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Rig Rundown: Social Distortion [2015]

Guitarists Mike Ness and Jonny Wickersham show off their tried-and-true rock ’n’ roll machines.

Guitarist Jonny Wickersham can’t decide so he currently has two #1 guitars—this is one is a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Junior tuned down a half step with a capo on the second fret. All of his guitars are loaded with Ernie Ball 2215 Skinny Top/Heavy Bottom strings and he prefers to play with .92 mm Dunlop Tortex picks.

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Another day, another pedal! Enter Stompboxtober Day 21 to win a pedal from Eventide Audio!

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Introducing the Jimmy Page 1964 SJ-200 and 1964 SJ-200 Collector’s Edition from Gibson.

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Photo by Jen Rosenstein

Joe Satriani’s G3 returns with Reunion Live, an album that sets out to capture the energy and essence of their sold-out 2024 US tour.

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Matt Sweeney (far left) knew that if he got his friends Stephen Malkmus (second from left), Emmett Kelly (second from right), and Jim White (far right) in a casual recording environment, the four of them could make something awesome together.

Photo by Atiba Jefferson

Stephen Malkmus, Matt Sweeney, and Emmett Kelly formed a casual supergroup around their shared love of beat-up, lo-fi guitar sounds. They tell us how the band and their debut self-titled record came together in a dying Brooklyn studio.

Stephen Malkmus and Matt Sweeney go way back.

The two musicians and songwriters have been part of the same cohort since Malkmus’ band Pavement took off in the early 1990s. Pavement went the way of indie-rock royalty, defining an entire new generation of slightly left-of-center guitar music. Sweeney slugged it out for years inbands like Chavez and Zwan, that never reached those levels of influence. Still, he was an indispensable sideman and in-demand collaborator. But it wasn’t until just before the pandemic that the two friends recorded together, on Malkmus’ solo acoustic record, Traditional Techniques. It went well—really well.

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