Recent Posts

Ace: Anomaly Gear, New Guitar, No More DiMarzios?

Ace: Anomaly Gear, New Guitar, No More DiMarzios?

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 […]

September 11, 2009 | By | Reply More
Ace’s New Anomaly CD: The Space Ace is Back!

Ace’s New Anomaly CD: The Space Ace is Back!

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.

September 9, 2009 | By | 3 Replies More
New Slash Les Paul in the Works, New Pickups

New Slash Les Paul in the Works, New Pickups

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 […]

September 8, 2009 | By | 4 Replies More
ZZ Top Storytellers and the ZT Lunchbox Amp

ZZ Top Storytellers and the ZT Lunchbox Amp

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 […]

September 2, 2009 | By | Reply More
Ty Tabor’s Early and Latest Tones (Part 2)

Ty Tabor’s Early and Latest Tones (Part 2)

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 […]

August 31, 2009 | By | Reply More
Ty Tabor’s Early and Latest Gear (Part 1)

Ty Tabor’s Early and Latest Gear (Part 1)

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 […]

August 28, 2009 | By | 1 Reply More
What Pete Townshend Is Using These Days

What Pete Townshend Is Using These Days

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, […]

August 26, 2009 | By | Reply More
The ‘Other’ Van Halen I Guitar?

The ‘Other’ Van Halen I Guitar?

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:

August 24, 2009 | By | 2 Replies More
Brian May’s ‘It’s Late’ Solo: Tapping in 1977

Brian May’s ‘It’s Late’ Solo: Tapping in 1977

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 […]

August 21, 2009 | By | 1 Reply More
Satriani Is Using Marshalls in Chickenfoot…

Satriani Is Using Marshalls in Chickenfoot…

…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:

August 20, 2009 | By | 1 Reply More
1973 Interview: Brian May Talks AC30s, Effects

1973 Interview: Brian May Talks AC30s, Effects

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 […]

August 19, 2009 | By | Reply More
Les Paul on Jeff Beck, EVH and More

Les Paul on Jeff Beck, EVH and More

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 […]

August 17, 2009 | By | 1 Reply More
Live Show: Bonamassa Off the Charts Good

Live Show: Bonamassa Off the Charts Good

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 […]

August 14, 2009 | By | 5 Replies More
Perry and Whitford Gear Post-Toys Live (1975) and Beyond

Perry and Whitford Gear Post-Toys Live (1975) and Beyond

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.

August 12, 2009 | By | Reply More
New Ace Song Out: ‘Outer Space’

New Ace Song Out: ‘Outer Space’

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 […]

August 10, 2009 | By | Reply More