The Aerosmith axeman recounts how he ripped the blazing lead on the Rocks hit, dishing some critical history along the way.
Behind Steven Tyler’s unhinged howls, Aerosmith’s twin-guitar attack with Joe Perry and Brad Whitford cemented them as one of the greatest hard-rock bands of the ’70s. “Last Child,” the street-strutting, hard-blues hit off their breakout 1976 record Rocks, is one of the greatest demonstrations of this dangerous duo’s interplay. While Perry holds down the funky rhythmic chord stabs, Whitford burns through a volcanic, first-take solo. Did any pedals help snare that screaming tone? Nope. Just a ’57 goldtop Les Paul and a 100-watt Marshall.
That combo just “makes you play real good,” Whitford says with a grin on this week’s episode. Whitford gives Shifty the background story on how Rocks came together between the band’s Massachusetts rehearsal space and the Record Plant in New York. They dig deep on Aerosmith’s influences and the guitar players that shaped Whitford’s lead style, including the shredders that knew when to pause. “Whatever you play, you’re still replicating the human voice for the most part, and you have to take a breath,” Whitford notes.
Later on, Brad’s son Graham—an established player in his own right—joins the episode to talk about raiding his dad’s guitar and amp vault, and Brad muses on a big question: Will Aerosmith’s upcoming tour be their last?
Aerosmith - Last Child (Live From The Office Depot Center, Sunrise, FL, April 3, 2004)
Credits
Producer: Jason Shadrick
Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis
Engineering Support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudion
Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan
Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.
A well-ordered and intuitive means to octave fuzz disorder, in many shapes and colors.
Great basic, focused fuzz tone. Intuitive if you’re open-minded. Lots of surprises. Nice design. High-quality construction.
None
$225
Death By Audio Octave Clang
deathbyaudio.com
Every instrument is a tool for expressing feeling. But when you have to convey a certain range of emotions spanning anguish, the rush of sonic anarchy, and the exhilaration of total liberation, octave fuzzes are tops. Generally speaking, octave fuzz isn’t an effect you use casually.
And it often leads to hairy places where you are forced to surrender control. But if you have something to say with an electric guitar and you want to punctuate it with an exclamation point, adding octave fuzz can do the trick. Need further convincing? Kick back, close your eyes, listen to Jimi’s “Machine Gun,” and get back to me.
It’s little surprise that Death By Audio, with its well-documented love of extreme and perverse sounds, would dabble in octave distortion. What’s a wonder is that DBA ever discontinued its own excellent take on the effect, the Octave Clang. There’s no need to mourn any longer, though. The Octave Clang is back. And it’s as thrillingly chaotic and—yes—as practical as ever.
Space Station Salvage
I try to avoid saying much about how pedals look. Unless you’re collecting them to display on your mantle, it’s sound that counts. Admittedly, DBA has my number when it comes to their graphics and control layouts—appearing, as they do, like a cross of ’70s-synth and conceptual automotive and aerospace design from the same period. That may not mean much to you, but I feel extra compelled to unleash when I see the Clang staring back at me from the floor. It looks awesome.
“It has mass and spiky character, and does a great job of suggesting the brutish, switchblade attitude of ’60s fuzz circuits while staying in its lane in a mix.”
The control set is simple. One footswitch bypasses the pedal or brings in the gain section without the octave-up effect. The second footswitch adds the octave. You cannot operate the octave effect alone. The two leftmost knobs are for output level and gain (which DBA claims can be as much as an extra 39 dB). The third is the shape control, which controls a pre-gain tilt EQ that enables a lot of control in a relatively forgiving way—no small consideration when you’re messing with an effect that can sound so hot and hectic.
Fizz, Spittle, and Valkyrie’s Screams
The fuzz side of the circuit is idiosyncratic and thrilling, if you like variations on snarling first- and second-generation ’60s fuzzes. It’s not an easy fuzz to characterize. It doesn’t have the porcine megatonnage of DBA’s Fuzz War. And because it has to dovetail with the octave side of the circuit, it doesn’t billow with the overtone content and sustain you would hear even in simple ’60s fuzzes like the Fuzz Face, Bosstone, Tone Bender, or Fuzzrite. Nevertheless, it has mass and spiky character and does a great job of suggesting the brutish, switchblade attitude of those ’60s circuits while staying in its lane in a mix. Studio rats may treasure it for that reason. And because fundamental notes sound so strong and relatively uncluttered, it’s also really cool for trashy but succinct sub-Stooges power chording. I’d be psyched to have this fuzz circuit alone.
Adding the octave expands the Octave Clang’s tonal palette, of course. It’s easy to set up ferocious octave fuzz sounds that work for sawing power chords and Hendrix fare. But it also shifts the tactile responsiveness of the pedal and your guitar—often demanding a rethink of your picking approach and the fretboard—that can spawn creative results. When you set the EQ, gain, and output settings on the counterclockwise side of noon and use the octave and fuzz together, picking at points close to the bridge generates almost ring-modulated and metallic Martian gamelan sounds not unlike first-gen octave fuzzes like the Ampeg Scrambler and Green Ringer. But the Octave Clang’s pre-gain tilt EQ control and the many cool ways it interacts with the gain knob and your guitar’s dials make the Clang capable of many weirder, more mysterious shades of these already odd and arresting sounds. Switching guitars can create radically different tones, too. The concise sustain I can get from a semi-hollow Rickenbacker, for instance, activates the pedal and the resulting overtones in a very different way than a Stratocaster or SG, whose different overtone profiles excite different aspects of the pedal’s response envelope.
The Verdict
If you have an appetite for new distortion and fuzz sounds that can totally transform a hook or mood, the very simple-looking Octave Clang offers a trove of possibilities. Though I have gleefully described many of the device’s deviant capacities, neither these accounts nor Death By Audio’s reputation as noise merchants should dissuade you from approaching the Octave Clang as a very practical and unique option for fuzz and distortion tones. Psych-punk chording can take on new, more feral energy. And otherwise boneheaded hooks can become ear candy. Experimentally minded musicians, producers, and engineers with a willingness to dig a bit will find many such surprises in the well-designed, well-built, and well-executed Octave Clang.
Alex Lifeson’s signature 30-watt, 6L6-powered combo offers tones from clean to scorching, that offer much more than just Rush sounds.
A powerful grab-and-go tube combo with gutsy lead and rhythm tones from an admirably simple control complement. Nice construction quality.
Independent lead and rhythm gain controls would be a plus.
$1,999
Lerxst Chi Combo
mojotone.com
In addition to being one of the world’s most-accomplished rock guitarists, Alex Lifeson is, it seems, a dab hand at product conceptualization, too. The latest evidence is the CHI Combo, a new addition to the Lerxst amp series, which is Lifeson’s collaboration with Mojotone of Burgaw, North Carolina.
The CHI was designed as an easily portable amp that Lifeson can reach for when a last-minute show pops up. It’s ostensibly “Marshall-y” in attitude, though it’s also very much a modern-voiced circuit with footswitchable clean and lead channels. It generates 30 watts via two 6L6EH output tubes and three 12AX7s in the preamp and phase-inverter stages. It’s a straight-ahead amp, wonderfully free of excess features to throw you off course. And while it's perfect for the diehard Rush fan (manual-suggested settings for several Lifeson signature tones, including “Limelight,” “Fly by Night,” and “Working Man,” confirm as much), there’s plenty here to satisfy guitarists outside the Canadian prog-rock obsessives club.
Greek to Me
The CHI exudes a businesslike demeanor, but it’s also stylish enough to stand apart from the scores of lookalike classic clones out there, dressed up as it is in race-grey levant vinyl, red-garnet piping, and black-matrix grille cloth. The logo panel sports a striking red font inspired by the text on the iconic Moving Pictures album cover, and the control panel carries an etched Starman graphic that lights up red when you flip the power switch (there’s no standby on this model). The 24" x 20" x 9", 49-pound amp, with its Baltic birch cabinet, feels solid and substantial, too. Mojotone’s reputation for quality cabinets extends back further than its amplifier business, and the company has supplied many top boutique amp builders. It’s easy to imagine why.
“Access to the fluid, singing tones that define much of Lifeson’s playing with Rush is easy.”
Controls include input gain, lead master, output master, treble, middle, bass, and presence, and there’s a pull switch for a “rhythm clip” function on the input gain, which adds a little dirt to erstwhile clean tones. Around back, you’ll find a jack for the single-button footswitch, a send and return for the effects loop, two 8-ohm speaker outs, and a single 16-ohm out. Inside, the CHI’s circuit is wired across a primary printed circuit board. Three smaller boards host output-tube connections, effects send/return and speaker outs, and the LED array that lights up the Starman. Workmanship is tidy throughout, with neat wire runs and tube sockets that are bolted to the chassis for support in addition to their connections to the respective PCBs.
The CHI’s 30-watt rating comes courtesy of cathode-biased 6L6s. The configuration slightly reins the power from these tubes, which can produce around 45 watts in a fixed-bias configuration, but they can often sound a little juicier and more harmonically complex when cathode biased. The setup also means you can replace the output tubes without having to reset their bias. (We will say, though, be careful when removing or reaching behind the amp’s upper-back panel: A sharp edge on the roughly cut protective screen left this reviewer with a slice on my index finger.)
A Ride in the Red Barchetta
Tested with a Gibson ES-355 and a Fender 1956 Stratocaster Reissue, the Lerxst CHI swiftly revealed itself as a versatile performer—able to do far more than the expected Lifeson-alike tricks that would appear to be its raison d’etre. Going straight to the gained-up lead channel with input gain set at 2 o’clock or more—a route that’s hard to resist on an amp like this—accesses a boatload of muscular grind, sustain, and sizzle. Attaining the fluid, singing tones that define much of Lifeson’s playing with Rush is easy. Dial down the input gain to noon or below, though, and you can tap into plenty of earthy, rootsy rock ‘n’ roll tones. A little tweak here and there delivers everything from gritty classic rock to dirty blues to gnarly garage-rock tones.
Rhythm channel tones will stay relatively clean at pretty hot settings, so you can play loud without sounding muddy. This capability will be a boon for texturalists who need headroom for detailed time-based and modulation effects. But the rhythm channel also works great with overdrive pedals (a TS10 Tube Screamer and Wampler Tumnus Deluxe both sounded excellent). Pulling out the input gain knob for rhythm clip is also an effective tool for adding dirt to the rhythm foundation. The overall level drops slightly, too, but since it’s not a footswitchable function you’re more likely to use this very practical mode with its own gain settings.
With that in mind, it’s worth noting that the CHI’s gain staging, and the knobs that control it, take some getting used to. Since input gain controls the drive level for both channels, you’re tied to finding a compromise between them, then balancing the lead output via the lead master control, and the overall volume of both channels at the output master. Including just one more knob to allow for both rhythm gain and lead gain controls would be more intuitive. As it is, the setup certainly works once you get the hang of it, and both channels can sound great, but it sometimes requires a little deviation from your ideal tone on one channel or another.
The Verdict
The Lerxst CHI combo is a convenient, versatile amp with more than enough punching power to keep up with a heavy drummer, and still sounds great when reined in to basement practice levels. While saturated rock sizzle is very much its forte, the medium-grind overdrive tones are appealing, and both cleans and clipped settings on the rhythm channel are useful and satisfying. Independent rhythm and lead gain controls would have been a plus, but the CHI combo has much to offer just as it is, whether you’re a Rush fan or not