NEWS: Laguna ‘One Guitar, One Tree’ initiative
Here’s some cool Earth-conscious news from Laguna, the brand sold exclusively through Guitar Center and its affiliates and which offers a signature model for the very awesome Greg Howe.
Laguna Guitars Launches “One Guitar, One Tree” Reforestation Initiative
Laguna Guitars, reflecting the passionate convictions of musicians, celebrates Earth Day by launching their new “One Guitar, One Tree” reforestation initiative. This plan involves planting one tree for every Laguna guitar made. In addition, Laguna continues to deepen its other practical efforts to reduce waste, recycle and conserve the planet’s resources.
For decades, musicians have proudly been socially aware and urged others to take more action, advocacy and awareness in environmental matters. As musicians themselves, those at Laguna have always passionately supported that position, knowing that trees are an economical, long-term solution to many tough environmental problems, including air and water pollution, climate change, wildlife protection, habitat restoration and more. In partnership with AmericanForests.org and their Global Relief campaign, Laguna proudly plants a tree for each Laguna guitar made.
In addition, Laguna’s shipping cartons are designed to provide maximum protection with a minimum of material. Their boxes are made from 100% recycled cardboard that is also 100% recyclable, which they naturally encourage wherever possible. Also, in the interests of conservation, they have decided not to print glossy, heavyweight catalogs as millions from various companies end up in landfills every year. Instead, Laguna provides extensive information online at their website (www.playlaguna.com) and a catalog will soon be available as downloadable PDF’s, allowing users to print only those pages they want.
As with the design and manufacture of their guitars, Laguna welcomes an open dialogue with musicians and encourages them to share their thoughts and ideas on environmental matters including Laguna’s “One Guitar, One Tree” initiative and other earth-friendly plans. All such feedback can be directed to environment@playlaguna.com. Please visit PlayLaguna.com or AmericanForests.org for more information on the “One Guitar, One Tree” initiative and Global Relief campaign.
For more information, visit their web site at http://www.playlaguna.com.
NEWS: Random Chatter’s virtual Paul Gilbert concert
The Random Chatter Music blog has compiled videos of every song from Paul Gilbert’s European tour and assembled a virtual gig that’s as close as you’re gonna get to being there.
Loyal Paul Gilbert fans,OK, here’s probably what you have been waiting for… say you live in America, or Canada, or Greenland, or Asia, or South Africa or something, and you for some reason can’t get to one of these shows on Paul’s current tour. Don’t worry about it.
Here we go, the entire set, song by song, correct order, best/coolest videos (thus far) hand-selected by Jenn. It’s as much of an entire show as humanely possible, but compiled from different show dates throughout the tour.
* I tried to pull material from as many shows as I could, and I tried especially to bring out the positives in otherwise negative (i.e. illness) days, as I believe every show had a lot to offer and none should be skipped!
* Unfortunately, the stuff that’s mostly missing is Paul’s between-songs audience rapport, which is usually really entertaining and very endearing. I wish people would film that, really! I tried to include as much of it as possible.
* I did not film any of these. There are 33 videos in this series.The material is just stunning. It is very intense and quite interesting. This post covers a lot of ground. If you intend to sit down and watch, be aware it will run about 2.5 hours, probably closer to 3 hours, due to the numerous additions.
The tour lineup is: Paul Gilbert – guitars, vox; Craig Martini – bass, vox; Emi Gilbert – keyboards, vox and Jeff Bowders – percussion. Remaining tour dates are linked on the right —–>; if you can get to any of these shows, do it, you won’t regret it!
There’s a really cool section after the main set which features videos of various one-off events at the gigs, including a duet with Greg Howe and a rockin’ rendition of Mr Big’s “Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy” which sounds really raw and powerful with Paul’s vocals.
CLICK HERE to buy Paul Gilbert & Freddie Nelson’s new CD, ‘United States’ from CDJapan.co.jp
NEWS: ProTone Jason Becker distortion pedal
ProTone Pedals is now shipping the Jason Becker Perpetual Burn distortion pedal, which is based on Jason’s favourite Marshall JCM 800 amp, with a little inspiration from the JCM900 he used later in his career for good measure. It also features an additional clean boost channel at Jason’s request, after he said he enjoyed using a higher gain sound later in his career.
CLICK HERE to buy the pedal right now.
At the Shred Academy forum, ProTone’s Dennis Mollan says the design was originally going to include an overdrive channel and an amp emulation channel, but prototype testing sessions with Rusty Cooley led to the decision to use a clean boost channel instead, to be driven by the emulation channel: “The way the boost interacts with the circuit is extremely cool. It adds more bite and tone to the distortion, and obviously adds more volume. The distortion from the emulator really drives the boost into more distortion… this configuration really sounds great. The overdrive going into the distortion is great in the amp world, but here in the pedal realm it really sucked! Was way too noisy. So we scrapped that plan.”
The pedal features original artwork by Jason’s dad, Gary Becker, and is handbuilt in Texas.
Stay tuned for news of the Paradise Guitars USA Jason Becker limited edition guitar.
NEWS: Shrapnel on iTunes
Hi! I'm Peter Hodgson. I write for Gibson.com, Australian Guitar, Australian Musician, Mixdown Magazine (including my instructional column, 'Unleash Your Inner Rock God,' which has been running since 2007), Blunt, Beat (including their weekly hard rock/metal column Crunch) and The Brag. And I'm Assistant Social Coordinator with Seymour Duncan.
I've been playing guitar since I was 8 years old, and I've been writing for magazines since I was 18. I've also worked as a guitar teacher (up to 50 students a week), a setup tech, a newspaper editor, and I've also dabbled in radio a little bit. I live in Melbourne, Australia, and my hobbies include drinking way too much coffee, and eating way too much Mexican food.
You can check out my guitar playing at Bandcamp or on YouTube, and feel free to email me at iheartguitarblog@gmail.com