Guitarist

 UK

 
The original and best magazine for guitarists. Each has features on equipment and players, excellent lessons on various styles, superb reviews on equipment, technical help on maintenance and repairs. Issues from 1996 include a CD with demos, new tracks, lessons and accurate backing track of popular rock, blues, with occasional Jazz and Classical tracks thrown in. Launched in 1984. The longest running guitarist magazine in Europe.
Currently published by Future plc with other guitar magazines like Guitar Player, Guitar Techniques, Guitar World, Total Guitar, Australian Guitar and Bass Player.
  

1989 December

 

No More Heroes
By Penny Braybrooke, 4 pp


SCOTT THUNES, BASS PLAYER with Frank Zappa, owes a great deal to studying the classics. but in so doing has dismissed the majority and has broken down much of the prejudice. Perhaps Bartok would hold some appeal if you put bass and drums behind the first movement of his fourth string quartet and discovered it was high power rock. Perhaps opera would make you smile if you thought of it as the first pop video format. On the other hand you might disagree with the idea that the invention of the phonograph destroyed music.

MORE OF THAT later... First of all, though, how did Scott get the gig with Frank? (read more)

This article was reprinted in Society Pages #1, April 1990, from where following page scans are taken.

Source: Society Pages #1

 

1993 June

Vol. 9 No. 12

 

(1) Unholy mother
Interview by David Mead, pp 18-20, 22-27

(2) Three sides ...
Adrian Belew, Mike Keneally, Scott Thunes interviews by David Mead, pp 22-23


(1)  How would you sum up your guitar style on the early Mothers recordings?

"It was okay, but back then the guitar wasn't a featured instrument in the way it was on the later albums. As far as a precedent goes... I don't think there was anything you could compare it to; it was the only was I knew how to do it. There was no reason to do it another way, and anyway, everybody else was doing it the other way!"

The rock guitar influences that are the most common are the '60s icons, players like Clapton and Hendrix...

"Yes, but when we did 'Freak Out!' and 'Absolutely Free', there wasn't any Hendrix. We met Hendrix in the summer of '67; he sat in with us at the Garrick Theatre, so we'd already made those albums before I even knew that he existed. Actually, I think my playing is probably more derived from the folk music records that I heard; middle eastern music, Indian music, stuff like that. For years I had something called 'Music On The Desert Road', which was an album with all kinds of different ethnic music from the Middle East. I used to listen to that all the time – I liked that kind of melodic feel. I listened to Indian music, Ravi Shankar and so forth, before we did the 'Freak Out!' album. The idea of creating melody from scratch based on an ostinato or single chord that doesn't change – that was the world that I felt most comfortable with. If you listen to Indian classical music, it's not just pentatonic. Some of the ragas that they use are very chromatic, all sustained over a root and a fifth that doesn't change, and by using these chromatic scales they can imply all these other kinds of harmonies. The chords don't change; it's just the listener's aspect that gets to change, based on how the melody notes are driven against the ground bass." (read more)

 
  

2005 October

Issue 269

 

Viva Zappa!
By Mo Nazam & Julian Piper, pp 68-74


Frank Zappa may be gone, yet his baffling and brave music lives on. In anticipation of November's Zappa Plays Zappa tour, son Dweezil, drummer Terry Bossio and one-time protégé Steve Vai pay homage to an enduring musical maverick...

 

2009 May

Issue 315

 


 To mark the 25th birthday of Guitarist magazine (launched in June 1984) Guitar Legends – a compendium of 25 favourite interviews was produced and bagged with this month's issue for free. The book includes excerpts of Frank Zappa interview from June 1993 issue.

No other Zappa content inside.

 

2010 November

Issue 338

 

Dweezil Zappa
By ?, p 26

Source: Vitaly Zaremba

 

2011 February

Issue 338

 

Frank Zappa. The Torture Never Stops DVD
By BW, p 155

Source: Vitaly Zaremba

 

2011 June

Issue 342

 

Solid Gold. The 10 greatest SG players.
By ?, pp 68-69

Source: Vitaly Zaremba

 

2012 January

Issue 350

 

What goes around
By Tony Bacon, p 30


Tony Bacon devotes this issue's column to the incomparable wisdom of Mr Frank Zappa ....

Source: Vitaly Zaremba

 

2012 October

Issue 360

 

The Story Of Steve Vai
By Steve Vai, pp 53-54


[page 54]
What was Frank like to work with?

"With Frank, you'd go up to the studio to record, or you'd go on out on tour, and the next thing you know it's coming out over a multitude of records. But there is one record, The Man From Utopia, where a lot of the crazy stuffl did with Frank can be found. Things like The Dangerous Kitchen, The Jazz Discharge Party Hats, and Moggio."
You were only in your early 20s when this was recorded. Was it scary to perform Zappa's notoriously tricky music onstage?
"Terrifying! To this day, if I hear Moggio, I get nervous. Every thing's fine when you're in the moment, but [Moggio] is so difficult and I'd have to practise it every day, even on tour, and still there were parts that wouldn't come out great sometimes. There was this one part that, whenever it was coming up, I'd get the feeling like, 'S**t, here it comes!' You know that nervous feeling and you think you have to go take a dump? I still get that when I hear Moggio. It was 30 years ago: it's like Pavlov's asshole or something!"

Source: Vitaly Zaremba

 

2012 December

Issue 362

 

The Band From Utopia
By Jamie Dickson, pp 54-56, 58

Frank Zappa Style File
By Adrian Clark, pp 60-61


Source: Vitaly Zaremba

 

2013 Summer

Issue 371

 

Shell Shocked
By ?, p 33


Howard Kaylan's book Shell Shocked is reviewed.

Source: Vitaly Zaremba

 

2014 May

Issue 380

 

Adrian Belew
By Jamie Dickson, pp 64-66, 68


Source: Vitaly Zaremba

 

2016 October

Issue 412

 

Mike Keneally
By David Mead, pp 56-58


Source: Vitaly Zaremba

 
  

2018 June

Issue 433

 

Frank Zappa: The Roxy Performances (review)
By David Mead, p 52


 

 

2019 December

Issue 453

 

Mission Impossible
By Henry Yates, pp 78-82, 84


A half-century after the album’s original release, Dweezil Zappa’s forthcoming tour aims to recreate his late father’s mind-boggling Hot Rats in forensic detail. He told us about the ultimate labour of love, recreating stolen instruments and walking in a dead man’s shoes…

 

 
  

2020 January

Issue 454

 

The Hot Rats Sessions (review)
By David Mead, p 44


 

 
  

2021 January

Issue 467

 

To Be Frank
By Rob Lang, p 44


 

 

2021 June

Issue 472

 

Perfectly Frank
By David Mead, pp 54-62, 64-65


A new documentary on the life and times of Frank Zappa has just been released in U.K. We take a look behind the scenes and find out what it took to bring the movie to the screen -- and talk to Steve Vai and Mike Keneally about what it was like playing guitar in his legendary band.