
Guest picker Anthony Pirog of the Messthetics joins PG staff members and reader Wojtek Drewniak in sharing about where it all began with their love of the guitar.
Q: When and how did you first fall in love with the guitar?
Anthony Pirog of the Messthetics
A: As I remember it, the first time I fell in love with the guitar was at a Nirvana concert in 1993. I was 13 years old, and my mother took me to American University in Washington, D.C. to see the show. I had been playing for about two years at that point, and remember the guitar was just riveting in the way that it could be played at the dynamic of a whisper or scream with unhinged violence. Thanks for taking me to the show, Mom!
Current obsession: My current musical obsession is improvising off of small atonal melodic fragments that I compose. I was talking with Joe Morris about his book, The Perpetual Frontier, and it led me to this study. I’ll take a small phrase that might be only a measure or two long and move it around to different keys, play chopped up versions of it, or play it in retrograde for about 5 to 10 minutes at a time. This gets me to where I want to be in terms of motivic free improvisation, and the surprising thing is that it’s changing the way that I improvise tonally.
Brett Petrusek - Director of Advertising
Photo by Bud Ingram-Lile
A: I started on bass when I was 8 years old. I couldn’t really reach the first fret. My instructor was teaching me 1950s bass lines from a Mel Bay Music book while I was busy listening to the debut Black Sabbath album. I loved the heavy sounds and giant riffs. Then, after a lesson, I was in the local music store and heard a guy playing the solo from “Whole Lotta Love.” I watched him bend the strings and thought, “Hm…. I’d much rather do that.”
Current obsession: Gibson Explorers (I’ve always been a Les Paul guy). I love the stripped-down simplicity. They hang great for me and have been inspiring new riffs and songs, plus they provide a new opportunity to change pickups and go down the rabbit hole and make them my own. I love wrenching on guitars.
Naomi Ruckus Rose - Graphic Designer
A: Dad would play goofy songs on his guitar when my sisters and I were little, and I just thought there was some kind of magical happiness that came from an acoustic guitar. Mom took me thrifting when I was 6 and I found a kid-sized guitar. I was hooked instantly.
Current obsession: ROCKS! I write a LOT of smart-ass songs (the rage flows easily, okay?). Now I’m spending more time soaking in nature and chilling the “f” out, and it’s altered the way I write. Taking rocks home lets me feel connected with nature without actually having to be in it. Namaste, punks.
Wojtek Drewniak - Reader of the Month
A: Hearing the SWAT Kats theme as a kid. I knew I loved it from this very moment and I remember it perfectly: A 6- or 7-year-old kid sitting on the carpet in front of the TV with his jaw dropped in delight. From then on, I started paying attention to the sound of the distorted guitar. After a few years, I decided that I wanted to create these noises myself.
Current obsession: Given that I love music of almost all genres, I was delighted to discover [Japanese electronicore band] Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas a few years ago. These people know no boundaries in music and I love it. Not everyone has to, but everyone should respect their musical courage. “Acceleration” is an absolute banger!
- The Explorer That Got Away—and Inspired Hamer Guitars ›
- Question of the Month: Reliving First-Time Listens ›
- Question and Obsession: Underrated 20th-Century Guitarists ›
The final day is here! Enter Stompboxtober Day 31 for your last chance to win today’s pedal from Keeley and finish the month strong!
Keeley Octa Psi Transfigurating Fuzz Pedal with Polyphonic Pitch Shifting
Meet the OCTA PSI Transfigurating Fuzz – The Ultimate Combination of Pitch-Shifter, Octave Generator, and Tri-Voiced Analog Fuzz! Key features include: Instant Effect Order Switching, Flexible Output Configuration, Momentary or Latching Octave/Pitch, and more! Each pitch shift mode includes an up, down, and dual setting, resulting in 24 different modes.
Does the guitar’s design encourage sonic exploration more than sight reading?
A popular song between 1910 and 1920 would usually sell millions of copies of sheet music annually. The world population was roughly 25 percent of what it is today, so imagine those sales would be four or five times larger in an alternate-reality 2024. My father is 88, but even with his generation, friends and family would routinely gather around a piano and play and sing their way through a stack of songbooks. (This still happens at my dad’s house every time I’m there.)
Back in their day, recordings of music were a way to promote sheet music. Labels released recordings only after sheet-music sales slowed down on a particular song. That means that until recently, a large section of society not only knew how to read music well, but they did it often—not as often as we stare at our phones, but it was a primary part of home entertainment. By today’s standards, written music feels like a dead language. Music is probably the most common language on Earth, yet I bet it has the highest illiteracy rate.
Developed specifically for Tyler Bryant, the Black Magick Reverb TB is the high-power version of Supro's flagship 1x12 combo amplifier.
At the heart of this all-tube amp is a matched pair of military-grade Sovtek 5881 power tubes configured to deliver 35-Watts of pure Class A power. In addition to the upgraded power section, the Black Magick Reverb TB also features a “bright cap” modification on Channel 1, providing extra sparkle and added versatility when blended with the original Black Magick preamp on Channel 2.
The two complementary channels are summed in parallel and fed into a 2-band EQ followed by tube-driven spring reverb and tremolo effects plus a master volume to tame the output as needed. This unique, signature variant of the Black Magick Reverb is dressed in elegant Black Scandia tolex and comes loaded with a custom-built Supro BD12 speaker made by Celestion.
Price: $1,699.
Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine is one of the loudest guitarists around. And he puts his volume to work creating mythical tones that have captured so many of our imaginations, including our special shoegaze correspondent, guitarist and pedal-maestro Andy Pitcher, who is our guest today.
My Bloody Valentine has a short discography made up of just a few albums and EPs that span decades. Meticulous as he seems to be, Shields creates texture out of his layers of tracks and loops and fuzz throughout, creating a music that needs to be felt as much as it needs to be heard.
We go to the ultimate source as Billy Corgan leaves us a message about how it felt to hear those sounds in the pre-internet days, when rather than pull up a YouTube clip, your imagination would have to guide you toward a tone.
But not everyone is an MBV fan, so this conversation is part superfan hype and part debate. We can all agree Kevin Shields is a guitarists you should know, but we can’t all agree what to do with that information.