Saturday 30 July 2005
Friday 29 July 2005
Harmony Central's Summer NAMM 2005 Coverage: press releases are being added daily at the moment. There's a whole bunch of guitar product news, but nothing that sets the world alight, to be honest.
Guitars Once Owned by Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, and Others to Be Auctioned: click here for further info and photos! (I'm just amazed that they keep finding these old Hendrix guitars. There can't be any more left, surely?)
While my guitar gently creaks: the middle-aged are dusting off their guitars and playing again, says this article from the Telegraph.
Saturday 23 July 2005
Friday 22 July 2005
New Brian Setzer Black Phoenix Model from Gretsch: that's one cool looking guitar and I bet it sounds amazing too, but wow, it costs a pretty penny!
I found this story over on Music thing: Man builds two-string bass inspired by aliens. I must admit, it puts me in mind of Strawberry Alarm Clock's Mosrite guitars.
Wednesday 20 July 2005
Monday 18 July 2005
Meet the New Kids on the Block! Fender introduces the Big Block series of guitars in the UK and Europe. Lots of black and chrome and block fingerboard inlays!
Music event claims world record: A music festival in Surrey is claiming to have set a new world record for the biggest ever "air guitar ensemble". How cringingly embarrassing.
Friday 15 July 2005
Tanglewood Guitars to Debut Premiere Series at Summer NAMM: Tanglewood announce a new line of mid-priced acoustic guitars and basses all featuring solid tops and Grover machine heads.
Thursday 14 July 2005
Pink Floyd guitarist writes opera: Roger Waters has completed his first opera after 16 years in the making. (I know he was the bassist, I'm just repeating the BBC headline).
Monday 11 July 2005
Stones guitarist Richards joining Depp on Pirates set: Johnny Depp has persuaded Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards to play a cameo role in the sequels to "Pirates of the Caribbean".
Crazy J
Plenty of other blogs have recently been featuring Crazy J, guitar-playing robotic creation of the Georgia Institute of Technology. I feel it's time to remind you all of some previous guitar-robots that I've listed on this blog, namely GuitarBot (watch the videos of that thing in action - it's quite impressive) and the similarly-named but altogether more scary GTRBOT of Captured by Robots.
Show must go on for Ravi Shankardespite two of his treasured sitars being broken during a flight from Lebanon.
Saturday 9 July 2005
The return of Frankie 2
I was never happy with this project as it was. The left-handed neck wasn't really working for me and the roller nut I'd installed made the action too high at the head end of the neck. Tonight, I replaced the neck for a more ordinary Stratocaster neck - a Squier Strat neck with 22-fret rosewood fingerbaord. I also removed the tremolo bridge, the springs, etc, and have installed one of these fab Hot Rod hardtail bridges from Custom Shop Parts. It now plays beautifully!As for the parts that I removed, I may keep them for a future project or else I might have a clear out and sell them on eBay.
(Click on the photo to enlarge it).
Friday 8 July 2005
Thursday 7 July 2005
Wednesday 6 July 2005
Alex Gregory's prototype Fender Stratocaster 7-string is on eBay: unlike modern 7-stringers this originally featured an extra high string rather than a low B.
Tuesday 5 July 2005
Pulp Fiction intro with a mixer and a guitar: two non-guitarists figure out how to play the Pulp Fiction theme (Dick Dale's "Miserlou") with a guitar and a food mixer!
Those Live 8 "Africa" guitars: I've yet to see a close-up picture of one. The only glimpse I got from Saturday's Live 8 concert in London was when Joss Stone's guitarist used one for one song. Have you signed the petition, by the way?
Monday 4 July 2005
Bidding has ended for this item: So, none of you fancied shelling out three quarter of a million dollars for an ex-Hendrix 1965 Strat?
Alvin Stardust's £600,000 guitar! Over the years it's been signed by The Beatles, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly amongst others.