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 [...]

Now this is Guitarbalooga! (That parrot has no rhythm at all…)

Looking for something to do this weekend? How about building a Telecaster out of an Ikea butcher block? That’s what Zachary Custom Guitars decided to do:
After buying it at Ikea, this butcher block just sat there for 2 years and I wasn’t quite sure when I would use [...]

MusicRadar.com has posted a hilarious collection of terrible heavy-metal album covers. My favorites are the famously awful homo-erotic Manowar covers.
I used to enjoy watching record-store clerks try to keep a straight face when I bought Manowar albums as a kid. Not.

Then there’s, um, Cinderella:

Um, yeah. That’s all I have to say about that.

Let’s face it. Guitar face is something guitarists can’t control. It’s something you’re born with, like man boobs or a third nipple. In fact, guitar face is a subject worthy of physiological study…or at least a crappy top-10 list on a guitar blog of dubious worth. 
I’m sure this won’t be the final word on the subject [...]

Mormon crickets are a particularly nasty problem out west. Periodically, they band together in dense packs and march along, devouring all plant life in their path. They can stop traffic and will even scurry through your house. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about them:
The Mormon cricket exists in populations of relatively low density throughout [...]

For your entertainment, here a couple of vids featuring people playing Flight of the Bumblebee really, really, f’in fast. I think to be considered even “competent” you need to do it at around 300 BPM.
1. First up is Tiago Della Vega, who played it at 320 BPM and may (or may not) have set a [...]

YES:

(Best sounds at 2:10 and 3:00)

A couple of months ago, I posted about the most wanted and unwanted song, created based on online polls. Did you know that there actually is a worst song of all time?
It’s called “Agadoo.” Written by band Black Lace in 1984 and pronounced worst of all time by a panel of music journalists, Agadoo eventually [...]

Ladies and gentlemen, the Chewbacca Chord:

So, when I was a kid, I spent my summers at a six-week sleep-away camp suffering from insomnia in uncomfortable bunk beds, being subjected to daily morning bunk inspections, hammering my thumbs in shop, and being humiliated while trying (and failing) to waterski. We drank “bug juice” and spent most of the summer dreaming of [...]

We now live in a world where a search on “abe vigoda” returns a top link to a pretty good band instead of the man himself. Just saying.

These crack me up. Here’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Under the Bridge:

Super-shredder Great Kat has a new DVD coming out this April: Beethoven’s Guitar Shred.
How do you describe The Great Kat? Part super-shredder, part 80’s metal-queen, part dominatrix, and part advertisement for decaf coffee:

In fact, her real name is Katherine Thomas, and she’s a classically trained violinist who graduated from the Julliard School. She toured with [...]