Kenny Wayne Shepherd: guitarist talks talks music, iPad, tour at NAMM

by Bill Palmer

“I’m an analog guy in my approach to my music,” says Kenny Wayne Shepherd even as he sits with his guitar in hand connected to his iPad at a booth for a music technology company. Moments earlier he was jamming on a stage here at NAMM with impromptu support from Mike Huckabee on bass (yes, that Mike Huckabee) and he may have bumped into Beach Boys legend Brian Wilson who took the stage immediately afterwards. The product which Kenny Wayne is here to show off is the AmpKit from Agile Partners, and he says it simply makes his life easier when he’s on the road.

“You can crank up your guitar in your hotel room and not have to worry about disturbing the people next door to you,” he points out. “”For a guy like myself who travels all the time, I don’t want to have to lug a practice amp around with me everywhere I go as well. But I do always have my iPad in my backpack. It’s really convenient and it’s a cool way to jam out and put down some cool ideas on the fly.”

The product allows a guitarist like Shepherd (or the 99.9% of guitarists who don’t happen to have his talent) to use an iPad as a virtual amp for those times when a physical one isn’t accessible. And despite his old school approach to making music, he says he does in fact enjoy tech in general. “I’m not the kind of guy that can write a source code or anything like that,” he admits, “but I definitely am all about checking out the latest in technology.”

The NAMM conference for musicians has been around since before consumer technology existed, but here at the 2012 show there are as many booths offering tech-inspired guitar products like the AmpKit as there are booths selling actual guitars. One thing that hasn’t changed is that musicians, even famous ones, come here year after year to check out the latest in music gear which they end up taking with them on the road and taking into the studio. It turns out Kenny Wayne Shepherd is gearing up to do both this year.

“We’re going out on Saturday for the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise,” he says of the upcoming concert at sea, “and then we’re gonna be out all year in the United States and Australia and Europe. I’m looking forward to a great year in 2012, and I’m gonna start working on the next album. Our newest album came out in August and we’re supporting that one now, but we’re already getting ready to start working on the next record.”

Why two albums in such rapid succession? As he puts it, “In today’s world you’ve got to keep the product coming and keep the fans engaged.”

iPad App Review: AmpliTube Fender

By: Al Morita

IK Multimedia has expanded upon their AmpliTube app with collection of Fender amps and effects for use on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Five amps are included including the Twin Reverb, Super-Sonic, Pro-Junior, Bassman, and Deluxe Reverb. The amp models provide a range of clean and overdriven tones. There are also six pedal models that give a noise filter, compressor, overdrive, phaser, echo, and fuzz pedal effects. In order to use this app, one must purchase the AmpliTube iRig to connect the guitar to the iOS device.

The AmpliTube Fender uses the same layout as AmpliTube 2 app with an easy-to-use interface and excellent graphics. Each amplifier model has the same look and functionality of a real amp. To further customize your sound, five speaker cabinets and two microphone options are provided.

I’ve summarized the tone of each of the five amps below:

• The Deluxe Reverb model has the clean Fender tone with nice reverb and vibrato effects.
• The Twin Reverb model adds a brightness switch and midrange EQ to the Deluxe Reverb amp.
• The Pro Junior model is a small tube amp with tone and volume knobs.
• The Bassman model is a warm sounding amp with a great natural distortion when cranked.
• The Super-sonic model has a mix of the Fender clean tones and distortion in one amp.

Two pedal effects that stand out in AmpliTube Fender are the Tape Echo and the Fender Blender. Tape Echo is versatile with many settings such as level, time, feedback, brightness, and BPM sync. Fender Blender is the highlight pedal for any guitarist that loves fuzz distortion. The other four effects are useful for adding compression, noise filter, phaser, and overdrive to your tone.

This app is also useful for practicing and playing-along to existing songs in your iPod library or computer. There is a SpeedTrainer feature that allows you to slow down imported tracks for learning new riffs without affecting the pitch. Also included is a built-in tuner and metronome.

The only problems I found with the AmpliTube Fender were the occasional crashes that occurred while switching amp models. This was quickly remedied through force quitting the app or restarting the iPad.

AmpliTube Fender for the IOS is a great app for guitarists looking for the classic Fender sound in a portable device. It’s an excellent value at $14.99 for both the amps and effects. For existing AmpliTube 2 users, the clean Fender tones in this app are a welcome upgrade as an in-app purchase. A free version is also available for download with the Deluxe Reverb model amp, a Noise Filter effect, and the Compressor.

Pros:
- Best clean guitar tone in an IOS app (Twin Reverb and Deluxe Reverb models)
- Authentic Fender guitar tones in a portable app
- Fender Blender effect pedal has amazing fuzz distortion
- Fender Tape Echo is a really good echo simulation, comparable to real pedals
- Many customizable settings and features
- Very low latency

Cons:
- Occasional crashes, remedied by restarting the iPad
- Not as good for hard rock tones or metal

4 ½ stars out of 5 · IK Multimedia · iTunes ($19.99 on iPad, $14.99 on iPhone)

AmpliTube Fender Now Available for your iPhone and iPad!

IK Multimedia has announced the release of the AmpliTube Fender apps for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. This app allows guitarists to play and record songs using models of real Fender amplifiers and effect pedals from the convenience of an IOS device. It uses the same layout as their successful AmpliTube 2 app with many customizable settings to match your desired tone.

The $14.99 app includes 5 Fender Amps: ’65 Deluxe Reverb, ’65 Twin Reverb, ’59 Bassman LTD, Super-Sonic, and Pro Junior. There are also six Fender Stomp boxes with phaser, tape echo, overdrive, compressor, and noise filter effects. A free version is also available for users interested in trying out the ’65 Deluxe Reverb amp and two built-in effects. An AmpliTube iRig interface adapter is required to connect your guitar to the iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.

An in-depth review of the AmpliTube Fender app will be forthcoming.

Now available in the iTunes App Store for $14.99:
AmpliTube Fender for iPhone | AmpliTube Fender for iPad

review: AmpliTube iRig for iPad and iPhone

by Al Morita

Looking for a way to play the guitar while travelling or a way to play guitar without waking up your neighbors? Enter the IK Multimedia AmpliTube iRig, an instrument adapter for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad devices. Setup is easy as plugging in your guitar instrument cable and headphones to the iRig and running a guitar app. The adapter features a quality 1/8” cable connected to an input for a ¼” instrument cable and a headphone output jack.

I tried running the iRig with the free version of AmpliTube, which simulates a guitar amp with a number of effect pedals. The app is easy to navigate through with its easy-to-use interface and graphics that look like the actual device. The audio quality of AmpliTube is very good with usable clean and distortion tones. Additional amps and effect pedals are available for purchase.

I highly recommend registering the free AmpliTube app to unlock the distortion pedal for free. This gives a really nice heavy distortion that I enjoy playing with. Other features include a built-in metronome,recording option, tuner, mic, and guitar cabinet selection. The combination of the $39.99 iRig adapter and the free version of the AmpliTube app provides hours of entertainment for guitarists with a iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad device. The end result is a good practice amp for rocking out on your guitar without waking up your neighbors.

Pros: The iRig adapter features excellent audio quality, low latency, and well designed connectors. The free AmpliTube app is a great value with its easy-to-use interface, stable software, built-in tuner, good effects and amp tones, and fully customizable settings.

Cons:  AmpliTube uses a lot of battery power.  It runs in standby like a phone call when the home button is pressed, rather than closing the app. The only way to close the app is via the double home button tap method in IOS4.

rating: five stars out of five • price: variable • IKMultimedia.com

app review: Solipskier

If you have ever wondered, “There must be a game out there that combines an electric guitar soundtrack with skiing” then Solipskier may be the answer. Solipskier is an iPhone game created by MikenGreg Games Co.; a two-person team that showcases creativity without the need of large teams or million dollar budgets.

In Solipskier, the player’s main goal is to have the skier run through as many gates as possible while avoiding cliffs. The skier, though, is not under the control of the player, and instead skis along the path that is made. The more gates you are able to run through, the faster his pace quickens. The game is not just about getting the highest score, but about what happens in between your runs. While on your runs, you can cause the skier to ski and complete tricks in the air (earning bonus points), and achieve a temporary rainbow colored cape (amazing, I know).

Even though the complete Solipskier experience aspires to reach a psychedelic state, it instead just hints at it. It would have been amazing for the game to encourage the use of tricks, utilize the background and engulf it in colors when reaching top speed or achieving tricks. The cape that appears on the skier is unfortunately all you get. The biggest problem with the game is that it was originally made for keyboard and mouse controls. This means that the game was mostly left unchanged from its desktop brethren, and causes one big problem on the iPhone: your finger will cover up an important portion of the right side of the iPhone’s smaller screen. Your finger will unfortunately cover the pop-up messages, which alert you of upcoming gates and jumps, and become a cause for frustration.

Overall, Solipskier is a fun game but one that could be so much greater. The current $2.99 price tag does not give you much beyond the game, Facebook and Twitter updates, highscore chart, and sound options. Even though there are negatives that detract from the experience, Solipskier should be checked out especially at a discounted price.

review by Bagner Estrada

rating: three stars out of five • App Store link

Norah Jones: the 2010 concert experience

If the shift from her traditional seat on the piano bench to a more guitar-oriented approach on her latest album The Fall begged the question about what effect it would have on her live performances, Norah Jones wasted little in clearing up any any doubt as she took the concert stage with an electric guitar in hand. Accordingly, she opened the show with a rendition of the smoky “I Wouldn’t Need You” from the new record, and that guitar didn’t leave Norah’s hands for the first several songs. But no fear, old-school fans, as she found her way over to the electric keyboard eventually, then later over to a real piano on the other side of the stage, and then eventually to acoustic guitar by the encore.

But none of the shifts in instrumentation took away from the fact that Norah Jones is still Norah Jones, and that’s a good thing, of course. Her dreamy evening music is served up mid tempo, slow tempo, and even slower tempo – a fact that she herself couldn’t resist poking fun at midway through the set. In what might come as a total surprise to someone attending one of her concerts for the first time, Norah just can’t seem to resist cracking jokes and telling silly stories between songs, which only served to add to the humanity of it.

Of the fact that she had just attended a theme park the day before, Norah cracked that “I screamed a lot on the roller coasters, that was dumb” before she mocked choking on her own voice. Of the fact that Aerosmith has its own Disney rollercoaster, she quipped that if there were a Norah Jones roller coaster, it would be “the slowest ride in the world.” The quips kept coming, seemingly spurred on by the fact that various audience members worked up the courage to shout things to her in the hopes that she’d riff on them. And yet Norah being Norah, it somehow didn’t take away from the music itself.

The hit songs were there. New hit single Chasing Pirates. The classic Come Away With Me. And a beautiful rendition of her biggest hit Don’t Know Why, featuring nothing more than Norah on piano along with a pair of backing vocalists and no other instrumentation. But as if to balance it out, there was the absurdly funny song Man Of The Hour whose lyrics were directed at her dog but in such a way as to take one humorous backhanded jab after another at an ex.

Bottom line, though, is that the music sounded great live, with the six piece band often offering up live versions of songs that were arguably superior to the studio originals simply due to having that palpable live in-the-room feel.

Either you like the ever-mellow stylings of Norah Jones or you don’t. But if her kind of music is your cup of tea, then seeing her live in concert at least once is something you should consider mandatory.

Tour dates at NorahJones.com

Malina Moye interview

She’s a singer, songwriter, record label founder, and oh by the way, a guitar virtuoso who plays upside down left handed. Malina Moye talks entrepreneurship as an art form, the science of playing lefty, and more in our Beatweek interview…

I’m left handed myself, so it’s nice to see someone playing a guitar in a way that looks normal to me.

That’s so crazy, because when I was younger I remember my dad was like, “Malina, okay, you’re going to play the guitar” and he gave me obviously a right handed guitar, he’s right handed, and he gave it to me how a right handed player would play. And I was like, I don’t get it. So when he would leave the room I would take the guitar, slip it upside down, and then I was like “this feels right.” Then I just started doing the chords, and he’s like, “That’s backwards, you can’t play like that.”

So you’re not restrung, you’re just playing it upside down.

Oh yeah. Even with my customs and my signature, this is what’s so crazy. I have the left handed body, I do a right handed headstock, and then I have it strung backwards. So even with a righty guitar, if we were to go jam tomorrow, no biggie, I just take your guitar, flip it upside down and start playing. The high E is closer to me, so everything is backwards.

It’s the kind of thing that some people would incorrectly refer to as a gimmick, as if you had surgery just so you could be left handed. Does it cut both ways, where some people tend to overfocus on it?

Imagine you go into your soundcheck. You’re a girl, which I think is the first thing. As a woman, there are not a lot of female players. And I think that when you’re a woman and you go to your soundcheck and you’re just like all in your jeans and whatever, and you get to the stage and your guitar tech hands you your guitar, it never fails. The guitar tech will hand you your guitar, and then I’ll put it on, and I promise you, everybody in the room they take a big gulp, like, does she really even play or what? And then as soon as you fit the first few riffs, they come over and start giving you hugs, swear to god. And then they go “oh my god that’s crazy, I haven’t seen a girl play guitar like that, oh my god you’re left handed.”

Why did you end up starting your own label?

Here’s the thing. I think that just from being in so many different situations, seeing so many other deals and seeing how you can sign a deal and you’ll get stuck, you’ll sit for three years and then this A&R will get fired, and then you’re here. For me it became more like man, here I am writing over at this label, I’m over at Sony, I’m writing but Beyonce’s album is next, Jessica Simpson’s album is next, and then it’s kind of, okay, where’s the Malina Moye record? But it’s like you’ve got to get in the little line and just keep going and stay at that level, and eventually your turn will happen.

But I guess in my heart, I started to go man, this is crazy. I mean I feel like this is a good record. I feel like I have a grasp of what I think good music is. This is what moves my soul. This is what I want to do. So that’s why I was like, you know what? Let’s put the label together. I ended up cross marketing a single with a calendar, that got more press, next thing I know I got investors involved and put another record together. That one got us out on the charts. More investors came into place.

Most musicians I encounter are terrible at the business side of things and they pay other people just to handle that for them. Why do you think that’s been different for you?

I think that if you have a talent and you can make a lot of money, there are going to be tons of handlers around you, but you must have a grasp on what is real and you must have a vision. I think, for me, I always wanted to be like the Michael Jacksons, like the Madonnas, people who literally impact our music and bring these changes. And with the research and the reading that I’ve done, you start to see that a lot of these people, they were instrumental in their careers, and they would say to people, “I want this, this, this, and this.” You put people in places and positions so that you know this person can do this, this, and this.

I look at it like if I were in high school. If you want to be the most popular girl in high school, you’re gonna put yourself more than likely with the most popular people. And when the happens, you start to look at, okay, this person is like this, this, and this, and you need to fill those gaps in. Because now you’ve got to be crazy to see how the internet is, look how it’s changed the music industry. People are saying that in the next couple years, look at Wyclef, he got on the stage at the Grammys, and he was like, if you want to even say that we have labels anymore.

A lot of artists are now starting to realize, hey, they were telling you certain things, but you can really learn to do this yourself. If you can play that instrument, and that takes a lot to do that, or sing, surely you have to know what you want to do and where you want to be. Now a lot of people may not know how to get there, but again, you’re gonna find those people to help you get there.

Learn more at MalinaMoye.com • iTunes • MySpace • Facebook • Twitter

Interview with The Office’s Creed Bratton

Decades before America got to know the delightfully creepy “Creed Bratton” character on NBC’s The Office, the real life actor of the same name who portrays him was helping to shape early rock n’ roll history as lead guitarist for the pioneering band The Grass Roots. Now he’s released his latest album “Bounce Back” with a little help from one of his Office co-stars…

Bill Palmer: It’s funny, when you called I was in the middle of watching last week’s episode of The Office on my DVR.

Creed Bratton: I haven’t even seen last week’s yet. I’ve been so swamped with this CD promotion thing, and I’ve got a couple of other projects I’ve been working on. Even in the Grass Roots days, I’ve never been this busy in my life. It’s amazing. It’s great.

Even when you were out touring the world with the Grass Roots, it wasn’t this busy?

Even when I was out touring around, you still wouldn’t. Here, this is like people talking to you on the phone all day long, and when you go into town you’re doing interviews.

I individually never had this much notoriety, let’s say, back in the sixties. It’s great. “Notoriety” I think is the word, too.

Your involvement in the history or rock and roll speaks for itself. But now there’s this whole new generation of people who’ve become familiar with who you are, except a lot of them know you as this crazy homeless kleptomaniac from television. Does that kind of exposure have its pros and cons?

It’s not really when I go to any kind of business stuff, around people who know. But if I’m in the mall or something, women will pull their kids away from me, that’s for sure.

Really?

No (laughs).

You had me there for a second.

That was too easy. You set me up, Bill. You gave me a softball there. I have to knock one out once in awhile.

I spent some time with your new album Bounce Back, and the first thing that jumped out at me is that I had not previously heard the phrase “do the rubber tree.” Did you coin that phrase?

I did. I made it up. It’s what songwriters do, they make up stuff.

Did you make it up in the course of writing the song, or had you been using the phrase before that?

I don’t sit down to write a song, per se. My process is that I’ll be sitting around or walking around my house, or on the road, or exercise, I always keep some way to write stuff down. And I was sitting there one day just watching the Lakers or something, doom, doom, doom, I had the bassline first come to me from the G, A, up to the C. And then all the sudden I started singing along just to one note, and I came up with singing Indonesia, a thousand snakes, just things off the top of my head, one thing led to another, and I thought about rubber tree, I thought about [The Office co-star Angela Kinsey], who had much of her youth in Indonesia, talking about these rubber plantations there, and I thought about rubber, and I saw some guys dancing around in my head, so the next thing I know I had them doing the rubber tree. And of course politicians are an easy one, bouncing back there.

They just come in. I wouldn’t even say I know how they even happen. They just do. And if I question or think too much about it, Bill, then I would be scared to take away how the process works.

Your previous album was being from Creed Bratton, but Bounce Back is from “Creed Bratton and the 3DVB’s” – why was important to inject the rest of the band into the artist name?

“Creed Bratton” [the previous album] was done in Nashville with Jon Tiven, and it was a great old blues album. I don’t know if you’ve listened to any of that stuff there, but it’s all rather swampy, rootsy, bluesy stuff, more guttural. And I would say that Bounce Back is pretty sophisticated pop. There’s some Appalachian stuff there, Drivin’ the Drags and Cotton Candy. But there’s a lot of stuff that’s like a hipster vibe, Matters Like This and Let’s Get Lost are very kind of cool stuff, almost leaning on the jazz. I wouldn’t really say I’m a jazz guy, which I’m not. But if pop wants to lean that way.

Bounce Back was made five minutes from my house at a studio called the Way Station that my buddy Dave Way owns, my producer. And I used “3D” for for the 3Ds, Dave, Dan Schwartz, and Dylan O’Brien, the “V” is Val McCallum, and the “B” is Brian McCloud. So it’s the first letters of each guy’s name in the band, and they’re stellar musicians. So I always feel it’s good to give the people that you play with credit. The album wouldn’t sound as good as it did if not for those guys.

I saw the video for Rubber Tree and it looked like you were recording in a house.

Yeah, that’s the studio. That’s the Way Station. It’s a full tilt studio, it’s got a room in there with isolation booths and the whole thing.

It looked like a pretty laid back environment.

Oh god yes. My guitar amp for electric guitar was set up in the bathroom, we just closed the door in there and let me wheel away in there. A lot of that stuff is just me playing and singing live, too. Matters Like This is us playing totally live, and I’m singing it live.

Is it fair to say Bounce Back could have been recorded in the sixties, from a technical standpoint?

Absolutely, no question about it.

Your Office co-star Ed Helms plays some Banjo on the album. Was that his idea, or did you approach him?

I approached him about it, and I’m glad he did it because he’s a really good banjo player. He jam together on the set of The Office, in our trailers. When we’re not shooting we’ll hang out in the trailers and play guitar and banjo. He does a lot of Appalachian stuff, so I’ll play bluegrass and we’ll sing old stuff. He shows me some of these old bluegrass songs. He knows them all.

I was going to record Rubber Tree and I thought hey, you know, “I think a banjo would make the song percolate,” and Dave went “Yeah, who do we know?” I said “I got the guy” and I approached Ed. I said “Hey, how’d you like to come down and play banjo on this?” He said “Well it’s not Appalachian.” I said “It doesn’t matter whether it’s Appalachian or not, you’re a banjo player.” I gave him stuff and he came in and knocked it out of the park and it’s great. It percolates that song, you know? It makes it bouncy. It’s rubber, doink doink, da doink doink [laughs].

For people who don’t know your history and they hear the guy from The Office made an album, he thinks he’s a musician now. Are there people who underestimate your music because of it?

I spoke to some major agent awhile back, just a little after Rolling Stone said “We’re gonna do an article on you, we love the album, it’s a really good album,” and I said “Thank you.” So I’m feeling really confident, and I call up this major agent here in town, not major but one of the guys that books corporate gigs. A friend of mine from The Bangles, Vicki Peterson, she called and said “This guy would love to handle you.” I called the guy up and he said “Oh, you know, all actors want to be musicians now, all actors want to do bands.” And I went “Okay man, that’s okay.” I’m not gonna sit there and clarify myself for anybody, you know?

To answer your question, they don’t have a clue. Most people don’t have a clue that I’m a musician first. The acting is something that I came to town to do, but music was something that I always could do, you know?

The bit on The Office where Creed Bratton transfers his debt to “William Charles Schneider” which is your birth name.

They just do all this stuff. Nobody really knows why. You’d have to ask Greg Daniels that question. Why do they call them Angela, Oscar, Phyllis? They use their first names, but they use my first and last name. I think maybe they were gonna incorporate the music part of it with me and then it didn’t happen. So I ended up with my first and last name, but William Charles Schneider is my real name. And that’s my real passport. It’s crazy [laughs]. Why? I don’t know. But it certainly makes me confused. I’m not gonna get caught trapped in any country, am I? Because if they say “Well that’s not you” I can say “Well let’s go online, I’ll show you it’s me” [laughs]. I’ve got documentation, quite a lot of it. Wikipedia knows who I am, buddy.

Who are you making music for at this point? Is it for your own benefit?

Yep. I got so discouraged over the last decade, eighties and nineties. That’s why you see there was all that period of time, and about 2002 I think I started doing stuff again, releasing stuff that I had been recutting. I just found that there was that sound that the record companies demanded to get a deal. If you didn’t sound like certain number of people, that template, cookie cutter mentality. The guys sounded the same, the bands were all crunchy, the guitar was distorted, the vocals were whiny or balls to the wall and they all sounded the same.

I liked back in the sixties where you’d turn on the radio and go “Oh that’s Hendrix, that’s Creedence Clearwater, that’s The Doors, there’s The Grass Roots, The Monkees, there’s Big Brother.” You could just instantly hear it and tell. But in the eighties and nineties there’s no way you could do that. You’d hear a record and you’d go “I don’t know who that is” unless they told you.

I just played SXSW a little while back down in Austin. I was very refreshed at all the individuality coming out of the music scene now, and I think it’s because of the demise of the record company. I think it’s gonna help music, really. Not that I wouldn’t want a big record company to take my record and run with it, that would be great… as long as they don’t tell me how to do my music.

There’s not that many people from the sixties who have progressed as writers and are continuing on. They’re out there. But I’m one of them who’s just continued on, following his own little inner madness [laughs].

Learn more at CreedBratton.com • iTunes • The Office

Orianthi on Saturday Night Live?

Orianthi has had fans here at Beatweek for some time now, as th guitarist was our cover story interview all the way back in November of last year. But she has even bigger fans out there than us, including one named Nick who is so intent on getting Saturday Night Live to invite the Australian prodigy as their musical guest that he’s maintaing an entire Twitter account dedicated specifically to that goal. He asked us to help out the cause, and being fans ourselves, we couldn’t say no. So there you go.

Having previously been tapped for live performances by everyone from Michael Jackson to Carrie Underwood to fellow guitarist Steve Vai due to her blazing guitar skills, the twenty-five year old Orianthi recently played lead guitar on Mary J Blige’s studio recordings of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love and Stairway to Heaven, and will be headed out with Adam Lambert for the Glam Nation tour this summer. Beatweek’s cover story interview is right here.

As far as how Nick plans to get SNL boss Lorne Michaels’ attention in terms of getting him to tap Orianthi as a musical guest, we’re not sure – but we like the idea nonetheless.

Orianthi to appear on Tonight Show

Orianthi, the virtuoso guitarist who released her own album Believe late last year after supporting singers ranging from Michael Jackson to Carrie Underwood, will perform her hit single “According To You” tonight on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Also scheduled to appear on the show are Janet Jackson (apparently not performing) and Clark Duke. Orianthi also appeared on American Idol earlier this week, and will be performing at the University of Illinois in April, according to her official site.

Orianthi appeared on the cover of Beatweek Magazine in November; her in depth cover story can be read in full on Beatweek.com.

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Filed Under: Industry News
Tagged: According to you, Believe, guitar, guitarist, Jay Leno, Orianthi, Tonight Show

Steve Vai interview

December 15, 2009 by Bill Palmer · 3 Comments 

An invitation to guitar legend Steve Vai’s house is bound to conjure up images of instruments and amps piled sky high. But when Steve and I sat down this month at his place, the mad scientist vibe was decidedly more futuristic: there were more Apple products in the room than there were people, and a glance at Steve’s iTunes library revealed that he’s got more iPhone apps than I do.

Having just returned home from tour, and not long after the release his “Where The Wild Things Are” concert DVD, Steve was happy to broach any topic that came up – but the vibe of the room we were sitting in dictated that we start with Apple, a topic which has been a part of Steve’s life for three decades…

When did you first find your way into the Apple stuff?

The very, very beginning. I’ve had every version of Apple desktop, from the first one. Before that I bought Commodore computers. It was very thrilling. You know it’s kind of funny, just for nostalgia it would have been nice to have kept at least one permeation of each generation, but then again, I’d have to build another house to hold them all. But I’ve always taken information and moved it forward.

Were you an early adopter with the iPod and iPhone?

Absolutely. I was late to use a cellphone in general. But as soon as iPods were available, my only problem was getting past the inferior sound quality of the audio. It’s improved quite a bit once the lossless came out, and now you can buy much better resolution. If I had to go find a CD player right now, I wouldn’t know where to look.

But I was very unhappy with using cellphones. I avoided them my whole life. And I’ve had them, you know, the cellphones where you’ve got to open them and then type the three letters before you get to the letter you want, and they were just so user unfriendly and unintuitive and such a pain in the ass to navigate through that it was like a nightmare every time I would open up my cellphone. So I never used it. And the reason why I finally got a cellphone was because Apple came out with one that I knew would be intuitive and user friendly, but still I was very apprehensive. But my kids live in a new generation. If I call them and leave a message they don’t return the call. If I email them they don’t even return emails. The only way that I was able to communicate with my kids was to start texting them. So I had to get something that I could text with, cause I wasn’t gonna go through it with these idiotic cellphones. And as soon as I got the iPhone I realized that the texting was a great way to communicate, but forget it man, now the iPhone has got everything. It’s like a conduit for me, and a lot of people, to my everyday activities.

It looks like you’re enjoying it. I see you on there with Tweetie, posting on Twitter.

I tweet, I keep track of exercise routes and bike rides. I just got the Starbucks app, there’s so many apps that I use constantly. The flashlight app is just priceless.

I have these apps that when I travel they’re priceless. When I travel, I wake up in a city, I don’t even know where I am sometimes. The first thing I do is turn on my iPhone, I see where I am, I see what time it is in that location, I hit “Map” and I find out exactly where I am, and I can look at the surroundings to see where I can go jogging. I just type in “Starbucks” and it gives me everything I need to know about that. I see where the venue is. I see what the temperature is. And I have a complete lay of the land before I leave the bus. This is valuable.

I see you’ve got Guitar Toolkit on there.

I’ve got Guitar Toolkit, if I’m in Europe I have language converters, I have money converters, feet and inch converters, everything. Dictionaries that I use constantly. I have this fitness program that I really like. I’m constantly using G-Park. I’d be doomed without it. I’m losing my spot constantly. And there’s all these great music programs for ear training and composing. One of my favorites is a Woody Allen quote book. I’m always looking for films.

For recording song ideas it’s absolutely priceless. That’s how I write songs. I take my iPhone and I just sing a melody, or I play a melody, and I have hundreds of them in there right now. And then I have notes for song ideas constantly. I never did this before. Before, whenever I would come up with an idea, I would have to scramble to try to find something. It’s really a wonderful tool. And the really great thing about it is if you lose it, no problems. You just buy another one, they’re cheap, and you’ve got everything backed up on your computer.

I have my quibbles, you know. When is the Flash coming out? What up with that? Come on.

You’re on both sides of the whole iTunes platform, though, because you make a living selling your music, and you were doing that for quite awhile before the iTunes Store came out. Did you have to be convinced to put your music into the store when it was first coming out?

No, not at all. I was waiting a long time for this to happen, and I’m looking forward to the future generations of the development of music delivery, for higher quality, quicker delivery, and more secure financial transactions for intellectual property. And I know it’ll happen. I’m sure it’ll happen, because there’s too many people who make a living creating music, and if they don’t get paid for what they do, they can’t do it. And it’s not as bad as a lot of people think, you know? People still buy music online.

But I was very excited when it became available, because I saw it before it even came out as an evolution into the future.

We’re kind of at a crossroads here because we’ve got the iTunes Store and it’s got video and everything, and yet here you’re releasing a DVD, which you’re still putting out as a physical medium. They’re still very popular.

Yeah they’re still very popular, there’s still a big market and there always will be some kind of a market for physical product because it satisfies a certain tactile kind of need that a lot of people have. I love physical product. But I just don’t get it these days unless it’s something special. There’s a few artists that when they release something I go out and I get the physical product. If Tom Waits releases anything, I always have the physical product because I want this book in my hand. I don’t care about that idea for a lot of other artists, but there’s a handful.

How do go about saying “I’m going to make a DVD of this show”? How do you decide it’s going to be this show and this town and this date?

Well the first thing that I do is I come up with an idea that I can pretty much put into a sentence or a few sentences. And when I decided to do this DVD, I had just finished a double live orchestra project that took two years of intensive work, and I wanted to get out on tour but I didn’t have any new product. So the idea was to put a band together that was unique instrumentation, so that I could go out and do a relatively short tour and just kind of satiate the playing thing, and bring a little bit of a different dimension to some of the tracks. So I hired two violinists, and it turned out phenomenally well. And I always like to capture a tour or a band at their peak. So the idea is to do a tour with a unique band and get a DVD and a CD out of it that’s… I put a string of adjectives together: uplifting, musically interesting, unique to my catalog, and it just happens. You have to have the picture first, and then everything else falls into place.

Then I have to put the repertoire together, and I just went through the catalog and picked songs that I knew would work with this instrumentation, and then we scheduled a month, thirty days, of fifteen hour a day practices, six days a week. And then we rehearsed, then I booked a month in Europe, a month in America, and we went to South America. And usually, you can rehearse til you’re blue in the face, but going out on tour and actually being in an environment where people are there and the lights are out is a while different world. So it takes probably about a week or two weeks of being on tour for the band to blow out the bugs, you know, and really start getting ripe. Usually the six week mark is when they’re at their peak performance. And so that was during the American leg, and so I thought where is a really great place to film it and record it? And the State Theatre in Minneapolis was the pick because I love Minneapolis, the State Theatre is gorgeous, it’s historical. It’s got a big wooden stage, which is really nice.

Everybody likes to talk about you taking lessons from Satriani back in the day, and the baton being passed and such. When you come across someone like Orianthi, do you feel like there’s almost an obligation, because of the position you’re in, to help foster the next one?

You can’t really help but to feel somewhat nurturing to a young artist that has potential, and finds you one of their inspirations. It’s very nice to be able to give them some advice or to help them out in some way if you can. You never know what they’re going to turn into. I mean, I’ve worked with very young artists that had a lot of potential but just didn’t know how to cultivate it. Being a great musician isn’t about how well you play. That’s about being a good player. Being a great musician is how well your intellect can turn your imagination into reality in the world.

When I saw Orianthi she was fifteen, and she was opening for me in Adelaide, Australia, and she showed tremendous potential. She played really well. It was obvious. You can’t play an instrument like that unless you love the instrument, and that’s always really nice to see. So through the years I just stayed in touch with her. She had a lot of potential to be a pop goddess, pop rock goddess, if she wanted to, and that’s what she’s chosen. And I think she wears that badge very proudly. And actually for my taste she brings a new dimension to that whole kind of thing. But she also had a lot of great guitar finesse and ability. And how that’s going to be displayed in the future is going to be up to her. But she can play. She can really play.

Now that we’ve got these new tools like Twitter and Facebook, do you find that that’s adding to your ability to relate to your fans?

Absolutely. It’s like you’re stalking them, because if they’re interested they can know what you want them to know, and you can let them into a particular part of your life. And you can do anything, you can fabricate a whole different kind of a character. If I want, I could lie to my fans and create fantastic things. I’m not comfortable doing that. But frankly, when I look at all my posts that I’ve tweeted, they’re very interesting. I don’t tweet things like “Well I’m gonna go to the store now and get some food.” I know there’s a sector of people that would be interested in hearing all that, but I just don’t want to take the time to do it. It’s kind of narcissistic too in a way, you know? So I try to give them things that I believe they would find interesting, something that can relate to their life or just peering into a little portion of my life. I’m relatively private though. There’s things I just don’t discuss.

One thing I saw you mention on Twitter was something about renting a warehouse and going underground for four months. Is that a project you can talk about?

Yeah, it’s my next project. And I basically approached it like I approach all my projects, I set up some parameters, and I’ve just started to put the parameters together. One of them was you have to do something unique that you’ve never done before, and perhaps something that no one has ever done. I don’t know what that is, but I started to get excited about the idea of it. And what happens is it just unfolds. And it did. And it requires a warehouse. But unfortunately I really don’t want to discuss the particulars of it yet. But my goal is to make it very musical, very uplifting, melodic, accessible, entertaining, and my goal is to evolve my potential into areas that I’m not even aware that I’m capable of. And that’s very important for an innovator. You have to be conscious of going to places that you’re ignorant of.

Can you say whether or not it’s guitar oriented?

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that’s in my prerequisite is guitar up front on a silver platter through the entire thing. So I’m not going to be doing a lot of overdubs. Very intimate guitar.

You’re coming up on fifty. Is that causing you to rethink or reevaluate, professionally or personally, or is it just another number to you?

Well, both, you know? I’m very satisfied and content with all I’ve achieved. I never thought I’d ever achieve so much. And I’m very happy where I am. I don’t have any burning desires or regrets for things that I should have accomplished and I didn’t. Sure, I wish I had ten more records, it would be nice, but I don’t really care. I’m one of those people who feel that everything is evolving as it should. Having said that, one of the things that I’ve realized is that it’s great to have tons and tons of ideas, but in reality, a small percentage of them are going to be made real because it’s impossible with the amount of time that’s left. So what it’s caused me to do is prioritize. I like the idea of being fifty. I don’t mind growing old. I don’t want to be forty-nine again, or thirty-five again, or twenty-one or none of that shit. But I do understand that I’ve come face to face with the reality that you have this many ideas, and when I was twenty-five that was great. But really, from the time I was twenty-five to now, maybe I’ve only accomplished three percent of these ideas. So it’s a very rejuvenating process to take that list of ideas and try to burn it, and just pick the handful of the most important ones, cut out all the fat. So that’s what I’ve been in the process of doing. And turning fifty next year has helped me to come to grips with letting go of nonsensical projects.

Are you going to keep the long hair?

I grow it and then I cut it, then I grow it, then I cut it.

I always do that, and every time I grow it out I say it’s the last time.

I do too. Then I cut it and I go “Man, you look like such a dork. Grow your hair.”

Learn more at Vai.com

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Filed Under: Interviews, Musician interviews
Tagged: 2009, Apple, apps, concert, DVD, guitar, interview, iPhone, Orianthi, Steve Vai, Where the wild things are

App review: Jammit

October 27, 2009 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment 

New in iProng Magazine: a hands-on review of Jammit, the guitar-training app iPhone and iPod touch, available for $6.99 in the App Store…

review by Albert Morita


Ever wanted an easy way to learn how to play the guitar with music from your favorite bands? The iPhone app Jammit: Classic Rock Vol. 1 will help you learn songs with an intuitive way of teaching on the iPhone. The app features CD quality original recordings of three songs: Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen”, Foreigner’s “Dirty White Boy”, and Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water”.

One of the key features is the ability to control the volume levels of the guitar on one track and the rest of the instruments (vocals/drums/bass) on another track. For instance, you can turn off the guitar track so that you can only hear the drums, vocals, and bass to jam along with. Or, if you wanted to learn how to play a guitar solo, you can listen to the guitar part by itself. It also features a slow mode which plays back the music down at half speed to help with learning. It keeps the music at the same pitch in the slower speed, which is a nice touch. There is also a synchronized tablature page that will show you what frets to hold down while the music is playing. You can also review your learning progress by using the recording mode.

As an experienced guitar player, I found some minor flaws with the application. First, the volume levels quiet down significantly when you enable the recording mode. This makes it hard to match up your guitar playing with the original recording. I would have preferred to have separate set of track levels for both playback and recording modes. There is also missing notation on the tablature for slides and bending of notes, which is noted in the “stuff you should know” section. Another thing to consider is the limited availability of songs — there are only 3 songs per game. They are planning to release several versions of the game for different rock genres and bands including White Zombie, Sum 41, Fall Out Boy, Tracy Lawrence, and many more.

Overall, this application does a good job at teaching you how to play songs on the guitar. It is a lot more fun learning to play songs with this app than using sheet music. The synchronized tablature/notation page is my favorite feature. One feature I would like to see is the ability for the tablature notes to flash when it is being played. I also liked the ability to control the levels of the songs for easy learning, especially since the tracks are from the original master recording. It is nice to play along with the original band recording, especially if you are fans of the music. This is an excellent app for people who are looking at new ways for learning how to play the guitar.

PROS: The songs are the original master recordings, synchronized tablature page, ability to record own guitar tracks, ability to change the levels of the original guitar track and the mix without the guitar, slow mode, an innovative way to learn guitar

CONS: Limited song selection, recording mode volume too low, missing notation for bends and slides, the app ignores the mute switch on the phone, uses a lot of power, no in-game purchase of additional songs.

*****

Jammit: Classic Rock Guitar Vol. 1 is available for $6.99 in the App Store.

*****

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Filed Under: iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iTunes, Reviews
Tagged: Albert Morita, app, App Store, guitar, iPhone, iPod touch, Jammit, review