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 […]
From the folks at Gibson.com – who do a heck of a lot better job with their website than their Fender counterparts – are these tidbits of WoodyTone detail about Duane Allman, Eric Clapton (his Gibby-related “woman tone”), and fleet-fingered tonemeister Joe Bonamassa.
George Lynch of Dokken fame tends to provoke fairly strong like/don’t like reactions from guitar-slingers. I’m a little perplexed by that, probably because I’m in the “like” camp. Obviously George can play like a house on fire, and his work with Dokken and particularly on the first Lynch Mob disc is simply great. He has […]
The Edward Van Halen and Fender-backed “EVH” brand will soon be selling what they’re calling the EVH Frankenstein Humbucker – which implies that it’s a copy of “the” pickup in Ed’s first and main axe for many years, the Frankenstein, aka Frankie. That’s the guitar that was white with black stripes and then had red […]
I’m a little burnt from writing my treatise for Monday’s WoodyTone entry, so here’s a WoodyTone-related roundup of “stuff.” Vox Reading Speaking of treatise, a new, definitive treatise on Vox amps is out – though the only person I can recall using a Vox amp in a rock context is Brian May. Kennedy Did Try […]
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 […]
