Articles Archive for October 2009
Factory Tours, Featured »
Pack a lunch, we’re off to G&L.
No narration on this one and it’s a bit noisy (workshop sounds) but you can see a number of interesting processes.
Check it out.
Featured, Music »
Who doesn’t think Mick Ronson rocks? Who?
Nobody, that’s who. Or, at least, nobody who knows. Check him out here, rocking with Ziggy. Splendid stuff. It’ll live over in the sidebar Featured Video for the next few days. Tell your friends.
Featured, News »
Take a look at this. This is the Gibson Les Paul Tribute and it’s a, well, it’s a tribute to, erm, Les Paul.
This is based on the original 1952 Les Paul. As you can see, it even has a trapeze tailpiece (although it’s strung over rather than the incorrect under method). The tailpiece is apparently corrected to match Les’s own patent.
It’s loaded with P-90′s and has a nitrocellulose gold-top on mahogany back and neck.
It’s a strictly limited run with only 564 guitars being made – six instruments for every year …
Accessories, Bass, Featured »
Look at those frets. Shiny or what? They’ve been treated to a good cleaning and polishing with Chrome-Frets.
Chrome-Frets uses a solution of liquid PTFE (or Teflon) with cleaners and a very gently wax to clean and, essentially, lubricate your fretboard and, should you wish, your strings. The lubricant has a dry feel and doesn’t feel sticky to play on – quite the opposite. You’re left with a clean and fast-playing neck.
The package comes with a bottle of the cleaning/lubricating solution, a leather cleaning pad, and a tough cloth. In addition, …
Featured, News »
Washburn are now shipping two production models with a cracked-mirror top.
Previously only available on the super-expensive Paul Stanley signature PS2000, you can now get this finish on the V-style WV1800CM and the Idol-style WI1800CM (the CM is, we assume for Cracked Mirror).
Both guitars have a mahogany body and glue-in neck. The Idol has a rosewood board while the V has ebony. Both feature split pearl/abalone inlays.
Randall pickups feature in both. These were designed with Randall Amplifiers specifically for contemporary rock/metal sounds.
Lastly, and this is a nice touch, both have been …
News »
What’s better than six? Seven, right? That’s one better. And what’s better than a Gibson Explorer? Well, what about a Gibson Explorer with seven strings instead of a paltry, miserly, six?
That should do it.
The Gibson 7-String Explorer has been unleashed. And it’s available in None-More-Black (sorry, I can’t help it – the Tapisms keep coming).
Effectively this is a regular Explorer in high-gloss ebony nitrocellulose with the addition of a low-B for low-down, doomy riffage. As you’d expect, body and neck are mahogany and are coupled with the usual glue-in, set-neck …
Acoustic, Featured »
The Taylor Swift Taylor. This stuff writes itself.
Whatever your feelings on Ms. Swift, you can’t deny that she’s frickin’ massive. Ten million album sales and twenty million paid downloads add up to more than any other artist in country music history).
Taylor and Taylor (see, it just rolls off) have had a relationship for a while. She’s got quite a collection, including one that’s so blinged out it’s been scientifically proven to be brighter than the sun. This one however, is inspired by her own, first, Baby Taylor and is, if …
Accessories, Featured »
You know those Christmas stocking things you can get for your pets with a squeaky bone and some doggie nibbles and whatnot in them?
Well you can get one for the guitarist in your life too.
This is the JHS Christmas Stocking.
The solution to the question: what do you buy the guitarist who has everything?
Not really, but it is a reasonable gift for someone starting out down to road to guitar-based superstardom. Or, indeed, a reasonable gift if you can’t afford that 1958 Les Paul that your guitarist-significant-other has been pining after. …
Accessories, Featured »
Rotosound launch their British Steel guitar strings and provide a, rather splendid, picture of Hendrix and chums too. Click on it for the big image. No doubt it’s cool.
The British Steel strings are based on Rotosound’s original, Stainless Steel Electric Guitar Strings from the 60′s but are manufactured with modern, improved processes and better materials. The new British Steels are designed to give brilliant tone, sustain and volume. Rotosound use stainless steel with the highest possible iron content to provide better magnetic properties.
The originals were used by Hendrix (hence …
Featured, Music, News »
The bass player and singer from Blue Cheer, Dickie Peterson has died.
He passed away on 12th October in Erkelenz, Germany after a long fight with cancer. He was sixty-three.
If you’re not familiar with Blue Cheer, you should be. They are frequently cited as being the band that invented heavy metal and certainly their style of heavy blues is in a very similar vein to the other bands often heralded with the same accolade.
Formed in 1966, the original(ish) line-up comprised Peterson on bass and vocals, Leigh Stephens on guitar and Eric Albronda …
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