John Lennon of the Beatles
October 12, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
John Lennon’s blend of pop instincts and restless experimentalism set the agenda for modern rock music. His driving, feisty rhythm guitar work energized the Beatles’ early singles, and his imaginative songcraft elevated the three-minute rock tune to an art form. Rock’s first intellectual, Lennon profoundly influenced all of the sixties great guitarist-poets, including Pete Townshend, Ray Davies and Roger McGuinn. To this day, on one level or another, every rock group defines itself in relation to the Beatles. Read more
Marc Bolan 1947 – 1977
October 9, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
On September 16, 1977, just after five in the morning, an Austin Mini carrying English rocker Mark Bolan and driven by Bolan’s girlfriend, Gloria Jones, swerved off a road in Barnes Common, England, and crashed into a tree. The 29-year-old Bolan, who had never learned to drive, was hurled from the passenger seat into the back of the car and killed instantly.
While he began his career as a trippy-hippy in an acoustic and bongo duo, Bolan is best remembered for his work fronting T.Rex, the electric-pop-boogie band that is often credited with giving birth to the British glam rock movement of the early Seventies.
On the strength of two classic albums,1971’s Electric Warrior and 1972’s The Slider, as well as a flurry of strong singles, among them “Bang a Gong (Get It On),” T.Rex enjoyed enormous success in England in the first two years of the leisure-suit decade, topping the charts repeatedly and inspiring millions of young teenyboppers to fits of frenzy unseen since the rise of the Beatles. Unfortunately, T.Rex, despite numerous attempts, were unable to repeat their success in the United States, and their popularity in the UK waned rapidly as the public grew tired of the band’s essentially stagnant musical formula.
Ironically, at the time of his fatal accident, Bolan was enjoying something of a comeback. His final album, Dandy in the Underworld, charted respectably and was proof positive that his creative juices were once again beginning to flow. At the same time, the diminutive rocker’s cred was given a huge boost when the leaders of England’s punk revolution, who had come of age at the height of T.Rex mania, frequently cited T.Rex as one of their most important influences, embracing Bolan as the “Godfather of Punk.”
After Bolan’s death, his body was cremated. His memorial plaque, along with those of the Who’s keith Moon, T.S. Elliot and Sigmund Freud, can be found at Golden’s Green Crematorium in London.
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Jimi Hendrix The Ultimate Guitar Hero -R.I.P
September 17, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
The Greatest Guitar Hero, Jimi Hendrix still remains one of the most influential forces in rock music. Pulling unprecedented sounds out of his Fender Strat, Hendrix challenged musicians and guitarists to explore a wild new world of tones and textures, dazzling and confounding guitar greats like Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton, who still speak of Hendrix with a hushed reverence. Other players before him might have experimented with feedback and excessive distortion, Hendrix turned those practices into an art fashion. He was the first player to use the whammy bar as an instrument unto itself, making his Stratocaster talk, scream and howl. Read more
John Lennon Anthology
September 13, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
Capitol’s John Lennon Anthology Box Set sheds some fascinating light on rock’s first intellectual. The set’s four disc contain nearly 100 tracks, nearly all of which have never been officially released; many hadn’t even appeared on bootlegs. Read more
Leo Fender and Marshall Amplifiers - Beginning of the Guitar Amp
September 8, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
Continued on from “Gibson Firebird Guitar Born 1963”
Of course the electric guitar wouldn’t have developed at all had it not been for amps. And the guitar amplifier would never have come into being had it not been for Mr. Lee De Forest, who invented the vacuum tube Read more
John Lennon Epiphone EJ-160E Guitar Review
August 25, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
John Lennon’s songwriting was so visionary, his cultural impact so deep, that his guitar playing is often overlooked. But lest we forget, it was with six-string in hand that Lennon changed the face of rock and roll. While he wasn’t the world’s flashiest guitarist, he was one of its most tasteful, tuneful and sometimes even terrifying practitioners.
Two of the instruments immortalized by Lennon in his work with the Beatles and his subsequent solo career were his Gibson J-160E acoustic electric and his stripped Epiphone Casino. With the full cooperation of Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, Epiphone issued a series of limited-edition John Lennon Signature models based on these two guitars. While these instruments may be collector’s items aimed primarily at the Lennon enthusiast, they are also reasonably priced, functional instruments, perfect for any working-class hero.
JOHN LENNON EJ-160E
Patterned after the Gibson J-160E acoustic-electric that were perennial Beatles workhorses, the signature model EJ-160E features an advanced Jumbo, sloped-shoulder body shape, solid spruce top, mahogany back and sides, a chunky solid mahogany neck and solid rosewood fingerboard and bridge. The impeccable fretboard is adorned with handsome “split parallelogram” inlays that are common on many Gibsons and Epiphones. The EJ-160E’s neck has the fat, rounded feel of many late-Fifties era Gibson electrics. A mini humbucking pickup is seated discreetly between the end of the guitar’s fretboard and the sound hole, while volume and tone controls are located on the guitar’s lower bout, as they would be on a standard electric guitar.
Played acoustically, the EJ-160E has a meaty, midrangey tone that’s perfect for bold rock strumming and bluesy fingerpicking. Players who enjoy the crystalline high-end ping controlled low end of many “boutique” acoustics may find this guitar lacking subtlety or definition, but if you’re looking for that meaty, woody acoustic tone that gives so many Fab Four tracks their characteristic punch and warmth, this guitar is an ideal choice. Perhaps because of the hefty girth of the neck, which is big enough to have it own very lively resonance, this guitar has a responsive rumble that lets the player feel the energy of every not, and playing it rivals the satisfying, bone-tickling experience of getting it on with a high-ticket Gibson J-200.
Plugged through a blackface Fender Super Reverb, this instrument delivers a full yet clear sound that is only enhanced by the tone-fattening proximity of the pickup to the neck. And while the tone and volume controls don’t have that versatility of the graphic equalizer and feedback-notch-filter layouts found on many more “modern” electric acoustics, the controls are intuitive, effective and easy to grab on the fly.
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Hot News: Unreleased Beatles Reel-to-Reel Tape Recently Found
Liverpool Daily Post reports that an unreleased tape recorded by the Beatles had been unearthed. The 7-inch wide reel-to-reel was found in the attic of a house in Liverpool. The Philips reel-to-reel tape was not played since the 1960s. Read more
