Two-Guitar Attack! Five of Today’s Coolest Players Weigh In

I'm trying to get more new guitarists featured-X

Steven Rosen 05.13.2008
What is the perfect lineup for a rock band? Power trio enthusiasts will tell you that nothing rocks like the immediacy and stripped down fury of a single guitar, bass, and drums: Cream, Jimi Hendrix, the Police, Green Day, Nirvana. Then there are those who swear by the three-piece augmented by a vocalist arrangement: Led Zeppelin, the Who, Van Halen, the Ramones, the Stooges, the Sex Pistols, U2.But ever since the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show back on February 9, 1964, the image of twin guitars has become etched in our musical consciousness. The quartet—two guitars, bass, and drums—has become the standard. Who could forget John Lennon strumming away on his Rickenbacker while George Harrison plucked out little lead phrases on his Gretsch? Since then, bands as varied as the Clash, Television, Thin Lizzy, the Replacements, Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, and modified quartets with singers like the Yardbirds, Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, and AC/DC have explored and refined the interplay of dual guitars. The musical exchange between instruments has become so seamless that identifying tags such as lead guitar and rhythm guitar no longer apply.Here, five players who share guitar duties with a second guitarist, talk about how they figure out who’s going to play what.Our players: Jesse Hughes (Eagles of Death Metal); Doug Martsch (Built to Spill); Dallas Green (Alexisonfire); Cristiano Migliore (Lacuna Coil); and Zacky Vengeance (Avenged Sevenfold).Jesse Hughes, Eagles of Death Metal: Normally, if I’m not up to snuff to play the part, David Catching plays it. But I like to play all the glory parts and I don’t want David to be seen or known in any way, shape, or form at all. And ironically and interestingly enough, my ideal band, the vision I had of the perfect band, is the band that I have right now. I always knew David Catching was gonna be the only guy who could ever understand what I was trying to do and get this music. I never even envisioned bass in the band ever. The first album has no bass, except for on two songs. The first three or four tours we never had a bass player. Yeah, it was the uniqueness of the double-stringing that gave us the bass frequencies. It’s actually the absence of the bass that is a sound. We use the delta blues theory of playing the bass line and the lead line at the same time. It’s the way the delta bluesmen would sing along with themselves with their guitar. And doubling the strings just accidentally gave us this unique phenomenon.Doug Martsch, Built to Spill: That’s something we try to be really careful with [having two and three guitarists]. It’s fun to try and figure out how to do it without overdoing it. There are songs where not everyone plays. There are a couple songs Brett [Nelson] sits out. There are parts where people sit out for a little bit or whatever. We spend a lot of time talking about it and figuring out how to make it work. We’re not all noodling around. When we first did it, there was a lot of that. There are a few moments when everyone is just soloing away. There might be a couple of those moments now, but they make sense. Another thing, though, that I just started thinking about or realizing, is you can’t hear us all unless you’re at the sound booth or something. Most people are hearing one or two of us. We’re spread out across the stage, and our sound guy mixes us in stereo. So I’m in the middle and those guys are mixed over to the side of the PA that they’re playing on. I think wherever you stand in the room, you’re going to get a different experience. Everyone plays rhythm, lead, whatever. After a while, everyone kind of gets a little sloppy. We might step on each other a little bit. We’ve kind of figured out different tones; everyone has a pretty significant different sort of setup. We all have like a tonal range that we kind of fit in. It’s still totally a work in progress. We’ve got a ways to go before we get it to where it will really be impressive. To get it on that level where everyone realizes the subtle things we’re doing to make ourselves stick together. We’re still in the infancy stage right now. Dallas Green, Alexisonfire: It’s been really weird since the beginning. Wade [MacNeil] will have a riff, let’s say. I’ll come to practice, he’ll show me the riff, and I’ll play something I’ve been working on. And for some reason, they usually just go together. I remember that first happened to us when we first starting to jam. We were like, “That’s weird.” It just kind of works out all the time. It’s been very easy for us to write together since the beginning. Even though at the beginning, our songs weren’t great. I’m usually more melody-based, so I’m usually trying to add that extra note and play bigger chords. Wade usually takes over the single-note type stuff, the sort of stuff that accentuates what’s going on because I’m usually singing more. On the songs he sings, I kind of take over that role. So there’s definitely not a lead guitar player. We’re definitely both rhythm guitar players that are able to accentuate each other when we need to. It just works out really well.Cristiano Migliore, Lacuna Coil: There are parts that I can play better than Maus [Marco Biazzi] can and the other way around. There are parts that he can actually play much better than I can. So it’s usually very easy to decide; sometimes I play the chords, sometimes he does. Since we don’t have a lot of solos, there is no guitar player that is like, “Oh, I am the solo player” or “I’m the rhythm guitar.” We switch parts almost constantly. So it really depends on who can play the part better and who can give it the right feeling and all this kind of stuff. It changes constantly from song to song. It’s not really like we don’t think that there shouldn’t be solos in our songs. But we only do it when we think that the solo fits to that song. If you take a look at all our previous albums, there are probably only like four or five solos. So it really depends on how the song is and if we have the feeling that it needs a solo. There were songs that we recorded in the past where originally there was supposed to be a solo. But then when you have so many instruments going on—we have two vocals, we have two guitars, bass guitar, keyboard, strings, and everything—sometimes there is really no room for an extra part that contains a solo. We only do it if we have the feeling that the song needs it. We always try to work everything around the song. So if the song actually needs a part where a solo fits very well, then we’re gonna do it. Otherwise, we’re just like, “Okay, well, we’ll do it in some other song.” Zacky Vengeance, Avenged Sevenfold: Me and Synster [Gates] basically just kind of do whatever feels right. There’ll be days where you’ve been there for so long you get burned out and you just go in there and track whatever the other person doesn’t want to do. The tracking and what we actually play live are two different things. There’s days where I track stuff and I just have to learn it that day in the studio. I knew how it went but when we’d actually be rehearsing or in pre-production, it would be something that I’d never played. Basically it’s just being in the studio and what the producer wants. When it’s time to lay something down, it’s whoever’s closest, whoever’s in the room, or whoever can pull the part off. When it comes to duels or anything like that, we’ll definitely mix it up. All the more technical stuff is usually left up to him. I do a lot of the more galloping, muting stuff; that’s more my specialty because that’s kinda where I came from with all the punk rock stuff that I always loved writing and stuff. He showed me a lot about lead stuff and I’ve showed him about stuff about a world that he’s not really from. Especially like with the dual guitar stuff, Synster is really, really good when I come up with a riff; he can lay another part on it very fast because he can pick up on that really quick where I can’t so much.Who are your favorite two-(or more!)-guitar bands? Click over to the Forums and let us know!

Sheepskin and Rhinestones: The Story Behind the Legendary ZZ Top Guitars

Angie Carlson 01.03.2008

Some of the most distinctive guitar sounds in the rock canon have come from the hands of Billy Gibbons and his legendary ’59 Les Paul, nicknamed Pearly Gates. A vintage car and guitar collector and authority (see his book Billy F Gibbons: Rock + Roll Gearhead), Billy Gibbons’ biggest claim to fame has been as ZZ Top’s guitarist. While always “bad and nationwide,” ZZ Top became tres of the most famous hombres in the world, thanks to their ’80s videos which featured―what else?―badass custom cars and guitars.
The sight of Billy Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill doing their choreographed moves, holding matching white Explorers, is an iconic one. Those instruments were made for ZZ Top’s Afterburner Tour by Matthew Klein of the Gibson Custom Shop. Klein worked on many of those now-famous outré guitar finishes that became part of the ZZ Top legend: sheepskin covered guitars, rhinestone-studded guitars (used in Back to the Future Part III and made from two-inch strips of rhinestones provided by Gibbons), and the white Explorers. In 1986, Klein also made “see-through” lattice-work Firebird-style guitars played by the band on the MTV boat party celebrating the unveiling of the refurbished Statue of Liberty. Most of the gutiars Klein made for Gibbons were to replace the originals first provided by Dean, which Gibbons found to be too heavy.
Originally from London of American parents, Klein made his first acoustic guitar in high school woodworking shop―his teacher John Bailey had, literally, written the book he’d used for the template and offered to show him how it was done. At age 17 he left high school and worked at the John Grey Banjos factory. Four years later, Klein applied for a position with George Gruhn at Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Tennessee, and got it, staying on for seven years. His first forays into guitar making were classical and steel-string custom instruments he’d make after-hours in the company shop. “I’ve been building guitars since I was 15, and I’m 51 now,” he says.
In 1985, Klein was introduced to Billy Gibbons through bassist Allen Woody of Gov’t Mule. “I had a couple of concepts where the body was made out of balsa wood and the neck made out of mahogany,” says Klein. “Allen persuaded me to send one to Houston to Lone Wolf Productions [ZZ Top’s people], and it started out from there. Balsa has a lot of acoustic properties. I used hardwood dowels where the screws would go in. Dean guitars [also commissioned by Gibbons] were very heavy so this was a good alternative. My guitars weighed only four-and-a-half pounds.” Gibbons ordered two Explorer guitars and two Explorer basses; they weighed in at about six pounds a piece.
Klein also made Gibson versions of the Dean sheepskin guitars―Gibbons sent him the actual sheepskins to use. Everything was handmade by Klein, and he personally oversaw the projects “straight through.” The guitars used Seymour Duncan pickups, a tune-o-matic bridge, and a Gibson stopbar tailpiece and were 24 and 3/4-inch scale neck length. Dusty’s basses featured two DiMarzio bass pickups and Badass bridges.
Klein has even designed a “convertible Z” guitar and bass―as yet unmade―that would, by means of a lever, convert the Explorer shape so that Billy and Dusty could rock out in time on axes that spelled “ZZ.”
So where are all of these guitars now? “They probably went into his massive collection of hundreds of guitars,” Klein laughs.

The Unforgettable Stage Gimmicks of 6 Guitarists

The Unforgettable Stage Gimmicks of 6 Guitarists
Aaron Lefkove 05.12.2008
Stage gimmicks are a double-edged sword. You never want to be all show and no substance. Fortunately there are those axe-slingers on whom both serious chops and showmanship are not lost. Here’s a list of a half-dozen guitarists with rad gimmicks and the skills to back it all up.Billy Gibbons’ Fuzzy Explorer – ZZ Top are as synonymous for their whacked-out axes as they are for their Texas Lone Star beer-drenched boogie rock riffs. Gibbons’ passion for guitars is legendary—he’s even written a book about his collection: Rock’n’Roll Gearhead. Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill have collections of guitars and basses that make even passive collectors sick with envy. But by far the most iconic—with the possible exception of “Pearly Gates,”
Gibbons’ legendary Les Paul—are the matching white furry Explorers that the band made legendary in the dawn of the video era. More than 20 years later, the shaggy axes still bring a crowd to its feet. Typically the duo will mount these to their belt buckles and spin them in sync with each other … all without missing a note. Here’s ZZ Top pulling out all the stops in the “Legs” video:




Ace Frehley’s Smokin’ Les Paul – Equal parts greasepaint, huge sing-along riffs, and pyro, KISS embody showmanship and on-stage bravado. Aside from the platform demon boots, elaborate costumes, and Kabuki-style makeup the band had a few other gimmicks for their rabid army of followers. Gene Simmons—ever the marketing over-achiever—is well known for his fire breathing, blood-spitting, and three-foot tongue, but by far the coolest stage trick of the band’s heyday was Ace Frehley’s smokin’ Les Paul. The guitar was a three-pickup model with a dummy middle humbucker. Inside the body of the guitar, the electronics were sealed off and the cavity was loaded with colored smoke bombs. At the push of a button, the Space Ace could trigger the bombs and mid-solo it would appear as if the fretboard was literally on fire from his smokin’ hot leads. Check out some vintage footage of Ace’s burnin’ fretwork:


Buckethead’s 12-Piece Headgear – Wearing a Michael Myers mask and a bucket of the Colonel’s finest on your head would, by all accounts, be a pretty silly move. That is unless you had the dipped-in-batter-then-fried-to-perfection-chops to back it all up. While Buckethead’s true identity is less known, his playing is becoming legendary. Collaborations with Iggy Pop, Bill Laswell, Primus, Guns N’ Roses, as well as 30 plus solo records under his bucket, er … belt, in styles that range from full-on 200 MPH shred to jazz to funk to sounds that only exist in the outer cosmos Buckethead has proven his worth and damn well earned the right to wear a 12-piece meal on his head.


Eddie Van Halen’s Power Drill – Eddie’s always been a hero to budding shredders not content to sit there and strum an open G-chord ad nauseum. His original contribution to the canon of guitar theatrics was a coveted and highly-protected finger tapping routine—he always played his solos with his back to the crowd. During the Van Hagar-era Eddie had the bright idea of taking a power drill to the strings during the intro to “Poundcake” off of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. We are by no means advocating giving the Black & Decker treatment to your ’59 Standard but the results were pretty sick. Here’s Ed brandishing a drill live at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Rick Nielsen’s 5 Necked Axe – 5 necks, 25 pounds, and 36 total strings: that’s the quintuple-necked behemoth of an instrument that Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen pulls out at every show. Anyone who has ever seen Cheap Trick live comes away raving about the virtual arsenal of axes that Nielsen plays but there’s always one that sticks in fans’ minds. This custom made guitar has four (yes, four!) 6 string necks of various scales and tunings and a 12 string on the very top. Nielsen currently has three of these in his rotation and every night, usually for “Surrender,” it’s a showstopper.



Jimmy Page’s Bowed Les Paul – The Led Zep guitarist was a king when it came to showmanship. Years of steady work as a session man in the vibrant 1960’s British rock scene gave Page ample time to hone his craft, perfect his chops, and make a few innovations of his own. The bowed guitar is perhaps the most unique. Although Page didn’t invent the move—that credit goes to Eddie Phillips of the Creation—under the tutelage of ace producer Shel Talmy he first discovered the trick and quickly incorporated it into his arsenal. The move inspired a legion of guitarists and was even lampooned by one Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap. And it indirectly inspired the invention of the Ebow! Here’s a video of Page demonstrating the endless sustain that you can only get from a horse-hair bow dragged across heavy gauge nickel wounds:




Honorable Mention! How could we possibly forget this chesnut…

Tremolo Solutions by Erick Coleman

You don’t have to install a locking system to play in tune with a tremolo. If you want the light weight and simple design of a vintage trem, use this bag of tricks to keep your whammy bar in tune.
Erick Coleman, May 15, 2008

The first place we’ll look for tremolo trouble isn’t the bridge, it’s the peghead. Trem-tuning problems have as much to do with what goes on at the peghead as what goes on at the bridge.Problem 1: the nutNut slots are the primary culprit. If the strings don’t move freely in the slots, they’ll bind up when using the tremolo and won’t return to pitch when the bar is released.When filing the nut on a tremolo guitar, I cut the slots a few thousandths larger than the diameter of the individual strings. I round the bottoms of the slots with the sidewalls angling slightly away from the strings. This allows the strings to move freely through the slots with the tremolo. Page 109 of the new Guitar Player Repair Guide shows how Dan Erlewine likes to give a fan-shape to the slots for the string angling toward the tuning post.

Another tip from Dan: he slightly flattens the bottom of the slot so its round shape doesn’t grip the string during tremolo use. I don’t know how he can see this kind of detail — that must be why he wears an OptiVISOR all the time!Nut material is also something to consider. A properly slotted bone nut will work perfectly, but many builders are choosing man made materials for their smooth and slippery character.When you’re finished slotting, polish the bottoms of the slots starting with 1000 grit. This cuts down on friction and improves overall tone. A small amount of lubricant also helps.


Double-edgeNut File

OptiVISOR Headband Magnifier

Problem 2: string treesThese little gizmos can cause friction that keeps your strings from returning to pitch. It is important to keep them smooth and free of any rust or corrosion. Even on a brand new string tree, I clean up the underside with abrasive cord to give the string a glitch-free track to ride on.

Fender-style String Retainers

Some of the newer string trees use graphite or small rollers to give the strings a smoother surface to ride along.

Roller String Retainers

Problem 2: string installationEvery time you press the tremolo, your strings give a little bit of slack. If the strings are sloppily wound onto the tuners, that’ll cause problems. This picture shows how I wind strings on a trem-equipped guitar. The idea is to not have excessive windings that bulge and slip, preventing the tremolo from returning to pitch.


Tremolo Spring Installer
Tremolo Arm
Tremolo Spring Mounting Claw
Tremolo Tension Spring
Gotoh Traditional Tremolo for Strat
Trems-R-Us: To install, adjust, repair orreplace any tremolo, start by entering the wordtremolo in the search box at stewmac.com
Bigsby Vibratos


The traditional Strat tremolo, as used by Fender for many years, is a favorite of blues and surf players. It pivots on six mounting screws, and has limited travel (mostly downward). This design is typically set up to lie flat against the body.With this kind of trem, first make sure the pivot screws are correctly adjusted. If they’re too tight, the bridge won’t move properly. Start with the screws a bit loose and lower them until they just touch the plate. Listen for scratchy, clicking sounds coming from around these screws. Small worn spots in their shafts can cause sticking and keep the bridge from returning to its proper position. If they’re worn, replace the screws.

Gotoh Traditional Tremolo for Strat

The action on this tremolo is adjusted by springs on the back of the guitar. I like to use 5 springs; it just feels the best to me. But that’s a matter of preference and will vary depending on playing style, string gauge and finding the feel you like. Here’s how I find the right spring tension for me: I loosen the springs then bend a note, hard, on the B string. If the bridge pulls forward on this hard bend, the spring tension’s too light. Just enough tension to keep the bridge steady through a tough B string bend is my preferred balance of string vs. spring tension.
Another option is to set the bridge up as a semi-floater.Loosen the springs until the bridge sits up slightly on the back end. This allows for both downward and upward travel of the bridge. It also allows you to lightly pull on the bar to bring strings back in tune should they become stuck at the nut.

Bigsby vibratos give a very subtle tremolo effect. I usually find that tuning problems on a Bigsby-equipped Gibson, Gretsch or Guild aren’t the Bigsby’s fault. More often it’s a matter of tweaking the Tune-o-matic bridge. Sometimes the saddles become cross-grooved by the strings, or have burred edges where the strings can get hung up.

Bigsby Vibratos

Before stringing up, run some abrasive cord through the slots to clean them up all nice and smooth-like.

Mitchell Abrasive Cord
Installing strings on a Bigsby is tricky. Dan made this little tool: a dowel and a nail to hold the string’s ball end. Wrap the string around the dowel, and it’s pre-bent into the shape of the Bigsby’s string bar.

A piece of foam can hold the strings while you string up.

Roller bridges take sticky saddles out of the equation, giving the strings smooth, glitch-free action. And GraphTech nuts and saddles also keep your strings moving freely. Rockabilly legend Danny B. Harvey uses Graph Tech saddles to help keep his Bigsby equipped Gibson SG in tune.


Modern “floating” bridges use two pivot screws. Pioneered by Floyd Rose, this design has since been adopted by non locking bridges.They’re called “floating” because they sit above the body and can be both pushed and pulled for an extra-wide tremolo range. With this kind of bridge, I recommend two upgrades to improve tuning stability:Slipstone nut: Slipstone is another man-made substance, the material preferred by Roger Sadowsky. When shaping a nut for a floating-trem guitar, I keep the top of the nut a little on the tall side so the strings have a better chance of staying in the slots under heavy bar action.Sperzel locking tuners: These are staggered in height, a nice design that takes string trees out of the equation by pulling each string across the nut at its proper angle. Sperzel’s locking feature removes any slippage at the string post.To set up a floating trem, adjust the springs so the bridge sits parallel with the top of the guitar. Usually three springs are recommended for a balanced feel, but some can get away with two — depending on string gauge and playing style.

My Latest Thing - Completed

The last part arrived, the body. Warmoth supplied a swamp ash body in fiesta red, no tremolo and standard strat routing. The weight was a bit over 4 lbs a little heavier than I originally wanted. I went through a test fit of all the parts and there were no problems.


One thing out of the norm were the ferrules for the tuners and the body. Ferrules are collars that in the neck holds the tuner shaft in place and the in the body holds the string's ball end.
In the past I've pressed them into place. In the package of string ferrules were directions involving the use of a soldering iron to heat the ferrule and melting the finish enough to allow the ferrule to be pushed into the hole easily. Once the finish cools the ferrule is securely in place.

The neck was attached the pickguard and pickups assembly was mounted. The bridge was mounted with 3 screws.
I needed to cut slots in the neck nut so that the strings may pass through. I used gauged saws and gauged files to cut and file the nut slots. This was the most difficult and most risk of wrecking the guitar I would not recommend doing this unless you're skilled.

Finally was the tuning and intonation i.e. "setup". The first vid invlove intonation using the 12th fret and the 12the fret harmonic. This is the method I used it's a more work but more accurate.

This method of intonation works fine and is good for a quick check.

The finished project:
Cost run down:
Neck $500.00
Body $300.00
Electronics $300.00
Hardward $100.00
Total $1200.00

Justification, it's exactly what I wanted. Philip Kubick picked out a neck and sent it to me, 1 of the last 8 he'll make. Torres Engineering supplied hand wound pick ups that sound amazing. I found it challenging and I think it came out great.

Tube Amp Maintainence

From Gibson's email of 5/22/08:

Like just about anything worth owning, even the best tube amplifiers available need occasional maintenance to continue performing at their peak. In this age of low or no-maintenance consumer goods, where you’re more likely to toss your DVD player in the nearest Dumpster and swing by the local big box retailer to pick up another one for $49.95 than to actually get a small fault repaired (which, no doubt, would cost you considerably more than the new unit), the notion of routine maintenance for electronic goods has largely fallen by the wayside. Genuine all-tube guitar amps, however, even brand new ones, are not like other consumer electronics products; they are the archaic technology of a bygone era, and thanks to that they can sound sweeter than any fancy box of bits that has been conceived to replace them. As such, though, they need a regular check and tune up. Treat them right, and they’ll reward you not only with stunning tone, but flawless performance.I have known plenty of guitarists who were very much into tube tone, but went from amp to amp with a turnaround rate that found them changing amps every couple of years or so—coincidently, about the amount of time it took for the new tubes the amp came with to grow a little tired sounding, and for a few other minor maintenance items to raise their heads. Re-tubing an amp is something you can almost always do yourself (although some fixed-bias amps will require rebiasing when output tubes are changed, and that’s a job for a professional). If you are gigging or even rehearsing regularly, output tubes are almost certain to need replacement every two years at best, and possibly even every six months or so if you are really playing a lot. Even tubes that are sonically “good” can become noisy or microphonic, and thus require replacement. Preamp tubes generally last a lot longer, but it’s worth swapping in a fresh, high-quality preamp tube in the preamp and phase inverter positions every so often—ideally after you have put in new output tubes—to see if it perks up your amp considerably. If so, you’ve got a tired preamp tube or two on your hands as well. Find the culprit by process of elimination. Be sure to follow your amp manufacturer’s owners manual’s instructions for tube replacement, and use good, properly tested tubes as your replacements.Every few months, the tube amp user ought to also perform certain items of routine physical maintenance to keep the structure of the amp firm and rattle free. These are no-cost jobs that you can perform yourself with the average home tool kit. Check that all speaker-mount nuts or bolts are tight, and if not, adjust. Don’t wrench them down with all your might, but turn each nut or bolt until it is finger-tight (meaning you can’t turn it any more with your fingers), then give it another 3/4 to 1 1/2 turn or so with the appropriate tool. Tightening the speaker mounts “as much as you possibly can” is not the goal, and can do more harm than good, possibly warping the speaker frame (basket) and/or damaging the wooden baffle that it’s mounted to. Anything else that is bolted or screwed to this vibrating mass of wood and iron called a guitar amp will occasionally need to be tightened too: check the mounting screws or bolts holding your power transformer and output transformer to the chassis, the speaker baffle, the back panels on the cabinet, the handle, the feet/glides, and even the mounts of the chassis itself. Anything that is loose can and will rattle when you get that amp cranked up. I can’t count the times I was convinced that I had a speaker that was on its way out, only to find it was a loose handle or back panel vibrating sympathetically to the music.One item of more invasive maintenance that will need to be performed occasionally is one that is commonly referred to as a “cap job.” The electrolytic capacitors, also called “filter caps,” that perform filtering duties in your amp’s power stage, to keep troublesome electrical ripple and other noise out of the system, are inherently short-lived components compared to just about everything else in there, other than tubes. Good filter caps should last at least 10 years, and sometimes will go as long as 20 without causing problems. You even stumble upon 40 or 50-year-old vintage amps now and then which appear to be going strong with the original filter caps. By and large, though, these parts will need replacing 15 or 20 years down the road, and if you have acquired an older amp that has never had a cap change, it’s a good piece of preventative maintenance to get one done sooner rather than later. Faulty filter capacitors will lead to an amp that is noisier and flabbier sounding in the low end in particular, and at the extreme will also introduce dissonant harmonics called “following tones” or “ghost notes,” that sound a little like a lower and out-of-tune tone that follows everything you play (kind of like a very sick octave-divider sound). The cap job is one for the professional amp tech, because these parts lurk at points in the circuit where the highest voltages are handled, and they can also store high-voltage charges and release them—into you!—even when the amp is switched off and unplugged. That said, the average cap job shouldn’t be all that expensive, and getting it done can really sweeten and firm up a tired amp.Resistors will also drift and sometimes fail entirely in older amps, and you will occasionally need to turn to a pro to change a few of these, too. In particular, the 100k ohm carbon comp resistors in the preamp stages of vintage Fender amps (and others) are often the culprits when an amp produces crackling, hissing, and sizzling sounds, particularly while warming up. Replacing these with fresh carbon comp resistors can frequently be an easy cure for preamp noise issues. The larger resistors in the power stage also occasionally wear out from all the heat and high voltages they have to deal with. These aren’t even in the signal chain, so don’t hesitate to have them replaced when necessary. If your amp is in the shop for any of these more invasive procedures, it’s also worth having the repairman check that your tube sockets are all tight, and retension the pins if not, and take a few minutes to squirt some contact cleaner into all the pots and jack contacts too. This might sound like a lot of work, but is the kind of thing you’ll want to be prepared to deal with if you want to live in the tone zone. This is fact-of-life stuff for even the best tube amps out there, and you want to pony up and get it done. Chances are, even that mid-’60s amp from the golden days of tube tone that you acquired for top money, and which appears to be in unusually fine condition, will need to go through most, if not every one, of the items listed above. That doesn’t mean you were “ripped off,” and it might still be a great find and even in the “top original condition” it was advertised as being in. But it’s an old tube amp, it needs love and attention. Give it the time and the $150 or $200 it will take you to achieve all of the above, and it will astound you with the gratitude of superlative tone. In the end, that’s usually less trouble—and even less expense—than selling it off in a few years, or months, when it starts to sputter and cough and you begin the hunt for yet another great sounding amp … which in turn, will eventually sputter and cough and sound tired and need to be sold. Fix ’em up before you fire ’em off; in the end, the little time and money spent will pay dividends.
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Zappa - Just listen.

www.zappa.com

Son of Suzy Creamcheese
By Robert Shelton
Originally published in The New York Times — Sunday, December 25, 1966
The most original new group to simmer out of the steaming rock'n'roll underground in the last hour and one-half is an audacious crew from the West Coast called The Mothers of Invention. The eight-member group will be appearing through New Year's Eve at the Balloon Farm, the new haven for young hippies at 23 St. Mark's Place, atop the Dom.

The Mothers of Invention are primarily musical satirists. Beyond that, they are perhaps the first pop group to successfully amalgamate rock'n'roll with the serious music of Stravinsky and others. Both in their material and in their looks, they are also furthering some of the more outrageous elements of anti-convention, thus contributing to a new style that might be called "shock rock."

Compared to the Mothers of Invention, such earlier big-beat groups as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones emerge as Boy Scouts with electric guitars. The hairier-than-thou personnel of The Mothers, include at this writing ("everyone in the band has quit three times") performers on harmonica, tambourine, percussion and timpani, electric bassoon, soprano saxophone, tenor sax, flute, gongs, electric clavichord and "mouth." There is a lot of alternation of instruments among the band members. No one knows for sure who plays drums. The father (or Dada) of The Mothers of Invention is 26-year-old Frank Zappa, spindly-framed, sharp-nosed gamester whose appearance suggests some of the more sinister aspects of Edgar Allen Poe, John Carradine and Rasputin. In truth, Mr. Zappa is no more sinister than a cultural revolutionary bent on overthrowing every rule in the music book.

On arriving here, Mr. Zappa took a moment off from worrying about when the plane carrying the bands 18 boxes of equipment would be found by the airline, loosened his pink-on-pink tie from his Carnaby Street collar and explained to a visitor just what he is up to: "I am trying to use the weapons of a disoriented and unhappy society against itself. The Mothers of Invention are designed to come in the back door and kill you while you're sleeping." A smile crept through the undergrowth of mustache and goatee, and he continued: "One of our main, short-range objectives is to do away with the top-40 broadcasting format because it is basically wrong, unethical and unmusical . . . Sure, we're satirists, and we are out to satirize everything. Most of the guys in the band feel that we're going to do something to help."

Mr. Zappa was not explicit about how he was going to lead his crusade against the pop and serious music Establishments, other than to get his band's work more widely heard. Audiences at the Balloon Farm have been listening to variations on Mr. Zappa's themes with considerable delight. They have heard such Zappa originals as "Help, I'm a Rock" (". . . dedicated to Elvis Presley. Note the intersting formal structure and the stunning four-part barbershop harmony toward the end. Note the obvious lack of commercial potential. Ho hum"), "Motown Waltz," "Who Are the Brain Police?" "Wowie Zowie" (". . . carefully designed to suck the 12-year-old listener into our camp") and "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet." Other works are entitled "The Mother's American Pageant," "The Duke of Prunes," "Plastic People," and "Son of Suzy Creamcheese."

If all of this sounds even a bit outlandish, Mr. Zappa has apparently hit his mark, for he thinks that "freaking out" is an important method of expression and effecting change. He defines "freaking out" as "a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restrictive thinking, dress and social etiquette in order to express creatively his relationship to his immediate environment and the social structure as a whole." Not the least of the fascinations of hearing The Mothers at work are the incidental uses of classical or serious music in rock arrangements. Besides Stravinsky, Mr. Zappa has scored rock adaptations of Mozart's Symphony No. 40, Holst's "The Planets" and a touch or two of Edgar Varese.

Mr. Zappa began serious composition at the age of 14. "At 15 I gave it up and decided to become a plumber. How long did I stay in plumbing? I'm still a plumber . . ." The Baltimore-born, West-Coast-reared musician has had a turn at nearly every form of music extant. He has written "serious" works for string quartet, chamber orchestra, scores for the films "World's Greatest Sinner" and "Run Home Slow." He describes the latter as the only known cowboy picture using electronic music, in which the good guys presumably head off the bad guys at the oscillator. Mr. Zappa had almost despaired of "making it" in serious American music, but admits that he might make it through the back door of rock'n'roll. But "rock is not just a stepping-stone," he cautions. "Rock is tha only living music in America today. It's alive. I'm bringin music music [serious or classical concepts] to our rock arrangements. Stravinsky in rock is like a get-acquainted offer, a loss-leader. It's a gradual progression to bring in my own 'serious' music."

Listening to The Mothers of Invention is an adventure, in which the auditor is warned to expect veering curves and sudden changes. Some of it is psychedelic sound (without the drugs), some is a marvelous spoof on the late-1950's teen-scene nonsense, some of it is social comment on the hypocrisies of contemporary life, and some of it is just, to use Mr. Zappa's phrase, "music music."

Mr. Zappa urges that every lover of pop music run out and buy the Vanguard recording of Varese's futuristic "Ameriques." "It blows my mind. It's my favorite top-40 record."

Electronics for the "Latest Thing"

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