There’s just something about the grit on those repeats.…
There’s definitely a place for those pristine, perfect digital delay units, but when you need to hear a bit of degradation on the repeats there’s only one way to go. Here’s a look at 10 different analog boxes that range from simple and funky to expansive and weird.
MXR M169 Carbon Copy
The sparkly green time machine is a dead-simple way to get classic bucket-brigade tones. It includes a top-mounted switch for modulation, two internal trim pots, and up to 600 ms of delay time.
This stereo box ups the ante with eight custom Maxon MC4107D bucket brigade ICs, which equals up to 900 ms of delay. The circuit is designed with a bit of an EQ bump plus dynamic distortion on the repeats for a vintage vibe.
A reissued classic that not only faithfully recreates the original version from ’84 but allows you to switch to a custom mode that increases the delay time to 800 ms. Plus, the pedal features both wet and dry outputs and expression pedal input.
The latest iteration of Jeorge Tripps’ ubiquitous circuit not only packs analog tones into a smaller enclosure but can rock self-oscillation and tape-style echo. The top-mounted jacks also help on crowded pedalboards.
For decades the large-format DMM was a staple on pedalboards across the world. This smaller version aims to cop all the vibe and mojo of its ancestor. It not only features the same delay, chorus, and vibrato modes as the original but gives you full control over modulation speed.
A collaboration with Howard Davis, who created the Deluxe Memory Man, this fully featured pedal includes an independent boost circuit, dual expression pedal inputs, stereo outputs, and a deep modulation section.
Only the essentials are present in this new mini pedal. Along with tiny controls for repeat and blend, the larger knob allows you to control time on the fly. As with most analog outfits, you don’t get a ton of delay time, but up to 600 ms is on tap.
As with all of Joel Korte’s creations, the Thermae is way more than a simple analog echo box. It has a wealth of customizable options including a pitch shifter, MIDI, expression pedal support, and synth-like sequencer tones.
At only 60 bones, this stripped-down analog delay not only will be easy on your wallet, but also on a cramped pedalboard. It maxes out at 300 ms but has a vintage-style BBD chip and comes in a road-ready chassis.
Zach Broyles teamed up with John Snyder of Electronic Audio Experiments to create this fully analog delay that is built around a pair of MN3205 chips and features tap tempo. If you use the time knob, the pedal maxes out at about 600 ms, but the tap tempo allows you to push it a bit more.
Panic! At the Disco, Idles, the Sword, Torres, and more appear in this gallery of our 14 favorite boards from the last year’s worth of Rig Rundowns.
The bad news: Covid put in-person Rig Rundowns on hold till mid 2021. The good news? Zoom episodes were every bit as compelling! Here are our favorite stomp stations from the last year.
Nicole Row
It may not look like a lot, but Panic At the Disco bassist Nicole Row (who’s also a prolific session player) says these half-dozen pedals cover all the bases for any gig, session, or audition she might find herself at.
Nicole Row's Pedalboard
For Panic’s snarling indie-rock anthems, two of her most-stomped stomps are the Aguilar Fuzzistor and Darkglass Electronics Vintage Microtubes. Meanwhile, she often stacks an EBS OctaBass with other pedals to mimic vintage synth sounds. For silkier, “underwater” sonics, she engages an EBS DPhaser, and for funkier lines she uses an MXR Bass Envelope Filter. Her go-to for sending signal to the house board is a Noble Dual Vacuum Tube Preamp/DI Box.
Rig Rundown: Nicole Row
Kurt Ballou
More often than not, famed metal producer/Converge guitarist/God City Instruments proprietor Kurt Ballou’s biggest pedal need is violent distortion—but he’s got plenty of other toys, too.
Kurt Ballou's Pedalboard
Going clockwise (from top left), we have a Demedash Effects T-120 Videotape Echo (“one of the coolest analog delay pedals”—when bypassed, holding down the left footswitch engages a momentary freeze/shimmer/oscillator), then a Shift Line A+ Astronaut III Multiverb Space Unit from Russia. The red, single-knob God City Instruments design is a “mid-forward, ultimate thrashy, djenty, clanky, articulate, heavy guitar pedal,” while the God City SBD (Super Beatle Distortion) features an active mid boost in front of its fuzz circuit and gonzo bass after it. The GCI OGR (Optical Gain Reduction) is a compressor that Ballou uses on every bass track recorded at God City Studio, while the Foxrox Electronics Octron2 comes in handy for thorny solos bristling with weird overtones and elastic ghost notes. Inspired by the Rangemaster, the GCI Crimson Cock treble booster has an added range control and a switch that adds a Big Muff-style gain stage at the end of the circuit. Lastly, the GCI Ape Eye is based on a vintage API 2520 op amp, and the GCI Jugendstil is a silicon fuzz that Ballou says stands at the crossroads between ’90s British shoegaze and ’90s Swedish death metal.
Rig Rundown - Kurt Ballou
Bones Owens
Alt-roots rocker Bones Owens’ signal first hits a Boss TU-3 tuner, then a Spaceman Saturn V Harmonic Booster, which is always on. After that, the signal zips into a Pete Cornish A/B/C amp splitter, whose A line provides rumbling bass by feeding an Electro-Harmonix Micro POG (used for octave down only), a “tall font” EHX Big Muff (rehoused by Mike Hill), and a Tech 21 SansAmp Bass Driver/DI, which in turn feeds both Owens’ Hiwatt DR103 head and a mixing or recording console. Pre-Covid, the splitter’s B path featured one effect—an Echopark Echodriver preamp—which then fed Owens’ Echopark Vibramatic 4T5A amp, while the splitter’s C line would feature the bulk of Owens’ effects routed to a third amp.
Bones Owens' Pedalboard
However, at the time of our Rig Rundown only the Hiwatt and Echopark amps were being used—so his C-line stompboxes were also being routed to the Echopark head. These include a plethora of Cornish gear—a TB-83 Extra treble ooster, an NG-3 fuzz, an SS-3 overdrive and P-2 distortion (in the same housing), a CC-1 boost/overdrive, and an NB-3 linear boost. Other noisemakers include a silver Klon Centaur, an Endangered Audio Research AD4096 analog delay, a Skreddy Pedals Skreddy Echo, a JHS-modded Boss TR-2 Tremolo (rehoused by Barry O’Neal at XACT Tone Solutions), and a Toneczar Halophaze.
Rig Rundown - Bones Owens
Ariel Posen
Canadian slide master Ariel Posen toured and did session work with this setup for over a year before Covid shut everything down.
Ariel Posen's Pedalboard
Starting at the top left, there’s a Chase Bliss Tonal Recall, a Walrus Audio Monument, and a Chase Bliss Dark World. There’s also a Vemuram Jan Ray overdrive, a KingTone Germanium miniFUZZ, a Morningstar Engineering MC6 MIDI Controller, and a TC Electronic PolyTune3 Mini Noir.
But wait … there’s more! The top panel of Posen’s board lifts to reveal a trio of stomps—a Mythos Pedals Argonaut Mini Octave (delivering up tones), an Eventide H9, and Posen’s signature Hudson Electronics Broadcast-AP, which is always on.
Rig Rundown - Ariel Posen
My Chemical Romance’s Frank Iero
During the pandemic, My Chemical Romance rhythm meister Frank Iero’s pedalboard saw a lot of change as tone hunting became a mind-saving pastime. He has some mainstays, but at the time of our Rig Rundown not much was permanent.
Frank Iero's Pedalboards
The board that was the closest thing to gig-ready had a Fender Marine Layer Reverb, a vintage Pearl CH-02 Chorus, an old Boss DM-2 Delay, an Ibanez CF7 Chorus/Flanger, and an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail (left side). Meanwhile, the right side of the board was home to menace: a Marshall Blues Breaker, an SNK Pedals VHD distortion/preamp, a Keeley-modded Boss BD-2 Blues Driver, and a Klon Centaur. Everything was powered by a Strymon Zuma and controlled by a Carl Martin Octa-Switch MkII. His tuner was a TC Electronic PolyTune 2 Mini, and his volume pedal was an Ernie Ball VPJR.
Here’s his mess-around-the-house board (with a fine tribute to EVH) that has a pair of Strymons (BigSky and Volante), an Ibanez DE7 Delay/Echo, gold Klon Centaur, Fuzzlord Effects Drone Master, Bowman Audio Endeavors The Bowman (company ran by Rig Rundown alumnus and Against Me! guitarist James Bowman), and an Ernie Ball VPJR Tuner Pedal.
His recording board is made up of versatile staples including a 4-pack of Strymons (Ola, Flint, El Capistan, and Iridium), Bowman Audio Endeavors Fortune and Glory, and a Templo Devices Model 33 Supa vibrato.
Rig Rundown - My Chemical Romance's Frank Iero
Olivia Jean
In addition to vibey guitar work, Third Man Records artist Olivia Jean dedicates much of her onstage energy and focus to singing—which means keeping pedalboard tap dancing to a minimum. Even so, her streamlined stomp station serves up an enviable variety of tones.
Olivia Jean's Pedalboard
Always-on pedals include her Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail and MXR Sugar Drive, while the Third Man Bumble Fuzz gifted to her by Jack White avails stinging solo sounds (the Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor is handy for reducing unwanted fuzz buzz). She’s also got a TC Helicon Mic Mechanic for vocal reverb, and a TC Electronic Wiretap for recording song ideas. Everything is powered by a T-Rex Fuel Tank Classic, and tuning is monitored with a Korg Pitchblack.
Rig Rundown - Olivia Jean
The Sword’s Kyle Shutt
Kyle Shutt’s pedal playland keeps it classic.
Kyle Shutt's Pedalboard
His pedal playland just a Dunlop Cry Baby 95Q wah, a signature Idiotbox Effects Wild Kyle distortion, an Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, an EarthQuaker Devices Levitation reverb, and a Boss TU-3 tuner. Nearly every square inch of J.D. Cronise’s flight-friendly board is filled with an effect. His guitars hit a TC Electronic PolyTune 3, then a pair of oddballs—a DigiTech Drop and an Electro-Harmonix Freeze—then basics like a Way Huge Conspiracy Theory overdrive, an EarthQuaker Devices Tone Job, MXR Phase 90 and Carbon Copy pedals, an EHX Holy Grail, and a Rocktron HUSH.
The Sword's J.D. Cronise
J.D. maximizes his flight-friendly board by filling nearly every square inch with an effect.
J.D. Cronise's Pedalboard
His guitar hits the TC Electronic PolyTune 3 before reaching a pair of necessary oddballs—the aforementioned DigiTech Drop and an Electro-Harmonix Freeze. The bottom row contains the basic food groups for most rockers: Way Huge Conspiracy Theory (drive), EarthQuaker Devices Tone Job (EQ), MXR Phase 90 (modulation), MXR Carbon Copy (delay), and EHX Holy Grail (reverb). The Rocktron HUSH pedal helps control any unwanted noises and buzzing.
Rig Rundown: The Sword [2021]
Steve Earle
Folk-rock activist Steve Earle’s guitar signal first hits a Boss TU-3 tuner before running into a pair of MXR Carbon Copy analog delays (one set as a 1-second delay for a pre-song rippling effect, and one for slapback) and a Fulltone Full-Drive 2 with two levels of gain. A Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 supplies the juice.
Steve Earle's Pedalboard
Chris Masterson
Chris Masterson's Pedalboard
The first stop on sideman Chris Masterson’s pedalboard is an Analog Man Sun Lion. From there the signal hits a Boss TU-3w Waza Craft tuner, an Origin Effects Cali76 compressor, an Analog Man King of Tone, and two Strymons—a Mobius and a TimeLine. A Strymon Zuma supplies power, while a Radial BigShot SW2 controls amp reverb and tremolo.
Rig Rundown: Steve Earle and the Dukes
Torres’s Mackenzie Scott
Little on Mackenzie Scott’s pedalboard could be described as subtle or “transparent”—even her delays and reverbs accentuate the weird.
Mackenzie Scott's Pedalboard
Filth and fury come courtesy of a Joyo Vintage Overdrive and an EarthQuaker Devices Palisades. Next is a Death By Audio Echo Dream 2 modulation/delay/boost/fuzz, which Scott says is her most-used pedal. An EarthQuaker Afterneath provides deep, ambient reverbs, which she often beefs up with faux-synth vibes from an Electro-Harmonix POG2. (Another favorite application for the POG2 is pulling its attack all the way down and dramatically gliding into the notes.) Scott uses an Empress Vintage Modified Superdelay to sprinkle in modulation, reverse delay, and compression, as well as tape-echo-like grit. The last pedal on her board is a Meris Enzo, which she half-jokingly says is equal parts inspiring and frustrating. “I have a hard time getting it under control and taming the beast, but that’s what I love about it.”
Rig Rundown: Torres
Mackenzie Scott (aka Torres) likes a good juxtaposition. Her music is a tightrope act between vulnerability and violence. Scott’s lyrics often reflect intros...
IDLES’ Mark Bowen
To accomplish all the fantastic and outrageous tones captured on Idles’ last two records, Bowen brings a whole cast of characters to accomplish that feat.
Mark Bowen's Pedalboards
Mark Bowen’s main board features two Death By Audio units—a Reverberation Machine and an Echo Dream 2—an Adventure Audio Dream Reaper, a pair of Moogs—an MF Delay and an MF Ring—a Death By Audio Waveformer Destroyer, an Electro-Harmonix POG2, a 4ms Pedals Mini Swash Full (which serves up fuzz, distortion, and self-oscillating LFO craziness), two Red Pandas—a Particle and a Raster—and a JHS Haunting Mids. A Boss TU-3w Waza Craft tuner keeps his guitars in check and a GigRig G3 controls preset changes.
Near his amps, Bowen has another batch of tone morphers. Up top he’s got a 4-pack of Moog Moogerfooger monsters—MF-107 FreqBox, MF-102 Ring Modulator, MF-108M Cluster Flux, and a CP-251 Control Processor—and another no-name glitch/synth device. Below those we have an Electro-Harmonix 95000 Stereo Looper, a Strymon TimeLine, an Electro-Harmonix POG2, and an Old Blood Noise Endeavors Minim (reverb/delay and reverse). Lastly, he has a Nord Electro 6D at his disposal. Everything is powered by GigRig Timelord power supplies, while two Strymon Iridiums handle cab emulations.
The last part of Bowen’s setup is this board under his keyboard/Moogerfooger workstation. Here, he has another GigRig G3 switcher, another Electro-Harmonix 95000 Stereo Looper, a GigRig Three2One (to help balance levels between instruments), and three Mission Engineering EP-1 expression pedals (controlling some of the effects in the previous photo).
IDLES' Lee Kiernan
The time spent mentioning everything Kiernan does with these pedals is better served watching the Rundown, listening to Idles’ music, or attending one of their shows. But in doing our due diligence, here are the stomps that corrupt, challenge, and ravage his tone.
Lee Kiernan Pedalboard
Lee Kiernan relies on (upper right) a Strymon Flint, a couple of Drolo Fx stomps—a Twin Peaks tremolo and a Stamme[n] looper/glitch delay/tape machine/sustainer/reverb—and a pair of Death By Audio devices—a Micro Dream delay and a Space Bender prototype. The bottom row of this board is also home to a DigiTech Whammy, an Electro-Harmonix Synth9, an Intensive Care Audio Vena Cava Filter, a Moog MF Ring, and a Boss TU-3 tuner. A GigRig ABY-Baby (top right) is used for amp switching. (The small black box labeled “in/out” was built by tech Gavin Maxwell so Kiernan could quickly test out a pedal without having to rip his setup apart.) The board on the left begins (lower middle of pic) with a Mission Engineering EP-1 expression pedal, a Boss PS-6 Harmonist, an EarthQuaker Devices Data Corrupter, a Death By Audio Interstellar Overdriver Deluxe, and a Death By Audio Evil Filter. The top row of this board features a quartet of EarthQuaker stomps: an Organizer polyphonic organ emulator, an Arrows preamp, a Gray Channel overdrive, and a Tone Job EQ/boost—then proceeds to a Moog MF Chorus, a Death By Audio Reverberation Machine, and a Jam Pedals TubeDreamer.
In contrast to her new solo album, the music of Screaming Females—especially live—brings the bristling energy and punk/riot grrrl roots of Paternoster to the fore.
Photo by Farrah Skeiky
The Screaming Females guitarist delves into haunting acoustic/electronic songwriting on her solo album Peace Meter, expanding her sonic palette and typically raging approach—but not without the help of her musical community.
Before she released seven full-length albums with her punk band Screaming Females, another four under her solo moniker Noun, and was listed as one of SPIN’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” singer/songwriter Marissa Paternoster didn’t have much hope for musical success.
“I spent a lot, if not all, of my teenage years being very afraid,” she shares. “I thought because of my gender, and then knowing full well that I was gay, that those things were going to keep me from ever being in a band or just being happy. I felt trapped.”
But the all-consuming urge to play guitar and be in a band kept her going. She absorbed every Smashing Pumpkins riff possible at her childhood home in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and then discovered the anarchic punk women of the ’90s riot grrrl scene—which changed everything. She thought, “They exist, they’re out there. Maybe there is this little, tiny chance that I can find those people too.”
Marissa Paternoster - Peace Meter [FULL ALBUM STREAM]
Today, Paternoster has long since found her niche, her people, and her voice. This past December she released Peace Meter, her first album under her own name, co-produced by Andy Gibbs (of Thou) and featuring Shanna Polley (leader of Snakeskin) on background vocals and Kate Wakefield (of the duo Lung) on cello. She says it might as well be a continuation of Noun, and that the main reason that it’s under her name is because it’s more searchable, she laughs, but it does seem like a benchmark in her career. The concise, 31-minute, nine-track album is inexplicably new. It’s subtly supernatural, with Paternoster’s haunting vocals carrying through an acoustic/electronic folk realm, articulating an unfamiliar yet comforting sense of calm.
The project was conceived at the beginning of the pandemic when Paternoster found herself alone in her deceased grandmother’s home and began crafting and sharing her work with Gibbs remotely. In the beginning, she wasn’t sure it was going to become anything, but the more the two collaborated, the more she saw it going somewhere. Maybe it’s the quality of her voice, or maybe it’s the delay effects, or the ineffable chemistry between Paternoster, Gibbs, Polley, and Wakefield, but Peace Meter somehow fills a void none of us knew existed.
“I thought because of my gender, and then knowing full well that I was gay, that those things were going to keep me from ever being in a band or just being happy. I felt trapped.”
In March 2020, Screaming Females was nearly at the end of their tour with Canadian rock band PUP when the rise of the pandemic forced them to cancel their final dates in California. The group then drove their rental gear back to Los Angeles from Eugene, Oregon, and flew home—with Paternoster heading to her grandmother’s house in Union, New Jersey, to be close to her father.
She immediately set up her recording gear in the basement and began making music “like I had done for my whole life,” she says. All she had with her was her Screaming Females gear and a Taylor GS Mini that was at the house. This small-bodied acoustic can be heard on the album as part of the colorful mix of real and virtual instruments underpinning her chocolatey, melismatic voice.
Marissa Paternoster's Gear
Marissa Paternoster hovers over her pedalboard with her main axe: a G&L S-500 that’s her electric workhorse. It played counterpoint to her Taylor GS Mini on Peace Meter.
Guitars
G&L S-500
Taylor GS Mini
Strings & Picks
GHS strings (.009–.042)
Dunlop Heavy Sharps
Amps
Sunn Concert Lead
Effects
Fulltone OCD
Earthbound Audio Supercollider
Klon Centaur clone
Boss DD-6 Digital Delay
Boss Chromatic Tuner
TC Electronic Flashback Delay
After putting some rough ideas together, Paternoster sent a draft of “Promises”—which ended up being the last track on the album—to Gibbs, a long-time friend, and asked if he could add some electronic drums to it. (Outside of Thou, Gibbs has a serious interest in electronic production.) “I didn’t have any expectations,” she says, “but what he sent back was really beautiful. I was like, ‘Should we do more? Was this fun for you?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, let’s do more.’”
Paternoster says that the album’s production was basically a 50/50 split between her and Gibbs. He took the originally morose, down-tempo “I Lost You” and infused it with a happier, up-tempo beat—it’s the track Paternoster says she’s most proud of from the collection. Throughout the project, “he would even manipulate the vocals. He used them as an instrument that he could add modulation to, which added texture to the songs.” The weird, Cocteau Twins kind of blurred line between analog and electronic instrumentation, she says, was mostly a product of Gibbs’ influence.
“I never felt confused about what I wanted to do with my life until I discovered punk. Then I wanted to be in a band so bad I thought that if I wasn’t in a band I would die.”
Paternoster enjoys effects—a lot of them—to the point where she’s had to limit her options just to prevent herself from going overboard. “If it were up to me, there’d be phaser on everything, and that’s not good,” she laughs. “As I’ve grown as a musician, I’ve removed a lot of flangers and phasers and octave pedals from my board. Now it’s just gain-staging and a delay pedal and that’s it.”
One piece of gear that ended up being central to the album’s guitar sounds was her TC Electronic Flashback Delay pedal. “I do really like this crystal delay function that it has,” she elaborates. “It has a nice little whistle tone as the delay trails off. It’s very dreamy. You can hear that a lot on the record.”
Marissa Paternoster: “My Secret Weapon Is My Unrelenting Anxiety!”
When asked if Peace Meter is a result of Paternoster’s personal evolution as a songwriter, she shares that the real change in her life has been that she now has access to a broad network of friends, contemporaries, and peers whom she admires, and who want to work with her. “I never had that before,” she comments. She hates having the album under her name, because she says she needs other people to make music—and the project gave her the opportunity to reach out to them.
Paternoster has always felt that art was her calling, even when she was just a child who loved to draw. “There was no question in my mind that someday I was going to be an artist,” she expresses. But that aspiration shifted when she entered her teenage years and found music. “I never felt confused about what I wanted to do with my life until I discovered punk. Then I wanted to be in a band so bad I thought that if I wasn’t in a band I would die.”
TIDBIT: Paternoster’s new album is a classic Covid project—recorded remotely and crafted via file sharing. However, thanks to her haunting vocals, a wide sonic palette, and her emotional songwriting, it’s far from standard fare.
While riot grrrl taught her that she was capable of being a punk rocker, she says that the biggest influence on her guitar playing was undoubtedly Billy Corgan. Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream is still her favorite album, and it was that type of music that she used to teach herself to play when she was in high school—alongside the songs of bands like Bratmobile and Bikini Kill. Though technically demanding guitar solos didn’t exactly fit her tastes, she did feel as though she needed to learn how to improvise, despite being a songwriter at heart.
“In the early ’00s, most of my peers who played music were men,” she shares. “And I thought that if I could rip a solo in a way that would impress these young boys, they might let me play in their band. But my focus has always been on songwriting, making interesting sounds, creating engaging art, and not really on shredding or whatever. I really don’t care about that at all.”
Rig Rundown - Screaming Females
When describing why she makes music, Paternoster delves into the topic of mental health. She lives with anxiety and depression, and, as she puts it, has had frank and open discussions about her mental well-being since she started going to therapy at age 14. “[For me, making art and music is mostly] born out of the compulsion to quell my anxiety in some way. And it’s been that way ever since I was very, very small. It was my coping mechanism for everything and anything.” She continues, “Your mental health affects your body, it affects you, and it affects absolutely everyone around you. It’s important to take care of yourself because in turn you take care of everyone around you.”
“My focus has always been on songwriting. Songwriting, making interesting sounds, creating engaging art, and not really on shredding or whatever. I really don’t care about that at all.”
Paternoster brings that self-awareness to all aspects of her life, including collaborating with fellow musicians. Working with others comes naturally to her, as she’s been doing it essentially from the beginning, but she does confess to having some shortcomings when it comes to bandleading. “I have a tendency to be a bit bossy when it comes to logistics,” she says. “I don’t want to let that intensity go, but I also don’t want to waste time worrying. You have to leave some things to the chaos that is our reality.
In her room: Paternoster created the bones of her new album alone, in the home of her late grandmother. Then she shared the files with co-producer Andy Gibbs and her other collaborators, vocalist and Snakeskin leader Shanna Polley and cellist Kate Wakefield.
“To be honest, I never really wanted to have full control,” she admits. “There is a lot to be said about relinquishing some aspects of creative control to people that you trust and admire. When you trust people who you know already do good work, they’re probably going to show up and do good work.”
Aside from being motivated by anxiety and compulsion, Paternoster describes how she often finds inspiration in silly simplicity. “I’m a big fan of like, general tomfoolery,” she comments, telling a story about how she’d seen two separate giant carrots graffitied on buildings in Providence, Rhode Island, where she’s been staying. It gave rise to a lot of questions. “What happened that night? Why did they paint the carrots so big? Why have they never done it again? Who are they, where are they, can we hang out?” she says, laughing.
That playful spirit ties into a sense of humility both about herself and her musicianship. She reflects on the one music theory course she took in college, during which she “mostly took naps,” and the pros and cons of being self-taught. “I mean, at age 35 I still am often like, ‘Man, I wish I could take guitar lessons or singing lessons.’ I think that would be really fun, but I only have so many hours in the day.”In the meantime, she feels that sticking with music might be a good idea. “This is my comfort zone … and other people tell me that I do this well, so I think I ought to do it more.”
Around the time she was working on Peace Meter, Marissa Paternoster climbed atop a West Philly roof to record this intimate acoustic performance featuring several of the album’s songs. Be sure to catch a glimpse of her DIY guitar strap.
