
The cover of our June issue.
There’s logic and a process to how the artists we write about are selected, and how we strive to fulfill our commitment to serve the entire guitar community. Let us know how we’re doing.
Recently, we received a letter from a reader complaining that we didn’t write about enough artists that reader knew, so they were canceling their subscription. I was perplexed. Over the past few months, we’ve written about Kerry King, the Black Keys, Marcus King, the Melvins, the Black Crowes, Blackberry Smoke, Judas Priest, Steve Albini, Sleater-Kinney, and, in this issue, Slash, the Decemberists, and Richard Thompson. Hardly a cavalcade of the obscure. Plus, one of the reasons I started reading guitar and other music magazines when I was 16 was to find artists I didn’t know, and decades later I still love discovering new musicians who excite me.
And I still believe it’s every music media outlet’s responsibility to turn readers or listeners on to performers they are unfamiliar with. Hence, our recent features on Khruangbin, Sheer Mag, Anne McCue, Bill Orcutt, Dave Pomeroy, and Laura Jane Grace.
Although we also love to write about gear, and have devoted more pages (and covers) to gear features over the past 18 months, we don’t take our artist coverage lightly at all. Each month, as individual editors and collectively, we listen to dozens of new albums, refine that to a list of anywhere from 20 to 40 artists and titles, and vote on that list. Those artists with the most votes get the ink, and sometimes the lobbying is intense. Occasionally, an artist we love who doesn’t get the votes will end up in our Question of the Month column, or elsewhere. Often an artist we can’t squeeze in due to timing or space constraints, like, recently, Warren Haynes, Steve Vai, and Julian Lage—who we’ve written about many times and also love—will end up in a Rig Rundown, thanks to our video crew headed by Chris Kies and Perry Bean, often supported by our popular host John Bohlinger. (I also enjoy being the talking head for Rundowns when I can.)
Perhaps the unhappy reader was thinking about Green Day, Brian Setzer, or Mark Knopfler? They’ve all appeared on the covers of the other guitar magazines recently, and that’s one of the reasons we didn’t put them on ours. We try to not duplicate the other magazines’ coverage. Sometimes we know what they’re doing; sometimes we don’t and we make our best guess. Also, we believe in letting the dead rest in peace. I love Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix. And while I was too young to catch Jimi, I saw Stevie Ray in concert 14 times and interviewed him on several occasions, and got to chat backstage. Besides his musical excellence, I feel that he was the most giving performer I’ve ever seen. His music touched me profoundly, and when he died I cried hard. Nonetheless, Stevie or Jimi won’t be making annual appearances on our cover. At this point, especially after Charles R. Cross’ Room Full of Mirrors and Alan Paul and Andy Aledort’s Texas Flood, there really doesn’t seem to be any mysteries left in their legacies. That said, when one presents itself, we’ll do our best to cover it. We also revere our artists who are gone or faded into semi-obscurity, and you can read about many of them in our Forgotten Heroes features, or, as the worst happens, in our memoriams. I recently penned those for Dickey Betts, Wayne Kramer, and Duane Eddy, who were among my rock ’n’ roll heroes. I hate writing these, but I believe that contributors to the guitar canon deserve a strong, heartfelt, goodbye.
“We try to not duplicate the other magazines’ coverage.”
We do feel a great sense of responsibility to our readers, but also to the character of our publication. We don’t want to bring you a generic guitar magazine. I hope we succeed in being different, and letters like this ex-reader’s certainly make me reflect on our work. But I could not be happier or more honored than to be among the fine group of editors here. We all have areas of expertise that we bring to our jobs, and I am proud of our collective effort. But I’m also open-minded enough to know perfection is rarely attained, and that sometimes we miss the mark. I depend on your letters and emails to help us stay on track, and I invite them both. So please do let us know what you think about PG’s coverage … regularly.
You’ve probably seen me write this before, but we are all part of the guitar community, and I want to be sure we’re always in touch. Our community members are a diverse bunch, artistically and personally, and our connection, via the music and instruments we love, is important. Speaking of diversity, I’m pretty sure our senior-most reader is Ida Hoffma of Bristol, Rhode Island. Ida is 97 and mostly reads the things I write, looks at the rest of the issue, and gives it to her son-in-law, Ernie, who reads the magazine and then passes it along to one of his wife Susan’s guitar-playing co-workers. (Pass-along rates used to be an important consideration in print journalism.) Ida doesn’t play guitar, but since I’m married to her daughter, Laurie, I think she sees her role in our community as keeping me employed. Thanks, Ida!
- Sleater-Kinney Summons a New Resilience ›
- The Black Keys Make Ohio Players with Beck, Noel Gallagher, and Other Heavyweights ›
- Rig Rundown: Slayer ›
- Guitarist Richard Thompson's New Sound on Ship to Shore ›
In this episode of 100 Guitarists, we’re talking all things surf rock, from reverb to tremolo picking and much more. And while “Misrlou” is undisputedly his most influential work, maybe Dale’s best records didn’t come until a few decades later.
“All the kids in all L.A. / Come to hear Dick Dale play,” or so goes the title track from Dick Dale’s Wrecking Crew-heavy 1963 album, King of the Surf Guitar. Immodest though it might seem to proclaim such a status, he was indeed at the top of the heap.
For many, Dale’s legend precedes him. His sound, first heard in a So Cal beach ballroom, created the surf guitar vocabulary and transformed the guitar universe, starting with the 1962 release of his take on the traditional song “Misrlou.” Ever the showman, he worked closely with Leo Fender developing the right gear for the gig as he played his ripping instrumentals to larger and larger audiences. He also inspired a Hendrix lyric and had a late-career renaissance thanks to Quentin Tarantino.
In this episode of 100 Guitarists, we’re talking all things surf rock, from reverb to tremolo picking and much more. And while “Misrlou” is undisputedly his most influential work, maybe Dale’s best records didn’t come until a few decades later.
This episode is sponsored byTraveler Guitar.
Advanced
Intermediate
- Learn how to incorporate open strings all the way up the fretboard.
- Build velocity in your playing without practicing speed exercises.
- Discover an easy way to steal licks from the pros using YouTube.
It’s universally known in the guitar community that Brad Paisley isn’t just some guy that strums a guitar and sings country songs. He’s widely respected as one of the best players in the country music scene and takes an unusual approach to achieve the sonic insanity that spills out of his guitar. From Telecasters, G-benders, and cranked Dr. Z amps to instrumental records and wild guitar solos getting mainstream country radio airtime, Paisley has solidified his place in the discussion of all-time greats, and not just in the country world. In this lesson, we’ll dive into one of the cornerstones of Brad’s playing that makes him so unique: open strings.
A couple of prefaces:
Most of the licks in this lesson are exponentially easier when hybrid picked.
And in case you didn’t know, YouTube allows you to alter the speed of videos. This is a massive tool to take advantage of when learning licks, practicing them, and getting them up to speed. Simply click the Settings button in the bottom right corner of the video player and select Playback Speed. This will allow you to speed up or slow down the video to your liking without any changes to pitch. Transients will become an issue the farther away from the original speed you go, but not enough to keep you from slowing a solo down 50 percent to really learn and nail the nuances.
We’ll start by just dipping a toe in the water for Ex. 1, looking at a small part of the solo from Brad’s song “Ticks.” This section is found at the 3:06 mark of the video below. Brad really likes to use open strings to provide color to licks, usually with the note falling outside of the established scale. This little nugget is entirely in the E major scale (E–F#–G#–A–B–C#–D#) with exception of the open 3rd string. The use of the open string throws a b3 into the mix, while making it feel faster with little added effort. If you were to play this lick at half speed, the open G string does not sound great—but that’s the whole idea behind what Brad is able to do with open string licks. At tempo, the open string sounds like a natural inflection and the lick has more velocity than if it were omitted.
Ex. 1
Ticks
In Ex. 2 we’re still looking at the “Ticks” solo but focusing on the back half. This entire section of the solo is a smorgasbord of open strings. The first phrase uses sliding and open strings to create an almost bouncy and circus feel. The use of the open G string allows Brad to travel up the fretboard with some very interesting flair. Then he uses the open 1st string in measure 2 to create momentum again, but in this instance, the open-string pull-offs fall inside the E major scale rather than acting as color tones. It’s much easier to connect this section of the lick to the previous by using the third finger to execute the bend and the fourth finger to start the new descending phrase. Lastly, Brad takes the solo home with a simple descending three-note-per-string pull-off lick that combines inside and outside notes.
Ex. 2
If you’ve ever listened to Paisley’s “Time Warp,” you know that it’s a gold mine of licks to steal. In Ex. 3, I’m focusing on a lick Brad plays on the “Live on Letterman” version, which occurs after the piano solo at the 1:23 mark in the video below. It’s worth noting that this is not the same line featured on the album version from Time Well Wasted. This lick is a perfect example of how Brad uses open strings to create velocity and really get going downhill at breakneck speeds. The lick is not overly complicated, but it is extremely fast, especially if you are new to hybrid picking. I’m playing it at roughly 75 percent speed so that the notes are intelligible and not just a blur. The lick is mostly based in the A Aeolian mode (A–B–C–D–E–F–G), with flatted second being the exception.
Ex. 3
Brad Paisley - Time Warp (Live on Letterman)
In this example (Ex. 4), we tackle a fantastic phrase from the solo to “Water.” The lick I’m breaking down falls around the 1:43 mark in the YouTube video. What’s so interesting is that while the song is in F major, Brad utilizes the open A, D, and G strings to navigate the fretboard vertically and create energy. My favorite thing about the descending pull-off section of this lick is that it’s a tame bluegrass-style lick in G, but it’s the placement of the lick over the chord changes that makes it sound interesting.
Ex. 4
Brad Paisley - Water
Ex. 5 is where things get really exciting. It’s from a live performance of “Water” during the 2010 ACM awards. At the 3:40 mark Brad uses an open-string lick to build tension and work his way up the fretboard that caught my attention. As before, it sounds monstrous at tempo but really doesn’t make a ton of sense when slowed down. It’s a fairly simple pull-off lick that isn’t too difficult if you’re already used to hybrid picking, but it creates a ton of movement and excitement when sped up. I’m guilty of stealing both this lick and the idea behind it for “wow” moments in solos.
Ex. 5
Brad Paisley - Water (live ACM Awards 2010)
It’s undeniable how freakishly good of a guitar player Brad Paisley is (try grabbing some of the monster licks from the outro of “Water”). Because of how many tricks he has up his sleeve, he’s nearly impossible to replicate, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something that everyone can take from Paisley’s bag of tricks. Use this concept of using open strings in unconventional places to add spice, speed, and mystique to your playing.
An easy guide to re-anchoring a loose tuning machine, restoring a “lost” input jack, refinishing dinged frets, and staunching a dinged surface. Result: no repair fees!
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