Veteran rockers Iggy and The Stooges have had all of their gear stolen yesterday (August 4th) in Montreal, just outside the Embassy Suites.

The band’s gear was parked outside in a truck, and the entire truck with all the gear was stolen somewhere between 6:30 and 7:30am. Inside was an insane amount of gear worth tens of thousands of dollars if not more. Everything from electric guitars, guitar amps, drum sets, effects pedals and accessories were inside the truck.

For more information and a full list of the gear you can go here. This really sucks, I hope for the bands sake they get it all back, some very serious pieces of equipment have been lost. In the meantime, they will be playing the remainder of their shows on rented and/or new gear.

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Hoping to pick up on the absence of Guitar Center’s and convenience, Best Buy has announced that they will begin carrying musical instruments. The store won’t change into solely a musical instrument retailer, but they will allocate a certain amount of space per store to instruments/musical equipment.

“The nation’s largest consumer electronics retailer will announce Tuesday that it plans to open as many as 85 of the music centers inside its stores by the end of the year and could add even more locations in the future, executives told The Associated Press.”

“Each site will use about 2,500 square feet of retail space and include roughly 1,000 different products with well-known brand names such as Fender, Gibson, Drum Workshop and Roland.”

“When the rollout is complete, Best Buy — already considered by many investors to be a global powerhouse in the electronics retailing world — will become the second-largest instrument seller in the country based on locations.”

While I am usually weary of huge corporations in general, I really think this is a postive thing. A lot of kids in smaller towns or areas don’t have any local music stores or even Guitar Center and I can see a lot of kids getting their first guitar from a place like Best Buy.

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Gibson.com has a great, brand-new interview with Buzz Osborne of The Melvins up at their site. In this interview Buzz Osborne discusses, among other things, the recording of The Melvins new album “Nude With Boots” and his thoughts on music in general.

One thing I thought was very interesting about the interview is that he mentions using Fender guitars in places on the new album. Buzz Osborne is usually associated with Les Paul Customs, as many Melvins fans know. Excerpt…

“I used my ’69 Les Paul on the whole album supported by a Silvertone, Telecaster, and an early ’90s reissue Mustang.”

You can check out the full interview here.

Gibson has announced its Guitar of the Month, a Les Paul 295 Gold Top guitar model. For a while Gibson guitars custom shop has been holding a “guitar of the month” promotion where each model is limited to 1,000 units worldwide and a new model launches on the first Friday of every month.

This particular Les Paul is unique in a few ways. It has both old and modern features. The body is like a normal Les Paul, yet features additions such as a cutaway on the body more reminiscent of  a Gibson ES-175.  The guitar also features a hand-painted gold flower pick-guard and a chrome bigsby tail-piece.

If you are wanting to get one, be prepared to spend a pretty penny on it, as the retail price is $4,399.

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So I had a chance to listen to Monotonix’ Body Language EP all the way through. The first song “Summers & Autumns” is the best on the record. It starts with a kind of Black Sabbath-esque 70’s style riff and and then continues on to a stop/start chorus and just grooves. The absence of a bass guitar makes the fact that the songs groove solidly impressive, also showcasing how tight the drummer is.

The EP holds true to the rock sound of the band all the way through. There aren’t any ballads or weird electronic tracks or anything like that. The title track, “Body Language” which is also the final song starts with seemingly random piano playing before descending into a kind of dance-y led zeppelin riff, this is a good thing. It also has a catchy chorus, and a guitar part near the end of the song that for some reason reminds me of the music in the Mega Man games you played as a kid on Nintendo.

After seeing them live I kind of figured their EP would be weak, just because their live show is so intense. In a way the EP is weak, but not in a bad way. It doesn’t capture the insanity and ridiculousness of their live shows, but its pleasing to listen to and that is usually the mark of any decent record.