A couple of decent Ace interviews were published recently – decent because there’s some gear info in them, some good stuff, but both come up a little short on details (when I interview Ace I’ll rectify that!). Anyhow, here are the most interesting bits from modernguitars.com and iheartguitarblog.com. Anything in quotes is Ace speaking. Gear […]
Yeah! (Anomaly Streaming Link Below…) Wooo-hooooooooo!! I got an advance copy of Ace Frehley’s new Anomaly CD, his first new music in 20 years, and…well, before I tell you about it, I gotta be honest: I had huge hopes and a little fear sliding it into the CD player.
Slash signature Les Pauls must be selling pretty well because word is that the Gibson Custom Shop is working on another one, Slash’s fifth by my count. I believe that would make Slash the guy with the most signature Les Pauls ever: > In the late ’90s the Gibson Custom Shop produced the Slash Snakepit […]
Plus Short Interview With ZT Lunchbox Inventor As any ZZ Top fan will know, the band recently had a “Storytellers” special on U.S. cable channel VH1 (a sister channel to MTV). The format of Storytellers is that a band plays a few tunes before a small crowd, and tells stories in the form of answering […]
Vid: Ty Goes Through His Current Rig! In terms of Ty Tabor’s “transitional” gear, I won’t go into the gory details here, but for a long while – including King’s X’s latest album, XV – Ty used Yamaha guitars: the Les Paul-like AES series (mostly the 920), and two signature models, one of which had […]
If you don’t know who Ty Tabor is, or haven’t heard King’s X’s music, please do your ears a favor and buy every King’s X CD right now. Seriously. At the risk of sounding like an uber-fan, King’s X is one of the best American rock bands ever. And although it seems like there’s some […]
Re-Bias While Playing, Blood on His Guitars… Performing Musician recently posted an interview with Michael Kaye, who is Pete Townshend’s amp/electonics tech and is a guitar tech for other bands (Springsteen, Bon Jovi, others): Alan Rogan has been Pete’s guitar tech since 1977. “Alan takes care of Pete’s guitars — the tuning, the guitar changes, […]
The middle and right photos above were recently posted on David Lee Roth’s website. Seems obvious they’re from the Van Halen I photo shoot that gave us Ed and the freshly striped Franky guitar on the album cover (left photo). So for gear heads, this raises some interesting questions:
I tripped over this great video of Brian May playing his solo in “It’s Late.” It’s really amazing how Edward Van Halen-esque it is, and it’s interesting that Brian didn’t pursue the right-hand hammer-on technique and didn’t see the possibilities in it that Ed did. From watching the vid, seems like Brian feels that way […]
…But Still No Intel About Joe and Peavey Is Joe Satriani a Marshall man now? Has he forsaken Peavey or not? To bring you up to speed, here’s a brief, recent history of Joe Satriani’s amps:
Following is from a 1973 interview of Brian May that was in “a guitar magazine” (unnamed) shortly after Queen’s self-titled first album came out: Thanks to BrianMayWorld.com for preserving it. In the first part of the interview he talks about his Red Special guitar, but then he talks about his AC30s and effects. Here are […]
Didn’t Play Stock LPs, Hated the SG, Tried to Get Zep Back Together? After Les Paul died last week, several sites posted tributes to him. Ultimate-guitar.com had an interesting series of articles, all by Steve Rosen, which are excerpted here but are worth a full read. Les Paul was a brilliant guy, an innovator well […]
Pre-Show Clinic, Bogner Now in Rig Someone got it wrong. Either Chuck Berry misread the divine inspiration he got, or a couple of young parents in upstate New York picked the wrong name for their son. I’m betting Chuck was mistaken because after seeing Joe Bonamassa Wednesday night at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in […]
It’s tough to pin down the Aerosmith guys as far as what guitars were used when because they definitely didn’t stick with any one instrument too long, even during any given concert. But amp-wise, after Toys they switched over to the new-at-the-time Music Man amps which had 6L6 power tubes (like Fenders) but solid-state preamps.
The tune ‘Outer Space’ from Ace Frehley’s new album Anomaly (out next month) is available for a listen (below), and sounds like classic Ace. It starts out with ‘2000 Man’-like chugging, the vocals of course have Ace’s signature sort of “wavy” style and the lead is backward, like the lead in ‘Speedin’ Back to My […]
Fair Warning Tone Ain’t All the Same
Got it in my head to figure out which Van Halen song tones – not album tones – I liked the most. Started with Fair Warning, whose balls I just can’t get enough of…which doesn’t sound so good but you get what I mean. Listen to it cranked in my car because that’s the only […]
Pondering VH’s Fair Warning Tone
LOVE the first four Van Halen albums. Always have, always will. Love the rest too, including the Van Hagar years (oops, forgot about VH III…), but those first four vinyl donuts are to me and many others just the nads. The nadliest of nads. They’re a band kicking the world’s butt in every way, and […]
Recently I was ruined yet again by a good amp. This time a bud’s Bogner Shiva, EL34 version. Let’s call him Sean – because that’s his name…. He’d been talking about how awesome it was for a while, and even though I know he has good ears, wasn’t too motivated to go try it. I’d […]
The Gene-EVH-Ace-Joe Perry Connection
Have you picked up “Guitar World Presents 40 Years of Van Halen” yet? Zactly – I didn’t even know it existed until I saw it in a bookstore (remember those? lol). Anyhow, I’m always amazed at how I think I’ve memorized every word ever written about Ed and his gear and then I read something […]
More On the YMI5150 Model-A Guitar
Few weeks ago I posted a brief “review” (outdated word) of Kevin Holbrook’s YMI5150 Model-A guitar. As a brief reminder, what got my attention were the following things: > A good wood combo: swamp ash, maple/rosewood. > An interesting and unique combo of components resulting in a Strat-shaped and -scaled guitar with an ABR bridge […]
Did You Read the Esquire EVH Piece Yet?
We’re going to have to wait yet another week for the interview with Kevin Holbrook of YMI5150 guitars because we have yet another newsworthy event. This time it’s the recent Esquire interview with Edward Van Halen. Now before you EVH fans get to getting your hopes up, let’s bear in mind the same ol’s: 1. […]
Show ‘Review’: Van Halen at the Garden
Took my 10-year-old son to see Van Halen at Madison Square Garden in New York City on March 1. I think he was more excited to see them than I was – not that I wasn’t, but this was the mighty Van Halen whose tunes the both of us have copped, jammed to and listened […]
