The Jerrycan Strat...

Lovingly hand-crafted from a 20-litre Land Rover jerrycan and some el cheapo guitar parts, this tin-can behemoth could be yours for £135 on eBay! Need more convincing? See it in action on YouTube. Blimey!

MYTHBUSTERS - Was Hendrix Ambidextrous?

Most of us are agreed that Jimi Hendrix was a phenomenal guitar player; many would argue that he was the greatest guitarist the world has ever seen. Even his detractors will grudgingly admit that he was ahead of his time and was pushing the boundaries of guitar playing. I think it would be fair to say that the man had talent.

However, there is one much-quoted talent that I'd like to take issue with. It's often been said that Hendrix was ambidextrous, but I have never seen any film footage or photographs to confirm this. Searching the web I find articles that claim that he could play the guitar right-handed, but preferred the play it left-handed. But where is the proof that he ever played right-handed? I have never seen any.

I wonder if something has been lost in translation over the years? We know that Hendrix could play guitars that had been strung for either a left-handed or a right-handed player. I recall an article in a guitar magazine, many years ago, which was looking at a Martin acoustic guitar that Hendrix had used and that had always been strung right-handed. Indeed, to have strung it left-handed would have placed tensions on the top of the guitar that the internal bracing was not designed to withstand. Also, in his autobiography, One Train Later, Police guitarist Andy Summers talks about how he once jammed in the studio with Hendrix playing bass. After a while Hendrix asked him if they could swap over and if he could play the guitar, so they swapped instruments. This would imply that they were each using the same guitars, so they must have been strung the same way (I'm assuming right-handed in this instance). Further to this, Hendrix was known to have occasionally played a Hagstrom 8-string bass on some of the 1967 sessions. (See pic). It's doubtful that this bass was converted for left-handed stringing - especially if Noel Redding also played it.

So, my guess is that the truth behind this myth is that Hendrix played guitars strung for both left and right-handed playing, and not that he actually ever played right-handed.

Unless you know differently...

(Please use the comments below to discuss...)

The Muse Who Made the Guitars Gently Weep: New York Times book review of Pattie Boyd's "Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me". Pattie was the "muse" behind George Harrison’s "Something", Eric Clapton’s "Layla" and "Bell Bottom Blues".

Heritage Guitar owners in negotiations to sell company: The men who started their own guitar company after Gibson Guitar Corp left Kalamazoo for pastures new in Nashville in 1984 have temporarily halted operations and are in negotiations to sell Heritage Guitar Inc.

More Flying V Madness!

This Flying V shaped banjo was built by Moon Guitars for Babydaddy from the Scissor Sisters. (Via GuitarNoize)

Bo Diddley suffers heart attack: Bo Diddley is in a stable condition in a US hospital after suffering a heart attack. The 78-year-old singer-guitarist complained of dizziness and nausea during a routine medical check-up on Friday, his publicist Susan Clary said.

For those of you who enjoyed yesterday's Nikki Sixx story, you may want to read this interview with Nikki Sixx.

The guitars of evil?

New in Guitar Lines: The Nasty, Evil Look: The Washington Post reveals how the popularity of heavy metal has encouraged Halo Guitars to build "evil-looking instruments with bodies carved to resemble rotting flesh, distended eyeballs and bone". I reckon that's a bit strong; journalistic licence, perhaps. Their designs aren't nearly as horrifying as all that. In fact, I'm quite taken with their Violon model (pictured above).

Sixx Called Church To Say The Devil Had His Guitar: Motley Crue rocker Nikki Sixx once called a church minister, whose bass guitar he had recently purchased, to let him know the Devil had bought the instrument. Sixx was a drug addict and lived a legendarily hedonistic existence at the time of the incident in the late 1980s. He recalls, "I bought this (guitar) for $1,100 in Nashville in 1989. I took the neck off and there was a phone number written down. "I called, and it was a church and I said, 'Hi, I bought the '59 P Bass.' And they said, 'Who's this?' I said, 'Well, I'd just like to let you know that the Devil bought your bass.' They hung up."

As Captain Mainwaring would say, "Stupid boy".

The Easy Way To Hard Rock: 'Distressed' Guitars: The Wall Street Journal takes a look at relic guitars phenomenon. "A lot of the guys we sell to are dentists or lawyers or whatever," says Dave Rogers, owner of Dave's Guitars in La Crosse, Wis., where Fender's Relic line accounts for more than 12% of its $5 million annual sales. "They're never going to put in the wear and tear to make it look like a real one." Each to their own. I think they must have more money than sense.