As the revolution of small boutique luthiers continues to evolve, Premier Guitar is honored to review the new Earlewood model from JET Guitars. A native builder hailing from Raleigh, NC, Jeffrey Terwilliger has been creating exquisite instruments for nearly a decade now. Here is what we discovered on the Earlewood model with this month’s product review.
What a Body
At first glance, the JET Earlewood showcases an interesting and inviting body style, not quite a single and not quite a double cut. Personally, I would characterize the body style as somewhat of a cool offspring of a Telecaster and a Les Paul. It has a flat top design with a slight curve to the upper and lower bouts. The Earlewood is definitely sportin’ wood with a 5A quilted maple top stained to a “Golden Idol” color pallet. It’s a very classy color that lies in the gold-bronze color sector.
The Earlewood features an African red mahogany body with a three-piece quartersawn flamed maple neck – the figuring in both the body and neck are certainly the pick of the litter. The top of the Earlewood is joined to a chambered body that creates less weight than a carved top, all without sacrificing the richness of the tone. It is a string-thru body concept with a gold Tone Pros Nashville-style bridge. Two Seymour Duncan Zebra humbuckers accompany a gold recessed master volume and tone control with a Strat-style five-way selector switch, also in gold.
A nice appointment on the Earlewood is the custom exotic wood pickup trim – as opposed to plastic rings that you commonly see. JET’s unique input jack is recessed into an angled bevel on the rear lower bout of the guitar and is pointed upward, allowing players to not have to hook the cable over their strap button.
The Earlewood features a 24-fret neck, with an ebony board on hard flamed maple. These neck woods are incredibly dense, which undoubtedly enhances the tone of the instrument. The 24 jumbo frets are topped off by a hand-slotted and shaped Graph Tech nut, three on a side Grover 18:1 gold tuners and a classy hand-carved exotic wood truss rod cover. The neck and headstock are meticulously bound in flamed maple and feature “dancing Yin Yang” mother of pearl inlays. The neck profile is a soft V to round – JET necks tend to be a bit thicker, but remain very solid and comfortable. The Earlewood also features a brass plate at the end of the fingerboard, allowing for the neck pickup to be in the same position as a 22-fret guitar – a JET concept.
Throwing DownI ran the Earlewood through a Mesa Dual Rectifier and a Marshall JCM 800 2205 50 watt two-channel head, with both running through a stock Marshall 4x12 cab with vintage 30s.
My first round of testing was with the JCM 800, certainly one of my favorite amps of all time. Engaging the overdrive channel and putting the Earlewood in the bridge position humbucker yielded an aggressive, attacking tone, especially in the upper-mids. In fact, I dipped out a bit of the midrange on the JCM 800, which usually hovers around five to six. I am not a “scooped mids” kind of guy, and it seems the older I have gotten, the more I realize that the midrange is the most crucial frequency to dialing in a great tone – nevertheless, with the midrange cut back to about four, I found a sweet spot with the Earlewood. It was cutting and razor sharp, yet warm. I tend to run a JCM 800 with the bass cranked and the treble on four or five; with these settings, the Earlewood barks like a lonely hound dog in the night.
In switching to the neck pickup, the Earlewood really has a fat and sassy tone that spanks out warm sustain. Both the Seymour Duncan JB (bridge) and JN (neck) humbuckers are direct mount pickups, allowing the electronics to resonate through the maple top and mahogany body. The Earlewood’s string-thru design further contributes to the sustain. Both pickup configurations dish up plenty of sustain and the bridge position offers up sweet harmonic overtones.
Cleaning It Up
Upon switching to the Mesa for my tone testing, I was able to examine the Earlewood’s cleanliness. The electronic package on the Earlewood features a fiveway switch that allows for coil tapping in positions two and four. In position two, the Earlewood is capable of producing transparent shimmering tones that would satisfy any clean tone purist. It was well balanced and nice and bright on the high end. I did encounter a bit of a buzz in this position, but it was inaudible while playing. Experimenting with position four, I found a real sweet spot that produced an enhanced bottom end and warmth not found in position three – also a nice place to hang out, obviously with a bit more rasp in humbucker mode, but still well-balanced and full.
Play On
The Earlewood neck features a conical (compound radius) fingerboard profile. With the ebony board and jumbo nickel frets, I found the neck to be very comfortable, and not a buzz or a fret out anywhere that I could find. The setup was flawless, with low, fast action – the bends were like butter and upper register access is great. Intonation seems to be balls on. Meticulous binding and fret inlay are aesthetically nice touches, but at the end of the day, the playability of an instrument of this caliber is what you would expect.
The Final Mojo
The upside is that the JET Earlewood is a handcrafted instrument that any guitar player will appreciate. Use of superior woods, innovative craftsmanship along with proven traditional luthering certainly puts JET in the well-respected category. Aesthetically, the JET Earlewood is as good as it gets anywhere, at any price. Hats off to Jeffrey Earl Terwilliger (JET) for producing an instrument that undoubtedly requires perspiration to provide guitar players worldwide with inspiration.
The downside is a bit of a buzz in position two and four with the humbucker coil tap. Not inexpensive, this investment grade quality requires investment grade pricing.
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JET Guitars
MSRP $8,300.00
313 Merwin Road
Raleigh, NC 27606
919-859-6349
JETguitars.com
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.
LR Baggs HiFi Duet High-fidelity Pickup and Microphone Mixing System
"When a guitar is “the one,” you know it. It feels right in your hands and delivers the sounds you hear in your head. It becomes your faithful companion, musical soulmate, and muse. It helps you express your artistic vision. We designed the Les Paul Studio to be precisely the type of guitar: the perfect musical companion, the guitar you won’t be able to put down. The one guitar you’ll be able to rely on every time and will find yourself reaching for again and again. For years, the Les Paul Studio has been the choice of countless guitarists who appreciate the combination of the essential Les Paul features–humbucking pickups, a glued-in, set neck, and a mahogany body with a maple cap–at an accessible price and without some of the flashier and more costly cosmetic features of higher-end Les Paul models."
Now, the Les Paul Studio has been reimagined. It features an Ultra-Modern weight-relieved mahogany body, making it lighter and more comfortable to play, no matter how long the gig or jam session runs. The carved, plain maple cap adds brightness and definition to the overall tone and combines perfectly with the warmth and midrange punch from the mahogany body for that legendary Les Paul sound that has been featured on countless hit recordings and on concert stages worldwide. The glued-in mahogany neck provides rock-solid coupling between the neck and body for increased resonance and sustain. The neck features a traditional heel and a fast-playing SlimTaper profile, and it is capped with an abound rosewood fretboard that is equipped with acrylic trapezoid inlays and 22 medium jumbo frets. The 12” fretboard radius makes both rhythm chording and lead string bending equally effortless, andyou’re going to love how this instrument feels in your hands. The Vintage Deluxe tuners with Keystone buttons add to the guitar’s classic visual appeal, and together with the fully adjustable aluminum Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridge, lightweight aluminum Stop Bar tailpiece, andGraph Tech® nut, help to keep the tuning stability nice and solid so you can spend more time playing and less time tuning. The Gibson Les Paul Studio is offered in an Ebony, BlueberryBurst, Wine Red, and CherrySunburst gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finishes and arrives with an included soft-shell guitar case.
It packs a pair of Gibson’s Burstbucker Pro pickups and a three-way pickup selector switch that allows you to use either pickup individually or run them together. Each of the two pickups is wired to its own volume control, so you can blend the sound from the pickups together in any amount you choose. Each volume control is equipped with a push/pull switch for coil tapping, giving you two different sounds from each pickup, and each pickup also has its own individual tone control for even more sonic options. The endless tonal possibilities, exceptional sustain, resonance, and comfortable playability make the Les Paul Studio the one guitar you can rely on for any musical genre or scenario.
For more information, please visit gibson.com.
Introducing the Reimagined Gibson Les Paul Studio - YouTube
Phat Machine
The Phat Machine
The Phat Machine is designed to deliver the tone and responsiveness of a vintage germanium fuzz with improved temperature stability with no weird powering issues. Loaded with both a germanium and a silicon transistor, the Phat Machine offers the warmth and cleanup of a germanium fuzz but with the bite of a silicon pedal. It utilizes classic Volume and Fuzz control knobs, as well as a four-position Thickness control to dial-in any guitar and amp combo. Also included is a Bias trim pot and a Kill switch that allows battery lovers to shut off the battery without pulling the input cord.
Silk Worm Deluxe Overdrive
The Silk Worm Deluxe -- along with its standard Volume/Gain/Tone controls -- has a Bottom trim pot to dial in "just the right amount of thud with no mud at all: it’s felt more than heard." It also offers a Studio/Stage diode switch that allows you to select three levels of compression.
Both pedals offer the following features:
- 9-volt operation via standard DC external supply or internal battery compartment
- True bypass switching with LED indicator
- Pedalboard-friendly top mount jacks
- Rugged, tour-ready construction and super durable powder coated finish
- Made in the USA
Static Effectors’ Street Series pedals carry a street price of $149 each. They are available at select retailers and can also be purchased directly from the Static Effectors online store at www.staticeffectors.com.