John in Guitarist & Bass magazine (France) – May/June 2010
There are some bits of John and Red Hot Chili Peppers (also known as “the band”) in the May/June issue of the French Guitarist & Bass magazine. If you need help finding this magazine, Angus Young of AC/DC is on the cover.
A small article covers the recently announced results of The Axe Factor poll. Elsewhere in the magazine, there are Californication chords, with tips on how to get the sound right as well.
Click the thumbnails to go to the pages with the scans in the gallery or click here. There is a total of four scanned pages.
Here is the small article, the longer one is available only with the full news item.
John Frusciante, Best Guitarist in the world!
That’s, at least, what brings out a poll released by BBC 6 Music. John Frusciante is thus asserted Best Guitarist of the last 30 years, before Slash, in the second position, Matthew Bellamy, in third, and Johnny Marr from the Smiths, in fourth. Further behind, Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead hauls up in the seventh position and Jack White in ninth.
As well in the top 10: Prince, Peter Buck (REM), Kirk Hammett (Metallica) and Tom Morello (RATM).
*The original article put Johnny Greenwood in Coldplay, the error has been fixed upon spell-checking.
In the style of Red Hot Chili Peppers
This Red Hot track marks John Frusciante’s return in the band with the huge success that we know, the album Californication being the best selling of the band to date. The album abound with jewels between pop and rock, always groovy, with inspired guitar parts.
Harmony and Rhythm
The track is in A Minor tone with a modulation in A Major for the solo. All these chords are diatonic to these tones. The track begins with an arpeggio in A Minor and F Major including on each chord a melodic line from the ninth to the third (B to C for A Minor and G to A for F Major) using open strings. The pre-chorus is played in sweeping and the chorus with a more stressed rhythmic emphasizing the backbeats (time 2 & 4 of the bar). For the solo, John plays around the chords’ notes, without hesitating to play extra-notes, outside the tone. The track structure is a little complex : the intro is repeated between the verses being repeated only twice; for the first verse, don’t play the repeated part which only intervenes on the second and third choruses.
Intro / Verses 1 & 2 / pre-chorus / chorus 1 / verses 3 & 4 / pre-chorus / chorus 2 / solo / Verse 5 / pre-chorus / chorus 3
Sound
John uses on this track a Gretsch White Falcon (double pickups) in a clean tone (Marshall amp) for the rhythmic as well as for the solo.
Clean tone
Clean Volume: 5
Bass: 6
Middle: 5
Treble: 6
Presence: 5
Reverb: 2
Master: 5
Canal II Drive
Gain Lead: –
Master Lead: –
Many thanks to Caroline Mugnier for scans and translations (check out her music), as well as to H15, who let me know there’s something in this particular magazine issue.
