Raising The Tone
Another year and another tempting cavalcade of tone-tackle to GAS over… Did you buy any kit that revolutionised your playing? I hope so, because while the most important thing is (to paraphrase Zappa) to shut up and play your guitar, sometimes a new pedal or an acoustic will inspire a dozen songs all by itself, or unlock inspiring sounds that get the creative juices flowing.
My personal purchase of the year was a little Marshall 1930 Popular combo picked up through the readers’ ads pages. It’s by no means perfect: it has to be running full tilt before it sounds really good and it’s quite noisy – few would claim it boasts the greatest circuitry Marshall ever designed because they’re known to conk out frequently, too. But it still has one crucial quality that keeps me coming back for more time and again: it’s exciting. Screaming its little Plexi heart out, it practically levitates off the floor and there’s something so raw and direct about it that it’s got me thinking about a year of cool little blues gigs around Bristol. Any piece of kit that has you daydreaming about your next recording or stage has got to be a good thing. As always, we’ve handpicked the gear that’s excited us the most and shared it with you here in one compendium of tone, so we hope you find your perfect match on page 75.
Elsewhere in this packed issue we say goodbye to Tom Petty – another great musician gone too soon. American writer Jeff Slate spent a bit of time with Petty over the years and his look back at this understated but hugely influential hero of American rock (and a fine guitarist to boot) is full of insight. On a happier note, we were delighted to catch up with Robert Plant and the Sensational Shapeshifters guitarists Liam ‘Skin’ Tyson and Justin Adams. The pair rejoice in the most varied arsenal of stringed instruments we’ve seen in a while, which they use to conjure up the eclectic and the exotic as heard on Plant’s great new album Carry Fire. Enjoy the issue and here’s to more inspirational sounds all round in 2018.