The Gaspedals Carb!
What if a stompbox gave you only two things: more and better. More of the tone you worked hard at creating for yourself, then opening that up with more clarity, dynamics, harmonics and whatever other descriptors you want to toss in there that equal better to you. Would you jump all over it?
Of [...]

Did you see Edward Van Halen on the Two and a Half Men TV show last week? Naturally they left him until the last part of the show, but for Ed fans the wait was worth it – because Ed had a guitar in his hands and proceeded to whip off 10 or so seconds [...]

Some Gear Now Appearing on eBay?
Any Savatage fans out there? I know there must be, and if Criss Oliva were still alive today there would probably be a lot more (RIP Criss).
I remember the first time I heard “Hall of the Mountain King,” with the classical music intro. I knew I’d heard the classical piece [...]

George Lynch is one of my favorite guitarists, but for guitar fans he seems to be a love him or hate him guy – no middle ground.
Maybe that’s because he has a distinctive style, and he’s very experimental having tried the rock-rap thing (I love the Smoke This CD), entire albums and concerts with baritone [...]

In the same April 1979 issue of Record Review Magazine mentioned in last Friday’s post, Ed was asked when he started playing guitar. He said: “I’d say that I really didn’t start playing guitar and getting into lead guitar until Cream and the heavy guitar things started happening.”
Ask how old he was, he said: “Ten [...]

Here we are again, I guess – another episode of “is it true or not?” starring Edward Van Halen. Can you take him at his word, or not? Is 90% of what he said truth or was 90% misdirection? Was it more like 50/50? Who knows.
I’m not in one camp or another. I just like [...]

And Why Hatchet’s First Album Sounded Like Skynyrd
I still love Molly Hatchet’s tune “Flirtin’ With Disaster”…and I know I’m not alone! A great song, fast tempo, some great guitar-playing, multiple leads – separated by the southern lead singer whistle which means “c’mon and play something” – harmony leads, it’s all there.
Tone of the woody variety [...]

An Ode to Joy (Seriously)
By now I assume you’ve heard about the documentary on the Canadian metal band Anvil. It’s called “Anvil: The Story of Anvil,” and is showing in smaller theaters in the U.S. and Canada (I’m not sure about Europe). I was given a promo copy by a friend in the music [...]

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 Used [...]

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 Les [...]

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 questions [...]