Mellinium Falcon Guitar

This guitar will do the kessel run in 12 parsecs. Talk about taking some serious initiative. Brian Fisk made a fully functional guitar out of a Star Wars toy. Being a guitar player and a Star Wars fan this thing is just about the coolest thing I've seen since the the Lego guitar gear from a few years ago. 

I always admire the individuals who have a vision for something out of the ordinary but still have the ability to make cool instead of cheesy. Nice job Brian.

Classic Fender Factory Footage

While surfing the Six String Bliss forums today I saw a post by our friend Clint Searcy that included a great video with footage shot at the old Fender Factory in Fullerton California.

This is truly witnessing rock and roll being born. 

Gibson Firebird X

Gibson Guitars announced a new guitar in it’s ever growing line of supposed revolutionary guitars.  The Firebird X is a new take on the Firebird design with some new twists.  The guitar features built in effects and some new effects controls as well as the now familiar robot tuning technology.  While it sounds enticing the price point does make you quiver a little. With an MSRP of $5570 this guitar is very expensive.  I’m not sure who the market is for this axe but as of this writing the popular opinion around the web is that Gibson has missed the mark again.

I can appreciate the nod to the original non reverse firebirds.  The triple mini humbuckers are a cool idea too.  But the design goes a bit of track with the exaggerated upper bout and the shrinking of the overall size of the firebird shape.  The headstock looks wrong to me too.  I know this is a new guitar, not a firebird reissue but man it just doesn’t live up to the cool of the original firebird design.

Six String Bliss switching it up

Six String Bliss, The longest running guitar podcast has released another listener  generated album.  The new album, Trans Genred takes genre bending to the limits. The premise is simple, record a song that is not in the same Genre as the original. 

With 18 tracks from around the world the Bliss Army stepped it up a notch on this one.   Download the full album with cover art at Sixstringbliss.com

The Shovel Guitar

I’ve seen guitars made out of some strange things before but this is a first for me. An inventive axe slinger decided he could make a guitar out of a shovel. This shovel axe is actually playable too. It’s not just a a shovel with some strings on it.This inventive guitar is complete with a cool Seymour Duncan pickup and fully wired. 

 

Check out the complete build here

 

 

Guitar World Blips goes dark

Guitar World Blips, the guitar blog aggragator that served as a news source and sounding board for guitarists all over the world has gone dark this week.  It was pretty abrupt, no warning, it was just gone.  They did have some spam problems recently but I don't see that as a reason to pull the site.

Guitar World Blips was a great way to get traffic to your guitar related blog. In turn, Guitar World got a lot of traffic to their site since they were a one stop guitar info feeding frenzy. In all fairness, Daily Radar was the operator of the site so it looks like Guitar World loses out here too.

There are still some places out there to get a good dose of guitar news.  Check out Gear Monster  They have a lot of the blogs that were on Guitar World Blips including RockGuitarLife.com.

Guitar Odds and Ends, again more Odds than ends.

First we have an interesting take on male pattern baldness. Apparently Prince (I think he goes by that again) believes that playing his guitar has kept him from going bald. You be the judge.

Guitar Crime is on the rise.  Here we have another story of someone being assaulted with a guitar.  I realize that we call it an axe but c’mon, it’s not really a weapon.

 Air guitar tribute wins Bon Jovi contest.  An energetic 13 year old Air Guitarist dubbed “lil Jovi” won a contest for the best fan submitted video.  The video now plays on a big screen behind the real Bon Jovi during their live performance of Livin on a prayer.

Guitars are made out of all sorts of materials these days. This article highlights a man who makes guitars out of old license plates. Definitely different.

Play some geometric guitar lately?  Huh? That’s what I said too. Guitar Math is not my strong suit but if your interested check out the article here.

Guitar Blog Roundup July 3rd

Happy 4th of July Weekend everyone. Here is this week’s roundup of my favorite posts from the guitar interwebz. 

Guitarren has some cool sketches of potential guitar designs. He’s done a few of these posts and each one has some really cool ideals.

Boutique Guitar Resource has a great post about a new guitar from builder Nado Bailo.  The Whale guitar is one awesome looking axe.

Guitar Noise has some great tips on playing live. If your goal is to perform guitar in front of people then this is a good place to read up on some of the necessary things to do to be successful

Guitar International has a review of the new documentary about famous rock photographer Robert Knight. He’s photographed all the big names for the past 40 years.

Guitar World has some behind the scenes video from their 2011 buyers guide shoot. 

Play a little guitar has some guitar nightmares for you to ponder. I think I may have lived through a few of these. 

Guitar Odds and ends: More Odds than ends

There is always a lot of strange happenings in the world of guitar. Being odd is almost a requirement to play guitar.  Here are a few stories about guitar that I found strange.

Pink’s guitar adding color to  detective auction.  Ok, I didn't’ know Pink played guitar. Hell yes she can sing but I don't think she’s the go to for a guitar to auction off. Secondly, it’s Ausie detective agency.  Not exactly what you’d expect from a rebellious American singer.

A country fan thought the artist was just giving it away.  When a over zealous guitar player handed his guitar out to the audience to strum on, one patron thought she was given the guitar as a gift.  Apparently this was not the case as the artist immediately turned to Twitter to try and find the absconded axe.

In the “Roommates are always a pain” category we have a man who was beaten by his roommate with a guitar.  What was the offence?  He chowed down on their food. 

Keith Richards, guitarist for the legendary Rolling Stones seems to take more of a liking to his six stringed friends than his real friends.  Reportedly  Richards kept his guitars on nice couches while making people sit wherever they could find a spot while in his home in France.

Another “Who Knew” story. Sandra Bullock, star of such hits as Speed, and Love Potion number 9 played guitar at a flood relief fundraiser.  What was the tune?  Smoke on the water of course.

guitar blog round up June 26th

Welcome to the weekend.  It’s been a buys week in the guitar world and here are some of my favorite posts from the many great guitar blogs out there.

What’s that dude play has a great video of  anew Vibe pedal by WIlson Pedals. I love the swirly pedals and this one sound great .

300 guitars has a cool post about a Valco amplifier site they found. If you dig old funky amps check it out.

I Heart Guitar has some video of the big 4 playing am I evil together. If you don't know who the big 4 are, you better check this out. 

Mark Wein has a great lesson on hammer on and pull off technique.

My Fender Champ has a cool post documenting the baffle board on a vintage champ.

Guitar Blogstar has an article about micing an amp. This is always a topic worth looking at again.

Cool new site for Fender lovers

If you love cool old Fender guitars have I got a site for you.  I found this site called Joe’s Vintage Fenders.  Joe has some great looking vintage guitars.  There are plenty of photo’s of each guitar as well as some cool pics of old Fender goodies like guitar polish and hang tags from days gone by.

 

While he does have some Strats on the site the coolest stuff is the Jaguars, Musicmasters, and other offset type guitars. He seems to have the coolest colors, at least in my opinion.  He promises more to come but there is already a lot of good stuff there. Check it out.  

Joe’s Vintage Fenders

Yestergear: Charvel Spectrum

Back in the 80’s, Charvel/Jackson guitars were one of the go axes for any respectable metal band.  They were pointy, stripped down, hot rodded, and they looked freaking great.  Towards the end of the decade the company was sold and soon production instruments were manufactured overseas.  The quality and the brand went down hill in the early 90’s but in it’s final good year, Charvel produced one of the cooler guitars of the decade.

The Charvel Spectrum

The guitar was part retro while still maintaining a lot of that Charvel cool.  Offered in a variety of colors from pink, to surf green, to Desert Crackle, the guitar looked somewhat familiar yet decidedly different.

The Spectrum came standard with three hum cancelling single  coils, a Floyd Rose Licensed tremolo, a reverse headstock, and a vintage inspired half pick guard.  The coolest feature of the guitar and the source of its name no doubt, was the active mid control. This was essentially a wah built into the guitar. You could dial in that Michael Schenker cocked wah sound when activated and go nuts on Lights out in London.

I owned one of these for many years. It was basically a backup instrument but it still got a lot of use. I regrettably sold it a few years ago in some house cleaning.  I just wasn’t using and I figured it would be better suited in the hands of someone who would love it.

As of this writing I could not find any auctions on Ebay. I guess if you have one of these babies you aren’t selling.

Smashed, Bashed, and Trashed

Rock and Roll is always a bit dangerous. The energy can get out of control and cause some colatteral damage. That damage usually ends up on our instruments. Over time, some of these instruments may become almost unrecognizable as the original guitar they started out as.  I wanted to highlight these battle worn instruments.

I am calling out to the readers of rockguitarlife.com to send me a phono and the story of your smashed, bashed, or trashed guitar.  I will post the picture and the story on the site and even link to your MySpace or Face book page if you like. Just email me at the address on the Contact tab.

Today I am starting with my own personal instrument. This guitar started life as an off the shelf import Charvel model 275.  When I acquired it 20 years ago I changed out the pick ups to EMG”s and that was about it.  This was my main guitar for 5 or 6 years. It was played relentlessly.  I can’t count how many times it was dropped, thrown, and in the last fit of rage resulting in the third replacement neck, I even jumped straight up into the air landing on it with all my force.   

The fist neck was a casualty of my stupidity.  I left the guitar in my car in July.  When I got to rehearsal that night after work I noticed that the fret board started warping and separating at the first fret.  The second neck was a result of it being thrown across the room.  The third and final neck was actually a performance guitar neck that my friend had for years. I tried to get him to sell it to me for various  reasons and when I pleaded my case the last time he finally caved.

 

You would think I hated this guitar but it is quite the opposite. This is a great guitar which I love playing.  Like I said, rock and roll has collateral damage and it just happened to have landed on my guitar. The guitar has paint missing, cracks in the body,stripped out screw holes and a few war stories to tell.

Guitar Blog Roundup June 12th

Its the weekend and it’s time for a roundup of my favorite stories and posts from the guitar blog world.

Have a great weekend.

Mark Wein has a great post on fake pedal steel licks.  This is a great technique to have in your bag of tricks.

Guitarless has some info on how truss rods work. This is helpful for understanding what needs to be done to make an adjustment.

I heart guitar has a cool video about hacking a fuzz pedal. Nothing is more hackable than a good old fashioned fuzz pedal.

Guitar Collecting has some info on insuring your  guitar collection. We spend a lot of money on our gear so lets make sure we protect it.

Boutique guitar resource has a some great photos of a custom Frank Hartung guitar. This is a great looking axe.

A few How To video's for guitarists

Youtube is a wonderful thing.  You can spend hours watching videos of people doing silly things.  You can watch your favorite hair metal videos from the 80’s too.   You can also learn a few things.  The ability to watch how to videos on demand is a great tool. There are plenty of good how to videos out there on just about every subject.
Here are guitar related how to videos for you viewing entertainment.

Rock out on your cruise

Whoa buddy, when I heard about this I was thinking I might have  a good opportunity here.  Rockguitarlife.com is the URL but we all know this site called “Rock and Roll does not take a vacation!!”.  I get it, you get it, and so does Norwegian Cruise Lines. 

The cruise line will be offering Guitar, POD, and Amp rentals on their cruises.  Even while on vacation, you can rock out.  That is really what Rock and Roll does not take a vacation is all about. The "Check-In-Rock-Out" program will be available on their new ship Epic.  The POD’s will be pre programmed for various styles of music so you can dial up your sound and get to the noise making.

Man if you thought being stuck in a Hotel with a wile rock band across the hall was bad imagine being out in the middle of the ocean with the guy next door wailing away on “Stairway to Heaven” or “Smell like teen spirit”.  Actually the rental comes with headphones which you are most likely required to use so you don’t disturb the couple next door.  The rental is only $10 a day. A small price to pay to keep up your chops at sea.

Norwegian Cruise Line official site.

Guitar Blog Roundup June 5th

Welcome to the weekend.  Here are my favorite posts from the guitar blog world this week.  Have a great weekend.

Guitarnoise has a great article breaking down scales and modes.  This kind of thing is really helpful in visualizing the fretboard.

Not playing guitar has tips to help reduce distractions while practicing. 

I Heat Guitar has an article on home recording for the frugal guitarist.  Who isn’t a frugal guitarist these days right?

300 guitars has a post about Mercury Magnetics and their service for Nashville flood victims.

Effectsbay is rethinking guitar philosophy and pedal boards.  I know this is something we all go through. Check out the insights in this post.

Fretterverse has some tips to avoid guitar neglect.  Some of these are common sense but it’s always good to take a look at this stuff again.

Guitar Crime strikes again

It’s a shame to see criminals praying on unsuspecting victims.  these hoodlums have no scruples and will do anything to steal a buck. Here are the latest middle school dropouts and their criminal activities involving guitars.

This story from Saultstar.com has a man using a guitar case as a weapon.  We have seen a lot of stories about people getting hit with guitars but this is the first time I’ve seen the case used as an weapon.

From Mydesert.com in Palm Springs we have a story of a suspected gutiar thief who almost got away with it.  While he is in custody the guitars are still missing.  This story is part DB cooper, part dumb and dumber.

The Williamson Daily News has this story about two thieves who committed the worst kind of burglary.  The two men broke into a church and stole a guitar and an amplifier.  Stealing a man’s guitar is bad enough but from a church?  That’s just a whole other level of wrong.

News channel 5 in Tennessee has a story of two thieves who broke into a bar and stole a guitar as well as the safe.  I have to admit, that is a bold move but they did get caught. The guitar was returned and the safe was recovered.

Lego Guitar Gear

Since I posted last month about the Lego Kiss figures I have been thinking about music related Lego’s.  Once again the world of Lego and music collide with Lego Instruments. 

First we have a very detailed Lego amplifier.  This is an amazing creation.  It has all the bits and pieces that go inside the amp too. This creation by Dave Chatterson first appeared in the Fender site last spring.   You can check out the whole story and more pics there.

Some enterprising individual also created a Lego Guitar.   I can’t tell from the pics but it almost looks like it is meant to be a fully functional axe.  I’m not sure where this picture was first posted.  I have seen it circulated through emails and on several sites for a while now. If anyone knows who made this I’d love to give them credit.

Dweezil Zappa Playing Eruption

There are probably thousands of Youtube videos of people attempting Van Halen’s Eruption.  Some are better that others.  Some are downright horrible.  Some are pretty damn close.  This video is the most convincing version of Eruption I have ever seen.  None other the Dweezil Zappa wielding a custom EVH guitar and having his hand at the classic Van Halen solo.

Dweezil tells a story of Eddie coming to his house to meet Frank Zappa.  It’s an interesting story but if you don’t feel like waiting just fast forward to about 3:30.