Dirty Impound

The Sean Leahy Trio celebrates the release of their great studio debut album tonight, April 27, at Slim’s in San Francisco, CA as part of the 2nd Annual Guitarmageddon Blues Ball.

Sean Leahy rarely courts the spotlight. He’s more interested in laying in the cut, doing what he can to elevate the proceedings, and generally keeping an attentive eye on where he can nuance the music at hand towards the better. His style as a guitarist harks back to the 70s – packed with muscle and strut – but sheered of that era’s machismo excesses. Leahy has taken the attitude and tone of the vinyl heyday and combined it with the sharpness and brevity of the 80s, a power pop consciousness that makes him a descendent of Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen and the six-stringers that made Thin Lizzy swing back in the day. Yet for all his classic rock echoes, Leahy is a modern kid with a lot more to show off than many folks who’ve only seen him in support roles over the past few years may realize. To get properly schooled one needs to dig into Darkness & Light, Leahy’s just released solo studio debut with his ace rhythm team of Daria Johnson (drums) and Mark Calderon (bass). He brings the same kind of attentive focus he exhibits onstage to this studio effort helmed by producer Jeremy Black (Apollo Sunshine, Coyote Hearing Studio), offering up a tight set of should-be-singles that run the gamut from raunchy to surprisingly tender. It’s damn fine album, and a damn fine way to meet an under-sung musician from the rich SF Bay Area rock scene.

Here’s what Mr. Leahy had to say to our guitarist survey.

read on for Sean’s answers

No matter how much practice and thought has gone into his playing, Will Bernard possesses an inescapable immediacy. As the licks fly and his fingers knot, the music coming out of his guitar seems to form in the moment. That sly smile Bernard sports so much of the time contributes to this impression, as if he’s just figuring something cool out to share with us. In general, it’s hard to pin down where exactly Bernard’s picking comes from, his style very much a modern thing that draws from the smooth, technical world of high end jazz mixed with the rawness of blues and the up-in-your-grill feel of rock, topped with melting scoops of space funk and New Orleans soul. Wherever he’s getting it from Bernard is a near endless pleasure for listeners, the kind of musician one can just dreamily let take the reins and feel comfortable knowing the ride is gonna be good and cover a lot of ground.

If one isn’t already a steadfast fan, a fab primer in all things Will Bernard can be had in the new Outdoor Living (released March 20 on Dreck To Disk Records), where the guitarist spars ably with his fellow West Coast shredders Wil Blades (Hammond B3) and Simon Lott (drums). The trio – who hits the road again in April (dates over here) – shimmies all over the map, one minute serving up something like a classic 60s soul-jazz trio and at others stretching space and time in a softly cosmic way. The one constant is a conversational feel that makes for delightful eavesdropping; one tied closely to each turn and change of topic, the three men bouncing with seemingly effortless dexterity between bursts of bubbling excitement and passages of calming restraint. It is, in a word, a blast, and a fine jumping on point for Bernard (and his regular collaborators).

We lobbed DI’s guitarist survey to Mr. Bernard and this is what he had to say.

read on for Will’s answers

Tim Reynolds is a ridiculously gifted guitarist, but he has so much fun at his craft and sparks such great things from his cohorts that he doesn’t always get the shredder cred he deserves. Sure, amphitheatres of Dave Matthews Band fans know the score, but that’s just one aspect of this full spectrum musician, whose appetite for metal, jazz, prog and more infiltrates his work with his trio TR3. What also makes Reynolds a standout is how adept he is on both electric and acoustic guitars, a worthy (and rare) walker of the narrow path John McLaughlin began cutting in the 1960s. His work is marked by Reynolds’ gift for flavorful melodies combined with an attack full of sharp bite and interesting changes, offering a smooth yet suspenseful ride. And his aptitude on a range of instruments – percussion, sitar, keys, mandolin, to name but a few – gives his ears and fingers a different lilt than players only skilled at guitar, a trait that keeps the sonics of his music interesting and filled with gently unexpected flashes – something particularly noticeable in his delightfully unorthodox slide work. Plus, he’s one of the few guitarists capable of making one forget about all of Jimmy Page’s multi-tracking when he tackles Led Zeppelin with TR3. In short, this man is serious business who doesn’t need to carry a big stick to impress. He just does what he does really, really well.

It’s a treat to offer a slice of Mr. Reynolds mind to DI readers.

read on for Tim’s answers

Even if one was unfamiliar with the name Brad Barr, it would only take a single spin of the self-titled debut from The Barr Brothers (pick it up here) to understand what a devastatingly inventive, emotionally rich guitarist he is. Barr is captivating from the Bill Frisell-esque tone poetry of “Beggar In The Morning” through acoustic work that shows more than a passing familiarity with Fahey and the American Primitives, on to jagged-edged jolters “Lord, I Just Can’t Keep From Crying” and “Give The Devil Back His Heart,” which evoke a foundational blues that speaks simultaneously of Africa and its American descendent – all this and more on just one album in a career full of such gifts. Even when raging, Barr doesn’t charge into the foreground very often, preferring to serve each song with a profound listener’s heart, his playing deft and intuitive, a pleasure and a surprise even on repeat listens. His resistance to Jeff Beck style showboating disguises the depth of his technical artistry, but Barr is no less worthy of a Guitar Player cover story. Like most things in The Barr Brothers (and adjacent projects Surprise Me Mr. Davis and The Slip), there’s some sleight of hand where magic is kept intact by a careful practitioner’s dexterous hands, except this is no mere trickery or illusion and thus all the more satisfying for those bearing witness. Barr is a charmer within shadows, an innovator, and sometimes a provocateur, a player who is never lazy or predictable but also far less elusive than most guitarists operating at his level, his instrument reaching out from its mysteries to spin one around with deft flick of the wrist and flutter of graceful fingers.

We’ve been hoping to add Brad to the list of Shredders who’ve graced the Impound for a while and offer our thanks to him for taking time to share a slice of his mind.

read on for Brad’s answers

One should smile when they see Andrew Trube headed towards a stage. The six-string secret weapon in Greyhounds and JJ Grey & Mofro is a primo flavor enhancer with a style that doesn’t bark after solos so much as stir the pot beautifully. Oh, Trube has chops to spare but his ear and instincts place him closer to subtler sorts like John Fogerty, Shuggie Otis, The Paladins’ Dave Gonzalez and Marc Ribot. His range is yawning wide, seemingly comfortable wherever you drop him in. Just focus in on what he’s doing on a given song and you’ll hear someone down in the cut – deep – but rarely in a way that leaps up for attention. Some folks don’t need a spotlight to let you know how damn good they are.

Currently on Mofro’s fall tour, Trube also put out a sweet, leave-em-wanting-more new EP with the Greyhounds recently titled Spring Training that does more in four cuts than many bands tackle on an album. Every track is soulful in some way – hard to avoid with a Stax/Volt ready singer like Anthony Farrell or Trube’s own warm-grit pipes – but they dish it up in varied ways, from the nu-soul ready “What’s On Your Mind” to the blues-moderne of “Yours To Steal” (a rival for the best of The Black Keys) to the coulda-been-a-Sam-And-Dave-hit “Soul Navigator” to playful New Wave cartoon “H-E-L-L-O.” And Trube tells DI that the ‘Hounds have a new album coming up before too long. Based on this taster, it’s gonna be very fab, and in the meantime you can pick up the EP here for a name-your-own-price deal.

Andrew Trube is a musician’s musician, one of those guys that other guitarists watch with hunting dog intensity when he’s onstage. We’re happy to have him join the list of Shredders who’ve graced the Impound with their wisdom.

read on for Trube’s answers

Eddie Roberts is a blindingly good guitarist. As I once tipsily gushed at him on Jam Cruise, “The way you play makes me believe you just think faster and more smoothly than the other monkeys out there.” The New Mastersounds guitarist simply offered a cocked eyebrow and a slight smile. One thing Roberts does not lack is confidence, and his command of his instrument and the flow and rush of his band, particularly onstage, is something special. In another cat, it’d come off as cocky but Roberts has the skills to pay whatever bills are served up, his playing offering happy flashes of Leo Nocentelli, Melvin Sparks and Grant Green. The texture and tone of his work – equal measures super clean and growlingly nasty – is as important as the undeniable technical ballsiness he displays, and while others may not hear it, these ears catch some of Paul Weller’s gift for instinctive tastiness and riff consciousness. Eddie’s also an increasingly strong vocalist on the group’s most recent studio foray, Breaks From The Border, where he also offers a taste of his phenomenal tambourine talents – a much, much harder instrument to make swing and interlock with others than most understand. Still, it’s Roberts six-string prowess that will likely cement him in most folks’ minds, and as such we asked Eddie to tackle the Impound’s guitarist survey.

read on for Eddie’s answers

Seated onstage all those years in Mofro, one might have missed what a six-string monster Daryl Hance is, but there’s no mistaking how he’s right in line with contemporaries like The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and North Mississippi Allstars/Black Crowes man Luther Dickinson on his welcome solo debut, Hallowed Ground (released January 25 on Pine Tar Recordings). The album reveals what a goddamn sexy player Hance truly is, as well as showing off his ear-catching songwriting and singing skills – there’s something of John Fogerty to the whole package actually. It’s Southern rock with a psychedelic lover man’s twist, and anyone who likes it humid and right in the pocket is likely to plotz over Hallowed Ground.

We grabbed Daryl for our virtual guitar symposium to gain insights into his mojo.

read on for Hance’s answers