Rig Rundown: Dead Kennedys’ East Bay Ray
Full Rig Details: https://bit.ly/DeadKennedysRR
Punk rock is about energy, attitude, and message. It’s been the gateway drug for a lot of guitarists and music lovers. And those forces are what steered East Bay Ray away from his bar-band gig in 1978.
“The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up,” Ray remembered during a 2016 PG interview. “I saw the Weirdos playing. I said, ‘This is what I want to do.’ I phased myself out of the bar band and put an ad up in Aquarius Records and Rather Ripped Records. Klaus Flouride (bassist Geoffrey Lyall) and Jello Biafra (singer Eric Boucher) answered the ad.”
And with the addition of drummer Ted (Bruce Slesinger), the Dead Kennedys were born. By the time they recorded their 1981 EP In God We Trust, Inc. (on their own independent label, Alternative Tentacles), Ted was gone and D.H. Peligro (Darren Henley) became their stalwart skin slammer.
Through the band’s initial eight years, four albums, and an EP, their subversive harpoon of jagged political commentary was tipped by Biafra’s lyrics. That got the nation’s attention, but what inspires musicians to this day was the power trio’s cohesive combination of familiar and unfamiliar elements of punk and primal rock. Sure, you’ve got the power chords and the four-on-the-floor tempos, but depth and nuance under the biting messaging is essential to the DK’s chemistry. Their punk-rock bangers have modal tendencies and atonal flourishes, and some of their most thrilling songs have odd-metered backbones. Their debut single, “California Über Alles,” is a take on composer Maurice Ravel’s Boléro, no less. And nobody else in the land of the 6-string shreds quite like East Bay Ray.
“One of the reasons our songs have lasted so long is the structure underneath has a lot in common with a Beatles song or a Motown song or even a ’30s standard,” he says. “There are basic constructions that make a song work. I really had a hard time copying or figuring out solos off my favorite recordings when learning to play, so I’d develop my own musical method to get from one place to another. It’s actually a lack of technique that helped with the music.”
His creativity and resourcefulness don’t stop there. East Bay Ray was the band’s co-producer/engineer on most recordings, and he’s tinkered with his own tone tools, assembling partscasters that best suited his approach. Ray has jammed humbuckers into the bridge of a T-style for a twangier bite that helps his rapid-fire arpeggios sting a bit more. He’s slapped on short-scale Japanese F-style necks for slinkier playability. And, most notably, he put a Maestro Echoplex in front of his amp to create the signature clanging sound heard on his classic recordings with the band. (“One of my favorite records of all time is Elvis Presley’s Sun Sessions. That is one of the records that inspired me to get an Echoplex, to get that slapback echo.”)
“We just didn’t know the rules on what to play and how to play,” he relates. “That’s where not knowing something forces you to make your own solution, creating something unique and new, proving that necessity is the mother of invention. The lack of technique and knowledge helped create our sound and the music.”
Before the Dead Kennedys’ headlining show at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl on June 15th, PG hit the stage for a brief but illuminating tone talk. We covered Ray’s economically rich setup that includes a single Schecter doublecut and a simplified, solid-sounding Marshall, and we were enlightened about why he puts his Line 6 delay ahead of the amp and what that does to repeats.
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[Brought to you by D’Addario Nexxus 360 Tuner: https://www.daddario.com/NexxusRR]
00:00 – D’Addario Nexxus 360 Tuner
00:15 – East Bay Ray Intro
00:54 – Schecter S-1
05:33 – Marshall JCM2000
06:25 – Line 6 DL4
08:57 – Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer
#rigrundown #deadkennedys #eastbayray
#Rig #Rundown #Dead #Kennedys #East #Bay #Ray
Originally posted by UC5J-hZ4wNf7OlkzIn49LHoQ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5u1Fz09PbM
Full Rig Details: https://bit.ly/DeadKennedysRR
Win Guitar Gear: https://bit.ly/GiveawaysPG
Subscribe to PG's Channel: http://bit.ly/SubscribePGYouTube
Don't Miss a Rundown: http://bit.ly/RIgRundownENL
Merch & Magazines: https://shop.premierguitar.com
7:44 you’re welcome
rays guitar broke
old people don't always suck
Ray is one of the best and most underrated guitarist of all-time!
I hope Ray lives forever
Ray, you f*cking sell-out.
buenisimo
It's that Dick Dale surf sound actually so unique
"Was that, like, an ignornace is bliss thing?" "It's called talent and creativity?" ????????????
Influental guitar player
i bought that shecter, and i didnt know east use that model, dead kennedys is one of my favorite bands
What was the one cord song
True Guitar legend thank you East Bay Ray for helping me play guitar even though you didn't know it!
Les Paul an fender strat
East Bay broke the punk rock mold. He was the first to get surf punk sounds.
2:35 cheaa
Well..he is funny..but he i m not hiring him thats for sure????
He really has it dialed in where it has that unmistakable sound you hear on their records from way back. It sounds awesome. Nobody else sounds like that.
That was great!!
Met Ray & DP in 84 tour of Aust…Rays sound is distinct, ya know its him.
Cheers for that (the IDLES shirts not bad either mate).
I love his attitude No frills, no fancy crap, just straight up guitar plus amp. That's punk as fuck.
Sweet! He has the same Marshall JCM 2000 100W head that I've always used. I used a Marshall half stack when I was in a band in the 90s, but sold it after I no longer was in the band. I recently bought a new Marshall JCM 2000 100W Orange Crunch Half stack. I believe they only made 300 of this trim. Not in a band anymore, but it's a great part of my decor. I still have my (4) Dan Armstrong plexi guitars. It's been my go to guitar since 1994.
East bay ray is an incredible guitar with him implementing elements of jazz and rockabilly into a punk fusion
Great!
EAST BAY RAY is a phenomenal guitarist!!!
I've been listening to all of DK's records for years and this guitarist's riffs are one of a kind, PUNK ROCK masterpieces with a hint of surfmusic, rockabilly and more
Greetings from Brazil
One of those copies? Not aware there were Japanese produced Fenders I guess?
I love your music, y I r guitar in dead kennedys , your personality, your smile. since a long long time…
I always thought his tone was from his echo unit, Binson Echoplex.
best intro ever "a growing boy needs his lunch".
what a legend
Wish I'd never sold my JCM2000. Didn't realize what a classic it was, or would become, when I let it go.
I am now complete
Luckily still living Legend. His tone is out of this world.
First rule of interviewing: let your subject have the floor
I like to think of myself as an old school punk guitarist. My strength is lack of technique ????
love his style of playing