#137: Guitarlords of Bug Dungeon, pt. 1 (feat. Dan Boeckner) (Patreon)

The great Dan Boeckner (Operators, Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, the Fortune Kit podcast) comes by to discuss how the electric guitar went from novelty to pillar of global musical culture, and how the hell all that stuff works, anyway.  And yes, a beetle really did crawl out of my microphone.

(***Correction: in talking about harmonic divisions of a string, I meant to say that the octave-fifth would be at the 19th fret, not the 17th.  I was thinking "7 above the octave" and accidentally came out with "17.")

Outro music: Handsome Furs, “Talking Hotel Arbat Blues,” from Face Control (2009).

I asked Dan if I could use this song because it’s one of my favorites, but also because I thought it would be cool to reconstruct the guitar/pedal/amp array he used to get the track’s guitar tones, so you can hear some of what we’re talking about in action.

As near as Dan could remember, he played this track using the following signal chain from guitar to amp:

• Fender Telecaster

• LAL Super Oscillo Fuzz (pedal): this gives the guitar both its overdriven roar at the beginning of the song and the fuzzy, singing quality when the lead guitar comes in (about 0:42, after the “I don’t know, but I’ve been told” chorus)

• Electro-Harmonix Memory Man (analog delay pedal): my personal favorite pedal. It can do a million things, and here Dan’s using it for the very quick “slapback” delay that makes the guitar sound like it was recorded in, say, a small tile room

• Boss DD-20 Giga Delay (digital pedal): another very multi-use delay, which Dan’s using in its Reverse mode to give the lead guitar (around 0:42 again) its oddly layered, “smeared” quality. What you’re hearing is the guitar, through fuzz and slap delay, and then a reversed playback of the guitar very shortly afterward, so it sometimes sounds like there are 2 instruments

• Fender Vibrolux 1x10 combo (amplifier): Dan informs me that his Vibrolux had a single 10” Jensen speaker but was covered in brown tolex, so it must've been a modified "brownface" Fender Vibrolux, c. 1961-1963. “Combo” means that the amp comes in a cabinet with a speaker attached; the other option, a “head,” is an amp in a little rectangular box that has to be plugged into a separate speaker cabinet, which is probably what you imagine when you think of stadium rock, Zeppelin, Van Halen, et al.

“1x10” describes the speaker configuration: the first is the number of speakers, and the second is the size in inches. 12” speakers are most common in guitar amps; by comparison, 10” speakers are very direct, focused, and punchy, while 12” speakers tend to sound thicker and broader, have much more bass, and seem more “transparent.” It’s not very loud, but you can best hear the amp itself during the “I don’t know, but I’ve been told” choruses, and it’s pure brownface Fender: sharper, cleaner, and more detailed than a tweed, but much warmer and chunkier than the very famous black amps Fender began making in 1963.