
Goose, from left: Trevor Weeks, Peter Anspach, Rick Mitarotonda, Jeff Arevalo (standing), and Ben Atkind (seated).
With a rep for energetic live improvisations, the jammers explore the potential of the recording studio and lean toward their indie-rock influences on their latest album.
“What I love the most about it is the magic and the lore,” says Rick Mitarotonda, discussing his passion for jamming. “It’s a rabbit hole, and you can go as deep as you want. And you never really reach the end of it. It speaks to that magical dream quality, the way the shows travel to these different places.”
As guitarist and vocalist for Goose, Mitarotonda has spent his time in the improvisational trenches. Founded in 2014 in Norwalk, Connecticut, the band—which also includes guitarist, keyboardist, and vocalist Peter Anspach, bassist Trevor Weeks, drummer Ben Atkind, and percussionist Jeff Arevalo—has ascended in the jam-band scene. Like other groups in the genre, the quintet has built their following on their performances, where they dive deep into improvisational jams. In 2019, they got their first taste of widespread success, when the video of their set at the Peach Music Festival in Scranton, Pennsylvania, racked up hundreds of thousands of views.
Goose - Dripfield (Official Music Video)
“The thing about this genre is you don’t bat a thousand, whatsoever,” Mitarotonda continues. “It’s not feasible. You can’t be ‘on’ every night when you’re improvising in a very intense and constant way. But when it’s there, when the magic strikes, there’s nothing like it.”
On their third full-length studio album, Dripfield, Goose channel their vibrant live energy and transforms it into a new iteration of their sound. This time around, they headed into the studio with exploratory ears to collaborate with producer D. James Goodwin, whose influence largely shaped the sonics of the record.
“We wanted to find a producer who was on the same wavelength, but also was going to take our music to a different place sonically.” —Peter Anspach
Dripfield is addictive. The band’s stellar musicianship, infectious enthusiasm, and songwriting, which bursts with funk but is woven together with indie rock threads, form a joyous syzygy that demands repetition. The title track sets a cosmic stage, with an arpeggiated synthesizer backed by a simple, powerful drum pattern, which leads into a sweeping, reverb-laden vocal. “Arrow” shifts seamlessly between a pumping, horn-driven groove and softer, atmospheric passages, while “Moonrise” takes on a more traditional acoustic-ballad format. The album radiates influences from across the more creative ends of rock, including My Morning Jacket, the Grateful Dead, Fleet Foxes, and a bit of Pink Floyd. But mixed with the band’s improvisational language, it becomes a sound all their own.
In the wake of the release of their 2021 studio album, Shenanigans Nite Club, the band was feeling a bit drained. The production process had been long, taking several years to complete. Despite how it captures the band’s live dynamic, there was a lot that went into it behind the scenes to achieve that effect. “Shenanigans is very much a jam-band record,” says Mitarotonda. “But there’s a real irony to that record, in that I spent an absurd amount of hours editing and tinkering with it.”
For Dripfield, Goose called on producer D. James Goodwin to help them approach the studio with fresh ears. “I think he was actively trying to subvert the typical jam-band song,” says Mitarotonda.
Understandably, Goose was ready to find a new approach for their next album. As Anspach shares, they were thinking that collaborating with a producer might be the solution. “I was watching that Taylor Swift documentary [Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions] where she worked on those folkier albums, and you see the collaborations going on in the studio that allowed her to get to that place,” Anspach says. “There’s a lot of interesting parallels there between a lot of our favorite albums. We wanted to find a producer who was on the same wavelength, but also was going to take our music to a different place sonically.”
After talking to a few different producers, Goose connected with D. James Goodwin, whose credits include Bob Weir, Devo, Kaki King, and Murder by Death. Creative trust was established almost immediately. “The first conversation we had with Dan, I was like, ‘Oh, this is the guy,’” says Mitarotonda. “I was very much at a point where I felt like I didn’t have the right ideas to break us out of the box. You establish a box and then you become claustrophobic in it. And he was the right person to basically light the box on fire in the studio.”
Rick Mitarotonda’s Gear
Rick Mitarotonda, seen here with his PRS Hollowbody II Piezo, feels like the band has become the organic rock improvisational ensemble he’s long aspired for them to be. “When the downbeat of a new phrase is approaching,” he says, “I can cue, without looking at anyone, if I want it to resolve or not. It’s fun stuff.”
Guitars
- PRS Hollowbody II Piezo
- Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster
Amplifier
- Mesa/Boogie Express 5:50 50-watt 2x12 combo
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario NYXL (.010 sets)
- Dawg Mandolin Pick by David Grisman
Effects
TC Helicon Play Electric vocal and guitar effects processor
TC Electronic PolyTune
Dunlop Cry Baby
DigiTech Whammy 5
Mu-Tron Micro-Tron IV
Strymon OB.1 Compressor
Love Pedal Eternity overdrive
MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe
Strymon Deco Tape Saturation & Doubletracker
MXR Analog Chorus
Strymon El Capistan
Strymon TimeLine
Strymon NightSky
Strymon Flint
TC Electronic Ditto X4 Looper
“We went back and forth with him, sending him a bunch of live recordings of the songs,” Anspach elaborates. “As he was going through, he was telling us, ‘I see a way into that song,’ or, ‘I don’t really see a way into this one.’ He was looking at it through the lens of, ‘How can I reconceptualize this song and put it in an interesting style that would take it to a new place.’ He ended up coming back like, ‘This is what the strongest 10 songs are; this should be an album.’”
Once they hit the studio, the band took a new approach to much of that material, experimenting with new arrangements and instrumentation under Goodwin’s guidance. “He had a lot of ideas about just crafting the things and pushing them in different directions,” says Mitarotonda, “which was really exciting for us.”
One song that went through a significant shift is the seven-minute blues-funk jammer “Hot Tea.” “When we play it live, it’s fast, disco funk. And he was like, ‘I can’t listen to that for eight minutes straight. I just can’t do it. We have to slow it down,’” says Anspach, laughing. “But we had an open mind. And as soon as we heard the drum sounds coming through, we were like, ‘Yeah, this is legit.’
Rig Rundown: Goose's Peter Anspach and Rick Mitarotonda
Goose tracked the song, then did a full-band overdub on top “doing different things. At one point he [Goodwin] was like, ‘Everybody play this rhythm,’” Anspach describes, clapping out the idea. “We played it through the whole track on our different instruments, and then he kept the clavichord and a cowbell for various parts and got rid of the rest.”
“I think he was actively trying to subvert the typical jam-band song,” adds Mitarotonda. “If you listen to the way we play ‘Arrow’ live—and we still do play it live that way because it works, it’s fun—it sounds like a jam-band song. And he heard that song for the first time, and I think all he heard was its clothes. He wasn’t interested in it at first, and then he listened to it more, and then I guess heard the song within the clothes and became interested in it. There’s that section in 7/4, and he had the idea of pursuing the Afrobeat, horn-driven thing. Dripfield doesn’t sound like a jam-band record—it’s not like what we do live. But at the same time, there was a lot of improvising in the studio in a different way, which was a lot of fun.”
“You can’t be ‘on’ every night when you’re improvising in a very intense and constant way.” —Rick Mitarotonda
Both guitarists take different approaches to their gear, and particularly how they apply effects. Mitarotonda plays his PRS Hollowbody II Piezo through a Mesa/Boogie Express 5:50 50-watt 2x12 combo and two pedalboards, but says, “Often I don’t have a lot of patience for gear. I see the effects almost as a way to open up new doors improvising, but sometimes it feels like a crutch. Sometimes [during a jam], when I feel like I’m hitting a wall, I’m like, ‘Kick on an effect; maybe that’ll juice things up.’ Then I think, ‘No, figure it out. Keep trying to find something that is unique musically instead of just falling back on effects because you can.
“But that’s not exclusively true,” he acknowledges. “It’s a different means of exploration than just searching for things musically. It makes me think of Radiohead, where so much of what makes up the substance of that band is sonics: searching and discovering strange instruments and sounds and crafting songs around that, as opposed to songs being driven purely by melody and harmony and lyrics. I see them as different pursuits.”
Peter Anspach’s Gear
Goose goes big! Ever since 2019’s Peach Festival, the band has found itself in a much larger spotlight. “It’s something to get used to,” says guitarist, keyboardist, and vocalist Peter Anspach.
Photo by Adam Berta
Guitars
- Suhr Mateus Asato Signature Classic
- Fender American Vintage ’62 StratocasterCustom T-style thinline built by Goose percussionist Jeff Arevalo
Amplifiers
- Fender ’64 Custom Deluxe Reverb
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario NYXL (.010 sets)
- D’Addario 1mm (medium/heavy)
Effects
- TC Electronic PolyTune 2
- Dunlop Cry Baby
- Keeley Compressor Plus
- Chase Bliss Mood
- Moog Moogerfooger MF-101
- Electro-Harmonix Small Stone
- Ibanez TS9 w/Analog Man mod
- Analog Man King of Tone
- Chase Bliss Tonal Recall
- Strymon TimeLine
- Strymon Flint
- Chase Bliss Dark World
Anspach, who plays a Suhr Mateus Asato Signature Classic with a humbucker bridge pickup through a Fender ’64 Custom Deluxe Reverb, has a different take on effects. “I try to keep my pedalboard as consolidated as possible. But I think I have 10 or 11 stompboxes,” he explains. “Since I got into Tame Impala early on, I’ve had way more effects on my board in the past than I do now,” he elaborates. “But I love delay. I’ve written songs where delay is part of the main riff. Without the delay there, there is no song. Effects are definitely important to my sound.”
While each guitarist fills his board with options, neither is overly lavish about their effects, which may help them stay focused on what seems to matter most: being responsive, sensitive collaborators. And over their eight years as a band, Goose have gotten so used to playing with one another that they can communicate through musical cues alone. “One of the coolest parts about this, just from doing it for a bunch of years, is how many things are communicated when we’re improvising without any sort of visual cue at all,” Mitarotonda shares. “The whole tension and release thing is something I’ve wanted for years to figure out. And now it’s really pretty easy: When the downbeat of a new phrase is approaching, I can cue, without looking at anyone, if I want it to resolve or not. It’s fun stuff.”
“I think he was actively trying to subvert the typical jam-band song.” —Rick Mitarotonda
The best jamming, arguably, happens when the performers are taking risks. Inevitably, however, that involves making mistakes—so what do you do when you play a phrase you’re not happy with? “Be like a goldfish,” says Anspach, laughing. “I have been thinking a lot about this recently. If you mess up and you get in your head about it, you end up affecting the rest of your performance. But if people in the crowd are having a great time, and you look out and you realize this is a really special moment for them, you get over [your mistakes] pretty fast.”
Although it’s been a few years since the famous Peach Music Festival video launched Goose into a bigger spotlight, the fame that the guitarists have been experiencing is still fresh, and they agree that it can be existentially jarring. “It’s something to get used to,” says Anspach. “Relationships change with other people in your life, and that’s weird. It’s something I’ve been dealing a lot with recently. It’s incredible and I wouldn’t change it for anything, but life is different. People look at you a different way and you’re a different person to them, but you’re the same person to yourself.”
The band’s close dynamic makes a massive difference in coping with those stresses. As Anspach shares, “It definitely helps everything off-stage, dealing with life and whatever else, when you have this brotherhood of people who are able to get on the same page in a musical way. Everything else in life becomes a little bit easier. I can handle anything at that point.”
Goose - Hot Tea - 11/19/21 Aspen, CO
Seen here in Colorado, Goose perform “Hot Tea” in its upbeat disco-funk live form, which underwent significant arrangement changes for its appearance on Dripfield.
- Rig Rundown: Goose ›
- Pedalboards - Premier Guitar ›
- Jam Band - Premier Guitar ›
- Mateus Asato and Cory Wong Podcast - Premier Guitar ›
- Robbie Robertson—Canadian Father of Americana - Premier Guitar ›
The country virtuoso closes out this season of Wong Notes with a fascinating, career-spanning interview.
We’ve saved one of the best for last: Brad Paisley.The celebrated shredder and seasoned fisherman joins host Cory Wong for one of this season’s most interesting episodes. Paisley talks his earliest guitar-playing influences, which came from his grandfather’s love of country music, and his first days in Nashville—as a student at Belmont University, studying the music industry.
The behind-the-curtain knowledge he picked up at Belmont made him a good match for industry suits trying to force bad contracts on him.
Wong and Paisley swap notes on fishing and a mutual love of Phish—Paisley envies the jam-band scene, which he thinks has more leeway in live contexts than country. And with a new signature Fender Telecaster hitting the market in a rare blue paisley finish, Paisley discusses his iconic namesake pattern—which some might describe as “hippie puke”—and its surprising origin with Elvis’ guitarist James Burton.
Plus, hear how Paisley assembled his rig over the years, the state of shredding on mainstream radio, when it might be good to hallucinogenic drugs in a set, and the only negative thing about country-music audiences.
Tom Bedell in the Relic Music acoustic room, holding a custom Seed to Song Parlor with a stunning ocean sinker redwood top and milagro Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
As head of Breedlove and Bedell Guitars, he’s championed sustainability and environmental causes—and he wants to tell you about it.
As the owner of the Breedlove and Bedell guitar companies, Tom Bedell has been a passionate advocate for sustainable practices in acoustic guitar manufacturing. Listening to him talk, it’s clear that the preservation of the Earth’s forests are just as important to Bedell as the sound of his guitars. You’ll know just how big of a statement that is if you’ve ever had the opportunity to spend time with one of his excellently crafted high-end acoustics, which are among the finest you’ll find. Over the course of his career, Bedell has championed the use of alternative tonewoods and traveled the world to get a firsthand look at his wood sources and their harvesting practices. When you buy a Bedell, you can rest assured that no clear-cut woods were used.
A born storyteller, Bedell doesn’t keep his passion to himself. On Friday, May 12, at New Jersey boutique guitar outpost Relic Music, Bedell shared some of the stories he’s collected during his life and travels as part of a three-city clinic trip. At Relic—and stops at Crossroads Guitar and Art in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, and Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center in Wheaton, Maryland—he discussed his guitars and what makes them so special, why sustainability is such an important cause, and how he’s putting it into practice.
Before his talk, we sat in Relic’s cozy, plush acoustic room, surrounded by a host of high-end instruments. We took a look at a few of the store’s house-spec’d Bedell parlors while we chatted.
“The story of this guitar is the story of the world,” Bedell explained to me, holding a Seed to Song Parlor. He painted a picture of a milagro tree growing on a hillside in northeastern Brazil some 500 years ago, deprived of water and growing in stressful conditions during its early life. That tree was eventually harvested, and in the 1950s, it was shipped to Spain by a company that specialized in church ornaments. They recognized this unique specimen and set it aside until it was imported to the U.S. and reached Oregon. Now, it makes the back and sides of this unique guitar.
A Bedell Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides.
As for the ocean sinker redwood top, “I’m gonna make up the story,” Bedell said, as he approximated the life cycle of the tree, which floated in the ocean, soaking up minerals for years and years, and washed ashore on northern Oregon’s Manzanita Beach. The two woods were paired and built into a small run of exquisitely outfitted guitars using the Bedell/Breedlove Sound Optimization process—in which the building team fine-tunes each instrument’s voice by hand-shaping individual braces to target resonant frequencies using acoustic analysis—and Bedell and his team fell in love.
Playing it while we spoke, I was smitten by this guitar’s warm, responsive tone and even articulation and attack across the fretboard; it strikes a perfect tonal balance between a tight low-end and bright top, with a wide dynamic range that made it sympathetic to anything I offered. And as I swapped guitars, whether picking up a Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides or one with an Adirondack spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides, the character and the elements of each instrument changed, but that perfect balance remained. Each of these acoustics—and of any Bedell I’ve had the pleasure to play—delivers their own experiential thumbprint.
Rosette and inlay detail on an Adirondack spruce top.
Ultimately, that’s what brought Bedell out to the East Coast on this short tour. “We have a totally different philosophy about how we approach guitar-building,” Bedell effused. “There are a lot of individuals who build maybe 12 guitars a year, who do some of the things that we do, but there’s nobody on a production level.” And he wants to spread that gospel.
“We want to reach people who really want something special,” he continued, pointing out that for the Bedell line, the company specifically wants to work with shops like Relic and the other stores he’s visited, “who have a clientele that says I want the best guitar I can possibly have, and they carry enough variety that we can give them that.”
A Fireside Parlor with a Western red cedar top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
A beautifully realized mashup of two iconic guitars.
Reader: Ward Powell
Hometown: Ontario, Canada
Guitar: ES-339 Junior
I’ve always liked unusual guitars. I think it started when I got my first guitar way back in 1976. I bought a '73 Telecaster Deluxe for $200 with money I saved from delivering newspapers.
I really got serious about playing in 1978, the same year the first Van Halen album was released. Eddie Van Halen was a huge influence on me, including how he built and modded guitars. Inspired by Eddie, I basically butchered that Tele. But keep in mind, there was once a time when every vintage guitar was just a used guitar—I still have that Tele, by the way.
I never lost that spirit of wanting guitars that were unique, and have built and modded a few dozen guitars since. When I started G.A.S.-ing simultaneously for a Les Paul Junior and a Casino, I came up with this concept. I found an Epiphone ES-339 locally at a great price. It already had upgraded CTS pots, Kluson tuners, and the frets had been PLEK’d. It even came with a hardshell case. It was cheap because it was a right-handed guitar that had been converted to left handed and all the controls had been moved to the opposite side, so it had five additional holes in the top.
Fortunately, I found a Duesenberg wraparound bridge that used the same post spacing as a Tune-o-matic. I used plug cutters to cut plugs out of baltic birch plywood to fill the 12 holes in the laminated top. I also reshaped the old-style Epiphone headstock. Then, I sanded off the original finish, taped the fretboard, and sprayed the finish using cans of nitro lacquer from Oxford Guitar Supply. Lots of wet sanding and buffing later, the finish was done.
I installed threaded insert bushings for the bridge, so it will never pull out. The pickup is a Mojotone Quiet Coil P-90 and I fabricated a shim from a DIY mold and tinted epoxy to raise the P-90 up closer to the strings. The shim also covers the original humbucker opening. I cut a pickguard out of a blank and heated it slightly to bend it to follow the curvature of the top.
All in all, I'm pretty happy how it turned out! It plays great and sounds even better. And I have something that is unique: an ES-339 Junior.
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