Guitar Info

More Flying V Madness!

This Flying V shaped banjo was built by Moon Guitars for Babydaddy from the Scissor Sisters. (Via GuitarNoize)

Bo Diddley suffers heart attack: Bo Diddley is in a stable condition in a US hospital after suffering a heart attack. The 78-year-old singer-guitarist complained of dizziness and nausea during a routine medical check-up on Friday, his publicist Susan Clary said.

For those of you who enjoyed yesterday's Nikki Sixx story, you may want to read this interview with Nikki Sixx.

New in Guitar Lines: The Nasty, Evil Look: The Washington Post reveals how the popularity of heavy metal has encouraged Halo Guitars to build "evil-looking instruments with bodies carved to resemble rotting flesh, distended eyeballs and bone". I reckon that's a bit strong; journalistic licence, perhaps. Their designs aren't nearly as horrifying as all that. In fact, I'm quite taken with their Violon model (pictured above).

Sixx Called Church To Say The Devil Had His Guitar: Motley Crue rocker Nikki Sixx once called a church minister, whose bass guitar he had recently purchased, to let him know the Devil had bought the instrument. Sixx was a drug addict and lived a legendarily hedonistic existence at the time of the incident in the late 1980s. He recalls, "I bought this (guitar) for $1,100 in Nashville in 1989. I took the neck off and there was a phone number written down. "I called, and it was a church and I said, 'Hi, I bought the '59 P Bass.' And they said, 'Who's this?' I said, 'Well, I'd just like to let you know that the Devil bought your bass.' They hung up."

As Captain Mainwaring would say, "Stupid boy".

The Easy Way To Hard Rock: 'Distressed' Guitars: The Wall Street Journal takes a look at relic guitars phenomenon. "A lot of the guys we sell to are dentists or lawyers or whatever," says Dave Rogers, owner of Dave's Guitars in La Crosse, Wis., where Fender's Relic line accounts for more than 12% of its $5 million annual sales. "They're never going to put in the wear and tear to make it look like a real one." Each to their own. I think they must have more money than sense.

It's Dr Brian May! Queen guitarist Brian May has gained his doctorate in Astronomy - 36 years after starting his thesis.

Guitarists smoke the world record: Here's a story I missed from earlier this month. The world record for the greatest number of guitarists playing "Smoke on the Water" together has been broken AGAIN. Blimey, how many times is that now? (Or has it been broken again in the last week). I reckon it'll almost certainly be out of date again by the time The Guinness Book of Records publish the feat in their annual book.

Michael Anthony: 'I Wasn't Asked To Join Van Halen Reunion Tour'

Kurt Diablo's Guitar

This incredible guitar was built by Driskill Guitars for a guy called Kurt Diablo who is quadriplegic. The device you can see attached to the neck allows him to fret and pluck the strings using his mouth! All I can say is Wow!

Robert Plant's guitar up for grabs

Ex Led Zep frontman Robert Plant has donated and signed one of his guitars to be auctioned to raise funds for Harrison's Heart Foundation. Click here for more details...

Try, Try Again: A Guitarist's Second Time Around: Glenn Kurtz returns to the guitar years after quitting and documents his progress in a new book.

The top 10 guitar solos: John Perry, guitarist of The Only Ones, discusses what makes a good guitar solo and chooses his own top 10 favourites solos. Full marks for originality and not going for the obvious!

Godin Improve Guitar Tone: High-Definition Revoicer to be included in selected guitars. The system is said to be like having two sets of pickups in one Godin guitar.

As a big fan of the TV series American Chopper featuring the custom bike builders of Orange County Choppers, I was excited to hear that the Teutul family and the OCC crew have teamed up with Peavey to produce this curious offspring - the Peavey limited edition Orange County Choppers guitar - of which there will be just 100 built.

OCC in turn have built a Peavey-themed bike, featuring an on-board guitar amp, which will be the subject of two forthcoming episodes of the TV series.

Actually, this will not be the first bike with integrated musical gear that we've seen in American Chopper. I'm thinking of the "joke" moped that Mikey unveiled for Billy Joel who was expecting to see his dream motorcycle. It featured hideous piano-key graphics and had an old Casio keyboard attached to the handlebars, and a mic so he could sing along whilst riding!

This exceedingly ugly guitar, a one-off from the ESP Custom Shop (known for their, quite frankly, barking designs) belonging to Japanese actor/musician Kyomoto Masaki includes the ultimate guitarist's accessory, for cunningly concealed within the guitar's body lies a samurai sword! Just what every guitarist needs! Why he couldn't be satisfied with a couple of Allen keys, I'll never know.
(Via Guitar Noize)

Van Halen reunite with Dave Lee Roth

Ibiza rocks: There's a new sound on the Med's party island and it's all about boys with guitars: Blimey! Well, it still sounds absolutely hideous to me; one of the very last places in the world I'd want to visit.

Uke can't be serious: the 'bonsai' guitar is back: Why Patrick Wolf, Eliza Carthy, Bill Drummond and Pete Doherty, amongst others, all love the ukulele.

Gilmore's Guitar Wins Him Best Solo Honour: David Gilmore's guitar work on Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" has topped a new poll of rock solos.

Rocker scents row over guitar: Ex-Jethro Tull member Tony Williams has blasted an air freshner firm for "ruining" his £2,000 guitar. The bassist claims he left his pride and joy near an Ambi Pur plug-in in his Blackpool house but the fumes melted its paint and varnish. He says the instrument, a mid-70s Fender Stratocaster, is damaged beyond repair.

Flying V Madness!

As many of you will know, this year Gibson has been unleashing Guitar of the Week limited edition guitars upon the world, as the title suggests, one week at a time. The most far out example so far, is the above pictured Reverse Flying V. It's an idea that's so simple that I'm amazed that no-one has thought of it before, and it does make me wonder what some other guitar designs might look like in reverse formation. Yes, there's the Gibson Firebird and Reverse-bodied Firebird, although the reversal here is more-or-less a mirror image, as opposed to flipping the body over front-to-back and putting the neck at the opposite end! Similarly, some Mosrite models were based on a flipped-over Strat body shape.

Of course, also from the "putting the neck at the other end" school of design, there is Dewey Decibel's Flip Out guitar, which takes a Strat body and puts the neck at the wrong end, and which I find quite disturbing. There's an empty neck pocket in the place you'd normally expect to find it, so it's a bit of a joke guitar and doesn't work anywhere as nicely from an aesthetic point of view as Gibson's Reverse Flying V.

Meanwhile, here's some more Flying V madness... make of this what you will!

Zack Zim performs The Simpsons theme on two guitars simultaneously: I was going to see The Simpsons Movie tonight but the folks I was going with weren't able to make it. Oh well, in the meantime I have to console myself with this neat YouTube video.

Rare Left-handed Guitars Stolen in Oxfordshire: Keep an eye out for these. There can't be too many left-handed Rickenbacker 360 12 and Gibson Les Paul Black Beauties out there.