Category — Guitar

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!

Halloween has come and gone, that much is true, but the spirit of Halloween is still lingering.  Maybe it hides in the old pumpkins on our porch, or the left over candy, but nevertheless it’s still here.  That said, I thought today would be the time to share with you the best Halloween guitar I’ve ever seen in my entire life.  Ever.

Now, I’ve seen a few different rad guitars that had dark or evil themes, but this guitar I just stumbled upon clearly raises the bar to unreachable levels, and looking at the picture above, can you not agree wholeheartedly?  As mentioned in the article I just read, the folks over at McSwain Guitars and they mentioned the following sweet facts about this guitar:

“Frankenstein is a chambered Mahogany body with a Maple top and a 3 piece Mahogany neck. The fingerboard is Ebony, Maple and Purple Heart that is stitched together with Leather cord! The border (can’t really call it a binding) is also stitched over black epoxy and red leather dye. Apparently this guitar is owned by Ben Moody, co-founder of Evanescence…”

Bottom line, if you’re a fan of awesome themed guitars, I think you couldn’t do much better than McSwain Guitars, and if you’re a fan of Halloween or anything freaky and frightening, you can’t do much better than a Frankenstein guitar.  Now, if only I could afford something like that!

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.

If you polled 1000 serious guitar players, instrumentalists, band members, or just all around guitar enthusiasts what their greatest “guitar” fear is as we progress further into the future, and further away from the music world as we know it, I bet 900 of them would say “That future generations of guitar players will really believe we play the guitar like a Guitar Hero controller.”  I for one, know that scares me quite a bit.  The thought that future musicians will not have to sweat and toil over an old six-string, build painful calluses so they can play longer, or learn the intricatcies of a good solo, but just have to push a series of colored-buttons is terrifying.

Apparently it’s also terrifying to Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, and so he decided to do some designing to show the rest of us the way.  What he did, was design a double-necked guitar that is a fusion of a real, traditional six-string guitar, and a new Guitar Hero controller guitar.  In short…genius.  When asked, well, Why, Coyne said:

“I’ve constructed this great looking Guitar Hero double-necked guitar thing here because there’s a lot of kids out there that think this is actually how you play guitar now — that you just press a series of four or five buttons and and sort of different sort of sequences and it makes every sound that the guitar can make,” says Coyne. “So when you do this stuff, you know (strums actual guitar on the first neck), it’s not as impressive as hitting the right green and red combinations.”

Check out the video here, for further awesomeness and proof of Coyne’s unusual genius.

Metallica is set to begin production rehearsals for their latest tour on Monday in San Francisco, the tour kicks off on October 21st in Arizona. According to drummer Lars Ulrich the band will play “a lot of new songs” from “Death Magnetic” on this tour.

The band has not toured the US for quite some time. When they’ve toured on new albums in the past they’ve been pretty conservative when playing new songs. Ulrich explains…

“These new songs are a lot of fun to play,” Ulrich tells Billboard.com. “Traditionally I think we’ve been a little conservative when we’ve started off with two songs, three songs (from the new album). We’re going to hit the ground running here. We’re probably gonna learn all of them and play, I hope, at least five a night and probably rotate ‘em so we get a lot of new songs in. That’s one thing I’m definite about.”

One of the reasons the band is so keen to play the new material is because its been heralded by fans and critics as a return to form. “Death Magnetic” has already sold almost 3 million copies worldwide and over 1 million in the US alone.

“It’s just an overwhelming, positive thing,”. “You couldn’t have told me a month ago or six months ago that we would have a record that would be this well-received. It seems like it’s so universal this time and it’s all over the world and everybody’s so into it on so many different levels — the fans, press, the peers … everybody.”

The band’s stage setup will be “in the round” once again but different from previous tours, involving a huge, moving lighting rig above the band.

I remember seeing footage of the band during the Black Album era and I believe they’ve been playing “in the round” since then. I recently checked out even older Metallica videos on YouTube and was surprised to see Kirk Hammett playing a lot of Ibanez guitars. Regardless of what guitars they’re playing this time around, its the first time I’ve personally wanted to see a Metallica concert in a long while because I think some of the new material is great.

Source.

If you liked my post yesterday about the Gibson selt-tuning Robot Guitar, than you may also be interested in a newly launched site from iMedia Ventures, which provides a virtual learning environment.  It seems as though everything is going hi-tech lately, from the way we tune guitars to the way we learn to play riffs.   The goal of Online Guitar Coaching is to provide aspiring guitarists with a way to receive private guitar lessons in the comfort of their own home, through the internet.  The website encourages students to upload videos of their playing in order to receive feedback from a guitar instructor.  In addition to their work with a guitar teacher, students have access to a variety of other learning tools, including guitar tablatures, videos, diagrams and even a community discussion board.

This site seems pretty cool for someone who is already fluent on guitar, but not really sure where to go from there.  The site provides the opportunity to become a better player because they focus on teaching the art of guitar soloing, without the boring scales approach.  Topics the site discusses include Fretboard Mastery, Improvisation/Soloing and Guitar technique.  These lessons would help an average guitar player become more advanced by improving their hammer-ons, pull-offs, speed, soloing and improving arpeggios.

Check out Online Guitar Coaching now.

If you are like me and insist on having the guitar amp so loud that your neighbors need earplugs, then the Woody B Internal Combustion Guitar might be for you. By redirecting the resonate energy of your guitar through the use of a proprietary driver system, it is redistributed to your strings instead of an amp, giving you more control and feel. The reason this works is that it lets you control the resonance in the strings before the “harmonically enriched” sound ever hits the second amp. You can control the strength of the signal with the power throttle knob.

There are two models currently available of the Internal Combustion Guitar, which are the V8 and V12. They each feature Alumitone Humbuckers and come in a variety of finishes. In my opinion, this guitar not only plays bad-ass, it looks bad-ass, too. Now you may be wondering how much a guitar like this will set you back. The answer is about $2500. But no worries. You can convince yourself of it’s value because although it may be bedroom (and neighbor) friendly, you can still rock out a venue the size of an arena.

Check out this video demo, where Woody Bruce tries to convince you to buy it.

Specifications:

- Head Stock: reverse gun handle

- Neck: bolt on maple

- Nut: 1 3/4″standard graphite for medium gauge string (1 5/8″available)

- Scale: 25 ½” (custom baritone available)

- Fingerboard: maple standard; list for ebony or Pau Ferro (see pricing)

- Fret Wire: jumbo

- Body Woods: V8 and V12 are alder and mahogany tone woods with Sitka Spruce internal sound board

- Tuners: Sperzel Locking

A while back info about the Fender Jazzmaster 50th Anniversary Concert in NYC was posted here, well the event took place and Pitchforkmedia.com managed to get some good photos up on their site.

It seems like somewhat of a big event to have for a Fender guitar but it’s an important one. The Fender Jazzmaster and Jaguar proved to be incredibly influential during the formative years of alternative rock. Bands like Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, My Bloody Valentine and countless others would go on to re-popularize the Jazzmaster and Jaguar.

During the early 90’s Jazzmasters and Jaguars were largely regarded as surf-music guitars by most players. As a result you could buy high-quality vintage versions of these guitars for around $200 or $300. As a result of their popularity vintage models now routinely sell for thousands of dollars. I’m pretty sure they’ll do a similar event for the 50th anniversary of the Fender Jaguar as well.

Iggy isn’t the only rockstar that someone would have the nerve to burgle. Someone snatched Peter Buck’s guitar from the stage immediately after a show in Finland on Wednesday. And considering it is the one he would pick if he could only play a single guitar for the rest of his life, it’s no wonder they are offering a reward, no questions asked, for his signature Rickenbacker 360 JetGlo.

R.E.M.’s official website reads:

“Sadly, Peter’s signature Rickenbacker guitar was stolen from the stage immediately following tonight’s performance in Helsinki, Finland. This is Peter’s infamous signature Rick, which has been the staple of Peter’s arsenal both live and in the studio since the band released Chronictown in 1982. Needless to say, this instrument means a great deal to Peter and to R.E.M. It is our sincere hope that whoever is responsible for the loss, or whoever has information which can help recover the guitar, will come forward to receive a generous reward, no questions asked.”

The legendary guitar, which was found earlier this year, will go on sale tomorrow at an auction in London titled It’s Not Just Rock n’ Roll. Hendrix “sacrificed” the fender strat by setting fire to it at the end of a performance on March 31, 1967 in the UK, an “act which turned him from rumor to legend.” According to the BBC, the pickup switch is the only thing that has been altered on the charred guitar since Jimi last played it. They anticipate that the guitar will go for at least a quarter of a million dollars.

Hendrix was known to have lit two guitars on fire during his short-lived career. Footage was taken of his second guitar torching during his kick-off performance of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and can be viewed here.

Other items that will be on sale in the auction tomorrow include The Doors’ frontman Jim Morrison’s last notebook of poems, The Beatles’ first contract signed in 1962 and an unreleased song by David Bowie titled Mockingbird.