Wong Notes

By: Premier Guitar
  • Summary

  • Hi, my name is Cory Wong. This is my podcast. I'm going to talk to your favorite artists as they discuss their personal tricks of the trade, never-before-heard stories, and the proper response when Sinatra wants to peep your master tapes.
    Copyright 2022 Gearhead Communications / Cory Wong
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Episodes
  • Skunk Baxter: Hostage Negotiations in the Studio
    Oct 30 2024

    “Skunk” Baxter has had an interesting career. The Washington, D.C.-born musician was one of Steely Dan’s founding members in the early 1970s, and played on some of their most iconic numbers, like Can’t Buy a Thrill’s’ “Reelin’ in the Years” and “Do It Again,” or Pretzel Logic’s “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.” Then, he moved on to join the Doobie Brothers, from roughly 1974 to 1979, where he fatefully invited Michael McDonald into the band. After that stint, he became a go-to session player for artists like Rod Stewart, Joni Mitchell, Dolly Parton, and Donna Summer, and a touring performer for Elton John and Linda Ronstadt, among others.

    That was just the beginning. Baxter’s interest and background in electronics, science, and recording technology gained him a position in the U.S. defense industry. Turns out, a lot of digital music gear shared similar principles with emergent defense tech. “Basically, a radar is just an electric guitar on steroids,” says Baxter, noting the same four fundamental forces at work over everything in our universe.

    Wong and Baxter trades notes on how to navigate studio sessions (“Just shut the hell up,” offers Baxter), early conversions of pitch into digital signals, and how Baxter cut his solo on Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” on a $25 guitar. And can mediating between artists and producers feel like high-stakes hostage negotiations? Sometimes.

    Visit Skunk Baxter: https://www.jeffskunkbaxter.com/

    Get 30% off your first year of DistroKid by going here: http://distrokid.com/vip/corywong

    Hit us up: wongnotes@premierguitar.com

    Visit Cory: https://www.corywongmusic.com

    Visit Premier Guitar: http://premierguitar.com

    IG: https://www.instagram.com/wongnotespod

    Produced by Jason Shadrick and Cory Wong

    Additional Editing by Shawn Persinger

    Presented by DistroKid

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    1 hr
  • Jason Newsted Wants You to Put Your Damn Phone Away
    Oct 16 2024

    Jason Newsted spent 15 years holding down the low end in Metallica, playing bass for the band from 1986 through 2001. That era included records like …And Justice For All and Metallica—AKA The Black Album—plus the iconic S&M live album with the San Francisco Symphony.

    But that was just the beginning for Newsted, an artistic polymath who has since pursued a life of balance and creative freedom. On this episode of Wong Notes, he opens up to Cory Wong about why he left Metallica, and details the “Olympian” physicality and discipline that hard international touring requires. Newsted needed a break; the band wanted to keep going. “You gotta sometimes give it a minute,” he says.

    Newsted shares his thoughts on Dave Mustaine and his predecessor Cliff Burton, and goes deep on the issue of cellphone usage at concerts. (Spoiler alert: He doesn’t like it very much, and he’s got good reasons for his disdain.) But Newsted isn’t just a performer. He talks about his painting and the way that practice differs from music-making, plus his private artistic journeys with theremin, mandolin, and sequencers and loopers—rabbit holes he might not have gone down if he stayed in Metallica. “I don’t say no to any medium,” he says.

    Maybe leaving Metallica created the need to explore. “I did not get to fulfill that journey,” he says, “so I’m making up for it.”

    Listen to the full episode here: https://bit.ly/WongNotes

    Get 30% off your first year of DistroKid by going here: http://distrokid.com/vip/corywong

    Hit us up: wongnotes@premierguitar.com

    Visit Cory: https://www.corywongmusic.com

    Visit Premier Guitar: http://premierguitar.com

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/wongnotespod

    IG:

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    1 hr and 22 mins
  • Dave Navarro on Trainwrecks, Rabbit Holes, and the “Navarro Smear”
    Oct 2 2024

    We know what you’re thinking: Dave Navarro is gonna talk about the onstage brawl. But Cory Wong starts this episode of Wong Notes with an important caveat. This show was recorded long before the awful breakdown and confrontation between Navarro and Jane’s Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell, so don’t expect any salacious gossip. But that just makes this episode all the more interesting.

    Navarro talks Wong through his formative influences, from Hendrix, Zeppelin, and the Doors to Maiden, heavy metal, and goth. That melting pot, he says, became one of Jane’s Addiction’s calling cards: “Perry and Eric [Avery] ended up in a band that is influenced by bands they hate,” laughs Navarro, who geeks out on Rush and prog-rock.

    Navarro discusses how Jane’s Addiction has a propensity for jamming live, a practice developed out of a mutual appreciation for nontraditional song structures. But the delineations can sometimes go wrong. “We do run into trainwrecks,” says Farrell. “Sometimes we’ll find ourselves in a part that we’re vibing on, and we’ll keep going, and Perry doesn’t know what we’re doing. He’ll come in and it’s in the wrong place, and we’re fucking him up.”

    Tune in to hear Navarro talk his “rabbit hole de jour” practice style, how to exercise your fingers and your brain, and a lead technique he calls “the Navarro smear.” All this and more on this latest episode of Wong Notes.

    Get 30% off your first year of DistroKid by going here: http://distrokid.com/vip/corywong

    Visit Dave Navarro: https://www.instagram.com/davenavarro/

    Hit us up: wongnotes@premierguitar.com

    Visit Cory: https://www.corywongmusic.com

    Visit Premier Guitar: http://premierguitar.com

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/wongnotespod

    IG: https://www.instagram.com/wongnotespod


    Produced by...

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    1 hr and 9 mins

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