Bonzo! Alex!
When you’re pondering how to improve your tone and playing next year, think about this: It’s inspiring to play with a good drummer. You might play differently, you might be inspired to new heights in riff-dom and all that could change your tone – much of which is in your fingers anyway.

You might. It would probably be a mid-70s Fender Stratocaster, which Lowell (of Little Feat) was favoring at the time, but could be something else.
Why am I asking? Here’s why, from the August 1976 issue of Guitar Player magazine:
GP: How many guitars have you had?
Lowell: I’ve had 50, 20 of which I no longer have [...]

Vai and Sammy
Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and if not, happy holidays. Hope yours is fun, relaxing and you get at least one new piece of gear. (If anyone out there is reading this while on military duty, you have my sincere thanks. Keep your head down.)

I happened on a fairly recent interview with Alex Lifeson from Canadian Musician magazine a while back, then forgot about it. Found it again, so here are the interesting parts, all quotes are Alex’s:
Composing Solos
“I want it to be part of the song – I don’t want it to be just an exercise in notes. [...]

Here’s a tip for web-minded musicians: Do a blog about your recording process. A good one. Detailed, daily, with lots of photos.
That’s what Bruce Kulick did for the recording of his BK3 CD, and if you’re at all a gear head – and what musician isn’t – after reading Bruce’s blog you’ll want to heard [...]

On: BK3, Not Being in KISS, His Favorite Rig
You’d have to be newly arrived from Jupiter – with no Internet connection – not to know that Bruce Kulick was KISS’s lead guitarist during the shreddy (and then grungy) ’80s and early ’90s.
But you might not know this:
> He was in KISS longer than Ace Frehley.
> [...]

Well, wow.
I’d been watching bits and pieces of Joe Bonamassa’s Live from the Royal Albert Hall DVD, but today I sat down and watched the whole thing, start to finish. I have to say that this is one of the best concert DVDs I’ve seen – and remember, I’m a rock guy.
It’s a great performance [...]

Here you go, three YouTube vids, courtesy of Premier Guitar.

All Fender Except the Joe Walsh Rig
I recently subscribed to Guitar Player’s GP2 on-line mag (subscribe here – it’s free) because this time I saw Pete Townshend on the cover. Had to read it, and glad I did. Following are some cool tone-making and tone-recording excerpts from the interview.

If you’re a diehard Van Halen fan, the only thing you know for sure is that no one can get “THAT” exact sound but Ed himself. Yes, some people’s fingers can sound like Ed’s and some people’s rigs can sound like Ed’s, but to put it all together….
You might swear it’s been done. If so, [...]

…in PremierGuitar.com Articles
Lots has been written about KISS’s Sonic Boom album, but all of the interviews thus far have left info gaps. PremierGuitar.com recently posted a couple of new interviews – a little late to the party, but the info is good. A few gear details are still missing, but not many!
One PG interview is [...]

Howard Leese’s Gear Too; Replace Ace?

To me, the Heart tune “Barracuda” is one of those perfect songs. Everything’s great: guitar, drums (watch it on YouTube) and the singing, which is just amazing. We’ve all heard the song hundreds of times, but there’s precious little about the gear Roger Fisher and fellow guitarist Howard Leese used [...]

Plus Roger’s First Impression of EVH
Here’s the second part of my 3-part interview with founding Heart member Roger Fisher – who unfortunately for all of us hasn’t gotten his due over the years.
Although there’s no doubt, you can tell he’s a guitarist merely by the fact that he can recall his gear details from three [...]

Talks Heart, Tone, EVH, KISS and more!
Do you remember Roger Fisher? If you’re a classic rock fan, you should. But in case you don’t, just know that he was the co-founder of the band Heart and wrote many of that band’s signature riffs and tunes – “Barracuda” being one outstanding example.
That’s right. Heart was not [...]