Category — Guitar

Hello and Happy Friday!  We made it through yet another grueling week of work and by now, we all deserve a break.  Talk about deserving a break, how about the star of this week’s Funky Video Friday?!  I’m fairly sure, and I can state this with absolute certainty, that if we could get our hands moving fast enough to play the guitar at a mind-blowing 320 beats per minute, we’d all need a huge, 10 year huge, break as well.

That’s right, this week we’re going to be checking out the 2008 Guinness Book of World Records’s winner for Fastest Guitar Player in the world.  His name is Tiago Della Vega and he is unreal.  I don’t know what else I can even attempt to add to this, you just have to watch and see for yourself.  At 120 bpm he looks nothing short of bored.  Wow.

Enjoy the video, enjoy your weekend and start submitting ideas for videos YOU want to see on Funky Video Friday!

If you are anything like me, first off, I’m sorry; secondly, your guitars probably could use quite a bit of ’spicing up’ as it were.  All of my guitars, for reasons I’m not quite sure of, are pretty basic, bland and have little, if any, decorating or customizing.  This, is unfortunate.  This, is something we should all change.  Lucky for all of us, well all of those un-lucky enough to be like me, I found something that might just solve our problems.

Three words will answer our problems:  Pin.  Up.  Girls.  Yep, you heard me right, how about slapping some classic 1950’s Pin-Up Girls onto your favorite guitar.  There is no quicker way to add some old-school style and charm to your guitar, doesn’t matter if it’s electric or acoustic, old or new.  If you’re a fan of tattoos you already know, pin-up girls just don’t go out of style, and when it comes to Rock & Roll, they’ve always been a match made in heaven.

Thanks to the folks over at Strat-O-Blogster, they supplied a few links to some awesome places to stock up on decals and stickers that can help you dig that guitar of yours out of the bland basement.  I don’t know what we’re waiting for, get some decals, and get them now!

Anytime you’re given the chance to listen to one of the greatest guitar players ever to walk this planet talk about his new guitar, his new signature model, my advice is to listen.  A few weeks ago we got the chance to listen to U2’s The Edge talk about some of his favorite guitars, and now, we’re being graced with the chance to not only check out, but hear Eddie Van Halen talk about his new signature model he’s unleashing onto the world.

The guitar, called the EVH Wolfgang for now, and due out in stores sometime in 2009, looks like a beauty, and what’s best, it’s exactly up to THE EVH’s strict specifications.  When asked about the guitar, Van Halen said,

“I don’t need to do this for financial reasons. I could have just stayed at home and built this guitar for myself. I do this because a lot of people ask if they can get what I use. Well, yes you can and what you get is identical to what I use….The tolerance of things on this guitar is like NASA standards. It had to be tight, and it had to be quality…They paid attention to every damn detail.”

Paying attention to details is good, but being able to play a guitar that’s up to someone like Eddie Van Halen’s specs?  Priceless, as they say.  At any rate, it’s not out yet, but you can check out a great deal more on the guitar if you so desire.  Stay tuned for pricing and availability…when we know, you’ll know.

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.

This is a slight departure from last week’s Funky Video Friday.  While this isn’t Hendrix rocking, I have a pretty good feeling that 99.99% of all you gentlemen out there.  You all remember the scene in Risky Business, Tom Cruise sliding across the floor, air guitarring his way into cinematic history.  Some of you might have even seen the newest version with famous basketball players recreating the scene.  I have a pretty good feeling some of you have also seen this version, but for all of you who haven’t…You’re Welcome.

This week’s Funky Video Friday is none other than top supermodel and TV host Heidi Klum recreating that very same famous scene.  Sliding across the floor?  Check.  Long button up shirt?  Check.  Guitar Hero Guitar?  Check.  Guitar Hero, your marketing people are genius.

Without further ado, enjoy this week’s Funky Video Friday!  Have a great weekend and we’ll see you Monday!

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.

This, is an old story but I’m bringing it up for very good reasons.  Awhile back, Metallica had to lecture their management for doing something that could have been online suicide for the band:  they deleted and removed early reviews of their stuff from the blogosphere.  Oops!  At any rate, the band did something rather unprecedented for them, and even apologized to the bloggers that had been wronged.  Wow.  The Metallica I remember is the same Metallica that went straight after Napster all gun’s blazin’ and even pointed some nasty fingers at online music, NOT the type of guys to yell at their own management for being too harsh on some bloggers that reviewed their early demos of their newest material.  Turns out, Metallica of new, is not the Metallica of old and I’m pleased as punch to see that.

That’s right, the heavy metal rockers backed their blogger fans and the reviews they posted after their management demanded that the bloggers/critics take down the posts.  The silliest part of the managements decision to have the posts removed was that the early rough cut tracks that the bloggers were reviewing were given TO them and invited to review BY the band.  Oops.  Here is the statement Metallica offered up after they caught wind of the unfortunate censorship:

“Once we re-surfaced on Tuesday after a few weeks on tour in Europe, we were informed that someone at Q Prime (our managers) had made the error of asking a few publications to take down reviews of the rough mixes from the new record that were posted on their sites,” they wrote. “Our response was ‘WHY?!!! Why take down mostly positive reviews of the new material and prevent people from getting psyched about the next record… that makes no sense to us!’”

There you have it, Kudos Metallica, I like what I see here.  So basically, they gave their management a good lecture, reposted the links to the reviews and all was happy in Heavy Metal Land.  What this all means to me is, do you think this is a trend that will be continuing?  Do you think early, rough demos or rough cuts will be “leaked” to certain bloggers and online critics early to help the band, any band, gauge how it might go over?  I know Nine Inch Nails have done some pretty progressive things when it comes to online marketing, who will be next?

Sound off, what do YOU think the “future” of this will be?  Will music bloggers be reviewing things that is motnhs away from launch?  What do you think?

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!

These days it seems like just about everyone on the planet either has an iPhone, knows someone with an iPhone, is going to get one, or just wants one.  The fact that it’s rapidly becoming the predecessor to the iPod is no secret any longer.  What some of you might not know, however, is that you can turn that handy do-it-all device, or other, similar styled phones, into a sweet air guitar.  Who says you can’t rock ALL THE TIME now?!

That’s right, according to the article I just found, there is a new mobile phone application on the block, and this one looks to take portable rocking to new heights.  According to reports,

“The software, dubbed ZoozBeats and launched this week, monitors a phone’s motion and plays a corresponding sound. For example, you might play a rhythm based on a snare drum by beating the air with the phone as if it’s a drumstick. Or you could strum with it to play a sequence of guitar chords.”

Wow.  I’m sold.  The coolest thing, to me, is that it doesn’t ONLY require a phone with a built in accelerometer.  If your phone lacks that feature, like many popular mobile phones do, the software can also use the phone’s camera lens to base sounds on movement, or even use the built in microphone and tapping to generate beats based on the patterns.  Impressive doesn’t really sum this up.

Bottom line, no iPhone, iPod or any other device will ever replace the feeling of a real 6-string in my hands, or 4 string if you’re of the Bass Persuasion.  If you DO want to get a little rocking in and you don’t happen to have the guitar on hand, I fully recommend this alternative.  Why not keep rocking?

Happy Friday friends.  Today we’re going to start rocking what is going to be a new feature on GuitarBassMan…funky, awesome, rare and unique guitar videos every Friday morning.  Why not start your weekend off a little early with some rare glimpses into rock and roll past, present and future with some video proof of everything from hardcore shredding to tearjerking acoustic solos?

To start things off, I thought who better to start things off with than one of the best, of the best, of the best of all time, Jimi Hendrix?  This is obviously from a long, long time ago and is a pretty awesome, fun performance of Purple Haze and shows just how laid back Hendrix is when he’s playing.

Without further ado, enjoy Hendrix, enjoy Purple Haze and more than anything, enjoy your weekend.  Got any videos you are dying to see, or any videos you think we should all enjoy?  Leave us some comments, leave us an email, or send us some recommendations!