George Lynch Gear - From His Tech:

Inspector #20

Inspector #20

Ambassador of Tone
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Okay...It was Friday February 6, 2009, when we moved the gear from Burbank. My last post was Adam Day (former Slash guitar tech) George and I packing up the truck and moving everything from the Burbank rehearsal studio and driving it across town to the recording studio in Van Nuys. It was raining like hellfire that night and the wind made the hard rain hit us sideways while we tried effortlessly to load the truck. What should have been a 10 min. drive down three freeways took about an hour. Arriving at Sound City studios in Van Nuys had us unloading the truck into Studio A.

Bringing in the gear down a hallway, there was a lot of history shown on the walls, one of the most prominent was the Fleetwood Mac platinum plaque for the "Rumors" album. While working on hauling George's gear in, I mentioned that I could feel ghosts in there and an intern that was receiving us agreed. Elvis had been in there and I could feel it...kind of a creepy feeling over my shoulder, y'know?

Drums began the next day, Saturday with Scott Coogan while Marco and George played rhythm scratch tracks. On Monday, George and Marco laid down the basic guitar tracks and bass. At the helm was Bob Kulick and Brett Chasson. They recorded for three days, completing this part of the task on Tuesday Feb. 10th, 2009. I wasn't there after having delivered George and his gear from the previous Friday, but amp wizard and former Groove Tube sensei Jimmy Wigle acted as Lynch tech on Monday and Adam Day did Tuesday. And as always in my absense, George had me on the phone at various points during the recording on those days. Videographer Matt Hughes captured some of this recording process as much of this was taking place. We will be editing the footage and placing it online as a Dojo exclusive. During all of this, surprisingly, the ESP Super V was the primary guitar used in this stage of the recording.

On Weds. Feb. 11th 2009, George and I rented a truck and went back to Sound City studios to pack the gear and move it all to Bob and Brett's production studio a few blocks away also in Van Nuys. It was a cloudy day and much of the day was spent sorting out the mess that had gone on in Sound City. Upon arrival at the other studio, we placed the gear where we had always put it whenever we are there (Souls Of We, "Little Drummer Boy" Xmas recording, various other projects, etc.). All the amp heads were stacked into three groups of 3-4, forming a wall-o-amp heads and were plugged into my magic amp switching box that I sold to Brett last year. The speaker cabinets were placed in the live room. Guitars in two boats were as follows:
-Original Tiger guitar
-ESP Haji
-ESP Super V
-ESP Vintage S Plus
-ESP/LTD Viper 400 Baritone (the one with all the Coop devil chick stickers and "Furious George" sticker)
-ESP 12-string acoustic
-ESP Kamikaze 20th Anniversary
-1959 Fender Esquire (the battered Tele with the pickup petrified into the wood with Billy Gibbons' mojo
-Linhof Tele
-Washburn Lynch signature acoustic

Amps that we hauled in there were more than what we brought into Sound City:

-Two Randall Lynch Box 100-watt amp heads (Grail and Scary modules primary, one in each)
-Marshall 1968 100-watt Super Lead (yeah, the same magic one)
-Soldano SLO-100 (6th one ever to be made...has the snakeskin tolex...got rid of the red ostrich skin clone that smelled like feet)
-Mesa Boogie Roadstar Dual Rectumfriar 100-watt
-Randall Lynch Box 4x12
-Hiwatt SE4123 4x12 (we call it the "Loose" cabinet because of the marking on the grille cloth) with four original Fane 50-watt speakers
-Marshall 1971 angled "Basketweave" 4x12 with two 75-watt Celestion Anniversary series speakers and two 20-watt British-made greenback Celestions
-Marshall 1973 straight "Salt & Pepper" 4x12 with two 25-watt Chinese-made Celestions and two 20-watt British-made greenback Celestions
-Hiwatt SE4123 4x12 with two Fane 50-watt speakers and two Celestion 20-watt greenback Celestions
-WEM Dominator combo
-1965 Fender Super Reverb
-Quindley 30-watt w/ 2x12 cabinet
 
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Using George's mess of a pedalboard, I removed several pedals from it and because the way the signal is routed in that thing, it was difficult to see where the signal ends up. At various times, George would hear the signal either failing or ground loop hum and it was coming primarily from the active amp switcher mounted in the board. Eventually, I just said, "...Intercourse it" and dismantled enough of the board to bypass the switcher. At this point, I could provide George with just what was needed as opposed to having it go through all these other effects in the chain that were affecting the natural tone of the guitars.

So...here it is Weds. the 11th and George is recording auxilary guitar parts and solos on these songs. Of the 18 songs, George completed 6 of them, among them the tentative title track, "Smoke & Mirrors." We were on lockdown for 48 hrs. and on Thurs. Feb 12th, George had moved into total shred mode. The dude was on fire...some of the best guitar soloing I had seen him do in a long time. I think it might've been the spontaneity of not having planned out anything on some of these tracks or total burn out was starting to make him edgy and he was taking his agression out on the guitar. Damn...it was smokin' in there and George was on fire. Don't worry, we got it on video for all of you to see in the Dojo.

By the time George got to a track simple noted as "AC/DC" because of its AC/DC-ish feel, George totally burned...I mean the guy just went for it on first take and nailed it. As George wanted to do a re-take, Brett obliged while whispering to me, "You know it's that first one is THE one, right?" and I nodded.

One thing that George wanted to do was to resurrect the Sustainiac thing but didn't have a guitar with the Sustainiac transducer on it. The original neck on the Tiger had been retired two years ago and was hanging as a souvenir on the wall beside Matt Masciandaro's desk at ESP. The Sustainiac transducer box (the mysterious black box on the back of the Tiger's headstock some of you had been asking about for years) is on that neck. George had gotten a replacement magnet for it years ago and wanted to put it on a guitar...back at the house, we couldn't find a guitar with enough surface area on it to put that magnet on except the 20th Anniversary Kamikaze. While at the studio, George wanted me to Super Glue the Sustainiac magnet onto the back of that guitar's headstock and I felt a little wierd doing it...depreciating the value to an expensive guitar...but, he's the boss and when I did it, George watched and made sure it worked. I just stuck it on there and went, "...and there ya have it."

Having been locked in this control room for over 36 hrs., Bob, Brett, George and I got some much needed comic relief when Jimmy Wigle came by to hang. Jimmy's always been a great friend to have and he gave George a good amount of encouragement to finish the night. Marco showed up a few minutes later to check on things and gave us all a good amount of laughs to lighten up the mood.

That evening ended around midnight and thus ending the most difficult part of George's participation in the recording of the new Lynch Mob album. George had caught me a couple of times falling asleep while sitting in a chair and leaning on the control console but I stuck it out. There was still much to do but Friday Feb. 13th had Marco beginning the re-tracking of his bass parts. With Valentine's Day weekend upon him, George didn't resume recording again until Tuesday Feb. 17th going over parts that needed some fills and shorter solos based on the work done the previous week.

Weds. Feb. 18th George had me come in to help him work with the gear. George brought with him a new Roland JC-120 amp for clean parts. We got there at 12 noon before Brett arrived to unlock the door so hanging out in the parking lot, George starts up with his tall stories again, until Brett finally got there. We go in and it was mess in there! I mean...between last Thursday and yesterday, what could have gone on in there? So, being the neat freak that I am, I sorted ALL the cabling in and around the rig, the equipment box and re-strung the guitars.

George did something he hadn't done on record before...he played slide guitar. He taught himself how to do it to fit his own playing style. The song was in D (tuned 1/2 step down) and he tuned the high and low E strings to D (tuning DADGBD). In just an hour, George got the Robert Randolph groove going and Brett started the tracking. You'd have thought George was from the good 'ol south and was a Gary Rossington fan. You want some "Freebird" Lynch Mob style?

While George took a break, I moved some stuff around, fired up the Randalls in tandem with the Marshall. George wanted to do a heavy solo and the track up on deck was tentatively named "Barnburner" because it's a fast/heavy riff.

George got into the pilot's seat and Brett let 'er rip. George played the ESP Haji guitar and ABSOLUTELY SMOKED the damned track. I hadn't seen him play like that in a long time and it rivals anything he did years ago (a la Dokken, Lynch Mob, etc.). It's like George went back in time and brought the guns out. I looked over at Bob Kulick and Bob's jaw was gaping open...he looked over at me and had this expression of awe. Brett swung his chair to face in George's direction and looked emotionless. With a captive audience of three, George just smoked through the entire track from beginning to end. The dude encompassed the entire length of the neck and if there was anything Dojo students would learn from this would be how to use what they learned. Talk about guns blazing...No Joke! When the track was finished, George looked up and went, "...What?" Brett, Bob and I just sat there in silence because of what we just witnessed.

"I was just tryin' some stuff out on that," said George. "We got the whole thing," Brett responded. "Well, it's not supposed to be an instrumental," George laughingly replied and Bob exclaimed, "It is now!"

George looked confused at first at such reaction to what he had done that he went with it, trying to make it more of a cohesive instrumental. Without Oni's vocals down, there wasn't any melody to work off of so George built it much like the vein of Mr. Scary but more defined instrumental parts.

All I've got to say about this track is that if there was any single defining moment on record for George, this was the one. 'Nuff said. You'll hear it when the recording gets released. I'm telling you, this particular track and the guitar he put down on this has all the elements that defines his guitar playing the way fans have been hoping to hear all this time.

The session ended about 6 pm as Oni arrived to begin recording vocals. George was late for dinner and I got him home just in time. On the drive, George wondered why we were so excited about that track and I had a hard time explaining it to him!

Okay...so you guys are caught up thus far. George will begin rehearsals for the three California shows of the Guitar Generations tour with Paul Gilbert on Sunday and those shows will commence later next week. Adam will be filling in again as I'm bogged down with other work for Premier Guitar magazine (did y'all get the current issue? I wrote the cover story "The Return Of The Hot Rod Guitar" in which George figures into the story).

George is anxious to finish up the solos after next week so I'll have more to report to you. In the meantime, video of these sessions will be appearing in the Dojo exclusively.
 
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