May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and to honor that, EarthQuaker Devices artist, blogger and scholar Julian Saporiti is writing a four-part series called Ghost Echoes that revolves around the rich and deep subject of ethnomusicology.
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Jamie Lidell talks about the secret of good collaboration, gear he craves, what he’s learned from his wide-ranging list of guests, and the two EarthQuaker Devices pedals he loves most.
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For enthusiasts and musicians who prefer a one-stop stompbox search shop, Delicious Audio may be just what you’re looking for.
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Celebration takes the name to heart. They rarely perform live, but each show is, well, a celebration. There’s usually a theme, and the band enlists their friends to transform DIY venues into hand-built spectacles rivaling any stadium show…
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“Step one in my sound,” says Larson, “is the Speaker Cranker. I have [it] on one-hundred percent of the time…It makes a not-so-great amp sound better.”
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Since 1997, MATMOS have pushed the boundaries of what would soon be called “intelligent dance music” beyond the natural limits of self-contained software and circuitry by using found objects…
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Nels has multiple pedalboards, but today we’re looking at “the big one,” which is actually two small pedalboards stacked neatly inside a Pelican case to save space, because this is New York City, folks…
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“This is a historical place and people should know the history of it,” says Different Fur Studios owner Patrick Brown.
It’s true -- the discography of the San Francisco-based recording studio reads like a list of the most influential albums of all time.
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“I want [the audience] to use all of their five senses. Forget about the daily life,” says guitarist/bassist Takeshi. To aid our forgetfulness, Takeshi plays through a monolithic array of Sunn and Orange amplifiers plus a pedalboard stuffed to capacity with boutique fuzz pedals, one-off noisemakers, Afterneath, Bit Commander, and Palisades.
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If you’re opening a recording studio there are two things you should know:
Location is everything.
Great drum sounds are also everything.
Dan Joeright’s Gatos Trail Recording Studio in beautiful Yucca Valley, CA has both. Housed within an antique barn surrounded by spellbinding desert wilderness, Gatos Trail is a destination for artists like synth-pop phenomenon Twin Shadow, bass-and-drums bashers Big Business, noise rock brutalists Unsane, and nebulous post-punk group The Mekons…
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“It’s not musical and I like that,” says Justin Pearson.
For more than a decade Justin Pearson (Dead Cross, Retox, Head Wound City) and Joey Karam (One Day as a Lion) have attacked eardrums and melted faces with their deconstructed avant-grindcore assault as members of the Locust. We recently met up with Justin and Joey at an undisclosed Los Angeles locale to concoct some Plague Soundscapes of our own…
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“Anything that resonates, it sticks with you. Then you’re like, ‘I have to have it’ because it’s like a beautiful dream.”
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I wanted to move away from home, get a BMX bike, and a Moog. Those were the two things that were on my list, and those were the first two things that I did.
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For someone who didn’t grow up with grunge or ‘90s alternative rock, Alicia and her bandmates in Bully have managed to make one of the most exciting, ‘90s grunge/alternative rock records I’ve heard since – well, the ‘90s. Maybe even before that…
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“It’s the pedal I really learned how to build pedals on,” says Jamie Stillman...
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"I want to make a love song that's like when Arnold Schwarzenegger has to kill himself at the end of Terminator." - Cameron Avery
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Spotlights are loud. We caught up with bassist Sarah Quintero before the band’s performance at Mahall’s in Lakewood, OH, to shine a light on the deluge of distortion and fuzz pedals she uses to saturate the low frequencies which drive the trio’s sludgy shoegaze riffs straight into your skull.
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“I’m a sick person,” confesses John Vanderslice.
He’s not wrong.
Vanderslice suffers from a terminal case of G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) and it’s spreading...
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Har Mar Superstar are experts when it comes to gettin’ weird. We met up with Mr. Superstar himself, Sean Tillman, and trumpeter Jake Baldwin to see what might happen if we paired up a handful of our wildest Devices with trumpet and vocals...
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In addition to being the EarthQuaker Devices house band, Relaxer may very well be the world’s first (and only) “Passive Progressive” rock band. I don’t know what it means, either...
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