Vol. 136

Australian Guitar

Australian Guitar is the only 100% Australian-produced guitar magazine.

Australian Guitar7 min read
YOURS & OWLS FESTIVAL
WHEN: SATURDAY OCTOBER 5TH – SUNDAY 6TH, 2019 WHERE: STUART PARK, WOLLONGONG NSW REVIEW: MATT DORIA Adoringly dubbed by locals simply as “the fezzie”, Yours & Owls has fast grown into a cornerstone of Wollongong’s ever-exploding live music culture.
Australian Guitar6 min read
Fresh Frets
THEY ARE two fierce and fiery disco-punk debonairs from Wollongong (though now based further south) with their sights set on the stratosphere and their songs set on making you move. Up front, Heather Riley oscillates between sugar-sweet singing and
Australian Guitar2 min read
Australian Guitar Digital #136
Dr. Martin Taylor, MBE is an award-winning guitarist, composer, educator and musical innovator. Widely considered to be the world’s foremost exponent of solo jazz and fingerstyle guitar playing, the Englishman possesses an inimitable style that has e
Australian Guitar4 min read
The Best Around
The term ‘power couple’ is often tossed about with a sense of irony these days, but when it comes to the husband-and-wife team of Ali Barter and Oscar Dawson, there’s no better term. Having been a co-writing force throughout all of Barter’s solo care
Australian Guitar5 min read
From The Sand To The Stratosphere
Hell hath no fury like the bloodthirsty fortitude and undying passion of Byron Bay metallers Parkway Drive. Since making their mark on the scene with 2005’s Killing With A Smile, the band have consistently pushed further, fought harder, and cranked u
Australian Guitar4 min read
A Ride On The Yolacoaster
Never before has country music enjoyed such a resurgence in the mainstream. Part of its recent squeeze back into the charts is thanks to an array of artists fusing their own unique sounds and styles into the genre – like Bristol singer-songwriter Yol
Australian Guitar4 min read
Permanent Vacancy
After a storied 40 years of world domination, you’d forgive the Violent Femmes for taking it easy nowadays – preferring to tend to their crops and focus on planning their next family vacation, rather that continue to smash out crash-hot folk-punk opu
Australian Guitar4 min read
Survival Pact
You never quite know when your favourite band will end up disappointing you. Because let’s be real for a second: every band ends up sucking at a certain point in their career. Most will fall off the wagon somewhere around the fifth or sixth album – o
Australian Guitar4 min read
Cello From The Other Side
Okay, so Apocalyptica aren’t guitarists, but they’re revolutionaries in their own right. The Finish outfit have made waves over the course of their 26-year career for their ingenuity in marrying the traditionally classical cello with heavy metal, fus
Australian Guitar4 min read
Her Own Saviour
Kaleidoscopic in every sense of the term, navigating a dizzying flurry of ‘80s pop, cock-rock, disco and dance vibes, there’s no one proper way to describe Bec Sandridge. The Wollongong-native pop goddess is an absolute anomaly, her tunes at once rui
Australian Guitar5 min read
Half A Century Of Shred
Unless you’ve spent the bulk of your life wearing military-grade earplugs, there’s a good chance you’ve come across the fretwork of – or at least some inspired by – Wayne Kramer. The MC5 leader makes the term ‘virtuoso’ seem like a participation trop
Australian Guitar5 min read
A Foo With EXPENSIVE TASTE
It’s bitterly ironic that the most often ignored member of a band is the single most crucial in making a song work. Of course, we’re talking about the drummer (sorry, bassists). Taylor Hawkins is perhaps best known as “the drummer from the Foo Fighte
Australian Guitar5 min read
The (new) Jimi Hendrix Experience
Cover bands are a dime a dozen these days. For every one dude that once picked up a guitar and managed to make people shake their butts, there are a solid 50 wannabes trying to emulate that dude’s skill. The problem is – quite frankly – none of them
Australian Guitar4 min read
Scorpions Now With Twice As Much Sting!
Anew whole decade lies ahead, and if there’s but one thing we can’t wait to see, its how the culture surrounding the guitar will continue to evolve – both à la new acts we’ve never seen before, and by way of the old-time greats taking fresh new appro
Australian Guitar4 min read
A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out
Wikipedia describes a fever dream as being “particularly intense or confusing”, which makes it perfect to represent the long-awaited third album by Icelandic indie-poppers Of Monsters And Men. Dipping and diving around a spellbinding spate of sounds
Australian Guitar5 min read
The Fury And The Force
From opening spots at their local YMCA to sold-out headliners in foreign arenas, Polaris are on the type of skyward soar you typically only see in Hollywood fantasies. It was their debut full-length, The Mortal Coil, that lit the fuse on their still-
Australian Guitar8 min read
In The Bloody Moonlight
Like the sight of koalas munching on a eucalypt, politicians with spiderwebs for brains, and the distinct sound of VB tinnies cracking open on a hot summer’s arvo, Cold Chisel are a fundamental bastion of Australian culture. Anthems like “Khe Sanh” a
Australian Guitar20 min read
She Who Shreds
As we step into a brand new decade, we can all agree that guitar music has had many faces, many trends, and many, many instrumental musicians (pun unintended, but we’ll embrace it) over the last few. “Why not take a look at the faces that have shaped
Australian Guitar19 min read
Hot Gear
RRP: $189.99 • au.yamaha.com One of the most important features of the Plumes Small Signal Shredder is that EQD founder Jamie Stillman used it on his own pedalboard for a long time before releasing it for everyone else. Not to say that he hasn’t done
Australian Guitar6 min read
Shootout Floor-based Multi-effect Units
The floor-based multi-effects family is a much misunderstood part of the wider guitar tribe. Starting to play and attend shows at the turn of the millennium, I can understand why. In the days before the boutique pedal and tube amp renaissance, many g
Australian Guitar4 min read
Tonewoods, Part One: Woodn’t It Be Nice?
The guitar is a magical instrument, but its construction is almost completely practical. There’s nothing mysterious about the components. The mystery is how these components, in the hands of a master luthier, can come together to create something spe
Australian Guitar6 min read
Deloraine Stringfest 2020
Luthiers know that some of the world’s finest tonewoods for the guitar come from Australia’s oft-ignored haven of Tasmania. Tasmanian blackwood is particularly revered, but the entire state is home to beautiful tonewoods salvaged or sustainably harve
Australian Guitar3 min read
Modern Theory
In this issue, we’re building upon two concepts that were introduced in the last one. The first idea is designed to help you break out of any improv-related ruts you may find yourself in, and hopefully give you some techniques that will open up a who
Australian Guitar4 min read
Recording Techniques With Ryan Miller
Black Rheno found themselves in a good position when they were ready to record their groovy, sludgy and downright heavy debut, Nosie Smasher. Their vocalist, Ryan Miller, happened to own a little studio called Housefox, where the they regularly rehea
Australian Guitar6 min read
Bedroom Acoustics, Part One: Soundproofing
Unfortunately, the expensive part of setting up a professional recording studio isn't the gear, but rather the physical space! This is especially true in today’s climate. Living spaces seem to be getting smaller, while real estate prices climb throug
Australian Guitar3 min readTechnology & Engineering
Shure Digital Recording Kit
When you’re starting out on your music recording journey, knowing what to buy can be a bit intimidating. Audio giant Shure is here to help with their Digital Recording Kit, providing reliable no-frills gear that will cover all the bases when you’re s
Australian Guitar2 min read
String Skipping Shredding: Part Two
In my last column, I discussed scale-based shred licks using alternate picking whilst skipping between non-adjacent strings. For this one, I thought I’d expand upon this concept (literally) by adding in some large and rapid position shifts! These typ
Australian Guitar2 min read
Oh Snap, It’s An ‘80s Hair Metal Solo!
I have a confession to make: I’m kind of obsessed with unaccompanied guitar solos from the ‘80s and early ‘90s. There was a whole vocabulary of licks that basically every guitarist drew upon back then to go wild with during their live solo spot. It’s
Australian Guitar3 min read
Presenting... The Second
It’s been used by everyone from T-Bone Walker to Hendrix, Rory Gallagher, Gary Moore... You name it, they often threw in this sneaky addition to the pentatonic scale! I have mentioned “the second” multiple times in past issues, but today, I wanted to
Australian Guitar4 min read
Top Pick
Though her studio output is damn near impeccable (this scribe doled her their ‘album of the year’ distinction in 2015 and 2018), Courtney Barnett is a concert crusher at heart. Her shows are characteristically monstrous, manic and magnetic; she tears
Australian Guitar4 min read
Cort Cm30r
There are literally dozens of practice amps on the market, and choosing between them is sometimes just a case of figuring out whether it has the colour or knobs you prefer, or if it has “the look” (whatever that is this month). The Cort guitar compan
Australian Guitar4 min read
Fender American Ultra Stratocaster Hss
If you’ve ever thought to yourself, "I like Fenders, but I wish they had the kind of high-end playability features of, say, a Charvel or a Suhr," well, that’s what the American Deluxe and Elite series have been – you’ve been totally sleeping on it! W
Australian Guitar4 min read
Zoom A1 Four
We’re now just a few months short of 30 years since the Zoom Corporation hit the market with their groundbreaking 9002 – a multi-effects unit with an astounding amount of processing built into a beltpack unit. It didn’t sound like a Boogie or a Plexi
Australian Guitar4 min read
Yamaha Thr10iiwl
The Yamaha THR series has been around for a while now, and these aesthetically pleasing, incredibly flexible little amps are a favourite for many touring guitarists as their backstage and hotel amps. They’re also beloved by guitar teachers as afforda
Australian Guitar4 min read
One Night At Pat’s Place
We have not a single doubt that before too long, the amount of albums in Pat Metheny’s catalogue will outnumber that of years he’s lived. From This Place marks #47 for the Missouri-native jazz icon, and the first of entirely new material since 2014’s
Australian Guitar4 min read
Morley Mini Steve Vai Bad Horsie 2 Contour Wah Pedal
Legend has it, there are few guitarists more demanding to design signature gear for than Steve Vai. You don’t rise to such technical and compositional levels of excellence without being extremely driven, and Vai’s demands on gear companies are the th
Australian Guitar4 min read
Music Man Mariposa
Over the years, Music Man has collaborated with some heavyweight players who are, in the main, noted for their instrumental virtuosity. Albert Lee, Steve Morse, John Petrucci, and the legendary Steve Lukather immediately spring to mind. But there hav
Australian Guitar4 min read
Fender Tone Master Twin Reverb
The Fender Twin Reverb has existed in one form or another since 1952, and it remains prized for its clarity, its sheer projection of sound, and the heavenly series of harmonic overtones that kick in when you crank it up just enough to get the power a
Australian Guitar3 min read
Hedd Type 05 Nearfield Monitors
Heinz Electrodynamic Designs (use your “HEDD”) are a relatively new company. They’re essentially a splinter enterprise of well-regarded audio firm ADAM, created when one of the latter’s founders broke off to start a new line. I’ve reviewed my fair sh
Australian Guitar3 min read
Jh Audio Jh13v2 Pro In-ear Monitors
I’d never heard of JH Audio before these in-ear monitors (IEMs) landed on my desk for a listen. The company is fairly new, and has a good yarn behind it. Back in the ‘90s, the titular Mr. Harvey was manning the monitors desk for Van Halen. Alex Van H

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