
Julian Lage's new Collings signature model has DynaSonic pickups and is fully hollow, with a trestle block, a solid Honduran mahogany body, a maple laminate top, and a Bigsby B3 vibrato tailpiece.
The jazz virtuoso used a new Collings signature model and his stunning command of technique, tone, and composition to craft his new album, Squint, but reflection and intention helped him find its soul.
Getting signed to Blue Note Records—the onetime home of John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Miles Davis, Kenny Burrell, and many, many other greats—is a high honor in the jazz world. "It's just incredible," says Julian Lage, whose new album, Squint, is his debut for the famed label. "It's thrilling and inspiring and absolutely makes me want to be a better musician." But sometimes, simply being a better musician in a technical sense isn't enough. In the period between when the COVID lockdown began and the start of Squint's sessions with his trio in August, Lage had an epiphany during the "months of playing these songs, hours on end by myself. I wanted to write songs that would be restorative to play.
"Way beyond the shutdown was a global reckoning of racial injustice, systemic racism, social injustice, gender inequality, and all of these things that are ever-present, but now, here, on a very large scale, there's a discussion," he observes.
So Lage determined to craft an album that could be transformative for both himself and his listeners. "Is this positive music that's pretty for the sake of being pretty," he asked himself, "or is it music that holds a space for a little more fuzziness or emotional complexity? And in addition to just shutting up and listening and learning and saying, 'Wow, this is the work of our lifetime,' I think in not making the record [when we expected to], I developed a real appreciation for the role of sound in music and art with regard to healing. It's a method of transmission, and 'What are you transmitting?' became the question … You make music because you need to make it, you play it because you need to play it," he says. "Then it's by the grace of much higher powers that it ever sees the light of day. Squint is about the unknown, but is also celebrating deep gratitude."
Julian Lage - Saint Rose (Visualizer)
The 33-year-old virtuoso's perspective isn't a surprise to anyone who's met him. Lage has earned a reputation for being genuine and humble, and exuding gratitude is part of his way of experiencing life. He lives up to the Zen adage: The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.
But let's rewind to early 2020: Lage and his trio, which includes bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King, were ready to go into the studio when their plans were abruptly upended—and Lage's deep immersion into the nine original compositions for the 11-track Squint began. The results of Lage's reflection reveal a depth not always heard on instrumental albums. Starting with a sharp, delicate solo performance of "Etude" and closing with a cover of Billy Hill's 1940 classic "Call of the Canyon," the pieces are edgy, gentle, smart, and experimental—each an iteration of the album's greater musical personality. Lage notes, "We're putting improvisation right next to composition. These aren't songs that we just take a solo on—you could not hear the melody and just hear the solos. The goal is for you to be able to understand the sentiment."
The Art of Emulating Speech
On Lage's 12th album as leader, there's also the jumpy, swinging title track and the cool, drum-groove-driven "Saint Rose," named after Lage's hometown of Santa Rosa, California. On the quietly chaotic "Familiar Flower," the band members are all "playing different tempos by a few degrees in one direction or another," offers Lage. And the umbral, apprehensive "Quiet Like a Fuse" uses dynamics and varying sections for emotional chiaroscuro. It's not just Lage's guitar that ties them all together, but the feeling that the spirit behind each beat is shared by all three musicians. Surprisingly, part of what guided Lage's process on a technical level were speeches by figures like the poet Nikki Giovanni and novelist James Baldwin. Lage improvised to their words as a way to gain insight into the mode of soloing he envisioned.
TIDBIT: Lage used just two amps to record his Blue Note debut: his Magic Amps Vibro Deluxe, which is based on a mid-'60s black-panel Deluxe Reverb, and a 1959 tweed Fender Champ.
"I think that the way people speak is often more unfettered. There's an urgency which is really striking about speech. There might not be an obvious correlation between the way people speak in a lecture and the notes on the guitar. But it's just a little stretch of the imagination to see that those are pitches, those are rhythms, those are phrases." Lage adds that a seven-to-10-minute lecture might be seen as a correlation to a song's central melody. "The musical version of that is Coltrane's 'My Favorite Things.' It's communication from the second it starts to the second it ends. Lectures help me break it down. And also just recording my own voice talking about something very mundane, then learning the rhythms I use to speak and applying those to the guitar, is really helpful, too.
"Jazz music is abstract art. And for that reason I love taking something that might feel more literal—like influences from singer-songwriters or lectures or spoken-word things—and just saying, 'Okay, my job is to find how notes and rhythms and tone alone represent in an abstract form what these people are saying with words.'"
Not the What, But the How
Lage spent six months both playing and contemplating the intention of the performances that made their way onto his new album, Squint. "I developed a real appreciation for the role of sound in music and art with regard to healing," he says.
Photo by Alysse Gafkjen
The team for the sessions included singer-songwriter (and Lage's partner) Margaret Glaspy, and multi-instrumentalist/producer Armand Hirsch, as well as Roeder and King. Lage says he's been playing with Roeder, "an extension of his musical world," for all of his adult career, whereas his musical relationship with King has been just for a few years. "Jorge's really able to listen so beautifully to what's going on, and what he contributes is so supportive and adventurous and risky."
Lage explains that what he learns from his bandmates comes less from what they play together and more from how they play together. "The way Dave looks at time in a band is not selfish at all," the guitarist says. "He shares the responsibility with everybody but has a way of influencing it through a virtuosic lens that never feels macho or overbearing."
In addition to being his favorite songwriter, Glaspy is also one of Lage's most relied-upon critics. "She'll offer very specific help, always," he says, "from the microscopic to the macroscopic. We have a nice mutual rapport, where I do it for her and she does it for me." Lage shares how the band went into the studio on the first day without her, and when he later reviewed the session at home, he told Glaspy, "yeah, you need to come to the studio."
One of Hirsch's contributions was offering his breadth of knowledge on the history of guitar tones. "I could be like, 'the guitar tone on this song … it sounds good, but I want it to be more George Barnes and a little more of the reverb from '70s Jim Hall,' and he would be able to translate that to Mark Goodell, who's our longtime engineer."
Julian Lage’s Gear
Guitars
- Collings 470 JL
- 1955 Gibson Les Paul
- Magic Amps Vibro Deluxe
- 1959 Fender Champ
- Strymon Flint Tremolo & Reverb
- Shin-ei B1G 1
- D'Addario NYXL (.011–.049 sets)
- Dunlop Tortex .88 mm picks
Calling on Collings
Lage's signature Collings is fully hollow with a trestle block, a solid Honduran mahogany body, a maple-laminate top, and a Bigsby B3 vibrato tailpiece. It also has a custom hybrid C/V neck profile, and a narrower fretboard in the upper-fret range. Lage says it's "as at home with jazz as with early '50s rock 'n' roll tone, Bo Diddley, early John Lee Hooker, early B.B. King." Collings' luthier Aaron Huff, director of engineering Clint Watson, and manager of artist relations Mark Althans were also involved in creating the 6-string. "The 470 JL is like a blues machine that's used for jazz," Lage sums up. "That's my favorite sound."
For the album's sessions, the guitar was run through two different amplifiers. Most tracks were cut with a Magic Amps Vibro Deluxe, which is based on a mid-'60s black-panel Fender Deluxe Reverb, while the rest feature Lage's '59 tweed Fender Champ. A Strymon Flint Tremolo and Reverb and a Shin-ei B1G 1 Gain Booster completed the signal chain. The result is a lush, old-school tone with crunch when necessary.
Lage's latest batch of tones are largely the product of a collaboration with Collings Guitars. The primary instrument featured on Squint is his new Collings 470 JL signature electric, which was introduced in February 2021. (He also used a 1955 Gibson Les Paul for three songs.) The development of the 470 JL was, Lage explains, centered on Ron Ellis, the great pickup master—and specifically his take on the DynaSonic-style pickup. "DynaSonic pickups are always fascinating to me, because I like playing on the neck pickup primarily for everything. A Tele pickup obviously has pole pieces that are covered by a metal cover and there's that kind of fuzziness that's nice, but I wanted the directness of having no cover, kind of like Stratocaster pickups, but with a much larger diameter. That led us down the road of DynaSonics and all of the complications that go with those pickups—the good, the bad, and the ugly."
With a Little Help from His Friends
Julian Lage plays his prized 1939 Martin 000-18 acoustic at NYC's (Le) Poisson Rouge in 2016.
Photo by Peter Gannushkin
Lage's interest in making music from an informed perspective often leads him to seek the counsel of musicians he respects. He shares an anecdote about learning from composer and performer Gabriel Kahane that songs need "terms of engagement, reasons to exist." He also relates flying from his New York City base to Chicago to ask for feedback from Wilco's Jeff Tweedy on a slew of new music he'd written. Tweedy explained that, on an album, you "have to tell the listener's ear where to focus and when to focus" through subtle instrumental cues. But it was on a pre-pandemic tour with Bill Frisell that Lage embraced the concept of bringing both attention and intention to music before performing it—which helped fuel his strategy for Squint.
He and Frisell sat down to rehearse Johnny Mandel and Johnny Mercer's "Emily," one of the two covers that ended up on the album, for four nights in a row before Frisell finally approved of playing it in their set. The first night, it was for 10 minutes. The second, 20. The third, 40. And the fourth, a full hour. "No talking, just play the tune and don't look up for an hour. And he's like, 'Okay, we're ready to play it.'
I think it was on the last day of recording—we were about to pack up—and it was like, 'Can we record one more, just in case we need an extra track?' I showed it to Jorge really fast and we played it and that's the one take of 'Emily.' It kind of sums everything up, in a way."
YouTube It
Even before the lockdown, Julian Lage exhibited a talent for turning melodies into conversations. For evidence, check out his 2016 live performance of "Nocturne" by Spike Hughes, Britain's earliest jazz composer. Lage is playing his 1954 Telecaster, which was his No. 1 before the new Collings signature 470 JL.
- The 12 Commandments of Julian Lage - Premier Guitar | The best ... ›
- PG Jams: Julian Lage - Premier Guitar | The best guitar and bass ... ›
- Julian Lage: Surrender to the Twang - Premier Guitar | The best ... ›
- Julian Lage Guitar Rig Rundown with John Bohlinger - Premier Guitar ›
- Discover the Power of Chaos with Margaret Glaspy - Premier Guitar ›
- Julian Lage: There Are No "Bad" Guitar Sounds ›
An easy guide to re-anchoring a loose tuning machine, restoring a “lost” input jack, refinishing dinged frets, and staunching a dinged surface. Result: no repair fees!
Unleash your inner metal icon with the Jackson Lee Malia LM-87, a high-performance shred-ready axe designed in collaboration with Bring Me The Horizon guitarist Lee Malia. Featuring custom Jackson signature pickups, a fast D-profile neck, and a TOM-style bridge for rock-solid stability, this signature model is a must-have for commanding metal tone and smooth playability.
British metal icon and Bring Me The Horizon guitarist Lee Malia has partnered with Jackson to create his signature LM-87, a shred-ready axe built for heavy riffing and alternative modern metal. As a founding member and lead guitarist of the Grammy-nominated band, Malia is renowned for his aggressive playing style and intricate solos. This high-performance guitar matches his demanding musicality.
With its offset Surfcaster™ body shape and vintage appeal, the LM-87 melds classic design with modern appointments. The thin open pore finish on the bound Okoume body and neck exudes organic style, while the unique 3-ply pickguard and chrome hardware add striking accents. The fast D-profile 3- piece okoume neck allows smooth riffing across the bound amaranth fingerboard.
Custom Jackson signature pickups, including a bridge humbucker with push-pull coil-split, equip the LM-87 with versatile tone-shaping options to fulfill Malia's sonic vision. The TOM-style bridge with anchored tailpiece and fine tuners provides rock-solid stability for low tunings and heavy picking.
Designed in close collaboration with the legendary guitarist, the Jackson Lee Malia LM-87 is built for shredding. Its blend of vintage vibe and high-performance features make this signature model a must-have for players who value commanding metal tone and smooth playability.
The Tune-o-matic bridge with an anchored tailpiece and fine tuners offers enhanced tuning stability and precise, incremental adjustments. This setup ensures consistent pitch control, improved sustain, and easier fine-tuning without affecting overall string tension.
The guitar’s three-piece set-neck guitar with graphite reinforcement offers exceptional strength, stability, and resistance to warping. The multi-piece construction enhances sustain and tonal clarity, while the graphite reinforcement adds extra durability and prevents neck shifting due to humidity or temperature changes. This design ensures a solid, reliable performance with improved resonance and longevity.
Features Include:
- Okoume body
- Three-piece okoume set neck construction with graphite reinforcement
- 12"-16" compound radius amaranth fingerboard
- 3-ply pickguard
- Chrome hardware
- Custom wound Jackson LM-87 pickups
- Volume with push-pull coil-split and tone control
- TOM-style bridge with anchored tailpiece and fine tuners
- Gig bag included
The Jackson LM-87 carries a street price of $899.99.
For more information, please visit jacksonguitars.com.
Unleashing the Pro Series Signature Lee Malia LM-87 | Jackson Guitars - YouTube
Jackson Pro Series Signature Lee Malia LM-87 Electric Guitar - Open Pore Black
Pro Series Lee Malia Signature LM-87 Open Pore BlackWith a bit of downtime back in Nashville, co-shredders-in-chief Megan and Rebecca Lovell joined Shred With Shifty to deconstruct their face-melting leads on “Summertime Sunset,” off of their 2022 record Blood Harmony.
The Georgia-born, Nashville-based roots-rock outfit Larkin Poe have had a busy year. Last summer, they toured across the U.S. supporting Slash, and released their seventh studio album, Bloom, on January 22. With a bit of downtime back in Nashville, co-shredders-in-chief Megan and Rebecca Lovell joined Shred With Shifty to deconstruct their face-melting leads on “Summertime Sunset,” off of their 2022 record Blood Harmony.
The Lovells grew up reading sheet music and learning violin via the Suzuki method—there was little room for going off the beaten path until they fell in love with Jerry Douglas’ dobro playing on Alison Krauss records. Rebecca took up the mandolin, while Megan went for the dobro and the slide side of things. It took a while for them to get comfortable turning up from their bluegrass roots, but eventually they built Larkin Poe’s amplified, blues-rock sound.
First up, Rebecca, playing a pristine ’60s SG, shows how she put together her stinging, fuzzy solo by “hunting and pecking out” melodies in her mind, building up the chops to follow her intuition. Then Megan, playing a Rickenbacker-inspired lap steel of her own design through a Rodenberg TB Drive, details her dizzyingly fast slide acrobatics, and her particular “rake” technique that she copped from Jerry Douglas and Derek Trucks.
Tune in to hear them talk about how to sustain family relationships while going professional, keeping music community-minded, and whether or not they’ll go back to bluegrass.
If you’re able to help, here are some charities aimed at assisting musicians affected by the fires in L.A:
https://guitarcenterfoundation.org
https://www.cciarts.org/relief.html
https://www.musiciansfoundation.org
https://fireaidla.org
https://www.musicares.org
https://www.sweetrelief.org
Credits
Producer: Jason Shadrick
Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis
Engineering Support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudion
Video Editor: Addison Sauvan
Graphic Design: Megan Pralle
Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.
The legendary Louisville rockers brought tons of vintage tone tools on the road this year.
My Morning Jacket’s Is, their 10th album, released on March 21, and as we reported in our feature on the band in our May print issue, it showcased a band exercising their classic strengths as well as newfound vision and curiosity. Helmed by superstar producer Brendan O’Brien, Is finds MMJ at their anthemic, psychedelic best.
We caught up with Carl Broemel for a Rig Rundown back in 2015, but on this year’s tour, PG’s John Bohlinger checked in with all three axemen—Jim James, Broemel, and bassist Tom Blankenship—to hear about their road rigs. In Broemel’s estimation, they’re lazy—they just like to bring everything.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Three's a Crowd
This gorgeous Gibson Jimi Hendrix 1967 SG Custom, aged by Murphy Labs, initially had three humbuckers, but James kept hitting his pick on the middle pickup, so it got the yank—as did the hefty bridge and Maestro Vibrola system, which were replaced with a simple stopbar tailpiece.
Mirror Image
James picked up this 1998 Gibson Flying V right around when My Morning Jacket got started. He traced and ordered the flashy mirror pickguard himself. It’s got Gibson pickups, though James isn’t sure of the models.
Jim James' Jimmy
James plucked this one-of-a-kind from Scott Baxendale’s collection of restored vintage guitars. He guesses it’s either an old Kay or Harmony guitar, but the decorations, including the custom plastic headstock plaque, make exact identification difficult. But it was clear this one was meant for James, since it has his name on it.
Elsewhere backstage is James’ Epiphone Jim James ES-335, a custom shop Fender Telecaster and Strat, a 1967 Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman, and a Gibson Barney Kessel.
Make Love, Not War
James loves repurposing old military equipment for creative, peaceful purposes, which is how this old radar system came to be a part of his live amplification kit. Along with the old tech, James runs two 3 Monkeys Orangutan heads through a 3 Monkeys cab.
Jim James' Pedalboard
James’ board is built around a pair of GigRig QuarterMaster switching systems, which lets him navigate the stomps you see here: a Devi Ever US Fuzz, Boss BD-2w, SoloDallas Schaffer Boost, Boss OC-2, EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery, Strymon blueSky, EQD Ghost Echo, Malekko Spring Chicken, ISP Deci-Mate, Electro-Harmonix Mel9, UA Starlight Echo Station, and UA Astra Modulation Machine. A D’Addario Chromatic Pedal Tuner duo keep things on pitch, a Strymon Zuma and Ojai pair handle the power, and a Radial SGI-44 line driver maintains clarity.
Arts and Crafts Night
One night while a bit tipsy, Broemel took out his paint pens and set to work on this Gibson Les Paul Standard Faded, resulting in this masterpiece. He also removed the pickup selector switch; even though the neck pickup remains, it never gets used.
Relic By Broemel
This 1988 Les Paul Standard predates the band, and Broemel has given it its aged finish over the years—on one occasion, it fell out of a truck. It’s been treated to a Seymour Duncan pickup upgrade and occasional refrets when required.
Carl's Creston
This Creston Lea offset has two Novak lipstick pickups in the neck, with a switch to engage just one or both, plus a low-end roll-off control. It’s finished in the same blue-black color as Broemel’s house and sports a basil leaf on the headstock in tribute to Broemel’s son, Basil.
Also in the wardrobe are a shiny new Duesenberg tuned to open G, and a custom shop Fender Telecaster with a fattened neck and Bigsby to swing it closer to Broemel’s beloved LPs.
Milk Route
Broemel routes his GFI Ultra pedal steel, which is tuned to E9, through a board which includes a Milkman The Amp, which is projected through the speaker of a Fender Princeton Reissue combo. Operated with another GigRig QuarterMaster, the board also includes an Eventide H9, Moog MF Delay, Fender The Pelt, MXR Phase 90, EHX Nano POG, Xotic Effects EP Booster, Source Audio C4, and a Peterson StroboStomp HD.
Side-Carr
This time out, Broemel is running two Carr Slant 6V heads in stereo.
Carl Broemel's Pedalboard
Broemel commissioned XAct Tone Solutions to build this double-decker board, which depends on a GigRig G3S switching system. From top to bottom (literally), it includes a Boss TU-3, Durham Electronics Sex Drive, JAM Pedals Tubedreamer, Source Audio Spectrum, JAM Retrovibe, MXR Phase 100, Fender The Pelt, Origin Effects SlideRIG, 29 Pedals EUNA, two Eventide H9s, Kingsley Harlot V3, JAM Delay Llama, Merix LVX, Hologram Chroma Console, and EHX POGIII. A wah and Mission Engineering expression pedal sit on the left side, while a Lehle volume pedal and Gamechanger Audio Plus hold down the right edge.
Utility units include two SGI TX interfaces, two Strymon Ojais and a Strymon Zuma, and a Cioks Crux.
More From the Creston Crew
Blankenship, too, has brought along a few guitars from Lea, including these Precision-bass and Jazz-bass models. The dark-sparkle P-style rocks with GHS flatwound strings, while the natural-finish J-style has roundwounds.
Emperor's New Groove
Blankenship just got these brand-new Emperor cabinets, through which he cranks his Mesa Boogie WD-800 Subway heads.
Tom Blankenship’s Pedalboard
Like James, Blankenship uses a GigRig QuarterMaster to jump between his effects. After his Boss TU-3, that includes an Origin Effects Cali76, DigiTech Whammy Ricochet, Pepers’ Pedals Humongous Fuzz, MXR Bass Octave Deluxe, Tronographic Rusty Box, and EHX Bassballs Nano. A Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus lights things up, and a Radial SGI TX keeps the signal squeaky clean.
Shop My Morning Jacket's Rig
EarthQuaker Devices host Echo Reverb Pedal
ISP Technologies DECI-MATE Micro Noise Reduction Pedal
Electro-Harmonix Mel9 Tape Replay Machine Pedal
EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery Envelope Filter Pedal
Universal Audio UAFX Starlight Echo Station Delay Pedal
Universal Audio UAFX Astra Modulation Machine Pedal
Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster