signal2noise

featuring douglas blair(W.A.S.P. g.)

introducing his power duo

and playing the GuitarCrosstm 

presenting a fresh new approach to creating and performing music, blair and drummer/vocalist john anthony have reworked conventional tactics. lead and rythym roles are shared or reversed. vocals and lyrics are individualized or intertwined. instrumental composition is telepathic. instrumentation is invented.

W.A.S.P. lead guitarist blair utilizes a hybrid guitar/bass 'GuitarCross,' unique steel/nylon-stringed acoustic guitars, synthesizers and dustings of searing lead guitar. anthony employs acoustic and digital percussion.

two brains create and perform.

Introducing Boston's signal2noise. Pioneering an innovative new approach to the rock ensemble dubbed the power duo, s2n has been creating and honing an unprecedented platform for musical improvisation, collaboration and interaction between two brains.

Essential to the project is a new instrument that Blair has designed and developed independently. The GuitarCrosstm is a patented dual-format bass/electric guitar upon which both bass and regular guitar parts are played simultaneously(Blair previously designed and marketed the dual-format Blair Mutant Twintm, an acoustic-electric doubleneck guitar, in the mid-90s). He employs an extensive studio/live set-up which includes a bass rig, twin guitar rigs, a synthesizer pedal set-up and an exclusive dual-format acoustic guitar rig. The complexity and versatility of this super-rig is clearly evident in train-wreck bass lines, Zeppelin-approved guitar riffs and hair-raising Tom Morello-style effects abundant in the duo's dynamic compositions.

Anthony's percussion set-up is equally extensive just as his playing is impressive: traces of Neil Peart mix with Stewart Copeland and Carter Bouford. Both musicians sing and compose, and quite remarkable is the fact that signal2noise records strictly live--sans headphones--excluding vocals and limited overdubs. Asserts Blair, "you can't beat just two cooks in a giant kitchen."

Influenced by the best of rock and progressive power trios, s2n balances personal lyricism with telepathic musicianship and spirited inprovisation, with Anthony often taking a lead role as Blair supports. Their completed debut offering, the 11-song fighting mental illness, exhibits an understated maturity and wide diversity wrapped tightly around the core power duo sound. Watch for Blair and Anthony to be hitting the road with an intense and arresting live presentation.

GuitarCrosstm, ASIAtm and power duo overview

GuitarCrosstm is a new and extremely musical stringed-instrument variation based upon the 12-string guitar or 8-stringed bass guitar--both of which employ pairs of strings tuned in octaves, that are usually pressed down together by one fretting finger.

GuitarCrosstm amplifies the higher-octave(guitar) strings and lower-octave(bass) strings of each pair independently--and sends these signals to separate control and amplifier set-ups.

Using 3 bass strings and 5 guitar strings, the GuitarCrosstm player is able to easily play both standard guitar and bass parts and lines, while also controlling the sounds of each “format” simultaneously.

GuitarCrosstm presents the opportunity for a single player and a drummer to create complete guitar/bass/drums/vocal music in a two-brained musical collaboration.

ASIAtm is a new acoustic instrument variation based on the 12-string guitar. Instead of using pairs of steel strings tuned in octaves, ASIAtm uses steel- and nylon-string pairs tuned in unison. Like GuitarCrosstm, these strings are amplified independently, and grouped to separate control and amplifier set-ups.

ASIAtm allows a player to utilize and control the disparate sounds of a steel-string acoustic guitar and a nylon-stringed instrument separately or simultaneously.

The power duo term, barrowed from the revered power trios of classic and progressive rock, aptly describes the potential of this arrangement. The efficiency of the duo partnership is evident in all areas of creativity, from business to art to music. In this case, the flexibility and control afforded to the two musicians is a new world for the rock genre.

It is the GuitarCrosstm, and ASIAtm, which will provide a foundation in the future of the power duo, as well as offering exciting potential in many other uses.