CDs and DVDs, Featured »

Although nobody knew it, Heaven & Hell’s appearance at the Wacken festival in Germany during July of 200 was to be the last time a Ronnie James Dio live performance would be caught on film (as I’m sure you all know, Ronnie died earlier this year from stomach cancer). The festival appearance was part of Heaven & Hell’s The Devil You Know tour.
Eagle records is to release a CD/DVD featuring a recording of that performance. The release will be called Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven & Hell and the …

Featured, News »

Wonder how long I can get away with those cheeky titles.
Anyway, a little while back, we let you know about Taylor Guitars offering a 0% interest financing offer on selected instruments. Taylor have announced that they will extend this offer until the end of the year. So, if you’re considering treating someone special to a special Christmas gift or, if you’re considering treating yourself (who’s more special, after all?) to a spanking new Taylor, you might be able to organise a 12-month purchase plan at zero percent interest. Not too …

Featured, Opinion »

Ok, so this may be just me but since I read about it a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about it and being annoyed about it pretty regularly.
Guitarist, John 5 likes Telcasters, and why wouldn’t he? He has a couple of, really quite nice, signature models with Fender and their lower-budget sibling, Squier. I like the guitars a lot and even quite like John 5 himself.
If you haven’t already seen (and you may well have as this isn’t spanking new news), John 5 is selling his signature guitars …

CDs and DVDs, Featured »

I’ve got to admit, when I received this, I spent some time wondering why it wasn’t called ‘Learn To Play Vivian Campbell”. The cynic in me can’t help associating this (upcoming) release with the very sad loss of Ronnie James Dio earlier this year.
All that said of course, the fact remains that the work Campbell did with Dio represents some excellent examples of 80s metal guitar riffs. Cynicism aside, this DVD tutorial from the Lick Library contains some great songs and, for anyone with an interest in playing great riffs …

Featured »

Yeah, things have been a bit quite around these parts. Reasons range from being incredibly busy with other stuff to frantically trying to distract and amuse my daughter to being too tired to type without waking up an hour later with keyboard-face.
Sorry about that. Let’s get things rolling again…

CDs and DVDs, Featured »

It better have Keith Don’t Go on it. Say it has Keith Don’t Go on it.
Ahhh, it does.
Right then, Nils Lofgren. He’s got a spanking new DVD out. It’s called Cry Tough and it covers three different and separate live performances from the bescarfed one. Each performance was filmed at different eras in Lofgren’s career and could be an interesting indicator of how (if at all) some of his songs and his style has altered over the years. A back-to-back viewing of these three shows, over two DVDs could make …

CDs and DVDs, Featured »

Woah. Thanks to the Fender blog for bringing this baby to our attention.
The video below is a taster for a new, double-disk, DVD, Leo Fender’s Telecaster – The Original Twang. This documentary film looks at the 60 year history of the Tele and its antecedents, the Broadcaster, Esquire and No-Caster. Teles from way back in Leo Fender’s Fullerton up to current custom shop instruments feature.
There are interviews, and performances, from a mass of Tele players and lovers including Steve Cropper, Jeff Beck, Keith Richards, James Burton, Albert Lee, …

Featured, Pickups »

The pickup boffins over at Epiphone are introducing their latest, and greatest, pickup. This is the ProBucker.
The ProBucker is Epiphone’s version of Gibson’s BurstBucker (which is Gibson’s take on Gibson’s much-hallowed PAF). The ProBucker is made with bobbins that have been manufactured to the BurstBucker’s specs and with Elektrisola magnet wire (the same as that used by Gibson). The pole-piece slugs and screws are also to Gibson spec as is the nickel-silver alloy used in the covers.
The magnets used are Alnico II and the coils are scatter wound like …

Featured, Music »

Today, the 25th of July, marks the 30th birthday of Back in Black by AC/DC.

For those of you, like me, who went through their teenage years with this particular circle of black plastic spinning on their record players, this may make you feel a little old but the fact remains – 25th of July, 1980: Back in Black released.
Thirty years. Forty-nine million albums. That’s a lot of albums. Back in Black is the second best selling album worldwide. It’s ahead of Dark Side Of The Moon and only Michael Jackson’s …

Featured, News »

0% interest, that is.
Yep, for the next few months, you can get your grubby hands on a spanking new Taylor through a financing agreement with 0% interest. If you’ve been hankering after a new guitar, and considering financing it, now might just be the time. Until September, 2010, Taylor (in partnership with GE Money) are offering zero percent interest on 12-month finance agreements.
The offer covers new guitars (obviously) from the following series:

500 Series/Acoustic 5 Series and up
T5 Standard and Custom
T3 models
All SolidBody models

Check out how to get your …