Last week Guitar World received a visit from legendary Yes/Asia guitarist Steve Howe...which was certainly a treat for a few of the longtime Yes fans here in the office (particularly editor-in-chief Brad Tolinski and music editor Jimmy Brown).

According to Jimmy, who conducted the interview and lesson with Steve, the guitarist was in great spirits and really seemed to enjoy himself. He talked extensively about the current Asia reunion tour and new Phoenix album, as well as the upcoming Yes tour. He gave a lot of interesting details about the gear he's using these days and talked at length about his diverse musical influences and his career as a guitarist, songwriter and arranger.

As for the lesson part, Steve took a liking to a Martin acoustic we had here in the office and showed how he plays such classic Yes tracks as "Roundabout," "Mood for a Day," "Starship Trooper," "Yours Is No Disgrace," "And You and I" and "Siberian Khatru," as well as signature Yes solo pieces like "Clap" and "Mood for a Day."

Look for the interview and lesson to appear in an upcoming issue of Guitar World and on the Guitar World CD-ROM! And yes, he signed the office guitar (see March 25 Fine Print post)...

JK

Daniel Anderson: happy to be out of the van.

++Each week Daniel Anderson, guitarist for electronica/rock duo Idiot Pilot, will be checking in with Guitar World to offer his thoughts on a range of guitar-related topics. This week: The Filthy Van!++

To most people, the thought of going on a tour with a band is probably wrought with legions of screaming fans, backstage parties, and droves of beautiful women. While in some cases that may be true, most of the hours of any tour are spent in a very different way, which most people who haven’t gone out themselves may not even think of. This, of course, is driving. The reality of being a band on tour, specifically one without yet the success to afford a bus and therefore a driver, is that a vast majority of the time is going to be spent in a cramped van hurling down the road at all hours of the night trying to get to the next gig on time. It is in that spirit that I would like to extend the limited advice I have on how to successfully drive 24 hours straight in a van.

First of all, make sure you have multiple activities lined up that you are going to use to keep yourself busy. This is a perfect time to write or to read. I personally read very rarely when I am at home because I always just have so much to do, but when you’re locked up in a bunk in a van, a book is an amazing use of time. Just be sure to bring a reading light. Another thing to make sure that you have is a laptop and plenty of DVDs to watch. Remember that you are probably going to be spending countless hours out on the road total, so I would recommend TV on DVD which will last for much longer. iPods are also a must, but remember before you leave to install a CD player with an audio input that will work with your Pod. For musicians especially, a drive this long without a treasure trove of music could be mind shattering.

“But how am I going to keep all these things powered?” You might ask, “On this long and horrifying journey.”

Good question. There are basically two kinds of power inverters that you can buy for your van. The first plugs right into your cigarette lighter (or preferably, your “power port” which looks identical but can sustain a significantly higher amount of devices being plugged into it) and will usually get the job done for a while, but they inevitably become overloaded and you will blow a fuse, which is an easy replacement but somehow only fixes the problem so many times, until eventually you are just without power. The other kind of inverter plugs directly into the battery of your vehicle and then a wire is run into your cab where you will receive power. This way is more expensive but not by much, and can support significantly more people charging their stuff at one time without breaking something.

Happy Friday, everyone....have something interesting for you today. Before I go any further, let me say that Guitar World is no stranger to mistakes over the years--I mean, what other rock guitar magazine could possibly spell "Stairway to Heaven" wrong on one of its covers? ("Stariway to Heaven"...click here to see that classic, embarrassing 1996 cover.)

Anyway, with our May 2008 issue we celebrated our 300th issue anniversary, and we took that opportunity to put small versions of every Guitar World cover inside that issue, and also instituted the Guitar World covers gallery as a way of keeping every one of our covers on display on guitarworld.com at all times.

Hoping you all get a kick out of this one. Ten years ago we were putting together a big Ozzy issue (August 1998, to be exact), and one of the sidebars dealt with the details surrounding the plane crash that killed Randy Rhoads. When we came up with the concept for the story, we had the idea to commission a graphic artist to illustrate the events surrounding the crash...something scientific, showing trajectory, point of impact, etc., the type of thing you would see in a newspaper in the days following a major plane crash.

What we ended up with was the illustration you see here...which almost has a cheery, cartoony feel to it, and shows the plane crashing into what appears to be a Christmas tree! It was hardly the scientific analysis of the crash we were expecting, so we decided not to run it in the issue.

I've held onto the drawing for all this time, as that morbid side of me just can't part with it...the public has never seen it, until now.

Greetings, Guitar World faithful. Here's a sad story that I'm sure you'll be able to sympathize with. I've never eulogized a guitar (or person) before, so consider this a first. Join me as we mourn the loss of the First Act guitar you see here. What made this guitar special was that it was signed by Rush's Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson when they visited Guitar World's NYC headquarters last year...causing a rare smile to come across the face of the owner of the guitar, our own mad genius online creative director Ben Shapiro, who happens to be a huge Rush fan.

As is typical of most mad genius web people, Ben tends to do his best work for guitarworld.com at four o'clock in the morning, so he's not in the office every day...but the prize Rush guitar sat by his desk day in and day out regardless. One day I noticed the guitar was no longer at his desk, so I started asking officemates if they knew anything about its whereabouts. Long story short, a freelancer here (who shall remain nameless) thought the guitar had no owner, and proceeded to give it to a friend of his...who noticed the Sharpie scribblings (but couldn't identify the signatures) and used nailpolish remover to wipe them off the guitar!

So while the guitar is safe and sound, the Lifeson and Lee signatures are gone forever.

If you would like to send Ben a condolence, email him at soundingboard@guitarworld.com.

 

 

Chicago Deep Dish goodness

Everyone has their vices, whether it is cigarettes, alcohol, chocolate, you name it. Many people get addicted to certain substances or feelings. If I can define addiction as something you need to do everyday at least once a day, and if you don’t do this, you have trouble functioning (masturbation excluded), I’d venture to say I may have a pizza addiction, or at least I may be at risk to becoming addicted to pizza.

If I don’t have pizza one day, I don’t think I have problems getting through the day, but when I do have it, I’m in a much better mood (unless of course it’s a bastardized version of what pizza is). Pizza has been there for me at the best of times, and the worst of times but it’ll never discriminate, and I can depend on it being there for me whenever I need it.

Over the years, I’ve had hundreds of slices from many places around the world. I actually make a point of trying pizza wherever I go, asking the locals where to get the best pizza and I probably base a lot of my opinion of a place on how good the pizza is there (and the beer for that matter). Of all the pizza I’ve had, I’d like to highlight what I’m going to call Six Savoury Slices.

Dean Guitars has introduced a series of signature models for Trivium guitarists Matt Heafy and Corey Beaulieu.

Matt Heafy Model (MKH)
The MKH Signature model is based on the ML Series guitar, originally designed and introduced by Dean Zelinsky in 1977. The MKH has a 24-fret neck, not seen on a Dean ML for quite some time, a 12-inch-radius fingerboard and a newly designed sculpted tapered heel for clear access to the upper frets.

The frets are medium round crown allowing better intonation at blazing speeds. The neck is solid maple construction with an ebony fingerboard and is joined via set neck design at the 19th fret for better tone transference and continuity.

The body is a solid mahogany ML shape featuring the Rising Sun graphics, paying homage to Heafy’s Japanese heritage. The neck features a pearl inlay Trivium logo at the 12th fret. The headstock features Grover black 14:1 tuners, the Trivium logo, the Dean Wing logo and MKH on the truss rod cover.

Rotosound has redesigned the packaging on its major guitar string lines to emphasize its British history and make each style of string easier to identify on store shelves.

The new packages feature a distressed Union Jack motif on a color-coded backdrop featuring a silhouetted guitarist: silver for British Steel, bronze for Tru Bronze and blue for Pure Nickel.

Rotosound was founded in 1958 by James How, a British engineer who became obsessed with zithers after viewing the 1949 film The Third Man, which featured the instrument on its soundtrack. Having amassed some 250 broken or stringless zithers, How repaired and sold them, and with the proceeds developed a semi-automated string-winding machine, the first in England.

Named Top Strings, and later Rotop Strings, the brand was eventually called Rotosound and became the choice of many players during the electric guitar boom of the early Sixties. Over years, the brand has been used by the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Pink Floyd, Yes, Led Zeppelin, the Buzzcocks, Queen, Guns N’ Roses, Iron Maiden and Oasis, among many others.

Godin Guitars has added yet another line to its family. At the recent Musikmesse 2008 show in Frankfurt, Germany, the Montreal-based guitar maker announced the creation of Richmond Guitars Canada.

Two electric guitars make up the Richmond line at present: the Belmont and the Dorchester. Both models are made in Richmond, Quebec, by a team of craftsmen dedicated to the new brand.

“Vintage” is the word that best describes the look of the new models. Both recall classic models from the Sixties, although their playability is decidedly modern.

The Belmont (shown here) has a solid mahogany body and a 24 3/4–inch-scale mahogany neck with rosewood Ergocut fingerboard. Electronics consist of two single-coil lipstick pickups in the neck and middle positions, a bridge-position Seymour Duncan ’59 humbucker, a five-way pickup selector and volume and tone controls.

The Dorchester has a chambered silver-leaf maple body with poplar wings and a 25 1/2–inch-scale rock maple neck with rosewood or maple Ergocut fingerboard. Its electronics include two Lace Alumitone humbuckers and volume and tone controls. In addition, the four-position pickup selector has what the company calls a “beefy” first-position setting that places both pickups in series for more output and fatter tone.

Both models have a chrome roller bridge with fixed tailpiece, chrome Kluson tuning machines, and a Nordic white pickguard and truss rod cover.

The Belmont has a list price of $1,195 and a street price of $995. The Dorchester lists for $1,250 and has a street price of $1,049.

The Godin family also includes the Seagull, Simon & Patrick, Norman, and Art & Lutherie acoustic lines and LaPatrie nylon-stringed classical guitars. Godin Guitars is also the manufacturer of the TRIC acoustic guitar case.

Afternoon everyone...Alex Skolnick is in our video studio right now doing a lesson on how to play "Practice What You Preach," as well as "More Than Meets the Eye," a track from Testament's upcoming album, The Formation of Damnation. Look for this lesson on the July issue CD-ROM, with a story on the new Testament album in the same issue (as well as the start of rhythm guitarist Eric Peterson's new Guitar World column!).

We've always been big fans of Alex's around here...he's one of the nicest guys we deal with, and is always happy to come up to the office to do a lesson whenever he's available. We don't even need to involve managers and publicists when it comes to Alex...wish there were more guys like Alex out there, believe me.

Having Alex here this afternoon made me realize that you all would probably be interested in seeing the Guitar World Office Guitar. It's a nifty white Gibson Les Paul Studio that we keep on hand specifically to have artists sign. We only started the process a few months ago, and in that time we've acquired sigs from Dave Mustaine, Yngwie Malmsteen, Mark Morton, John Petrucci, Rudy and Matthias from the Scorpions, and now Alex Skolnick.

Over time we plan to keep adding to it so that one day it becomes an invaluable item, loaded with signatures from all sorts of celebrity players. Maybe we'll give it away or have a charity raffle or something. And while I'm glad we're finally doing it, what really hurts is the fact that we've haven't been doing it for years and years! Imagine who we could have gotten in all this time...so many legendary players have passed through our doors, and we let them all leave with barely a handshake.

Oh well, live and learn.

JK