Month: April 2013

Get Yer EVH Striped Series!

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PG-Daily_EVH-striped-photo_03I was just cruising through some of the online retailers looking for a good price on an Ibanez Iron Label 8-string (hey, when is enough strings ever really enough? No! Nine for me please!) when I noticed that the EVH Striped guitars – which were officially announced at Winter NAMM in January – are now showing up online. Want one? So do I! Here are some shopping links for you to make your stripey dreams a reality. And of course, if these retailers don’t ship to your particular country, hit up your local retailer and support your local musical instrument industry. I can’t wait to see these guitars showing up in the wild. If you get one, post a pic on the I Heart Guitar Facebook page!

EVH Striped Series – White With Black Stripes
EVH Striped Series – Red With Black Stripes
EVH Striped Series – Black and Yellow

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REVIEW: Queensryche – Frequency Unknown

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Queensryche_with_Geoff_Tate_-_Frequency_UnknownFrequency Unknown is a missed opportunity.

It’s a missed opportunity because despite all the controversy over joining and departing band members, shoddy mixes, official contests to post the most extreme hate video and of course that provocative album cover, there a few songs on here that are so good that they transcend all that stuff, if you let them do so, and they would have been utterly killer if performed by the Queensryche line-up that existed a year and a half ago. These songs – Life Without You, In The Hands Of God and to a slightly lesser degree Cold – show Geoff Tate making the most of his talents (which include dramatic vocal delivery and a confessional lyrical style) while staying relatively faithful to the established Queensryche style, at least as it existed on later recordings. (It’s interesting to note that Cold and In The Hands Of God were co-written with Lukas Rossi from Rockstar: Supernova).  Read More …

Cool Video Alert: Stone Sour – Children Of The Grave

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House-of-Gold-Bones-Pt.-2Stone Sour have done it: they’ve covered the most perfect Black Sabbath song for them to possibly cover, Children Of The Grave from 1971’s Master of Reality. Check it out in the YouTube video below. There’s a soft spot in my twisted black heart for a good Black Sabbath cover, and I wrote an article about it for Gibson.com a while ago which you can see here. Particularly noteworthy is Type O Negative’s take on the song Black Sabbath, which they play even slower than the doomingly plodding original. Nobody but Type O could get away with a stunt like that. By the way, you can read my interview with Corey Taylor and Josh Rand here. We talked about Stone Sour’s House of Gold and Bones project and of course plenty of nerdy guitar stuff.  Read More …

Guitar Great Hangout: May 7

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mikeuniverse2005_1Join guitar virtuosos Carl Verheyen, Gretchen Menn, Neil Zaza, Jon Finn,Rob Balducci, Mike Martin and Chris Green will talk all things guitar on a Live From Music City Google+ hangout at this page May 7, 2013 from 7pm-8:30pm CST. They’ll cover everything from songwriting, marketing and touring to developing a fan base. And probably some stuff about being a guitarist too! But this seems like a great opportunity to tap into the collective knowledge of a bunch of talented folks who do this stuff for a living, and have much to share about the non-musical aspects of being a serious musician.

Tweet @LFMCRadio to ask your questions and listen to some of music’s most prolific instrumentalists tell you how to beat the challenges of the music industry. Seems like it’s going to be a lot of fun! I’ll be checking it out. You should too!

 

My Jam With Joe Satriani

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Peter and JoeWe’re in the past. I’m about 15 years old. I’m sitting on my bed trying to nail that incredible solo from Joe Satriani’s Crushing Day. I’m getting pissed off. This is hard. Try it again. Argh! Hit a clanger about a quarter of the way in. Start again. Frig. Only got two bars in that time and hit a bad harmonic. Argh. Aaaarrgh! Argh.

My dad walks in.

“What the hell is going on?”

“I’m trying to learn this Joe Satriani solo but it’s impossible!”

“Impossible?”

“Yeah.” Read More …

COOL VIDEO ALERT: The Winery Dogs – “Elevate”

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twd_album_cover

Check out the video below for Elevate, the first single by The Winery Dogs. That’s the new band featuring Richie Kotzen, Mike Portnoy and Billy Sheehan. The lads are planning a few shows in Japan in July, with more dates to be announced shortly. Here’s hoping they make it down here to Australia to make up for the cancelled Extreme/Richie Kotzen tour which was to have taken place right now.

Their self-titled debut album is out on May 15 in Japan via Victor Entertainment, which means an international release can’t be far off. Read More …

Hoshino USA Welcomes New President

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shogo1-bw-1150Hoshino USA Inc has named Shogo Hayashi its new president, effective April 15. He succeeds Bill Reim, who will now serve Hoshino USA as its CEO (hopefully while maintaining that cool Billy Idol-meets-Johnny-Rotten hairstyle).

Hayashi began his career as with Hoshino Japan as a sales rep for the Tokyo metro area Sales Representative in the Tokyo metro area, but he was quickly promoted to Assistant Manager of Product Planning, working with the company’s Ibanez and Tama brands, as well as handling Japanese artist relations. He shifted to the USA in 2002 as Electric Guitar and Bass Guitar Product Manager of Hoshino USA, and by 2008 was Vice President.  Read More …

REVIEW: Music Man Axis

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lOnce upon a time, Ernie Ball Music Man had a certain high-profile endorser, one of those epoch-defining chaps who changed the way we approach the instrument. He designed a signature model with the company and it was very popular – as current used prices for said instruments will demonstrate – but eventually he moved in a different direction. Production was stopped on his signature guitar but most of the model’s features survived in the form of the Axis. Now almost 20 years later it’s still a great seller for Music Man, and an iconic guitar in its own right. And we described all that without once mentioning Eddie Van Halen.
Musicians Friend – Everything for Guitarists, at the Best Prices in Town!

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