Even Gibson themselves think it’s absurd that the original Les Paul was sufficiently unappreciated that it should be discontinued.
But, discontinued it was.  After 1960, Gibson would stop making Les Pauls.  Well, for a bit anyway.
Weird to think about that now, isn’t it?
To celebrate the (rather odd when you consider it) anniversary of the Les Paul being pulled from Gibson’s line-up in 1960, The Big G has released this: The 50th Anniversary 1960 Les Paul Standard.
There are three variants of this beauty.
Version one will be finished in Heritage Cherry or a …

At the 52nd Grammy Awards, Jeff Beck and Imelda May performed a version of How High The Moon as a tribute to legendary guitarist and tinkerer, Les Paul.
Although bit of a jazz standard, the best known recording of How High The Moon was made by Les Paul and Mary Ford in 1951 and spent nine weeks at the number 1 position in the billboard charts.
Here you can see Jeff and Imelda performing a very nice version of the Les and Mary classic…

And, if you want to get an idea of …

Continuing their trend of releasing guitars with slightly unusual numbers of strings, Taylor have introduced the Baritone 8-String.
With Taylor’s GS (Grand Symphony) body shape and a long scale length of 27 inches, the addition of two octave strings on the third and forth strings provides a smattering of upper-register sparkle without straying too far into all-out, 12-string jingle-jangle territory.
The Baritone 8-String has Taylor’s Expression system built in for amplification duties.  The body top is sitka spruce and the back and sides are solid, Indian rosewood.  A Venetian cutaway is standard.
Pearl …

The photograph may not be current but the news is. Jimmy Page has been a busy little bee lately.
We mentioned a while back that he’s been talking about planning a tour for 2010 and also that he’s been philatelising (yeah, we know it’s not a word) with a new range of UK rock ‘n’ roll postage stamps.
Not content with all that, he’s announced that he’ll headline a free concert later this spring.
The Show Of Peace concert will be held in Beijing, China, on April 17th, 2010. It will …

Mostly because we think it looks pretty cool, let’s take a look at the newly released, Tru-Strobe Pedal Tuner from Planet Waves.
Housed in the die-cast, chunky pedal housing is an accurate tuner with strobe-goodness.  The difference between your signal and the perfectly tuned note is displayed as motion on the big, circular LCD display. When the segments stop moving around, you’re in tune to an accuracy of +/- 0.1 cent.
The unit features full bypass switching and can be calibrated from A400Hz to A499Hz.  The display is high contrast and is …

That’s a Gibson logo over there but Gibson aren’t the only ones caught up in a series of legal actions that accuse Gibson themselves, Fender, Yamaha, Guitar Centre and the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) of meeting to agree price fixing arrangements. The plaintiffs in these cases claim the alleged cartel is in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
The industry association denies the charges but their attorney has declined to comment pending litigation.
Gibson, however, have commented.  This was published earlier today, 27th January.
Official Statement from Gibson Guitar Corp
01.27.2010
Gibson …

Honestly.
Here, just have a read of the blurb:
…The Dunlop Volume Pedal features a patent pending Steel Band Drive that creates a low-friction environment with no strings or ratchet gears attached – allowing you to achieve thick, luscious volume swells in one smooth motion without the fear of breaking. With fully adjustable tension and high-quality low-noise electronic components, the sound is as clean and transparent as the feel is smooth. Housed in a lightweight but durable aluminum chassis, the pedal features a rocker pedal that is slightly curved for ergonomics, with …

Line 6 are giving you the chance to win one of five XDR955 Wireless Microphone systems.
The XDR955 has all sorts of clever digital boffinry included to allow top-notch 24-bit sound and secure, interference-free transmission and it can be yours if you pop over to Line 6 and register for their competition.
Win one and you could have just saved yourself the RRP of US $859.99 (although we’ve seen them as low as $499).
The closing date for this competition is 5th February.  Learn a bit more about the system at Line 6.
Off …

A few days ago, January 23rd, would have been the 100th birthday of Django Reinhardt.
Reinhardt is still one of the most renowned jazz guitarists ever to have lived. That he was a peerless musician is certain. And, as most people know, what makes this even more astonishing is that, at the age of 18, he was injured in a fire in his caravan (he was a gypsy) and was very badly burned. Along with other injuries, Django lost most of the use of the third and forth …

Marshall Apmplification got a lot of attention at NAMM when Guns n’ Roses and Velvet Revolver guitarist, Slash, made an unusual announcement.
Slash announced that Marshall would recreate the amplifier he used to record the Appetite For Destruction album.
The amp, which will be called the AFD100 (Appetite For Destruction, get it?), will hopefully be released in the summer of 2010 but, and this is the unusual bit, the public can follow the development of the amp on a dedicated website.
From the concept, to the initial design work, to the circuit schematics …