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MusicNomad is running a fun Valentine’s Day challenge for guitar players — and it’s a good one.
Has Your Guitar Been KISSed? 💋🎸 This Valentine’s Day, MusicNomad is asking one big question: Has your guitar been KISSed? Show your guitar some love with a KEEP IT SIMPLE,…
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“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guests Robb Lawrence and Kim Shaheen
Season 03 Episode 10 In Episode 3.10 of “Buy That Guitar,” host Ram Tuli is joined by Robb Lawrence and Kim Shaheen. Robb’s experience in the vintage market spans from…
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Pieces of a Prototype
Secrets of a Socal "Parts" Guitar
If you were a guitar – particularly one with a natural or translucent finish – your “fingerprint” would be the grain of the wood used to make your body. …
2025 June Issue on Spotify
This month, we feature The Meters’ George Porter, Tommy Emmanuel, Jedd Hughes, Dudley Taft, Lari Basilio, Ally Venable, The Police,…
Martin GPCE Inception Maple
Bold Beginning
Almost 100 years ago, Martin reinvented the flat-top box when it began delivering X-braced, square-shouldered, and oversized dreadnoughts. Now, the…
NGM Visits Texas
Nearing Permanent Home, Museum Honors Raitt
“It was born at the junction of form and function,” country guitar ace Bill Kirchen sings in “Hammer Of The…
Hannu Könönen: Surf Stirred with Rautalanka
From Finland’s Icy Fjords Hannu Könönen used his home-assembled guitar to play “Lets’s Surf to the Dawn,” a track from…
Stéphane Wrembel
Djamming!
There’s plenty of Gypsy jazz guitarists who can play more notes at faster tempos than Django Reinhardt, but few can…
Vox Symphonic Bass
Fender Bender
Despite the way collectors and dealers freely apply the term “lawsuit guitars,” documented examples are few. One time it did…
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VG Q&A: Harmony History
And an Archtop Mystery
I recently received two guitars as gifts and am trying to learn more about them. The first is a Harmony I believe is from the early ’70s. Its serial number…
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ARTISTS
Lance Lopez
Hard-Time Music
Lance Lopez is back and better than ever. Trouble Is Good is wild, hellacious, and packed with three essential influences…
Martin Turner
Low-End Unorthodoxy
When he transitioned from playing guitar, former Wishbone Ash bassist Martin Turner kept a pick in his right hand and…
Pop ’N Hiss: Marshall Crenshaw’s Field Day
Jangle All the Way
Marshall Crenshaw’s brief chart run remains a bright spot of 1980s rock – effectively, the final blast of New Wave…
Pop ’N Hiss: Brian Setzer’s The Knife Feels Like Justice
Cat Out of the Bag
Changing genres after achieving great success can be a risky career move for a musician. But after making it big…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS
Gibson Super 400
Much of America was still recovering from the Depression in 1934 when Gibson introduced a guitar at a price that…
Peavey Forum Basses
Durable, Dependable
In his 2003 book, American Basses, author Jim Roberts noted that for all of Peavey’s innovative offerings in the 1990s,…
VG Q&A: Parlor Mystery
Plus, a Pro’s List of Repair Glues
My neighbor has an old parlor guitar that he asked me to clean up after years in storage. Inside the…
Star Board: Carl Verheyen
In each issue of “Signal Chain,” we’ll take a guided tour of pro players’ pedalboards. We’re calling the feature “Star…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight
Fryette Power Station PS-10
Get It On
There’s nothing like cranking up a tube amp and getting all the punch, feel, dynamics, and juicy goodness of warm…
AXL USA Hand-Aged Bulldog
Bark and Bite
AXL USA Hand-Aged Bulldog Price: $699.99 (street) Contact: www.axlguitars.com Unabashedly inspired by the classic Les Paul Junior, AXL Guitars’ limited-edition…
ToneTron Billy-Rocker 10
Small Is Beautiful
Small amps are big. As venues become increasingly intimate and amplifiers are miked through sound systems rather than muscling-up to…
Kramer 84 and Pacer Vintage
Tap, Shred, Dive!
Kramer 84/Pacer Vintage Price: $1,166 (84); $1,267 (Pacer Vintage) Info: kramerguitars.com It’s hard to think of ’80s guitars as vintage,…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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Five Alternative Club Classic Amps of the ’50s
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Remembering a Heavy Hero
Kay Jazz Special and Value Leader
Kay entered the electric bass market in the mid 1950s with the K162, which later morphed into the similar K5965…
Sun Rises Again
January, 1950: 27-year-old Sam Phillips opens Memphis Recording Service, soon to become famous as Sun Studio and launching rock and…
Review: “Gimme All Your Lovin’: The Blues, Boogie, and Beard of ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons”
In his prologue, author Christopher McKittrick acknowledges the difficulty of condensing Gibbons’ six-decade career into one book, partially due to…
The Story of Nudie’s Mosrite Mandolin
In the mid 1970s, Kosmo and Kathy Cominos collected knives, jukeboxes, wristwatches, etc… But their favorite finds were celebrity-associated musical…
