These are simply the most attractive and appealing 16 Guitars that I came across through the NAMM guitar coverage.

I alas seem to mostly have expensive taste - as some of these models cost as much as $22,000, with the PRS SE Swamp Ash Special a somewhat lonely outlier @ $849. The majority here seem to be between $3,000 and $5,000.

I’m not sure I will even acquire any of these - while it’s of course nice to dream what you would do if / when your lottery numbers come through!

The ...

For me, this turned out to be the best The Guitar Show yet - where I pretty much managed to round off all my pre-show goals - in terms of seeing what and whom I wanted to / needed - as per the following highlights. I caught 2 great lunchtime showcases - first by Mikey Demus of Skindred / Redbeard Effects fame and then Rabea Massaad of Andertons, Chapman, Dorje, Toska, etc. fame - and D’Addario as it turned out - albeit people were really just there to see Bea play.

I must have circled the ...

As posted on this site - I spent yesterday/Saturday at ’The Guitar Show’(poor SEO) which is actually the UK’s most significant guitar show - but still relatively compact and bijoux and with lots to notable absentees. No Fender or Gibson, and strangely no Chapman Guitars either - they seem to have an odd approach to their own domestic market!

In any case there was plenty to see at the show - still nothing really compared to what takes place in Germany or the USA, but enough for a day out. I ...

2018 has been a pretty decent year for new guitar releases - with genuinely something exceptional for near enough every variety. Fender released the really cool alternative range of Parallel Universe guitars - including the above Troublemaker Telecaster. And Gibson released the perfectly packaged Les Paul Junior Tribute.

We also saw Ibanez, Music Man and PRS further build on their quality reputations - while Music Man concentrated more on its Sterling diffusion range as it was so busy ...

So I attended the inaugural Future Publishing UK Guitar Show this past Saturday at the Olympia Exhibition Centre London - Levels 2 & 3. It was not the most auspicious day for an event in London, considering there was a strike on the Piccadilly line, and the important chunks of the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City, and Metropolitan lines were down for maintenance. I therefore ’tubed’ it to Shepherd’s Bush or Westfield essentially, and walked down from there - a ...

There were two big stories that dominated the guitar booths at NAMM 2018 - namely Ibanez’s new millennial Suhr-alike range and Fender’s smart Parallel Universe range. My very first guitar was that original Super-Strat the Ibanez Roadstar RG 440 (1986) in black - with the slightly odd older rounded headstock shape. The new headstock is much nicer, and there are some genuine innovations at this price point - with dedicated and exclusive Seymour Duncan Hyperion pickups across the range...

Anyone even remotely connected with electric guitars knows that pretty much most of what is out there in the marketplace is derived from just 3 original guitars - the Les Paul, Stratocaster and Telecaster. I personally have a preference for the Stratocaster / S-type style of guitars, followed by the elegant curves of the Les Paul / LP-Style, with the T-type / Telecaster a somewhat distant third.

Until recently, I had often wondered why the Tele’s weren’t so much to my ...

If you are in the market for an electric guitar, there are actually just 3 brands which together still totally dominate and skew the entire marketplace. And while the birthplace of the modern guitar (USA) has become more open-minded towards brands from other points of origination. The UK is still very much overly skewed toward just a handful of brands. I’ve just completed watching the highlights of the BBC Big Day Out event in Hull, and the dominance of Fender, Gibson and Marshall is ...

Note - follow up article [here]

Many a owner of a vintage guitar has experienced the difficulty of keeping the guitar in tune. There are a couple of factors here that are critical to tuning fidelity. Firstly, get over the hangup of having to use the original tuners - you really need locking tuners for any reasonable peace of mind. Locking tuners are available in a vast variety of shapes and types, including various vintage-inspired ones, so it should not prove to be problematic to find a ...