After globe-trotting and finding a home in the heartland of Americana, the Nashville-based guitarist dances between classic psychedelia and modern sonics on her lysergically tinged new album, Wholly Roller Coaster.
Anne McCue looks a bit like the Mad Hatter as she takes the stage at Nashville’s 5 Spot, wearing a red felt topper and colorful silk crimson-and-flowers jacket. It’s a visual cue for what’s coming next: an exquisitely performed show of original psychedelic songs that set the controls for the heart of 1967, when the holiest temple of the psychedelic era was being constructed by Pink Floyd and the Beatles. But the music is new—from McCue’s album Wholly Roller Coaster—and it is a wild ride, bounding between past and present, transportive and allusive. Despite its obvious roots, it feels remarkably original and contemporary, thanks to the gentility of McCue’s relaxed, virtuosic playing and singing, and a dappling of pop, rock, and folk flavors from the pre- and post-lysergic days that inform the swirling melodies and strong-boned harmonies, and guitar solos that could as easily be sung as played. The results are something like a paisley rainbow in sound—bright, colorful, trippy, and entirely pleasing, even when the lyrics turn a bit dark.
“I try to approach the guitar differently, more like a piano, which has a broad palette and colors and textures, and I really focus on melody and harmony,” McCue says. “I don’t try to come up with riffs and licks that are classically guitar. I love that, but when I was learning guitar, I was learning more complicated chords than I-IV-V. As a child I was a huge Beatles fan, and their arrangements were really quite sophisticated.”
The Loneliest Saturday Night - Anne McCue & The Cubists
“The Loneliest Saturday Night” is the first single from Anne McCue and the Cubists new album, Wholly Roller Coaster.
Early on, McCue shared a nylon-string with her siblings and, later, taught herself on an SG copy one of her brothers brought home. She delved into the Reader’s Digest Treasury of Best Loved Songs, from her parents’ bookshelf. “It had the most beautiful songs, from the jazz era all the way up to Burt Bacharach. I learned all the jazz chords, and the major sevenths and minor sevenths—more complicated chords than most people start with.”
For McCue, who grew up in a small town outside of Sydney, Australia, her modernist take on the era of incense and peppermints is the latest stop in the musical Gulf Stream that she’s navigated. Buoyed by other canonical influences, from Ennio Morricone and Alfred Hitchcock soundtracks to the sophisticated guitar-pop of XTC, she has chased her muse from Melbourne blues jams to Ho Chi Minh City, where she played solo jazz and blues guitar at a hotel for a year. A return to Australia in turn led her to Los Angeles, following a lead from a friend about a band on the verge of breaking out that was looking for a female guitarist who could sing harmony. That group’s record deal and a subsequent solo contact both fizzled. But she moved to Nashville in 2007 on the advice of her manager, and found a home in the creative music hotbed of East Nashville.
“When I was learning guitar, I was learning more complicated chords than I-IV-V.”
Allowing the influence of the Western movies, like the classic High Noon, and her early country music heroes—most notably Johnny Cash—that she loved as a kid to pervade her songwriting, McCue dived into the currents of Americana and developed an international reputation over the course of seven albums, including the powerful Roll. That recording ranges over a variety of roots terrain, from the fingerpicked, elegiac “Ballad of an Outlaw Woman” to a boldly reharmonized, ripping cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” to the album’s most harrowing song, “Hangman,” about a lynching, driven by the raw, ghostly tones of her lap steel. The BBC’s influential DJ Bob Harris chose Roll as his top album of 2004. Over the years she’s toured the U.S. and abroad, hosted the smartly eclectic radio show Songs on the Wire on Nashville’s indie radio station WNXA, produced other artists, and played on sessions, mostly for friends—including modern psychedelicist Robyn Hitchcock.
Anne McCue's Gear
McCue’s acoustic is an old Guild dreadnought, captured with her here onstage at Nashville’s 5 Spot. It’s used as her primary instrument on “Witch Song?" and for sweetening elsewhere.
Photo by Jill Kettles
Guitars
- 1979 Gibson Les Paul
- Hanson Cigno
- Hanson Gatto
- Hanson Ravenswood 12
- Guild acoustic dreadnought
Amps
- Fender Blues Junior
- Custom Jamison (15/30 watts switchable)
Recording Gear
- Pro Tools
- Royer 121 mic
- Mojave Audio MA-50, MA-100, MA-200, and MA-300 mics
- Focusrite interface
Effects
- Line 6 DL4
- Electro-Harmonix ML9
- Fulltone Distortion Pro
- JHS Morning Glory
- Danelectro Rocky Road
- Strymon Flint
- Dunlop Cry Baby
- Boss OC-5 Octave
- EBow
Strings, Slide, & Picks
- D’Addario (.010 and .011 sets)
- The Rock Slide
McCue met Hitchcock, a native Londoner who moved to Nashville in 2015, when she produced an EP for Emma Swift, his wife, and Hitchcock invited McCue to be his guitar foil on 2017’s Robyn Hitchcock. Hitchcock, who came to fame as the leader of the Soft Boys, can be glibly described as a sane version of his idol Syd Barrett, the original Pink Floyd frontman and the guiding hand behind the Floyd’s marvelously playful and boldly psychedelic debut album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
“He didn’t want lead guitar on the album,” McCue explains. “He wanted two guitars working together, so it was more about riffs that would fit with what he was playing. I went around to his house and we played, to try out things, before we went into the studio.” The result is a guitar conversation as literate and bristlingly playful as Hitchcock’s always-clever lyrics.
“I wanted to make a record that made people feel like they were stoned without actually having to work hard.”
That planted the psilocybin seeds of a new musical direction, but they really sprouted during the pandemic, when Pink Floyd became an important and soul-buoying part of McCue’s musical diet. “The pandemic gave me a chance to get off the treadmill of everyday existence,” she relates. “One day, I listened to the first seven Pink Floyd albums [including early live recordings] and never even got to Dark Side of the Moon. It was an epiphany. I listened to Pink Floyd and XTC for days and days and days. It took me out of a long gray tunnel into an open space, and I hear that space in the music.”
When she began playing guitar, McCue didn’t initially encounter the good ol’ I-IV-V. “I learned all the jazz chords, and the major sevenths and minor sevenths—more complicated chords than most people start with,” she says.
Photo by Jill Kettles
Which is only right, because, as Sun Ra declared, “Space is the place.” It breathes life into Wholly Roller Coaster, which McCue crafted with her band, the Cubists—although McCue played guitars, bass, keys, percussion, bouzouki, and electric sitar (which opens the album, with the gently hallucinogenic “Fly or Fall”) herself, at her home studio, Flying Machine. Even when contemplating the quirky nature of humanity in “Leaping on the Moon,” which has a soaring EBow finale, her lyrics possess grace and empathy—the latter another element that taps the spirit of Pink Floyd’s less acerbic work. And her often-playful rhyming swims in the same channel as Barrett and Hitchcock. By the time the album ends with “The Years,” which offers a backwards guitar solo in the middle of its observations on the passage of a lifetime, a repast richer than “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” has been served.
“There’s a comforting, expansive, and inspiring space to get into,” McCue says. “I wanted to make a record that made people feel like they were stoned without actually having to work hard … so you could get lost in the sound.” And want to stay lost, for a good, long while.
YouTube It
Anne McCue & the Cubists recently filmed McCue’s “Witch Song” for NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest.
If you can’t figure out how to play Joe Bonamassa’s solo from “Blues Deluxe,” don’t worry. Neither can Chris Shiflett. But it all changes when Shifty sits down with Bonamassa for this special episode of Shred With Shifty. No surprise that both of them reach for their Les Pauls, and Bonamassa even reveals why he switched from Strats to Gibsons in the early 2000s.
Bonamassa is known for his dazzling collection of vintage guitars—which he says has become a target for haters—but he explains that you don’t need a ’58 Les Paul to get the goods. “It’s also the mystique,” he says. “If Jimmy Page played a Tokai, everyone would want a Tokai.” A guitar made two weeks ago, he says, is just as good as a classic.
Bonamassa’s lightning-quick soloing style, which conjures a hurricane of major and minor pentatonic notes with some phrygian flair, is the stuff of legend, and his tricks on “Blues Deluxe” are plenty. Even though he tries to adhere to a “divide by two” rule to simplify his phrasings, he still stumps Shiflett with a volume swell trick he learned from Roy Buchanan and Danny Gatton.
This solo is no walk in the park. Any brave takers up for giving it a shot? Share it and tag us so Shifty can have a look! Most importantly, remember to have fun. “Do whatever you want with the damn thing,” says Bonamassa. “It’s just a guitar.”
Credits
Producer: Jason Shadrick
Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis
Engineering Support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudion
Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan
Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.
Two of the greatest Nashville players you’ve never heard of are tearing up Lower Broadway, keeping a grand old tradition alive.
Robert’s Western World on Nashville’s Lower Broadway was home to the Don Kelley Band for as long as anyone can remember. Kelley’s band was an institution in Nashville, serving as a stepping stone for super-pickers like Guthrie Trapp, Brent Mason, Johnny Hiland, Daniel Donato, JD Simo, and more. “Slick” Joe Fick and Luke McQueary also came up through the ranks of the Don Kelley Band. After Don retired in 2020, Fick and McQueary enlisted drummer/vocalist Billy Van Vleet and kept Don’s old shift going, throwing down at Robert's Western World each night from Wednesday through Saturday. John Bohlinger and the PG team joined Kelley’s Heroes pre-shift at Robert’s to rundown their rigs.
Brought to you by D'Addario:
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Bass
Tele
Amp
McQueary plays a 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb, which may still technically belong to his dad. He switched out the speaker to a Celestion Vintage 30.
Pedal
McQueary keeps it simple, and only plugs into an old modded Boss SD-1—which also belongs to his dad.
Will Anderson was teaching at a New York high school—until Jack White’s record label came knocking. Now, his band is shooting into the shoegaze stratosphere behind their second record, Cartwheel.
Hotline TNT singer and guitarist Will Anderson started writing songs as a way to work through personal relationships, so it’s no surprise that the New York band’s second LP, Cartwheel, encapsulates Anderson’s modern-day, bard-like quest for romance—for better and for worse—through heavy fuzz pedals, distorted guitars, and layered sonic textures that cascade over propulsive rhythms. Slick engineering from punk artist Ian Teeple and Aron Kobayashi Ritch lift the record into the sweeping shoegaze stratosphere, that bottomless niche of music where heartbreak and mammoth, verbed-out riffs cry on each other’s shoulders.
Each of the 12 tracks on Cartwheel features enormous guitar sounds from Anderson and guitarist Olivia Garner that, together, comprise a thrashing, muddy, angry, joyful, and howling slurry, as if the instruments were in the thralls of a cathartic musical bender. Above it all, Anderson’s simply written lyrics map out tart terrain—anyone who has experienced the throes of love in all of its messy stages will recognize themselves in his words.
Anderson, who is originally from Wisconsin, launched his music career 10 years ago with the Canadian noise-pop band, Weed, before eventually launching Hotline TNT in 2021 with the project’s debut, Nineteen in Love. Anderson traversed music scenes from coast to coast—New York and North Carolina, Wisconsin and neighboring Minnesota, Vancouver and Seattle—and his DIY dedication helped grow Hotline TNT’s audience until the band caught the attention of Jack White’s Third Man Records. Thanks in part to the label’s support, Cartwheel transcends the band’s 2021 introduction, infusing more engaging, heartfelt melodies without losing any of the band’s trademark grinding urgency.
Hotline TNT - "Protocol"
Inspired by his older brother’s jazz band, Anderson started playing bass towards the end of his time in the fifth grade. Within a few years, he’d picked up the guitar, and by high school, he was playing in cover bands with his brother. His college years marked his first attempts at songwriting, a process which, for Anderson, starts with chords and melodies, then lyrics.
Up until signing with Third Man, Anderson had been supplementing his music work with substitute teaching at a public high school in New York City. One of his colleagues had been in the Scottish rock band Teenage Fanclub, and, knowing the difficulty of being a working musician, covered for Anderson at some points so he could work on Hotline TNT matters.
“Whenever I hold a pick, my wrist gets really tight, and I just think, ‘no.’” —Will Anderson
Garner, meanwhile, started playing guitar in middle school in Louisiana. Her dad’s favorite band was the Smiths, which imprinted heavily on her while growing up. But these days, she’s reaching for Neil Young and Crazy Horse, ’90s material like Red House Painters, or ’80s pop band Beat Happening—one of Kurt Cobain’s favorites, Garner notes, and “a band who every person who picks up the guitar should listen to.” (Her other band, in fact, is named Touch Girl Apple Blossom, inspired by lyrics from the Beat Happening track “Indian Summer.”) It’s a mix that makes sense for Hotline TNT’s woolly, melodic maelstrom.
Hotline TNT's Gear
Anderson and Garner aren’t very particular about their gear—Anderson didn’t know what an amp head was until a few years ago—but they favor the fuzzy balance between a Pro Co RAT and an EHX Big Muff.
Photo by Wes Knoll
Guitars
- Yamaha SG-3
- 1996 MIJ Fender Telecaster with Lollar pickups
- 2014 MIM Fender Strat with Lollar pickups
Amps
- Randall RX120RH
Effects
- Pro Co RAT
- EHX Big Muff Pi
Strings
- Ernie Ball Super Slinky Nickel Wound (.009–.042)
Garner now lives in Austin, where Hotline TNT played at SXSW this year. “Will and I run around in similar circles of music,” she says, “so when Hotline TNT was looking for a guitar player, I came to New York and rehearsed with them. It was a good fit, so I joined. It’s been a wild ride.”
Garner acquired her main guitar—a natural finish, short-scale Peavey T-30—from a former bandmate in an upgrade from her previous Squier. “It’s my baby,” she says. “What I like about it is that it’s really lightweight, so no back problems, and I appreciate the short scale.”
“Despite the fact that this particular guitar has been with me for so long, I’m actually not that precious with it.” —Will Anderson
Anderson’s primary guitar is a vintage Japanese-made Yamaha SG-3 that he bought in Vancouver when he was 19. “These days, Yamaha SG-3s go for $2,500 in the high range, but I bought my guitar for about $788 in Vancouver from a music store called Not Just Another Music Shop,” he says. “At the time, I just thought it looked cool. Because I couldn’t afford to buy it outright, I made payments on it all summer long before I could take it home.” Anderson’s SG-3-driven leads on Cartwheel, by the way, are all straight from his fingers. “I do not play with a pick—never have,” he notes. “I get a lot of comments about this at shows. Whenever I hold a pick, my wrist gets really tight, and I just think, ‘no.’”
All three Hotline TNT guitarists, Will Anderson, Olivia Garner, and Matt Berry, come together on Cartwheel to create an entrancing blend of textural distortion under Anderson’s romance-inspired lyrics.
Despite his allegiance to his Yamaha, Anderson admits that he’s actually not all that sentimental about the instrument. The thing he loves best about the SG-3 doesn’t have to do with tone or playability—it’s that it still performs after years of abuse. “Despite the fact that this particular guitar has been with me for so long, I’m actually not that precious with it,” he says. “If something happened to it, I’d be sad, sure, but I’d also think, ‘Alright, it’s time to find a new one.’”
Still, when it comes to travel, Anderson doesn’t take many chances with his guitar. “Overseas, I usually put my guitar on a gig bag that I carry on my back when I board the plane,” he says. “I pretty much talk my way into things and out of things when it comes to dealing with travel.”
“I pretty much talk my way into things and out of things when it comes to dealing with travel.” —Will Anderson
Anderson’s love for his main axe is about as far as his gear passion goes. Though he feels an increasing sense of responsibility to improve his gear knowledge base, he confesses to being happily clueless. A few years back, he bought a solid-state Randall half-stack, which is still his go-to amp, and it provided an unexpected learning experience. “To show you how little I know about gear, two or three years ago somebody said to me, ‘Can I borrow your amp head for our set?’ I was like, ‘You can. Is it onstage now? Because I don’t know. What is that thing?’ I didn’t know what a head was until recently.”
While Anderson plucks out finer lead parts, Garner says her role is to create a “giant wall of sound” with open chords and thick distortion.
Photo by Jade Amey
Effects-wise, Anderson and Garner strike a warm balance between a Pro Co RAT, a Boss DS-1, and a Big Muff Pi that Anderson bought in high school. The interplay between the three is all over Cartwheel, but is especially prominent on “Protocol” and “BMX,” which both utilize the pedals’ respective distortions as percussive and resonant elements. The blend creates a sort of halo: It extends outward like its own multi-layered cloud strata, enveloping the lyrics in “I Thought You’d Change,” and creating an uplifting effect that counters the descending melodies in “Stump” and “Son in Law.”
The goal, says Garner, is to create “a giant wall of sound with big, giant chords.” “I hold down the big chords while Will will do his leads,” she says. One of Anderson’s oldest friends, Matt Berry, recently joined the band, completing a triple-guitar threat. (Berry serves as de facto guitar tech for the band, even changing Anderson’s strings.)
“I pretty much talk my way into things and out of things when it comes to dealing with travel.” —Will Anderson
Hotline TNT isn’t Anderson’s only outlet. He’s morphed his extracurricular interests into a hydra-esque presence online, which includes hosting both a Twitch stream and an Instagram talk show, and publishing a basketball zine. “It’s all about feeding the same vision and aesthetic,” says Anderson. “People seem to be rocking with it, so that’s cool.”
Will Anderson was teaching at a New York high school before Jack White’s Third Man Records signed Hotline TNT.
Photo by Jade Amey
But his other endeavors might have to be set on the backburner this year, as Hotline TNT’s stock is rising. They spent much of 2023 on the road, but this time out, they had a better van and sleeping accommodations. Even if they didn’t, though, Anderson wouldn’t mind. Touring feels like home—especially if he gets to see the midwest in the fall. Early this year, Hotline TNT is ripping through mainland Europe—including Italy, France, and Germany—and later, they’ll hit Japan, a personal highlight for Anderson. In line with their laissez-faire approach to gear, Anderson says they plan to leave their gear at home, and pick up fill-ins overseas to make sure they don’t run into international voltage variance issues.
Anderson currently has six demos in the hopper toward his next album. Usually, he says he’d already have another record ready to go, but Hotline TNT’s explosion in popularity has kept them busy on the road, and working with Third Man has flooded the band with exciting opportunities. But Anderson does have a shortlist of people to work with for the next release, and a rough sketch of the collection’s themes: relationships, heartbreak, and family.
But don’t expect to learn what the band’s name means any time soon. “It does stand for something, but I cannot reveal publicly what it is because me and the original members of the band from four years ago came up with it,” says Anderson. “It’s our sacred vow to keep that a secret.”
YouTube It
Bathe in colored stage lights and sweet, thick distortion with Hotline TNT’s live performance in Toronto in March 2023.
The Pickup Shop has recreated these sought-after pickups using 3D scanning, scientific analysis, and reverse engineering, delivering the most accurate reproductions.
Introducing the 1959 Humbucker Collector’s Edition Series 1 from the Gibson Pickup Shop! Gibson’s original “Patent Applied For” humbuckers from the 1950s are the holy grail of humbucking tone, highly influential with many imitations. The Pickup Shop has recreated these sought-after pickups using 3D scanning, scientific analysis, and reverse engineering, delivering the most accurate reproductions.
Packaged in a Lifton presentation case, each set features double Vintage White butyrate bobbins, Alnico 4 roughcast magnets, and vintage-accurate nickel covers. Limited to only 1,000 sets, each serialized with 1959-style numbering. Experience the holy grail of humbucking tone for yourself, available exclusively from Gibson.
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