The Andy Summers Interview

Wow! Andy Summers! I got an email from the legendary guitarist’s publicist saying he was a fan of Guitar Moderne and would love to talk to the mag about his latest record, Metal Dog. When I picked myself up off the floor I contacted her and said, “Sure.”

It would be fair to say Summers was one of the rare players who changed the sound of the guitar in pop music. Echoes (no pun intended) of his style can be found in U-2, Rush, even Nirvana. For deep background, I recommend his book, One Train Later: A Memoir , and movie, Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police. A great site about his gear through the years is here, and he also discusses the subject in some of these videos.

With a limited time to talk, I chose to concentrate on the Metal Dog record, as it is a perfect example of everything Guitar Moderne stands for: pushing the sonic and conceptual boundaries of making music with a guitar.

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Vauxflores Number 23

The Vauxflores Number 23 ($179, not including shipping and handling) numbers among the various fuzz-centric buzz-boxes with “heterodyned, atonal artifacts” that seem to be gaining popularity among modern guitarists. Like the Trombetta Tornita, Z.Vex Fuzz Factory, and a number of pedals at this year’s NAMM, in Feedback mode the Vauxflores Number 23 emits random self-oscillating pitches when the guitar volume is rolled down—I guess that’s what “heterodyned, atonal artifacts” means. The pedal is designed in San José, Costa Rica, and each one is hand-built.

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