January 2017

Is it worth upgrading your first instrument with brand-name tuners, pickups and other items? Or do you ditch it altogether in favor of a newer, shinier model?

“Want a little head” is not only the punch line to a bad sex joke about Amazonian rain forest tribes;it also is apparently the phrase on a motivational poster in the Peavey amp design laboratory.

“My grandpa always said, getting old ain’t for pussies, and that is soooo true,” says a laughing Synyster Gates, co-guitarist in the hard rock force of nature known as Avenged Sevenfold.

There are so many wonderful wah-wah pedals on the market these days that one is probably prone to ask, “Does the world need yet another wah?”

Usually when marketing materials describe a product as “no-nonsense,” the phrase usually means the same thing as “austere,” “stripped-down,” or “plain.”

Back in my October 2016 column, I detailed some of the concepts I utilize in the song “The Impossible,” from my album What Just Happened.