Too Beautiful to Stomp?
Review of Chris Cassone’s new book, ‘The Art of the Stompbox,”
by Dana Benson
Musician, art critic, theater reviewer, and author Chris Cassone’s new book, “The Art of the Stompbox,” traces the evolution of graphic design and functionality of over four hundred guitar pedals over the past sixty years. The book is a large-format art book and a succinct history, making it a wonderful gift for musicians, music historians, visual artists, and anybody who loves beautiful things that seem to reach out off the page and talk to you in a friendly way, like an old friend or a dog who wants to be petted. I’m not kidding. This stuff is very different from cold, modern art. It’s warm, witty, fun, and conversational, despite being designed to be stepped on.
Cassone combines high-quality images of the graphic art on the pedals with just the right amount of text, seldom more than three paragraphs. A guitar player himself and lifelong friend of Kiss’s guitarist Ace Frehley (they co-wrote and recorded songs together), Cassone is uniquely positioned to tell the story of this art form, and he does a masterful job, adding just enough words to enhance appreciation without distracting from the images themselves. His art background includes hundreds of hours guiding corporate leaders through over twenty-five of the greatest art museums in the country.
The book opens with a pedal that resembles the cover art of the Beatles’ Revolver album. In three short paragraphs, Cassone explains why. The manufacturer in Barcelona commissioned Klaus Voorman, the artist who created the Revolver cover and was part of the Beatles’ circle from the start, to create a homage to those days—and he did. The pedal, titled “Dr. Robert,” which simulates the guitar sound of the song, commemorates the night Dr. Feelgood, a notorious physician known for dispensing drugs to rock stars, secretly dropped acid into John and George’s tea without telling them, and how their acid trip changed the history of the Beatles and of the world. Not every pedal commemorates such world-changing events, but each comes with a creation myth. As Josh Scott, owner of the world’s largest guitar pedal collection, writes in the preface to the book: “What Chris captures in these pages is something I have always believed—that the best pedal designs aren’t just decorations on functional objects, but are integral expressions of the musical philosophy within.”
This unique book will introduce you and anyone who receives it to a sub-genre of design that they may not have known existed. As Cassone says, “I had no idea that pedal art had evolved to this level. I grew up in the 1960’s, and the pedals I knew had minimal design. I was surprised to discover how they had evolved into these arresting works of art. I immediately knew I had to create a book that would bring this art together in one place so that the world could see what I had found.”
Get “Art of the Stomp Box” on Amazon and chriscassone.com