Lucky me: I just started rehearsing for a duo project with one of my guitar heroes, the brilliant Mark Goldenberg. Here’s a run-through of “Eleanor Rigby,” one of the tunes we’re working on. It’s pretty rough still, and the recording quality ain’t great. But I love Mark’s playing so much here that I couldn’t resist […]
My Filth Fuzz pedal is finally in production and will be shipping within a few weeks. It’s one of three new pedals I’ll be showing at this week’s NAMM show in Anaheim, California. I just finished the demo video, and I’m stoked about how it’s sounding. I’ll also be debuting three other new pedals: […] My morning, like everyone’s, started with a devastating gut-punch: “David Bowie died.” I can’t say I knew Bowie, but I was lucky enough to spend a few hours with him back in the ’90s. And he was every bit as cool as his music. I’d done a Guitar Player interview with Reeves Gabrels after the […] Happy 2016! I hope everyone’s holidays were epic, and that you got lots of good stuff. There’s no better way to ring in the new year than to highlight the … um … peculiar culture that somehow got attached to our instrument. You can’t make this shit up. Hard to believe, but […] Oh, no, the mistletoe! On a rainy December afternoon I prepared a little antidote to holiday music poisoning: a mashup of two of the most summery songs ever. It’s Bob Marley’s “Stir It Up” vs. “Crimson and Clover” by Tommy James and the Shondells.
Ace sideman and gear demo producer Pete Thorn stopped by and made my pedals sound really good — though a killer Magnatone helped. I spent the weekend hyping my stompboxes at the long-running LA Amp Show. It was my first visit, and it was a blast in every regard. It’s a surreal scene. […] 
Man, pontificating ain’t easy! KMI, who make the SoftStep controller I use almost every day, solicited a “Albums That Meant a Lot to You” list for their website, and I replied with “Ten Albums That Made My Head Explode,” which just went live on their site. And that made me want to hear your lists. […] 
No, I don’t mean like, “What’s better: B-flat or F-sharp?” Rather, is there a single note from a great recording or performance that haunts your dreams? Here’s what go me on the topic: One of my Premier Guitar colleagues, Gary Ciocci, recently turned me on to El Twanguero (aka Diego Garcia), a brilliant Spanish-born, Argentina-based […] 
I’ve long been obsessed with Sam “The Man” Taylor’s epic sax solo on the Chords seminal 1954 rock ’n’ roll hit, “Sh-Boom.” But I never got around to learning, transcribing, and analyzing it till now. I heard it about 100 times while making and editing this video, and it still thrills me on every […] James Horner, one of the most successful film composers in Hollywood history, died yesterday after crashing his single-engine plane near Santa Barbara, California. He was 61. It’s hard to pinpoint the highlight of Horner’s career — he scored such mega-hits as Titanic, A Beautiful Mind, Avatar, Braveheart, and many other films. But I can […] |
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