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Seeing Sound | The Art & Design of the Stompbox | Book Feature Preview
Imagine visiting an art museum and discovering no paintings or sculptures. Instead, it’s filled with a rainbow of scratched, scuffed guitar pedals emblazoned with eye-popping, humorous, and sometimes cheeky graphics and some wild fonts. Confronted by this aesthetic overload, you realize guitar pedals aren’t just utilitarian. The work and creativity that went into the visual…
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Kool Things: Sonic Youth’s Secret Stash
Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo was the first artist who joined the Stompbox book project, allowing the team to photograph not only his Ibanez AD-80 Analog Delay, but almost his entire pedal collection (which included gear from Italy and Germany). His joy was infectious, and it made for a fantastic start to a stompbox-photographing journey…
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BIG EAR Pedals | Stompbox Makers
Plug into a BIG EAR pedal like FRANK, WOODCUTTER or LOAF, and you immediately pick up on the kind of boyish excitement that exudes from its chief designer and company head Grant Wilson, who started the company about a decade ago with his partner Karen Schierhorn. An inspired drummer and guitar geek—formerly of Brooklyn indie…
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Walrus Audio | Stompbox Innovators
Walrus Audio, based in Oklahoma City, does what Colt Westbrook—the company’s president—refers to as sound manipulation. “We wanted a name and a stoic story to go with each of these effects,” he says about how they name their pedals. “To add to the mystery that is sound manipulation, which is what we’re all doing.” The…
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Stompbox Innovators | Josh Scott | JHS Pedals
Josh Scott and Eilon Paz are the classic trope of unlikely friends. At the same time, if you know their histories, you realize it’s not that unlikely. Both Eilon and Josh grew up in the sticks (the main difference is that Josh grew up in Mississippi and Eilon grew up in rural Israel), they both…
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Thinking Inside the Box | Book Feature Preview
If it isn’t clear to you by now, the musicians who use effects pedals love to talk about them. While exhibits different levels of fanaticism and attention to detail, stompboxes clearly offer unique insight into the creation of your favorite music. But what company developed the fuzz beloved by Thee Oh Sees‘ John Dwyer? Who’s…
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Fuzzy Drums, Hairy Horns and Silky Keys | Book Feature Preview
Effects pedals are not just for guitar gods. In the Stompbox feature Fuzzy Drums, Hairy Horns and Silky Keys, writer and guitarist James Rotondi pulls readers away from the six string and into a vibrant new musical lane. “String and horn players, synthesizer and keyboard mavens, and even vocalists, drummers, and turntablists have been exploiting…
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J’s Big Muff Museum | Book Feature Preview
Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo has a passion for effects pedals and will say, without hesitation, that his sound has been influenced by decades worth of stompboxes. He was the first artist to participate in the Stompbox book and his incredibly knowledgeable but down-to-earth nature made him the perfect conduit for an interview with an…
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Visiting Dimebag Darrell’s Home | The Making of Stompbox Book
The only time I ever visited the late, great Dimebag Darrell at home was also the only time I ever got serious alcohol poisoning—a coincidence that I can assure you was not remotely coincidental. So when his widow Rita “DimebagzHag” Haney invited Stompbox to South Arlington, Texas to shoot Dime’s stage-used prototype of Dunlop’s DB01…
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Peter Frampton’s Heil Talk Box and Visiting the Hard Rock Vault | The Making of Stompbox Book
Back in October 2019, Stompbox creative director and photographer, Eilon Paz, went to the Hard Rock Vault—located somewhere deep in the belly of Florida—to photograph Peter Frampton’s Heil Talk Box, which is the effect he used, most notably, for his iconic, extended guitar solo on “Do You Feel Like We Do,” from the 1976 release,…