Festive Frets
Listen to VG’s "Festive Frets Holiday Play List" on Spotify!
From the two-string refrain that kicks off Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” to the rejuvenated...
Mike Campbell
Being a true rock star, Mike Campbell was never a morning guy. While living his best life amidst a pandemic, though, that all went...
Fretprints: Kim Thayil
In 1991, a movement emerged from Seattle that shook the musical world to its core. Seemingly overnight, a cadre of unlikely “grunge” bands from...
Pop ’N Hiss: Lou Reed
Eccentric and enigmatic, composer/singer Lou Reed gained notoriety in the mid-’60s while fronting the NYC band Velvet Underground. Not particularly talented musicians, the group...
Johnny Nicholas
Johnny Nicholas has been playing “roots music” since long before the term existed. A childhood friend of Duke Robillard, he has jammed with his...
Jock Bartley
If you listened to pop radio in the late ’70s, it was hard to miss Firefall, whose soft-rock hits were plastered all over AM...
Adrian Smith
Guitarists usually spend years learning their scales, but Iron Maiden’s Adrian Smith enjoys scales of the aquatic kind. In his new memoir, Monsters of...
Charles Moothart
While ’80s metal is past its heyday, the proto-metal of the late 1960s and early ’70s is making a huge comeback, thanks to younger...
Leslie West
Leslie West, guitarist/frontman in the pioneering hard-rock band Mountain, died December 22, 2020, after going into cardiac arrest. He was 75 and had suffered...
André Duchossoir
André Duchossoir, author of renowned books Gibson Electrics: The Classic Years, The Fender Telecaster: The Detailed Story of America’s Senior Solid Body Electric Guitar,...