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"Captain" Kirk Douglas: From "Wheels on the Bus" to the Tonight Show

"Captain" Kirk Douglas: From "Wheels on the Bus" to the Tonight Show

Roots guitarist “Captain” Kirk Douglas talks about his background as a pre-school teacher, the role of the guitar in hip-hop, and gives the definitive take on his Prince story.


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A Day in the Life on The Tonight Show

Generally speaking, we’ll get there at 2:00 PM and that has us around for whatever random things may come up. We also do testing to maintain a level of everybody knowing where everybody's at with Covid and so forth. And then we will go out about 4:45 to do a warmup for the audience, and we'll do a song for the audience. Or there's a guy that comes out and warms up the crowds, Seth Herzog. The show begins at 5:00 and we're usually out of there by 6:15. I’m no spring chicken, I have kids, I have two teenagers, I'm married, and my time prior to the show is generally geared towards health and wellness and doing a good performance.

So, I'll wake up and try to get my daughter out of bed so she can get ready for school. And then I'll exercise because I am becoming a vintage instrument and our bodies are our instruments, so I try to take care of myself to that end. I live right next to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, so that gives me little excuse as far as exercising. But yeah, a doctor friend told me that aging is a contact sport and like any sport you have to train for it.

Onstage, Tommy Emmanuel executes a move that is not from the playbook of his hero, Chet Atkins.

Photo by Simone Cecchetti

Recorded live at the Sydney Opera House, the Australian guitarist’s new album reminds listeners that his fingerpicking is in a stratum all its own. His approach to arranging only amplifies that distinction—and his devotion to Chet Atkins.

Australian fingerpicking virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel is turning 70 this year. He’s been performing since he was 6, and for every solo show he’s played, he’s never used a setlist.

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Photo by Ryan Russell

Minus the Bear announces nationwide tour celebrating 20th anniversary of Menos el Oso album.

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An overdrive and mangled fuzz that’s a wolf in a maniacal, rabid wolf’s clothing.

Invites new compositional approaches to riffs and solos. Gray Channel distortion is versatile and satisfying. Unpredictable.

Unpredictable. Footswitches for distortion and fuzz are quite close.

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Fuzz can be savored in so many ways. It can be smooth. It can be an agent of chaos. But it can also be a trap. In service of mayhem, it can be a mere noise crutch. Smooth, classy, “tasty” fuzz, meanwhile, can lead to dull solos crafted as Olympian demonstrations of sustain. To touch the soulful, rowdy essence of fuzz, it’s good to find one that never lets you get quite comfortable. The EarthQuaker Devices Gary, a two-headed distortion/overdrive and rabid, envelope-controlled square-wave fuzz designed with IDLES’ Lee Kiernan, is a gain device in this vein.

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Blackberry Smoke will embark on a co-headline tour with Mike Campbell & the Dirty Knobs. Lead singer Charlie Starr shares, “What could be better than summertime rock and roll shows with Blackberry Smoke and the one and only Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs?”

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