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.

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

On Friday night, March 14, I went to see Iron Maiden at the Izod Center, otherwise known to us locals as “The Meadowlands.” As I mentioned in a previous post, I was particularly excited to see this show because it was a pseudo-recreation of the Powerslave tour from 1985—which I was lucky enough to see at Radio City Music Hall when I was 16 years old.

Even though 23 years have elapsed since then, the band was in as good a shape as I’ve ever seen them. Singer Bruce Dickinson sounded as good as you could expect nowadays (far better than Ronnie James Dio sounded on last year’s Heaven and Hell tour), the group nailed every note perfectly, and the set list was the best Maiden list in years. Personally, I could have done without “Can I Play with Madness,” “Heaven Can Wait and of course “Moonchild” and “The Clairvoyant,” but how could you go wrong with “Revelation,” “Aces High,” “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Iron Maiden,” “Two Minutes to Midnight,” “Wasted Years,” “Hallowed Be Thy Name,” “Powerslave” and various other gems?

And I’ll never get used to Janick Gers being the third guitarist in the band…he’s a fine player and all, but as an old-school Rivethead I just find his presence distracting and unnecessary. Sometimes, when there’s a major reunion in the rock world, certain players become casualties of war….just ask Bruce Kulick, Ripper Owens, and anyone else who ever got booted to make room for an original member.

That was my seventh time seeing Maiden since 1985…and how do I know that exactly? Because I’ve kept a concert log for as long as I can remember. Maiden was show #556.

If you care to view the entire list, click here.

Till next time…

JK

We certainly have no shortage of celebrity guitarists coming through our doors for interviews, photo shoots and video lessons, and this week was no exception. Yngwie Malmsteen made his first ever GW office appearance this week, and while I'm not the biggest Yngwie fan on earth ("I'll See the Light, Tonight" kicks ass though), it was still a thrill to meet the man we regularly hail as the god of gods. Steve Winwood, famous for his work in Traffic and Blind Faith (with Eric Clapton) was also a guest this week, and we just filmed a video interview with Gabriel and Alex from Black Tide.

They're group of under-twenties from Florida who who have a very classic thrash sound...while they were here I had them show how they play Metallica's "Hit the Lights," which is a song on their debut album, which comes out this month on Interscope. Nice guys, check em out if you're into precision riffing, flailing solos and upper-register vocals.

JK

Greetings everyone, welcome to The Fine Print, my first ever blog and one of the many new features you'll find here in this latest revamped guitarworld.com. As a blog newb I'm not even sure where I'll go with this, but the main idea is to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what we do on a daily basis: how the magazine gets produced, our interaction with famous guitarists, and the general nuttiness of what goes on around the office.

One new feature on the site I'd like to direct you all too is the 300 Covers Gallery, located at blogs.guitarworld.com/covers/gallery.php. It's one of the most incredible and ambitious things our great web developer/designer, Bennett Shapiro, has come up with. All 300 covers from our 28-year history are visible in large, high-res format, and the entire gallery is searchable and sortable in any number of ways. Definitely check it out and vote for the ones you like best so we can pick the 20 or so top covers in a few weeks.

The covers gallery started an interesting discussion in the office the other day about which covers were our favorites.