  Think outside “the circle”.  Get Kevin Churko involved or Howard Benson.  Get Vito Bratta out of retirement to write songs.  He is another Jersey kid.

Leave Billy Falcon, Max Martin, Marti Fredricksen, Desmond Child  and John Shanks behind.  They are all out of ideas.  In saying that i was impressed with the Desmond Child and John 5 track The Monster Is Loose for the Bat Out Of Hell III album.

You are a 50 + rock singer.  That means you are no longer a teenage girls fantasy.  So don’t try and be one.   Get back to basics, get back to the Slippery When Wet mentality, where you are hungry once more to deliver an album that will stand the test of time.

 

 

 

 

Yahoo Article;

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Music

VITO BRATTA – Guitar World September 1989 – Part 2

VITO BRATTA – Guitar World September 1989 – Part 2

GW Brad Tolinski: One of the things that distinguishes your approach to soloing is your thoughtful use of pock dynamics like on Don’t Give Up and Little Fighter.

Bratta: I like to balance out the creamy hammer on passages with staccato lines.  The pick suggests real aggression and I really enjoy hearing players like Gary Moore who use the pick well.  However it’s not one of those things I analyse closely – it comes naturally.  I just try to play the things I wish I heard in other players.

If anything my playing tends to be too smooth, but I was never into that Ted Nugent sound.  Ted’s sound is great, but it’s too harsh.  I’ve always understood Van Halen’s description of getting a brown sound, and that warm round tone is what I’ve looked for.  When I went on tour with AC/DC I was running 2,700 watts of power and you still stand in front of my amp. Angus was using the same kind of amp I was using, running pretty close to the same power, but you couldn’t even get close to his system because it was so biting.

All musician’s are fans.  We are a sum of our inflluences.  Any musician that tells you that the create music in a vacuum, that they are so original and free from the influences of life is full of shit.  We develop our own styles as a result of studying what other musicians do.  I own a 5150 combo, so I can relate to the smooth sound that Vito is after.  You can study another person’s style and be influenced as to how you play.  Here Vito is studying the person’s style for how it sounds.  Angus and Ted have aggressive pick attacks which result in harsh – bitter sounds.  There is so much thought going into Vito’s art. 

GW Brad Tolinski: You seem to be using a little more midrange.

Bratta: That happened at the mixing board.  For years I played in a band that didn’t have a bass player, so I created a sound that would appear as a “V” shape on a graphic eq.  In other words, lots of bass and lots of treble.  But when I went into the studio Michael our producer, said “Listen to your sound.”  I asked, “Where is it?”  You could barely hear the guitar.  He explained that the cymbals were eating up all my high end and the bass guitar was masking the low end.  Because my set up lacked midrange frequencies, my sound was being swallowed up.  I started to realize that it was the midrange that cut through.  I was forced into creating a new sound – one that more mids, yet remained creamy, round tone.  The real trick was to avoid that “hinky” midrange.  Some people like that weird “wah-wah pedal that’s halfway down” sound.  George Lynch uses that a lot, but I never really liked it. 

I owe a lot to my Steinberger as well.  When I used to play Strats, I’d play one note and get a bunch of bizarre overtones.  I’m not quite sure what it is, maybe it’s the graphite neck, but when you hit a single note on a Steinberger you hear just one note very cleanly – even when it turns into feedback.  It’s just a great guitar and it helps me get the smooth tone that I look for.  Everything is still evolving.  I don’t think I’ve really developed a distinctive sound, tone wise.  If I sound unique, it’s more in my fingers.  When we did Big Game there was no attempt at duplicating the sound of Pride. 

I have been in bands that don’t have a bass player for a long time.  So you develop a certain style to suit, exactly as described by Vito.  All of the rhythm tracks I write these days incorporate a root note with a revolving melody line played in unison.  It’s very rare that I just chug away on a power chord or on a pedal tone.

One thing that a lot of guitarist don’t get recognised for, is that all the music comes from the guitar and because of that, they are the main songwriters.  They are the main contributors sound wise.  So apart from knowing how to play your instrument, the guitarist needs to know their equipment and their sound.

At a recent recording I did, I normally use the 5150 live, however the engineer at the studio had a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier head going through a Marshall Quad that gave me the dirty harsh sound I wanted for the recording, and then for the clean, I used a Hughes and Kettner Head through the same Marshall Quad.  I had to go that way as the 5150 sound was getting lost in the harsh drum sound and the 5 string bass.  We need to compromise and we need to do it quickly.

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