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Take This Hammer: Writing a Song With Ed Helms

Before your Very Ears: Ed Helms

On this season finale episode, the actor and musician leads a Prine-inspired songwriting session about how few tools we have in our collective toolbox.


You probably know Ed Helms from his unforgettable turns in The Hangover movies, The Office, and a laundry list of era-defining comedies, but what you might not know is that he shreds bluegrass music, too. (Actually, if you’ve seen The Office, you’ll know about his impressive musicianship.) Helms has played in bluegrass bands since his college days, so he knows a thing or two about writing a great American roots song. And what’s more American than getting too pissed off and ruining nice things?

Helms joins Sean Watkins and Peter Harper for a writing session that centers on a paraphrased version of Abraham Maslow’s law of the instrument: “When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything’s a nail.” The trio use the phrase as a way to look at personal and societal inabilities to approach situations with “the right tool,” like nuance, patience, or grace. Instead, anger—the hammer—seems to be the only tool in our belts. That inevitably means we end up smashing stuff.

Tune in to hear how this John Prine-inspired country tune takes shape—plus, don’t miss the story of Sean’s DMV blowup when he was just 16.

Berklee Online

Visit BOL.education for a free sample lesson, or use code “Song” for a 10% discount on your first non-degree course.

Killswitch Engage are, from left to right, Justin Foley on drums, guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz, vocalist Jesse Leach, bassist Mike D’Antonio, and guitarist Joel Stroetzel.

The metalcore pioneers return with an album for the times, This Consequence, that explores division, war, and other modern-day troubles to the tune of the band’s tandem guitar duo’s brutal, lockstep riff-ery.

“We don’t consider ourselves politicians or into politics by any means, but the sense of national unrest, and the unwillingness to work together, it’s really grated on us,” admits Killswitch Engage guitarist/producer Adam Dutkiewicz (Adam D, professionally). “It’s manifested itself into the songs and lyrics.”

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The National New Yorker lived at the forefront of the emerging electric guitar industry, and in Memphis Minnie’s hands, it came alive.

This National electric is just the tip of the iceberg of electric guitar history.

On a summer day in 1897, a girl named Lizzie Douglas was born on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Mississippi, the first of 13 siblings. When she was seven, her family moved closer to Memphis, Tennessee, and little Lizzie took up the banjo. Banjo led to guitar, guitar led to gigs, and gigs led to dreams. She was a prodigious talent, and “Kid” Douglas ran away from home to play for tips on Beale Street when she was just a teenager. She began touring around the South, adopted the moniker Memphis Minnie, and eventually joined the circus for a few years.

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In our third installment with Santa Cruz Guitar Company founder Richard Hoover, the master luthier shows PG's John Bohlinger how his team of builders assemble and construct guitars like a chef preparing food pairings. Hoover explains that the finer details like binding, headstock size and shape, internal bracing, and adhesives are critical players in shaping an instrument's sound. Finally, Richard explains how SCGC uses every inch of wood for making acoustic guitars or outside ventures like surfboards and art.

We know Horsegirl as a band of musicians, but their friendships will always come before the music. From left to right: Nora Cheng, drummer Gigi Reece, and Penelope Lowenstein.

Photo by Ruby Faye

The Chicago-via-New York trio of best friends reinterpret the best bits of college-rock and ’90s indie on their new record, Phonetics On and On.

Horsegirl guitarists Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein are back in their hometown of Chicago during winter break from New York University, where they share an apartment with drummer Gigi Reece. They’re both in the middle of writing papers. Cheng is working on one about Buckminster Fuller for a city planning class, and Lowenstein is untangling Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann’s short story, “Three Paths to the Lake.”

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