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Classic semi-hollow sound from a solidbody-size guitar

In 1958, Gibson debuted a guitar that provided the perfect combination of solidbody and hollowbody features—the ES-335. With a solid maple block running down the center of its thin, hollow body, the ES-335 provides the fat, resonant tone of a hollowbody guitar while delivering the sustain and feedback resistance of a solidbody. Gibson’s hybrid design, known as a semi-hollow guitar, remains a perennial favorite of players of nearly every style of music from jazz and blues to rock and punk.



While the ES-335 is thin like a solidbody, its body width and length are similar to the large dimensions of an archtop guitar. As a result, many players accustomed to solidbody instruments often find the ES-335’s size and weight somewhat unwieldy. Now solidbody players can enjoy the distinctive tones of a semi-hollow guitar thanks to Gibson’s new ES-339 model, designed and built by the experts at the Gibson Custom Shop. The ES-339 features smaller body dimensions but sacrifices none of that huge semi-hollow tone that makes the ES-335 universally appealing. Lighter, more compact and comfortable than a traditional semi-hollow guitar, the ES-339 feels like a Les Paul but sounds like an ES-335.



Despite its smaller body dimensions, the ES-339 does not look like an awkward dwarf version of a 335. The craftsmen at Gibson managed to shave several inches off the traditional semi-hollowbody design while retaining perfect proportions that look classy and natural. You may not even notice the difference until you pick up the ES-339 and instantly realize how much lighter and more comfortable it feels.



All the features guitarists love about the ES-335 are present and accounted for on the ES-339. First, it boasts a pair of ’57 Classic Humbuckers that deliver full-bodied tone with rich midrange and singing sustain that players can’t live without. The tulip-head Kluson tuners, nickel hardware, ABR-1 bridge, stop tailpiece, dot fingerboard inlays, and lacquer finish look like they came right out of 1958. Even the craftsmanship and attention to detail is as good as it’s ever been.



However, Gibson did make a few subtle improvements based on feedback from players over the years. The output jack is mounted on the side of the guitar instead of on the top, keeping the cable out of the way. The slim 30/60 neck has the slim, wide feel of an early ’60s Gibson, with an extra .030-inches of depth—perfect for today’s faster playing styles. A heftier ’59 neck profile is also available for guitarists who prefer a chunkier neck but still enjoy fast, smooth playing action. An improved electronic wiring circuit preserves the guitar’s high frequencies no matter where you adjust the volume control. The 339 sports Gibson’s new Memphis Tone Circuit, which preserves the guitar’s high frequencies no matter where you adjust the volume control. Named in honor of the great guitar builders of Gibson Custom Memphis, where each 339 is handcrafted, the Memphis Tone Circuit gives the 339 a beautiful, open tonal spectrum at any volume.



Gibson offers the ES-339 with a choice of three vintage-style finishes—Antique Red, Antique Vintage Sunburst, and Light Carmel Burst. The lacquer finish is applied with a light, even touch, allowing the guitar’s wood to resonate naturally while providing a protective, mirror-like shine.



When plugged into to a variety of amps and A/B’d against original ’50s and early ’60s Gibsons, it’s virtually impossible to tell the difference between the vintage models and the new ES-339. From a playing standpoint, the ES-339 is a dreamboat. The smoothly polished frets feel especially comfortable under the fingers, making it possible to play fast and accurately with little effort. While the ES-339 features Gibson’s standard 24 ¾-inch scale, it somehow seems shorter. One can readily perform stretches spanning seven or more frets from the fifth fret.



Tonally, the ES-339 is everything a guitarist could want from a semi-hollow axe and more. The smaller body size does not decrease the guitar’s resonance, yet the ES-339 can be cranked up to even higher levels of output without feedback. In fact, guitar’s feedback resistance is right up there with Les Pauls and SGs. You can feel the punch and power of the 339 in every chord and note—the combination of the best sonic and performance qualities of Les Pauls and ES-335s gives the guitar a truly unique voice, and gives guitarists a totally new playing experience. The ’57 Classic humbuckers deliver all the warmth, sustain and clarity of original Patent Applied For pickups, and in the ES-339 they produce a stunning, expressive midrange honk that’s as fluid and assertive as a saxophone.



The tone pros at the Gibson Custom Shop have created another winner. The Gibson ES-339 is the perfect semi-hollow guitar for solidbody players. With its vintage vibe and modern performance, the ES-339 is a great all-around guitar for any style of music.



The ES-339 is only available from Musician’s Friend, Musician.com, Private Reserve, Guitar Center, Guitarsale.com, and Music 123. Be sure to seek this guitar out, as it’s destined to become a desirable classic like the models that inspired it.



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On the surface, there’s an obvious visual resemblance between the classic Gibson Custom CS-336 and the new ES-339. But while both provide the ideal fusion of solidbody and hollowbody features, that’s where most of the similarities end.


Over 100 years ago, Orville Gibson had a vision to create a guitar with unmatched resonance and an earthy, woody tone. He sought to achieve this by carving the entire body from a single block of mahogany. In fact, it was one of his original goals for making the ultimate guitar, and the CS-336 from Gibson Custom is the fulfillment of that vision.



The new ES-339, also from Gibson Custom, achieves virtually the same mid-range chunky, superior tone as the CS-336, but does so with the perfect union of a laminated maple top, maple centerblock, and spruce contour bracing. This distinct combination makes it a slightly lighter guitar than the CS-336, but allows it to produce a somewhat brighter, fatter, cutting growl. With its classic semi-hollowbody build and styling, the ES-339 is the perfect guitar for players who want the roaring tone of an ES-335 and the playability of a Les Paul.



The neck profiles on the CS-336 and ES-339 also differ. The CS-336 neck contour is Gibson’s traditional slim taper profile, which replicates the shape of necks on the Les Pauls and SGs from the early 1960s, allowing for more comfortable playing styles.



The new ES-339 gives players a choice. The ’59 neck profile is for guitarists who prefer Gibson’s traditional, rounded, chunkier neck, which is most commonly associated with the iconic 1959 Les Paul. In contrast, Gibson’s new slim 30/60 neck has the slim, wide feel of the early 1960s Gibsons, with an extra .030-inches of depth, which makes it a perfect neck profile for today’s faster playing styles.



Gibson’s new Memphis Tone Circuit gives the ES-339 an enhanced electronic wiring circuitry not available on any other guitar. New 500K audio taper pots help to maintain the highs as you turn down the volume. So, no matter where you set the volume control knob, the guitar’s high frequencies continue to cut through any mix, which allows for a superb, open tonal spectrum at any volume.



The CS-336 carries on the vision and ambition of Gibson’s pioneering prophet, Orville Gibson. The ES-339 expands on that vision, and maintains the revolutionary philosophy certain to make it a desirable classic like the models before it.

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In 1976, at the ripe young age of 14, I had already developed into a consummate rock ’n’ roll connoisseur, thanks in large part to having a brother three years older than me who had a bunch of friends with insatiable appetites for music and the extensive record collections to prove it. Through them, I discovered the shock and awe of bands like Yes, Jethro Tull, Queen, and Blue Öyster Cult, as well as more “obscure” (for 1976, that is) groups like Kansas, Rush, and REO Speedwagon. I was also fortunate to live in an FM radio “hot spot” between San Diego and Los Angeles, where I could enjoy broadcasts from legendary Los Angeles AOR stations KMET and KLOS, as well as the more adventurous offerings from San Diego station KGB, where I first heard bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, who I’d only previously knew about from reading articles in rock magazines like Creem, Trouser Press, and the UK’s Melody Maker.



At that time, my parents forbade me from tagging along with my brother and his friends as they went to concerts, but as soon as I turned 15 they finally relented to my pleas and gave me permission to go to my first show. My brother’s friends were raving about a new band called Boston, who had just released their first album and were coming to San Diego’s Golden Hall. I was familiar with the single, “More Than a Feeling,” which was just starting to create a buzz on FM radio, so I asked if they could get me a ticket. I had no idea what the rest of the band’s music was like, but it was just cool to be able to finally go to a concert.



Part of the reason why I felt such a strong urge to go to shows was because I was on a reconnaissance mission. Although I had learned to strum a few chords on a nylon-string acoustic guitar a few years earlier, I was stuck taking banjo lessons─my parents harbored a bizarre fantasy of me becoming the next Roy Clark or something. But I, of course, wanted to rock and impress girls. And frankly, the guy playing bluegrass standards at the local Shakey’s wasn’t exactly attracting hordes of groupies. I was hell-bent on buying a bitchin’ electric guitar and forming the ultimate band. Still, there was no way for me to know what gear to buy unless I could see it and hear it in the flesh, and I knew that going to concerts was my best bet.



From looking at photos on album covers and in magazines and my brother’s concert programs, I had my heart set on getting a Gibson. Everyone I liked back then played a Gibson guitar. The store where I took banjo lessons had a decent revolving supply of used instruments, but they rarely got in any Gibsons, and when they did they sold them about as quickly as they came in. I lusted for a new Les Paul about as much as I did for Lesley Anne-Down, but the cost was too much for me at the wages I was pulling in as an illegally hired underage busboy, even though I did my best to save every paycheck. Fortunately, the cost of my concert ticket was only $5.50, which I could easily hustle in tips in a few hours by smiling shyly at the golfer’s wives in the country club restaurant where I worked, so it didn’t cut too deeply into my guitar savings fund.

Nerdily, I brought along a set of binoculars to the concert so I could “trainspot” gear. As it turned out, I didn’t need them because our seats were in the 10th row! 



That night’s opening act, Spirit, bailed at the last minute to be replaced by the Runaways. I was initially bummed to see five chicks take the stage, but then I spied Lita Ford’s amazing white Explorer and Joan Jett’s ultra-slick Les Paul Goldtop. By the time Cherie Curie strutted the stage in a white corset and black panties singing “Cherry Bomb” I was thoroughly convinced that girls could rock as well as guys. It was an appropriate anthem for my personal concert de-virginizing, and I thank the ladies for playing rough with me.



The Runaways may have officially popped my concert cherry, but Boston positively blew my mind. There was Tom Scholz onstage only a few feet in front of me, banging out the opening riff to “Rock and Roll Band” on a Les Paul Goldtop that seemed even cooler than Joan Jett’s. And the sound they achieved─it bounced around the auditorium just like stereo panning, but to me it sounded like a spaceship taking off. I hadn’t heard the band’s debut album yet, but I was already hooked.



As impressive as Scholz’s playing was, I really took notice of this mustachioed dude playing an SG—Barry Goudreau. His guitar solos knocked me out with a melodicism, precision, and speed I’d never heard before. My ultimate moment of revelation came near the end of the set, when Boston performed the song “Long Time.” I remained focused on Goudreau as he kicked the song off in a spectacular fashion with a tasteful intro (after Scholz’s adept display of organ playing skills on “Foreplay”). As Goudreau blazed into the second solo at the song’s climax, the spotlight shined down on him and a reflection from the chrome-covered Maestro Vibrola tailpiece plate on his SG blindingly beamed like a laser directly into my face for about 10 seconds. As Goudreau executed those mind-numbing pull-offs, I swear that I momentarily heard singing angels and the voice of God filling my head. When I regained my vision and consciousness, there was no two ways about it: I had to get an SG.



I don’t think it was a coincidence when I showed up for my next banjo lesson and spotted a 1963 SG hanging on the wall of the music store. I couldn’t concentrate on my lesson as I eavesdropped on what seemed like a never-ending flow of customers who came in and ogled that axe. One guy asked if he could take the guitar home and try it with his band. Unable to wait any longer, I rudely interrupted my teacher, Woody, and told him that I was buying the SG─right now. Poor Woody looked a little dejected as he took that beautiful Gibson down from the wall, knowing that he was losing perhaps another Tony Trischka protégé to the allure of rock ’n’ roll.



At concerts I attended over the next few years, I noticed similar SGs in the hands of Angus Young, Kerry Livgren of Kansas, Brian James of the Damned, and Frank Zappa, among others. I knew I made the right choice. I still own that guitar to this day, and even though I’ve had ever-increasing offers to take it off my hands, I’ll never part with it. What else am I going to use to play my note-perfect rendition of the immortal “Long Time” solo?

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A look at some of Jimmy Page's greatest guest sessions

If you listen to rock radio with any regularity, it’s difficult to go more than a day or so without hearing Jimmy Page kick out the jams with Led Zeppelin—but long before he joined forces with Robert Plant, Page was already one of the most-heard guitarists in the world. As an in-demand session player in Britain, he’s said to have contributed to more than 50 percent of the singles released in ol’ Blighty between 1963 and 1965—unleashing his brilliant playing on sides by artists as varied as Lulu (of “To Sir With Love” fame), the Kinks, Marianne Faithfull and Van Morrison. And while his guest appearances have become less frequent in the post-Zep era, they’re certainly no less powerful. For starters, check out these seven deadly shots of pure Page in unexpected places.
 

Marianne Faithfull: “As Tears Go By.” While he was often sought out to provide an extra dose of bare-knuckled power to blues-drenched numbers by wet-behind-the-ears beat merchants, Page was every bit as capable of hitting a good old-fashioned pop groove. He does exactly that on this tremulous rendition of this tune culled from the catalog of the Rolling Stones—a band that, according to Bill Wyman, Page was nearly asked to join in the wake of Brian Jones’s sacking. 

 

The Who: ”I Can’t Explain.” When super-producer Shel Talmy wanted to beef up the first single by the then embryonic Who, he looked no further than the man who added a goodly dose of spit to the polished sounds of his other charges, the Kinks. There’s some debate in historical circles about whether Page played the choogling rhythm or the searing lead on the track—smart money is on the former—but there’s no doubt as to the origin of the rave-up solo that punctuates the single’s flip-side “Bald Headed Woman.” 

 

Them: “Baby, Please Don’t Go.” Pugnacious and ready to rumble, Page makes this song his own without even breaking a sweat, turning in a solo that stands as one of the crowning glories of '60s garage rock fury.

 

The Kinks: “You Really Got Me.” Okay, this one’s a bit of a stretch, because Page himself insists that his six-string never left its case during the session. He’ll cop to playing tambourine on the track, though, which adds even more luster to his session-man legacy, making him a double instrumental threat.

 

Joe Cocker: “With a Little Help From My Friends.” One of the few Beatles covers to outstrip the original version, this raw outpouring of emotion gains plenty of power during the lengthy instrumental intro that’s focused on Page’s deft, deceptively gentle lead playing--a precursor to the work he’d later turn in on Led Zeppelin III.

 

Rolling Stones: “One Hit to The Body.” Page wasn’t a scheduled guest on this rough-hewn track—a harkening back to the Stones’ feral “Gimme Shelter”-era sound -- but since he was “in the neighborhood” thanks to the Live Aid concert, he dropped in for a quick cameo. His lead, while not pushed up nearly far enough in the mix, still cuts with stiletto precision, leaving a lasting heat in its wake.

 

Jerry Lee Lewis: “Rock and Roll.” While Page could easily have phoned in his lead part on the Killer’s incredibly vibrant cover of the Zeppelin classic, he did nothing of the sort, wringing out a soulful solo that’s a bit more deliberate, but no less fiery than his original take from more than 30 years earlier.

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With a great debut that has just gone Gold, the classic California girl is proving that millions of MySpace friends can’t be wrong.

Listen to Colbie Caillat's "Dreams Collide"

“I may be a late bloomer, but I’m a fast bloomer,” laughs 22-year-old Colbie Caillat in a sunny, chipper way that Southern California girls do better than anybody. “I feel like I kind of played around with the idea of being a singer and musician for so many years, so when I got serious, well, I got serious.” 

 She got results, too. Soon after picking up the guitar at “the advanced age of 19,” she hooked up with songwriter Jason Reeves and the two started writing acoustic-based pop songs which Caillat posted on her MySpace page. While the initial results were disappointing (“I had only a few thousand hits, nothing to brag about”), from the second Caillat posted “Bubbly,” a tune as sweet and light as it sounds, and impossible to get out of one’s head, the number of hits went through the roof. Caillat now exerts a kind of mesmeric control over the hundreds of thousands, and it may be millions, of visitors to her MySpace page, many of whom helped out in the song selection for her Gold-plus-and-counting debut album, Coco.

Co-produced by Mikal Blue (Five for Fighting, Carrie Underwood), Caillat, and Reeves, with an able assist from Caillat’s father, Ken Caillat, who helped craft Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours into a 30-million-selling giant, Coco is a gentle, inviting, and irony-free listen. Songs such as “The Little Things” and “Feelings Show” are strikingly mature ruminations on love both won and lost, and, as sung in Caillat’s warm, earthy, and unassuming manner (refreshingly devoid of American Idol-inspired calisthenics), they resonate with the head while they charm the heart.

On a rare day off from touring and promotional appearances, Caillat sat down with Gibson.com to discuss her surprising splash on the Billboard charts, her instinctive approach to the guitar, and her recent switch to Gibsons.  Coltish, with honey-blonde hair and the kind of fresh-scrubbed complexion one only sees in TV commercials, she radiates a natural warmth. “I’m just me,” she says. “What you hear on my record is who I really am. There’s no put-on in anything I do. I wouldn’t know how.” 
 

There’s been plenty of ten-years-in-the-making overnight sensations, but not in your case.

I know. To even see my name on the Billboard chart is pretty unbelievable. I mean, I’m 22, but I’m not one of those teen idol singers. Sometimes I get a little insecure and intimidated; like I start to think that I haven’t paid my dues enough. But things happen for a reason and I can’t question it all, really. All I can do is what I do, and that’s trying to make great music that can appeal to a wide audience.

What’s doubly amazing is that you picked up the guitar at 19. Your progress on the instrument is quite impressive. You strike me as a player who’s mature beyond her years.

I think it’s from listening to so much music when I was young.

Like you’re so old now!

(laughs) I know! You know what I mean─young, as in a kid, a teenager. By the time I started playing the guitar, I had a really good ear and I knew what sounded right. I could never be one of those players who just bashes around and gets off on making a big racket. I want to play songs. I want to let people in on special feelings. So yeah, I try to play just what’s needed. Look, I’m the first to admit, I don’t know too much on the guitar. I’m a student in every sense of the word. I still know only about four chords─that’s why my songs are so simple. (laughs)

I understand you recently switched to playing Gibsons.

Yep, I’m playing Gibsons now. I just got a CJ-165  acoustic, and I absolutely love it. I wanted a small-bodied guitar and Gibson sent me a 165 that’s perfect. It’s easy to take around with me ‘cause it’s not bulky. I just love that I can put my arms around it and cradle it, you know? I feel like I’m holding the guitar, not like I’ve got this big thing weighing me down like some of the other guitars I’ve played. Plus, the neck is very smooth and easy for me to get around on.

What’s different about the sound of the CJ-165 versus other guitars you’ve played?

It’s really big and open. It’s rich, musical─you strum one chord and it sounds like music. So, for me, I find it very inspiring. Something that makes me sound like a better guitarist? Hey, I’ll take it! The guys in my band have been very impressed with it, too. They definitely noticed the difference right away.

Let’s talk about your playing style. You alternate being fingerpicking and flatpicking.

It’s not much of a “style” yet; I tend to be all over the place. Some songs I fingerpick, like “Bubbly,” but other ones I do kind of flatpicking on; and others I do kind of strummy-like. I just change with the songs. I rely on instinct when it comes to guitar. I never sit there and go, “Now, on this song I should fingerpick.” Whatever happens happens. That’s one of the neat things about the Gibson, though: No matter what I do, it sounds great and it’s very responsive. And even though it’s a small-bodied acoustic, I can fingerpick really well on it. The action is easy.

The overall sound of your record recalls that period of ’70s soft-rock, when artists like James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and Carol King ruled the airwaves─do you agree?

Sure. When I was growing up, my parents were always listening to James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. But there was also Steve Miller and Fleetwood Mac, the Beatles and Tom Petty. That’s what was being played around the house, so it got under my skin and became a part of who I am.

Your father executive produced the album. Was that strange, you know, having “Dad” working with you?

 No, it was great. He brought the whole ’70s style of producing to what we were doing. Like he’d say, “Let’s hang a mic from the ceiling when we record the vocal so we can get a room sound”─all these neat tricks he’s learned over the years that nobody else would have thought of. It was interesting. From hearing him talk over the years, I knew he had all of this incredible knowledge about making records, but to actually see him do it, and to be a part of it, it was really cool.

A lot of your songs deal with very intimate details about romantic relationships. Was that weird singing those songs around your father?

No. He knew my songs already, so there were no funny surprises; no moments where I was like, “I can’t sing that in front of him!” (laughs) “Bubbly” isn’t about anybody specific, but “Feelings Show” is. My dad didn’t ask me about the lyrics really. He was more concerned with getting the overall musical package together.

When you were growing up, do you remember your dad having famous people around? Were the members of Fleetwood Mac coming over to borrow sugar and stuff like that?

(laughs) When I was a lot younger, yeah, they’d be over a lot, coming over for dinner and hanging out. And I remember going to Fleetwood Mac concerts with my dad and going backstage with him. It was fun, especially going to Hawaii with Fleetwood Mac. I can definitely say I was exposed to a lot of music and musicians when I was growing up. And I was always singing, too, especially when I was a young girl; I would wake up and just start singing at the top of my lungs. My sister hated it. Our bedrooms were right next to each other, and she was always yelling at me to shut up.

When do you recall starting to take music seriously, as in a possible career?

When I was 11, I really got into Lauryn Hill , and I sang one of her songs in my sixth grade talent show. The experience of getting up on stage and performing for people did it. From that moment on, I was hooked on the idea of performing. My dad tried to help out, of course. He was like, “Okay, then you better start learning the piano.” Which I tried, but I gave up after a few lessons. I got frustrated trying to learn to read music. There was no pay-off. I’m one of those musicians that can only play their own songs; doing other people’s stuff is beyond me. But it was weird: When I finally picked up the guitar and wrote a song with the four chords that I knew, that’s what really solidified it for me. I thought, Wow, if I can do that with only four chords, what if I keep learning this thing? So I stuck with the guitar.

By the way, what are those four chords that you know?

(laughs) Well, I probably know a few more than that by now. But all of the songs on my album consist of G, C, D, and E minor. E minor was the first chord I ever learned ‘cause it’s the easiest─two fingers and you’re there.

Let’s talk about fame. Now, you’re a young, pretty girl in California; you’re experiencing a lot of success very quickly. How will you safeguard yourself against becoming a trainwreck like Britney, or Paris, or Lindsey Lohan─the list goes on and on…

It does seem to go on and on, doesn’t it? It’s sad, too. But the bottom line is, I’m just not that kind of person. I mean, I do like to go out dancing, and I’ll go to bars with my band. But that’s not all I do. I’m really more of a mellow kind of person. I like to hang out at home with my family. Having a good time is important, but I don’t take it too far.

Talk about the way your music exploded on MySpace. You’re like the poster girl of MySpace success.

About a year ago, a friend of mine made a MySpace page for me, and put my songs up for me. Slowly, I’d start getting all of these plays, especially after we put “Bubbly” up, which got me ranked high on the artist chart. People would see me there, so they’d add my page to their pages, and it just spread. I think one of the reasons why I’ve gotten successful from MySpace, though, is because I got very involved with the fans. I would post songs and ask them what they thought, ask for their favorites; and I took their comments very seriously when putting the album together. I think fans appreciate that; that I was really listening to them; and I was making the album with them in mind. That’s been one of the best parts of this whole experience so far. I feel like Coco is definitely representative of me as a person and an artist, but to know that it’s something people want, to have them actually tell me they liked it and wanted it, that’s been really, really special.

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What’s the value of a coat of paint? Almost incalculably high, according to many of today’s players and collectors of vintage electric guitars. We have already examined the constructional fine points and accuracy of Gibson’s VOS Les Pauls  in another Gibson feature, but the iconic nature of these guitars’ finishes deserves a little more attention. The Les Paul Standard of 1958-’60 is acknowledged as being the most desirable electric guitar on the vintage market, and the only significant factor that distinguishes a ’58 Les Paul from the ’57 Les Paul that came before it is its translucent Cherry Sunburst finish. Sound a little crazy? The proof is in the pricing. Peruse the listings of vintage guitar dealers today and you’ll find that an original 1957 Les Paul Goldtop with PAF humbuckers sells for anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 whereas any 1958-’60 sunburst Les Paul in reasonably original condition will fetch $200,000 and beyond (often way beyond). There’s gold in those few ounces of cherry and amber nitrocellulose lacquer, no doubt.

Fortunately, as well as recreating the feel and tone of the great vintage Les Pauls in its VOS range, Gibson has also accurately recreated a range of finish appearances, which represent the different states of existing examples of semi-faded to seriously-faded sunburst Les Pauls. On the vintage market, the crucial determining factors in the value of a 1958-’60 Les Paul are the condition of its finish and the degree of figuring in the grain of its maple top, far more so than its sound or playability. Thanks to the consistency of the Gibson Custom Shop, players can be assured that every VOS Les Paul model not only looks superb, but plays and sounds at the top of its game, too. It’s the whole package—stunning looks, unparalleled playability and tone—and all in a guitar that has the appearance of a $250,000 vintage masterpiece, but one you can afford to take out and gig night after night.

Check out the 1958 Les Paul Standard VOS for example; while the constructional specs of the instrument are consistent, it is available in three different degrees of finish “fade:” Faded Tobacco, Washed Cherry, and Iced Tea. Each is a term that has evolved in the common parlance of aficionados of vintage Les Pauls, and describes the balance of red, brown, and amber hues present in the finish, all of which started life as vibrant cherry-red sunbursts at the Gibson factory in 1958-’60, but faded to a range of lush and varied patinas with exposure to light, the elements, and the inevitable ravages of time.

Each has its appeal, and the degree of desirability in the range really depends upon personal preference. The Faded Tobacco finish runs from a rich, almost chocolatey brown at the edges of the guitar’s top toward a deep goldenrod hue at its center, often via the faintest transitional halo of cherry. At its outer edges Washed Cherry remains distinctly red, although a red that has been softened and mellowed by the years, and transitions toward a medium yellow at the guitar’s center. Perhaps the most illusive of all, the Iced Tea sunburst rolls from a deep, multidimensional gold-hued brown cherry at the binding to a mellow amber at the center—as smooth and visually refreshing as a glass of sweet tea, as it happens.

Of course the Gibson Custom Shop’s finishing process mirrors that of the factory circa 1958-’60 as closely as possible too. All VOS Les Pauls receive a thinner finish—nitrocellulose lacquer, naturally—which is applied, sanded, and buffed much the way it was back in the day. The result is a guitar that not only looks like the original article, but which breathes and resonates more like a 50-year-old vintage instrument as well. Beneath it all, of course, will lie a varying degree of appealing flame, quilting, or tiger striping—figured maple made into works of art in a range of bookmatched tops, no two quite the same. Or, for the ultimate in rippling motion and three-D beauty, investigate the Custom Shop’s Class 5 Quilt Les Paul, an unrivaled celebration of the rarest stocks of figured maple.

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You would think you were at a live concert what with all the clapping and singing along. But no, it was just the NewYork City premiere of Pearl Jam’s live concert film, Immagine in Cornice (Italian for “Picture in a Frame”) at the famous Ziegfeld Theatre. Between Pearl Jam fan club members, friends of filmmaker and photographer Danny Clinch, and more casual fans, the theatre felt as packed as one of the city’s bigger venues.

Clinch is no stranger to the Ziegfeld—his Bonnaroo films have premiered there over the last several years. Making a few quick remarks and thank-yous before the film rolled, Clinch noted that he had simply called up Kelly Curtis, Pearl Jam’s manager, and expressed interest in doing a concert film with the band at some point if they were interested. Curtis said, “Sure, let me get back to you.” Typically, these things take a while. Yet, an hour later, Curtis rang back and said, “Well, how would you feel about coming to Italy with us?” Clinch didn’t have to think about it for long.

“Picture in a Frame is a film I’ve really wanted to make,” says the noted photographer. “The band invited me to Italy and gave me the access I needed to show a side seldom seen by their fans. It has become collaboration as well as the band even offered me some music that has never been heard and Mike (McCready) went into the studio to create some more music for the soundscapes. This is a look at Pearl Jam that no one has seen yet─a trip through Northern Italy with the band, through the document and through abstraction.”

Photo Credit: Kerensa Wight

The 2006 European tour’s swing through Italy had five stops: Pala Malaguti in Bologna, the Arena di Verona, the Forum in Milan, Palaisozaki in Torino, and Duomo Square in Pistoia, Italy. Clinch was given what seems to be relatively unfettered access: in the huddle as they’re going over what to encore with (“Let’s try and keep the energy up”), bassist Jeff Ament hopping a fence to get some time in on an empty skate park, frontman Eddie Vedder and keyboardist Boom Gaspar meeting the local Pistoia music teacher in an ancient church to give the pipe organ a test drive. And there is some reoccurring imagery of Vedder toting about a worn, brown suitcase that contains his notebooks, lyrics, cigarettes, his life. Combined with scenery shots, all these moments make a great backdrop for the music.
 

Comprised of 13 full songs, it showcases material from the band’s entire catalog (though the film takes its name from a Tom Waits’ tune which Vedder sings at the end, juxtaposed with visuals of him ringing old church bells and sweeping the space clean with a broom). Yet, for as strong as much of the latter material is, the film’s pinnacle moments are all vintage: “State of Love and Trust,” “Alive,” and Neil Young’s “Rockin in the Free World.” And, not surprisingly, all three have what one could call Gibson erotica: duel Les Paul action from lead guitarist Mike McCready and guitarist Stone Gossard just tearing it up as rain pours down and the crowd goes nuts. These are the moments that make your chest pound; where you think, My God, this is perhaps the greatest American rock band working right now; where you think, What else on earth was Eddie Vedder meant to do besides be a frontman? For “Rockin’ in the Free World,” Vedder climbs some scaffolding above the stage and sings to the crowd from the makeshift perch (the many cameras capture this all perfectly). Always an instinctive performer, he also completely trips and falls in another sequence after bounding back from the side of the stage.

At one point, Clinch asks McCready about his tattoos, noting one that reads “59.” “It’s the day I got married,” he says. “I also just like things from ‘59, guitars from ‘59… ‘59 Les Pauls, ‘59 anything.”

Right now, we like just about anything Pearl Jam.

Photo Credit: Kerensa Wight

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There are good albums. Then there are really good albums. But the really special albums rewrite the rules, spawn countless imitators, and no matter how much you play them, they grow better with each passing year. Each one of these albums fits these criteria. But they have something else in common: Each was crafted using a Gibson guitar or two (or three or four) in the studio.

1. The Beatles, Revolver [Capitol, 1966]
J-160E acoustic, Epiphone Casino (John Lennon), SG Standard, ES-345 (George Harrison)

Even though they ditched the schoolboy suits and stiff ties a few years earlier, this was the album that saw the Beatles finally cut loose, breathlessly covering a vast psychedelic terrain that stretched from "Yellow Submarine" to "Eleanor Rigby." The group spiked its pristine melodies with mind-melting surrealism and ended up with the backwards-guitar classic, "Tomorrow Never Knows."

2. Led Zeppelin, IV [Atlantic, 1971]
Les Paul Standard, Hummingbird (J i m m y  P a g e)

Having mastered the blues─or rather a distinct reinterpretation of the blues─Led Zeppelin came into their own with their untitled fourth album. The tracklist reads like just about every classic rock station's dream playlist: "Stairway To Heaven," "Going to California," "Rock and Roll," etc. Even better, on songs like "When The Levee Breaks" and "Battle of Evermore" Page shredded like a proper Viking. The lesson wasn’t lost on the next

generation of longhairs.

3. The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main St. [Virgin, 1972]
Les Paul Standard, ES-335 (Keith Richards) Les Paul Standard, SG (Mick Taylor)

Living as tax exiles in the French Rivera and facing middle age (they were in their late twenties, practical senior citizens at the time) the Stones knocked out this epic double-album that would define the second phase of their career as the greatest, most debauched rock and roll band of our time. With bluesy, stomping jukebox classics like "Rocks Off" and "Tumbling Dice," they left a blueprint for everyone from Aerosmith to Ryan Adams.

4. David Bowie, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars [RCA, 1972]
Les Paul Custom (Mick Ronson)

The album that kicked into orbit glam rock and all its mutations. The concept may have been a bit kooky─Martian rock star comes to our planet, looking for sex and salvation─but Bowie's undeniable choruses paired beautifully with Mick Ronson's balls-out riffs on tracks like "Rock & Roll Suicide," "Starman," and "Moonage Daydream." Duran Duran, Marilyn Manson, Billy Corgan─they were all taking notes.

5. Bob Marley and The Wailers, Exodus [Island, 1977]
Les Paul Special (Bob Marley)

Bob Marley was famously buried with his guitar. Driven out of Jamaica by armed gunmen and fighting the cancer that would eventually do him in, the reggae icon was able to transcend his personal misfortune with the free-floating melodies of his defining work, including "Jamming" and "Natural Mystic."

6. Sex Pistols, Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols [Virgin, 1977]
Firebird, Les Paul Custom (Steve Jones)

Without Steve Jones' incendiary riffs, this album could have just been written off as a tuneless relic from another era. Yet, his limited musical chops mixed with Johnny Rotten's defiant sneer and the band's snot-nosed humor had a powder-keg effect: "God Save The Queen," "Holidays In The Sun”─people still try, and uniformly fail, to recreate this album's unmitigated energy.

7. The Clash, London Calling [Sony, 1979]
Les Paul, Les Paul Junior (Mick Jones)

Ripping the rules of punk rock to shreds, the Clash let their spirits run free over this incredible opus that touched on ska ("Wrong 'Em Boyo"), stomping rock ("London Calling"), and even a bit of disco ("Lost in the Supermarket"). The unlisted "Train in Vain" proved you could storm the charts without losing your ideals.

8. U2, The Joshua Tree [Island, 1987]
Explorer, Les Paul Standard (The Edge)

By adding lovely digital delay to just about every note, The Edge not only defined his sound on U2's fifth album but made the ultimate roadtrip soundtrack. "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "With or Without You" perfectly capture the sound of the American landscape unraveling in your mind.

9. Guns N' Roses, Appetite For Destruction [Geffen, 1987]
Les Paul Standard, Les Paul Custom (Slash) ES-175 (Izzy Stradlin)

When this album arrived, the Sunset Strip was a cesspool of poodle- haired rockers hoping to go mainstream on Bon Jovi's synth-heavy coattails. Thanks to Axl Rose's feral howls and Slash's breathless dexterity (as exhibited on "Sweet Child of Mine" and "Paradise City"), that all changed real fast. People often mistakenly credit Nirvana for making rock matter again. The Guns had them beat by years.

10. Radiohead, OK Computer [Capitol, 1997]
ES-125, ES-125T (Thom Yorke), Les Paul (Jonny Greenwood), ES-330TD, ES-335, Les Paul (Ed O'Brien)

Thirty years after the Beatles brought the power of production into the light, Radiohead took the same idea and ran with it, producing a towering, intense, and rhapsodic masterpiece. With tunes like “Karma Police” and “Airbag,” this disc captured the growing paranoia of the approaching millennium while simultaneously charging at it all guns blazing. All hail the band that brought experimentation back to the table.

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Wes Montgomery’s L-5 could be yours, along with vintage Les Pauls and other classic Gibson guitars. They’re all bound for the auction block.

A 1955 Les Paul Goldtop, a 1957 Les Paul Custom, and the 1961 L-5 that jazz legend Wes Montgomery is pictured with on the 1964 album Movin’ Wes are just three of the many vintage Gibsons that will hit the auction block in Boston on October 14.

Several of the excellent-condition instruments to be auctioned off by Massachusetts-based Skinner, Inc. are from the personal collection of jazz great George Benson, including Montgomery’s ’61 L-5, which the late guitarist also used on the albums Goin’ Out of My Head (1965) and A Day In the Life (1967).

“This is such a rare and special collection of vintage Gibson guitars and mandolins, especially associated with two of the most popular jazz guitarists,” says David Bonsey, Skinner’s Fine Musical Instruments director. “Wes Montgomery and George Benson’s guitars are important historical pieces, and I think they’re really going to interest guitar collectors and jazz lovers.”

The L-5 CES Custom (No. 38024) features a Florentine cutaway and Bonsey estimates it will fetch up to $30,000. But that figure is less than half of what could be generated by the ’55 and ’57 Les Paul axes, both of which are in remarkable condition. The ’55 (stamped 513742), which has a price range of $50,000 to $75,000, comes with its original case, shoulder strap, hang tag, and instruction booklet. The ’57 Custom, meanwhile, is estimated to bring $50,000 to $60,000.

The Gibson guitars up for auction include:

Pictures below!

• 1957 J-185 in natural finish. Estimated price: $10,000 to $14,000.
• 1957 Les Paul TV Special. Estimated price: $15,000 to $18,000.
• 1961 ES-355TD
• First production 1955 Byrdland (No. A20985) with its original case. Estimated price: $18,000 to $24,000.

View the above four guitars here.

• 1924 L-5 signed by Lloyd Loar . Estimated price: $45,000 to $60,000.
• 1959 ES-175. Estimated price: $8,000 to $12,000.
• 1964 400CES. Estimated price: $23,000 to $26,000.
• 1962 Les Paul Custom (stamped 42733). Estimated price: $22,000 to $26,000.
• 1969 Les Paul Custom (stamped 846281). Estimated price: $12,000 to $15,000.
• 1941 J-55, which comes with its original case and a 1941 Gibson catalog. Estimated price: $20,000 to $24,000.
• 1960 Byrdland, with original case. Estimated price: $18,000 to $22,000.
• 1958 L5CT prototype designed for comedian George Gobel. Stamped internally 13885, this guitar was entered into Gibson’s records in March of 1958 as an L-5C with “Lonesome George Gobel Spec” handwritten next to the entry. It was the first of 44 produced from 1958 to 1962. Estimated price: $15,000 to $20,000.
• 1960 Model L-5 CES (No. A35426). Estimated price: $18,000 to $22,000.

View the above nine guitars here.

• 1966 Johnny Smith model. This guitar, also from Benson’s collection, was custom-built for British jazz guitarist Ike Isaacs, a long-time member of Stephane Grappelli’s group. Estimated price: $7,500 to $8,500.

A public preview of all lots in the auction will take place October 12-14.

1955 Byrdland	1956 Les Paul Custom
1957 J-185	1959 ES-175
1957 Les Paul Special TV	L-5 Wes Montgomery - George Benson
L-5 Lloyd Loar Signed

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One of the things that players love most about Gibson guitars is that they yield a hot, fat, full-throated sound when compared to so many other makes and models. Whether your Gibson has PAF-style alnico humbuckers, hotter ’buckers like the ceramic 500T, or P-90 single coils, chances are it packs a bigger punch than most other instruments out there with inferior humbuckers or thinner single-coil pickups. Plug your Les Paul, SG Special, ES-335, or Flying V straight into a vintage-style tube amp, crank it up, and wail. It’s the way the blues, classic rock, and even heavy metal were born.

Sometimes, however, you want a cleaner, tighter, more focused sound from your Gibson, for rhythm playing, jangly arpeggios, or just for styles of music a little further out of the grinding rock context. These guitars can provide clarity and definition when called upon to do so, fear not, but achieving this tonal shift is a less frustrating endeavor if you take a couple of tips to heart. Note that these are techniques that most players were aware of back in the 1950s, ’60s, and early ’70s, but which somehow drained out of the knowledge pool in the high-gain eras of the late ’70s and early ’80s when, more often than not, players thought they wanted more gain, rather than less.
 

The solution to cleaning up that fat-sounding guitar is a simple one: show the amp’s first gain stage a slightly lower signal from the guitar in the first place. You know how all vintage amps, and many newer ones, have two inputs, a No. 1 and a No. 2 (sometimes marked High and Low respectively)? Well, plug yourself into No. 2 for a change, partner. Guitar pickups create a low voltage signal that is translated by an amplifier into the high-watt output that drives a speaker. The higher that voltage is from the guitar itself, the more likely it is to distort the first stage of the amplifier—and the hotter the pickup, the higher the voltage. Most players have long ignored input No. 2 because they assume they want the highest gain level at the front end at all times, but plugging into the lower-gain No. 2 input drops the dirt down a notch before it can distort the first gain stage of the amplifier, which is to say the first preamp tube, and lets you retain greater clarity, definition, and perceived brightness throughout the following stages of the amp. Distort that first gain stage and there’s no way of getting the clarity back; but give that first tube an easier signal to handle and you achieve greater headroom throughout the amp, and can still pump yourself up to required output levels with the Volume control, or even drive the output stage into a fatter, fuller form of distortion if you desire.

With the help of any good A/B/Y pedal, you can even use the difference in gain levels between the average No. 1 and No. 2 input to create an instant, preset boost that in many cases is just enough to take you from clean rhythm to slightly crunchy lead tones. Plug into the A/B/Y selector pedal, and connect its “A” out to input No. 2 and “B” to input No. 1. “A” yields your clean tone, and the “Y” selection (both) gives you a boost of about 6 dB for leads (when connected in this way, many amps sound about the same when merely switched between “A” and “B” because of the way the inputs are now ganged together, but selecting “Y”—both—gives you the hotter gain levels equivalent to input No. 1 alone). And if your amp only has one input? Heck, turn your guitar’s volume control down to clean it up. Either way, apply some clever gain-structure thinking through each stage of your sound chain, and you’ll find that, rather than being a crunch-and-beyond machine, your big-voiced Gibson electric will reveal a broadness and versatility of tone that you previously couldn’t have imagined. Clean it up, and you can always crank it up from there.

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To download a free MP3 of Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez's "Angel of the Morning," click here.

Had Chip Taylor done nothing more than write the classics “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning,” his place in rock history would be assured. Fact is, however, in addition to writing those songs, the New York City-based veteran has amassed a vast body of work rich in Americana traditions.

As a recording artist in the ’70s and early ’80s, Taylor garnered a reputation for merging country and rhythm ’n’ blues in a way that gained notice in Nashville. Among his hits from this period were “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder),” which was co-written with Jerry Ragovoy and recorded by Janis Joplin, and “Son of a Rotten Gambler,” which became a Top Ten smash for Anne Murray in 1974 and was later covered by Emmylou Harris.

After giving up music in the mid-’80s to become a professional gambler, Taylor undertook a national songwriter’s tour in 1993 and began writing again. Then came several solo albums and a fruitful collaboration with violinist/singer Carrie Rodriguez that yielded three acclaimed duet albums. Both he and Rodriguez returned to solo activities last year, but they remain close, and their chemistry lives on in the just-released Live from the Ruhr Triennale, which features Taylor on his Gibson J-45.

How long have you been playing the J-45?

Well, I played a J-160-E  for years, going back to 1963, when I was first starting out. There were two of them hanging on the wall at Manny’s in New York. I was going out of town and I asked someone at Manny’s to save one of them for me. When I got home I went into the store, and neither guitar was hanging on the wall. It turned out that John Lennon had just come in and bought one of them. Fortunately, though, they had pulled the other guitar and held it for me. I loved that guitar. At the time it was the only acoustic guitar I knew of that had a volume control. And it had the original amplification Gibson used back then. That’s the one I played whenever I went on the road, or played live.

Whenever I played at home I used a B-25--the three-quarter size Gibson. I actually wrote “Angel of the Morning” on the B-25. I still write on that guitar to this day. But my favorite guitar for the road is the J-45, which I got about three or four years ago when I needed something different. Sound-wise, it’s the best guitar I’ve ever had for the road. It has a nice warm sound. I play with my fingernails—I don’t strum with a pick—and other acoustics often sound edgy to me. The J-45 is warmer, and works well with my style. The tuning is unbelievable as well. It never goes out of tune.

You’ve lived your entire life in New York. How did you come to be drawn toward country music?

I remember the night I heard “My Wild Irish Rose.” I remember thinking at the time—I was just seven or eight years old—that music was going to be my life. It was like the first time you fall in love, or the first time you hold a girl close. And then when I first heard country music—on a radio station in Wheeling, West Virginia—I had the same kind of feeling. Suddenly the direction was set for me. In high school I had a country band, one of the only country bands in the New York area. And during that time I was also exposed to the “race records” from down south, with the Alan Freed show. The combination between that and country music really guided my path in the music business.

You were a staff songwriter during the heyday of the Brill Building writers. And yet you were completely different from most of that crowd.

That’s right. None of the writers in New York in those days were drawing from the sources I was drawing from. Most of those songwriters didn’t know the race records from down south, either. What I was doing made me more like a Memphis writer than a New York writer. Most of the writers around me were keyboard writers—Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Leiber and Stoller, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weils—and they were more polished and more pop-ish. They could write orchestrations and things of that sort, whereas I couldn’t read or write a note of music.

Did you feel like a misfit, or were you emboldened by the fact that you were different?

I'll tell you a specific thing that happened. I knew Bobby Scott a bit—the guy who wrote “A Taste of Honey” and all those brilliant songs—when he and Quincy Jones were co-heads of A&R for Mercury Records. I used to go and see them once in a while, and whenever I would go to their offices I would see their orchestrations lying around. And I was jealous. I was so jealous that one day I went over to Juilliard and registered for a course to get some formal training in how to write music. After that I saw Bobby and Quincy and I said, “I just signed up for Juilliard so I can learn how to do what you guys do.” They both stopped what they were doing and looked at me like I was crazy. They told me I was like a blues singer, and that I should just write what I feel. Bobby said, “There’s no amount of education that’s going to make that song that you played for us yesterday a better song. The only thing it might do is make it worse.” That was a really empowering afternoon.

You wrote and recorded the demo for “Wild Thing” on acoustic guitar. How close in spirit is the Troggs’ version to the version you first recorded?

The demo was exactly the way that you hear it on the Troggs record, except that it was electric guitar instead of acoustic guitar. “Wild Thing” was such an overt expression of sexuality that I was a little embarrassed for people to hear it, but the publisher sent it over to England, and the Troggs’ version was the last song they recorded for their session on that particular day. I love their record. A lot of people don’t understand just how great that record is. When Jimi Hendrix heard it in England he said it was the best thing he had ever heard. What Jimi did to the song was wonderful as well, but he was very inspired by the Troggs’ version.

You’ve said in the past that you can hear a common element in “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning.” What exactly do they have in common?

It has to do with what I was saying earlier. To me, both “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning” sound like they were written by a Memphis guy. If you take “Wild Thing” and slow it down a lot, you can start singing “Angel of the Morning” over it. I didn’t know many chords back in those days, but I knew how to use the ones I had. Both those songs have a sort of sweaty aspect to them that makes me feel something special. I love both those songs.

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It might not have been the first electric guitar pickup developed, but when Gibson’s Patent Applied For (PAF) humbucking pickup hit the scene it turned the industry’s thinking on its ear, and offered players unparalleled levels of sound and performance that set the standards for pickup design forever after. Check out the five-figure sums that collectors are willing to pay for an original pair of PAFs on the vintage market, or the way players flock in droves to accurate reproductions of these hallowed humbuckers, and you get an inkling of the impact they have had on the guitar world. Imagine how they must have appeared back in the mid 1950s when they appeared on their first Gibson guitars, in an era when your choice in pickups was single coil or… another single coil.

At the urging of company president Ted McCarty, Gibson technicians Seth Lover and Walt Fuller began working on the idea of a hum-rejecting guitar pickup in 1955. Lover, a radio and electronics expert, had worked for Gibson on and off in the 1940s, and after rejoining the company in 1952, he had developed the single-coil Alnico pickup, as used briefly in the neck position of the Les Paul Custom. Gibson’s main pickup of the day, the P-90, had a great full, fat, distinctive tone, but like all single-coil pickups was prone to picking up unwanted hum and noise from external electrical sources.

Being familiar with tube amplifiers, Lover was well aware of how a “choke” (a coil or small transformer) could help filter out hum induced by an amp’s power supply, and began working toward applying the same logic to guitar pickups. His solution took the form of a double-coil pickup, in which the two coils were placed side by side, wired together out of phase with each other, and given opposite magnetic polarities. As a result, this configuration rejected much of the hum that single-coil pickups reproduce—which is eliminated when two like but reverse-phase signals are summed together—but passed along all of the guitar tone. Lover also added a thin nickel cover to the pickups, to further reject electrostatic interference. In addition to the benefits regarding noise rejection, the double-coil pickup’s side-by-side coil alignment produced a warm, rich sound that came across as bigger and rounder than that of the average single-coil pickup.

Gibson dubbed Lover’s new creation the “humbucker” for its ability to “buck” electrical hum and, aware that it was a unique device in the fledgling industry, applied for a U.S. patent to protect the design. When double-coil humbuckers first appeared on Gibson’s Les Paul Goldtop and Les Paul Custom in 1957, they carried stickers that read “Patent Applied For” to warn off would-be copyists while the company awaited the patent. Pickups of the era, therefore, are given the nickname “PAF,” which applies to any pickup carrying the “Patent Applied For” sticker that all Gibson humbuckers wore between 1956 and late 1962. In fact, a U.S. patent was granted in July of 1959, but Gibson continued to apply these stickers for another two years. One theory is that the company still didn’t want potential copyists to have access to the design, as they could easily have done by searching for the patent number at the U.S. Patent Office (when the patent number stickers finally appeared on humbuckers late in 1962, the number was in fact for a bridge patent—perhaps a simple mistake, but also perhaps a further deterrent to the competition?). The second theory is that Gibson was just using up the many stickers it had already printed up, and perhaps had already applied to a stock of pickups.

The first “patent number pickups,” as the post-PAF humbuckers have come to be known, were almost identical to the final stocks of PAFs, which had become fairly consistent in their construction by 1962. But earlier examples of the late 1950s had varied quite widely and, as any collector knows, there are “great, greater, and greatest” versions out there (if you will). Gibson used a range of alnico magnet types in constructing these pickups, from alnico II through alnico V, largely determined by whatever stocks the company could lay its hands on in the day, and because coil winding was a hand-guided process, pickup coils were wound to differing numbers of turns, too, and therefore differing strengths. In addition to these constructional variables, another purely cosmetic variable has sent many collectors in search of the rare and ultra-rare examples: when Gibson ran short of black plastic coil formers, or “bobbins,” it bought in cream stock, so double-cream and black-and-cream PAFs—dubbed “zebra stripes”—can also be found beneath some pickups’ metal covers. 

PAFs are not really much hotter, in electrical terms, than the average P-90, and the two different pickup types from the same era generally show similar DC resistance readings in the 7.5k to 8.5k ohms range. But the humbucker’s broader sonic window sends a meatier spread of frequencies to the amp, which creates a fatter, warmer sound, and can also drive an amp more easily into distortion when desired. Nevertheless, a good PAF still yields a lot of sweetness, good treble response, and excellent definition, as exhibited by the best of Gibson’s current breed of PAF reproductions, the ’57 Classic and ’57 Classic Plus and the Burstbucker range. Winding a PAF-style humbucker a little hotter, however, creates a pickup that’s more suitable to some contemporary rock styles. The 490R, 490T, and 498T all give you crunch, drive, and sustain to spare, while retaining a core of sweetness and musicality. Pickups like the Screaming Ceramics  and Dirty Fingers up the ante even further by adding powerful ceramic magnets and extra windings, for the ultimate drive and heavy rock or nu-metal distortion tones. When it comes to ’buckers, it all starts with the hallowed PAF—and however hot you like your mustard, it all comes down to Gibson.

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With the terrific interview with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols currently gracing the site, we thought it only fitting that we would dip into the voluminous Gibson editorial archives and reprint our great interview with the legendary Mick Jones of the Clash from December of '06. To see the original story, complete with blistering live Clash footage and streams of "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" and "The Prisoner," click here.

Mick Jones was a skinny kid living with his grandmother in a London apartment when rock ’n’ roll changed his life. Against the gray backdrop of working class London, he fell in love with the flash of Mott the Hoople, David Bowie, and T. Rex. But it was the New York Dolls who convinced him to pick up a guitar. Inspired by Johnny Thunders, Jones saved up for a Les Paul Junior, locked himself in his bedroom, and taught himself to play. Just a few years later, he would form the Clash and become one of the most iconic and influential rock ’n’ roll guitarists of all time.

Dubbed “the only band that matters,” the Clash made an impact that is still being felt. As one of the first true punk guitar heroes, Jones welded a dizzying collection of vintage Gibsons with a genius for arrangements that blended punk, reggae, rocksteady, rockabilly, and funk. The perfect musical partner for the much missed Joe Strummer, Jones would weave his guitar lines around Strummer’s driving rhythm guitar, the skittering, powerhouse drumming of the brilliant Topper Headon, and the thunderous bass of Paul Simonon. When the band broke up, several years later, they left behind a sprawling collection of some of the best rock ’n’ roll ever made, including the breathtaking double album London Calling. In New York to promote the release of the painstakingly put-together Sony-Legacy Clash singles box set—all of the band’s 19 original U.K. singles, plus bonus tracks, in their original sleeves—the soft-spoken and thoughtful Jones took time to talk to Gibson in this rare interview.

Did I Say Jeff Beck Twice?

I was lucky. I grew up in a time of so many great guitarists. I loved all of them, but my favorite was Mick Ronson. And Jeff Beck. And Keith Richards. But you have to say Pete Townshend, and Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton (laughs). Did I miss anybody? Did I say Jeff Beck? Did I say him twice? I hope so! He’s that good (laughs).

I spent like a year in the bedroom, playing along to all of those people, copying them. And then I set off on my own as a rhythm guitarist. That’s what happens with guitar players. You start off copying and playing like the people you admire, and then you start to carve out your own style.

My first proper guitar was a Les Paul Junior. I saved for months, till I had enough money. I had to have a Junior, because of Johnny Thunders. The New York Dolls came along and made a massive impact on all of us. They came to play really early on in London, so we got a chance to see them. I saw them on the Old Grey Whistle Test, but I saw them live too. They were supporting the Faces at Wembley Stadium. I went to that show. I must have been 13 or 14, that perfect influential age, when you’re really gonna be changed. And I was! I pretended to be Johnny Thunders for a bit.

That Was It For Me

My maternal grandmother mainly brought me up. At that time, I was living with my grandmother, her sister, and her sister-in-law. That was very strange, growing up with three old ladies. When I started dressing like Johnny Thunders, they were a bit worried, to be quite honest. But I assured them that everything was okay (laughs).

But even before the Dolls, I used to follow bands around. I followed Mott the Hoople up and down the country. I’d go to Liverpool or Newcastle or somewhere—sleep on the Town Hall steps, and bunk the fares on the trains, hide in the toilet when the ticket inspector came around. I’d jump off just before the train got to the station and climb over the fence. It was great times, and I always knew I wanted to be in a band and play guitar. That was it for me.

Let’s See If We Can Get Joe

I was always going to auditions. That was a big part of my life. I was going for auditions as a rhythm guitarist, but there weren’t that many jobs for that. You had to be able to do a little bit more than just play rhythm. I played in some smaller bands. I didn’t play live much, just a few gigs, but I knew I wanted to do it.

I saw Joe play with the 101ers many times. They were nearly at the point of being the best group in London. They were lumped in with the pub rock scene, but they were really a squat band, from the squatting communities. Joe was part of that scene, which was very big in the early ’70s. And we’d seen them many times.

Joe had already made it in our eyes, you know? It took a lot of courage to get him to join our group, since we hadn’t done anything. But luckily, Joe had seen the Sex Pistols. They had supported him in the 101ers at the Nashville Rooms a couple of times. Joe had seen the new thing coming in. He obviously wanted to be a part of it, and that was to our advantage because we were part of that, Paul and I.

We went to see him play with the 101ers, at the Golden Lion in Fullham. Afterwards, Bernhard, our manager, went round the back and talked to him and made him the offer. We were in the squat in Shepherd’s Bush, and he brought Joe around a couple days later.

He had seen us out a few times, either at his gigs or in the dole queue (laughs). We were in the dole queue looking across at him—glaring—and he thought we were gonna start a fight with him. But we were actually looking in awe because we’d seen him play the other night! So we’d seen each other before, but he had obviously noticed us as well. We just thought he was the best guy out there. We were looking for a singer and said, “Let’s see if we can get Joe.”

We Were Drifting Away From Those Love You Songs

We fell into it very quickly. We started work on the first day. One of the first ones we did was “I’m So Bored with the USA.”  Joe and I just played a couple of each other’s numbers, and Joe made that famous addition. I played my song for him and he changed it from “I’m So Bored with You” to “I’m So Bored with the USA.” He took the “You” and put the “S” and the “A” in there, and that changed everything!

We were drifting away from those “love you” songs to something that meant more. We started to write about what was going on and what was affecting us. It was very natural. It wasn’t contrived in any way. We just started to focus. We had a very peculiar kind of schooling in the Clash. It was a bit like being in the army or something. Our manager said, “You’re gonna have a hard time for the next few years.” He kept us lean and hungry, kept us on our toes. We had to find out what we were about.

Most groups don’t have that kind of background very often now. They just go in for fame or something. But we had this very almost Communist Army thing or something. It was very unusual, but I think it kept us in very good stead. Like before we could play a note, we had to paint the studio! Our rehearsal studio needed painting. Our manager said, “You can’t do any playing until you paint the bloody studio.” And that was how the paint-splattered period started! We were painting, and it dripped on our clothes, and we went onstage like that.

Lots of things just happened by good fortune. Even the way that the group clicked. We all brought something slightly different, but we made up a great whole. Topper was amazing, and Paul became such a great bass player. After the start! We became so frustrated with him trying to learn bass that we painted the notes on the neck. We’d just shout out the chords and he’d go to it. But he soon became a very good bass player in his own right.

We Didn’t Care About Nothing

I like the first Clash album the best. It’s kind of pure. I played the Junior through a big 4×12 cabinet, and when we recorded it, we didn’t care about nothing. We didn’t really care to even care about it. So it’s kind of raw. We were struggling with our instruments, and it made it more alive. With my playing and Joe’s playing, it was the sweet and the sour. See, Joe was a left-handed player but he played right-handedly, so his most dexterous hand was the opposite. That contributed considerably to his strumming style. That’s why it is so specific to him. But I think that is true of all people: You sound like yourself. Playing guitar is a further expression of your inner self. When you play you sound like no one else. You sound like you.

The songs on the first album are sort of mini-operas. I’ve always been lucky enough to put it together in a way that will make it hold together, but still changing within that togetherness. So it doesn’t really sound like bits. Now I hear arrangements more in my head, but then I did it all on the guitar. But it was very natural with the Clash. It was very instinctual. Even the stuff we did on the stage—we just seemed to have a telepathic understanding. We played off each other, and we always seemed to know what the other was doing.

Can We Have Bo Diddley?

In America, the record company said we could have anybody we wanted to support us. We said, “Can we have Bo Diddley?” They said, “Ooh, we don’t know about that.” He was fantastic! We had Lee Dorsey as well. And Screamin’ Jay Hawkins—he came out of a coffin every night. When Grandmaster Flash supported us at the Bond’s shows in New York, they were booed! Joe was quite upset. He went out onstage and yelled at the audience. He said, “Come on! You’re not being fair. You have to give them a chance!”

Jukeboxes were quite important in our story. Especially the jukebox in our rehearsal room and the jukebox in the studio in San Francisco, where we recorded the second album. We played all the music we liked, and we’d hear all the records first on jukeboxes. On the jukebox in our rehearsal room, we’d have a lot of those records we covered. Like “Revolution Rock” and “Wrong ’Em Boyo,” a lot of reggae records, and probably Vince Taylor’s “Brand New Cadillac.” And it was on the jukebox in San Francisco that we first heard “I Fought the Law.” And we would try to copy it, but bring something of our own to it.

The Bigger We Got, the Worse It Seemed to Get For Us

Even after we made London Calling, Joe was still squatting, and I was still living in the flat with my Gran. I kept leaving and then going back to my Gran’s. That’s why Joe wrote “Lost in the Supermarket.” He wrote it with me in mind, which is really a touching thing. Everybody thinks I wrote that one, because I sing it, but Joe wrote it for me. It’s not completely accurate, though. We didn’t have a hedge (laughs).

It was kind of weird, getting as popular as we were and still living back home with my grandmother. But somehow it helped, in a way. That was our big problem all the time, really. The bigger we got the worse it seemed to get for us (laughs). It is a very strange irony. You’d think we’d be getting on great, but it got scary.

We were always battling with contradictions, but when we got big, we were faced with big contradictions. It was almost at the point of compromise. And that was a big factor towards breaking up. That, and we never had any time off, and we lived on top of each other for like six or seven years. We got dog tired and fed up. When we were struggling, it definitely held us together. “Come on! Where are we going? We’re going to the top!” We had all that drive, and just like anybody we had good intentions.

But you get compromised. You can’t beat it. We did okay, considering the things we had to contend with. Compared to most groups, we did great. But trying to deal with those contradictions was the worst. On the one hand, there was what we were singing about, and then we were becoming more and more, and bigger and bigger. And it’s like, what’s there? There’s more. And then there’s more after that. And then it is like, well hold on a minute, don’t we have enough? So we were in crisis most of the time. The more we worked, the more screwed we were.

Suddenly It’ll All Fall Into Place

My favorites are still the Juniors. I had a great Les Paul Standard, a sunburst one. And then I had a black Custom, and a white Custom. And then the big white hollowbody for London Calling. But I still play the Juniors today.

The thing about guitar playing is that you have to do it all the time. That’s how you get good at something—by doing it every day. I do music every day. There’s a work ethic to it, and also it is very mathematical. It is lovely when you realize that the same chord that you are playing down there is up there in a different configuration. It all clicks into place sometimes. You just keep going at it, and going at it, and then suddenly it’ll all fall into place and it’s wonderful. Like a puzzle you solve. 

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We might take it for granted today, but the facility to individually adjust an independent bridge saddle for each string was an impressive development when it first hit the guitar world more than 50 years ago. Prior to the arrival of the Tune-o-matic bridge in 1954, Gibson electrics carried either a floating bridge with compensated one-piece rosewood or ebony saddle, a rudimentary trapeze tailpiece with integral wrapover bridge bar, or a stud-mounted wraparound bridge, each of which offered only the crudest global intonation and height adjustment for the strings. When the Tune-o-matic bridge, also known as the ABR-1, first appeared—initially on the Les Paul Custom and then on the Goldtop Les Paul “Standard” the following year—it was a true revelation in intonation, and set a standard for simplicity and functionality that has never been bettered.

The Tune-o-matic was designed by Gibson president Ted McCarty himself, and was initially part of what made the Les Paul Custom “custom.” But it was too important a piece of hardware to be limited to use only on “upgraded” instruments. Partnered with a separate “stud” or “stopbar” tailpiece, which was essentially a modified version of the wraparound bridge, the Tune-o-matic provided both a firm seating for the strings at the body-end termination point of their speaking length, and a facility for adjusting the individual length of each via a sliding steel saddle and adjustment screw. Finally a player could fine-tune intonation for themselves, in a matter of minutes, and easily adjust it again when atmospheric conditions required periodic alterations. This solid, well-seated piece of hardware also yields great coupling between string and body, which results in great tone and excellent sustain. It also provided quick and easy adjustment of the overall string height via thumb-wheels threaded over the mounting bolt at either end of the bridge.

Gibson has also employed the Tune-o-matic bridge on a number of archtop electrics over the years, where it is partnered either with a trapeze tailpiece on hollowbody models such as the ES-175, or a stop-bar tailpiece on semi-acoustic models with solid center blocks, such as the ES-335. Some of Gibson’s more basic bridges still have their fans, of course—the wraparound bridge in particular being beloved of many players, as found on Les Paul and SG Specials and Juniors and the 1954 Les Paul reissue—but the Tune-o-matic bridge remains the epitome of form and function in electric guitar bridge design, and is one of the most revered and copied pieces of guitar hardware ever developed.

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Zeroing in on the instrument that’ll capture the exact sound you’ve set your mind on is a lot like finding love. Lots of trial and error, lots of patience.

Former Taking Back Sunday guitarist Fred Mascherino found his perfect match some years back—his beloved Gibson SG Special. He did it intentionally, and economically, hitting one of those sprawling, well-stocked instrument retailers and playing every single guitar in the store until he felt a spark.

“I knew there was a sound I was looking for, I just wasn’t getting that,” the now-The Color Fred singer/guitarist says. “So it was a search I went on.”

You might narrow your search a little, though, by eyeing some famous players who found their stringed soulmate and focusing in on why the match worked so well.

Jimmy Page and his double-neck Gibson EDS-1275
If there are two characteristics that define Jimmy Page’s playing with rock legends Led Zeppelin, they’re fire and fearlessness. Which made the EDS-1275 he played on stage for “Stairway to Heaven” something of a perfect voice—the inclusion of both a 12-string and six-string made it versatile, but more, the instrument funneled the precise crunch of an SG into a massive piece of furniture you certainly had to be fearless to wield.

“After knowing that ‘Stairway (To Heaven)’ was going to have to be recorded live and the fact it was recorded with 12 strings acoustic and electric, I needed something which could reflect the pacing of that song,” Page said in an interview that coincided with the announcement earlier this year that Gibson would produce replicas of the guitar.

It reflected the pacing of that song, maybe, but the guitar’s capacity for growl and chime also reflected Page’s ability to flit between gentleness and all-out attack as a player. Its bold look reflected his bold playing, too.

Last month, U.K. newspaper The Independent called the EDS-1275 the “double-barrelled weapon that summed up everything that was over-the-top about Led Zep and the often bludgeoning music with which they excavated an entire new realm of rock in the early 1970s.” Well said indeed.

Slash and his Gibson Les Paul
It wasn’t so much a particular guitarist or album that inspired Velvet Revolver/Guns N’ Roses’ Slash to pick up the instrument, he told Creative Loafing in Tampa early this month, but the tone achieved by a particular guitarist on a particular album.

“The album that sort of epitomized the sound I was into was Aerosmith’s Rocks record,” he said. “That really had a huge impact on me as a guitar player, and then teenage rebellion set the wheels in motion.”

It makes sense that he picked up a Gibson Les Paul, a guitar that’s tightly tied to Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry’s fluid but beefy playing. Slash certainly made the Les Paul his own, though, and the tone he’s pulled out of it—alternately built on bluesy howls and hard-rock growls—is one that many a player has sought to emulate.

That Slash was weaned on early metal along with blues-rock players like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck comes through in that tone and his playing, full of as much reckless energy as soul. And the Les Paul’s natural clarity and full-bodied warmth—along with the kind of weighty heft that lets someone dig in ferociously—made for an ideal marriage.

Angus Young and his Gibson SG
It wasn’t just the fact that a Gibson SG fares exceptionally well, sonically, with controlled bursts of aggression that made it ideal for AC/DC guitarist Angus Young. A consummate performer and a player who’s worked his loveable-troublemaker image almost as intensely as he did the band’s stinging chords, Young needed the total package —a visual that matched the audio.

“The shape of the SG has the little horns,” the guitarist told Gibson in 2001. “It’s red and it’s a little devilish.”

Young’s compact but energy-riddled stature played into AC/DC’s sound—his style is as explosive as it is precise and economic—and the guitar certainly had to fit there too. Which made the light, speedy SG a pretty obvious match.

“I tried a Les Paul once,” he said, “but I’m a little guy and the SG just felt more balanced for me. The SG has just always been the right guitar for me.”

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Are You Led Zeppelin's Biggest Fan? You Could Win Tickets to the Reunion Show  and Check Out All the Latest from Gibson.com



Win a Trip to London and Led Zeppelin Tickets Or Win Chance to Perform at the Tribute Concert After Party.The tribute concert honors Ahmet Ertegun, an incredibly influential figure in the record industry and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who passed away in 2006. The living members of Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and Robert Plant, will take the stage on November 26 to rock out in Ertegun’s memory.



Ziddio the user-generated video website, has announced the beginning of The Dream Gig and Led Zeppelin’s Biggest Fan—two video contests searching for new music talent and Led Zeppelin’s biggest fan. The Dream Gig challenges unsigned bands to submit an original song to Ziddio as a chance to launch their musical careers. The winning band of The Dream Gig will receive $20,000 in music equipment from Gibson and the opportunity to perform at the Led Zeppelin tribute concert’s exclusive after party in front of hundreds of the music industry most influential executives. The Biggest Fan contest encourages fans to create a personal video showcasing why they are the biggest fans of the legendary rock band Led Zeppelin and upload it to Ziddio. The winners of the competitions will fly Virgin Airlines’ award-winning premium economy to London and receive tickets to see one of the most anticipated rock shows in music history—the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Show featuring Led Zeppelin on Monday, November 26. The videos for both competitions are accepted from now to November 4.

For both contests, 10 finalists, determined by a panel of judges, will have their videos reviewed by a second round of judges, made up of a team of heavy hitters in the music industry. These judges include board members of the Ahmet Ertegun Education Trust, such as Bill Curbishley (manager of Robert Plant, the Who, and Judas Priest), Richard Branson (founder of the Virgin Empire), Phil Carson (the Atlantic Records executive responsible for signing AC/DC, Twisted Sister and Yes), Taylor Hackford (the director of Ray, and many other hit movies), and promoter Harvey Goldsmith. Judging for The Biggest Fan will be based on creativity and persuasiveness while judging for The Dream Gig will be based on musicianship, showmanship, and commercial accessibility.

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Contact:

Official Smash n' Grab Cafe site: www.smashngrab.it

Official MySpace Page: www.myspace.com/smashngrabcafe

Official Ning Network: smashgrab.ning.com

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Peaceville Records is proud to announce the release by one of the most significant bands on the current metal scene OPETH.

‘The Roundhouse Tapes’ 2 disc set contains a captivating Opeth performance from the Camden Roundhouse, London, UK, on November 9th, 2006 and sees the band in scintillating form playing a selection of classics from their illustrious career.

"The Roundhouse concert ...caught the band at the peak of the "Ghost reveries" tour. We've decided to collaborate with one of our past labels for this release, the legendary Peaceville records to preserve this pleasurable memory for todays music lovers as well as for generations to come." Mikael Akerfeldt (Opeth)

Since their formation in 1990 in Sweden, Opeth has risen to the forefront of the metal world; bringing many aspects of progressive rock/metal to a whole new audience by combining soft acoustic ambience with complex, melodic & heavy guitar often familiar to forms of death/black metal, perfectly concocted into a completely peerless sound. A constant factor of their success is that the band have never been afraid to experiment with their song-writing ever since their debut album, ‘Orchid’, in 1994, all the while taking us through some truly magical & hypnotic soundscapes over the years.

DIGIPACK PACKAGING

ONLY ONE T-SHIRT BUNDLE PER ORDER

THIS EXCLUSIVE BUNDLE CONTAINS THE CD PLUS X-LARGE OPETH T-SHIRT.

M T-SHIRS & L T-SHIRTS ARE ALSO AVAILABLE - PLEASE ENSURE YOU ORDER CORRECT SIZE.

THIS PRODUCT IS AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER AND WILL BE SHIPPED FROM  NOVEMBER 2ND 2007 

PLEASE NOTE THAT YOUR PAYMENT WILL BE PROCESSED UPON RECEIPT OF ORDER AND THAT ANY OTHER PRODUCTS ORDERED ALONG WITH OPETH ‘THE ROUNDHOUSE TAPES’  WILL ALSO NOT BE DESPATCHED UNTIL THIS DATE.

Contacts:

www.opeth.com

www.peaceville.com

www.peaceville.com/opeth/index.html

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'THE BLUE' 

The new album from atmospheric doom metal masters

Release date: November 5^th 2007

Following the success of 2006's debut Peaceville album from Novembre, 'Materia', and on the back of the great acclaim received by the band for it's highly successful blend of atmospheric, emotional and progressive rock/metal elements comes the new studio recording titled 'The Blue'. Featuring an even greater dynamic – both vocally and musically -and twists of doom/gothic which brings to mind classic bands such as Opeth, Paradise Lost & Anathema, Novembre are poised to impress all fans of the genre.

'The Blue' was recorded at Outersound Studios, Italy, by the band, with additional recording completed at Finnvox Studios in Helsinki. Mixed at Finnvox Studios by Mikko Karmila (Nightwish, Sentenced, Sonata Arctica, Amorphis). 'The Blue' features artwork by Travis Smith; well known for his work with bands such as Opeth and Katatonia.

A promotional video for one of the highlight tracks, 'Anaemia' is also planned, as is a European tour.

 

WWW.PEACEVILLE.COM    WWW.NOVEMBRE.CO.UK

For information contact Paul: paul@peaceville.co.uk

UK Press contact Matt: info@darkwaveart.co.uk

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Peter Lindgren has stepped down from his guitar wielding duties after 16 years in Opeth. Below is an open letter from Peter addressing the issue: "It is with sadness I announce that Opeth and I are going separate ways after almost 16 years. The decision has been the toughest I've ever made but it is the right one to make at this point in my life. "The reason behind this is that I feel that I simply have lost some of the enthusiasm and inspiration needed to participate in a band that has grown from a few guys playing the music we love to a world-wide industry. The love of music has always been, and still is, our motive, but I personally have lost something along the way. "The massive amount of touring has taken its toll. Opeth has worked extremely hard to get where we are right now and in order to persist and maintain the quality of the music, it is necessary that we continue to work hard and always stay focused. But in doing so, it means that we nowadays spend 18 or 19 months on the road and I don't feel the same enthusiasm for the upcoming world tour that I have felt earlier. "I have come to a point where I realize I won't be able to give the band 100 and from both sides this will not be good enough for what Opeth stands for. I will always love playing, listening to, and living music, but I will do it differently from now on. "These years have easily been the best of my life and I will always cherish the memory of what we have experienced together. I would like to thank the band, our management, record label people, all the bands I've made friends with for everything. Most of all, I would like to thank the fans from the depth of my heart for the support throughout the years. "I wish Mikael, Martin, Per and Axe all the best and I am confident they will continue doing the greatest music in the world!" /Peter Fredrik Åkesson (ex. Arch Enemy, Talisman) has been confirmed as the new guitarist in Opeth. Visit his MySpace page at: www.myspace.com/kfredrikakesson Says Mikael Åkerfeldt: "Well, I think it's too soon right now to fully be able to explain what I feel. Peter and I had been working in this band together for almost half of our lives and we shared some unforgettable experiences together all over the world. We will obviously remain friends and this 'break up' has been on very good terms from both sides. We all wish him the best of luck with his future ventures! "Fredrik was the only name that popped up thinking about a replacement for Peter. In my opinion he's one of the top 3 guitar players out of Sweden. We all get along great as we've known each other for maybe 4 years, plus he already has the experience to take on the circus-like lifestyle we lead as members of Opeth. "I can't wait to see what he can bring to the table musically and also to get out on the roads touring together. His first gig will be at the Ilosaari festival in Finland. I'm sure he'll shit his pants before that one, but then again...so will I!"

Sites:

www.opeth.com

www.myspace.com/opeth

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Nightwish made the cover of the popular Canadian metal magazine, BW&BK. This is simply because of their ass-kickingness.

www.nightwish.com

www.myspace.com/nightwish

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Society or people interested can ask for my free CD-R illustrative materials about my hand crafted guitar strap and our works. Email to: the_smash@smashngrab.it - www.smashngrab.it

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It's an italian website, the first in Europe: you can download free music and it's legal.

Cool!

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nto the Night is the first single from Carlos Santana's new compilation, Ultimate Santana. The track features Chad Kroeger from Nickelback, whom he previously worked with for "Why Don't You and I" from his album Shaman. It has received a considerable amount of airplay on Vh1.

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LED Zeppelin tickets sold on eBay and through scalpers will be invalid for the group's reunion concert, promoter Harvey Goldsmith has promised. Tickets for the one-off show, which will be held at the 02 area in Greenwich next month, were distributed through a ballot system. But the scheme, which saw fans win a pass-code giving them the right to buy tickets, saw the winning codes placed on eBay within hours of the draw last week. Fans have so far paid up to £3,000 for the chance to buy the £125 tickets to the tribute show to Ahmet Ertegun, who died last year. "It is even more unfortunate that eBay and a number of ùticket scalping sites have chosen to take advantage of this situation" said Mr Goldsmith.

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AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY AT RADIOHEAD.COM

Radiohead are releasing In Rainbows, their seventh studio album, in two different formats: a basic DRM-free download version that costs whatever you want that's available October 10th, and a deluxe boxed version that includes a double vinyl disc, a book, eight bonus tracks and two CDs, out the first week of December (it also comes with a DRM-free download that actives on October 10th). They offering the entire album in through their website and fans can pay whatever amount they want to digitally download it.

Track Listing:

15 STEP
BODYSNATCHERS

NUDE

WEIRD FISHES/ARPEGGI

ALL I NEED

FAUST ARP

RECKONER

HOUSE OF CARDS

JIGSAW FALLING INTO PLACE

VIDEOTAPE

The extra songs on the second CD of the Discbox are:

MK1
DOWN IS THE NEW UP

GO SLOWLY

MK2

LAST FLOWERS

UP ON THE LADDER

BANGERS AND MASH

4 MINUTE WARNING

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are back! This is their first full-scale concert tour since 2003. For all you "Boss" fans, this will truly be a must-see concert.

Here is the itinerary for the Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band tour:



Oct. 2: Hartford, Conn., Civic Center

Oct. 5: Philadelphia, Wachovia Center

Oct. 9-10: East Rutherford, N.J., Continental Airlines Arena

Oct. 14: Ottawa, Ontario, Civic Centre

Oct. 15: Toronto, Air Canada Centre

Oct. 17-18: New York, Madison Square Garden

Oct. 21: Chicago, United Center

Oct. 26: Oakland, Calif., Oracle Arena

Oct. 28: Los Angeles, TBA

Nov. 2: St. Paul, Minn., Xcel Energy Center

Nov. 4: Cleveland, Quicken Loans Arena

Nov. 5: Auburn Hills, Mich., Palace of Auburn Hills

Nov. 11: Washington, D.C., Verizon Arena

Nov. 14: Pittsburgh, Mellon Arena

Nov. 15: Albany, N.Y., Times Union Center

Nov. 18: Boston, TD Banknorth Garden

Nov. 25: Madrid, Palacio De Deportes

Nov. 26: Bilbao, Spain, Exhibition Centre

Nov. 28: Milan, Datchforum

Nov. 30: Arnhem, Holland, Geldredome

Dec. 2: Mannheim, Germany, Sap Arena

Dec. 4: Oslo, Spektrum

Dec. 8: Copenhagen, Forum

Dec. 10: Stockholm, Globe

Dec. 12: Antwerp, Belgium, Sportspaleis

Dec. 13: Cologne, Germany, Koln Arena

Dec. 15: Belfast, Odyssey Arena

Dec. 17: Paris, Palais Omnsiports De Bercy

Dec. 19: London, O2 Arena

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'Magic,' Bruce Springsteen's new studio recording and his first with the E Street Band in five years, has been released by Columbia Records. Produced and mixed by Brendan O'Brien, the album features eleven new Springsteen songs and was recorded at Southern Tracks Recording Studio in Atlanta, GA.



'Magic' Song Titles:



1. Radio Nowhere { listen }

2. You'll Be Comin' Down { listen }

3. Livin' in the Future { listen }

4. Your Own Worst Enemy { listen }

5. Gypsy Biker { listen }

6. Girls in Their Summer Clothes { listen }

7. I'll Work for Your Love { listen }

8. Magic { listen }

9. Last to Die { listen }

10. Long Walk Home { listen }

11. Devil's Arcade { listen }

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