Flamin’ Groovies are best known for the ’76 power-pop gem “Shake Some Action,” but this show – recorded five years earlier at the final Fillmore West concerts – couldn’t be more different. It’s blunt three-chord rock, somewhere between the Seeds, MC5, and the Rolling Stones. The live tape’s audio fidelity is lo-fi and raw, but …

Brad Paisley’s albums have followed a formula that began on his 2001 sophomore album Part II. Generously programmed with abundant cameos, they blend love songs with catchy numbers celebrating idealized small-town and rural lifestyles as well as the digital era. His attempts to meld old and new cultures have always been sincere, though he’s drawn …

Ed. Note: In this series, Tim Brookes attacks the common argument that the guitar in 19th-century America was small, quiet, and suitable only for young middle-class ladies playing in parlors. Part one explores what was arguably the most extensive and skillful guitar culture of the day – the generally forgotten guitar in non-English-speaking communities. The remainder …

Los Lonely Boys’ new album, Revelation, draws from several influences while retaining the band’s Texas/Mexican identity. Collaborating with a group of top-tier tunesmiths, Revelation weaves pop, reggae, soul, and conjunto influences. It follows guitarist Henry Garza’s recovery from a violent fall from the concert stage. After a stretch in the hospital, he’s excited about getting …

When Chet Atkins arrived in Chicago for his first RCA recording session in August 1947, he was astounded to meet George Barnes, who’d been hired to play rhythm guitar. To Chet and others, Barnes was guitar royalty, a virtuoso the teenaged Atkins encountered the same place he’d first heard Merle Travis and Les Paul – …

As much a celebration of kinship as it is an educational forum, the biannual Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans (ASIA) Symposium, held at East Stroudsburg University, in Pennsylvania, is mini mecca for guitar builders and hobbyists ranging from novices to top professionals and manufacturers. Held in alternating years with the Guild of American Luthiers (GAL) …

Birthday congrats to Paul Gilbert, who today hits the big 5-0! Paul and his Trio are on tour in support of his album, “I Can Destroy.” They’ll play the U.K. and Europe through November 13, then return stateside for shows before going to South America in January and February. Details are forthcoming, so fans should …

Ain’t technology grand? With a device like the iRig HD, you can plug your guitar into an iPhone, iPad, or a computer and rock out with shockingly good sounds. The device itself is stone-simple to use and comes with the appropriate cables for phone, tablet, or USB connectivity. Just register the iRig online and download …

Brian Setzer wears several hats – rockabilly, swing, even hard-rocking Christmas music. But through it all, by and large he plays only one guitar – a Gretsch. And ideally, just a Model 6120 at that. With his new album, Setzer gets back to his roots, both in playing scorching rockabilly, but also in using his …

As the 1960s rolled into the ’70s, Gibson had established itself in the electric-bass market with front-line instruments such as the solidbody EB-0/EB-3 and Thunderbirds, as well as the semi-hollow EB-2 series. However, it struggled to win a share of the budget market despite offering a bass version of its popular Melody Maker and the …

Players love that single-coil sound but hate the noise and hum that generally come with them. For the most part, “noiseless” pickups, whether stacked coils, side-by-side coils, or other designs, have meant something of a compromise between tone and hum-free operation. The new Mojotone ’58 Quiet Coil Strat Pickups use traditional side-by-side coils with blade …

The members of Lionize blend heavy rock with reggae to create infectious tunes… kind of like if the guys in Deep Purple were Rastafarians wrapped in trippy sci-fi imagery. Nate Bergman is the SG-wielding architect of the group, and recently shared the strategy on the band’s latest album. You guys worked hard on Jetpack Soundtrack. …

When the Kids In The Hall, an irreverent sketch comedy troupe from Toronto, got their own TV show in ’89, they chose “Having An Average Weekend,” an instrumental by a local trio, Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet, as its theme song. This provided massive exposure on a level that other “surf revival” bands didn’t …

In an amp world full of boutique clones, Bruce Clement has developed a unique twist on the venerable ’60s British plexi circuits using octal preamp tubes, true point-to-point wiring, and a range of customizations. The result is an amp with a voice of its own – and possibly one of the best plexi-style amps ever. …

Sometimes six strings just ain’t enough. Venezuelan Berklee alum Felix Martin uses 14 and sometimes 16 strings to explore the contrapuntal galaxy of progressive melody and rhythm. Sounding like a Chapman Stick player, Martin totes a real guitar – but with a lot more strings! A left-handed guitarist, he designs his own instruments to create …

The ToneConcepts Goo distortion pedal was designed in cooperation with guitarist Nels Cline. It has controls for Volume, Shininess (tone), and Viscosity (gain), a cast-aluminum Hammond housing, and an all-analog circuit on PCBs hand-made in Toronto using through-hole components tested for tolerance. Its aesthetics are inspired by the 1958 film The Blob, with graphics representing …

If you’ve ever worked in the music retail field, you know that not everybody shares your excellent taste in guitars. There’s a whole other mutant strain out there that does not understand your love for the sleek ergonomics of a Strat, the spanky bark of a Tele, or the old-school swagger of a vintage Black …