Would you believe that I once auditioned for the J.B.’s … on organ!? Unfortunately, it happened. In 1992, my manager at the time somehow convinced me to accept a studio session and failed to mention that this session was on Hammond organ, with the J.B.’s! Needless to say, it didn’t go well, and thus, I continued to admire James Brown’s music, on bass, from afar.
About James’ important music: In the early 1900s, an important change took place, driven by the Black folk musics of the time. Rather than following traditional accompaniment roles reinforcing root notes, providing a rhythmic background, or punctuating dramatic moments, drummers and bassists began doing something different. Driven by new rapidly evolving repertoire, some forward-thinking virtuosos started developing bass lines and drum patterns based on short, repetitive rhythmic phrases, creating a groove culture.
Forty or so years on, this led to one of the grooviest periods in music history, when what came to be known as funk rose to prominence. I want to state clearly from the outset that I do not believe that groove as an innovation—and thus funk, or musicians such as James Brown, Bobby Byrd, and their crew—has gotten appropriate credit for what it brought to the world. I’m naming people here, but most music is a community effort. Funk was no different. It was the development of a vast collective, which involved many great musicians. But James Brown, Bobby Byrd, and their musical circle—the Famous Flames, the J.B.’s, etc.—did a whole lot to get the ball rolling!
To really appreciate the massive contribution that funk made to the very concept of groove, one really needs to only listen to music pre 1965 (including the Famous Flames’ own songs), and then compare this with what was happening by 1970. In 1965, James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” which distilled a few important groove innovations from James’ earlier songs, was a turning point. To me, this period sounds as though they traveled forwards in time to a parallel dimension and came back with the unadulterated funk! A few years earlier, they were singing songs like “Please, Please, Please.” By 1970, with the release of songs like “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine,” “The Payback,” and “Funky Drummer,” they were now in the midst of a whole new branch of musical evolution. This music was so different that it changed the way singers sang, audiences listened, and even the way people danced to music.
“I can remember digging through my dad’s record collection as a young kid in the early ’80s. I will never forget the day that I stumbled upon the James Brown section.”
The drums were now front and center, playing hard, delivering repetitive patterns based on a backbeat. There was little to no variation, and that was the entire point. The remade bass role now followed a similar concept of stripped-down repetition—we’re talking about bass lines that only involved two to three notes. Each musician, from the guitarist to the horn player, had specific parts, which fit together like a jigsaw. This was important enough for James to fine musicians for straying too far too often. An entire song might only consist of two sections, a vamp and bridge, and that vamp might go around for five minutes before the bridge ever happened.
I can remember digging through my dad’s record collection as a young kid in the early ’80s. I will never forget the day that I stumbled upon the James Brown section. Even back then, some 15 years after these records had been released, I knew that there was something very different that these guys were doing. It sounded like an earlier version of what I heard so many artists doing at the time, but I didn’t know to call it funk. I did, however, realize that I wanted to learn to play that way.
Of course, what James’ band did in the ’60s and ’70s also formed the foundation for what came soon after: Sly and the Family Stone, Parliament Funkadelic, Cameo, Tower of Power, the Meters, Earth, Wind & Fire, Kool & The Gang, the Ohio Players, the Doobie Brothers, Rufus, and, eventually, hip-hop. This puts James, Bobby, and their circle at the center of a lot of amazing music. But if we were to consider their contributions to groove itself, we should probably see them as the root of almost everything remotely groove-based post 1970!
At the very least, I am convinced that much of my own approach to music, and certainly to bass, was shaped by the sound they created. To this day, when I am in the studio thinking about how a kick, snare, or bass should sound, or how a groove should feel, I am thinking of their groundbreaking records, recorded almost 60 years ago! I am certain that there are a whole lot of other musicians who are doing the same, even if they are not aware.
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Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, EGC Chessie in hands, coaxing some nasty tones from his Hiwatt.
The Jesus Lizard’s sixth album, Blue, served as the band’s final statement from the frontlines of noisy rock for the next 26 years. By the time of their dissolution in 1999, they’d earned a reputation for extreme performances chock full of hard-hitting, machine-like grooves delivered by bassist David Wm. Sims and, at their conclusion, drummer Mac McNeilly, at times aided and at other times punctured by the frontline of guitarist Duane Denison’s incisive, dissonant riffing, and presided over by the cantankerous howl of vocalist David Yow. In the years since, performative, thrilling bands such as Pissed Jeans, METZ, and Idles have built upon the Lizard’s musical foundation.
Denison has kept himself plenty busy over the last couple decades, forming the avant-rock supergroup Tomahawk—with vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn (both from Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier of Helmet—and alongside various other projects including Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III. The Jesus Lizard eventually reunited, but until now have only celebrated their catalog, never releasing new jams.
The Jesus Lizard, from left: bassist David Wm. Sims, singer David Yow, drummer Mac McNeilly, and guitarist Duane Denison.
Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Back in 2018, Denison, hanging in a hotel room with Yow, played a riff on his unplugged electric guitar that caught the singer’s ear. That song, called “West Side,” will remain unreleased for now, but Denison explains: “He said, ‘Wow, that’s really good. What is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s just some new thing. Why don’t we do an album?’” From those unassuming beginnings, the Jesus Lizard’s creative juices started flowing.
So, how does a band—especially one who so indelibly captured the ineffable energy of live rock performance—prepare to get a new record together 26 years after their last? Back in their earlier days, the members all lived together in a band house, collectively tending to the creative fire when inspiration struck. All these years later, they reside in different cities, so their process requires sending files back and forth and only meeting up for occasional demo sessions over the course of “three or four years.”
“When the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.” —Duane Denison
the Jesus Lizard "Alexis Feels Sick"
Distance creates an obstacle to striking while the proverbial iron is hot, but Denison has a method to keep things energized: “Practice loud.” The guitarist professes the importance of practice, in general, and especially with a metronome. “We keep very detailed records of what the beats per minute of these songs are,” he explains. “To me, the way to do it is to run it to a Bluetooth speaker and crank it, and then crank your amp. I play a little at home, but when the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.”
It’s a proven solution. On Rack—recorded at Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle studio with producer Paul Allen—the band sound as vigorous as ever, proving they’ve not only remained in step with their younger selves, but they may have surpassed it with faders cranked. “Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style,” explains Allen. “The conviction in his playing that he is known for from his recordings in the ’80s and ’90s is still 100-percent intact and still driving full throttle today.”
“I try to be really, really precise,” he says. “I think we all do when it comes to the basic tracks, especially the rhythm parts. The band has always been this machine-like thing.” Together, they build a tension with Yow’s careening voice. “The vocals tend to be all over the place—in and out of tune, in and out of time,” he points out. “You’ve got this very free thing moving around in the foreground, and then you’ve got this very precise, detailed band playing behind it. That’s why it works.”
Before Rack, the Jesus Lizard hadn’t released a new record since 1998’s Blue.
Denison’s guitar also serves as the foreground foil to Yow’s unhinged raving, as on “Alexis Feels Sick,” where they form a demented harmony, or on the midnight creep of “What If,” where his vibrato-laden melodies bolster the singer’s unsettled, maniacal display. As precise as his riffs might be, his playing doesn’t stay strictly on the grid. On the slow, skulking “Armistice Day,” his percussive chording goes off the rails, giving way to a solo that slices that groove like a chef’s knife through warm butter as he reorganizes rock ’n’ roll histrionics into his own cut-up vocabulary.
“During recording sessions, his first solo takes are usually what we decide to keep,” explains Allen. “Listen to Duane’s guitar solos on Jack White’s ‘Morning, Noon, and Night,’ Tomahawk’s ‘Fatback,’ and ‘Grind’ off Rack. There’s a common ‘contained chaos’ thread among them that sounds like a harmonic Rubik’s cube that could only be solved by Duane.”
“Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style.” —Rack producer Paul Allen
To encapsulate just the right amount of intensity, “I don’t over practice everything,” the guitarist says. Instead, once he’s created a part, “I set it aside and don’t wear it out.” On Rack, it’s obvious not a single kilowatt of musical energy was lost in the rehearsal process.
Denison issues his noisy masterclass with assertive, overdriven tones supporting his dissonant voicings like barbed wire on top of an electric fence. The occasional application of slapback delay adds a threatening aura to his exacting riffage. His tones were just as carefully crafted as the parts he plays, and he relied mostly on his signature Electrical Guitar Company Chessie for the sessions, though a Fender Uptown Strat also appears, as well as a Taylor T5Z, which he chose for its “cleaner, hyper-articulated sound” on “Swan the Dog.” Though he’s been spotted at recent Jesus Lizard shows with a brand-new Powers Electric—he points out he played a demo model and says, “I just couldn’t let go of it,” so he ordered his own—that wasn’t until tracking was complete.
Duane Denison's Gear
Denison wields his Powers Electric at the Blue Room in Nashville last June.
Photo by Doug Coombe
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company Chessie
- Fender Uptown Strat
- Taylor T5Z
- Gibson ES-135
- Powers Electric
Amps
- Hiwatt Little J
- Hiwatt 2x12 cab with Fane F75 speakers
- Fender Super-Sonic combo
- Early ’60s Fender Bassman
- Marshall 1987X Plexi Reissue
- Victory Super Sheriff head
- Blackstar HT Stage 60—2 combos in stereo with Celestion Neo Creamback speakers and Mullard tubes
Effects
- Line 6 Helix
- Mantic Flex Pro
- TC Electronic G-Force
- Menatone Red Snapper
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Orbiters .0105 and .011 sets
- Dunlop celluloid white medium
- Sun Studios yellow picks
He ran through various amps—Marshalls, a Fender Bassman, two Fender Super-Sonic combos, and a Hiwatt Little J—at Audio Eagle. Live, if he’s not on backline gear, you’ll catch him mostly using 60-watt Blackstar HT Stage 60s loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. And while some boxes were stomped, he got most of his effects from a Line 6 Helix. “All of those sounds [in the Helix] are modeled on analog sounds, and you can tweak them endlessly,” he explains. “It’s just so practical and easy.”
The tools have only changed slightly since the band’s earlier days, when he favored Travis Beans and Hiwatts. Though he’s started to prefer higher gain sounds, Allen points out that “his guitar sound has always had teeth with a slightly bright sheen, and still does.”
“Honestly, I don’t think my tone has changed much over the past 30-something years,” Denison says. “I tend to favor a brighter, sharper sound with articulation. Someone sent me a video I had never seen of myself playing in the ’80s. I had a band called Cargo Cult in Austin, Texas. What struck me about it is it didn’t sound terribly different than what I sound like right now as far as the guitar sound and the approach. I don’t know what that tells you—I’m consistent?”
YouTube It
The Jesus Lizard take off at Nashville’s Blue Room this past June with “Hide & Seek” from Rack.
Keith Urban has spent decades traveling the world and topping global country-music charts, and on this episode of Wong Notes, the country-guitar hero tells host Cory Wong how he conquered the world—and what keeps him chasing new sounds on his 6-string via a new record, High, which releases on September 20.
Urban came up as guitarist and singer at the same time, and he details how his playing and singing have always worked as a duet in service of the song: “When I stop singing, [my guitar] wants to say something, and he says it in a different way.” Those traits served him well when he made his move into the American music industry, a story that begins in part with a fateful meeting with a 6-string banjo in a Nashville music store in 1995.
It’s a different world for working musicians now, and Urban weighs in on the state of radio, social media, and podcasts for modern guitarists, but he still believes in word-of-mouth over the algorithm when it comes to discovering exciting new players.
And in case you didn’t know, Keith Urban is a total gearhead. He shares his essential budget stomps and admits he’s a pedal hound, chasing new sounds week in and week out, but what role does new gear play in his routine? Urban puts it simply: “I’m not chasing tone, I’m pursuing inspiration.”
