With their new record, Playing Favorites, Sheer Mag pays homage the best parts of ’70s and ’80s disco and funk, set in the band’s usual streetscape of classic hard rock and power pop.
“There are two wolves inside me,” says Kyle Seely. “One of them wants to just bring the JCM800 and a distortion pedal, and the other one’s like, ‘I’m bringing the Helix and I’m making a different patch for every song.’”
Seely, who plays lead guitar in Philadelphia band Sheer Mag, is the designer and engineer behind the guitar sounds for the arena-gone-garage-rock outfit. Matt Palmer, his rhythm guitar counterpart, smirks. “Every single tour, Kyle is like, ‘I’ve finally figured it out, I’m going to simplify it.’ It’s never simpler,” he chuckles.
Seely’s self-described “endless tone quest” and the tight, gritty weave of his and Palmer’s guitars have helped grow Sheer Mag into one of the most beloved independent American guitar bands of the past decade. The core quartet, with vocalist Tina Halladay and bassist and producer Hart Seely, Kyle’s brother, emerged from Philly’s punk scene in 2014 with a string of bare-knuckled EPs. Their first full-length, 2017’s Need to Feel Your Love, scored spots on plenty of reputable year-end lists, and the track “Expect the Bayonet” was featured at one of Bernie Sanders’ 2019 rallies. That year, the band released A Distant Call, another fan and critic favorite, via their Wilsuns label.
Sheer Mag signed to Jack White’s Third Man Records for their new release, but they still did things their way, recording in an industrial warehouse jam space on the edge of Philadelphia.
Now 10 years in, they launched their third LP, Playing Favorites, in March with Third Man Records—their first step into “the proper label world,” says Seely. The record is a lo-fi riot, a hyper, tireless romp through the gasoline-slicked back alleys of disco, punk rock, glam, and metal.
But on Playing Favorites, more than any of their other records, the band is open about their compositional ambition and commitment to making songs that are just a blast to listen to. (The record’s title winks at this.) The thrifted and dirtied-up disco of “All Lined Up” is one of the band’s most impressive compositions to date, topped only by the Boston-ish funk-rock odyssey of “Mechanical Garden.” After a vintage metal intro, the track warps into a string section that slows and then, thanks to some careful tape trickery from Hart Seely, gradually melts upward to a new key and swaggering groove. Later, a scorching, treble-blasted solo from Tuareg guitar hero Mdou Moctar streaks across the stars. But the record’s highlight has to be the delicious strut of “Moonstruck,” which might have the best chorus of the year, and sports some of Kyle Seely’s most exciting lead work yet. (Seely’s Southern rock tendencies and the round, percussive tone of his Nashville Tele are virtually calling cards for the band at this point. “I can’t not add a ton of vibrato,” he says. “I love the Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker Band, a lot of the major, mixolydian kind of soloing.”)
Kyle Seely's Gear
Kyle Seely handles the bulk of the band’s tone-sculpting, digging for sounds between his JCM800 and his brother Hart’s effects units.
Photo by Joanna Roselli
Pedals
- TC Electronic Mimiq
- Ensoniq DP/4
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario XL Pure Nickel strings
- Dunlop Jazz III nylon picks
Despite the label association, the band recorded Playing Favorites in true Sheer Mag style, in a warehouse in Philly that doubles as a practice space for a bunch of bands. The space’s wiring produces an audible hum on any amp that plugs in there, a stamp that Kyle says can be heard at the very start of “Moonstruck.” Hart engineered the sessions using a 16-channel mixer to a Tascam tape machine—another piece of Sheer Mag’s rough-edged charm. And Hart’s bass lines, which often form a unique melody on their own, cement the band’s signature dual-guitar growl. Though they haven’t been quite as audible until now, disco and funk have always been cornerstones of the Mag sound, alongside classic rock and power-pop. Kyle and Palmer agree that the give-and-take of Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards was particularly instructive. “They would do this stuff where they were just filling in the space between each other, so they weren’t all just playing the same riff, but there’d be a groove,” says Seely.
“We’re almost like a mashup band, where it’s original content, but we’re essentially mashing up different philosophies of rock.” —Kyle Seely
Those influences are especially present this time out—Playing Favorites is certainly the band’s most danceable record yet. But it’s still a hard-rockin’ power-pop record, and Sheer Mag are still jacking the best vibes from Duke Jupiter, Stampeders, the Records, Neil Diamond, Quiet Riot, Badfinger, and other oddities from the borders of ’70s and ’80s guitar music. Somehow, those sounds haven’t lost their luster. When Palmer returned to Philadelphia from a stint living in Australia, he started playing old Thin Lizzy, Bee Gees, and Twisted Sister records to prepare for making the new album. He was pleasantly surprised to find those classics still moved him. “It was a really special feeling to be as excited about the original influences of the band 10 years later,” says Palmer. “The initial Mag feeling was still there.”
Matt Palmer's Gear
Palmer, seen here with his Peavey T-60, revisited the band’s original influences to prepare for Playing Favorites. They hadn’t lost any of their magic.
Photo by Joanna Roselli
Guitars
- Peavey T-60
Amps
- Fender Hot Rod DeVille III 410
Pedals
- Boss TU-3
- Boss ME-90
Strings & Picks
- Tortex Standard Pick .60mm
- D’Addario .011s
But unlike some of the big-budget, one-note arena- and glam-rock records of the ’80s—which has become one of the most passé and snickered-about genres of the past 100 years—Sheer Mag bookend their hooks with production flourishes that deepen their impact: a weirdo delay here, a doubled vocal there, a grimy sonic palette flickering in the background, all rendered with delicious imagination and precision.
“You do want to punch them in the face with something memorable, but also, I think the record is built to reward repeat listening, and you can dig into the deeper textures and complexity the more you listen to it,” says Kyle Seely. “We’re almost like a mashup band, where it’s original content, but we’re essentially mashing up different philosophies of rock. I get excited when people are like, ‘That sounds like Jackson 5 meets Aerosmith.’”
Sheer Mag - Expect the Bayonet [Live at Urban Lounge]
Sheer Mag rip through their Bernie Sanders-approved warning cry, “Expect the Bayonet,” in Salt Lake City in 2022.
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Naturally, every recording Eddie Van Halen ever played on has been pored over by legions of guitar players of all styles. It might seem funny, then, to consider EVH solos that might require more attention. But your 100 Guitarists hosts have their picks of solos that they feel merit a little discussion. Some of these are deep cuts—get ready for some instrumental bonus tracks and Van Halen III mentions—and some are among the biggest radio hits of their time. Just because their hits, though, doesn’t mean we don’t have more to add to the conversation.
We can’t cover everything EVH—Jason has already tried while producing the Runnin’ With the Dweezil podcast. But we cover as much as we can in our longest episode yet. And in the second installment of our current listening segment, we’re talking about new-ish music from Oz Noy and Bill Orcutt.
Tinkering with theSDE-3 Dual Digital Delay suggested a similar, possibly enduring appeal. As an evolution of the Roland SDE-3000rack unit from the 1980s, it’s a texture machine, bubbling with subtle-to-odd triangle LFO modulations and enhanced dual-delay patterns that make tone mazes from dopey-simple melodies. And with the capacity to use it with two amps in stereo or in panning capacity, it can be much more dimensional. But while the SDE-3 will become indispensable to some for its most complex echo textures, its basic voice possesses warmth that lends personality in pedestrian applications too.
Tapping Into the Source
Some interest in the original SDE-3000 is in its association with Eddie Van Halen, who ran two of them in a wet-dry-wet configuration, using different delay rates and modulation to thicken and lend dimension to solos. But while EVH’s de facto endorsement prompted reissues of the effect as far back as the ’90s, part of the appeal was down to the 3000’s intrinsic elegance and simplicity.
In fact, the original rack unit’s features don’t differ much from what you would find on modern, inexpensive stompbox echoes. But the SDE-3000’s simplicity and reliable predictability made it conducive to fast workflow in the studio. Critically, it also avoided the lo-fi and sterility shortcomings that plagued some lesser rivals—an attribute designer Yoshi Ikegami chalks up to analog components elsewhere in the circuit and a fortuitous clock imprecision that lends organic essence to the repeats.
Evolved Echo Animal
Though the SDE-3 traces a line back to the SDE-3000 in sound and function, it is a very evolved riff on a theme. I don’t have an original SDE-3000 on hand for comparison, but it’s easy to hear how the SDE-3 bridges a gap between analog haze and more clinical, surgical digital sounds in the way that made the original famous. Thanks to the hi-cut control, the SDE-3’s voice can be shaped to enhance the angular aspect of the echoes, or blunt sharp edges. There’s also a lot of leeway to toy with varied EQ settings without sacrificing the ample definition in the repeats. That also means you can take advantage of the polyrhythmic effects that are arguably its greatest asset.
“There’s a lot of leeway to toy with varied EQ settings without sacrificing the ample definition in the repeats.”
The SDE-3’s offset control, which generates these polyrhythmic echoes, is its heart. The most practical and familiar echos, like quarter, eighth, and dotted-eighth patterns, are easy to access in the second half of the offset knobs range. In the first half of the knob’s throw, however, the offset delays often clang about at less-regular intervals, producing complex polyrhythms that are also cool multipliers of the modulation and EQ effects. For example, when emphasizing top end in repeats, using aggressive effects mixes and pitch-wobble modulation generates eerie ghost notes that swim through and around patterns, adding rhythmic interest and texture without derailing the drive behind a groove. Even at modest settings, these are great alternatives to more staid, regular subdivision patterns. Many of the coolest sounds tend toward the foggy reverb spectrum. Removing high end, piling on feedback, and adding the woozy, drunken drift from modulation creates fascinating backdrops for slow, sparse chord melodies. Faster modulations throb and swirl like old BBC Radiophonic Workshop sci-fi sound designs.
By themselves, the modulations have their own broad appeal. Chorus tones are rarely the archetypal Roland Jazz Chorus or CE type—tending to be a bit darker and mistier. But they do a nice job suggesting that texture without lapsing into caricature. There are also really cool rotary-speaker-like textures and vibrato sounds that offer alternatives to go-to industry standards.
The Verdict
The SDE-3’s many available sounds and textures would be appealing at $219—even without the stereo and panning connectivity options, a useful hold function, and expression pedal control that opens up additional options. The panning capabilities, in particular, sparked all kinds of thoughts about studio applications. Mastering the SDE-3 takes just a little study—certain polyrhythms can be dramatically reshaped by the interactivity of other controls and you need to take care to achieve identical results twice. But this is a pedal that, by virtue of its relative simplicity and richness and breadth of sounds, exceeds the utility of some similarly priced rivals, all while opening up possibilities well outside the simple echo realm
Reader: T. Moody
Hometown: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Guitar: The Green Snake
Reader T. Moody turned this Yamaha Pacifica body into a reptilian rocker.
I have always loved the reverse headstock, simply because nothing says 1987 (the best year in the history of the world) like a reverse headstock. The pickups are both Seymour Duncan—an SH-1N in the neck position and TB-4 in the bridge, both in a very cool lime green color. Right when these pickups got listed, the Buy It Now button once again lit up like the Fourth of July. I am a loyal disciple of Sperzel locking tuners and think Bob Sperzel was a pure genius, so I knew those were going on this project even before I started on it. I also knew that I wanted a Vega-Trem; those units are absolutely amazing.
When the body arrived, I thought it would be cool to do some kind of burst around the yellow so I went with a neon green. It turned out better than I imagined. Next up was the shaping and cutting of the pickguard. I had this crocodile-type, faux-leather material that I glued on the pickguard and then shaped to my liking. I wanted just a single volume control and no tone knob, because, like King Edward (Van Halen) once said, “Your volume is your tone.”
T. Moody
I then shaped and glued the faux-leather material in the cavity. The tuning knobs, volume knob, pickguard, screws, and selector switch were also painted in the lemon-lime paint scheme. I put everything together, installed the pickups, strung it up, set it up, plugged it in, and I was blown away. I think this is the best-playing and -sounding guitar I have ever tried.
The only thing missing was the center piece and strap. The latter was easy because DiMarzio makes their ClipLock in neon green. The center piece was more difficult because originally, I was thinking that some kind of gator-style decoration would be cool. In the end, I went with a green snake, because crocodiles ain’t too flexible—and they’re way too big to fit in a pickup cavity!
The Green Snake’s back is just as striking as the front.
