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2025 December Issue on Spotify
This month, we feature Rick Derringer, Kid Ramos, Booker T and The M.G.’s, Steve Stevens, Phil Manzanera, Doug Aldrich, Kenny Burrell, Eric Johanson, Gary Moore, and more! Spotify is free…
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Super PickupGiveaway 2025
Win Big! 11 Sets! 11 Winners! Win a set of pickups from one of these sponsors: Deadline is March 15, 2026. Complete the survey below to enter giveaway. One entry…

Marah
The Kids Are Back in Philly
The south-Philly band Marah, led by brothers Dave and Serge Bielanko, has always danced to the backbeat of its own…

Kenny Wayne Shepherd
More Trouble
In 1997, the rock music being embraced by radio and MTV was primarily pop punk (Green Day), rap metal (Limp…

Ecco-Fonic
John Adomono was an American guitar hero of the Cold War years. JFK named him his favorite guitarist, and Adomono…

In Memoriam: Leslie West
1944-2020
Leslie West, guitarist/frontman in the pioneering hard-rock band Mountain, died December 22, 2020, after going into cardiac arrest. He was…

Miko Marks and the Resurrectorsd
Feel Like Going Home
Miko Marks can sing the hell out of country, blues, and soul. And with guitarist/songwriter/producer Steve Wyreman again at her…

Kenny Lovelace
The Killer’s Axe Man
Playing behind the Killer, you wouldn’t want to hit a wrong note. Kenny Lovelace has picked his guitar with Jerry…
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Paul Johnson
The Hepcats Live at the Ajax Novelty Company
This isn’t live, there may not be an Ajax Novelty Company, and the three felines known as the Hepcats are actually the brainchild of Paul Johnson, whose Belairs were early-’60s…
ARTISTS

“Telecaster Bob” Bain
Studio Immortal
For seven decades, he flexed his chops on more sessions than any living guitarist, laying down famous licks on Mancini’s…

Ellen Harper
Music is the Family Business
“Ben likes to joke that this album had a lifetime of pre-production,” Ellen Harper says of Childhood Home, her collaboration…

Carl Bradychok
Rockabilly’s Newest Guitar Wizard
Carl Bradychok’s instrument and genre of choice seemed destined from day one. “There are pictures my parents took of me…

Dan Hawkins
Toast of the Town
When The Darkness roared out of England with its 2003 debut Permission to Land and the hit “I Believe in…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS

Fender’s 5E7 Bandmaster
There’s something about the 3×10 Bandmaster that drives vintage-Fender nuts gaga. Introduced in 1953, it underwent substantial design changes in…

Martin D-28 and D-45
Definitive Flat-tops
Martin’s pre-WWII dreadnought guitars set the standard for the modern flat-top, and thus both have been inducted into the VG…

Star Board: Bruce Kulick
Bruce Kulick played lead guitar in Kiss for more than a decade, and today stays busy as a solo performer…

Gibson Tal Farlow
The Tal Farlow is one guitar in a quartet of full-depth Gibson Artists models first cataloged in the early 1960s. Introduced…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Lively Drives
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Posh Squash
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Chet Powered!

Supro’s Thunderbolt S6420+
35 Watts on a Gold Platter
Supro’s Thunderbolt S6420+ Price: $1,599 (list) Contact: www.suprousa.com Upon introduction in 1964, the Valco-made Supro Thunderbolt Model S6420 was a…

Guitar Tone Company’s Bloody Finger
Rugged Facelift
While honing his ears at Greene Street Recording Studio in New York, David Harrington was inspired to build studio-quality stompboxes.…

MXR Dyna Comp Mini
A Classic, Compressed
In the ’70s, the original MXR Dyna Comp found its way onto a plethora of now-classic vinyl sides and was…

EarthQuaker Devices Zoar
Fuzz Fury
An all-analog, transistor-based fuzzbox, EarthQuaker’s new Zoar is billed as a “Dynamic Audio Grinder Distortion Pedal.” In plain English, it…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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Plus, a Pro’s List of Repair Glues
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Rising Tides
Vintage V52 Icon
Cost-Effective Twang
Vintage V52 Icon Price: $459 Info: www.jhs.co.uk The U.K.-based distributor John Hornby Skewes offers guitars under the brand Vintage that…

Weller Guitars’ Stageliner
Jetson Moderne
More and more, guitar designers are digging deep, thinking out of the box, and using their imaginations to conjure hip,…

Carl Verheyen’s Passionate, Ebullient virtuosity!
It’s about the song! Enjoy as Carl Verheyen and his ’58 Fender Strat glide through pieces of “Dragonfly,” “Electric Chair,”…

The Leo Krebs Tape Echo Amplifier
Twenty-Three and Thee
If you have no recollection of the revolutionary amplifier with 19 knobs, 23 tubes, and built-in tape echo created by…














































