Eddie Van Halen thinks Nike Dunks stole the copyrighted “Frankenstein” design he made famous, so he’s suing them. What do you think?

Ed’s

Nike’s

(via business.transworld.net)

The Harmony Stratotone pictured to the left, once owned by Rolling Stone Brian Jones, is expected to fetch about $80,000 at auction.

Brian Jones played it on stage, and it can also be heard on the Rolling Stone’s first single, Come On/I Want to Be Loved. Richard Hattrell, a close friend of Jones’, gave him the guitar, which Jones used until 1963.

The guitar will be auctioned at Christie’s South Kensington in London on July 1.

(via thisisgloucestershire.co.uk)

Not sure I entirely agree with Steve Lucas on this one. In this day age, when you can’t even carry certain size bottles of shampoo with you on a plane, you might want to rethink a guitar strap with bullets all over it:

The problem was that his Epiphone electric guitar, which is cased in a coffin-shaped case, was attached to a guitar strap decorated with empty bronze bullet cartridges.

The guitars passed through security and on to the plane, but when the captain was alerted that there was something in the cargo that resembled bullets, all of Lucas’ guitar cases were removed from the plane.

It’s not a question of free speech or whatever, it’s just that you’re making trouble for yourself. Seems like a no-brainer to avoid packing, you know, disarmed weaponry in your luggage.

According to the Daily Express, Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, has decided that he won’t sue Coldplay for possible plagiarism:

“I stand by what I said. They did copy my song but I don’t think they did it on purpose. I have even copied myself without even knowing I have done it. I’ll write down what I think is a good melody and realise it’s the same as something I have already done.

“I don’t want them to think I am angry with them. I’d love to sit down and have a cup of tea with them and let them know it’s okay.”

Something that always strikes me as strange about the whole Coldplay-Satriani kerfuffle is this: why isn’t Yusuf talking about suing Joe Satriani? What if both Coldplay and Joe Satriani plagiarised Yusuf?

I’m sad to report that Bob Bogle, lead guitarist for The Ventures, passed over the weekend. He was 75. Bob was a hugely influential guitarist who inspired countless guitarists, Eddie Van Halen among them. I once read that The Ventures’ Walk, Don’t Run is what got Eddie thinking about the guitar. Godspeed, Mr. Bogle.

(via yahoonews.com)

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 window and a gleaming array of partially built guitars.

Inside this ordinary-looking space, William del Pilar, 65, has been building classical guitars, cuatros, mandolins and Cuban tres instruments for 45 years, just like his father did before him in the same hustle-and-bustle area of Atlantic Ave.

“My dad started off as a cabinetmaker in Quebradillas Puerto Rico,” said del ­Pilar. “One day these two guys got in a fight, and one of them broke his guitar over the other guy’s head.

“So he brought it to my dad to repair,” he continued. “But he had to do it in secret, because his dad didn’t think you could make a living repairing instruments.”

By the time William del Pilar Sr. left Puerto Rico for New York in the 1940s, he was already building his own guitars, but it wasn’t until 1957 that he was able to open his own shop.

William proudly displays a patent application in his window for his “resonant bracing system,” which he claims is a revolutionary way to keep the guitar’s tone consistent at higher frequencies.

Jack Thammarat of Bangkok, Thailand has won the 2009 Guitar Idol competition (how those guys avoid lawsuits from Fox, I’ll never understand). Born in 1979, Jack began playing at 13. He says his style is a combination of rock, blues, jazz and progressive. He works as a guitarist, composer, studio musician, and guitar teacher.

I like it. Very tasty indeed. Best of luck to you Jack!

Last Saturday, June 6, 2009, Kyle Busch won the Nationwide series race at the Nashville Speedway. After being presented with a Gibson Les Paul hand-painted by Sam Bass, Kyle smashed it (or tried to–Les Pauls are pretty damn strong), Pete Townshend style.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m one of those people who doesn’t really get Nascar. I don’t have anything against it, but I just don’t get it. But I do get one thing: publicity. That’s exactly what Kyle was after, and that’s exactly what the media gave him. He’s the so-called “bad boy” of Nascar. We all need our villians, I suppose, and he’s apparently perfectly happy to be one. At least for now.

Perhaps in the world of Nascar, smashing a guitar is a super irreverant thing to do. In the world of rock, it’s a yawner. So what? I think he kind of comes off looking like a dick in both worlds, quite frankly. But it’s a week later, and we’re still talking about him. And about Nascar.

Now, I don’t want to get all conspiracy-ish here, but if Nascar ticket sales are slumping thanks to the bad economy, wouldn’t it make sense to…oh, I don’t know…use your resident bad boy to stir up some controversy publicity? I mean, good lord, even the frickin’ LA Times is writing about this nonsense.

In case you’re counting, this is Guitarbalooga’s 500th post!

80’s metal queen Lita Ford has hooked up with Bumblefoot guitarist Ron Thal and drummer Dennis Leeflang for a short summer world tour with plenty of dates in the States. Bumblefoot will open. She’s also scheduled to play a select number of festivals and motorcycle rallies.

Jun. 12 – Redwood Run – Piercy, CA
Jun. 13 – Jackson Ranchero Casino – Jackson, CA
Jun. 21 – Meltaway – Zaragosa, Spain
Jun. 26 – Bang Your Head!!! – Balingen, Germany
Jun. 27 – Gods of Metal – Milan, Italy
Jun. 30 – Rockwave – Athens, Greece
Jul. 03 – Summerfest – Milwaukee, WI
Jul. 04 – Bridgeview Music Jam – Bridgeview, IL
Jul. 17 – Monndance Ranch Jam – Walker, MN
Jul. 24 – Molson Canal Concert Series – North Tonawanda, NY
Jul. 26 – Ridgefield Playhouse – Ridgefield, CT
Aug. 03 – Buffalo Chip – Sturgis, SD
Aug. 22 – Rock Gone Wild – Algona, IA
Sep. 05 – Taste of Cleveland – Cleveland, OH

Early this fall, Lita expects to release her first album in 14 years, Wicked Wonderland. She’s spent the last 15 years away from the music scene living on an island in the Caribbean (sign me up right now) raising her two sons.

Stet Howland, formerly of W.A.S.P., Greg Hampton, songwriter and producer known for his work with Alice Cooper, and Jim Gillette, Lita’s husband and former Nitro singer, back Lita on the new album. The cover art was created by Rob Zombie bassist and solo artist Piggy D.

Oh, and in case you’ve never heard Bumblefoot’s Ron Thal, here he is playing Guitars Suck. One thing he’s known for is using a thimble on his picking hand to allow him to play notes well above the last fret.

(via blabbermouth.net)

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 me to do the G3 tour with him, and my career kind of took off. I was kind of joking that when I quit singing, my career took off…. But I still love music with vocals, so when I started thinking about going back to that, I thought that I had reached a new level with guitar and that if I went back to how I always do it — which is to do everything, I would not be able to keep that quality up. I thought it was the perfect time to find a collaborator, and Freddie [Nelson] was the perfect collaborator, co-producer, picking out photos for the album cover — everything.

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

Les Paul turned 94 yesterday, June 9. Les Paul is credited with innovating many recording techniques we think of as commonplace today, such as multi-track recording and overdubbing. He also built and owned one of the first electric guitars, the first of which was named The Log. In addition to his technology innovations, Les Paul penned many hit singles, most recorded with his wife, Mary Ford.

Although he entered into semi-retirement long ago, he still plays every Monday night at NYC’s Iridium Jazz Club.

Here’s Les jamming with Guitarbalooga favorite, Jeff Beck:

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 place in YouTube’s Partner Program, earning him a modest monthly income.

“The opportunity for me arose to go and do that video, and build some traffic and build a little bit of recognition for myself on YouTube, and it’s worked really well. I kind of figured it would go pretty viral,” Wasson said.

Wasson also received numerous calls from lawyers and a very complimentary email from a professor at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Wasson has gone from zero to close to 1,500 regular subscribers to his website and drawn the ire of countless Coldplay fans.

“There’s people that are obviously Coldplay fans that are essentially creating fake accounts and they’re … spamming my videos with comments that are derogatory, everything from `You did it all wrong’ to `You’re crazy.’ That’s putting it nicely. I thought that was very strange.”

And without further ado, I’d like to present Mr. Wasson:

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 guitarist who’s pulled that off.

“Mississippi Queen” has one of rock and roll’s all-time great guitar riffs. Do you think writing great riffs is a dying art?

I don’t know. I can only talk about my own style. I play the guitar with only my first and fourth fingers, on my left hand. I never learned to use all my fingers, like you would playing a scale. What I try to do is play to my strengths. I can’t play fast, so I try to play slow and melodic. I remember someone telling me that “less is more.” In Alfred Hitchcock films the music is really intense, but then there will be this dead silence. You don’t know what’s going to happen, but that silence is deafening. I try to play around with dynamics in a similar way.

It’s one of those tunes you never get sick of and sounds as relevant and awesome now as it did when it was released 40 (!) years ago.