Dear Readers, I’ve had a lot of fun over the last 10 months posting here at Guitarbalooga, but as I approach a 1-year anniversary, I’ve decided to suspend posts for a couple of months, if not indefinitely. The reason is simple really: I’ve got other fish to fry and not enough time to fry them. So, [...]

Boy, you sure don’t hear enough about this sort of thing. Paul Rubenstein is an NYC-based elementary school teacher who teaches music to his students in a clever way. They make guitars together. Previous classes have constructed more-or-less standard guitars. No doubt loads of fun for kids. This year, however, he did something just a [...]

I stumbled across this interesting guitar today. It’s controlled by frickin’ lasers. Here’s a demo of the basic functionality: Pretty cool. I’d love to hear a real solo on that sucker. From the creator, jeff-o: The Prism is, quite simply, the best laser guitar on the Internet. At least I think so. I hope that [...]

I’m just a passing fan of Dave Matthews and the Dave Matthews Band, but I enjoyed Steve Heisler’s blog entry defending the man and his band: But the source of my shame is that DMB is reviled among music aficionados, and their reasons are numerous: Frat parties and cornhole-fueled cookouts pump “Ants Marching” and “Satellite” [...]

Cary, North Carolina artist Peter Geiger makes interesting guitar sculptures from car license plates. Peter was inspired to create his unique brand of art one day during a jam session when he thought his old license plates hanging on a wall might make for interesting guitar art. He’s now taking custom orders, so if you’ve [...]

Looks like Ozzy is replacing guitarist Zakk Wylde. This from FMQB: Ozzy Osbourne has been working on his tenth studio album for quite some time, but now it looks like he is looking for a new guitarist to fill the shoes of Zakk Wylde. Apparently the Ozzman just wants to get some new, unique sounds [...]

Wired.com has an interesting post on the patents behind the modern electric guitar pickup: 1937: Guy Hart, general manager of the Gibson guitar company, is awarded the first patent for an electric guitar pickup. The instrument that defines popular music in the second half of the 20th century is born. Gibson’s electric guitar wasn’t not [...]

Update: July 12, 2009 According to the Toronto Star, United Airlines has agreed to donate $3000 to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. Dave Carroll had insisted that any compensation he receive from United be donated to charity. Dave Carroll did a nice thing to drag United kicking and screaming back to the planet of [...]

Did you know that the first Sony Walkman debuted in Japan on July 1, 1979? The Sony Walkman is one of the few inventions that truly changed the way we listen to our music and deserves a place alongside radio, the phonograph (record player), CD, and MP3 compression. According to Wikipedia, the device was designed [...]

It ain’t easy being a guitar manufacturer these days. First it was Gibson, then Martin, and now Paul Reed Smith: Paul Reed Smith Guitars said Wednesday it would lay off 30 employees and implement a 4-day manufacturing week as it grappled with the recession. The Stevensville company is disbanding its nightly manufacturing operations, spokeswoman Rebecca [...]

I love the look of this Telecaster built by the Fender Custom Shop’s Yuriy Shishkov for Keith Urban. Country Music Television blogger, Alison Bonaguro, managed to get a little info out of Yuriy about how he designed and built it: • Urban’s favorite Fender Telecaster guitar was flown to Shishkov so he could duplicate the [...]

The mighty shredder Buckethead (so named for his habit of wearing an inverted KFC bucket as a hat onstage and perhaps off as well) has posted a beautiful tribute to Michael Jackson on his home page named The Landing Beacon. The tune might also be named The Homing Beacon–if you believe the picture and not [...]

Rolling Stone caught up with great Yes/Asia guitarist, Steve Howe, who is now touring with Yes and Asia: How did you decide to do this double tour? I had this summer pretty much booked up [with Asia], and Yes were disappointed about not getting a chance to play this summer, so I put my thinking [...]

This is great stuff. Here’s Guillaume Estace playing the Cantina Theme from Star Wars IV on a Chapman Stick. I tried playing one of these things years ago at Berklee. It ain’t easy!

When Michael Jackson died, I wondered how it would affect the musicians in his employ, such as Orianthi Panagaris, his latest guitarist (a post previously held by guitar-great Jennifer Batten). Turns out, Orianthi is as disturbed by the whole thing as the rest of us: “Seeing how happy he was, excited, singing and dancing, it’s shocking. But I’m [...]