Now Playing Tracks

: Guns N’ Roses - “Appetite For Destruction.”Released in 1987, GNR’s debut album force-fed piledriver guitar riffs, the heavy use of wah-wah pedals, and high levels of amplification back into the core of hard rock. Featuring the dual guitars of Izzy Stradlin (Jeff Isbell) and Slash (Saul Hudson), the album was one of the most intense American guitar creations since the heyday of Aerosmith and Van Halen. From the opening freight train riff of “Welcome To The Jungle” to the closing spaciness of “Rocket Queen,” Slash and Izzy’s guitar sound was loud, abrasive, distorted, and unrelenting. Driven by Gibsons and Marshalls (Slash became Gibson’s de facto Les Paul face for the next two decades), the sound of “Appetite” was angrier than anything else that metal and rock guitarists were playing at the time. In retrospect, it’s doubtful that any guitarist since Uriah Heep’s Mick Box has gotten as much mileage out of the wah wah pedal as Slash. It is certain to be in evidence on his upcoming solo album, which features a performance by Izzy.
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: Guns N’ Roses - “Appetite For Destruction.”

Released in 1987, GNR’s debut album force-fed piledriver guitar riffs, the heavy use of wah-wah pedals, and high levels of amplification back into the core of hard rock. Featuring the dual guitars of Izzy Stradlin (Jeff Isbell) and Slash (Saul Hudson), the album was one of the most intense American guitar creations since the heyday of Aerosmith and Van Halen. 

From the opening freight train riff of “Welcome To The Jungle” to the closing spaciness of “Rocket Queen,” Slash and Izzy’s guitar sound was loud, abrasive, distorted, and unrelenting. Driven by Gibsons and Marshalls (Slash became Gibson’s de facto Les Paul face for the next two decades), the sound of “Appetite” was angrier than anything else that metal and rock guitarists were playing at the time. 

In retrospect, it’s doubtful that any guitarist since Uriah Heep’s Mick Box has gotten as much mileage out of the wah wah pedal as Slash. It is certain to be in evidence on his upcoming solo album, which features a performance by Izzy.

: Eric Clapton - Gibson Les Paul “Beano.”This guitar gained fame as the instrument that Clapton used on the 1966 “Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton” album—while playing through a Marshall amp. The Les Paul is known as Beano in reference to the album cover photograph, which depicts Clapton reading “The Beano” comics newspaper, a publication popular in England after World War II. The actual guitar was stolen before Clapton went out on a Cream tour that same year, and few specifics are known. It is believed to have been a 1960 LP, manufactured just before Gibson switched Les Pauls to the SG shape. Part of this dating is due to Clapton remembering it having a slender neck. Clapton made minor modifications to Beano; he removed the pick covers, revealing a double cream PAF in the neck position and a double-black PAF in the bridge position, and he replaced the original tuners. The fact that the guitar has never been “authentically” found hasn’t stopped Gibson from reissuing it as a Clapton signature model. Several musicians, including Bernie Marsden of the original Whitesnake, are believed to have had Beano in their possession at one time. Whatever its current location, Beano helped establish the Les Paul-through-a-Marshall sound that has been used innumerable times in the four decades since the original disappeared.
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: Eric Clapton - Gibson Les Paul “Beano.”

This guitar gained fame as the instrument that Clapton used on the 1966 “Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton” album—while playing through a Marshall amp. The Les Paul is known as Beano in reference to the album cover photograph, which depicts Clapton reading “The Beano” comics newspaper, a publication popular in England after World War II. The actual guitar was stolen before Clapton went out on a Cream tour that same year, and few specifics are known. It is believed to have been a 1960 LP, manufactured just before Gibson switched Les Pauls to the SG shape. Part of this dating is due to Clapton remembering it having a slender neck. Clapton made minor modifications to Beano; he removed the pick covers, revealing a double cream PAF in the neck position and a double-black PAF in the bridge position, and he replaced the original tuners. 

The fact that the guitar has never been “authentically” found hasn’t stopped Gibson from reissuing it as a Clapton signature model. Several musicians, including Bernie Marsden of the original Whitesnake, are believed to have had Beano in their possession at one time. Whatever its current location, Beano helped establish the Les Paul-through-a-Marshall sound that has been used innumerable times in the four decades since the original disappeared.

Progressive rock guitar finds a new voice in guitarist Pete Prown, of Vintage Guitar Magazine and the NGM Advisory Board. Prown has just released his latest album, “Guitar Garden III”, and it’s classic prog in the best sense of the term. Says Prown, “I really want to celebrate all my ’70s guitar and bass influences on this one: Robert Fripp, David Gilmour, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, as well as all the great analog synth players. There are nods to Rick Wright and Tangerine Dream here, too.”

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For a bonus track, Prown included the guitar solo “Swedish Trousers”, a demo he recorded in 1997 at Yngwie Malmsteen’s studio. Cooler still, he played it using Yngwie’s “Rising Force” early-’70s Strat and a Marshall half-stack. Click here for sound clips: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/guitargarden3.

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