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Guitar World

“Jim Morrison was carried out. Jimi Hendrix was there. We were all getting drunk”: Ritchie Blackmore recalls the first time he saw two-hand tapping – at a wild show in 1968

Years before Eddie Van Halen put it in the early pages of the guitar textbook, Harvey Mandel was highlighting his performances with flourishes of two-hand tapping – grabbing the attention of onlookers in the process…

Guitar World

“I was playing with the Scorpions, and I broke a string and had a solo coming up. My brother and I swapped guitars really quickly”: Michael Schenker talks Vs, his early flirtations with offsets, and how he joined one of hard rock's biggest juggernauts

The Scorpions, UFO, and MSG veteran takes readers back to when he heard distorted guitar for the first time as a teen, and the day the Scorpions came together

Guitar World

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“We’re going to release an end-all-be-all amplifier with his name on it”: Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai and Metallica are among the rock royalty who used José Arredondo’s legendary amps. Now Dave Friedman is honoring his legacy with a definitive model

With the blessing of Arredondo’s family, Friedman will build a highly limited amp that encompasses most of the late amp guru’s elusive mods

Guitar World

“I got to go backstage at the Whisky, and Joe Bonamassa knew who I was! I immediately took a picture and texted it to my dad”: Sophie Lloyd on the time she met Joe Bonamassa – her childhood guitar hero

Lloyd looks back on the time her dad would play Joe Bonamassa records while driving her to school

Guitar World

“For me to be so appreciated, I think I can start to feel guilty and pressured. But I guess it’s a good problem to have”: From playing Steve Vai's guitars to playing with him onstage, Tosin Abasi's rapid ascent made him one of the biggest names in guitar

Speaking to Guitar World in 2014, the Animals As Leaders maestro recalls the grueling salmon cannery and poop-scooping dog kennel jobs that helped him save for his first Vai signature model, and discusses how to adapt to seven- and eight-string models

Guitar World

“I bumped into Eric in a club and I thought we were going to get into a fight! But he went, ‘Hello, man!’ and gave me a big hug”: Jeff Beck took the Yardbirds in a new direction, but the constant Eric Clapton comparisons took years to shake

In the first stages of his career, Beck's relationship with Clapton was just as much (if not more) defined by Clapton's already-legendary reputation than it was by the man himself

Guitar World

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“A lot of the guitar parts were totally within my ability, but there were a couple that I just couldn’t navigate”: Steve Vai reveals the King Crimson riff that had him beat and the tip from Robert Fripp that helped him nail it

Celebrating the ‘80s material of prog trailblazers King Crimson, the BEAT Tour gave Vai a welcome fix of “high-information music” but some of Fripp’s material pushed him to the limit

MusicRadar

“Before studying his playing, I was doing a lot of ‘Look how fast I can play!’ There wasn’t that much feel behind my music”: Sophie Lloyd names the guitarist who overhauled her perspective on what makes a good solo

Lloyd may be known for her shredding playing style – but learning Comfortably Numb proved to be a revelation for her technique

Guitar World

“The four-chord pattern riff is unoriginal but the dynamic contrasts add to the potency of one of the best guitar riffs of the ’90s”: Nirvana track named the best guitar riff of all time by surprising new study – which leaves out some huge hits

Many of the big hitters feature, but not where you’d expect them to be – and there are some notable absences, too

Guitar World

“Could you play it? Sure. Is this guitar worth the $1,500 I paid for it? No way”: YouTuber buys Trump guitar – and is surprised by what he finds

The LP-style guitar, officially endorsed by Donald J. Trump, became the subject of a cease-and-desist order from Gibson due to its striking resemblance to the brand's iconic Les Paul shape

Guitar World

“I’d bet most rock guitarists use only the bridge pickup with the tone control wide open 90% of the time… so why bother with a neck pickup and tone controls?” ESP LTD Deluxe EC-01FT review

This mid-priced single-cut offers a simple single-pickup drive – but a whole lot of tones to sniff out

Guitar World

“Jason and I were always battling for the same space in the mix”: The controversial mixing of Metallica’s …And Justice for All wasn’t a hazing of Jason Newsted. This is James Hetfield’s explanation

The band's first album with Newsted, ...And Justice for All was marked by the band's increasingly progressive and technically intricate bent – and barely audible bass parts

Guitar World

“Anti-colonialist anguish, hope, joy and the search for connection, all through his guitar. That’s what makes a guitar hero”: Guitarists of the Year 2024 – the players who took 2024 by storm

Slash made a blues record. St. Vincent boggled our minds again. And Grace Bowers blew everyone away… Here we take a look at the players who made 2024 a banner year for the instrument

Guitar World

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Guitar World

“We shared and borrowed gear from our students, who usually had better gear than we did”: How Jason Becker and Marty Friedman made one of shred’s most celebrated albums with a little help from their pupils

When the two virtuosos went into the studio to record under the Cacophony name, they brought a bunch of gear that had been lent to them by students

Guitar World

The ultimate Dimebag Darrell tribute – and the Ultimate Gear Guide! – only in the new Guitar World

Starring the best of Dimebag's classic Riffer Madness column, a transcription of Pantera's 5 Minutes Alone and input from Zakk Wylde, Kerry King, Glenn Tipton, Nita Strauss and many more

Guitar World

“He thought it sucked and I told him to leave it alone. I was literally in tears”: Rex Brown on the Dimebag Darrell guitar solo he fought to keep on record

The Pantera bassist picked his favorite Dimebag guitar solo, and recalled how it brought him to tears

Guitar World

“There are better players, better lyricists, better songwriters – but there’s an energy to their combined powers that is hard to rival at the moment”: The best guitar albums of 2024

The guitar albums that had the biggest impact in the guitar world and beyond, as chosen by GW editors and pro players

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Guitar World

“We’ve been looking for it for 50 years, and I got it back”: Paul McCartney’s long-lost Höfner returns to the stage for the first time in 50 years, as he enlists Ronnie Wood and Ringo Starr for an epic tour finale

Macca’s original Höfner violin bass had been missing for half a century, but recently marked its return to the stage in style

Guitar World

“I’ve never heard this guitar sound like this”: Upgrade the performance of your Strat – and harness a Randy Rhoads vibe – with FU-Tone’s premier all-brass bridge

The bridge features an all-brass construction to unlock the performance of your prized Strat by opening and amplifying its natural tone

Guitar World

February 2025 Guitar World lesson videos and more

The one where Joe Bonamassa demonstrates the greatness of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jared James Nichols shows you how to make your solos sing!

Guitar World

“I bring something really different to the band than Nita does”: Orianthi on returning to Alice Cooper – and why she'll take a different approach to Nita Strauss

Orianthi previously toured with Alice Cooper from 2011 to 2014 before passing the baton to Nita Strauss

Guitar World

“This is like Santana’s Soul Sacrifice at Woodstock or Hendrix’s Machine Gun, an act of freeform radicalism”: The best guitar solos of 2024

From a supernova of tapping and pitch-shifted metal guitar anarchy to all-star team-ups, here is your year in lead guitar – featuring Mdou Moctar, Diamond Rowe and some dudes named Satriani and Vai…

Guitar World

“I was in full fear that I had just repeated someone else’s song – it was way too accomplished for the kind of stuff I had been writing”: Gavin Rossdale remembers the moment he wrote Bush’s biggest hit – and thought he’d stolen it

With their 1994 debut album, Sixteen Stone, British band Bush established themselves as one of the top acts of the era in the stateside-dominated grunge scene

Guitar World

“He turned it up, and it was uncontrollable”: Eddie Van Halen on the time Billy Corgan played through his rig – and why his setup shocked the Smashing Pumpkins frontman

Finding EVH's rig almost impossible to wrangle, Corgan figured, mistakenly, that there was something he could quickly disable to tame it

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