This week, GEARED’s newest feature, GEAR GEEK, takes a look at the equipment used by JONNY GREENWOOD from acclaimed UK act RADIOHEAD

Jonny Greenwood is the lead guitarist, keyboardist and sonic manipulator for British alternative rockers Radiohead. The London resident is also a highly acclaimed composer, scoring the sublime soundtrack to Simon Pummell’s 2003 film Bodysong, and writing three works – namely: Smear, Piano For Children and Popcorn Superhet Receiver – during his tenure as the BBC composer in residence circa 2004-05. Last year the music aficionado released a dub reggae compilation, titled Jonny Greenwood Is The Controller, in collaboration with Trojan Records. His latest work – aside from Radiohead’s In Rainbows – is the score to Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film There Will Be Blood. This week, we look at a few of Greenwood’s tools of the trade.

Jonny Greenwood’s main instrument is a Fender Telecaster Plus (pictured), with a custom cut-off switch and special rewirings made by Greenwood and Plank, the Radiohead guitar technician. The guitar features a single blue Lace Sensor pickup at the neck and two red Lace Sensors in a humbucker formation at the bridge. His other regular guitars include a Fender Telecaster Standard converted into a Plus which also has a custom cut-off switch and Lace Sensor pickups, and an (uncommon) Fender Starcaster, with Fender Wide Range pickups. The latter instrument can be heard predominantly on Kid A and Amnesiac. Jonny also uses Gibson and Gretsch electrics, and Martin and Taylor acoustics.

Jonny uses the iconic Vox AC30 (pictured) for his clean guitar tones. The amplifier’s unique, warm tone, player friendly feel and primeval circuit design have made it a favourite amongst a wide range of musicians for decades. The straightforward tone controls were synonymous with the vibe of the ‘60s British invasion and remain sort after to this day. The amp’s character, while not for everyone, adds an earthy colour to guitar flourishes, while still sparkling in the high ranges. Jonny runs through a solid state Fender Eighty Five for distorted tones, but as far as I know Fender don’t make them any more.

Jonny’s rather extensive pedal-board includes an Electro-Harmonix Small Stone, which is probably the most popular phaser of all-time. It can sound old and generic at times, for simple fact that almost every phaser since has been modelled off of it. EHXs philosophy in this case has been ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ and for this fact, the Small Stone is still sort after for genuine vintage phase. The most criticised feature, in recent times, has generally been the weakness of the Stone compared to more modern, highly strung, often digital phasers on the market. The counter-point – and an argument I subscribe to – is that phasers aren’t meant to be overt, and Jonny Greenwood’s playing is a great example of this. The Small Stone adds a milky, three-dimensional phase to his already reverb-laden, enveloped guitar passages – not controlling, but rather enhancing all the pedals around it. Simplicity and minimalism in this case, are worth far more than a screeching, digital swirl.

One of the most interesting pedals that Jonny uses is perhaps the BOSS RE-20 Space Echo (pictured), in that the guitarist already has a genuine, vintage Roland Space Echo RE-201 (turned on using a Vox Egg Footswitch) that he uses live. The RE-20 is a digital remake of the RE-201, though its analogue voicing, and faithful modelling of the old mechanical unit’s tape flutter and magnetic head sound saturation, have won it great praise amongst guitarists worldwide. Naysayers have been quick to point-out the RE-20’s digital leanings though – the lack of true bypass, the general signal loss due to buffering, and strangling of top-end frequencies when enabled. But as with the Small Stone, it’s a matter of knowing what you’re dealing with and playing accordingly. The degradation of tone can be a beautiful thing, hell, most guitarists have a few different stomp-boxes specifically devoted to that purpose. It’s just a matter of using a line selector to keep the RE-20 out of the signal path when not in use.

The rest of Jonny’s pedal-board looks like this: a Pro Co RAT (used mainly during the Bends era, not seen so much these days), a Marshall ShredMaster, Digitech WH-1 Whammy, Demeter The Tremulator (an older version of the Demeter TRM-1 Tremulator), a DOD 440 Envelope Filter, Electro-Harmonix Poly Chorus, BOSS SD-1 Super Overdrive, BOSS RV3 Digital Reverb/Delay, BOSS FV-300H Volume Pedal, used as a gain controller and placed before the ShredMaster), BOSS TU-12H Chromatic Tuner, BOSS LS2 Line Selector (used to switch channels), a Mutronics Mutator (not used live, they are rack mounted and far too precious these days since being discontinued. He uses the DOD 440 instead), and an Akai Headrush E2.

www.musicexpress.com.au, www.ellaways.com.au and www.billyhydemusic.com.au all have a great ranges of new Fender guitars and BOSS effects pedals, and Music Express and Ellaways also carry Vox amplifiers. www.guitarbrothers.com.au always seem to have a couple of vintage Telecasters on their walls, and www.tymguitars.com.au are the choice for Electro-Harmonix pedals and guitar modification.

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