Category Archives: Artists

Fender Kurt Cobain Jaguar Guitar

February 3, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Fender has struck again. This time at the hearts of early-90s, Nirvana loving guitarists with a penchant for hard rock…the way rock ought to be.

Carefully crafted to exacting precision, they’ve reproduced Kirk Cobain’s “battle-hardened left-handed Jaguar” including all the unusual details and the unique electronics that were on-board when Cobain first acquired the guitar in 1991.

Just some of the unique features included is the Stratocaster® Headstock, the Volume, Volume, Tone Control configuration, Adjusto-matic™ Bridge and Road worn aged finish. All this adds up to a very authentic copy of the axe used by Cobain, the left handed guitarist who “led a musically stunning and culturally subversive movement.”

newsletter28 gear kcjaguar Fender Kurt Cobain Jaguar Guitar

So why would you want a copy of something like this if you want to do more than merely emulate a bygone musical era? I think the reason is two fold. First, inspiration. We take our inspiration from people that have been successful in the past. Perhaps secretly, hoping that some of their magic will rub off on us. Inspiration is quite different to taking something old and making it new. It’s about taking the essence of something old and creating something new with it.

And second, tone. Every guitar ever made has a unique tone because of the natural qualities of wood. A tree, when cut down, continues to ‘live’ as it changes with age. And while each Kurt Cobain Jaguar will have its own unique tone, unable to be replicated by the next one, each one will have within it an aspect of the tone that Cobain made famous.

Yes, there are guitar effects that color a guitars sound, but switch them all off and what you have is something raw. Something stripped back and complete. Something…unique.

Check out the sound of this beauty with BrewersArcade video:

ab4e2097d32a3cfb2d407817c82c42dd Fender Kurt Cobain Jaguar Guitar

Posted by Dan Orr.

Posted in buying guitars, Electric Guitars, gear, Rock

ShredNeck

January 31, 2012 — Leave a Comment

If you’ve ever found yourself in a situation where having your guitar with you to practice or warm up on just wasn’t possible, the Shredneck might solve that in future instances. Touted as the ‘ultimate practice and warm up tool for guitarists’ if frees you from the need to have your ‘full sized’ guitar with you at all times.

It’s small enough to tuck into your bag and whip out on the train, bus, at the office, in front of the TV when you have a moment to spare to work on your guitar techniques. Kitted out with strap knobs it also allows you to warm up when gigging so you’re ready to rock when it’s time to go on.

newsletter27 gear shrednecksm ShredNeck

While it does have tuning pegs, they’re not intended to be used like those on a standard guitar. Instead, you use them to alter the string tension to replicate the feel of your guitar in effect allowing you to practice on your guitar without actually having your guitar with you.

This headstock also doubles as the body of the guitar so you can grip the Shredneck, keeping the neck steady while you practice your licks. As you can tell it’s not your usual guitar but with the first 7 frets of a guitar neck, you’ll have plenty to work with.

You can work on your fingering techniques, from those lightning quick lead runs, chords or just simply warming up in anticipation of playing your ‘real’ guitar. However, it’s not really set up for working on your picking technique as there is no place to pick the strings in the same way you would on a standard sized guitar.

The guys at Shredneck are passionate guitarists and as such don’t make claims as to any medical benefits of using the Shredneck – as other ‘hand exercisers do’. Instead they see it as the closest thing to playing the guitar without actually playing the guitar. With the ability to always have a guitar on hand, you can continually work on your playing techniques to increase your effectiveness when it comes time to play the real thing.

Check out this video to see Sonny Lombardozzi run through some exercises he uses on the Shredneck to stay primed.

ab4e2097d32a3cfb2d407817c82c42dd ShredNeck

Posted by Dan Orr.

Posted in gear, Guitar Tools, guitar zen, learning

Harmonic Capo

January 24, 2012 — Leave a Comment

If you’re into alternate tunings and experimenting with new and interesting sounds on your guitar, then you’ll love the Harmonic Capo created by Bob Kilgore. Unlike a regular capo that presses the strings down at the desired fret effectively changing the placement of the nut, the Harmonic Capo gently rests on the strings.

newsletter26 gear bobkilgore hc Harmonic Capo

The effect is what you would get if you lightly placed your finger over the strings at a harmonic node and struck the strings. The most common and strongest harmonic nodes are at the 5th, 7th and 12th frets (and 17th if you can reach it).

Also, unlike conventional capos that allow you to only play in-front of where the capo is placed, the harmonic capo, allows you to play both in-front and behind the capo opening up a whole range of possibilities worth exploring.

The harmonic capo works in tandem with open tunings such as open C (Low to high: CGCGBE) open G tuning (low to high: DGDGBD) or open D tuning or DADGAD. With an open chord being played with no fingers being placed on the fretboard, this enables you to explore different melodic runs while adding in colorful harmonics throughout.

Of course, if you’re new to open tunings, it’s worth taking some time to familiarize yourself with the different shapes to produce chords of one tuning, before moving onto another. It might be helpful at this point to write down all the notes of the fretboard as they have changed with the tuning to get a better picture of what your working with.

newsletter26 gear harmonicapo Harmonic Capo

With all this in mind, use of a Harmonic Capo really benefits finger style playing but that shouldn’t really stop anyone, who is interested in exploring the possibilities the Harmonic Capo offers from having a go. If you’re intrigued to hear some examples, head over to Bob Kilgore’s site and watch a few of his videos. Check out the video below, a number of excerpts from his latest CD offering.

His playing is sure to inspire you to push your playing in a new direction, even if you return having decided that it’s not the path you wanna take.

Enjoy!

ab4e2097d32a3cfb2d407817c82c42dd Harmonic Capo

Posted by Dan Orr.

Posted in acoustic guitars, art, fingerpicking, gear, Guitar Tools, music | Tagged , , , , ,

What do the pros use?

January 19, 2012 — Leave a Comment

If you’ve ever wondered how your favorite artist gets that unique sound you can wonder no more. The guys at GuitarGeek, have dedicated their time and energy to compiling a comprehensive list of the amps, effects and guitars that artists use.

Over time their images of the artist’s setups have changed so that now they are both easy to understand and very nice to look at.

newsletter24 gear pros clapton What do the pros use?

Ever wanted to know just what Clapton was using in his days with the Bluesbreakers? The year is 1966 and Clapton is playing his 1950s Les Paul’s Standard through a Marshall Combo. Wanna know what speakers and tubes were in that model? Those details are all but a few clicks away.

While it might be hard to track down this particular model with a modest price tag, the information provided gives you a decent head start on what to look for and what could be possible.

And if nothing else, this information will add to your ever growing understanding of great tone. You can be pretty sure that the information provided on the site are sound, given that most of the information comes from the artist’s or their guitar tech’s mouths.

And with this type of direct contact you’ll find the occasional gem of behind the scenes takes from the artists themselves on their gear or band members and/or techies on the artist.

A great resource for geek-ing out and putting together the dream set up, should all your stars align and you win the lottery. Take a look.

ab4e2097d32a3cfb2d407817c82c42dd What do the pros use?

Posted by Dan Orr.

Posted in amplifiers / pickups, buying guitars, Electric Guitars, gear, guitar effects / pedals, Guitar Tools, Rock | Tagged , , ,

Eddie Van Halen

January 18, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Eddie Van Halen was born in the Netherlands in 1957, his brother Alex was born two years earlier in 1955. They, along with their family emigrated to The United States in 1965. They belonged to a musical family and both were trained to become concert pianists. However growing up in California exposed the Van Halen brothers to popular music and soon they wanted to become rock stars. Initially Eddie wanted to play the drums and Alex the guitar; however Eddie’s paper route interfered with his practice and his brother quickly became better on the drums. With his older firmly ahead of him in drumming ability Eddie chose to learn the guitar.

newsletter28 inspiration vanhalen Eddie Van Halen

After high school had finished the boys played gigs in and around their home town of Pasadena, CA. It was on this circuit that they meet singer David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony who along with the brothers made up the quartet that would become Van Halen. While playing in a club in L.A., Van Halen was spotted by Gene Simmons. Simmons wanted to produce a demo for the band, but unfortunately the demo flopped and was rejected by all the major studios. However a year later at the same club Van Halen was spotted by a producer from Warner Records. He signed them on the spot and soon after in 1978 Van Halen’s self titled album was released. The band had a string of platinum records until 1985 when rifts in the band forced Roth to leave the band.

However the bands momentum couldn’t be stopped. They quickly signed new singer Sammy Hager and the juggernaut that Van Halen had become, continued.

Hager was with the band for 11 years and this period saw one of the bands albums (5150) go to number one, which was a first for the band. In the late 90′s Hager quit and Roth returned briefly for the release of the bands Best Of album. But time had not healed the wounds and Roth was quickly replaced by Gary Cherone, the former front man for the band Extreme.

It is through the band Van Halen that the musical genius of Eddie Van Halen has been exposed. His wild style electrified audiences and created a legion of guitarists keen to mimic his playing. The most commonly referenced song when people talk about Eddie Van Halen is Eruption. Eruption is well known for its distinctive introduction which includes the most well known example of double handed tapping. This technique involved Eddie using both his right and left had to fret the guitar, and using a tapping motion to make the guitar sound out.

This technique was not new, some players had experimented in the 1950′s but Eddie Van Halen redefined the technique. He added speed, accuracy, distortion and a box full of various effects to the mix creating a style that would become an essential tool of rock guitarists for years to come. Also the popularity of Van Halen’s guitar based, solo laden rock caused many other bands to copy their style. It caused a period in music where nearly all popular rock music displayed some degree of virtuoso soloing. This musical trend has been heavily influenced by Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing.

And here is a more recent live version of “Eruption” (Seattle, 2007); published by Youtube user TeamDZ:

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

moses Eddie Van Halen

Posted by Moses Robbins

Posted in guitar zen, Rock | Tagged , ,
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