Mdou Moctar has led his Tuareg crew around the world, but their hometown performances in Agadez, Niger, last year were their most treasured.
Mdou Moctar, the performing moniker of Tuareg guitar icon Mahamadou “Mdou” Souleymane, has played some pretty big gigs. Alongside guitarist Ahmoudou Madassane, drummer Souleymane Ibrahim, and bassist Mikey Coltun, Moctar has led his band’s kinetic blend of rock, psych, and Tuareg cultural traditions like assouf and takamba to Newport Folk Festival, Pitchfork Music Festival, and, just this past April, to the luxe fields of Indio, California, for Coachella. Off-kilter indie-rock darlings Parquet Courts brought them across the United States in 2022, after which they hit Europe for a run of headline dates.
Mdou Moctar - "Oh, France" (Official Audio)
But the band’s most treasured performances to date weren’t any of these, the stuff of Western musicians’ dreams. They were free, impromptu generator shows around Agadez, a city in Niger’s Sahara desert. They were the type of gig any DIY punk musician knows well: no stage, no light show, no fancy PA or mixing—just some guitars and amps, a drum kit, some flood lights. At one of the first shows, the band set up their gear against the beige walls of a school, and soon a crowd of locals—most of them Tuareg, an Indigenous ethnic group that lives across the Sahara region—had kettled the band in, anxious to hear the music. Kids hung out a window of the school, cell phones alight as they documented the gig. The band tasked a couple local friends with recording the set.
It’s thanks to them we get a glimpse of the blistering, pure power of that night with the performance of “Imouhar” uploaded to YouTube. It’s the second track from Mdou Moctar’s sixth full-length record, Funeral for Justice, released on May 3. It starts at a mid-tempo clip, with Moctar’s lacerating, hammer-on- and pull-off-heavy shredding soaring above Ibrahim’s tight groove and Madassane’s driving rhythm chording. People dance and clap and grin as the song picks up speed, like a runaway train on a steep hill, free and wild and reckless.
On a video call from a New York apartment, Moctar, speaking in French through a translator, says the shows had “historical importance” for the band: “Being able to be in Agadez, and having our people around us, supporting us, and the youth being there was so special for us. Also, to inspire young people for the future. We had tried to do that since [our first album] Anar, right up to [2021’s] Afrique Victime, but we hadn’t managed to do it in that way before. This time, we really managed to. It made us very proud of our work, and the way we were able to work.”
Decades of oppression, violence, and a constantly darkening political horizon for Tuareg people—and Africans in general—have led Moctar to declare a Funeral for Justice.
Coltun, who grew up in Washington, D.C., and is the band’s only non-Tuareg member, started following Mdou’s music while playing in Mali in 2011, and he connected with the guitarist via the Sahel Sounds label shortly after. Coltun was managing the band’s 2017 U.S. tour when Moctar invited him to join the group. Every time he goes with the band to Niger, Coltun says he sees kids mimicking Mdou’s style, a Saharan recasting and mashing-up of Eddie Van Halen’s volcanic tapping techniques. “It’s turned into his own style, and there’s kids around playing in that style,” says Coltun. Madassane’s rhythm playing, too, has left a mark. “Ahmoudou’s right hand, when he gets going, is so fast, and not a lot of people in Agadez can play that fast for that long and be relaxed. That’s really inspiring, to see all that stuff.”
“I’m an eternal student…. I never sit back and say, ‘Now I know how to play guitar.’” —Mdou Moctar
Funeral for Justice is, like everything the band does, rooted in an uncommonly keen sense of place, people, and responsibility. Sung almost entirely in Tamasheq, a Tuareg language, the record puts centuries of imperialism, colonialism, and oppression in its crosshairs. In the late 1800s, European powers endeavored to control Africa’s west coast, resulting in the French occupation and colonization of countries like Mali, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and Niger. Funeral for Justice leaves no question as to the impact of France’s past and present subjugation of Africans on the continent. “Occupiers are carving up your lands while you watch / Gallantly marching all over your resources / Why is that?” Moctar, singing in Tamasheq, demands of Africa’s governments on the opening cut. Later, on “Oh France,” the Tamasheq vocals mourn, “Youth around the world is thriving, meanwhile my people’s fate remains uncertain / The world rises and falls, meanwhile my people remain immobile.”
Even simply singing in Tamasheq is an act against dominion. “The Tamasheq language is starting to disappear because our youth don’t speak it well,” says Madassane. Moctar concurs. “They’re interested in other languages, mostly French, which is a language that has dominated almost all the African languages,” he adds. “They think that if you speak [French], it means you’re civilized or modernized somehow.” Moctar references the sad case of Tifinagh, a Tuareg script that’s almost disappeared. “We really want to give hope to our youth with our music and make them understand that they need to take care of this language, that there’s nothing more valuable than this. We want to say to the world that this is what constitutes our tradition and origins, and there’s nothing more precious.”
Mdou Moctar's Gear
Moctar and his bandmates prefer Fender instruments, whose bite and immediate presence are a perfect match for the music’s politics.
Photo by Mike White
Guitars
- 2018 American Stratocaster (white) with Lollar Strat Special S and Sustainiac pickups
Amps
- Orange Rockerverb 100 (live)
- Orange 4x12 cabs (live)
- Soldano SLO-100 head (studio)
- Traynor vintage 4x12 cab (studio)
Effects
- TC Electronic PolyTune
- Union Tube and Transistor Shiny
- Analog Man Sun Face
- EarthQuaker Devices Acapulco Gold
- Champion Leccy Rocktar Fuzz
- Analog Man Mini Chorus
- Boss PH-3
- Boss DD-3
Strings and Picks
- D'Addario NYXL .010s
The musical roots from which Mdou Moctar (which is the guitarist’s nickname, but also the band’s name) have launched their furious, two-guitar attack can be traced back to the Sahara desert in northwestern African countries like Niger, Mali, Libya, and Algeria. When France began to occupy the region in the early 1900s, the nomadic Tuareg population was forced under their rule until the French retreated from the area in the ’50s and ’60s. The lands where the Tuareg traditionally lived were divided between nations with bigger populations and stronger political infrastructure, so the minority Tuaregs were once again on the back foot. They rebelled, trying to establish independence and liberation against new, French-installed governments. Malian governments crushed the uprisings brutally. Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, a young Tuareg man, fled Mali after his father was executed by government forces for participating in the rebellions. Years later, while playing music in militant Tuareg camps, Ag Alhabib formed the pioneering assouf-rock outfit Tinariwen.
“Ahmoudou’s right hand, when he gets going, is so fast, and not a lot of people in Agadez can play that fast for that long and be relaxed.” —Mikey Coltun
Like Moctar, Tinariwen injected rock and psychedelic sounds into the Tuareg struggle, electrifying their musical practices with Western pop and rock instrumentations. They branded their music “asuf,” a Tamasheq word that speaks to the loneliness, longing, and pain that seemed to characterize Tuareg life. Tinariwen’s bassist, Eyadou ag Leche, told an interviewer in 2011 that when they eventually heard the music of Jimi Hendrix, they recognized something common in his playing, a bond between American rock music and the Tuareg experience. “It was almost as if I had known that music from the day I was born,” he said in 2011. “I’m told that a lot of the Africans who went to North America came from West Africa, from our part of the world. So it’s all the same connection. I think that any people who have lived through something that is very hard feel this asuf, this pain, this longing.”
These are the musical and cultural contexts that shaped Moctar. He DIYed his first guitar from some wood and bike brake cables, and his first recordings were shared via Bluetooth on peer-to-peer cell-phone networks across northern Africa. Sahel Sounds, a Portland, Oregon, record label focusing on music from the Sahara, included one of Moctar’s tunes on a 2011 compilation release, then re-released his 2008 debut, along with two other full-length records and an original, Prince-inspired movie soundtrack. Third Man Records took notice and put out the band’s 2019 live record, M’dou Moctar: Blue Stage Session, then major independent Matador signed Moctar to release his 2021 American breakout LP, Afrique Victime.
Ahmoudou Madassane’s Gear
The music of Mdou Moctar spread regionally in Africa before being scooped by American label Sahel Sounds. After a live release on Third Man Records, the band signed with acclaimed indie Matador.
Photo by Ebru Yildiz
Guitars
- American Stratocaster (custom metallic green) with Lollar Strat Sixty-Four pickups
- 1980s Squier Stratocaster (red) with Lollar Strat Sixty-Four pickups
Amps
- Orange Rockerverb 50 (live)
- Orange 4x12 cab (live)
- Vintage Fender tweed Deluxe (studio)
- Vintage Fender Deluxe Reverb (studio)
- Vintage Fender Champ (studio)
Effects
- TC Electronic PolyTune
- Analog Man King of Tone
- EarthQuaker Devices Erupter
- Maxon PT-999
- Boss DD-7
Strings and Picks
- D'Addario NYXL .010s
The follow-up, Funeral for Justice, was recorded between an upstate New York rental house, Coltun’s apartment, and Agadez. It ups the outfit’s production value, and often, the pulse rate, too. A mid-boosted slam of chording opens the record’s title track, which drops into a crackling 6/8 swagger—a lot of the record plays out in a characteristic 3/4 or 6/8 groove—and introduces the band’s familiar call-and-response vocal style. The lo-fi, minor-key intro of “Imouhar,” which means something akin to “comrade” in Tamasheq, feels like a Tuareg analog to the slick flourishes and lead runs pioneered by original blues players of the American South. But soon enough, an electric note rises and howls, and the band crashes in like a thundering steam engine.
There’s plenty of noise and dynamic movement this time out. “Sousoume Tamasheq” starts with a screeching blast of rapid-picked notes that brings Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” to mind—though unlike Jimi’s distinct solo lines, Moctar’s leads are often incomprehensibly fast. The dark, simmering resentment of “Oh France” bursts open halfway through with a melody and timing change that thrashes upward in tempo until its climax. Then there’s the clap-and-percussion-driven desert-blues of “Imajighen,” as invigorating a modern blues song as you can find, or the acoustic noodling intro of closer “Modern Slaves,” which ducks and weaves between minor and major key over its slow, determined groove. The lyrics, meanwhile, articulate the absurd cruelty of modern inequity and inaction: “My people are crying while you laugh / All you do is watch.”
Throughout, one of the more stunning qualities is the duality of Moctar’s lead-guitar work. It’s difficult to figure out how he strings so many notes together in such frantic, precise phrases, like little strikes of lightning across the fretboard. But part of the magic of Mdou Moctar’s music is that these leads aren’t so much scene-stealers as one of a handful of bubbling, explosive elements, all ricocheting off one another. And while Moctar’s style seems by now distinct and singular to our ears, he insists he’s not content where he is. “I’m an eternal student,” says Moctar. “I’m always curious to try new things within my style. I never sit back and say, ‘Now I know how to play guitar.’”
Mikey Coltun's Gear
Moctar follows a Tuareg tradition of mixing rebellion and assouf guitar music, a lineage that originated in the 1970s with the Malian Tuareg rock outfit Tinariwen.
Photo by Nelson Espinal
Guitars
- 1966 Fender Mustang bass (white)
- 1971 Fender Mustang Bass (green)
Amps
- 1970s Ampeg SVT (live)
- Orange 8x10 cab (live)
- Fender 8x10 cab (live)
- 1970s Ampeg V4 (studio)
- Traynor 2x15 cab (studio)
- Ampeg B-15 (studio)
Effects
- TC Electronic PolyTune
- Boss OC-2
- EarthQuaker Devices Blumes
- Analog Man Sun Face
- Union Tube and Transistor Sub Buzz
- Aguilar Grape Phaser
Strings and Picks
- DR Strings Fat-Beams .045–.105
“We really want to give hope to our youth with our music and make them understand that they need to take care of this language, that there’s nothing more valuable than this.” —Mdou Moctar
The record’s grave title, however, does imply a finality. Funeral for Justice is not just a rhetorical phrase; Moctar and his bandmates really mean it. This record is frenetic and bright, but at its heart, it is a work of mourning. It’s a product of how the Tuaregs—and Africans in general—have been treated for centuries. “I don’t see justice on this earth,” says Moctar. “If you look at a European or an American citizen, they seem to have more value compared to an African citizen.
“The world is a really scary place for us today,” he continues. “War technology is progressing, and each country is just trying to become stronger than its neighbor, as if that was their priority. None of that makes sense to us. Why isn’t the world focusing on how to make life better for people instead of bombing them? Bombing innocents who don’t even make two dollars a day with bombs that are worth millions. Why are these resources not being used to make this world a better, more wonderful place?
“All these leaders know that doing all that would be possible, but instead they prefer to manipulate people into believing it’s not, and to continue to oppress the weak, and make the strong people in this world even stronger. That’s what makes us say that justice doesn’t exist.”
YouTube It
Flanked by comrades and youth, Mdou Moctar blast through a riotous performance of “Imouhar” at an outdoor generator show in Agadez, Niger.
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Elliott Sharp is a dapper dude. Not a dandy, mind you, but an elegant gentleman.
I am writing this piece for a guitar magazine, so, necessarily, I must serve up info that is guitar-centric. And I can do that, at least a little bit. But Elliott is also a noted composer, runs his own little record label, plays woodwinds proficiently, is a guitar builder/tinkerer, author, gracious supporter of other musicians’ efforts, family man, and killer blues player—a blues scholar, in fact. So where do we, the public, conditioned to needing categories, pigeonholes, and easy assessment signals, put Elliott Sharp—an artist with a powerful work ethic and a long, illustrious career of making mind-bending sounds and conceptual works? How about putting him in the pantheon of the maverick and the multifaceted? Surely this pantheon exists somewhere! In mind, in heart. To those for whom such things resonate and inspire, I bring you Elliott Sharp.
One can obviously go to the information superhighway to find info on Elliott, and to hear his music, so I won’t go into too many details about where he was born (Cleveland) and when (March 1, 1951; as of this writing, Elliott is 74), or what he is best known for (being a crucial figure in the downtown New York City scene from 1979 to the present). He is Berlin Prize winner and a Guggenheim Fellow (among other honors). And I have never asked him what strings and picks he uses, so maybe I have already blown it here. But I realize now, having taken on this assignment, that inherent in writing about and trying to explain Elliott Sharp is an implicit TMI factor. There is so much going on here, so much diverse information that could be imparted, that I would not be the least bit surprised if some readers eventually glaze over a bit and start thinking of their own life’s efforts and goals as rather paltry. I get that! Although you shouldn’t.
E# @NaturalHabitat
Here, now, is my portrait of Elliott, accompanied by what I imagine is a day in the life of Elliott when he’s at home in New York City.
Elliott Sharp is a dapper dude. Not a dandy, mind you, but an elegant gentleman. He, like so many in New York and in the world of music/art/guitar, favors dark-hued clothing (yeah, a preponderance of black) and is most often seen wearing a classic slouch hat of obvious quality. He relocated from Buffalo via Western Massachusetts to lower Manhattan in 1979 to a zone that was, back then, quite treacherously decrepit, in an apartment that offered only an hour or so of heat in the winter, etc., etc. It was cheap, and things were always happening, and, in fact, it was the 1950s domicile of William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac.The area became the nexus of an ever-expanding circle of iconoclastic, experimental artists of many stripes.
Sharp plays what passes for a fairly staid instrument in his collection: a bass and guitar doubleneck, in 1992.
Elliott is still in that building in the East Village, though it is now only his workplace and not his living space. I am trying to remember exactly when I met Elliott, but it was probably about 25 years ago, and he still had only the one small, original apartment and a shared music space in the Garment District. I, like countless others before and after me, stayed in that East Village apartment whenever I needed a place to crash and Elliott was elsewhere, and eventually he was able to secure the next door apartment and expand his space. This is where Elliott Sharp works every day that he is not touring, pretty much 9 to 6. The place is a bit funky and dusty, and it is filled with instruments, amps (some classics, like a mid-’60s Princeton Reverb and a tweed Champ), and other tools accumulated over many decades—in spite of the many times that certain ones had to be sold to keep bread on the table.
When he’s not composing, scoring films, recording other artists, or gigging with the bands he has been in or led for the last several decades (Mofungo, Carbon/Orchestra Carbon, SysOrk, Terraplane, The Bootstrappers, Aggragat), Elliott tinkers with guitars, pedals, mandolins. Elliott is, to me, the king of guitar transformation, and his tinkering is stunningly Frankensteinian as he guts, rebuilds, and alters all kinds of stringed instruments, both electric and acoustic. He recently told me that in the ’60s he built fuzz boxes out of tobacco tins to make money. How cool would it be to have one of those now?? If one does a search on Elliott Sharp, many photos will reveal what I'm talking about: the handcrafted doubleneck he was most often seen playing in the ’80s (there was maybe more than one), 8-string guitars, modified Strat-type guitars with completely different pickups.. He also has a fancy guitar or two, such as his Koll fanned-fret 8-string, upon which he has played many a solo recital. During Covid time,, things were a little slow in the cash-flow department and, as a family man with twins, a little extra income was needed. So Elliott started building really cool-looking guitars out of cheap
ones and parts from wherever and refinishing them in hip and attractive ways and called them Mutantu. He sold them to friends and friends of friends. Yours truly basically only changes strings on his guitars, appealing helplessly to experts to do any kind of work on his guitars and amps, afraid of costly errors. The maverick and multifaceted among us, like Elliott, possess no such fear.
Even a leader in experimental 6-string gets a little guitar face now and then—especially when he’s playing blues.
Photo by Scott Friedlander
So, back to that promised day in the life of Elliott Sharp (as imagined, with some degree of knowledge, by me): It’s early morning, and there is family to contend with. No bohemian lollygagging! So it’s feed the kids breakfast, do what parents must do. Then it’s off to the office (his studio), so Elliott dons a fine gray shirt (is that silk?), dark trousers, coat, and hat, and walks north from the family apartment on nearly the lowest point of eastern Manhattan to the East Village. The traffic and endless refurbishing of the Williamsburg Bridge roars familiarly overhead, the East River flows, and eventually a river of another kind, Houston Street, is crossed. Up the stairs to the fifth floor and the studio door is unlocked. Espresso is made. (There will be more of this.) The computer is turned on. And then ... who knows? Anything could be on the docket, but some sort of work will ensue for a good eight hours. Maybe a new graphic score for a German symphony is in the works (some of these have become visual artworks, too), or maybe it's time to try another mix of that Terraplane track, the one with Elliott’s friend, hero, and inspiration Hubert Sumlin—the one Elliott recorded not long before the famed Howlin’ Wolf guitarist joined his ancestors in the Great Beyond. Or maybe he’s recording a variation on his trio ERR Guitar (where he was originally joined by Marc Ribot and Mary Halvorson), called ERE Guitar Today, with Sally Gates and Tashi Dorji. Could happen—and it did. You can see Elliott’s studio in the ERE Guitar CD booklet.
Or maybe it’s guitar tinkering/building time. Where’s that delightfully chunky neck from China that would be awesome on that fake Tele body that was just refitted with no-name humbuckers (“sounded good once I removed the pickup covers,” Elliott observes) and a resophonic guitar tailpiece? By 5 or 6 it’s time to go home, maybe cook dinner tonight. And then ... my little imagined epic ends with a tasteful cinematic cliché: the dissolve.
The E# Way
Elliott Sharp has techniques that, in some cases, are all his own. No stranger to open tunings, prepared guitar, and other extended techniques, he often utilizes rhythmic, two-hand tapping to create spiraling, hypnotic patterns. His composing over these many years has employed and embraced genetics, Fibonacci numbers, algorithms, and fractal geometry. Though a mathematics and physics know-nothing myself, I see and hear a relationship between these elements as he has applied them to his uncompromisingly avant-garde compositions and these tapping patterns often heard in his solo work. Once he kicks in signal processing, stand back! What one hears sounds like four people (or other species and life forms), and the sensation is exhilarating. Sure, there could also be evidence of (here it comes) skronk (I can't believe I used that word), but Elliott certainly does not reside permanently in that world. Enjoying all kinds of sounds, from the lonesome moan of a resonator guitar to the aleatoric sputterings and squeals of a tormented electric guitar, is something he and I share, after all. Take, for example, two of his latest recordings on his zOaR imprint, Mandorleand Mandocello, which document his solo work on the two instruments, respectively. Both recordings investigate the instruments’ acoustic characteristics before, about half-way through, switching suddenly to electric, ultra-processed sounds. It’s a bracing experience that explains a few things about this man and the breadth of his aesthetic sweep. The sounds bring up images of recombinant DNA (information on which he has also imbued into his work), roiling lava, and the ever-expanding universe. Recommended!
Sharp applies his wicked two-handed-tapping technique to his 8-string, fanned-fret guitar built by Saul Koll.
Photo by Scott Friedlander
So, this might fit into the aforementioned TMI category, but Elliott Sharp puts out a staggering amount of recordings. Every time I see him (which is not often enough), he has a little pile of compact discs for me, often on zOaR. I saw somewhere recently that he has released 165 recordings, but I think there are probably more than that. It’s hard for even the data lords to keep up! But it’s not always Elliott Sharp pieces or improvisation/collaborations on these albums. Other artists whom Elliott knows and respects can be represented, such as Spanish electric guitarist/conceptualizer A. L. Guillén, late bassist/producer Peter Freeman, Italian voice and guitar duo XIPE, or Hardenger fiddle player Agnese Amico—all articulate and singular musicians whom Elliott assists by releasing their music. I am grateful for this. It’s obviously more “work” for Elliott, and he accomplishes it, along with everything else he takes on or imagines doing, with elegant aplomb. Though obviously a nose-to-the-grindstone worker, Elliott is generally low-key and relaxed, even after those espressos.
The last thing I want to write about is Elliott's interpretations of the music of Thelonious Monk. Are you surprised, even after everything else you have just read, that something like that exists? In 2003, Elliott released a solo acoustic guitar recording called Sharp? Monk? Sharp! Monk!, and stunned the world (well, those few who pay attention to such things). However, my first exposure to Elliott's Monk interpretations was the more recent Monkulations, expertly recorded live in Vienna in 2007. (You can hear it on Bandcamp). These recordings are, justifiably I suppose, controversial in certain corners, because they do not adhere to Monk's exact written particulars note-for-note. Yet the mood, gestures, rhythmic wonders, and even the harmonic depth of Thelonious Monk often emerges, and frequently in astonishing ways. I understand why some would take issue with this approach because it departs significantly from the jazz tradition, but I find it remarkably fresh, bold, and so delightfully E#. They reveal an aspect of Elliott’s thinking and playing that is surprising in some ways, but also so him. It is clear to me that Elliott has seriously examined and internalized Monk’s repertoire.
Spring(s) in the garden: Sharp can use just about any tool in his improvisations.
Photo by Norman Westberg
Elliott is an artist who plays more than one instrument, plays them all in unique, startling, and often innovative ways, composes rigorous conceptual works from chamber music to operas, makes electronic music with no guitar, plays mean blues guitar like a swamp rat, authors books (I highly recommend his mostly memoir IrRational Music, and a second book is emerging this fall), builds and modifies guitars and other devices, is stunningly prolific, and is an elegant gentleman. The planet is a better place with him and his work in it. The maverick and multifaceted often have a rough road to tread, as we all know. So check out Elliott Sharp's vast world if any of this seems interesting to you. Thanks, Elliott!
YouTube
Watch Elliott Sharp and Marc Ribot deliver a masterclass in free improvisation at Manhattan’s Cornelia Street Café in 2010—Sharp’s two-handed tapping and slide playing included.
Elliott Sharp’s Favorite Gear
This doubleneck guitar accompanied Sharp on many of his ’80s performances and is one of his earlier experimental instruments, as is this 8-string.
Road
Guitars
• Strandberg 8-string Boden
• 1996 Henderson-Greco 8-string
Amp
• Fender Deluxe Reverb or black-panel Twin Reverb (depending on size of venue)
• Trace-Elliot bass amp w 4x10 cabinet
(live rig uses both amps, run in stereo)
Effects
• Eventide H90 w/ Sonicake expression pedal
• Sonicake Fuzz
• Hotone Komp
• Hotone Blues
• TC Electronic Flashback 2
• VSN Twin Looper
Accessories
• Slides, EBows, springs, metal rods and strips, small wooden and ceramic square plates
Home
Guitars
• 1946 Martin OO-18 acoustic guitar
• 2006 Squier 51 (Sharp explains: “On New Year's Day 2007, I took the twins down to the East River in their stroller. They were 15 months old and knew a few words. As we rolled along, they started shouting “guitar, guitar,” and, sure enough, sticking out of a garbage can was a black Squier 51 that someone had attempted to ritually sacrifice. Brought it home and cleaned it, and it’s become a favorite couch guitar.”)
Obviously, any sound that emerges from the Triple-Course Bass Pantar is likelly to be interesting.
Studio
Guitars and stringed instruments
• Fender 1994 ’50s Telecaster built from a Fender-offered kit
• Mutantum lime green metalflake Strat w/Seymour Duncan Little ’59 pickups
• Mutantum solidbody “manouche” Strat w/classical neck
• Saul Koll custom 8-string
• Rick Turner Renaissance Baritone
• 1966 Epiphone Howard Roberts
• 1965 Harmony Bobkat
• 1984/’96 Heer-Henderson Doubleneck
• 1956 Gibson CF-100 acoustic guitar
• 1968 Hagstrom H8 8-string bass
• Mutantum Norma fretless electric
• Godin Multiac Steel Duet
• 2001 Dell’Arte Grande Bouche
• 1958 Fender Stringmaster 8-string console steel guitar
• 1936 Rickenbacker B6 lap steel
• 1950s Framus Nevada Mandolinetto
• Mutantum Electric Mandocello
• Arches H-Line
• Triple-Course Bass Pantar
Amps
• 1966 Fender black-panel Princeton Reverb
• 1980 Fender 75 (Per Sharp: “Cut down to a head and modded by Matt Wells into a Dumble-ish monster! For recording, it plugs into a 1x10 cab with a Jensen speaker or a Hartke Transporter 2x10 cab
• 1970 Fender Bronco
• 1960 Fender tweed Champ modded by Matt Wells
Effects and Electronics
• Vintage EHX 16-Second Delay w/foot controller
• Eventide H3000
• Eventide PitchFactor
• Lexicon PCM42
• ZVEX Fuzz Factory
• Summit DCL-200 Compressor Limiter
• SSL SiX desktop
• Prescription Electronics Experience
• Zoom Ultra Fuzz
• Korg MS-20 analog synthesizer
• Korg Volca Modular synthesizer
• Make Noise 0-Coast synthesizer
• Moog Moogerfooger Ring Modulator
• Moog Moogerfooger Low-Pass Filter
• Softscience Optical Compressor (for DI recording, custom made by Kevin Hilbiber)
Strings
• Ernie Ball Regular Slinky (.010–.046) or Power Slinky (.011–.048), for conventional guitar.
