Author Archives: Ward Meeker

Nick Lowe has confirmed a string of solo acoustic headlining tour dates starting late this summer. The tour will kick off in Philadelphia August 8 and cover the northeast. On all but two dates, fellow Yep Roc recording artist, Kim Richey will join Lowe as an opener. Richey is a two-time Grammy-nominated Nashville-based singer/songwriter who [...]

AXL USA’s Hand-Aged Bulldog has a solid mahogany slab body and one-piece set neck, a Lindy Fralin P-90, TonePros Featherweight wraparound bridge, CTS pots, Orange Drop Capacitor and TonePros Kluson vintage-style tuners, and the company’s Bite Switch, a push/pull pot that bypasses the tone pot. The guitar is assembled in California. Learn more at www.axlguitars.com.

Busker Bags covers are U.S.-made from a lightweight, breathable polyester that protects instruments from dust and other hazards when they’re not being played. They fit most stringed instruments and have a corded closure. Machine washable, they can also be used as a polish cloth. Learn more at www.buskerbags.com.

Ian Siegal has an unprecedented five nominations in the 2013 British Blues Awards, announced earlier this week. Siegal is nominated for Male Vocalist, Band, Acoustic Artist, Album, and Song. This is the first time one act has received five nominations, and it caps a year in which Siegal gained a second nomination in the American [...]

Carl Verheyen has teamed with LsL Instruments to create the CV Studio guitar. It has a lightweight alder body, 9.5”-radius rosewood fingerboard with LsL’s Lowered Apex edge, and a hand-carved C-shaped neck based on Verheyen’s personal ’61 Fender Stratocaster. It’s strung with DMS Balanced Bridge strings and uses with the company’s Carl-Verheyen-designed floating bridge setup, [...]

European Musical Imports has added the Virtuoso Phase Shifter to its Heptode line of guitar effects. A re-creation of the ’70s Maestro PS-1A Phase Shifter, its footswitches are accompanied by LED to indicate the unit’s phase speed. The effect ramps up or down when changing from one speed to another and like the original, works [...]

Jeff Hanneman, a founding member and co-guitarist in Slayer, died May 2 at a hospital in California. He was 49 and suffered liver failure. Hanneman was born in Oakland in 1964, and grew up in Long Beach. As a teen, he was influenced by punk music and later adapted the genre’s sound and aggressive style in [...]

Fender has announced that “pickup artist” Abigail Ybarra, one of its most revered employees, is retiring after more than 50 years with the company. Ybarra came to Fender in 1956 and in ’58 began winding and building pickups. Her hand-wound creations have been installed on the company most popular instruments since the late ’50s and were [...]

Electra Guitars is celebrating its comeback with the the new Omega, a single-cutaway solidbody. It boasts the iconic Electra Guitar “Wave” headstock and has a mahogany body with sculpted heel, and a belly cut. Its C-shaped neck sports has an ebony fretboard with jumbo nickel/silver frets, mother-of-pearl block inlays, and a GraphTech Tusq nut. Hardware [...]