PJ Harvey To Bring You My Love Tone

[AStrangeDay]

Latelly i've been obsessed with PJ Harvey and in particular with the 1995 album "To Bring You My Love". God, that album is a masterpiece. So Raw, So Sexy. Those guitar and bass part are so well done.
Any of you know some of the equipment used on that record (i'm talking about effects/pedals for guitar and bass)? Those fuzzy tones on Long Snake Moan for example are gorgeous.

 

[Victor R]

She's been known to play a Tele

 

[daddyplayedsax]

Don't have specifics unfortunately, but general early PJ vibe is Teles, Gretsch, and Firebirds into AC30s with Rats and DS1 for pedals - nothing complicated. Bring You My Love was the first record outside of the trio though so Joe Gore and JP could have been using anything in the studio. Joe is pretty active on Facebook so might actually be able to answer some of your questions himself!

 

[moosewayne]

Couldn't tell you what pedals although she's been known to stomp on a Rat.

I believe the core of her sound on 'Bring' was a Jag through an AC30.

 

[AStrangeDay]

i was familiar with the fact that she used for sure a Boss Ds-1.. i didn't know about the Rat so thats great. BUT there are some really fuzzy tones which sounds almost like a Zvex Fuzz Factory, but that wasn't even available at that time

 

[xcc]

Here’s a pretty good rig rundown that covers her through the years. She definitely likes the DS-1: http://www.mixdownmag.com.au/gear-rundown-pj-harvey

I’ve always LOVED her guitar sound and style. I think she’s a bigger influence on me than I realize. Rid of Me is one of the best sounding records I’ve ever heard.

 

[Custom Deluxe]

PJ Harvey isn't discussed much, but she is such a great artist.

 

[slicepaperdavid]

I believe Joe Gore played on that album.

 

[AStrangeDay]

I wonder if Flood (The producer), had some influence on the sound of the record

 

[mrpinter]

I don't know if it was the case at the time that album was made, but Joe Gore currently uses almost nothing but flatwounds on his guitars. That may have been part of the sounds on that record if he was doing that back then. That album has always been one of my favorites by PJ. All her albums are worth listening to.

 

[stickyFingerz]

I don't know if it was the case at the time that album was made, but Joe Gore currently uses almost nothing but flatwounds on his guitars. That may have been part of the sounds on that record if he was doing that back then. That album has always been one of my favorites by PJ. All her albums are worth listening to.

Yeah, the repeating line is definitely played on a guitar strung with flatwounds. Lots of dirty mids, possibly a P90 or humbucking pickup. The guitar could well be a hollowbody or a semi-hollow but not necessarily. Looks like whoever played that line is not a stranger to the guitar tone pot. The occasional chords could come from a tele or other single coil equipped guitar.

P.S.
Does it really matter? IMO it’s more about the mood than it is about the tone. The live versions on youtube sound nothing like the album but work well nevertheless.

 

[Madsen]

I don't know any details on gear, just know it was the first album she did with Flood. Great record, my old band used to cover Long Snake Moan.

 

[mrpinter]

Does it really matter? IMO it’s more about the mood than it is about the tone.

I quite agree - but this is the Effects Pedals Strings and Things - not the Sound Hound forum.

 

[stickyFingerz]

I quite agree - but this is the Effects Pedals Strings and Things - not the Sound Hound forum.

True and I could counter that by saying it’s PJ Harvey, not Bonamassa... I could but I wont. Definitely flatwounds though.

 

[Joe Gore]

Yeah, the repeating line is definitely played on a guitar strung with flatwounds. Lots of dirty mids, possibly a P90 or humbucking pickup. The guitar could well be a hollowbody or a semi-hollow but not necessarily. Looks like whoever played that line is not a stranger to the guitar tone pot. The occasional chords could come from a tele or other single coil equipped guitar.

P.S.
Does it really matter? IMO it’s more about the mood than it is about the tone. The live versions on youtube sound nothing like the album but work well nevertheless.

Hi folks! I'm delighted to hear there's still so much interest in TBYML.

I've said this before, and will again: One this album, I played the textural/atmospheric stuff, and Polly played the big riffs. I do the snaky/scrapy sounds at the end of "Down By the Water," the dinosaur roar on "Long Snake," the thin little shoebox guitar on "Working for the Man," and so on. Polly plays all the macho stuff — including on the title track, where I play a barely audible EBow thing.

While I was touring with Polly, she was going through a phase of not wanting to play guitar in concert in order to improve her skills as a front woman. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have been there in the first place. In concert, John Parish played most of Polly's riffs, though I did a few. The two have a special musical relationship. John hired her for her first band when she was very young, and they've always shared a very similar aesthetic.

As far as I know, Polly never used flats. And I've only been doing so religiously for six or seven years. (I used to use them only on semi-hollowbodies, but now they're on everything). I wasn't in the studio when Polly recorded her riff, but a likely guitar suspect is her semi-hollow Gretsch Broadkaster.

Guitars I used on the record included my Baldwin Virginian, my ’63 Strat, a crappy blue parts Strat that I've still got, and a G&L ASAT that I recently swapped with Steve Carr in exchange for a very beautiful amp. My main amp was a Mesa Blue Angel, though for "Workin'" I put a toy Marshall amp in a small cardboard box. Fuzz Factory didn't come out till I was out on tour with Polly — I grabbed one of the first ones at Manny's Music in NYC, and Zachary tells me I was the first player to popularize it. But maybe he's just being nice. I finally met Zachary at the 1996 NAMM show and practically hugged him. He was the first pedal guy to emerge from the punk/alt scene, and he understood the stompbox's potential as a disruptive noisemaker. Everyone else in the emerging retro-transistor scene was just making clones.

But I did have with me a Prescription Electronics Experience pedal (not realizing till many years later that it's a Foxx Tone Machine clone). Actually, I brought three of them: one for each guitarist, a little "project warming" gift. I used it a lot live, but I don't know think it made it onto the album. Flood was not enchanted—the first time I fired it up at rehearsal, he gave a sour look, sighed, and said, "Well, Norman Greenbaum has arrived."

I forget more details than I remember — but I did write a story about John and Polly for Guitar Player in 1995, while out on tour. I suspect it's available online.

 

[Tidbit]

I only saw her once on the Rid of Me tour. She played a hollowbody of some sort. I went with a singer that I had at the time and, after the concert, we both stood in the middle of the floor dumbfounded by the awesome show we just witnessed. I remember turning to him as the crowd dispersed and saying..."you know, when most shows are over, I'm ready to go home. I wish this one would start all over again". He agreed.

 

[Joe Gore]

I should add: For all this gear talk, that's really not how Polly, John, or Flood operate. I mean, they all have some beloved gear, and I know John's had a few of the same things on his pedalboard since at least ’95. But they're all likely to grab a piece of gear and deploy it in some weird, unexpected way. They're truly the last people on earth who would think in terms like, "Let's grab a Les Paul for that classic rock crunch." While I am not on the same creative plane as that trio, I've at least aspired to the same attitude. It's about creating something new and passionate in the moment, and not pulling something from your usual trick bag. "Disturbing" and "disorienting" are positive attributes. I'm not saying they don't care about gear, but certainly not in the way TGP folks do. (You're not likely to find them hanging out here.) Meanwhile, my career is excessively gear-focused, partly by necessity, so I have a completely schizophrenic attitude about these things. I can talk about tiny gear nuances for hours, or spend days swapping out resistors in a stompbox design—but then be the first to say "none of this sh1t matters." Because really, it doesn't.

 

[Reverend Paul]

That whole album is amazing. I remember the day I heard it for the first time. It was also my first experience with a "hot mature" woman as well so maybe she helped instill this music experience in my memory. I learned so much from this woman, mostly about music and how cool female rock artist can be other than Pat Benatar.

 

[stickyFingerz]

I should add: For all this gear talk, that's really not how Polly, John, or Flood operate. I mean, they all have some beloved gear, and I know John's had a few of the same things on his pedalboard since at least ’95. But they're all likely to grab a piece of gear and deploy it in some weird, unexpected way. They're truly the last people on earth who would think in terms like, "Let's grab a Les Paul for that classic rock crunch." While I am not on the same creative plane as that trio, I've at least aspired to the same attitude. It's about creating something new and passionate in the moment, and not pulling something from your usual trick bag. "Disturbing" and "disorienting" are positive attributes. I'm not saying they don't care about gear, but certainly not in the way TGP folks do. (You're not likely to find them hanging out here.) Meanwhile, my career is excessively gear-focused, partly by necessity, so I have a completely schizophrenic attitude about these things. I can talk about tiny gear nuances for hours, or spend days swapping out resistors in a stompbox design—but then be the first to say "none of this sh1t matters." Because really, it doesn't.

Hahaha this forum rocks. And so do you. And so does PJ. I think the OP got more than he bargained for.

 

[cbm]

I can talk about tiny gear nuances for hours, or spend days swapping out resistors in a stompbox design—but then be the first to say "none of this sh1t matters." Because really, it doesn't.

This.

Most of the great players that I've managed to play with are not really gear heads. Not, at least, as the term is defined here.

I have three fuzzes and a couple ODs on my board, and I've been known to set up a bunch of guest fuzzes off to the side of my board. Many great players seem to be just fine with a "more" pedal, and maybe a "even more than that" pedal. I wish I could embrace this sense of restraint.