-
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…

Check This Action: Discovering Son House, Again
In 1964, blues enthusiasts Nick Perls and Phil Spiro, along with freelance photographer/writer Dick Waterman, made a pilgrimage to track…

Golden State-Lone Star Blues Revue
Welcome to a cross-country meeting of blues minds. The first release from this group of veteran California and Texas bluesmen…
Paul Gilbert
Mr. Big Takes it Down a Notch
Paul Gilbert and the crew that makes up Mr. Big – bassist Billy Sheehan, drummer Pat Torpey, and vocalist Eric…

Phil Brown
A different kind of Jimi
Records featuring the music of Jimi Hendrix are pretty far from a new thing. Since Jimi’s death, various forms of…

The Rascals’ Gene Cornish
Wild Legacy
Gene Cornish is fond of the time he spent in the ’60s pop band The Rascals, which he credits for…

Peavey’s Razer, Mystic, and Foundation
Contrasting Chronologies
Just a handful of years after Peavey turned the world of electric guitar upside-down with its T-60 guitar and T-40…
-
Rickenbacker’s Electric 12-Strings
Double-bound for Glory
George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher founded Electro String in 1931 to manufacture what everyone would soon call “Rickenbacker” guitars. Success came early and their lap steels set standards of quality,…
ARTISTS
Wishbone Ash
Powell, Manninen, and <em>Elegant Stealth</em>
Fans of Wishbone Ash will consider the group’s newest release, Elegant Stealth, the type of innovative guitar music they’ve grown…

Freddie Krc gets “Dandy” on a ’64 SJ
FTop-Flight Tune by Texas Stalwart You can’t blame Freddie Krc for loving his ’64 Southern Jumbo, which he’s using here…

Martin Turner
Low-End Unorthodoxy
When he transitioned from playing guitar, former Wishbone Ash bassist Martin Turner kept a pick in his right hand and…

Jay Jay French
Twisted Tales
There are music-business survivors, and then there’s Jay Jay French. Twisted Sister’s founder/co-lead guitarist/manager has led a life of wild…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS

Star Board: Joe Moss
Joe Moss is the archetypical blues “road dog,” regularly rolling out of his home base of Chicago to wail for…

Veillette-Citron Shark
It’s not often a guitar can be said to have been inspired by a TV show, but that is the…

The Roland Space Echo
Perfect Slap-Back
When Brian Setzer kickstarted the Stray Cats into action in 1979, his gear lineup was a hodgepodge of orthodox rockabilly…

Watkins Rapier 33
If you were an American teenager in the late 1950s or early ’60s, and you wanted to play the new…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
-
Live Wire
-
Narrow(field) Win
-
Take Flight

The Peavey HP2
Best Of Both Worlds
Introduced in 1996, the EVH Wolfgang was an evolution of Eddie Van Halen’s previous models from Music Man, Kramer, and…

Tone Pump Solara Studio
Clean ’N Dirty
Tone Pump Solara Studio Price: $1,099 (list) Contact: www.tonepumpamplifiers.com The story is a familiar one. A guy learns to repair…

PRS SE Silver Sky
Aiming Higher
In a world filled with Strat-type guitars, it takes a lot to set one apart, let alone stand above. The…

Friedman Motor City Drive & Fuzz Fiend
Sonic Rapture
An innovative designer, builder, and repairman, Dave Friedman has worked with some of the biggest names in the music industry,…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
-
More Personal
-
Rare Pioneer

Beat Portraits: Burns Volume 1
Beginnings – The Early 1960s
In early 2009, VG columnist Peter Stuart Kohman turned his focus on Burns, the pioneering British guitar builder. We’ve compiled…

Premiere of Seth Lee Jones’ new 110 video!
Filmed at one of our favorite local dive bars, Tin Dog, this is “110.” I played my main guitar, a…
Neil Young
In more ways than one, Journey Through The Past – the title of Neil Young’s 1972 directorial film debut –…

Scott T. Jones’ battle, axes
Rippin’ Midwestern Jazz-Rock St. Louis’ own jazz-fusion mainstay Scott T. Jones runs through a few tunes – on a few…












































