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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…
Chris Dreja
Yardbird Recall
Chris Dreja had a front-row seat to rock-and-roll history, playing rhythm guitar and bass in the Yardbirds behind Eric Clapton,…
Dwight Yoakam
Brighter Days
Nearly 40 years ago, as audiences wearied of frothy ’80s country-pop, Dwight Yoakam was in the vanguard of country’s New…
Hallmark Swept-Wing
Brief Flight from South of Bakersfield
Bob Shade exemplifies the adage “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” The guitar builder has an enviable assortment of…
Pink Floyd & The Dark Side of the Moon
Martin Popoff
This book marks the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s masterwork – composer/bassist Roger Waters’ meditation on madness set over angsty,…
EHX’s Bad Stone Phase Shifter, C9 Organ Machine, and Pitch Fork Polyphonic Pitch Shifter
Pedal Heaven
When it comes to stompboxes, there are the standard go-to effects that every guitarist, whether a gigging musician or a…
The Bad Cat Era 30
Retro-Great
So often has the phrase “Mark Sampson era” been applied to pre-2000 Matchless amps or early examples of the Bad…
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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,…
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ARTISTS
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…
Monster Mike Welch
From Phenom To Blues Veteran
Twenty-seven years after his debut album at age 17, Monster Mike Welch delivers perhaps his best disc yet with Nothing…
David Bowie’s Young Americans
David Bowie was always creatively restless. The English musician decided to step away from the glam rock he’d recorded for…
Charlie Ballantine
Midwest Expressive
Befitting a guitarist from America’s heartland, Charlie Ballantine’s mixes jazz, folk-rock, surf/instro, blues, pop, and country into a simmering pot…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS
Gibson EDS-1275 and EMS-1235
It’s hard not to associate doubleneck electric guitars with images of Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page or fusion guru Mahavishnu John…
Classics: January 2022
Sam Ash’s Early PRSs
Sammy Ash first laid eyes on a PRS guitar in the early ’80s, after catching a glimpse of one in…
Penco A-15-JD
The 1970s is often called “the Copy Era” for the dominating presence and spectacular success of Japanese “copies” of popular…
Italian Smorgasbord
The Goya Rangemaster 116 SB
American guitars made in the 1950s and ’60s constitute an almost-holy canon, yet most players in that era took their…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight
Roland Cube Lite
High-Calorie Tone
Roland Cube Lite Price: $169 (street) Info: www.rolandus.com. At just under four pounds, and with a 10″ x 6″ footprint,…
Gretsch G5260 Electromatic Jet Baritone
From Surf to Cinema
In the days before seven- and eight-string guitars, the easiest way to go low was to grab a baritone guitar.…
Guild’s Starfire I DC GVT
Big Green Monster
Guild’s Newark Street guitars are a line of lower-priced instruments anchored by a reissue of the classic Starfire; the most…
DSM Humboldt ClearComp 1078 Dynamic Threshold Compressor
Smooth and Sweet
When it comes to compressor pedals, the modern standard is to pursue studio-quality results in a pedalboard-friendly box. DSM Humboldt…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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More Personal
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Rare Pioneer
Larry Collins 1944-2024
Larry Collins, a guitar prodigy mentored by renowned flatpicker Joe Maphis, and half of the ’50s brother/sister act The Collins…
Check This Action: Everybody Gone Surfing?
My favorite quote about the demise of surf music is not the oft-repeated Hendrix line in “Third Stone From The…
Chris Hillman
Time Between; My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother, and Beyond
Though he began as a California bluegrass mandolin picker, Chris Hillman cemented his place in rock history as the Byrds’…
Roy Smeck’s Gibson L-5
One For the “Wizard”
Player endorsements are part of the tradition of guitarmaking going back to its earliest use for public performance. LeRoy G.A.…
