Pedalboard Break Down – Johnny Marr

Yesterday, long time EffectsBay friend, Ken Stern let me know about a cool pedalboard shot. The shot is from one of my guitar heros of days gone by – Johnny Marr. When I think of Johnny Marr, I instantly get transported back to my Junior year in high school. A good friend of mine passed me a cassette tape of Meat Is Murder and the song “How Soon is Now?” blew my mind. These were in the days before I owned a guitar, and that may be the first song that really spoke to me in the non-traditional guitar sense. I remember loving Eddie Van Halen, and super into leads, riffs and all things powerful, but the song really showed me what guitar can do on a deeper level.

Years later I was super excited to hear that Johnny was a member of Modest Mouse, even though that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me at the time, but what it did, was put Johnny Marr back on the map for me. Since then, I’ve been following what he’s been up to.

I really like Johnny’s style – playing Jaguars and Jazzmasters into some classic Fender amps. Lots of shine with growl and bite. Good stuff.

This shot of Johnny’s pedalbard is fairly recent – pulled from Johnny Marr’s Facebook page. I’m not a 100% sure, but it seems like he’s into Carl Martin pedals:

Carl Martin Compressor Limiter
Carl Martin Hot Drive’n Boost
Carl Martin PlexiTone
Carl Martin AC-Tone
Carl Martin Chorus xII
Carl Martin DeLayla XL
Carl Martin HeadRoom

Honestly, I haven’t listened to “How Soon Is Now?” for a long, long time. It was a treat to listen again:

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Are you a fan of Johnny Marr? Or not? Let me know what you think by commenting below!

[UPDATE] I just came across this sweet pick with Johnny Marr and the board shown above. Enjoy!