Musicvox Space Cadet 12 Price: $899 (direct) Contact: musicvox.com As you may have read in Michael Wright’s profile of the Spaceranger guitar (September ’11), Musicvox started producing kooky, retro-styled solidbody guitars in the ’90s and was prominently featured in the comedy film Austin Powers. The company was on hiatus for a decade and recently returned […]
DGN custom guitars paragon standard Price: $3,000 (base) Contact: DGNcustomguitars.com. For the past few years, luthier Dan Neafsey has been making a name for himself from his small workshop in southern Connecticut, and for good reason. The instruments from DGN Custom Guitars are customized, hand-made, and of very high quality. One of his newest models is […]
In the coming years, Universal will reissue 66 of Frank Zappa’s albums, kicking off a with a 10-CD flight covering the years 1966 through ’72. Take your pick of great Zappa releases, but a top choice has to be the ’69 classic, Hot Rats. This was Frank’s first post-Mothers of Invention release and even 40 […]
Black Sabbath and Deep Purple had a de facto merger in 1983 on the Sab album, Born Again, a disc featuring Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward with Purp frontman Ian Gillan. Over the decades it’s become a cult fave, and this new charity album celebrates the pairing. To mark the event, Iommi and […]
The triple-LP Europe ’72 is a highlight in the Dead’s extensive live catalog, and 40 years later Rhino is presenting a companion set of unreleased material for those who just can’t get enough. (For the truly obsessed, however, the label also just issued a massive, 73-CD set of the entire European tour.) Included here are […]
There’s a good chance the opening licks of “Lone Wolf Blues” will knock you off your chair – or at least give you whiplash as you seek the source of such a wondrous sound. Tom Feldmann is a master acoustic blues guitarist, specializing in the country blues and gospel sounds of the 1920s through ’40s, […]
The cool thing about the vinyl revolution is that strange and wonderful albums are being reissued by the score. Take Thin Lizzy’s 1971 debut, back when they were a power trio and five years before “The Boys Are Back In Town” became an international anthem. The LP kicks off with “The Friendly Ranger At Clontarf […]
Since Moore’s untimely death in 2011, fans have been bombarded with posthumous releases – arguably too many of them. But the releases have been routinely of high quality, and this one is no exception. Blues for Jimi features Moore playing with bassist Dave Bronze and drummer Darrin Mooney at a 2007 London show with guests […]
The year 1971 marked one of those seismic shifts in rock and roll, when critical LPs by the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Yes, and others blew away ’60s psychedelia and established a new paradigm based on melody, muscle and, frequently, grand conceptual themes. Right up there was Jethro Tull, who released Aqualung that […]
ESP LTD Viper 256P Price: $399 (street) Info: espguitars.com. In the protoplasmic days of heavy metal, Tony Iommi slashed away at classics like “War Pigs” and “Iron Man” with a ’65 SG Special, creating a look, sound, and vibe that has lasted decades. Today, this earth-crunching tone is echoed in the ESP LTD Viper 256P, […]
