To celebrate the late great Space Ace, we called up PG’s favorite Kiss fan, Chris Shiflett.
On at least one of your 100 Guitarists hosts’ favorite episode of Shred with Shifty, the Foo guitarist sat down with Ace to talk about his guitar playing on “Shock Me.” It’s a fun interview with lots of great anecdotes and killer vibes. But Shiflett has a lot more perspective on Ace, going way back to meeting the members of Kiss without their makeup as a kid.
Just Mustard performs at Dublin's 3Olympia Theatre.
Sean McMahon
All it takes is a minute or so of listening to Just Mustard’s music—a bewitching and unruly blend of fuzzy, guitar-driven post-punk and shoegaze-y noise rock—to make one thing abundantly clear: They’re not exactly aiming to challenge Taylor Swift for chart supremacy. “No, we’re not really interested in having pop singles,” says David Noonan, who, along with fellow guitarist Mete Kalyon, delights in creating cavernous, atmospheric walls of sound for the Irish quintet. “We’ve always been trying to make music that’s more avant-garde. I know it’s a cliché, but we like to push boundaries.”
He pauses for a second, then adds, “Which isn’t to say that we don’t want to be popular, because that would be great. We just want to do it our way.”
Just Mustard (which also includes singer Katie Ball, bassist Rob Clarke, and drummer Shane Maguire) have a doozy of an album with their new We Were Just Here, which builds on the strengths of its predecessors, 2018’s Wednesday and 2022’s Heart Under. Like those records, it’s an immersive sonic extravaganza, brimming with walloping, cavernous soundscapes and gnarly, twisted guitar lines that dart off in all kinds of directions. At the same time, it ventures into warmer, friendlier territory. Lead single “Pollyanna” is one of the band’s most cheerful efforts to date—Ball’s enchanting, ethereal vocals float though its feedback-laden textures—and the propulsive, synth-like title track has an irresistible early-’80s peppiness to it.
“It’s interesting—people have said that song reminds them of early New Order, which isn’t what we were going for,” Kalyon says. “I think when you try to make guitars sound like synths it actually works sometimes. But I never want to disguise the sound of the guitars entirely. I’d rather have people say, ‘Wow, that’s a cool guitar sound,’ not ‘Are you playing a synth there?’”
David Noonan
Ginger Dope
Unconventional as they may be in their guitar approaches, both Noonan and Kalyon came by their love of music by way of bands like the Beatles, Queen, and Led Zeppelin. “I wanted to be a saxophone player and a drummer at first, but they were too loud, so my parents got me a guitar,” Noonan says. His first guitar—a Squier Strat—practically became firewood when he discovered Nirvana. “The music was so exciting, and I thought that’s how you were supposed to play guitar, by throwing it around your bedroom and breaking things,” he says.
"I think when you try to make guitars sound like synths it actually works sometimes. But I never want to disguise the sound of the guitars entirely."—Mete Kalyon
It was also Nirvana that ignited the spark for Kalyon. “I used to listen to their greatest hits album, and that made me go, ‘All right, I need to learn how to play guitar,’” he says. “I got a crap guitar and played the hell out of it.” However, Kurt Cobain wasn’t the only Seattle guitarist who excited him: “I used to play loads of Jimi Hendrix’s stuff on guitar, but I can’t do it anymore,” he says.
Noonan laughs and says, “The first thing I remember about Mete was that he could play Hendrix’s ‘Little Wing.’ We were so impressed that he could break something like that out.”
Noonan met Kalyon in the college town of Dundalk, where he and pal Clarke, enthralled by electronica and groups like the Pixies and Sonic Youth, had moved in the hopes of starting a band. Hooking up with Ball put things in motion, but they soon realized they needed a second guitarist to fill out their sound. “It wasn’t quite an abduction, but I guessed they had heard that I played guitar and was into their kind of music,” Kalyon recalls. “I just remember David grabbing me off the street and saying, ‘Quick—you’re joining our band.’ It was quite shocking, really. Just like that, I was in.”
After a few jam sessions, it became apparent to both guitarists that their experimental approaches to sound complemented each other perfectly. “We grew up with traditional rock and blues, but we did away with that once we formed the band,” Noonan says. “The idea was to sound like electronica, but with guitars making all the noise.”
“The idea was to sound like electronica, but with guitars making all the noise.”—David Noonan
Over the course of their first two self-produced albums, the duo created abrasive sheets of pedal-driven textures—loud then soft, continuing the Nirvana template—with Noonan driving home sparky lead lines wherever they seemed to fit. But the two insist that there’s no dedicated “lead player” in the group. “We’re quite capable of swapping roles,” Kalyon says. “If I’m making one sound, David does the other, and vice versa.”
Noonan graduated to producer on We Were Just Here, and his basic approach involved recording the band live and then adding numerous guitar tracks—Noonan on a Fender Jaguar, Kalyon on a Fender Telecaster—to heighten the overall impact. “Silver” is an unnerving yet wondrous full-frontal assault on which Noonan piles tracks of pitch-shifting noise, enhanced by a Hologram Effects Dream Sequence. He and Kalyon ratchet up the chaos on “Endless Death”—its engulfing sonic boom is spiked with jagged melody lines that seem to escape at random times, shrieking and sputtering from all ends of the frequency range.
Mete Kalyon
James Streiker
“We kind of came at that one with everything we had,” Noonan says. “There was a lot of tinkering that went into that song, and now we have to figure out how to play it live.”
The matter of transferring their new material to the stage is a task that the band is now pondering, and Noonan admits that it’s going to be a harder nut to crack than before. “On some level, we just have to do what feels right at the moment, which is what we’ve always done,” he says. “Here’s a guitar melody that sounds right, but then you’ve got to slip back into the sonic happening and play something that’s not necessarily a lead part.”
He continues, “When we’re in the studio, there’s a lot of constructing bits that can make everything sound overproduced, but we don’t want to get to the level with some bands where you go to see them live and they have to have backing tracks or add these session musicians who go on tour with them. When you come see us, we want you to experience what you’re hearing on the record, which is us playing everything.”
The Electro-Harmonix story is long and complex with more untold stories beneath the surface than most could imagine. Part of that untold story is all of the pedal ideas that never got made for one reason or another. EHX aficionados Josh Scott and Daniel Danger had been digging through all of the EHX’s history when they came upon an old schematic at the home of original Big Muff Pi designer, Bob Myer. Initially passed over by EHX Founder, Mike Matthews, for what would become the Op-Amp Big Muff Pi back in the late 70’s, this schematic serves as a window into that untold story of forgotten pedals, so Josh went to work to bring this circuit to life in collaboration with Electro-Harmonix. The result, a Dual Op-Amp fuzz that’s very much Big Muff with its own character dubbed the Big Muff Pi 2.
The Big Muff Pi 2 is a slight detour from the usual Big Muff tone. Slightly lower gain, slightly less refined edges with a unique feel, but with the signature sustain and full-bodied BMP tone known and loved by countless players. Housed in EHX’s Nano-sized chassis in a vibrant refinish with graphics by Daniel Danger, the pedal features the familiar SUSTAIN, TONE, and VOL controls. SUSTAIN controls the amount of distortion from heavy crunch to full speaker pounding saturation. The TONE knob is a classic BMP-style tone control, boosting treble and cutting bass as it’s turned up, from wooly to searing. VOL adjusts the overall output of the effects.
This lost piece of the pi ships a 9 Volt battery (power supply optional), is available now and has a U.S. Street Price of $122.00.
J Rockett Audio Designs announces the release of the Aqueous Chorus, a versatile chorus pedal that can live in both the vintage and modern era thanks to its Tilt EQ and Preamp.
“The Aqueous Chorus is our take on creating a chorus that truly can recreate vintage bucket brigade and modern watery tones in one unit” says Chris Van Tassel. Chris adds, “We wanted a chorus that didn’t just sound good, but felt good to play. With the added EQ and preamp controls, it gives players a huge palette of sounds from subtle vibe textures to full-on rotating speaker effects, vintage and modern chorus sounds as well as 80’s chorus lushness and 70 chorus thickness”. The additional built in preamp allows players to not only balance their volume, but can also be used to tame the input to create more subtle effects and add overall character to the pedal.
Aqueous Chorus Features:
Tilt EQ that adds treble and reduces bass when turned to the right and adds bass but reduces treble when turned to the left.
Preamp section for output control and adds character and feel not typically found in a modulation device.
Mix control blends chorus and vibe modes, with vibe-only in the last 1/4 rotation
Depth and Speed controls for subtle movement to extreme modulation
Rotary-style sounds and lush modulation effects are available with creative settings
Built with rugged construction and vintage-inspired looks
Specifications:
9VDC Negative Tip Power (no internal battery option)
28mA Current Draw
The Aqueous Chorus will be available December 15th, 2025 via select dealers for $249.99
Keeley Electronics NOCTURNE Reverb Developed in collaboration with Andy Timmons, the NOCTURNE showcases a brand new reverb space based on our unique Halo delay algorithm. From subtle ambience to cinematic space, the NOCTURNE allows players to create that same expressive, touch-sensitive bloom that trails effortlessly behind every note, without the cross-talk from echoes.
The NOCTURNE pedal gives you three new reverb modes — Nocturne, Spring, and Plate — each designed to be the guitar and amp’s perfect companion. The Plate reverb is based on our extensive analysis and modeling of the stereo tube plate reverb that was in Austin City Limits studio since the mid-1970s. The Nocturne’s Spring reverb features our finest sounds based on both stand alone reverb tanks and tube amplifier combos. The simple four-knob layout of Tone, Level, Decay, and Modulation makes it easy to shape each gorgeous reverb space. Each reverb mode can be made a preset so you can store your favorite sounds. Alt features include our first pre-delay time control, allowing you to create slapback echo effects.
- YouTube
The NOCTURNE offers a flexible signal path with True or Buffered Bypass, ExpressionPedal control, Remote Switching, and MIDI compatibility for up to 72 presets. Whether you’re running mono or stereo, wet/dry, or full wet for parallel rigs, the NOCTURNE adapts easily to any setup. Built on Keeley’s award-winning Core architecture, every component and line of code is tuned to make this reverb feel musical and alive.
Operation is easy with the Nocturne – if the indicator LED is blue then it's 'wysiwyg'; the knobs set the tone or level of each reverb mode. If the LED is red, each reverb is a favorite or preset, where you can save the settings for each reverb mode.
Like every Keeley pedal, the NOCTURNE Andy Timmons Reverb is designed andmanufactured in Oklahoma, USA. Engineered for the working musician, and voiced for inspiration.
Features
A Brand New Reverb -’Nocturne’ based on the Andy Timmons’ signature HALO sound
Three reverb modes: Nocturne, Spring, Plate
Intuitive four-knob control layout: Tone, Level, Decay, Modulation
Store and recall presets with dedicated footswitch
Trails on/off, True or Buffered Bypass selectable
Expression and MIDI control with up to 72 preset locations
Stereo outputs with Wet+Dry or Wet-only operation
Made in the USA
$269 USD
Dealer Contact:
Danny Black, Sales Director • Phone: 1-405-341-2025 • Email: dealer@rkfx.com Visit theKeeley Electronics website, onYouTube and on Facebook and Instagram.
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