 | Download Example 1 Middle Switch Position |
| Download Example 2 Neck pickup |
| Clips recorded with a 1981 Marshall JCM800 halfstack. | |
Having worked for Gibson and at the legendary Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Thomas Stadler is one guitar builder who has seen his share of exquisite, exemplary, and important goldtop specimens. And his new Goldtop model is an homage to the original Gibson model (and at least one other very iconic electric), with a few modern design appointments.
Gold Rush
Stadler’s gold-finished doublecut is striking for more than just its finish. The butternut body bears the unmistakable rounded profile of a Les Paul—at least from the endpin to the waist. But from the waist onward, the guitar’s design is distinctly informed by Doug Irwin’s legendary Tiger—Jerry Garcia’s go-to axe from 1979 to 1990.
Unlike just about any goldtop Les Paul you’re likely to see, the 24 3/4"-scale Stadler has a two-piece maple neck, which Stadler selected for the sonic clarity it lends a pair of P-90s. Stadler also used small, vintage-style fretwire and Kluson-style tuners. Other visible design enhancements for optimizing tone include the wraparound bridge—a patented Stadler design that’s essentially a Gibson-style wraparound with a bone saddle.
The combination of the butternut
body with the maple neck is certainly
unusual. Butternut is commonly used
by wood sculptors and model enthusiasts,
and is very similar to walnut in many
regards—including grain and response
to bending and sanding. Tonally, it’s known to
have deep overtones reminiscent of mahogany,
but with an airy, open treble response similar
to basswood. It’s good to see a luthier exploring
unconventional material options rather
than sticking to the tried-and-true woods that
have become so common in the guitar-making
universe—especially on a guitar inspired by
such archetypical instruments.Worth Its Weight in Tone
The first thing most players will probably notice when they pick up a Stadler Goldtop is the size of the neck profile. I was taken aback by its massive, baseball bat-like quality, which evoked the feel of a 1958 Gibson Les Paul Standard reissue or even a Fender Jeff Beck Signature Strat.
The beefy neck helps make the Goldtop a riffing machine. It’s certainly not a lightning-quick neck, and the smaller fretwire doesn’t make things feel any faster—even though the fretboard is fairly flat. But the combination of the neck, pickups, and body construction compelled me to search for riff after corpulent riff to hang on to and hold. And plugging the guitar into a 1981 50-watt Marshall JCM800 half-stack turned out to be a perfect match for the Stadler. Every note was defined, huge, and mean, although big, open chords still sounded detailed and absolutely dripped with harmonics.
The pickups in our test Goldtop were stock Gibsons (though, for an additional $100, Stadler will wind custom pickups with Forbon bobbins and alnico pole pieces). The neck pickup in particular offered a shining example of great P-90 sound, inspiring ill-fated attempts to cop classic Leslie West riffs. Rolling back the guitar’s tone knob shaved off the highs, but also seemed to make the midrange hairier and slightly meaner. The in-between position on the pickup selector put a heaping selection of tones at my fingertips, too. Although it’s not a pickup configuration I use often, the middle position turned out to be the position I used most, thanks to its excellent outof- phase tones and biting rhythm sounds. However, whether I used the pickups in tandem or on their own, they always provided an extraordinary playing experience.
One thing that was especially great about playing the Goldtop was how well I could feel the body and neck resonate. The fact that I was hanging onto each note longer than I normally would—the neck has a way of making you want to linger more than shred—made that resonance more noticeable, and that says something about how a guitar’s design can shape the way you play. The Goldtop’s design and tonal qualities brought me to the realm of honest, grooving rock, and kept me happy kicking out riffs in the vein of Tim Sult, Leslie West, and Malcolm Young for hours on end.
The Verdict
The Stadler Goldtop was a blast to play. It’s not the most versatile guitar around, though I sense it wasn’t meant to be. The combination of old-school design with carefully thought-out alterations—such as using butternut wood for the body—make it stand out from a lot of guitars going for a similar vibe. And it’s a unique and super-classy-looking beauty that successfully fuses two of the most striking electric solidbodies ever built.
Watch the video review:
Buy if...
you like a substantial neck and you’re after great resonance and expressive P-90 tones with a vintage feel.
Skip if...
you prefer a moderately sized neck and/or a wide variety of pickup-switching options.
Rating...
Street $1295 - Stadler Guitars - stadlerguitars.com |
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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.
Keith Urban has spent decades traveling the world and topping global country-music charts, and on this episode of Wong Notes, the country-guitar hero tells host Cory Wong how he conquered the world—and what keeps him chasing new sounds on his 6-string via a new record, High, which releases on September 20.
Urban came up as guitarist and singer at the same time, and he details how his playing and singing have always worked as a duet in service of the song: “When I stop singing, [my guitar] wants to say something, and he says it in a different way.” Those traits served him well when he made his move into the American music industry, a story that begins in part with a fateful meeting with a 6-string banjo in a Nashville music store in 1995.
It’s a different world for working musicians now, and Urban weighs in on the state of radio, social media, and podcasts for modern guitarists, but he still believes in word-of-mouth over the algorithm when it comes to discovering exciting new players.
And in case you didn’t know, Keith Urban is a total gearhead. He shares his essential budget stomps and admits he’s a pedal hound, chasing new sounds week in and week out, but what role does new gear play in his routine? Urban puts it simply: “I’m not chasing tone, I’m pursuing inspiration.”
