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Rig Rundown: The Black Angels

Discover how these Austin psychers utilize Beatles-inspired guitars with several gnarly fuzzes and lush ’verbs to bridge the vibes of Roky Erickson and Dick Dale.

This instrument started it all. This is Christian Bland’s main baby and he’s had it since the band formed in the early 2000s. He scored this 1978 Rickenbacker 345 on eBay after getting his SG stolen from bandmate Alex Maas’ house. Being a big Beatles fan, he always wanted a Rickenbacker and had to settle for this model even though John used 325 and 325-12 models. (Lefties can’t be too picky.) He uses D’Addario Pure Nickel (.011 sets) on all his guitars and shreds with Dunlop Orange Tortex .60 mm picks.

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A mix of futuristic concepts and DeArmond single-coil pickups, the Musicraft Messenger’s neck was tuned to resonate at 440 Hz.

All photos courtesy ofthe SS Vintage Shop on Reverb.com

The idiosyncratic, Summer of Love-era Musicraft Messenger had a short-lived run and some unusual appointments, but still has some appreciators out there.

Funky, mysterious, and rare as hen’s teeth, the Musicraft Messenger is a far-out vintage guitar that emerged in the Summer of Love and, like so many heady ideas at the time, didn’t last too much longer.

The brainchild of Bert Casey and Arnold Curtis, Musicraft was a short-lived endeavor, beginning in San Francisco in 1967 and ending soon thereafter in Astoria, Oregon. Plans to expand their manufacturing in the new locale seemed to have fizzled out almost as soon as they started.

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Submarine Pickups boss Pete Roe at his workstation.

Single-coils and humbuckers aren’t the only game in town anymore. From hybrid to hexaphonic, Joe Naylor, Pete Roe, and Chris Mills are thinking outside the bobbin to bring guitarists new sonic possibilities.

Electric guitar pickups weren’t necessarily supposed to turn out the way they did. We know the dominant models of single-coils and humbuckers—from P-90s to PAFs—as the natural and correct forms of the technology. But the history of the 6-string pickup tells a different story. They were mostly experiments gone right, executed with whatever materials were cheapest and closest at hand. Wartime embargos had as much influence on the development of the electric guitar pickup as did any ideas of function, tone, or sonic quality—maybe more so.

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Pearl Jam announces U.S. tour dates for April and May 2025 in support of their album Dark Matter.

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The legendary German hard-rock guitarist deconstructs his expressive playing approach and recounts critical moments from his historic career.

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