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The Latest Breaking News from Guitar World

“I couldn't afford a real bass guitar, so I just tuned the strings down on a Telecaster”: How Geezer Butler went from playing bass on a guitar to the ominous riff that defined one of Black Sabbath’s darkest moments

Geezer Butler’s iconic bassline announces this tune from the classic 1970 LP Paranoid

Guitar World

“John Bonham and I would push the tempo and play it ridiculously fast for minutes on end while Page wailed away on the guitar”: John Paul Jones wasn't married to a single bass technique, but for these Led Zeppelin classics, one finger was all he needed

Using just the index finger may not seem like the most “efficient” way to play, the low-end legend wrote in his GW column, but he loved the consistent attack and dynamic control that he got from using one finger

Guitar World

“The guitars Gibson was making during wartime often reflect a number of shortages they had to deal with”: Why the 1942 Gibson Southern Jumbo is far more than a J-45 in fancy dress

Mismatched tops, laminated necks, the ravages of WWII meant the first-year Southern Jumbo was a moveable feast – but it is a real vintage treasure. Dave Davidson of Well Strung Guitars explains…

Guitar World

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“Ibanez has broken the rules of conventional guitar design. Pick it up and break the rules of guitar playing”: Ibanez Q54W review

It's like all the cool kids are saying, if you want to get ahead, get a headless guitar

Guitar World

“A week later, I got a message from my manager asking, ‘Did you meet Jeff Beck?’ He wanted me to sing on his record”: That time Jeff Beck gave an impromptu guitar lesson to a future pop pioneer – who didn’t know who he was

The serendipitous hangout led to the pair working together on Beck’s 2000 album, You Had It Coming

Guitar World

“In the time I was involved in attempting to play his parts, never really could I have captured the essence of him”: Buckethead reflects on his time in Guns N’ Roses as Slash pays tribute to the elusive virtuoso

The man with the bucket on his head and magic in his fingers says an emotional thank you to Slash after the rock icon described his guitar playing as “next level”

Guitar World

“I’m on a breathing machine 24/7, and I’ve started to lose the use of my left arm”: Ken Parker, designer of the Parker Fly guitar beloved by Adrian Belew and Joni Mitchell, launches crowdfunding campaign for cancer treatment

Parker was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 2023

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“I was outside shoveling some moldy hay into a wheelbarrow, and my wife comes out holding the phone. She thought it was a prank call”: Scott Reeder on the time he auditioned for Metallica – after Lars Ulrich cold-called him

Reeder didn't get the Metallica gig but the stoner-rock bass icon got a helluva story out of it – and the silver medal in the metal Olympics

Guitar World

“The American tube amp that powered generations of rock, surf, and pop music”: Universal Audio reimagines a classic Fender amp used by Keith Richards, The Beach Boys and beyond as a plugin – and it’s currently free to download

The plugin promises to provide a bright, punchy and clean amp platform

Guitar World

“It’s insane… If you hold it up to the light you can see through it”: Dweezil Zappa finally gets his hands on the viral cardboard Strat and cooks up a crazy psych-rock rager for the occasion

The Cardboard Sessions come to Dweezil’s Hikari Studios and he cooks up a track on the spot with his band on cardboard instruments

Guitar World

“I hadn’t seen him in a while, and I wish I had”: Jimmy Page pays tribute to original Yardbirds guitarist Chris Dreja, who has died aged 79

Dreja played alongside Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page before turning down a chance to join Led Zeppelin to pursue a career in photography

Guitar World

“With Taylor, there was a lot of, ‘Give us the kitchen sink – try this, try that!’” He’s a go-to guitarist for Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Jack Antonoff – but for Mikey Freedom Hart, it all started with a kid playing Eruption at church camp

The multi-instrumentalist Fender fan, who finally settled on guitar, explains where he gets his pop inspiration, why keeping it simple and clean is the way to go, and the secret of his creative partnerships with Jack Antonoff and others

Guitar World

“John Lennon’s 12-string has a similar trebly edge to it… this guitar passes the ‘Fab Four’ test”: Framus Hootenanny 12-string and 6-string review

John Lennon famously used a Framus 12-string acoustic with the Beatles, and 60 years later the company has reissued the model in all its fab finery – and it comes with a little help from a friend!

Guitar World

“When I first joined them I couldn’t believe how bad they were. I thought, ‘How do they make such good records?’” Mick Taylor’s Rolling Stones baptism by fire came just two days after Brian Jones’ death – in front of 250,000 people

Jones’ decline into drug addiction in the two years prior to his tragic death at the age of 27 prevented the Stones from touring, leaving them quite rusty – not that that lessened their drawing power

Guitar World

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Guitar World

“I don’t have heroes, but I adore Queen… I think you can hear bits of Brian in my solos”: Named after a Måneskin track, inspired by Queen and Arctic Monkeys, here’s how Baby Said became the UK’s hottest rock duo

Fresh from a triumphant run of festival dates, Veronica Pal checks in to give us the guitar story behind this sister act's stellar debut, BS! – and that's no b.s.

Guitar World

“There’s so much style in playing blues. The new blues scene is kind of like guitar teachers. They’re great players, but it’s a different thing”: How the triple-guitar threat of the Texas Headhunters is keeping a Lone Star tradition alive

With three prodigious gunslingers all bringing their secret sauce to the cook-off, Jesse Dayton, Ian Moore and Johnny Moeller are channeling the blues they grew up with – and taking it to new places, too

Guitar World

"So much more than just 'Mk.gee in a pedal', this clever little preamp box leaves plenty of room to find your own voice": JHS Pedals 424 Gain Stage review

Everyone is talking about the Tascam 424 Portatstudio. Does the first big brand attempt to bring this to your pedalboard live up to the hype?

Guitar World

“A powerful, unpredictable, and endlessly fun performance tool”: Gamechanger Audio puts its foot on the gas with the Motor Pedal – a driveable synth pedal that reacts to your playing in real time

With five distinct modes to reshape the sounds its spinning motor produces, this versatile pedal is on the right side of tonal insanity

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Guitar World

“I was attracted to melodic bass players like Carol Kaye. Why should a rock bassist play dumb notes all the time?” How Tony Visconti rethought rock bass for David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World

The legendary producer revisits his ground-shaking bass work on Bowie’s 1970 breakthrough album

Guitar World

“I remember asking Leslie West, ‘How should I go about this song?’ I remember that as if it were yesterday”: When Ricky Byrd needed to record a solo for this Joan Jett hit, he asked the Mountain legend for advice – this is what he said

The simple advice paid off and helped forge a rock classic

Guitar World

“This is humble music for everyone. It’s for people who have sunk a million hours into fighting zombies on Xbox”: Meet University’s Zak Bowker, the punk guitarist who believes your biggest inspiration should be yourself

University might be inspired by the Oasis ethos and the harmonies of the Beatles, but Bowker explains why they're going their own way

Guitar World

“Modelers are like Spotify. I’d never get excited about a box that has every single tone”: My pedalboard is so huge it’s got wheels. But switching to modelers costs guitarists their identity

Tom Peters, guitarist for UK math-rock heroes Alpha Male Tea Party, reckons that while we’re losing back pain in reducing the physical weight of our rigs, we’re causing ourselves creative self-harm

Guitar World

“Its aggressiveness earned it a revered place in heavy rock and metal”: The Mesa/Boogie Mark IIC+ HRG was championed by John Petrucci and beyond – now it’s been brought back

The 100-watt amp, which heralds from Mesa/Boogie’s Lagunitas Shop days, has been revived alongside a Vintage Thiele cab

Guitar World

“I was just like, ‘I need to make sure Frankenstein is safe’”: Wolfgang Van Halen stowed his dad’s most legendary guitar in his car as a precaution during the LA wildfires

Wolfgang was recording his latest record as the wildfires threatened 5150 Studios, but all he could focus on was keeping his dad’s most prized gear safe

Guitar World

“Every time I picked up a guitar I got the horrors”: Radiohead were the world's most talked-about guitar band. Then they burned the rulebook, and made the instrument sound like no-one else had before

Released 25 years ago, Kid A subverted all of the lofty expectations that had been placed on the band, and cemented their status as one of popular music's leading creative lights

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