The TuneTown Blog
from South Florida
Welcome to TuneTown Studios.
Premier Guitar’s Rebecca Dirks is on location in Rockford, IL, where she catches up with Joe Bonamassa’s tech Mike Hickey who details Bonamassa’s current solo rig that includes vintage Gibson Les Pauls, Firebirds, doubleneck-baritone Music Man guitar, amps from Marshall, Friedman, Diaz, and his pedalboard features several signature pedals like the Dunlop Bonamassa wah, MXR Bonamassa FET Drive, and the Bonamassa Fuzz Face.
PG’s Shawn Hammond is on location in Frankfurt, Germany, for the 2013 Musikmesse show, where he visits the Leather Guitars’ booth for a demo of their Samaria Series guitars.
At 1 p.m. EST today (May 17), Deep Purple premiered the music video for “Vincent Price,” a track off their new album, Now What?!, which was released April 30 in North America via Ear Music. The “Vincent Price” clip, which you can watch below, is the band’s first music video in more than 20 years.
PG’s Jeff McErlain is on location in New York City, New York, where he visits Ultra Sound Studios and Amp Sales where he checks out three Ken Fischer-built Trainwreck Amplifiers — two Express models (one was for George Lynch and the other was owned by ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons) and a Liverpool (that was Fischer’s personal amp).
The latest retro creation from Eastwood channels vintage Supros with a voice that’s all its own. If you fret and strum a few campfire chords, you’ll hear the Coronado sing with the airiness of a convertible Caddy on a mile of open road. Watch the video demo:
For fans of modern blues and/or classic rock looking for a quality axe that can take them from slicing bridge-pickup leads to funkier dual-pickup sounds and gristly neck-pickup tones, the Bluesboy is well worth checking out.
When the late Leo Fender sold his cataclysmically industry-altering enterprise to CBS in 1965, it was due to health issues, not a lack of ideas or passion. A few years later, when his health had improved and he was approaching the end of his consultancy/noncompete period with Fender, he amped things up again. He went on to pioneer active basses with his Music Man StingRay design, and then he partnered with his old Fender-days friends, drafstman George Fullerton and Dale Harris, to create G&L in 1980. (more…)
The Jazzmaster is relatively en vogue these days, thanks in no small part to once-fringe players like Nels Cline, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, and a host of recent indie adopters of the model. Cline, Ranaldo, Moore, and My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields gravitated to the Jazzmaster because of its potential for extended techniques—including unorthodox vibrato use, manipulation of the strings beyond the confines of the fretboard, and creative pickup switching. And indeed, the American Vintage ’65 Jazzmaster reviewed here features the wonderfully elastic and colorful vibrato, the behind-the-bridge string length that’s so ripe for experimentalism, and the crystalline, bell-like pickups that make the Jazzmaster such a great blank slate for outside-the-box players. (more…)
PG’s Rebecca Dirks is On Location at Tinley Park, IL, where she goes onstage and checks out John Mayer’s current live setup with the help of legendary guitar tech Rene Martinez (Stevie Ray Vaughan, Prince, Mick Jones).
Since his creative renaissance began two years ago, Electroplex head Don Morris has generated a slow but steady stream of well-regarded classic-meets-modern amplifiers. And though Morris made his mark in the estimation of many with the potent Rocket 90, his lineup is heavy on lower-powered Rockets that offer most players more versatility and tonal flavor. The most recent design to emerge from Don’s Fullerton, California, shop is the switchable 22/35-watt Rocket 35-EL, a dual EL-34 combo that delivers more aggressive, British-flavored tones at studio and rehearsal-friendly volumes. (more…)