Hollywood, CA (January 20, 2017) -- Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC) announces the launch of several additions to its ever-expanding acoustic guitar business for Winter NAMM 2017 in Anaheim, CA. Fender will showcase its growing Paramount Series, which adds the PM-3 All-Mahogany NE Triple-0 and PM-2 All-Mahogany NE Parlor to its widely received series created for players of all levels and will debut its new Classic Design Series, which includes 11 upgraded models with features catering to the new player. NAMM show attendees will have the opportunity to see—and experience—Fender’s newest upgrades to its acoustic guitar category designed for artists at any stage of their musical journey.
The Paramount Series, which launched in 2016, has continued to resonate with artists across multiple genres, and at under $1,000 at retail, this lineup of acoustics is ideal for artists looking for a reliable and great-sounding tool for their writing, traveling, performing and recording needs. Continuing on that success, Fender introduces new all-mahogany models, both of which feature authentic Fender acoustic sound and visual appeal this Winter NAMM 2017. With open-pore solid mahogany tops, scalloped X-bracing and rich, all-solid mahogany back and sides, the two new Paramount models satisfy all players searching for an inspiring guitar.
Designed in the U.S., the Classic Design Series acoustic instruments are built to deliver a bold playing experience and offer premium features for the entry-level player. Upgraded key features include solid spruce or mahogany tops, a brand new easy-to-play neck shape, and rolled fretboard edges. Several of the new models also feature a Fishman Presys preamp, as well as both left-hand and right-hand options. The result is acoustic guitars with enhanced playability at an accessible price point ideal for introducing first-time and aspiring players to a high-quality acoustic product experience and the trusted Fender brand. “At Winter NAMM, we are proud to offer a bit of everything for musicians at every stage in their musical journey ,” said Billy Martinez, Vice President Category, Acoustics. “On the heels of a successful 2016 debut, we are excited to add new models to our Paramount All-Mahogany line-up, including a parlor and triple-0 that embody the craftsmanship of the series. We're also introducing the new Classic Design Series, which boasts new and traditional body shapes, solid tops, rolled fretboard edges, and an easy-to-play neck, to continue creating our vision for a new generation of acoustics!”
New Paramount Models: Launching March 2017:
PM-3 All-Mahogany NE Triple-0, Natural – $599
An expansion of the Paramount Series acoustic guitars, the PM-3 All-Mahogany NE Triple-0, Natural combines simple styling with an organic finish to create a highly responsive instrument. Features include an open-pore mahogany top, scalloped X-bracing and rich all-solid mahogany back and sides. Also included is a fast-playing “C”-shaped mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard and bridge, and compensated bone saddle. The model includes a deluxe hardshell case and humidifier and is available in natural finish.
PM-2 All-Mahogany NE Parlor, Natural – $599
The PM-2 All-Mahogany Parlor NE, Natural is carefully crafted for superior tone, high performance and earthy visual appeal – it will satisfy all players searching for an inspiring guitar. Features include an open-pore mahogany top, scalloped X-bracing, and rich all-solid mahogany back and sides. The fast-playing “C”-shaped mahogany neck and rosewood fretboard are crafted to accommodate any playing style and the durable rosewood bridge and compensated bone saddle add a rich note to the warm voice of the guitar. The model includes a deluxe hardshell case and humidifier, and is available in natural finish.
New Classic Design Models: Launching March 2017:
CC-60S – Right-Hand & Left-Hand – $199.99
The CC-60S right-hand and left-hand models are the perfect choice for the up-and-coming player at any beginner level whether they are just learning or a budding singer-songwriter. The new model offers upgraded features including a solid-spruce top, rolled fretboard edges, and a new easy-to-play neck shape. The entry-level Classic Design concert-sized model also features mahogany back and sides and a rosewood fretboard. The right-hand model is available in natural and 3-color sunburst finish, and the left-hand model is available in natural finish.
CC-60SCE – Right-Hand & Left-Hand – $299.99
The CC-60SCE right-hand and left-hand models are great choices for the growing musician at any beginner level that will allow them to shine when strumming or fingerpicking. The new model offers upgraded features including a solid-spruce top, rolled fretboard edges and a new easy-to-play neck shape. The mid-level Classic Design concert-sized model also features a cutaway body and an onboard Fishman pickup, preamp, and tuner. The right-hand model is available in natural and black finish, and the left-hand model is available in natural finish.
CC-140SCE – $399.99
The CC-140SCE is perfect for the beginner or budding singer-songwriter and will shine while fingerpicking or strumming. The new model offers upgraded features including a solid-spruce top, rolled fretboard edges, brand new easy-to-play neck shape, and a hardshell case. The top-tier Classic Design concert-sized model also features a cutaway body, a feature-packed Fishman Presys preamp, rosewood back and sides, and a tortoiseshell pickguard. The model is available in natural or sunburst finish.
CD-60S – Right-Hand & Left-Hand – $199.99
The CD-60S is a great choice for any aspiring player and delivers a bold playing experience. The new right-hand and left-hand models offer upgraded features including a solid-spruce top, rolled fretboard edges, and a new easy-to-play neck shape. The entry-level dreadnought-sized model also features mahogany back and sides and a rosewood fretboard. The right-hand model is available in black or natural finish and the left-hand model is available in natural finish.
CD-60S All-Mahogany – $199.99
The re-designed CD-60S All-Mahogany dreadnought is an entry-level Classic Design model that is a great selection for any aspiring player. The model offers features including a solid-mahogany top, rolled fretboard edges, and a new easy-to-play neck shape. Also featured in the new model are mahogany back and sides and a rosewood fretboard.
CD-60SCE Right-Hand & Left-Hand– $299.99
The mid-level CD-60SCE Classic Design right-hand and left-hand models provide traditional full-bodied tone with plenty of projection and represent the perfect choice for any aspiring player. The model offers features including a solid-spruce top, rolled fretboard edges, and brand new easy-to-play neck shape. Also, featured with the new models are a cutaway body for easy upper-fret access, as well as an onboard Fishman pickup, preamp, and tuner. The right-hand model is available in Black or Natural finish and the left-hand model is available in natural finish.
CD-60SCE All-Mahogany – $299.99
The re-designed dreadnought-sized CD-60SCE All-Mahogany guitar provides traditional full-bodied tone with plenty of projection and is a great choice for the aspiring player. The new guitar offers updated features including solid-mahogany top, rolled fretboard edges and brand new easy-to-play neck shape. The model also features a cutaway body for easy upper-fret access as well as an onboard Fishman preamp and tuner, and is available in natural finish.
CD-60SCE 12-String – $299.99
The re-designed CD-60SCE dreadnought is now available in a 12-string option, providing classic jangle and bell-like sound at a great value. The model offers the same exceptional features as its 6-string counterpart including a solid-spruce top, rolled fretboard edges, and brand new easy-to-play neck shape. The updated model also features a cutaway body for easy upper-fret access as well as an onboard Fishman preamp and tuner, and is available in natural finish.
CD-140SCE – $399.99
The CD-140SCE is a top-tier Classic Design model that provides traditional full-bodied tone with plenty of projection and is a great choice for any aspiring player. The updated model offers premium features including a solid-spruce top, rolled fretboard edges, brand new easy-to-play neck shape and a hardshell case. Other features include a cutaway body for easy upper-fret access, a feature-packed Fishman Presys preamp, elegant rosewood back and sides, and a tortoiseshell pickguard. The model is offered in natural or sunburst finish.
CD-140SCE All-Mahogany – $399.99
The dreadnought-sized body of the CD-140SCE provides traditional full-bodied tone with plenty of projection and premium design. Features include a solid-mahogany top, rolled fretboard edges, brand new easy-to-play neck shape, and a hardshell case. Other features offered include a cutaway body for easy upper-fret access, a feature-packed Fishman Presys preamp, elegant rosewood back and sides, and a tortoiseshell pickguard. The model is available in natural finish.
CD-140SCE 12-String – $399.99
The re-designed CD-140SCE is available in a 12-string option, providing classic jangle and bell-like sound with premium appointments. The updated model includes a solid-spruce top, rolled fretboard edges, brand new easy-to-play neck shape and a hardshell case. Other features offered include a cutaway body for easy upper-fret access, a feature-packed Fishman Presys preamp, elegant rosewood back and sides, and a tortoiseshell pickguard. The model is available in natural finish.
For more information:
Fender
Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, EGC Chessie in hands, coaxing some nasty tones from his Hiwatt.
The Jesus Lizard’s sixth album, Blue, served as the band’s final statement from the frontlines of noisy rock for the next 26 years. By the time of their dissolution in 1999, they’d earned a reputation for extreme performances chock full of hard-hitting, machine-like grooves delivered by bassist David Wm. Sims and, at their conclusion, drummer Mac McNeilly, at times aided and at other times punctured by the frontline of guitarist Duane Denison’s incisive, dissonant riffing, and presided over by the cantankerous howl of vocalist David Yow. In the years since, performative, thrilling bands such as Pissed Jeans, METZ, and Idles have built upon the Lizard’s musical foundation.
Denison has kept himself plenty busy over the last couple decades, forming the avant-rock supergroup Tomahawk—with vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn (both from Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier of Helmet—and alongside various other projects including Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III. The Jesus Lizard eventually reunited, but until now have only celebrated their catalog, never releasing new jams.
The Jesus Lizard, from left: bassist David Wm. Sims, singer David Yow, drummer Mac McNeilly, and guitarist Duane Denison.
Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Back in 2018, Denison, hanging in a hotel room with Yow, played a riff on his unplugged electric guitar that caught the singer’s ear. That song, called “West Side,” will remain unreleased for now, but Denison explains: “He said, ‘Wow, that’s really good. What is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s just some new thing. Why don’t we do an album?’” From those unassuming beginnings, the Jesus Lizard’s creative juices started flowing.
So, how does a band—especially one who so indelibly captured the ineffable energy of live rock performance—prepare to get a new record together 26 years after their last? Back in their earlier days, the members all lived together in a band house, collectively tending to the creative fire when inspiration struck. All these years later, they reside in different cities, so their process requires sending files back and forth and only meeting up for occasional demo sessions over the course of “three or four years.”
“When the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.” —Duane Denison
the Jesus Lizard "Alexis Feels Sick"
Distance creates an obstacle to striking while the proverbial iron is hot, but Denison has a method to keep things energized: “Practice loud.” The guitarist professes the importance of practice, in general, and especially with a metronome. “We keep very detailed records of what the beats per minute of these songs are,” he explains. “To me, the way to do it is to run it to a Bluetooth speaker and crank it, and then crank your amp. I play a little at home, but when the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.”
It’s a proven solution. On Rack—recorded at Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle studio with producer Paul Allen—the band sound as vigorous as ever, proving they’ve not only remained in step with their younger selves, but they may have surpassed it with faders cranked. “Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style,” explains Allen. “The conviction in his playing that he is known for from his recordings in the ’80s and ’90s is still 100-percent intact and still driving full throttle today.”
“I try to be really, really precise,” he says. “I think we all do when it comes to the basic tracks, especially the rhythm parts. The band has always been this machine-like thing.” Together, they build a tension with Yow’s careening voice. “The vocals tend to be all over the place—in and out of tune, in and out of time,” he points out. “You’ve got this very free thing moving around in the foreground, and then you’ve got this very precise, detailed band playing behind it. That’s why it works.”
Before Rack, the Jesus Lizard hadn’t released a new record since 1998’s Blue.
Denison’s guitar also serves as the foreground foil to Yow’s unhinged raving, as on “Alexis Feels Sick,” where they form a demented harmony, or on the midnight creep of “What If,” where his vibrato-laden melodies bolster the singer’s unsettled, maniacal display. As precise as his riffs might be, his playing doesn’t stay strictly on the grid. On the slow, skulking “Armistice Day,” his percussive chording goes off the rails, giving way to a solo that slices that groove like a chef’s knife through warm butter as he reorganizes rock ’n’ roll histrionics into his own cut-up vocabulary.
“During recording sessions, his first solo takes are usually what we decide to keep,” explains Allen. “Listen to Duane’s guitar solos on Jack White’s ‘Morning, Noon, and Night,’ Tomahawk’s ‘Fatback,’ and ‘Grind’ off Rack. There’s a common ‘contained chaos’ thread among them that sounds like a harmonic Rubik’s cube that could only be solved by Duane.”
“Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style.” —Rack producer Paul Allen
To encapsulate just the right amount of intensity, “I don’t over practice everything,” the guitarist says. Instead, once he’s created a part, “I set it aside and don’t wear it out.” On Rack, it’s obvious not a single kilowatt of musical energy was lost in the rehearsal process.
Denison issues his noisy masterclass with assertive, overdriven tones supporting his dissonant voicings like barbed wire on top of an electric fence. The occasional application of slapback delay adds a threatening aura to his exacting riffage. His tones were just as carefully crafted as the parts he plays, and he relied mostly on his signature Electrical Guitar Company Chessie for the sessions, though a Fender Uptown Strat also appears, as well as a Taylor T5Z, which he chose for its “cleaner, hyper-articulated sound” on “Swan the Dog.” Though he’s been spotted at recent Jesus Lizard shows with a brand-new Powers Electric—he points out he played a demo model and says, “I just couldn’t let go of it,” so he ordered his own—that wasn’t until tracking was complete.
Duane Denison's Gear
Denison wields his Powers Electric at the Blue Room in Nashville last June.
Photo by Doug Coombe
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company Chessie
- Fender Uptown Strat
- Taylor T5Z
- Gibson ES-135
- Powers Electric
Amps
- Hiwatt Little J
- Hiwatt 2x12 cab with Fane F75 speakers
- Fender Super-Sonic combo
- Early ’60s Fender Bassman
- Marshall 1987X Plexi Reissue
- Victory Super Sheriff head
- Blackstar HT Stage 60—2 combos in stereo with Celestion Neo Creamback speakers and Mullard tubes
Effects
- Line 6 Helix
- Mantic Flex Pro
- TC Electronic G-Force
- Menatone Red Snapper
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Orbiters .0105 and .011 sets
- Dunlop celluloid white medium
- Sun Studios yellow picks
He ran through various amps—Marshalls, a Fender Bassman, two Fender Super-Sonic combos, and a Hiwatt Little J—at Audio Eagle. Live, if he’s not on backline gear, you’ll catch him mostly using 60-watt Blackstar HT Stage 60s loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. And while some boxes were stomped, he got most of his effects from a Line 6 Helix. “All of those sounds [in the Helix] are modeled on analog sounds, and you can tweak them endlessly,” he explains. “It’s just so practical and easy.”
The tools have only changed slightly since the band’s earlier days, when he favored Travis Beans and Hiwatts. Though he’s started to prefer higher gain sounds, Allen points out that “his guitar sound has always had teeth with a slightly bright sheen, and still does.”
“Honestly, I don’t think my tone has changed much over the past 30-something years,” Denison says. “I tend to favor a brighter, sharper sound with articulation. Someone sent me a video I had never seen of myself playing in the ’80s. I had a band called Cargo Cult in Austin, Texas. What struck me about it is it didn’t sound terribly different than what I sound like right now as far as the guitar sound and the approach. I don’t know what that tells you—I’m consistent?”
YouTube It
The Jesus Lizard take off at Nashville’s Blue Room this past June with “Hide & Seek” from Rack.
LR Baggs HiFi Duet High-fidelity Pickup and Microphone Mixing System
"When a guitar is “the one,” you know it. It feels right in your hands and delivers the sounds you hear in your head. It becomes your faithful companion, musical soulmate, and muse. It helps you express your artistic vision. We designed the Les Paul Studio to be precisely the type of guitar: the perfect musical companion, the guitar you won’t be able to put down. The one guitar you’ll be able to rely on every time and will find yourself reaching for again and again. For years, the Les Paul Studio has been the choice of countless guitarists who appreciate the combination of the essential Les Paul features–humbucking pickups, a glued-in, set neck, and a mahogany body with a maple cap–at an accessible price and without some of the flashier and more costly cosmetic features of higher-end Les Paul models."
Now, the Les Paul Studio has been reimagined. It features an Ultra-Modern weight-relieved mahogany body, making it lighter and more comfortable to play, no matter how long the gig or jam session runs. The carved, plain maple cap adds brightness and definition to the overall tone and combines perfectly with the warmth and midrange punch from the mahogany body for that legendary Les Paul sound that has been featured on countless hit recordings and on concert stages worldwide. The glued-in mahogany neck provides rock-solid coupling between the neck and body for increased resonance and sustain. The neck features a traditional heel and a fast-playing SlimTaper profile, and it is capped with an abound rosewood fretboard that is equipped with acrylic trapezoid inlays and 22 medium jumbo frets. The 12” fretboard radius makes both rhythm chording and lead string bending equally effortless, andyou’re going to love how this instrument feels in your hands. The Vintage Deluxe tuners with Keystone buttons add to the guitar’s classic visual appeal, and together with the fully adjustable aluminum Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridge, lightweight aluminum Stop Bar tailpiece, andGraph Tech® nut, help to keep the tuning stability nice and solid so you can spend more time playing and less time tuning. The Gibson Les Paul Studio is offered in an Ebony, BlueberryBurst, Wine Red, and CherrySunburst gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finishes and arrives with an included soft-shell guitar case.
It packs a pair of Gibson’s Burstbucker Pro pickups and a three-way pickup selector switch that allows you to use either pickup individually or run them together. Each of the two pickups is wired to its own volume control, so you can blend the sound from the pickups together in any amount you choose. Each volume control is equipped with a push/pull switch for coil tapping, giving you two different sounds from each pickup, and each pickup also has its own individual tone control for even more sonic options. The endless tonal possibilities, exceptional sustain, resonance, and comfortable playability make the Les Paul Studio the one guitar you can rely on for any musical genre or scenario.
For more information, please visit gibson.com.
Introducing the Reimagined Gibson Les Paul Studio - YouTube
Phat Machine
The Phat Machine
The Phat Machine is designed to deliver the tone and responsiveness of a vintage germanium fuzz with improved temperature stability with no weird powering issues. Loaded with both a germanium and a silicon transistor, the Phat Machine offers the warmth and cleanup of a germanium fuzz but with the bite of a silicon pedal. It utilizes classic Volume and Fuzz control knobs, as well as a four-position Thickness control to dial-in any guitar and amp combo. Also included is a Bias trim pot and a Kill switch that allows battery lovers to shut off the battery without pulling the input cord.
Silk Worm Deluxe Overdrive
The Silk Worm Deluxe -- along with its standard Volume/Gain/Tone controls -- has a Bottom trim pot to dial in "just the right amount of thud with no mud at all: it’s felt more than heard." It also offers a Studio/Stage diode switch that allows you to select three levels of compression.
Both pedals offer the following features:
- 9-volt operation via standard DC external supply or internal battery compartment
- True bypass switching with LED indicator
- Pedalboard-friendly top mount jacks
- Rugged, tour-ready construction and super durable powder coated finish
- Made in the USA
Static Effectors’ Street Series pedals carry a street price of $149 each. They are available at select retailers and can also be purchased directly from the Static Effectors online store at www.staticeffectors.com.