Treble Booster Was Key, Paranoid on a Les Paul Tony back in the day, with ample Laneys. There’s some good stuff on the Gibson.com website (are you listening, Fender?), though you have to spend time surfing to find it. Recently I tripped over a mid-2008 interview with Tony Iommi about recording Paranoid, a classic album [...]
Doyle Bramhall II is one of the best blues guitarists walking around planet Earth. He can play old-school blues and newer-school stuff a la SRV, but to my ears he also does the amazing, which is take this loose, cool, Strat-inflected, semi-psychedelic style and inject it with an original blues-rock, vocal-delivery thing, much like — [...]
Is heavier better or is lighter better? Ask 100 guitar-slingers what guitar bodies are best for tone, and you’ll probably have around 50 say heavy and 50 say light. Put ‘em in a room together and things might get a little heated. I’ve heard people swear that more wood = more tone and sustain. I’ve [...]
Here’s the latest from the Satriani-Hagar-Anthony-Chad Smith supergroup, now officially named Chickenfoot. You get to see them, the new logo and hear a little bit more music. Note: To play the vid, mouse over the lower left of it and you will see the play symbol come up.
Boston founder Tom Scholz deserves respect. Great songs, distinctive new guitar sound – my hat’s off to him for that. But he’s gone a little Howard Hughes over the years, from taking for-freakin’-ever to gets sounds, songs and albums done (worse than Eric Johnson!), to preaching about animal rights all over CD booklets. And then [...]
If you haven’t read the rave reviews about the Squier Classic Vibe Telecaster, you need to! Here’s my Classic Vibe story: Lately I’ve been big-time into Billy Gibbons and Joe Walsh, and since I can’t stop spending money on gear, this meant I wanted a Telecaster. I didn’t care whether it was a “jen-u-wine” Fender [...]
KISS deserves every success they’ve achieved. Relentless hard work and guts made it happen. Would you have had the cojones to go to near-empty clubs, strap on ultra-tight pants, paint your face, wear platform boots and act like people should treat you like the king of England? When no one else had done it before? [...]
To get WoodyTone, you almost always have to have vintage gear, or reproductions of vintage gear. That’s just the way it is. Wood, not wood smothered in inch-thick polyester finishes. Tubes, not modeling. Analog, not digital. There’s a general consensus in the guitar world that older is better: the wood in older guitars has aged; [...]
Of course he can! But apparently there’s some doubt out there, as if all the stuff Yngwie Malmsteen does is “flash” or whatever. I’ve heard him get made fun of in some guitar and metalhead circles, and I have to wonder why. Yeah, he has been conceited over the years, but that seems to have [...]
Plus some of EVH’s standard fibbing! Quick tidbits, starting with Robert Plant on not wanting to the the Zep reunion — via a radio interview you can listen to here:
Plus a gear explanation! Another good find by the folks at Gibson.com, this time of rare Jeff Beck vids on YouTube. Gibson is promoting the new Jeff Beck signature oxblood Les Paul, so they’re naturally doing quite a few Beck-related items of late. This one is way cool for any Beck, Les Paul or tone [...]
Never heard of Buddy Whittington? I hadn’t either until I stumbled across a post about him on a guitar chat room recently. I’m glad I clicked on the YouTube link. Buddy has it all, and then some: chops, WoodyTone to the bone – and pipes! From what I could discern through a little surfing, sounds [...]
Here’s the New VH Single/Vid: 50w?
Update from a reader (thanks!): Tattoo is is based on an old song, “Down in Flames” – check it below. “Tattoo.” Is it me or have we never heard a Van Halen tune like this before? If Ed used his “grail” Marshall Super Lead on this album, don’t think we’re hearing it on this tune! [...]
Breaking Down the VH NYC Debut
She’s the Woman! Cafe Wha – yeah man! Couldn’t wrangle my son and I an invite, so instead awaited the sure-to-follow YouTube vids. Fingers were crossed that the band would play some new tunes, though had to admit that didn’t make much sense since they hadn’t even released a tune yet. Anyhow, here’s what we [...]
Bonamassa Hears Clapton in EVH: You?
Lots of well-known axe-slingers are quoted in Neil Zlozower’s new (and awesome) Eddie Van Halen book. One is the current white bluesman extraordinaire, Joe “gingers o’ fire” Bonamassa. What he says is interesting, and not sure I can hear what he’s hearing. Bear in mind a couple things: 1. EVH has said many times that [...]
Have You Gone Extra Slinky Yet?
When I recently got an email from a WoodyTone reader – let’s call him Mike because…that’s his real name – I was stoked because I like light strings. I played 10s for years, then went to 9s after getting back into the whole EVH tone quest. With 9s I noticed that the notes “opened up,” [...]
If I ever had a doubt I’m a huge Edward Van Halen fan (never had any doubt, but…), any such insane thought was erased when I finished reading Neil Zlozower’s new Eddie Van Halen book. Yep, reading. Actually got a little emotional at the end of it (*sniff*), reading Nuno Bettencourt’s story about a recent [...]
Did Edward Van Halen have his MXR phaser and flanger modded to boost or not? The initial interviews are inconclusive. Exhibit A, from this recent post: I use a phase shifter, a Phase 90 – MXR, I think. It doesn’t really phase – it just kind of gives you treble boost, which I like. Cuts [...]
Last Cool Stuff From ’78 EVH Transcript
Here’s the last of the interesting stuff from the newly published transcript of the entire 1978 interview of Edward Van Halen that Jas Obrecht did for Guitar Player mag. Wish there was a lot more! Guitar Stuff The Shark/Destroyer Jas: Does it have a standard neck? EVH: Yeah. It’s completely stock, really, except for the [...]
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