Over at NPR.com, Tom Cole posted a nice tribute to Ventures guitarist Bob Bogle, complete with “Walk, Don’t Run” for streaming:
The Ventures will always be remembered for Walk, Don’t Run and an early-’60s West Coast rock sound. The influence of Walk, Don’t Run is HUGE. While few guitarists could master the smooth alternate picking of [...]

Great long interview with Ed over at Spinner.com in which Ed talks about his sobriety and how it has affected his playing. Booze worked on him to the point where it became the necessary rocket sauce that allowed him to visit that place where he felt most comfortable playing:
It takes me a good hour to [...]

Slide guitar master Arlen Roth has a great standard-tuning slide-guitar lesson posted at Gibson.com:
Playing slide guitar in standard tuning – as opposed to an open chord tuning – is very different, and quite difficult because you have to take extra care in damping the strings. When you play slide in an open chord tuning, you always [...]

I love seeing stories like this, especially in Newspapers like the New York Daily News. William del Pilar has been building classical guitars in Brooklyn for 52 (!) years:
A stone’s throw from the Borough Hall subway stop in Brooklyn is a nondescript storefront whose only identifying features are a patent ­application taped to the front [...]

In support of his new CD, United States, Paul Gilbert sat down with Clay Howard at YesWeekly.com:
Well, I had just done a couple of instrumental records. Those actually did great for me. Especially in America and Europe. When I did my first instrumental record, Get Out of My Yard, Joe Satriani took notice and asked [...]

Well, at least some good has come out of the whole Coldplay/Satriani plagiarism affair. Winnipeg guitar teacher, Andrew Wasson, owner of CreativeGuitar.ca, made a 9 minute video analysis of the tunes and posted it on YouTube.com. It went viral:
Since then, Wasson’s video on YouTube has received more than 670,000 views and earned him a coveted [...]

Gibson.com has posted an interview with one of rock’s guitar legends: Leslie West. One thing that always strikes me about Leslie West is the fact that he became a legend with one tune. True, it just so happens to be one of the coolest guitar tunes ever, Mississippi Queen. I can’t think of any other [...]

Matt Warnock at ModernGuitars.com has a great analysis posted of Jimmy Page’s Heartbreaker solo, one of the greatest rock guitar solos from one of the greatest rock albums, Led Zeppelin II:
With the song recorded and headed for mixing, along with the rest of the bands second album, a 25-year-old Jimmy Page decided to re-listen to [...]

In a new book, Rock Roadie: Backstage and Confidential with Hendrix, Elvis, the “Animals”, Tina Turner, and an All-star Cast, from one-time Hendrix roadie, James “Tappy” Wright, makes the startling claim that Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager, Michael Jeffrey. James alleges that Michael Jeffrey made a drunken confession to him about a year [...]

Great story in the LA Times today about Jimi Hendrix impersonator Anthony Aquarius, complete with a soundtracked video slideshow of him busking in Hollywood:
Sometimes a stroll down Hollywood Boulevard is a step back in time. To 1969, to be exact.
It’s that way when Anthony Aquarius plugs in his battery-powered amplifiers, straps his electric guitar [...]

Here’s an interesting story on money.cnn.com about entrepreneur Jimmy Brown, owner of the Guitar Emporium in Louisville, Kentucky.
Still a teen, [Jimmy Brown] had a pretty savvy business plan: After he acquired a few quality guitars that could fetch several thousand dollars, his mother would drive him to concert halls during sound check. He’d knock on [...]

No one is more rock and roll then Lemmy, bass player and singer for one of metal’s greatest bands, Motörhead (although really, Lemmy is Motörhead). And, at 63, he’s still doing his thing. IrishTimes.com posted a longish article about the man today: Lemmy the Legend. One of the most surprising things in the article (to [...]

Here’s an interesting story for you… Ronnie Montrose, founding member of the band Montrose, bought a guitar from J. Geils backstage during a 1972 concert in Dudley, Massachusetts.
The guitar went missing shortly thereafter.
Ronnie stopped the show and turned up the house lights, determined to catch the culprit, but whoever stole the guitar, one of the [...]

AcousticGuitar.com has a long article posted about a landmark book: Martin Guitars: A History. The original book, written by Mike Longworth, who worked at Martin for nearly 30 years, is a must have for Martin guitar collectors and owners. But, when Mike retired from Martin in 1995, Martin let the book go out of print.
Now, [...]

There’s a mildly amusing article over at MusicRadar.com about the Coldplay/Joe Satriani/Cat Stevens mash up, in which Coldplay’s drummer admits that certain “elements” of Coldplay’s music sound like others’ music. I think he means “melodies,” but I could be wrong. And then there’s this:
“There are only eight notes in an octave and no one owns [...]