low-watt

Sweany gets dirty with his gold-foil-rigged Epiphone Riviera onstage at Nashville’s 5 Spot.

Three little brute combos by Fender and Danelectro.

Delivering dirty brujo tone is not simple. Just grab a ouija board and ask Hound Dog Taylor or Pat Hare. Or, if communing with the spirits in a literal way isn’t your thing, check in with Patrick Sweany. He’s easy to find since he’ll be on the road for most of November and December touring a double-bill with fellow Nashville-guitar sparkplug JD Simo. And when he’s at home … even easier, since he holds down the Monday early evening slot at Music City’s indie mecca, the 5 Spot, with the Tiger Beats, a blues tribute band he co-fronts with McKinley James, who was profiled in last month’s PG feature “10 Young Guitarists to Watch.”

Read MoreShow less

Check out the big amp tones from a little box that won't bust your eardrums (or your bankroll).

Read MoreShow less

A beginner’s guide to what makes tube amps growl, bark, and purr—from preamp tubes to output transformers and every cathode in between.

Fat, bright, warm, thick, twangy, jangly, hot, creamy—guitarists use a lot of adjectives to describe their amps' tones, and the longer you play, the more you come to understand the gist of what these terms represent sonically. But what's responsible for these foundational characteristics? What is it within a circuit that makes one amp sweetly clean while another is raw and crunchy, when both are set to the same position on the volume knob?

Read MoreShow less