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Gallery: Riot Fest 2019

Chicago’s three-day, punk-rock carnival was host to Slayer, Jawbreaker, Raconteurs, Patti Smith, Rise Against, Bob Mould, Rancid, Bikini Kill, Lucero, the Struts, and more. Here are our favorite guitar-related moments from the 15th annual gathering.

Slayer’s Kerry King

Kerry Fucking King gave the crowd one final beatdown, much in part to his 2nd generation signature B.C. Rich that’s loaded with his signature EMG KFK 85 in the bridge and a Sustainiac in the neck (which he uses on the intro to “Dead Skin Mask”) along with a Kahler 2315 trem. This guitar is also loaded with a switchable preamp, but according to King in our Rig Rundown, he doesn’t use it that much because he prefers the boost/10-band EQ built into his signature Marshall head.

Jack White's 1950s Kay Hollowbody Guitar
- YouTube

This hollowbody has been with Jack since the '90s purring and howling onstage for hundreds of shows.

Greg Koch performing live.

Photo by Kevin Rankins

The Gristle King himself, Greg Koch, joins reader Bret Boyer to discuss the one album that should be in everyone’s ears.

Question: What albums should every guitarist listen to and why?

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Kevin Gordon and his beloved ES-125, in earlier days.

Photo by David Wilds

Looking for new fuel for your sound and songs? Nashville’s Kevin Gordon found both in exploring traditional blues tunings and their variations.

I first heard open guitar tunings while in college, from older players who’d become friends or mentors, and from various artists playing at the Delta Blues Festival in the early mid-’80s, which was held in a fallow field in Freedom Village, Mississippi—whose topographical limits likely did not extend beyond said field.

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Ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore records the song of Mountain Chief, head of the Blackfeet Tribe, on a phonograph for the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1916.

Once used as a way to preserve American indigenous culture, field recording isn’t just for seasoned pros. Here, our columnist breaks down a few methods for you to try it yourself.

The picture associated with this month’s Dojo is one of my all-time favorites. Taken in 1916, it marks the collision of two diverging cultural epochs. Mountain Chief, the head of the Piegan Blackfeet Tribe, sings into a phonograph powered solely by spring-loaded tension outside the Smithsonian. Across from him sits whom I consider the patron saint of American ethnomusicologists—the great Frances Densmore.

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