Category — Gibson Guitars

Talk about living the dream!  If you were in a local band, hadn’t made it anywhere near the “big time” yet, and just loved playing your tunes, what could be bigger than getting asked to take a coveted spot on Motley Crue tour?!

That’s exactly what happened to a band called the Last Vegas.  According to reports,

“On a recent night at the venerable Los Angeles music club the Whisky a Go Go, the Last Vegas walked away from a battle-of-the-bands contest with what most developing acts can only dream of: an opening slot on a major arena tour, a recording deal and a management contract.”

Wow.  Life really can change with the blink of an eye!  In addition to that coveted spot on the Crue tour, the band will also take home a $25,000 check from The Guitar Center, and another $20,000 in brand new gear from Gibson Guitars.  Um, I’m beyond jealous now.  Just a few days after mentioning not only the 50th Anniversary line of guitars from Gibson, but the Dark Fire as well, I’d do just about anything to get my hands on $20k in Gibson Gear!

Regardless, just goes to show you that even the local guys, even the underdogs, and even the unheard-of’s can make it.  Keep picking away on those guitars, walking those bass lines and turning up the distortion, it could happen to you.

Oh Gibson, why do you tease me so?  Why do you first show me 50th Anniversary Guitars, then come out and show me the new Dark Fire that I’ll most likely never be able to own!?  Such sadness in the house of Guitar BassMan today.  Nevertheless, what kind of guy would I be if I Didn’t report on it, and didn’t get very, very excited for any of you that will in fact, be purchasing one of these bad boys.

The new Dark Fire is already being touted by Gibson as “The Most Versatile Tone Monster Ever Made.”  Wow.  That is a lofty compliment from a company that has been making some of the best guitars the world has ever seen since their birth.  I’m impressed already, by default.  So why are they saying it’s the most versatile?  How about the fact that they’ve given it something they call “Chameleon Tone Technology?”  Here’s what they have to say about it:

“Analog or digital, the Gibson Dark Fire gives you an infinite number of tonal possibilities to let you change the tone of the Dark Fire to match your environment. And it begins with a guitar’s most basic element — the pickups. The Gibson Dark Fire combines two of Gibson’s most popular pickups — the P90h in the neck position and a Burstbucker 3 in the bridge position. Both are capped with new carbon fiber-like pickup covers, impeccably designed to match the Dark Fire’s advanced fade. “

They’ve also given the Dark Fire the ability to blend the acoustic sound from the piezo bridge with the sound from the guitar’s regular, traditional pickups.  What this means is, you can now seamlessly play acoustically into electrically with no wonky switches, sound distortions or tone loss.  WOW.

The bottom line is, they are saying it’s a guitar capable of producing “every imaginable guitar sound.”  SO I suppose no matter what it costs, you’re actually getting a really, really good deal because it’d be sort of like buying one of every single kind of guitar, right?  Maybe that’s what I’ll tell my girlfriend when she notices a HUGE chunk of money missing.

Call me naive but I feel as though Les Paul should have already had about 20,000 Tribute shows given to him.  I’m not sure about the actual number that have occured, but I couldn’t be more pleased about the news I just stumbled upon.

Looks like Les Paul, guitar-legend, amazing guy and “Father of the Electric Guitar,” is being honored again, and most rightfully so, at this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame annual American Music Masters series.  The concert, to be held this coming Saturday, November 15, and ends a weeks worth of festivities that started yesterday in Cleveland, Ohio.  The best news, for all you guitar fans, is that in addition to having the 93-year-old Guitar God play at the concert, he’ll be joined on stage by Guitar Titans Slash, Duane Eddy, Billy Gibbons and the Ventures.  Clearly, if you’re at all a guitar fan, this is not a concert you would want to miss.

Les Paul has always been half artist and half inventor, doing more to advance the technology of the electric guitar than almost anyone else in the entire world.  Many people believe that the work he did in developing hard-bodied electric guitars is what “made Rock & Roll possible.”  That is a compliment worth getting your little butts down to Cleveland for, if you ask me!

When it comes to a Gibson Guitar, the experts will mostly all agree that it doesn’t get much better than a 1958 Les Paul.  Personally I will never own one, never be able to afford one, and could probably never find one.  Heck, I doubt I’ll ever own any Les Paul, but a man can dream.

That said, 50 years have now come to pass since that famous 1958 and as such, rumor has it that Gibson is going to launch an entire line of not re-issues, but 1958 “inspired” guitars to celebrate and mark their 50th Anniversary.  I have yet to hear about pricing, availability or anything else, but it looks like they are launching the 50th Anniversary Korina Explorer, ES-335, Les Paul Figured, and Korina Flying V.

Is it me or is the ES-335 worth killing for?  My Goodness it makes me feel a weird combination of excited, depressed and jealous all at the same time.  That is a hard thing to acheive in a simple photo, is it not?  As soon as I get more information, I’ll let you know.  Start saving now!

When a guitar legend like The Edge starts talking about guitars, my advice to you, is to sit still, listen quietly, and take some serious notes.  While he’s not as loud, flashy or gregarious as many rock and roll legends, The Edge has clearly earned himself a spot in the annals of Rock History.  To hear him talk about each one of his favorite guitars, the songs they’ve produced, and the love he has for them, I hate to say it but it gives a guitar lover like me chills.

First and foremost, his love for guitars is apparent.  Just look behind him during the interviews and get extremely jealous at the sheer NUMBER of guitars he has in his collection now.  Wow.  Nevertheless, a chance to hear a musician as talented as The Edge talk about and play his favorite guitars is a pretty special, not-to-be-missed opportunity.

OK, so you might need to squint and look really carefully but the cover & tracklist for Guns N’ Roses, Best Buy exclusive “Chinese Democracy” is up at Best Buy.com.

11 of the 14 songs have either leaked or been played live before, leaving only 3 un-surfaced songs. According to Billboard…

“In typical dramatic fashion, the first noise one hears on the album is a blood-curdling Axl Rose scream, according to multiple sources who’ve heard it.”

There isn’t a full list of all the musicians who have played on the album yet. If there is a list included in the album’s liner notes it will no doubt be extensive. I wonder if the album will still have Buckethead’s custom Gibson guitar featured on it. I’m not buying this piece of trash album so someone will have to let me know.

“Chinese Democracy” Full Tracklist

01 “Chinese Democracy”
02 “Scraped”
03 “Shackler’s Revenge”
04 “Street Of Dreams”
05 “If The World”
06 “Better”
07 “This I Love”
08 “There Was A Time”
09 “Riad N’ The Bedovins”
10 “Sorry”
11 “I.R.S.”
12 “Catcher”
13 “Madagascar”
14 “Prostitute”

A few weeks ago, I posted news about a Smashing Pumpkins DVD entitled “If All Goes Wrong.” The documentary/concert film will be released on November 11th and will contain footage of the band’s residences and the band leading up to reuniting.

“We went into the residencies hopeful to play some new music, with the idea I would write during the day and we could maybe even play new songs that same night,” Corgan comments. “What I didn’t anticipate is how much the process would inspire me, positively and negatively, to report what I was seeing and feeling from the shows. The documentary shows that process in an interesting way that reveals the link between the band and our audience.”

Entertainment Weekly, (of all places), has a preview of the DVD up at their website, in the form of “Starla” live. It looks as if Billy Corgan is playing a Gibson Les Paul in the footage.

The Tracklist is as follows…

Disc 1:

* “If All Goes Wrong” documentary
* “Voices Of The Ghost Children” featurette
* Interview with THE WHO guitarist Pete Townshend

Disc 2:

The Fillmore Residency*

01. The Rose March*
02. Peace + Love*
03. 99 Floors*
04. Superchrist
05. Lucky 13
06. Starla
07. Death From Above
08. The Crying Tree Of Mercury
09. Winterlong
10. Heavy Metal Machine
11. Untitled
12. No Surrender*
13. Gossamer*
14. Zeitgeist

Bonus Tracks: Live From The Floor Of The Fillmore

01. 99 Floors*
02. Peace + Love*
03. No Surrender*
04. Mama*
05. Promise Me*

*previously unreleased

Source.

It isn’t long until Les Paul is officially inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  A month to be exact.  Slash, Velvet Revolver guitarist and former member of Guns N’ Roses, will be performing at a tribute concert in celebration of the event honoring Les Paul on November 15th.

Being such a huge fan of Les Paul, Slash agreed to play at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s tribute concert without even hearing who he would be sharing the stage with.

“I’m just coming with my guitar,” Slash said. Could it be one of his signature Gibsons maybe?

The concert which features other guitar talents such as Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, The Ventures and Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi, is part of a series put on by American Music Masters and is set to take place at Cleveland’s State Theater.

Imagine being able to change your guitar from regular to flat tuning at the push of button. Gibson has made that a reality with their creation, the world’s first Robot Guitar, which is already winning awards. On Wednesday, October 1st, BT Digital Music Awards selected the Gibson Robot guitar as the recipient of their prestigious “Best Music Hardware” award.

So what is so great about this guitar? Not only does it automatically tune to the standard A440 tuning, but you can change to any of the 6 most commonly used alternate tunings, such as open E and drop D, at the touch of a button. In addition to that amazing feature, the panel of judges which consisted of distinguished industry professionals, chose to distinguish Gibson’s guitar from the stiff competition based on its innovation, usability, style and price point ($3,999!).

This guitar seems great for anyone in a band who need to change tunings a lot during their performance but don’t want to constantly be changing their guitars. I go to drop D a lot, but I’m not about to spend 4 grand on a self-tuning guitar when I can turn the knob down a step in about 2 seconds. But nevertheless, technology like this is really exciting for the right people.

Check out the Gisbon Robot Guitar demo video.

Now, you might be asking me why I am posting about the Virgin Music Festival in Toronto (yes, I know it’s In Canada) when I never mentioned the one in Baltimore. You might also be wondering why I would bother calling it a music festival when I know full well that Jack Johnson isn’t on the lineup. But then you would have just answered your own question. At just a little more than halfway through the fest, we’ve already got an array YouTube videos to sift through. Check out footage of Foo Fighters playing Learn To Fly . And don’t forget the customary drunk guy who climbs a tree and gets kicked out . With an arguably better lineup than the Baltimore fest, I wouldn’t mind traveling the extra mileage to Toronto. All I can say is, maybe next year you’ll be seeing footage of me up in that tree.

Here are some more videos from the fest to check out:

• Bloc Party - Helicopter
• Against Me! - Trash Unreal
• Spiritualized
• MGMT - Time To Pretend