
Hound Dog Taylor looks typically jovial while cradling his Kawai-made Kingston S4T. Note the length of his slide, on the fifth of six fingers on his left hand. It is longer than the width of his guitar's estimable neck.
Cheap guitars, cheap booze, and amps on stun—the shaggy tale of the legendary court jester of Chicago slide-guitar blues.
What magicians really practice is subterfuge. The noisy blues mage Hound Dog Taylor was a master. His quote, "When I die, they'll say 'He couldn't play shit, but he sure made it sound good,'" is emblazoned on a T-shirt, over a photo of his 6-fingered fretting and sliding hand. And his stage persona—laughing and joking at warp speed and bullhorn volume, drunk, Pall Mall dangling from his lips, a huge slide raking his Kawai Kingston's strings in a way that made his amp detonate fragmentation bombs—was that of a barroom jester. But there is genuine magic at the nucleus of Hound Dog's wild-ass playing, for the effect it had on audiences and the story in sound it still tells.
"Anybody who heard Hound Dog live and says they didn't have a good time is lying," attests John Sinclair, the American counterculture hero who helped present Taylor while serving on the board of the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival in the early '70s. "He'd start his sets by yelling, 'Let's have some fun!' And everyone did. He's my all-time favorite artist."
The perpetually struggling musician from Natchez, Mississippi, could barely read words, but Hound Dog read his audiences like Shakespeare, using songs like "Wild About You Baby" and "Give Me Back My Wig," and his trio the HouseRockers' almighty groove, as helium for lifting hearts. He also knew how to find the soft spots in aching souls, with his tear-wringer "Sadie" or the nakedly abject "She's Gone."
"Anybody who heard Hound Dog live and says they didn't have a good time is lying."— John Sinclair
As a Black man raised in the depths of the Jim Crow Delta, then living and performing mostly in the hardscrabble urbanity of Chicago's South Side, Taylor knew the score and used his music to settle it. Although Hound Dog's been gone for 46 years, defiant joy still rings in the sound of the three singles and two studio albums he cut in his lifetime. And especially in live recordings, where he and his team, because they were more than a band, of co-guitarist Brewer Phillips and drummer Ted Harvey ran wild—as loud, carefree, and outrageous as they cared to be, not giving a damn about anything. Their brash, braying, and self-possessed music is the sound of freedom and, in the context of African-American history, even rebellion. And those who can't hear that through the raggedy tones and occasional hiccups are making the mistake of merely listening with their ears.
Young Dog’s Blues
Theodore Roosevelt Taylor was born in either 1915 or 1917 in Natchez, about 85 miles north of Baton Rouge, on the banks of the Mississippi. The small city's boomtown days were past. Its status as the lower river's nexus of steamboat traffic was erased by the expansion of railroads. But it continued to be a lively music town. In 1940, Natchez was the site of the infamous Rhythm Club fire, where 209 people lost their lives after being trapped inside the wood and steel building where Walter Barnes, a well-regarded contemporary of Duke Ellington, was leading his Royal Creolians orchestra.
By then, Taylor—whose first instrument was piano—was playing guitar and singing all over the Delta, when he wasn't driving a tractor on the farm where he worked. He had even appeared on Sonny Boy Williamson's popular King Biscuit Time live radio show on station KFFA in Helena, Arkansas. Two years later, Taylor hastily relocated to Chicago after the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in front of his home in retaliation for an affair he'd had with a white woman. For the first day, he crawled through drainage ditches and hid in fields as he made his way north.
In this out-take from the photo session for his debut album, Taylor has his Kingston with a metallic pick- and body guard—and an amiable canine companion.
Taylor was born with polydactylism, a condition that causes the formation of additional fingers or toes. Both his hands had six fingers. Although the sixth wasn't functional, his fifth was extra-large, and some theorize that its additional bulk and strength may have helped him more aggressively pin the strings with his slide. At one point, as fable has it, he tired of being razzed for his difference and used either an axe or a straight razor to cut off the extra finger on his right hand. The resulting pain and blood led him to leave the left alone.
For his first 15 years in Chicago, Taylor played gigs but made a living via day jobs. Under the spell of Elmore James, whose early '50s singles established him as a star, the Dog began playing more and more slide, crafting his own raw distillation of James' keening, cutting, aggressive style and even copping his bawling vocal approach. In 1957, Taylor was building cabinets for televisions when he made the decision to chase the muse full time. Two years later, he met guitarist Brewer Phillips on a gig, and the HouseRockers began to gestate.
Through the '60s, Taylor eked out a living in Chicago's Black working-class bars, which stayed open long and late. At some point, he got the nickname Hound Dog, which, let's face it, is cooler than Teddy Roosevelt. Tales vary, but it was either bestowed upon him because of his tireless pursuit of members of the opposite sex, or because he actually did look like a canine, with his prominent ears, large nose, and rounded eyes. He reportedly developed a pre-show ritual of downing a shot of whiskey, a mixed drink, and a beer in quick sequence just before taking the stage, which he'd then command for a series of sets sometimes stretching to six hours or more. The typical fee was $30 for the band, bumped up to $45 on weekends.
Hound Dog Taylor, natty as always, digs in hard for some single notes. See the steel pick on his right index finger? That's part of why his sound is often so explosively bright.
Photo by Jack Lardomita
In 1965, he and Phillips added drummer Ted Harvey, and their sound coalesced. With Harvey as their tireless sparkplug, they developed a loose but brilliant language by meshing their guitars. Mostly Hound Dog took the lead, with his slide and howling voice, while Phillips laid down a stone-finger-buster riff as a bassline. Often when you hear an instrumental by the HouseRockers, like "Phillips Screwdriver," that's Brewer at the fore, aggressively playing patterns or fiendishly mean 'n' dirty single-notes in a style gleaned from his early lessons with the great 6-string innovator Memphis Minnie. In truth, Phillips was a better player than Taylor, but Hound Dog had the schiznit, and—with his crew at his side—laid it down like Godzilla.
Enter the Gator
Three singles between 1960 and '67, including a release on the Chess subsidiary Checker, did nothing to enhance their fortunes. In '67, Taylor somehow obtained a slot on the American Folk Blues Festival tour of Europe, but he hated the experience, because his style didn't mesh with his fellow travelers, which included Little Walter, Koko Taylor, Son House, and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee. But in 1970, the coin flipped. Music-loving, recent college grad Bruce Iglauer had moved to Chicago for a job at Bob Koester's famed Jazz Record Mart and Delmark Records operation, and to chase the city's thriving blues. Taylor had told him about a regular Sunday gig he held down at Florence's Lounge, at 5443 Shields Avenue, on Chicago's South Side. It was a classic workingman's bar in a standalone building made of brick and cinder blocks, with a cubed-glass window and a dark, wood-paneled interior. As anyone who has pursued regional music styles to their depths knows, this is the kind of lair where wizards can sometimes be found. And on one afternoon in 1970, that's where Iglauer found Taylor, Phillips, and Harvey.
Iglauer recounts that afternoon, right down to the beads of sweat trickling down Taylor's cigarette-smoke-clouded face, in 2018's Bitten by the Blues: The Alligator Records Story, which he co-authored with Patrick A. Roberts. Talking about that gig 51 years later, revelation still rings in his voice. "It was the most fun I'd ever seen anyone have playing music," he attests. "I remember grinning all afternoon. They were so happy that it was like watching kids pretend to make music with brooms instead of guitars. Ted Harvey worked at a loading dock for Montgomery Ward, and Brewer Phillips worked construction. Hound Dog was the only one who made a halfway living playing music. So their only motivation for being there was to have fun."
The meeting of Hound Dog Taylor and Bruce Iglauer was a turning point for both men. Taylor rose from Chicago's working-class bars to club, festival, and college stages around the world, and Iglauer became the proprietor of what would become the leading independent blues label, Alligator Records.
Photo by Nicole Fanelli
Beside colorful stories about his travels with the group—how Ted Harvey rarely drove because he'd end up motoring against traffic on the wrong side of a superhighway, Taylor sitting up all night in his hotel room with the lights on because he was frightened of having a repeated dream about being chased by wolves, Taylor's epic slide-guitar battle with J.B. Hutto, the trio's relief finding a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Australia after resigning themselves to starvation—the period also gave Iglauer an intimate view of what and how they played.
That day was transformative for both Iglauer and Taylor. After failing to get his boss to sign Taylor to Delmark, Iglauer used a $2,500 inheritance to pay for two days of studio time, then started Alligator Records to put out the results, Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers, in 1971. Natural Boogie followed in 1973. Today, Alligator is the world's largest independent blues label, celebrating its 50th anniversary and a storied history that includes hundreds of titles by Albert Collins, Johnny Winter, Son Seals, Lonnie Brooks, Lonnie Mack, Koko Taylor, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, and other legends. But for the next four years, Iglauer shepherded Taylor, Phillips, and Harvey in the studio and across the world's stages. He describes the trio's chemistry as "equal parts brotherly love, vicious adolescent rivalry, and Canadian Club."
How They Rocked
Taylor's main amp, the one heard on Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers, was a Silvertone 1400-series piggyback 6-speaker combo—a 60-watter he turned about as high as possible. That's the key to Taylor's gleeful distortion: funky gear and sheer volume. But Iglauer notes that he also witnessed Hound Dog play through a Peavey 1x15 and a Fender Super, and even, during a soundcheck at the Ann Arbor festival, into a Fender Twin with a Gibson Les Paul. "Hound Dog always sounded exactly the same."
The HouseRockers' chemistry was "equal parts brotherly love, vicious adolescent rivalry, and Canadian Club."—Bruce Iglauer
Taylor's guitars of choice were a pair of Kawai-made Kingston S4Ts, with fat necks, whammys he didn't tend to use, an on/off slider for each of four pickups, and master volume and tone controls. One had a Telecaster pickup subbed in, plus a metal pickguard and upper body protector, and both of these then-$50 pawnshop specials were difficult to keep in tune, but perfectly suited to Hound Dog's raw exhortations. Dan Auerbach owns one of these guitars and played it on the Black Keys' most recent album, Delta Kream. (For more on this guitar, see "Dan Auerbach Summons the Ghosts of Mississippi Blues" in the May 2021 issue.)
"Hound Dog did not dampen the strings like some slide players do, and essentially approached the instrument like Elmore James, but in an even more aggressive fashion," says Iglauer. Taylor also made his own slides. He'd slice metal tubing from a kitchen chair, long enough to extend across his guitar's neck, and then pound a piece of brass tubing into it, so it would fit his finger better and have more weight.
Listening to Taylor's first two albums, plus the posthumous live release Beware of the Dog! and the live-and-studio-leftovers Release the Hound, provides a strong vision of the trio's dynamic. Harvey is a surprisingly adept drummer and takes breaks where his rhythms veer in jazz-inflection directions. Taylor is heavy handed, tempering his ringing, grinding, often-turbo-speed slide with barking single notes to open up his verses, and chords that smash with sledgehammer audacity. The steel pick he wore on his right index digit adds to the shrillness of his tone—especially when he pecks out single notes like a brawny rooster. And Phillips plays far more than basslines on his guitar, even when fulfilling that role. His figures are packed with nimble variations, although he never shortchanges the pulse, and his solos offer a scalding challenge to copycats.
Taylor's debut album was produced and released by Bruce Iglauer, and established his Alligator Records imprint. The label is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
"Hound Dog's tuning was typically somewhere between open E and open D," Iglauer continues. "They tuned by ear, so it was relative." Especially after the night wore on and the whiskey bottle emptied. "Once, Hound Dog tried to quit drinking, but it was terrible. His hands couldn't stop shaking, and he couldn't play, so he started again."
The Other Side of the Dog
Like the animal whose name he wore, Hound Dog Taylor loved being with people. Fans around the world knew him as funny, warm, smiling—the perpetual genial host. "Even when he was at home, he was 'on,' just like he was onstage—the life of the party," says Iglauer. And whenever the young record man visited Taylor's apartment, it was buzzing with visiting friends and relatives. But in his quiet times, Taylor often appeared sad and regretful. "He seemed to feel that he missed out on a lot of things in life," says Iglauer. And he persecuted himself over what he saw as a lack of musical and practical education. "I don't believe he appreciated the depth of his own soulfulness or the transcendent joy that his music created."
Oddly, one of Taylor and Phillips' joys was argument. Once, they bickered all the way from Boston back home to Chicago, a 983-mile trip, about whether Hub City radio station WRKO was AM or FM. "One morning, after an all-night drive, Hound Dog woke up in the back seat of the car and noticed Ted Harvey was asleep in the front," recalls Iglauer. "He smacked Ted on the back of the head and yelled, 'Wake up and argue.' This was not always good or funny. In his book, Iglauer recounts finding Taylor and Phillips in a violent argument behind a club, knives drawn and out for blood. "I don't know what would've happened, because their tone made me feel like they really wanted to kill each other." Acting fast, he reminded both men they had a show contract to fulfill, and the battle stopped. "I think they were looking for an excuse to put their knives away," he says.
Hound Dog Taylor - 15 minute LIVE Ann Arbor 1973 Video
Here's Hound Dog Taylor onstage at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival in 1973, with the HouseRockers, being his ebullient self. Listen for the pointed tone of his fingerpick on the single-note turnaround and the braying spray of tones that emerge from his ferocious slide. At times, it's really not that far from Sonic Youth, although it's always stone blues.
In May 1975, they went too far. During a visit to Taylor's home, Phillips made a tasteless joke about having sex with his wife, so Taylor shot Phillips in the arm and thigh with a .22 rifle. That ended the HouseRockers, and a few months later Taylor was in the hospital with inoperable cancer in his lungs and neck—his last stop before the great gig in the sky. Iglauer was a frequent visitor, and on his final stop-by, two days before the Dog slipped away, he was leaving as Phillips arrived to make amends with his friend. Taylor died on December 17, 1975.
"I don't believe he appreciated the depth of his own soulfulness or the transcendent joy that his music created."—Bruce Iglauer
Because of his half-century helming Alligator Records, Iglauer has known nearly every major electric blues artist, to varying degrees. When asked where Taylor fits in the pantheon, he pauses a moment, and then mentions George Thorogood, the band GA-20 … just a tablespoon full of direct torchbearers compared to the likes of Alberts King or Collins, or B.B and Buddy, or, of course, Stevie Ray Vaughan. "What Hound Dog did in terms of technique is not difficult," he says. "You can put your guitar in open tuning and find his notes. Hound Dog played simplified Elmore James, with slide chords and sliding and single notes on individual strings, but that groove …. his rhythm. Hound Dog was all about that groove."
That raw sound, that groove, and the pure joy of being alive that resonates in the music of Hound Dog Taylor makes me think of a quote from another great record man, Sam Phillips. The Sun label chief famously described the music of another musical canine, Howlin' Wolf, as coming from "a place where the soul of man never dies." Hound Dog Taylor's music also comes from that place.
Inside of a Dog—Approaching the Style of Hound Dog Taylor and Brewer Phillips
Pat Flaherty, left, and Matthew Stubbs took on the roles of Hound Dog Taylor and Brewer Phillips for their band GA-20's new album.
Dissecting the music of Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers is like conducting an alien autopsy. Things might sound and look kinda familiar, until you get deep inside, where offbeat stops and turnarounds, staggering shuffles, fast-flowing arteries of single notes, and fat-ass grooves abound.
GA-20 guitarists Matt Stubbs and Pat Faherty took their scalpels to the task to prepare for their new album, GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor: Try It … You Might Like It! "We've always loved Hound Dog's stuff, and real Chicago blues," explains Stubbs, whose main gig is with blues legend Charlie Musselwhite. And GA-20's two-guitars-and-drums lineup also makes the HouseRockers a natural frame of reference.
For their tribute album's 10 songs, Faherty played the role of Taylor and Stubbs chased Phillips' approach. Faherty found a Kawai-made relative of Hound Dog's Kingston, a Teisco, on eBay just before the sessions. "The sound is really in those pickups," he observes. "As far as intonation goes, you can't get the cheaper versions to go in tune past the second fret, and their strings couldn't even be lined up over the pickups correctly. So you have to get a better model, like Hound Dog had. I need a little tension when I pick, because the guitar is tuned to open C#, so I used .012s. Hound Dog would use that tuning, and his version of Elmore James's 'It Hurts Me Too' is almost in F." Faherty figures Taylor tuned mostly in the neighborhood of open D or Eb, and adds that E tuning is audible on the live recordings.
Faherty's initial experience playing slide was as a student at Berklee, under the guidance of jazz and textural guitar guru David Tronzo. "Hound Dog's style is super-loose, and the thing about his tone that makes him different from a lot of other slide players is that when he goes for it, he digs really hard. You can tell by the shrill attack that he's not smooth. The sound is very biting and in-your-face."
Stubbs offers that "Brewer was the secret weapon in the band. He solo'd like a madman. I've listened to Hound Dog my whole life, but had never gone through Brewer's style with a microscope before. Some of the turnarounds he used to play, like in 'Give Me Back My Wig'.… I remember thinking, 'Man, if I'm going to get close to this, I'm really going to have to double down.' He filled all the gaps with some really sophisticated playing. Brewer wasn't just following Hound Dog. He was constantly creating these little melodies on the side. And there are places where they dropped bars and changed rhythms, and you'd think they messed up, but then you listen to the live recordings and find out they made these changes together every time."
Stubbs favored a '51 Telecaster for the sessions at his home studio, and a reissue when he needed to tune down to C#. For amps, Faherty mostly used a Silvertone 1471, 5-watt, 1x8 combo. As for Stubbs' own main amp, it was their band's namesake: a 16-watt Gibson GA-20 combo.
- Dan Auerbach Summons the Ghosts of Mississippi Blues - Premier ... ›
- How to 'Wing It' Playing Slide Guitar - Premier Guitar ›
- A Beginner's Guide to Standard Slide - Premier Guitar ›
Guest columnist Dave Pomeroy, who is also president of Nashville’s musicians union, with some of his friends.
Dave Pomeroy, who’s played on over 500 albums with artists including Emmylou Harris, Elton John, Trisha Yearwood, Earl Scruggs, and Alison Krauss, shares his thoughts on bass playing—and a vision of the future.
From a very young age, I was captivated by music. Our military family was stationed in England from 1961 to 1964, so I got a two-year head start on the Beatles starting at age 6. When Cream came along, for the first time I was able to separate what the different players were doing, and my focus immediately landed on Jack Bruce. He wrote most of the songs, sang wonderfully, and drove the band with his bass. Playing along with Cream’s live recordings was a huge part of my initial self-training, and I never looked back.
The electric bass has a much shorter history than most instruments. I believe that this is a big reason why the evolution of bass playing continues in ways that were literally unimaginable when it began to replace the acoustic bass on pop and R&B recordings. Players like James Jamerson, Joe Osborn, Carol Kaye, Chuck Rainey, and David Hood made great songs even better with their bass lines, pocket, and tone. Playing in bands throughout my teenage years, I took every opportunity I could to learn from musicians who were more experienced than I was. Slowly, I began to understand the power of the bass to make everyone else sound better—or lead the way to a train wreck! That sense of responsibility was not lost on me. As I continued to play, listen, and learn, a gradual awareness of other elements came to the surface, including the three Ts: tone, timing, and taste.
I was ready to rock the world with busy lines and bass solos when I moved to Nashville in the late ’70s, and I was suddenly transported into the land of singer-songwriters. It was a huge awakening when I heard the lyrics of artists like Guy Clark, whose spare yet powerful stories and simple guitar changes opened up a whole new universe in reverse for me. It was a reset for sure, but gradually I found ways to combine my earlier energetic approach in different ways. Playing what’s right for a song is a very subjective thing.
“If the song calls for you to ramp up the energy and lead the way like Chris Squire, Bootsy Collins, Geddy Lee, Sting, Flea, Justin Chancellor, or so many others, trust yourself and go for it.”
Don Williams, whom I worked with for many years, was known as a man of few words, but he gave me some of the best musical advice I ever received. I had been with him for just a few months when he pulled me aside one night after a show, and quietly said, “Dave, you don’t have to play what’s on the records, just don’t throw me off when I’m singing.” In other words: It’s okay to be creative, but listen to what’s going on around you. I never forgot that lesson.
As I gradually got into recording work, in an environment where creativity is combined with efficiency and experimentation is sometimes, but not always, welcome, I focused on tone as a form of expression, trying to make every note count. As drum sounds got much bigger during the ’80s, string bass was pretty much off the table as an option in most situations. Inspired by German bassist Eberhard Weber, I bought an electric upright 5-string built by Harry Fleishman a few years earlier. That theoretically self-indulgent purchase gave me an opportunity to carve out a tone that would work with both big drums and acoustic instruments. It gave me an identifiable sound and led to me playing that bass on records with artists like Keith Whitley, Trisha Yearwood, Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, and the Chieftains.
In a world of constantly evolving and merging musical styles, the options can be almost overwhelming, so it’s important to trust yourself. Ultimately, you are making a series of choices every time you pick up the instrument. Whether it’s pick versus fingers versus thumb, or clean versus overdrive versus distortion, and so on … you are the boss of your role in the song you are playing. When the sonic surroundings you find yourself in change, so can you. It’s all about listening to what is going on around you and finding that sweet spot where you can bring the whole thing together while not attracting too much attention.
On the other hand, if the song calls for you to ramp up the energy and lead the way like Chris Squire, Bootsy Collins, Geddy Lee, Sting, Flea, Justin Chancellor, or so many others, trust yourself and go for it. Newer role models like Tal Wilkenfeld, Thundercat, and MonoNeon have raised the bar yet again. The beauty of it all is that the bass and its role keep evolving.
Right now, I guarantee there are young bassists of all descriptions we have not yet heard who are reinventing the bass and its role in new ways. That’s what bass players do—we are the glue that ties music together. Find your power and use it!
A reverb-based pedal for exploring the far reaches of sound.
Easy to use control set. Wide range of sounds. Crush control is fun to explore. Filter is versatile.
Works best as a stereo effect, which may limit some players.
$299
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Dark Star Stereo
oldbloodnoise.com
The Old Blood Dark Star Stereo (DSS) is one of those pedals that lives beyond simple effect categorization. Yes, it’s a digital reverb. But like other Old Blood designs, it’s such a feature-rich, creative take on that effect that to think of it as a reverb feels not only imprecise but unfair.
The Old Blood Dark Star Stereo (DSS) is one of those pedals that lives beyond simple effect categorization. Yes, it’s a digital reverb. But like other Old Blood designs, it’s such a feature-rich, creative take on that effect that to think of it as a reverb feels not only imprecise but unfair.
In this case, reverb describes how the DSS works more than how it sounds. I’ve come to think of this pedal as a reverb-based synthesizer, where reverb is the jumping-off point for sonic creation. As such, the sounds coming out of the Dark Star can be used as subtle sweetener or sound design textures, opening up worlds that might otherwise be unreachable.
Reverb and Beyond
Functionally speaking, the DSS starts with reverb and applies a high-/low-pass filter, two pitch shifters, each with a two-octave range in each direction, plus bit-crushing and distortion. Controls for lag (pre-delay), multiply (feedback), and decay follow, with mini knobs for volume, mix, and spread. Additional control features include presets, MIDI functionality, plus expression and aux control.
The DSS can be routed in mono, stereo, or mono-in/stereo-out. Both jacks are single TRS, and it’s easy to switch between settings by holding down the bypass switch and selecting via the preset button.
Although it sounds great in mono, stereo is where this iteration of the Dark Star—which follows the mono Dark Star and Dark Star V2—really comes alive. Starting with the filter, both pitch shifters, and crush knobs at noon—all have center detents—affords the most neutral settings. The result is a pad reverb, as synthetic as but less sparkly than a shimmer. The filter control is a fine way to distinguish clean and effect signals. In low-pass mode, the effect signal can easily get dark and spooky while maintaining fidelity and without getting murky. On the other end, high-pass settings are handy for refining those reverb pads and keeping them from washing out the clarity of the clean signal.
Lower fidelity is close at hand when you want it. The crush control, when turned counterclockwise, reduces the bit rate of the effect signal, evoking all kinds of digitally compromised sounds, from early samplers to cell phones, depending on how you flavor it. Counterclockwise applies distortion to the reverb signal. There’s a lot to explore within the wide ranges of the two pitch controls, too. With a four-octave range, quantized in half steps, the combinations can be extreme, and Dark Star takes on a life of its own.
Formless Reflections of Matter
The DSS is easy to get acquainted with, especially for a pedal with so many features, 10 knobs, and two footswitches. I quickly got a feel for the reverb itself at the most neutral filter and pitch settings, where I enjoyed the weight a responsive, textural pad lent to everything I played.
With just the filter and crush controls, there’s plenty to explore. Sitting in the sweet spot between a pair of vintage Fenders, I conjured a Twin Peaks-inspired hazy fog to accompany honeyed diatonic arpeggios, slowly filtering and crushing that sound into a dark, evil low-end whir as chords leaned toward dissonance. Eventually, I cranked the high-pass filter, producing an early MP3-in-a-good-way “shhh” that was fine accompaniment to sparser voicings along my fretboard. It was a true sonic journeyThe pitch controls increase possibilities for both ambience and dissonance. Simple tweaks push the boundaries of possibility in exponentially deeper directions. For more subtle thickening and accompaniment sounds, adding octaves, which are easy to tune by ear, offers precise tone sculpting, dimension, and a wider frequency range. Hearing simple harmonic ideas plucked against celeste- and organ-like reverberations kept me in the Harold Budd and Brian Eno space for long enough to consider new recording projects.
There is as much fun to be had at the highest feedback settings on the DSS. Be forewarned: Spend too much time there and you might need a name for your new ambient band. Cranking the multiply and decay knobs, I’d drop in a few notes, or maybe just a chord, and get to work scanning the pitch knobs and sculpting with the filter. Soon, I conjured bold Ligeti-inspired orchestral sounds fit for a guitar remix of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Verdict
The Dark Star Stereo strikes a nice balance between deep control, a wide range of sonic rewards, playability, and an always-sounds-great vibe. The controls are easy to use, so it doesn’t take long to get in the zone, and once you do, there’s plenty to explore. Throughout my time with the DSS, I was impressed with its high-fidelity clarity. I attribute that to the filter, which allows clean and reverb signals to perform dry/wet balance and EQ functions. That alone encouraged more adventurous and creative exploration. Though not every player needs this kind of tone tool, the DSS is a must-check-out effect for anyone serious about wild reverb adventures, and it’s simple and intuitive enough to be a good fit for anyone just starting exploration of those zones. However you come to the Dark Star, it’s a unique-sounding pedal that deserves attention. PG
Introducing the new Gibson Acoustic Special models, handcrafted in Bozeman, Montana, featuring solid wood construction, satin nitrocellulose lacquer finishes, and L.R. Baggs electronics.
Solid Wood Construction
Each of the three Acoustic Special models from Gibson are crafted using solid mahogany for the back and sides, solid Sitka spruce for the tops, utile for the necks, and rosewood for the fretboards for a sound that will only get better and better as they age.
Satin Nitrocellulose Lacquer Finishes
All three Gibson Acoustic Special models are finished in satin nitrocellulose lacquer for a finish that breathes, ages gracefully, and lets the natural beauty–both in sound and appearance–of the quality tonewoods come through.
L.R. Baggs Electronics
The Gibson Acoustic Special guitars come with L.R. Baggs Element Bronze under-saddle piezo pickups and active preamps pre-installed, making them stage and studio-ready from the moment you pick them up.
For more information, please visit gibson.com.
Introducing the Gibson Acoustic Specials – J-45, Hummingbird & L-00 Special - YouTube
Great Eastern FX Co. has released the limited-edition OC201 Preamp, featuring vintage Mullard OC201 transistors for a unique fuzz sound. Part of the 'Obsolete Devices' series, this pedal combines classic circuits with modern components for optimal tone and reliability.
Boutique British pedal designers GreatEastern FX Co. have released a new pedal. Limited to just 50 units, the OC201 Preamp is an intriguing twist on the familiar two-transistor fuzz circuit, built around a pair of new-old-stock Mullard OC201 transistors.
“The OC201 is a very early silicon transistor,” company founder David Greeves explains. “It was actually the first silicon transistor made by Mullard, using the same method as their germanium devices. It’s pretty crude by modern standards, with very low gain and limited bandwidth, but that’s exactly what makes it so great in a fuzz pedal.”
This little-known low-gain silicon transistor is responsible for the OC201 Preamp’s palette of sounds, which GreatEastern FX say ranges from dirty boost and garage rock drive sounds up to a raw and richly textured fuzz, all with the excellent volume knob clean-up characteristics this style of fuzz is famous for. The circuit has also been tweaked to deliver a healthy kick of volume to your amp.
This limited-edition pedal is the first in a new series that Great Eastern FX are calling ‘Obsolete Devices’. According to the company, the Obsolete Devices series will feature the company’s take on a range of classic circuits, constructed using a mixture of vintage and modern components. It’s a distinct departure from Great Eastern FX’s main range of pedals.
“With pedals like the Design-a-drive and the XO Variable Crossover, we’re really committed to developing original designs that bring something new to the table,” founder David Greeves explains. “I’m always very conscious of choosing parts that aren’t going to go obsolete so we can go on making the pedals for as long as people want to buy them. But I also love messing around with old parts and classic circuits, which is a totally different mentality. The Obsolete Devices series is basically a way for me to have fun modifying these classic circuits and experimenting with my stash of NOS components, then share the results.
“The name is a little bit of an inside joke,” he continues. “I think what gets labelled as ‘obsolete’ is very subjective. As pedal designers and guitar players, we obsess over obsolete components and what, in any other field, would be considered outdated designs. So the name is a nod to that. I also loved the thought of us coming out with some brand-new Obsolete Devices of our own!”
Alongside the pedal’s new-old-stock Mullard OC201 transistors – which are the reason only 50 of them are being made – the OC201 Preamp uses quality modern components, including high-tolerance Dale metal film resistors and WIMA capacitors. GreatEastern FX say that this hybrid approach, using vintage parts where they make the most difference sonically and low-noise modern parts elsewhere, will deliver the best combination of tone and reliability while also keeping the price from spiralling out of control.
The OC201 Preamp will cost £249 in the UK, $299 in the US and €299 in the EU. It’s available now direct from Great Eastern FX Co. and from the following dealers:
- UK – Andertons
- Europe – Pedaltown.nl
- USA – Sound Shoppe NYC
- Canada – Electric Mojo Guitars
For more information, please visit greateasternfx.com.