INTERVIEW: Shihad’s Jon Toogood
Shihad worship at the altar of The Riff. Few bands this side of AC/DC have managed a knack for instantly identifiable, eminently air-guitarable riffs. But although they’ve enjoyed a consistent career of killer albums and shows, new album FVEY stands above their immense catalog as The One That Will Probably Move Them Up A Notch. Produced by Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman, this album encapsulates everything everyone has always loved about Shihad – the riffs, the song craft, the energetic performance, the melody, the thought-provoking lyrics. But there’s something more happening on this one. I caught up with vocalist/guitarist/riffmeister Jon Toogood to talk about it.
First thing we all want to know is ‘Where the hell do these riffs come from?’
Okay, we’ve been experimenting with this tuning which is basically standard E with the bottom string dropped to a bass-register A. So you’re doing the A, an octave A, and then the rest of the guitar is tuned normally. And it’s quite hard to play because the low string is really floppy but once you get used to it it makes this wall of sound. You get a decent amp and turn it up loud, and then you play with a great bass player like Karl and a great guitar player like Phil, and when you all play in unison and are in tune it sounds like Satan’s bass player. Continue reading
Casualties Of Cool – ‘Flight’
Devin says:
“Casualties Of Cool is one of my favourite things, if not my favourite thing I’ve done to date. It’s pretty left of centre, and now that my big Z2 project and all its chaos is nearing completion, it means even more to me. A dark and quiet place to go.
Finally, its available for people who didn’t order through Pledge, and I’m proud to present the video for ‘Flight’, done by long-time friend and collaborator Konrad Palkeiwicz. Konrad moved to an Island and filmed his interpretation of the song and I think it’s beautiful.
We have been rehearsing for our upcoming shows at Union Chapel and Savoy Teatteri in Finland, and it’s really a pleasure to have the ability to do this type of music. Thank you for the support!
Dev”
Carvin Offers Seymour Duncan Jason Becker Perpetual Burn Option
When Seymour Duncan announced the Jason Becker Perpetual Burn humbucker, it seemed like a natural fit for Carvin’s Jason Becker Tribute JB200C guitar. But Carvin have always – always -used their own pickups exclusively. Well ladies and gentlemen, history has been made today because as of today you can order a Jason Becker Tribute JB200C with a Perpetual Burn in the bridge position. As Carvin explained on Facebook (to a fan who asked what the big deal was with Carvin never using third-party pickups before), “The difference is that our company (Carvin) was founded on our pick-ups and we have ALWAYS made our own pick ups. This is the first time we’ve ever opened the door to working with a 3rd party manufacturer for something we still make in house. Doesn’t sound like a big deal.. but it really is to us. This is history in the making for anyone that truly knows about our company.”
The Perpetual Burn is available as an option in the JB200C for an extra $50. You can read my review of the Perpetual Burn here.
EVH Unchains The ‘Circles’ Guitar
EVH Gear has added a new guitar to the Stripe series: the EVH Circles model, inspired by Eddie’s famous “Unchained” guitar – right down to the “Bye See Ya Later” text on the back! From the EVH Gear website: “With an otherworldly black-and-white “crop circles” graphic gloss finish, the EVH Circles model is without question one of the most distinctively eye-catching guitars in the Stripe Series lineup. There’s nothing alien about the rest of this high-performance tone machine, though, with its sleek Strat®-like basswood body, rock-solid quartersawn maple neck with oiled finish, fast and smooth compound-radius maple fingerboard (12”-16”) with comfortably rolled edges and 22 jumbo frets, a single ferocious EVH direct-mount pickup with single black plastic control knob (master volume), EVH Floyd Rose® bridge and locking nut, and EVH tuners.”
CLICK HERE to buy EVH Striped Series guitars on eBay.
To The Dudes Who Made A Petition To Get Ghost To Split Up…
…uh… you know you don’t have to listen to them, right?
From the petition website:
We petition against Ghost of the heavy metal genre that continues to make albums and tour. Many people getting into metal think that they are the real deal and that we should forget the real bands like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, etc. They wish to destroy real metal with their carnival music nonsense. Seriously, is a song like If You Have Ghost actually something that a real metalhead would listen to? They are not metal. People also make the erroneous claim that they are so directly inspired by King Diamond/Mercyful Fate, which is just wrong. They are, in fact, a watered-down version of BOC. We the people oppose Ghost continuing as a band, and they should be split up as soon as possible.
LINK: https://www.change.org/petitions/ghost-band-shut-down-the-swedish-retro-metal-band-ghost
So someone has made a counter-petition.
Because this petition is ridiculous, any band that occupies the metal genre with success can only be good for metal as a whole, thus this petition seeks to support ghost and have this silly petition destroyed and show that the aforementioned petition is NOT what metal heads truly believe!
REVIEW: Adelaide International Guitar Festival
The Adelaide International Guitar Festival is a unique monolith on the Australian guitar landscape. More like the great European festivals in terms of its approach rather than a G3-like celebration of electric guitar power, it pays homage to the instrument by celebrating the broad palette of sounds it’s capable of, with particular emphasis on world-class virtuoso guitarists outside of the well-trodden rock realm – while also drawing in some of the best that the rock guitar world has to offer too. Over the years the event has included the likes of Ralph Towner, Jorma Kaukonen, The Assad Duo, Pepe Romero, The Atlantics, Richard Clapton, David Lindley, Kaki King, Vernon Reid, Bob Brozman, Xavier Rudd, Adrian Belew, Hoodoo Gurus, The Derek Trucks Band, Lior, Troy Cassar-Daley, The Party Boys, Slava Grigoryan, Ash Grunwald, Grinspoon, Guy Pratt, Manuel Barrueco, Yamandú Costa, Dhafer Youssef, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Christa Hughes, Ben Fink, Karin Schaupp, Oscar Guzmán, Tommy Emmanuel, Jeff Lang and many, many more. This year’s event featured a great assortment of guitarists from a wide range of genres. My girlfriend is from Adelaide and we thought it would be fun to make a huge road trip out of it (stopping at lots of fun tourist stops along the way for the benefit of our 7-year-old… who am I kidding, I just really wanted to see the Big Lobster), so here are my highlights: Continue reading
Lloyd Spiegel with Tim Burnham Live @ Pony
Lloyd Spiegel with Tim Burnham Live in the Studio at Pony Music for Guitar Gods and Masterpieces. Enjoy!
Ooh! Jackson Swirl and Tigerstripe DK2M Pros!
Check out what Jackson Guitars posted on their Instagram: a pair of DK2M Pro models, one with a green swirl finish and one with a Tigerstripe vibe. Jackson says these will be coming this fall to an authorised dealer near you.
Pure Pop Records To Move
I don’t often post about stuff that’s super-local here, since I Heart Guitar has readers from all over the place, but Pure Pop Records is a place that’s quite near and dear to my heart: a record store with a comfortable, homey vibe and a great supporter of live music. Today they’ve announced that they’ll be moving on from their longtime home in Barkly St, St Kilda following a long-running battle against noise level regulations (as St Kilda residents will know, all it takes is one grouchy new resident to move in to a long-established live music area, make a complaint, and decimate an entire creative ecosystem…), but Pure Pop will find a new location. Below is the message that was sent out: Continue reading
REVIEW: Gibson 2014 Les Paul Standard
Don’t let the name throw ya: the Gibson Les Paul Standard of 2014 is a very different guitar to a 1959 Les Paul Standard, the guitar that launches a million riffs. But in a way the use of the name here makes perfect sense: there are all sorts of design enhancements on the 2014 Standard which represent what a guitar can be in 2014, rather than 1959, in terms of tone, playability and tuning stability, and Gibson has seen fit to apply the Standard name to this new evolution of the instrument. So what exactly is so different? Continue reading
BOSS Introduces Waza Craft Series
BOSS pedals have happily occupied pride of place on hundreds of thousands of pedalboards for decades, and for the past 15 years or so a lot of folks have made quite a name for themselves developing mods for popular BOSS pedals like the Super Overdrive and the Blues Driver. And BOSS has now introduced three pedals which seem to be the ultimate in customised BOSS tone. Each starts with a popular design and then builds upon it with two switchable modes – Standard and Custom. The pedals are the SD-1W Super Overdrive, BD-2W Blues Driver and DM-2W Delay, and you’ll find plenty of information about them in the press release below. Personally I’m most excited about the DM-2W Delay. My guitar teacher had one of the original delays when I was a kid and I was really into that sound, and now BOSS has recreated and expanded that original pedal’s capabilities. Continue reading
Hi! I'm Peter Hodgson. I write for Gibson.com, Australian Guitar, Australian Musician, Mixdown Magazine (including my instructional column, 'Unleash Your Inner Rock God,' which has been running since 2007), Blunt, Beat (including their weekly hard rock/metal column Crunch) and The Brag. And I'm Assistant Social Coordinator with Seymour Duncan.
I've been playing guitar since I was 8 years old, and I've been writing for magazines since I was 18. I've also worked as a guitar teacher (up to 50 students a week), a setup tech, a newspaper editor, and I've also dabbled in radio a little bit. I live in Melbourne, Australia, and my hobbies include drinking way too much coffee, and eating way too much Mexican food.
You can check out my guitar playing at Bandcamp or on YouTube, and feel free to email me at iheartguitarblog@gmail.com