I hope you got through Black Friday week relatively unscathed. There weren’t any deals worth a damn as far as I was concerned, except for effects pedals. But considering the state of the guitar market that’s not too surprising. (I did re-up my JamPlay membership, though, because it’s got a lot of fun lessons.)
“Fun” story: On Black Friday I drove 45 minutes to buy a limited run color of an Epiphone 1956 Les Paul Standard Pro from a Craigslist post. The guy barely played it and it was in mint condition. Okay, I’m in. He won’t take Venmo or Paypal or anything like that so I go to the ATM for the first time in years. Who uses cash for anything anymore? Anyway, I forgot my pin and tried it so many times at different ATMs that my bank is now investigating “fraud” so I have to wait for a new card and pin. What pisses me off more than anything is wasting 2 hours on the drive and ATM shenanigans. There are always other guitars.
Video of the Week: The Frayed Ends of Sanity Breakdown by Ben Eller
Metallica is kind of unique for metal bands in that they often had different riffs — or sometimes similar to other riffs but in a different key — playing under the solos. This is a really cool breakdown of the riffs behind The Frayed Ends of Sanity solo.
Fender Telecaster-Stratocaster Hybrid
The folks at Fender Japan have a limited run Fender ’51 with the specs of a tele and the body of a strat. If you actually want to buy this (it’s ~$1,150) you’re going to have to use a Japanese buying & forwarding service, though. It’s made in Japan and ships only to Japan, but a forwarding service will buy it for you and then ship it to you for a fee. (When Art of Shred grows bigger I’ll write a post about how to do that.)
Innovative guitar shop in Inglewood creates guitars with built-in amps
Listen, I know a guitar with a built-in amp is nothing new, but these local news stories are always so wholesome. Also, ElectroPhonic Innovations makes some really sweet looking guitars. I’ll review one some day.
Cosmo by Verso Musical Instruments, a modern artistic take on the electric guitar
I’ll give them this: it’s unique. But for 2,000GBP (~$2,700) I hope it’s more than just wall art. It does not look comfortable to play sitting down, though, that is for sure.
That’ll do for this week. See you next time.
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