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Super PickupGiveaway 2025
Win Big! 11 Sets! 11 Winners! Win a set of pickups from one of these sponsors: Deadline is March 15, 2026. Complete the survey below to enter giveaway. One entry…

Aerosmith
1971: The Road Starts Hear
This long-lost relic was recorded before the band’s 1973 debut LP, with guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford (aged 21…

Mojo Hand Swim Team Chorus Flanger
Double Duty
Michigan-based Mojo Hand Effects has been building a variety of hand-assembled pedals since 2010. Their latest, the Swim Team, pulls…

Awesome Musical Instruments T3 Pickup Switch Upgrade
Wicked Switch
Awesome Musical Instruments T3 Pickup Switch Upgrade Price: $149.99 (black or white three-ply); $164.99 (white pearloid); $169.99 (brown tortoiseshell) Info:…

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo – Live!
Roger McGuinn & Chris Hillman with Marty Stuart
A premier folk-rock band morphing into psychedelia in the mid ’60s, the Byrds pioneered country-rock with 1968’s Sweetheart of the…

Eddie Cochran’s Gretsch 6120
Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got that Twang
One night in the late 1950s, Eddie Cochran set the world alight onstage in the City of Angels. Though the…

Kristian Borring
Time Zone
Kristian Borring is a jazz guitarist who lives in Perth, Australia, but sends his fearless playing echoing around the planet…
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Rickenbacker’s Electric 12-Strings
Double-bound for Glory
George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher founded Electro String in 1931 to manufacture what everyone would soon call “Rickenbacker” guitars. Success came early and their lap steels set standards of quality,…
ARTISTS

Geddy Lee
Bass Conservator
In its 40-plus years, Rush evolved on its own terms. Mixing rock and jazz influences, the band’s 19 studio albums…

Have Guitar Will Travel 073 – Crimson Apple’s Shelby Benson and OTTTO
Episode 73 of “Have Guitar Will Travel” is a two-fer starting with guitarist Shelby Benson from the dark-pop band Crimson…

Austin Guitarst Eric Hisaw on “Someone Else.”
Rockabilly Meets Punk! Straight outta Austin, Eric Hisaw and his early-’80s import Fender Tele play a cool living-room rendition…

VG Q&A: A Gilded ’63 Jazz Bass
Plus, Swappable Pickups, Bartell Guitars, and a Mystery Lap Steel
I am the third owner of a 1963 Jazz Bass with a neck stamp “7Jan63A,” pots dated that May, and…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS
Peavey RJ-IV
Peavey RJ-IV bass, serial number 04938996. Photo: Bill Ingalls Jr. Instrument courtesy of Naffaz Skota. Americans by the millions “know”…

Pandemic Peak?
The Guitar Market’s “Covid Surge”
In the September ’20 issue, VG surveyed guitar dealers to learn how they’d been impacted by the early weeks of…

Guardians of Grandeur
The Men Who Tend to the Guitars of the Hard Rock Cafe
“A lot of people think I go in [to a sale] with an open checkbook, but that’s not the case;…

Stromberg G-5
In the world of archtop guitars, the Stromberg name represents the ultimate instrument – in size, at least – in…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight

Amptweaker’s FatMetal Distortion
Metal To the Pedal
With all of the subgenres of heavy metal out there, it was only a matter of time before the pedal…

Tsakalis Experience, Emma ON-1 Okto-Nøjs, and Mad Professor Twimble
World Sounds
It seems that every other stompbox on the market has dual-footswitch functionality, packing two entirely different circuits into one housing.…

Seymour Duncan ’78 Model
Upscale Touch
In the late ’70s, rock guitarists fell down the rabbit hole trying to achieve more sustain, harmonics, and extra crunch…

J. Rockett Audio Archer, The Dude, and El Hombre
Overdrive Ecstasy
Part of the success behind J. Rockett Audio Designs lies in the fact that, like any player who might tackle…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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More Personal
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Rare Pioneer

Joe Gore Pedals Cult Germanium Overdrive and Filth Fuzz
Dirt Simple
Composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Joe Gore’s career path has been multilayered and includes “guitar effects builder.” Two of his pedals…

Robert Cray
Four Nights Of 40 Years
Five-time Grammy winner Robert Cray has always played serious blues. But, early on, he sidestepped a genre that would descend…

Joe Bonamassa
Royal Tea
It’s no secret that Joe Bonamassa has a Jones for British blues-rock. Royal Tea is Exhibit A, as it was…
Movie Star, Rancher
Mid-’50s Muse of Wire and Wood
In the years immediately after World War II, Americans were settling into a new way of life, and plunging headlong…










































