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MusicNomad is running a fun Valentine’s Day challenge for guitar players — and it’s a good one.
Has Your Guitar Been KISSed? 💋🎸 This Valentine’s Day, MusicNomad is asking one big question: Has your guitar been KISSed? Show your guitar some love with a KEEP IT SIMPLE,…
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“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guests Robb Lawrence and Kim Shaheen
Season 03 Episode 10 In Episode 3.10 of “Buy That Guitar,” host Ram Tuli is joined by Robb Lawrence and Kim Shaheen. Robb’s experience in the vintage market spans from…
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Pieces of a Prototype
Secrets of a Socal "Parts" Guitar
If you were a guitar – particularly one with a natural or translucent finish – your “fingerprint” would be the grain of the wood used to make your body. …

Carl Martin’s Roadie Bandmate 15
Tone-Rich Traits
Denmark’s Carl Martin has built a following with its PlexiTone series of overdrives and effects pedals used by stars the…

Big Beat Boys
Musings on Fab and Gear, 50 Years Ago
Americans tend to link the beginnings of the Beatles phenomenon to a specific date – February 9, 1964, when the…

Effector 13 Improbability Drive
“Beam Me Up, Jimi” – The Effector 13 Improbability Drive – spacey, fuzzy, and funky
We understand how you might react. “Another drive pedal?” There are so many… a lot of them similar, or nearly…

The (Way) Back Beat: A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody
Fretted cheesecake advertising through the years, Part Two
Last month, we began looking at some of the more entertaining fretted instrument advertising of the 20th century, in what…

Fixing Tuner Holes in a Rare Gibson
Replacement Plague
I’ve worked on plenty of old Gibsons, but guitars like this 1939 J-55 are rare. It’s only the second one…

2025 January Issue on Spotify
This month we feature Lynyrd Skynyrd, Plasmatics, Jerry Douglas, Phil Lesh, Mark Farner, Larkin Poe, Peter Frampton, Foreigner, Ronnie Baker…
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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

Shredding and songcraft – Kire Najdovski
Talas guitarist offers taste of “1985” Kire Najdovski does a great take on “Close to the Killer,” from Talas’ new…

Cheetah Chrome
The Dead Boys Live Again
As the punk rebellion exploded in 1977, the New York scene became dominated by the Ramones, Television, Patti Smith, Richard…

Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Laying Down the Blues
Blues-rock suffered a blow in 1990 with the death of Stevie Ray Vaughan. But later in the decade, a crop…

Greg Lake
Welcome Back, My Friends Part 1 and 2
Bassist/vocalist Greg Lake, a force in the advent of progressive rock in the early 1970s with Emerson, Lake and Palmer…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS

Benson Model 300H
Wrecking Ball
Even with all the excellent guitar amps available by the late ’60s, nothing was quite good enough for jazz and…

Gibson Wall-Board Guitar
Out of the Woods, Off the Wall
In the world of “guitarcheology,” it’s well-documented that the truly interesting stuff – prototypes, one-offs, custom instruments – usually surface…

Jim Lauderdale’s honkey-tonk toe-dip
Singer/Songwriter’s Stylistic Twist Jim Lauderdale paid a visit to one of his favorite Nashville hangs and grabbed a gorgeous 1940…

Built to Survive
Gibson and Montgomery Ward in the Great Depression
In our nation’s darkest economic times, one of its most-revered guitar manufacturers was treading headlong toward extinction before an unlikely…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight

Newman Guitars Lake Placid Blue
Portrait in Blue
Excitement at the arrival of this offset beauty was dampened by the sad news that its creator had passed away…

Zerberus Nemesis Stone-Top
Let's Get Stoned
When German luthier Frank Scheucher was first approached about building a guitar from stone, he had the same reaction you’re…

Soldano SLO Plus Super Lead Overdive
Icon In Reach
If the iconic Soldano SLO-100 is perpetually on your wish list but its price tag keeps you from pulling the…
Fender Twin & Deluxe
Fender’s ’57 Twin Amp and ’57 Deluxe – Tweed for Two
Fender “tweed” guitar amplifiers – the Twin, Deluxe, Bassman, Champ, etc., from the 1950s – are the most sought after…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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More Personal
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Rare Pioneer

The Micro-Frets Saga
Genius in MD
Had fate been just a notch kinder, Ralph Jones might today be a ’60s counterculture icon alongside Bob Dylan, Muhammad…

Mark Elf
After the Storm
The latest album from guitarist Mark Elf shot to the top of the jazz charts, but the route to success…

Vintage Tones, ’07 Style
HAO Musical’s Rust Driver and Sole Pressure
For nearly 20 years, Japanese electronics distributor J.E.S. International has been providing gearheads in its country with guitars, amps, and…

Eugene Edwards
Outlaw Twang, Rockabilly Swagger
Country music icon Dwight Yoakam employs one of the hardest-working bands on the road today. A quintet including Yoakam, they’re…











































