Year: 2014

Los Lonely Boys’ new album, Revelation, draws from several influences while retaining the band’s Texas/Mexican identity. Collaborating with a group of top-tier tunesmiths, Revelation weaves pop, reggae, soul, and conjunto influences. It follows guitarist Henry Garza’s recovery from a violent fall from the concert stage. After a stretch in the hospital, he’s excited about getting busy on the guitar.

Vintage Guitar:You’ve figured out how to mix your culture with accessible, guitar-driven pop. Was that the plan?

Henry Garza:Every one of the songs sounds different, and is in its own world. That’s the way we wanted to record; we didn’t want to push a song into sounding like something it wasn’t. We let the song lead us and didn’t detour; if it needed Texican country, rock, pop, soul, R&B, heavy – we didn’t fight it.

Was there discussion about using outside songwriters?

Yes. We’ve been doing are own production for a while, and our management gave us a list of people who wanted to write with us and were pretty successful. The plan was to write with people, get a producer, and bring more energy and excitement. Still, though, me and my brothers are real tight – nobody gets between us – and our music is an extension of that.

Have producers tried to change your sound?

Yeah, but we’ve been doing this so long we never felt like we needed anyone’s help. We’re not trying to write hits, but business is business and you have to make good decisions. We’re a real-life family that plays music for a living. That’s how we paid the bills – with our Pops and brothers and sisters, sticking together. It’s never been about making records or being famous. It’s been about playing to survive.

How do you balance that with writing songs for the radio?

That’s what every artist is looking for – having something that fits into where the world seems to be going. When you hear a song like “Blame It On Love,” you can hear that Texican sound and know it’s Los Lonely Boys – that’s us coming right through. You can also hear other influences, and that’s being who we are. That’s getting something on the radio with blues, rock, or country, and creating it for the now.

Talk about your accident.

[I fell into an] orchestra pit that was 12 feet deep. We had finished the show and I ran out to shake some hands [but] didn’t know there was a hole. The momentum shot me forward and I torpedoed onto my face and was told that because I didn’t know I was falling, I didn’t tense up or brace myself, which probably saved my life. I had a fractured neck, herniated discs, and bulging discs. I’m alive and doing a lot better. I’m a spiritual dude; I put it in God’s hands.

What are you playing now?

Tejana is my number one guitar. She’s a Mexican Strat I put together with my tech, Ish Flores, and has Texas Special pickups, which I love. We do it like we do our cars – make them into lowriders and put our own flash on them (laughs)!

This article originally appeared in VG Acoustic no.001 e-newsletter. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Renowned folk singer/songwriter, musicologist, organizer, and political activist Pete Seeger died January 27 at a hospital in New York City. He was 94 and passed from natural causes.

Seeger was born in 1919 to Charles Seeger, Jr. and his wife, Constance. Charles Seeger is credited with helping found the academic discipline of ethnomusicology in his work for the University of California. Constance was a concert violinist who also taught at the Julliard School. After his parents divorced in the mid 1920s, Charles married Ruth Crawford, a music student and composer who later contributed to Carl Sandburg’s influential folk-music anthology, The American Songbag.

Pete Seeger began playing the ukulele as a schoolboy, and at 17 discovered the five-string banjo when the family, while researching rural American folk music, attended  the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in North Carolina. Enthralled, Pete asked his father to arrange for him to learn basic strokes on a five-string banjo from festival organizer Bascom Lamaar Lunsford. He then spent the next several years focused on learning the instrument.

After finishing prep school, Seeger attended Harvard, studying to be journalist. There, he started a political newspaper and joined the Young Communist League. He left college after two years and moved to New York City, where he helped Alan Lomax catalog and transcribe music at the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress.

Seeger’s life was always immersed in folk music and the socioeconomic realities of those who created it. As a result, he became a political figurehead who performed songs for the grass-roots audiences at labor rallies, anti-war rallies, civil rights marches, colleges, and folk festivals. He typically played banjo or guitar during these performances, and was known for adapting spirituals and other traditional songs and encouraging the audiences to sing along with him.

In 1942, he was drafted to the U.S. Army and trained as an airplane mechanic, but then assigned to a unit of performers in the Pacific Theater. After the war, he resumed performing and in ’49 helped form The Weavers, a folk group that also included Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman. By the early ’50s, the band had sold some four million singles and albums, but Seeger’s membership in the Communist Party (which he had disavowed prior to forming the band) came back to haunt him when a pamphlet was published listing performers with known Communist ties. It essentially blacklisted the group, which then broke up. Seeger was subsequently called to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives and, after refusing to answer questions about his political beliefs, was charged with contempt, indicted, and sentenced to a year in prison. The indictment, however, was overturned.

His discography ultimately included more than 100 albums and several hit songs, mostly via his time with The Weavers.  The ’60s saw a new generation of performers find inspiration in Seeger’s life and work. Among them were Bob Dylan, Don McLean, and others involved in the “folk boom,” including the Byrds, who in ’65 scored a major hit with “Turn, Turn, Turn,” which was written by Seeger.

Seeger remained very active, professionally and politically, throughout his career. A co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival, he was integral to the folk-music revival of the ’60s. By the mid ’60s, he began to call attention to environmental issues, which he championed through the remainder of his life. In 1996, he was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In ’97, he won a Grammy Award for best traditional folk album. He won the award again in 2009, and then in 2011 won in the children’s music category. Vega and Martin have both issued instruments that carry his name; Vega the Pete Seeger Longneck banjo, Martin the JSO and J12SO! Sing Out Pete Seeger model guitars.

“Seeger was one of the most influential and iconic performers in the history of American traditional and folk music,” said VG contributor George Gruhn. “He combined music with political and social activism influencing millions of people. He helped to promote the careers of numerous musicians including Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly. During the late 1950s through the mid ’60s, Pete was one of the major catalysts for the increased popularity of five-string banjos and 12-string guitars in folk and popular music. His legacy is vastly greater than the sum of his recorded music.”

Seeger is survived by a son, two daughters, a half-sister, and six grandchildren.

This article originally appeared in VG May 2014 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Chris Poland’s signature legato was born from tragedy. As a teen, his left hand accidentally punched through a plate-glass window and cut tendons in his fingers. He lost the ability to bend his index finger, and lost feeling in his pinkie. As a result, he learned unique fretting techniques that set the bar for inventive metal soloing on the first two Megadeth albums, and an impressive collection of solo and band projects.

Today, he leaps from jazz with Polecat to metal with Queensryche and Lamb of God to fusion with Ohm.

Fans of your playing in Megadeth think of you as a metal guy, but you’re actually from the Mahavishnu Orchestra school.
I ripped off all that stuff. On “Sister Cheryl,” the ascending chord part is basically half the section from “Electric Dreams.” I learned all the chords from “Birds Of Fire” and a lot of the chords from “Inner Mounting Flame.” McLaughlin does a lot of triads with his thumbs doing bass roots here and there. I was so into the band that I incorporated those chords into whatever I do.

How did you develop that fluid legato?
The outro solo on Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times” has ascending and descending lines that got me started. Once I began listening to jazz and fusion, I started listening to a lot of Wayne Shorter and Michael Brecker. I don’t have their harmonic knowledge, but when you listen to something long enough, you emulate it a bit. I just like the way it sounds. I’m a huge Holdsworth fan.

How did Ohm come together?
I tried some vocal projects with my brother and different guys and it was always so contrived, except for Damn The Machine, which was heartfelt. We tried best we could, but it just didn’t fly. One day, I called Pag [bassist Robertino Pagliari] because we played in a band called The New Yorkers and were into the fusion thing that was happening with Billy Cobham, Tony Williams, Return To Forever, and those bands. Pag was into Brand X.

We were doing well around town, then The Knack came out and L.A. decided that they didn’t like our music anymore. So we quit. I went through all these bands trying to get record deals. I called Pag and I said, “Let’s just play music we like and work jobs.” Otherwise, you’re just standing around wondering why you’re not playing. It’s the same way I felt in Megadeth. For a while it was fun, but after a while you’re like, “I can’t write anything with the band because it all has to be in this pigeonholed thing.” Now we do what we do. We’re never going to make any money, but I don’t think anybody is.

You’ve played on records by Lamb of God, Geoff Tate’s last Queensryche record, and jazz with Polecat. Which is the most challenging?
I played on Michael Angelo’s record and it was the fastest thing I’ve ever played! (Laughing) It was the fastest rhythm section I have ever heard in my life, and I know it was played by human beings! It just freaked me out!

This article originally appeared in VG Febuary 2014 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Leslie West is renowned for his iconic tone and revered as a forefather of classic rock. A true survivor, he’s adjusting after a life-saving leg amputation, but forging ahead and inspired to continue making music. West filled us in with a rundown of the tracks on his aptly titled latest release, Still Climbing.

“I started recording a year ago,” he said. “I wanted this album to be a progression of Unusual Suspects, and I wanted to take my time putting everything together. I had some good ideas for riffs and didn’t want to be redundant in guitar solos. My wife, Jenni, wrote some great lyrics and my friend, Jon Tiven, helped with some others. My co-producer and engineer, Mike Goldberg, played drums, and Rev Jones played bass.

“I started with ‘When A Man Loves A Woman,’ the track with Jonny Lang. We sat in the control room, and played and sang together. I love the way Jonny sings and plays. He sings from his chest with a lot of feeling. He sounds like he could be a 50-year-old bluesman. Then I did ‘Dyin’ Since the Day I Was Born,’ which Mark Tremonti played on. He’s a fast player, but very melodic. ‘Tales Of Woe’ is just me with an acoustic guitar and a slide. That’s one of my favorites. It’s not a pity party, but I’ve had some ‘tales of woe’ in the last year; my friend David Biglin played the acoustic intro that sounds like a Spanish guitar. David also played acoustic, keyboard, and B3 on ‘When A Man Loves A Woman’ and ‘Feeling Good.’ He plays great acoustic and does things that I’m not so great at. I’d rather have him play those parts so I can play lead or slide over them. Next was ‘Feeling Good’ with my friend, Dee Snider. People don’t realize he’s not just a screamer. We trade lines in a couple of places and when we sang together, sometimes you can’t tell who’s who.

“I’d heard ‘Fade Into You’ on the [television] show ‘Nashville.’ A guy and girl did it acoustic, and I thought it was great. I started fooling around and changed it up by starting off acoustic, then really ripping into it heavy when the chorus comes up. I was surprised by how good it came out. ‘Hatfield Or McCoy’ also came from Jenni and I watching TV. She started writing lyrics, then I started playing slide and it came together quickly. That one was a lot of fun. The female vocals were Elaine Caswell. She did a great job.

“Johnny Winter played on ‘Busted, Disgusted Or Dead.’ He wrote a couple of songs with me before, and I’d done a track on his album, so I thought it would be great to have Mike go to the studio in Connecticut where Johnny works, and record him. He plays the middle solo and we made it sound like we’re playing together.

“‘Don’t Ever Let Me Go’ has a guest spot by Dylan Rose, who plays with James Durbin from ‘American Idol.’ My manager said he sounds kind of like me, so I let him play the ride-out. He has melody, but to me, he sounds like a Mark Tremonti or Zakk Wylde.

“I re-recorded ‘Long Red’ because of all the people who sampled it! It’s one of the most sampled hip-hop songs of all time. That blew my mind! Lana Del Rey, Nas, Depeche Mode, Jay Z., Kanye West… This is the way I do it now. It’s a lot heavier. Who knew when I wrote it in 1969 that it was hip-hop? My brother, Larry, played bass on it.

“My favorite track on the album is ‘Not Over You At All.’ Oh, boy, I love the riff on that song!

“For the gear, I changed amps on this album. I started using a Blackstar Series One 100 head with the channel-switching footpedal for clean, fat clean, slightly dirty, and then full-out gain. Mike Goldberg didn’t EQ my guitar, so what you hear is the sound from the amp. For effects, I used a TC Electronic digital delay and an octave pedal.

“I played four Dean guitars, which all have my MOT Mountain of Tone pickup. It sounds like a P-90, but it’s a humbucker. The new Mudflap Mama model has a stainless-steel mudflap girl inlaid on the neck, and it has the biggest sound. The Mississippi Queen sounds different altogether and its graphics are amazing. I used a Dean V for slide with a Joe Perry Boneyard porcelain slide – porcelain works really well. You don’t hear the squeaking or clanking of metal. The acoustic is a Larrivee jumbo. It has a great sound for recording. I’m really happy with the way everything came out – from the songs to the sounds!”

This article originally appeared in VG May 2014 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.