Geordie Walker
Kevin "Geordie" Walker (born Kevin Walker, 18 December 1958, in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, England) is a rock musician, best known as the guitarist from the post-punk group Killing Joke.
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[edit] Life and career
When he was fourteen, Walker's family moved south from Newcastle to Milton Keynes, 45 miles northwest of London. It was here that he acquired his nickname due to his northeastern "Geordie" accent.
Walker moved to London to study architecture and became a founding member of Killing Joke in 1979 when he responded to an advertisement placed by the singer Jaz Coleman. He had never played in a band before. Walker and Coleman have been the only constant members of the group since.
Walker has also been a member of industrial metal supergroups Murder, Inc. and The Damage Manual.
Although most known for playing electric guitar, he has also used acoustic guitars; sparingly on the albums Outside the Gate (1988) and Pandemonium (1994), and more liberally on Democracy (1996).
Like Velvet Revolver's Slash, Walker is known for smoking cigarettes on stage, even in United States venues where smoking is prohibited.
Walker now lives in Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit with his wife and son, Lloyd (Atticus). During his recent work with Killing Joke, Hosannas from the Basements of Hell (2006), he has been based in Prague where he has been involved in various other projects too, including overseeing the work of UK girl punk rock act Mary-Jane at Faust Studios.
[edit] Equipment
His preferred guitar of choice is a golden, hollow-bodied Gibson ES-295, produced only between 1952 and 1957:[1]
| “ | I was at Peter Cook's in Ealing, looking for a guitar called the Gibson ES 225T, which is a thinner version of the ES 295, anyway, he had an ES 295 and I fell in love with it. This old guy had been playing it locally in jazz clubs. I took it home, plugged it into the Burmans, and the sound was there - a full resonance, and totally bell-like with the sustain on it through 250 watts of amplification in stereo. You can feel the thing vibrating, it's a huge sound. I tune the guitar in D (below bottom E) and my strings are really thick, I use an 062 on the bottom, and because of the way I tune the guitar, the strings still have the same response as a normal guitar would. The amplification makes the bottom end sound unreal. The guitar cost me £660, and I've seen them going for a grand. The paint's all worn off the neck of mine, but the sound of the guitar is a lot sharper, a lot clearer than other one's I've heard. | ” |
Having started out with a Burman amplifier, and presently using a Framus Dragon Head, he has also recently experimented with a Marshall Vintage Modern.[2]
After going to the Trace Elliot bass centre in Romford with Martin "Youth" Glover in 1980, he bought two analogue Automatic Double-Tracker single slap-back with pitch modulation, speed and depth. This allows him to put one guitar in, and gain three outputs.[2]
In preparation for each gig, he replaces the three bottom strings on each guitar, and has two Tequilla lime and soda cocktail. While on stage he has a bottle of club soda with a dash of Tequilla.[3]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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