And the winners are…
Jason Shadrick — Associate Editor
Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway
Crooked Tree
It seemed like this year the “young lions” of bluegrass guitar finally broke through. While Billy Strings was on his way to arena-level stardom via the jam band crowd, Molly Tuttle took a less experimental route with a dynamite new album (produced by bluegrass legend Jerry Douglas) and new band. At times her voice echoes Alison Krauss, but her playing is firmly influenced by Tony Rice, Bryan Sutton, and Doc Watson. Songs like “Flatland Girl” and “Over the Line” are bouncing bluegrass jams that move with such a level of relaxed comfort it’s not until Tuttle’s break that you realize she’s straight up shredding. There’s also a fierce and undeniable force in Tuttle’s rhythm playing. At times she can play like a high-speed freight train on cruise control, but she can also dial it back without losing any intensity—just check out her incredible duet with Dan Tyminski on “San Francisco Bay Blues.” It’s easy to see why ripping acoustic guitar is popular again with albums like this.
Must hear tracks: “Flatland Girl,” “Dooley’s Farm,” “Goodbye Girl”
Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway - Crooked Tree (Live at the Station Inn)
Madison Cunningham
Revealer
After Madison’s last full-length album, Who Are You Now, I was very intrigued as to how she could put a bigger spotlight on her devastatingly great playing. Thankfully, Revealer has done the job—and then some. Cunningham combines low-tuned oddball guitars with an always-on swirly dual vibrato in the background to amazing effect. It’s a sound in which she not only feels comfortable but thrives in a way few singer/songwriters can. Her riffs and parts are surprising in a way that forces you to listen deeper each time around. The lead single, “Hospital,” has a gritty, nasty tone that is such a welcome juxtaposition against the rather pretty melody that it makes me think of the best of Elliot Smith at times. It’s obvious that her playing style isn’t an accident, but rather a well-focused and deliberate path that will inspire many young songwriters to go beyond simple strumming.
Must hear tracks: “Hospital,” “Life According to Raechel,” “Our Rebellion”
Madison Cunningham - Life According To Raechel (Live At Sonic Ranch Big Blue)
Cardinal Black
January Came Close
About a year ago Chris Buck dropped a video debuting his new band, Cardinal Black. The tune “Tell Me How It Feels” was incredibly crafted and featured Buck’s signature emotive style. Now, a year later, the band’s full-length album is out, and it delivers. The rich tones that Buck coaxes out of his Revstar are rooted in classic rock and blues, but in the context of Cardinal Black they have more textural elements than the typical pentatonic bashing found in so many blues players. “Half Way” sports a massive chorus that brings to mind the best power-pop tunes of the 1970s. You could see this band rocking an old-school blues club and Royal Albert Hall (which they just recently did with Peter Frampton.) Great tunes, great playing, and great tones. What else can you ask for?
Must-hear tracks: “Tell Me How It Feels,” “Half Way,” “Warm Love”
Cardinal Black - Ain't My Time (Abbey Road Live Session)
Most-anticipated 2023 releases: Metallica’s (probable) return to old-school thrash, Nickel Creek, a live Julian Lage album, and at least 12 Cory Wong albums.
Tessa Jeffers — Managing Editor
Wu-Lu
LOGGERHEAD
In the middle of his song “South,” Miles Romans-Hopcraft, aka Wu-Lu, lets out a scream so guttural and jarring, you might wonder if he’s okay. But it’s so deliciously cathartic to the core that I understand why primal scream therapy is trending in this year of our lord 2022-almost-2023. Wu-Lu’s shrieky bellow will get your attention but stick around for his mad-scientist kitchen of sounds. This debut album is an arresting amalgamation of truly original inception. He filets disparate instrumentation and influences into modern hip-hop infused songs wrapped in an entrée of punk. The best part is, he’s sampling himself. After recording late-night, guitar-improv jams, Wu-Lu dissects and distills them into usable musical spices to sprinkle into his songs. I’m amused, entertained, made happy by artists who construct in a way I’ve not quite experienced before, and Romans-Hopcraft’s process floors me. Guess what else? Wu-Lu is even better live, in the flesh, 3D, outside the Matrix. Watch the performance video below while I go scream primally into a pillow as an ode to Wu-Lu for the drum-n-bass wonder he’s done.
Must-hear tracks: “South,” “Blame”
Wu-Lu - Echoes with Jehnny Beth - @ARTE Concert
Angel Olsen
Big Time
I recently read a book about poets who lived during the first half of the 20th century. It explored how word troubadours were the first rock stars, the champions of counterculture and leaders in expression arts before rock music gave way to a new generation of minstrel messengers. Angel Olsen writes songs how poets be poet’ing. It’s all storytelling, but magic comes in making choices of movement, placement, adding, taking away, and, oh, the vulnerability. Making a twangy “Nashville Sound” heartbreak album suits Olsen’s truth-tellin’ ways. A few months ago, I attended a solo acoustic performance by Olsen, where she plucked out each emotion dynamically on her strings, light touch, and with tortured spacing, hard land. She bared some soul, made it accessible, and by doing so, commanded all attention in the room, stared down hard moments, made jokes in between, and shared personal vignettes of painful and beautiful shuffling around this orb of topsoil, water, wind, and fire. This is her take on a country-fied album, but Angel is a rock star.
Must-hear tracks: “All the Good Times,” “Ghost On”
Angel Olsen - All The Good Times (Official Video)
Nick Millevoi — Associate Editor
Bill Orcutt
Music for Four Guitars
The coolest, most intriguing album of guitar music I’ve heard this year is, without a doubt, Bill Orcutt’s quartet for overdubbed 4-string electric guitars. Over the course of 14 tracks—each of which comes in around a short-and-sweet two minutes—Orcutt writes in the familiar vocab of his improvised work. But here, his riffage is focused into contrapuntal cellular structures that evoke minimalism by way of composers Glenn Branca (in the overtone puree of “Or from behind”) and Louis Andriessen (in the angular dissonance of “Only at dusk”). There’s also major-key melodic eloquence (on “At a distance”) that borders on Reichian, but with a raw-er, more treble-soaked tone than anyone who’s tackled the composer’s “Electric Counterpoint” has dared to attempt (to my knowledge, at least). Throughout the album, repeated listening reveals new shapes and structures, and I keep coming back, ready to discover more. Bonus: The digital release comes with an 84-page PDF score, hand-tabbed by forward-thinking guitar adventurer Shane Parish, so anyone can play along once they cut a couple strings off their guitar and detune.
Must-hear tracks: “Or from behind,” “Only at dusk,” “At a distance”
Hermanos Gutiérrez
El Bueno Y El Malo
I knew I’d love this album as soon as I saw the video for the first single, “El Bueno Y El Malo.” I was right, and I’ve since become a huge fan of all the Hermanos’ records. These guys just have their aesthetic completely dialed in, and their songs draw from classic sources like Santo & Johnny, Neil Young, and Ennio Morricone. It helps that they recorded this one at Easy Eye Sound, but the Gutiérrez brothers would sound good if they recorded on an iPhone. When I saw them live this fall in Philadelphia, I was truly blown away by the nuances in each brother’s playing, but even more by the focused energy they conjure with their playing. This is serious vibe music, fit to accompany a modern Western or a long drive on an open road.
Must-hear tracks: “El Bueno Y El Malo,” “Thunderbird,” “Tres Hermanos (feat. Dan Auerbach)”
Hermanos Gutiérrez - "El Bueno Y El Malo" [Official Music Video]
Various Artists
Imaginational Anthem vol. XI: Chrome Universal - A Survey of Modern Pedal Steel
The latest in an ongoing series of well-curated comps from Tompkins Square, this one has easily become my favorite. Compiled by Nashville’s Luke Schneider, volume XI focuses on the wide world of contemporary pedal-steel players. Each of the nine featured artists reach beyond the stratosphere to create mostly ambient explorations that challenge the common notions of what their instrument is capable of. I was drawn to this set because it includes three players whose work I greatly admire: Susan Alcorn, Rocco DeLuca, and BJ Cole. I’ve since spent time deep diving through the works of every player on the album, getting to know and love each of their distinct voices. Much more than a great playlist that serves as a strong introduction to each steeler (which, of course, it is), I keep thinking of this record as a single work, which is probably as big an endorsement of Schneider’s curation as I can imagine.
Must-hear tracks: “An Ode to Dungeness” by Spencer Cullum, “Lysglimt” by Maggie Bjorklund, “Gilmor Blue” by Susan Alcorn
Lysglimt - Maggie Bjorklund
Charles Saufley — Gear Editor
Necronomicon
Tips zum Selbstmord
I burn out on guitar rock pretty easily these days. That doesn’t, however, mean I need the adrenaline rush it provides any less. In these moments, I tend to look to primal sources. Thankfully, my buddy Ben tipped me to this 50th anniversary reissue of the stupidly rare Tips zum Selbstmord, a lost masterwork of brilliant-to-demented German prog/psych-punk hybridization. Tips… is pretty intense at times. Well, most of the time. There are traces of Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Iron Butterfly, maybe even some Stooges and fellow heavy Krautrock freak vanguards like Guru Guru and Amon Duul II. (Necronomicon also share AD II’s affinity for unexpected, inexplicable bursts of distinctly untrained, quasi-operatic vocals.) But while Necronomicon clearly worked hard in the practice room, and gave these sprawling arrangements much thought, there is an atavistic edge and immediacy here that suggests a band creeping forth from primordial muck. Best of all, it feels utterly, amazingly lacking in self-awareness—a thrilling thing to hear in an era of relentless, calculated self-presentation.
Necronomicon = Tips Zum Selbstmord - 1972 - (Full Album)
Misha Panfilov
The Sea Will Outlive Us All
The cover of The Sea Will Outlive Us All, pays homage to private press LPs of the late ’60s and early ’70s. In some ways, Estonian multi-instrumentalist Misha Panfilov wears musical influences from that period on his sleeve too. But while it’s easy to hear trace elements of Franco/Italian soundtrack gems and circa-’69 Pink Floyd, these instrumental meditations exist quite outside of time. And like a lot of music I cherish, they suggest utopian possibilities, future/past fusions uncolored by cynicism, and endlessly unfolding days when summer looms ever closer.
Misha Panfilov - The Sea Will Outlive Us All (Full Album 2022)
Ted Drozdowski — Editorial Director
The Linda Lindas
Growing Up
Even I’m shocked that my favorite album of the year is by four teenaged girls from Los Angeles. But I love this record! Bela Salazar and Lucia de la Garza slam down a wall of guitars that resonates between the Ramones and epic ’90s alt-rock. All four Lindas sing killer harmony, and they’ve got great hooks and melodies in their pockets. And listening to their lyrics about the trials and trips of young life makes me wish I was as smart and self-aware as they are when I was their age. Oh, and they’re tough onstage, too. Check out the performance video of their song “Racist, Sexist Boy” … at the L.A. Public Library, of all places. The icing for me was interviewing Salazar and de la Garza for our “10 Young Guitar Players to Watch” feature in the November PG. They were funny, poised, and candid about just how much they didn’t know about playing guitar—and that takes way more confidence than I had as a teenager. In today’s music, the Linda Lindas are the cool kids.
Must hear tracks: “Growing Up,” “Talking to Myself,” Racist, Sexist Boy,” and “Nino.”
The Linda Lindas - "Growing Up"
Valerie June
Under Cover
Sure, it’s a covers album, but I could listen to Valerie June sing a menu and be entirely satisfied—especially if she was able to layer her vocals and use reverb the way she does here as co-producer with Jack Splash, whose own credits run deep in the contemporary R&B world. The spare-to-perfection instrumentation adds the right emotional underpinning, too. She turns great songs by Nick Drake (“Pink Moon”), Nick Cave (“Into My Arms”), John Lennon (“Imagine”), Mazzy Star (“Fade Into You”), Joe South (“Don’t It Make You Want To Go Home”), and others into magic carpet rides. I find that irresistible.
Must-hear tracks: “Fade Into You,” “Pink Moon,” “Imagine”
Valerie June - Fade Into You
Charlie Musselwhite
Mississippi Son
When I profiled this old lion of the blues in PG over the summer, in a piece titled “Charlie Musselwhite Goes Back to the Delta,” I described this album as “beautiful as a fresh magnolia blossom with hints of dust on its petals.” But it also contains the mysticism of the greatest of Mississippi’s traditional music—partly gothic, reflective of the history and the soil it took place upon, echoing with the voices of the past that still resonate—particularly in Musselwhite’s head and heart—like Big Joe Williams and John Lee Hooker. Fans of the harmonica virtuoso have known of his estimable skill at Delta-style country blues guitar for ages, but in more than a half-century of recording he’s not revealed it until this album. Ricocheting between original songs and durable classics, Musselwhite sounds like an oracle—especially on the talking blues “The Dark,” a Guy Clark number. His message—to paraphrase Sam Phillips: This is music that comes from a place where the soul of a man or woman never dies.
Must-hear tracks: “The Dark,” “Pea Vine Blues,” “Crawling Kingsnake”
The Dark
Most-anticipated 2023 releases: Hummmm, maybe that Sonny Sharrock tribute album Carlos Santana has been putting together? And the new Messthetics project, plus more work by Mike Baggetta, Bill Frisell, and PJ Harvey. And—I know, I ask every year—new music by Tom Waits? More gems from Dan Auerbach’s trove of unreleased historic live blues recordings would also be welcome. And Dan, isn’t it time to produce an album for Kenny Brown? And finally, that new Metallica album is on the way! Thank you, Santa.
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Billy Corgan shining with his Reverend Z One.
When the Smashing Pumpkins formed in 1988, they were ripping in rock clubs with psychedelic-inspired sets that drew on ’60s-rock influences like Blue Cheer, Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin. But by 1992, after the breakout success of the previous year’s swirling alt-rock masterpiece, Gish, “Suddenly, we’re on a major label,” recalls Corgan. “Pearl Jam sold a gazillion records. Nirvana sold a gazillion records. Alice in Chains is selling a gazillion records. And somebody puts a finger up to my temple and says, ‘You better figure out how to write pop songs or you’re going to go back to working at a record store.’
“So, how do I translate this kind of hazy psychedelic vision into something that sounds like pop-rock radio? I’d better figure this out, and fast.” On 1993’s Siamese Dream, Corgan had obviously gone far beyond simply figuring out how to fit his vision into a radio-ready format; he’d pushed alternative rock to new heights, masterfully crafting hooks fit for the band’s unique, massive guitar-driven sound.
More than three decades later, Corgan hasn’t stopped evolving his artistry to fit the times. On the firm foundation of his extremely well-developed, instantly recognizable musical voice, he’s made his career one of the most interesting in rock music, branching out into unpredictable trajectories. In 2017, he launched a new career as a professional wrestling producer when he purchased the National Wrestling Alliance, the source of the limited TV series Billy Corgan’s Adventures in Carnyland.The Smashing Pumpkins - "Edin"
And he’s applied that knack for spectacle—a de facto pre-req for anyone in the pro wrestling biz—to the band’s social media presence. In January 2024, when guitarist Jeff Schroeder split with the Smashing Pumpkins, they turned to the internet for an open call. Not only did the band eventually find new-hire Kiki Wong, but they effectively got every guitarist on the internet dreaming about joining the Pumpkins.
Corgan has also found a creative outlet as a guitar conceptualist. His four signature Reverends—the Billy Corgan Signature, Terz, Z-One, and Drop Z—were created in collaboration with Joe Naylor, the company’s visionary builder. Taken together, these models go well beyond standard signature artist instruments protocols. Not content to just design his own dream guitar, Corgan is equally concerned with contributing to the guitar community. The Billy Corgan Signature and Z-One models are forward-thinking electric guitars well-outfitted with hip, futuristic aesthetics and custom pickups; the Terz and Drop Z break new ground in guitar design. The Terz is a 21 1/2"-scale model meant to be tuned one and a half steps up—G to G—and the Drop Z model, at 26 1/2" scale, is intended for D standard or lower tunings. In the case of these alt-tuned guitars, the instruments are specifically voiced for their tunings, with custom pickups.
“In that quiet solitude of just you and the guitar, this communication can happen that sort of expresses something about yourself that is surprising.”
With all this action—plus signature Yamaha acoustics and his Highland Park, Illinois, café, Madame Zuzu’s, which he owns with his wife, Chloé Mendel—Corgan must be dialing into a deep, super-focused state when working on music, because he’s been prolific. In 2023, the Pumpkins released the epic ATUM: A Rock Opera in Three Acts, the third part of the trilogy that began with the Pumpkins’ smash-hit Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadnessin 1995, followed by 2000’s Machina/The Machines of God. In 2024, the band released Aghori Mhori Mei. Pitched as a stripped-down guitar record, and exempt from the former’s grandiosity, the songs are often riff-centric guitar jams, full of dark, in-your-face tones. But that pitch might belie the album’s rich compositional complexity and intense emotional breadth. Corgan’s writing on Aghori exemplifies all the nuance and finesse of his broader work, as do the dynamic, thoughtful guitar arrangements and hard-hitting performances.
With so much going on, how does Corgan keep his artistic vision focused and in step with the times? How does he find time to tap into the creative essence that has made his music so special? What drives his process? The only way to find out is from Corgan himself.
The Smashing Pumpkins’ Aghori Mhori Mei was pitched as a more stripped-down guitar record, but don’t let that description, fitting as it may be in comparison with their recent work, belie its majesty.
The premise of Aghori was to be more of a stripped-down guitar record. How did you approach this album from a compositional perspective?
Corgan: The idea was to return to the early language of the band and see if it had a modern application. If you were making a movie, it would be akin to: We’re going to shoot this on VHS cameras and edit in an old analog bay and see if you can make something that a modern audience would actually enjoy and appreciate.
The way most rock records are made these days is “in the box,” which is Pro Tools or whatever people use. You can hear that the digital technology is very important to the way modern rock music, whether it’s metal or alternative, is made. It’s become the fifth band member—you know what I’m saying? They’re able to do things and effect changes and musically innovate in a way that you wouldn’t if you were just on a floor with the band playing in a circle, like we used to. So, for us, we could continue down this digital path, and I’m not that interested in gridding out my guitars.
When you go listen to a Pumpkins record, that’s live playing. That’s not all chopped up—99% of what you hear is literally from our hands and mouths—we’ll still fly in a chorus here and there. If you’re at a particular crossroads, do you continue to move forward and with technology as your ally? Or do you kind of go back and see if that old way still has something magical about it? That becomes sort of the existential debate of the record, both internally and publicly, which is: Is there a there, there?
But to clarify, this isn’t an analog recording.
Corgan: We record to Pro Tools. It’s using the technology of Pro Tools to make your records that we don’t do. I’m not trying to make a point. I’m saying using the technologies that are present to write your music or using it to do things that you can’t humanly do—that we don’t do.
Listen to your standard metal record. Everything is gridded to fuck: All the amps are in the box, all the drums are in the box, there’s not a missed note, everything’s tuned to fuck. You know what I mean? That’s modern metal, and I like it. It’s not like I turn up my nose at the thing, but that’s a way of making music for many people in 2024. We decided to try and go back and make a record the old-fashioned way, not to make some sort of analog point.
“There’s a certain loneliness in the way I play because I didn’t have anybody else to play guitar with.”
You write mostly on acoustic and piano. Where do the guitar arrangements come in?
Corgan: The fundamental process, going back to the beginning, is to create the basic track; the vocal then becomes the next most important thing, and then the icing on the cake is the guitar work over the top of that, basically to support and supplement the vocal and create more melodic interaction.
I got a lot of that from Queen and Boston and some Beatles—the idea that the guitar takes on a lead voice of its own that’s distinctive and almost becomes another lead singer in the band.
That stuff doesn’t show up literally until the last day working on the song. It’ll come off wrong, but we don’t spend a ton of time on it. And I don’t know what that means other than it seems to be like everything is done, and then you go, “Okay, time for the guitar work.” You’ll spend three hours, six hours just going through and trying stuff. Then it sort of just appears, and you go, “Oh, that sounds cool,” and you move on. It benefits from being fresh or feeling kind of like an emotional reaction.
I remember being in a car circa 1975 or ’76 and “Killer Queen” by Queen was on the radio. You’re listening to a song, the song sounds cool, and there’s flange vocals, and I’m 10 years old, in the backseat. All of a sudden, that lead break comes in; it’s just fucking loud. It has that feeling of somebody stepping forward into a spotlight. It’s not a show-off thing. It’s the way it makes you feel. It’s like a lighter type of moment. We’ve always chased that feeling.
Billy Corgan's Gear
Corgan with his signature Yamaha LJ16BC in 2022.
Photo by Mike White
Guitars
- E standard: Billy Corgan Signature Reverend Z-One Black
- E backup: Billy Corgan Signature Reverend - Satin Purple Burst
- Eb standard: Billy Corgan Signature Reverend Z-One - Silver Freeze
- Eb backup: Billy Corgan Signature Reverend Z-One - Orchard Pink
- Eb standard: ’70s Gibson ES-335 walnut
- C# standard: Billy Corgan Signature Reverend Drop Z - Pearl White
- Prototype Gibson Firebird
- Billy Corgan Custom Signature Yamaha LJ16BC Black with Silver Star
- Billy Corgan Custom Signature Yamaha White with Black Star
Amps
- Ampete 444 Amplifier & Cabinet Switching System
- Korg DT-1 Rack Tuner
- Carstens Cathedral
- Orange Rockerverb MkIII
- Carstens Grace Billy Corgan Signature Head
- Laney Supergroup LA100SM
- Laney LA412 4x12 Black Country Custom
Pedals
- RJM Mastermind GT/22 MIDI Controller
- Lehle D.Loop
- Warm Audio Warmdrive
- MXR Phase 90
- Catalinbread Zero Point Tape Flanger
- Behringer Octave Divider
- Strymon Brigadier dBucket Delay
- EarthQuaker Devices Time Shadows II
- Custom Audio Electronics MC-403 power supply
Strings
- Ernie Ball Regular Slinky (.010–.046)
- Ernie Ball Power Slinky (.011–.048)
- Ernie Ball Not Even Slinky (.012–.052)
- Ernie Ball Earthwood Medium Light (.012–.054)
Guitar starts out for so many of us as this really personal thing that we spend all our time doing, and then as life gets more complicated, you just have less time. What is your relationship with the guitar like in 2024? Do you have a day-to-day relationship with guitar playing?
Corgan: I do not. I don’t really pick up the guitar much unless I’m working.
When you do pick up the guitar, is it with intent? Do the ideas come inspired by the guitar, inspired by something you play? Or are they up in your head, and then you’re grabbing a guitar to realize it?
Corgan: If I pick up a guitar, I’m looking to play something that surprises me. It’s whatever comes out. And sometimes you hit the wrong chord and go, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Or you find a new inversion or something that you never thought of before. You try to play a different scale run than you’ve played 10,000 times, always landing on the same note. It’s just looking for something just a little bit new. I find oftentimes, in that quiet solitude of just you and the guitar, this communication can happen that sort of expresses something about yourself that is surprising—an emotional feeling or a way of approach.
“You could say to me, ‘Hey, play me some Siamese-type thing that you would’ve done in ’92,’ and in five minutes, I could write you something that would sound like a song that would’ve been a Siamese song in ’92.”
The style of my guitar playing came out of taking care of my disabled brother when I was a teenager, so I was stuck inside a lot. To paint a simple visual, imagine being stuck inside on a summer’s day and watching people play outside through the window as you’re playing the guitar. That was my life for much of my teenage years, because I was in this position where I had to look after somebody who was not so much homebound, but it wasn’t like the type of child at his stage of development that you could take him in the backyard and let him run around. You kind of had to look after him. It often became easier to stick him in front of a television or let him take a nap while you’re practicing.
There’s a certain loneliness in the way I play because I didn’t have anybody else to play guitar with. I developed a style that had a kind of call-and-response aspect to it in the open strings and the drone playing, because it was a way to effect a larger conversation without somebody else in the room.
Then, when it was James [Iha] and I in the early days of the band, James would basically do different versions of what I was playing. That created an even bigger conversation that seemed to create almost like a third guitarist. You can hear that in the whistling harmonics in the background. That’s just two guitars playing, but you create a ghost effect. I’ve done a lot of guitar work in the studio where people would be visiting me, and they look at the speakers, “What’s that sound?” And I’m like, “That’s just two guitars.” They don’t believe me. I literally have to solo the two guitars and just show them. That’s the harmonic effect.
I still have that inner relationship with my playing, where I could just sit down and play and find something that sounds like a bit of a conversation.
The Reverend Billy Corgan Signature in the hands of the man himself alongside drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and guitarist James Iha.
Photo by Ken Settle
When you’re writing, picking up a guitar, looking for those things, like you said, are you still after the same feeling you had initially or has the feeling changed?
Corgan: I think it’s more trying to find something that seems to signify whatever’s happening at the moment. It’s a truthfulness. You could say to me, “Hey, play me some Siamese-type thing that you would’ve done in ’92,” and in five minutes, I could write you something that would sound like a song that would’ve been a Siamese song in ’92. I can dial in any era of the band or my writing at will, because they’re all based on methodologies and certain emotional templates. So, I’m trying to do that for today. What is the 2024 version of that that makes me feel something—anything at all?
There’s this other creative side to your work, which is your signature gear. You have four Reverend guitars, and they’re all very different from each other. You’ve created them with Joe Naylor. Can you tell me about that collaboration?
Corgan: Somehow, Joe is able to go back and listen to what I’m referencing, and then translate that into something that’s physically tangible and consistent.
I don’t think a gimmicky guitar serves anybody. My signature guitars need to be useful to anybody else doing their music, not just my kind of music. And I’m very proud of that. I think that’s what makes a great guitar—it has application to whoever picks it up. And a lot of credit to Reverend to be willing to take these chances that I’ve sort of set them off chasing.
The Reverend Billy Corgan Drop Z is specially voiced in feel and sound for D standard and lower tunings.
They’re all bold guitars, but especially the Terz and the Drop Z, which are built specifically for alternate tunings. What were you looking for when you came up with the idea of those instruments?
Corgan: The thing with the Terz, which is G to G as opposed to E to E—a step and a half higher—was in listening to guitarists like Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead and other guitar players of that generation, I noticed that the function of the guitar for many alternative guitar players was becoming more atmospheric and less elemental. I thought maybe they would like to have a higher tonal range to work in. Because, ultimately, in 2024 logic, you want to get the guitar away from the vocal. If you think of the classic Telecaster sound, well, if you’re playing in the key of G on a Telecaster, that sits exactly where the vocal is. It’s like the worst possible place for a guitar in the 21st century. But if you can increase the harmonic range of the guitar, it does sort of sit, elementally, a little higher.
I don’t think people have figured that out yet about that guitar. But I have a funny feeling that at some point somebody will, much like when Korn took the Steve Vai guitar and took it in a completely different direction and made a whole new genre of music with it. I think the Terz opens a player up to a different tonal range.
“I don’t think a gimmicky guitar serves anybody. My signature guitars need to be useful to anybody else doing their music, not just my kind of music.”
A lot of these modern alternative guitar players, they don’t play super complicated stuff. Whether they were inspired by Jonny from Radiohead or the guy from Coldplay, it’s more like a tweedle-y guitar, like twilight, vibey.... You look at their pedalboards; it’s a lot of reverbs and bucket delays and stuff like that. I get it.
On the Drop—on making Aghori, I found myself thinking a lot about Mick Mars’s guitar sound and where Mick’s guitar sat in Mötley Crüe. Early Mötley Crüe was basically a guitar tuned down a step. Something about the D range—you could do it on a normal guitar, but it gets a little sloppy with the tuning and certainly the intonation. So, I talked to Reverend about making a D-to-D guitar that doesn’t feel like a baritone guitar, that plays and feels very much like an E-to-E guitar, but gives you range. For a modern guitar player who wants to make music that ends up on the radio, the specificities of where that guitar needs to sit tonally and how it would be mixed is what I was thinking of.
So, these are instruments for the modern player who wants to make music that can reach people vis-à-vis what is the media these days—streaming or whatever. If you want to take an old guitar and tune it down to F and all that … I did all that crazy stuff, too. I wouldn’t discourage anybody from doing it. But these are specific instruments with a very specific purpose, primarily for recording.
On “Edin” [from Aghori Mhori Mei], well, that’s that guitar. I think in that song, it’s dropped, so the low string is a C. But you can hear how that guitar sits so forward in the track. That’s a credit to Joe making that guitar exactly what I wanted, and the pickups really doing their job with how it sits in the track.
Corgan has an early memory of hearing Brian May’s lead break on “Killer Queen”: “It has that feeling of somebody stepping forward into a spotlight. It’s not a show-off thing. It’s the way it makes you feel. It’s like a lighter type of moment. We’ve always chased that feeling.”
I want to come back to how that affects your playing. You have these instruments that are now specifically voiced to your vision. When they get in your hands and you’re working on something, how do you exploit the sonics of those guitars? Maybe you wrote a song on acoustic, but now you have this instrument that you’ve helped ideate, and you can do stuff that your other guitars can’t. Where does that come in the creative process?
Corgan: I don’t think I have a romantic answer. For me, it’s more about recording accuracy or clarity. If you compare, let’s call it the “Mellon Collie ’95” guitar sound, where we were mostly a half-step down; it’s clear, but it’s very sludgy—a lot of midrange and not a lot of stuff above, say, 17k, because I was using those Lace Sensor pickups. Modern recording; everybody wants the guitar as far forward as you can get it.
These days, I’m mostly using these Carstens amps, which is a Chicago amp-maker, Brian Carstens. I used one amp that he made for me, the Grace, which he does sell, which is kind of a modern take on the Eddie Van Halen brown sound—a ton of gain, but clear. And then he has another amp called Empire, which is more for a metal player. I use that as well. And in some cases, I stack both amps on top of each other by reamping. He has another amp, called Cathedral, which is like a cross between a Fender Twin and a Hiwatt. Again, very clear.
“Modern recording; everybody wants the guitar as far forward as you can get it.”
The best way I can explain it, and this is my poor language-ing, but if I was to take a vintage Marshall plexi and a Les Paul, like a classic amazing guitar sound, and record the riff for “Edin,” and then I was to take my Reverend Drop Z run through a Carstens amp, and you listen to the two tracks, the modern stuff I’m using, the guitar is like six more feet forward in the track; the vintage stuff sounds kind of back there. You can hear it—a little gauzy, a little dark, and the modern stuff is right in your grill. It’s not harsh; it’s not overly midrange-y. It just sounds really good and present.
So that’s the key. Because I play so distinctively that I kind of sound like me whatever you put me through, my focus is more tonal and how it sits in the stereo field.
Are pedals just pragmatic means to achieve a tone? Or is there exploration involved there?
Corgan: Since Siamese Dream, where we famously used the op-amp Big Muff and EHX Micro Synth, and some MXR stuff, the main sound of the band is just crank through something. Going back to something my father told me many, many moons ago: guitar, chord, amp is the key. I worked in the studio with Tony Iommi. Those hands, a chord, an amp—and when he plays, God’s moving mountains. We get super granular when I’m in the studio; I might play a chord that’s no more than seven-feet long, anything so I can be as close to the amp as possible, so there’s the least amount of chord from the guitar to the amp.
It’s all about driving the amp and moving that air and moving those electrons in the tubes. That’s just the key for me. If there’s pedal work on any Pumpkins albums in the last 25 years, it’s for solos and little dinky things on the top. The main guitar sound is always pure power. We want as much pure power as possible.
YouTube It
The Smashing Pumpkins kick out “Sighommi” from Aghori Mhori Meilive on Kimmel with new-hire Kiki Wong joining Corgan and James Iha in the guitar section.
All Metoras feature an intriguing blend of classic Fender elements (Strat-style headstock, Jazzmaster/Jaguar-esque outline) and in the case of the Player Plus Meteora HH and the American Ultra II, more Gibson-like appointments (humbuckers and 3-way selector). But whereas the Telecaster-like Parallel Universe model and Player Plus HH leaned a little more retro, the American Ultra II both tilts more modern and fine-tunes some of the original’s tonal quirks and limitations.
Diverging Contours
Available in three finishes (here we’ve got Texas Tea), the latest Meteora has exposed-coil Haymaker humbuckers and matching pickup rings that, alongside the anodized aluminum pickguards and knurled metal knobs, lend a more hard rock/metal aesthetic than the original Meteora’s WideRange-styled pickups and brighter finish options. (The new avalanche and ultraburst finishes in particular, with their white and crème pickups, respectively, are reminiscent of ’70s and ’80s DiMarzio-outfitted rock machines.) Having demoed the Player Plus Meteora HH inPG’s First Look video, I’ll admit I prefer that series’ looks. But there’s no arguing that both fundamental tones and the myriad permutations proffered by the American Ultra II’s unusual tone-control array feel much more useful and well thought out this time around.
Wait, “unusual?” If you’ve googled this guitar, chances are you’ve seen the same conflicting information I found. Some sites say it has two tone controls, others (including the manufacturer’s at publication time) list a master volume, a master tone, and a bass-contour knob. Upon plugging in and twiddling knobs, though, I was immediately confused and, honestly, initially not very impressed. So I looked through the case, found the manual, and finally came to the truth: The Meteora is actually devoid of traditional tone controls, using instead a master volume, a bass-contour knob (nearest the output jack), anda treble-contour knob (middle). This setup was a first for me. Also, unlike the Jaguar, the alder-bodied Meteora has a standard Fender-scale 25.5" maple neck, with an ebony fretboard and employs the company’s “modern D” profile. There’s a Graph Tech TUSQ nut, too, and sealed locking tuners.More Offset Than Meets the Eye
I tested the American Ultra II with an EL34-powered Jaguar HC50 (with a ceramic-magnet Weber Gray Wolf), a ’76 Fender Vibrolux Reverb (with alnico Celestion G10 Golds), a KT66-driven Sound City SC30, and a bunch of drive, fuzz, delay, and reverb pedals. Through the two latter amps combined, the Meteora II’s contour controls proved most powerful, yielding a pretty astonishing array of sounds—particularly with fuzz pedals. With the traditional control scheme on my favorite offset (and main band guitar, a Jaguar with Curtis Novak JAG-V pickups), I primarily use the lead circuit’s tone knob (or the rhythm circuit) to tame fuzz pedals—and I find that setup more versatile than a lot of other guitars. But the Meteora’s contour knobs take things much further, letting you effectively revoice filth pedals in ways otherwise only possible with an adjacent EQ pedal.
With both contours full up, the Haymaker pickups still lean brighter than some dual-’bucker fans might prefer—but not as strident as the Player Plus units. And the bass contour is especially helpful for warming/toughing up the bridge unit, as well as cleaning up low-mid clutter you might encounter with the neck pickup soloed and dimed. With a clean-ish tone and both pickups engaged, dialing volume and both contours back a bit yields wiry, muscular funk tones. Boost the volume back up a bit and hit the S-1 coil tap, and you get leaner funk tones very much in the Strat realm. In all, the variety of sounds possible with this control scheme is almost revelatory. So much so that it’s a wonder more guitars don’t go this route—because you’re no longer limited to just darkening or lightening a pickup with a single knob. The crossover EQ points between the two controls are well-tuned to complement each other and open up possibilities you simply couldn’t get with standard tone controls. And the treble-bleed circuit assures that volume adjustments don’t muddy things up.
The Verdict
Whether the tweaks to the American Ultra II Meteora alleviate its somewhat vague positioning is up for debate. Fender offset fans tend to fall in either the traditionalist/vintage camp or the more modern “I like the shape but not the weird switches and hardware” camp. And, to most eyes, the Ultra II probably looks pretty modern despite the vintage neck and headstock tint. But tonally, even though the control scheme looks straightforward, the array of available tones is far more akin to the versatility afforded by Jaguar and Jazzmaster circuits than, say, a modern rock guitar. It is a bit of a bummer that the Ultra costs twice as much as the Player Plus HH (albeit with hardshell case) but has no vibrato option. Considering its sheer tonal quality and versatility, the latest Meteora absolutely has the edge over its predecessor—but I’d love to see future versions fully embrace their offset-ness with a vibrato system befitting the Meteora’s sonic forebears.
“I am thrilled that Mom is receiving this recognition for her talents,” says Mary Colleen Wess(daughter of Mary Ford and Les Paul). “I wish she was still with us to enjoy this wonderful honor, which she so richly deserves. Thank you so much, Gibson!”
Through her successful early career in country music and her connections with Gene Autry and Eddie Dean, Mary Ford--who was born Iris Colleen Summers on July 7, 1924--developed a musical partnership with Gibson icon Les Paul that led to their marriage in 1949. In 1951 alone, the duo sold over six million records, and between 1950 and 1954, they recorded a string of 16 top-ten hits that showcased Mary’s rich, smooth voice, complex, perfectly executed harmonies that she sang along with herself through multi-track recording, and overdubbing (a groundbreaking recording technique for the time), while her versatile guitar playing seamlessly blended country, jazz, and pop.
Mary Ford Les Paul Standard Goldtop - YouTube
Gibson Mary Ford Les Paul Standard Electric Guitar - Gold Top with Cherry Back
