John McGeoch's Guitar Secrets

John McGeoch (Siouxsie & the Banshees, Magazine, PiL) has been one of my favourite guitar players ever since I took up the instrument. Here I try to show you essential techniques which make up his unique playing style and a short rundown on his guitar sound as well.
Line6 Helix Patch for John McGeoch: line6.com/customtone/tone/488...
00:00 Title
00:25 Introduction
02:01 Element i: Use of open strings
04:04 Element ii: Moving shapes along the fretboard
07:49 Element iii: The McGeoch chord
09:21 The guitar sound

[@exitthelemming145]

One of my favourite guitarists who never got the credit he undoubtedly deserved. Very innovative but never flash and he said more with less i.e. note choice rather than choosing a LOT of notes. JuJu by the Banshees might be his crowning glory but much of the Magazine discography to which he contributed is also essential. His life story is a salutary lesson in how vulnerable we all are to the precipice of mental health and addiction that lies beyond creativity.

[@jackhargreaves1911]

John was a very kind person. He was working as a nurse for the last few years of his life, and was really committed to the job (impossible to do that job if you are not committed).

[@beyondlwm]

When the first time I read this from wiki, I was thinking the info must be a mistake. what a waste for such a talent.

[@secallen]

@@beyondlwm not a waste. A mark of the man.

[@secallen]

@hmm Rory Sullivan-Burke has just published the definitive biography ‘The Light Pours Out of Me.’

[@therespectedlex9794]

Or a terrible monetarist, enjoying the money pouring in front CD sales, while ordinary folk, he meets daily, scrape by.

[@iancrombie8862]

The comitted working with the comitted.. RMN...

[@lubossajda3705]

Moin Jakob, just a nerdy comment on the Israel verse to make things precise. The way you've shown the G chord shape (well, D shape on the 7th fret) and then going up, this is how Robert Smith would have played it in the Nocturne concert. John played it differently, with natural harmonics, which is also his typical move. Watch the 1981 Koln live version at around 2:40 into the song, you'll see it, cheers and keep up the good work

[@HUMPTYNUGGET]

The masterpiece by Magazine called... The light pours out of me... is superb.... I never get tired of listening to it...

[@The.Last.Guitar.Hero.]

thanks for highlighting John's playing. One of my heroes

[@bassthing68]

McGeoch's always been a favourite, a true "alternative" guitarist. Remember being so pleased when I nailed his "anti-solo" on the single version of "Shot By Both Sides". Completely exhilarating. You've nailed some of his secrets here @jakoblangenohl , also really enjoyed your Geordie Walker video. Nice work.

[@taintedlife2618]

Those opening notes. What beauty!

[@stefanvesterlund7184]

Nice work! John truly is one of post punk's unsung heroes.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thank you very much. He indeed is.

[@DirtyDirkDiggler]

Far from an unsung hero

[@proathome]

Awesome, thanks that's my era of music I love his playing.

[@AlphonseSwedgen]

I just bought an MXR flanger the other day, for the sole purpose of trying to put a little McGeoch flare in my riffs. It's a nifty, dynamic pedal and I am in love with those Banshees guitar tones. A lot of great, outside the box guitar work came out of early post-punk, but in my opinion John reigned supreme. Easily my favorite guitarist in all goth/punk/alternative.

[@jakoblangenohl]

You're definitely right. I like guitar players who are innovative. That's how I discovered post punk in the first place. Maybe I'll do more videos on this genre in the future.

[@secallen]

@@jakoblangenohl my heroes at the time were John McGeoch, John McKay, Stuart Adamson, and Paul Mackie (Paul Research) of the Scars. All Scottish or Scots background.

[@Endless__Scroll]

Is it a reissue you bought or an older original MXR Flanger. If it's new, does it sound close (enough)?

[@AlphonseSwedgen]

@@Endless__Scroll Brand new, same exact model he used. Fiddle with the dials and I can get a more watery Israel/Arabian Knights sound, or the less pronounced tones like on Spellbound/Happy House. I also run it with a Boss BD-2 for the overdrive, though I'm not sure what he used. All in all if it's not perfect, at least my ears can't tell the difference.

[@lesfils2joie]

John was one of the most creative guitarist ! Magazine and the Banshees would not be the same without him ... and he influenced a whole generation ...

[@HglzRunedance2023]

Please, ANYTHING else by McGeogh, always welcome!!!

[@flynnforest-angelos9989]

This is a great video that really gets the main ideas down about how Mcgeoch's playing works, I guess one minor thing I might say having actually learned that song is that those chords in the chorus of spellbound to me sound like 7sus4 chords, but there's no major 3rd them, i usually play those chords barre chord style like this: x3536x (C7sus4) with the a#/Bb note on the g string being the 7, but just playing sus4 chords gets the point accross anyways so it's kinda splitting hairs. One cool thing about John Mcgeoch's playing is that it kind of helped me better understand how a lot of those post punk/noise rock/indie/shoegaze bands get these really odd guitar sounds often using different tunings, in my opinion the key is that it allows you to more easily get weird intervals when you voice chords or play licks/riffs, but the cool thing about john mcgeoch is that often instead of using a weird tuning (he almost always plays in standard) he either plays these really wide and sometimes painful chord voicings (holloween is a perfect example of that) or uses the open strings to get those wide intervals. A lot of other bands like josef k and gang of four were playing in a similiar way, and even siousxie and the banshees first guitarist john mckay was doing that to, but john mcgeoch added this super rigid/accurate arpeggio type thing to his playing that made him really sound unique.

[@AlphonseSwedgen]

Your take is spot on. Learning to play some of John's guitar parts and understanding what he's doing with intervals will give you an amazing insight into making some really off the wall sounding chord progressions. He really was pushing the bounds of what you can pull off in a standard tuning. Hell on your fingers though, for sure. Halloween would be a hell of a lot easier to play by tuning the 1st string to Eb.

[@milestackettmusic]

Definitely one of my favorite guitar players, and one of the most interesting and original

[@regularnimnule9715]

Excellent breakdown of Mr. McGeoch's technique. Thank you!

[@jakoblangenohl]

You're welcome. Thanks for the compliment!

[@Clockeman]

Always appreciate a McGeoch tutorial. Thanks. Keep it up.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thanks a lot. I always appreciate people who are interested in my stuff 🙂

[@pram99]

Brilliant job sharing the magic of John McGeoch.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thank you very much!

[@jackbrimm9833]

Hi from the USA, Jakob. Thanks for the very clear and instructive video. John us a player I was not aware of at the time, as I was listening to other bands in those days. But so many guitarists I admire have cited him that I had to learn more. Thanks again for giving some tips on how to start investigating what colors John brought to several important bands.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thanks a lot.

[@whssy]

Amazing how many Frusciante fans have never heard of McGeoch - even though Frusciante has been saying for years how big an influence he was on his playing. I think people are more aware of him now than they used to be, but it still blows my mind how relatively unknown he still is by comparison with players I consider to be terribly bland. I have a JC120 of similar vintage to John's - and an SG1000 from 1984. First thing I played on the SG was "Spellbound" thanks to AnyoneCanPlayGuitar's excellent tutorial on the song, which everyone should go and watch. If you don't want the 2 amp setup, I get VERY close to his sound with a 90s Marshall Valve State 8240 stereo chorus, which pretty well combines the 2 amps he used and also happens to be one of only a small number of amps that has a stereo effects return. They're still pretty easy to find for relatively small amounts of money and - because the power amp and clean circuit are solid state, they don't guzzle all that much power in these expensive times.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Very cool. I can imagine you'll get an awesome tone from that rig. Keep on rocking out 🙂

[@bunnyadrian]

This is fantastic! I used to play in a banshees trbute band. I also work for Line 6 and did a lot of work on the Helix. I have to grab the patches now!

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thanks a lot. The Banshees have been among my favourite Bands ever since m teenage days. The Helix is a wonderful device.

[@AMSRMX16]

@bunnyadrian Any chance you could improve the MXR flanger on the helix? You can get an approximation of the original with care...but is far from the same.

[@secallen]

The only other song I can think of with that chord is Desert Kisses, in the prechorus (eg when Sioux sings ‘ocean’/‘commotion’). He also uses a 9th in a different way on Magazine track Burst. This was 1978 so before Message in a Bottle, but he did suggest the Banshees use Nigel Gray as producer because of Andy Summers’ guitar sound.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Definitely correct on Desert Kisses, which is a very cool song too. Awesome info on the guitar sound as well, I didn't know that as I'm far from an expert on the Magazine stuff.

[@secallen]

@@jakoblangenohl Nigel Gray didn't produce Magazine, but I think John's request to have Nigel Gray shows the depth of his appreciation for Andy Summers (although Sting came up with that riff originally - I wonder if he was inspired by hearing John playing Burst...). Andy Summers reminds me of John in the way he adds colour to a track rather than doing the usual rock thing, so wouldn't be surprised if John was a fan. You also talked about John using open strings. It took me ages to work it out but he does this amazing little figure in Headcut (Juju) which just sounds so off-the-wall, but his hand hardly moves. It's as follows (string-fret): D11 - G0 - G9 - G10 - B0 - B9 - B12 - E9 and sometimes D11 - G0 - G9 - G10 - B0 - B9 - B12 - E0 - E9 - E12 Visible at 4:02 here kzbin.info/www/bejne/h2nSg4d_oK1-qrs I love how he's looking the other way. So original, but makes it look so effortless.

[@jakoblangenohl]

@@secallen A lot of his stuff works like that which makes it hard to learn sometimes because the picking is so unusual. I never tried that song. Maybe I'll give it a shot. Andy Summers is one of the greatest guitar players ever. Technically near perfection and really cool tone. Versatility like he invented the word. No wonder he influenced so many great players.

[@Tuatara587]

His guitar in the "Light pours out of me" with Magazine blew mw away when first released. Ranks in my top 3 guitarists of all time.

[@HUMPTYNUGGET]

Whare a fantastic song it is

[@senorsalami]

Really enjoyed this as he is one of my favourite players, great to see you did Geordie Walker from Killing joke

[@Teeb2023]

I've only watched about a 1/3rd of your video, but already I see so much offered in comparison to other Banshees / McGeoch videos. Excellent stuff man. Your understanding of the guitar and John's playing is more than evident. :)

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thank you very much!

[@secallen]

Great to see some appreciation for Mr McGeoch. Now do Voodoo Dolly. 😂 (as a kid growing up in the country I had never heard of delays, I was trying to play all those notes by hand. 😂)

[@Pulse2AM]

That's a good lesson thanks, some of the chords are not proper voicings but close enough for this. And it's horizontal (left to right) not verticle. 🤪 The McGeough chord including the root on A is a 7 sus4 chord if you play the chord on the 5th fret including the A note it's the proper voicing. Most of those chords are just sus4 and 7sus4's with a slight variation here and there. For an 11th chord the 4 needs to be an octave up, so you wouldn't call it an 11 chord in your example.

[@GuitarHutGearZoneReviews1181]

Great video! Minor theory nerd correction: the chord you describe as A9 would more accurate be called Aadd9 (or Aadd2). A9 usually implies that the chord is dominant and would have a G in it

[@joseramonmunoz7957]

Really good Job and explanation on one of my fav guitarrist not only of the 70s-80s but of all times. I'm just an amateur player and music lover since I was a little child. It is absolutely great to find people that, like U, are so fond of such original and creative artists. Congratulations! PS. Thank you for the line6 patch, I've just downloaded it and I'm looking forward to trying it out.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Very flattering, thanks a lot. I'm glad you enjoyed the video!

[@olivierblandin5456]

My idol

[@robertmarles9665]

That was a brilliant demonstration of John McGeoch's playing. Thank you very much. I have just subscribed to your Channel.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thanks a lot. There's more Siouxsie content upcoming by the way

[@formisfunction1861]

Love this!

[@DemonSlide]

Very informative. Thank you.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thank you for watching!

[@Martaine70]

His work on Ju-Ju is nothing short of phenomenal, eg tracks like Spellbound, lovely jangly intricate parts.

[@taintedlife2618]

Juju is one of my favorite albums top ten for sure

[@trommly]

Sehr gutes Tutorial. Ich hoffe da kommen noch mehr solche Videos :)

[@jakoblangenohl]

Plane ich eigentlich schon, muss mal schauen, welche Gitarristen sich da lohnen.

[@mrbigbosskojak]

Just found your channel. Great stuff, thank you!

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thanks a lot!

[@richardpawson4676]

Awesome

[@muffevans5667]

Well played sir.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thank you!

[@valterrosa6185]

God bless you, master, finding such complete and interesting teaching material from my favorite guitarist is a huge gift, ciao e mille grazie from Italy

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thank you very much. That's very kind of you.

[@djsmartmonkey]

wonderfull

[@andymackie8283]

Prima! Danke sehr.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Bitte sehr. Und vielen Dank für das Lob 🙂

[@adamwilcox6405]

Great video. Will definitely be downloading your patch. I've never been able to get it right.

[@jakoblangenohl]

Thanks a lot. The patch is prior 3.5 and features an IR - just replace that with the greenback 25 cab and you should be fine.

[@adamwilcox6405]

@@jakoblangenohl Just downloaded it. Superb, nails the Happy House tone, the riff sounds spot on. Nice work, thanks very much.

[@jakoblangenohl]

@@adamwilcox6405 Thanks for the compliment, glad you can use it. Have fun playing :-)

[@buffalobrown3000]

Soo good🌹🙏

[@Jah_Rastafari_ORIG]

Show us some of his Magazine stuff!

[@garlinte3522]

Nice

[@user-px1lm1tj9b]

Jakob......no mention of the [Armoury show] band he started with ex SKIDS members ??????

[@secallen]

Castles in Spain has some nice guitar, Innocents Abroad. Some other moments on the album, but I don’t think the chemistry was there. (I saw them live in Glasgow. Energetic.) Both he and the Banshees reached their apex together imho. They should have looked after him better, but they were kids too.

[@RzogL]

Great video. I am also a big fan of McGeoch, especially on those three Banshees albums. There is another "McGeoch" chord, the famous schizophrenic opening chord on Christine. How do you play that? The strumming pattern on that song is also more intense than the galloping rythm on Spellbound. Also, how did he do the howling wind effect in the opening of Cascade?

[@jakoblangenohl]

The opening chord is as far as I remember an Eb b5/#7. He tuned the guitar a whole step down. The other questions need some research, I'll come back to you.

[@secallen]

Opening of Cascade before palm muted riff sounds like harmonics that have been hyper produced.

[@FingerBrokenBranches]

What are those guitar pickups you have equipped there? They have a really cool look. Great playing btw 🤙

[@jakoblangenohl]

These are Seymour Duncan P-Rails. They can be either single coils, Humbucker or P90, controlled by a Microswitch for each pickup. Very versatile. Thanks a lot.

[@CIRCLEOFTONE]

That intro riff is so alien to play. I'm wondering if he had strange tunings? I could not play it and had to cheat. You may like this vid I did on his gear/story kzbin.info/www/bejne/rGOal6isbZppfqc

[@jakoblangenohl]

Very interesting video. The intro riff is really hard. I practiced a lot, it helped to see it modal: it is an descending progression in D Dorian with the Bdim chord taking the role of G7, the subdominant.

[@secallen]

I can only think of drop-D for Monitor and Coal Mind. Also the acoustic on Christine all strings are dropped two semitones.

[@SSRT_JubyDuby8742]

👋😁

[@HglzRunedance2023]

Is there any way to export helix stuff to boss multieffects?

[@baabaabaa-yp2jh]

John was a brilliant guitarist...lve no clue why we have to pigeon hole bands tho.. the Banshees were at the start, so were the Buzzcocks.. Devoto left early to start Magazine. The early bands that came under the 'punk' umbrella were all different & bands like The Ruts came later... No-one labelled em post punk, or goth Anyway, nice vid mate, wdve luvd to seen a bit of JMs Magazine work, but l luv the Banshees too.

[@davidcooper4374]

Hi Jakob, great insight. Can you use the tone on ANY Helix processor? Never used one before, hence to question.

[@jakoblangenohl]

This tone will run on Floor, Native and Rack. I'm not sure about LT.

[@davidcooper4374]

@@jakoblangenohl Thanks - any idea about the HX?

[@jakoblangenohl]

@@davidcooper4374 The HX Effects is a multieffects unit not an amp modeler. Therefore the answer is no 😞

[@roomtomove8004]

⭐⭐⭐

[@xMythra]

Israel is even more fascinating because it's played with harmonics instead of that d shape.

[@KekmanForTheRestOfTheWorld]

what pickups are you using? they look very intersting grüße aus der nähe von köln ;)

[@jakoblangenohl]

Hi, das sind die Seymour Duncan P-Rails. In dem Video habe ich den P90 an und den Activator aus. Sind geile Dinger, können Single Coil, Humbucker und P90 auf Abruf. www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/p-rails

[@KekmanForTheRestOfTheWorld]

@@jakoblangenohl danke für die info! ich glaub die muss ich mir mal zulegen :)

[@HglzRunedance2023]

Can u tell us about ur gear, FXs etc?

[@jakoblangenohl]

Sure. In the video above I am playing my Godin Icon convertible through my line6 Helix. The Icon Convertible is loaded with two Seymour Duncan P-Rails Pickup which are set to P90 mode. The complete Video was played on the bridge pickup. The Helix preset is free to download, link is in the video description.

[@MarcusVinicius-yd9kz]

Nice Job Jakob!! Plz make a "John valentine Carruthers secret's" too 😊😊 That guy is a amazing guitar player but he was erased by 2 giants (Robert Smith and John McGeoch)

[@jakoblangenohl]

He did a really great job on Tinderbox. Unfortunately that's the only record I own with him on it. Recommendations?

[@MarcusVinicius-yd9kz]

​@@jakoblangenohlGreat!!! I recommend 3 songs: Sweetest chill, Lands end or Cities in dust

[@jakoblangenohl]

@@MarcusVinicius-yd9kz I can play Candyman, actually. Do you have any idea what gear the guy used? Maybe I could do a video on Tinderbox...

[@MarcusVinicius-yd9kz]

Zero ideas haha But...according to Wikipedia: "His other guitars were a Yamaha SG1000, a Yamaha SG000, an Ovation Breadwinner, an Ovation 12 string, a Yamaha FG 450 acoustic and a self-made Strat copy.[8] He used different audio effects including MXR Flanger "to get a really dirty sound," Drawmer Stereo Compressor, Eventide Harmoniser/Delay, Yamaha 1010 analogue delay and Ashly Parametric. The amplifiers he used with the Banshees were a Peavey Heritage, a Marshall MV50 combo and a Roland Jazz Chorus 120.[8] Carruthers stated that he used a similar amp set up to John McGeoch's. He used the "Roland Jazz Chorus with a splitter box, and put one signal to the Peavey for a lead sound, and the other to the Marshall which I have really distorted".

[@ChrisLisaLiam]

Greetings from Detroit. Am genuinely curious as we look to be about the same age (forget my pic, work pic from 1999; supposed to be funny) . . . were "alternative" Gen X'ers in Germany in the early-mid 80s nuts for British post punk to the degree Americans were (many were)? It's kinda funny looking back; while stuff like The Cure, Echo, Siouxsie, Depeche M., New Order, The Smiths, Billy Bragg were only known to serious music oddballs '83-'84 . . . by '85-'86 3x the number of (still "alt" teens) young people were listening to any number of bands in various constellations (straight Brit Pop, Post Punk, straight punk/hardcore) never on the radio . . . and by '87-'88, the cool kids had lost their monopoly normal or popular high schoolers had caught on--especially if they went to underground clubs and raves--in our case in some very sketchy old industrial buildings in Detroit. Just wondering if German kids back then saw the same rates of adoption/appropriation?

[@jakoblangenohl]

Some of the bands you mentioned (Depeche Mode, New Order, the cure, to a certain extent the smiths) were immensely popular in Germany in the 80s. They got frequent airplay in mainstream radio. In addition to that, in the region of Germany I grew up in we had access to British radio because of the military still present there in the eighties, so we adopted English music quite early. I am a few years younger than you - I don't know if that figures. But Post-Punk is mainly European music, so it's no wonder it's more popular in Europe as well. After all I went to the UK once a year minimum in my teen years and got to hang out in the record shops there. Going there from Cologne was easy. A few hours on the train.

[@ChrisLisaLiam]

@@jakoblangenohl Did you ever listen to The Replacements or Husker Du?

[@jakoblangenohl]

​@@ChrisLisaLiamI got into Husker Du in the early nineties. They are not very famous this side of the pond but to this day have attracted a cult following. The Replacements I only know by name.

[@ChrisLisaLiam]

@@jakoblangenohl they were really close to breaking through; shame they did not . . . this is genius: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nKW3gHiAm9-Xp5I

[@squirelova1815]

I will bet that even Andy Summers is a Fan of John's if not an imitator to some degree.

[@secallen]

Regarding the use of open strings, just found this: "You can learn from sessions. I didn't with Visage, as Midge did all that wackawacka disco guitar. Another one I did around that time was with Billy Idol, Gen X's last album. Billy's one of those people - like Siouxsie and Jobson - who is absolutely untalented on the guitar, but who can pick out a tune really well. I think that was the first time I started using open strings a lot, as Billy set me thinking about it. For full article, Google this: Arms + The Man John McGeoch by Jon Lewin

[@kennywoodburn5379]

On Israel he plays harmonics.....not the D shape at all ?

[@MrPrytania1]

Way too focused on the Banshees side of the house. So much more to his playing.

[@ravingmavis5801]

His work with Magazine - exceptional

[@ronj9448]

@@ravingmavis5801 Without question!

[@rayc7192]

Spocks Welt??

[@jakoblangenohl]

Star trek novel about Vulcan. Essential reading for me as a mathematician.

[@rayc7192]

@@jakoblangenohl Cool! Now I see "welt" is german for "world". Great post, McGeoch also one of my favorites.

[@tuesdayjam5905]

Nah sorry.....but if you're going to talk about "John McGeoch's Guitar Secrets" and focus soley on his Banshees stuff ignoring everything from his Magazine years - then your disregarding his best work. You sound like more of a Banshees fan than a McGeoch fan to be honest!!!

[@jakoblangenohl]

Actually I think his best work was with the banshees. But admittedly the music he played with them is also more my taste, although I also like Magazine and PiL. But JuJu is one of my favourites as far as 80s music goes.

[@kshred3043]

It's a 12 min 20 sec video. In that limited time Jakob does a deep dive into what Jakob, I, and I would argue most John McGeoch fans would rate as his finest work . That resulted in one whining comment. But, consider the alternative. If Jacob concentrated on John McGeoch's Magazine years and ignored JuJu, imagine how much grief he would have gotten. I think he made the right pick. And look forward to both Magazine and PIL follow ups.

[@Ashley-tq5fj]

𝓟Ř𝔬𝓂𝔬𝐒ϻ ❣️

[@barlowetube]

Kinda feel like you were only half explaining what you doing.

[@Jah_Rastafari_ORIG]

Show us some of his Magazine stuff!

[@philmckenna5709]

Try saying please, you bell

[@Jah_Rastafari_ORIG]

@@philmckenna5709 As in 'bell end'..? Agreed. _PLEASE_ show us his Magazine stuff!