![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/morse6.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride3.jpg)
Third Stage is out
Flying Colors’ record company has posted a couple more tracks from the latest live release Third Stage: Live In London. Continue Reading »
The story of Frankenstein
Some time during the Whoosh promotional blitz Steve Morse spoke to the Rockin’ Metal Revival show. The interview is now available for listening online. Steve explains how his writing process differs with Deep Purple from his other bands, how he came up with a guitar with four pickups, talks about his influences, how he got the Purple gig, and what tracks from Whoosh are likely to be played live whenever the opportunity arises.
Do they still make the Music Man signature model of your guitar with four pickups? Where did you come up with that?
Yeah, four pickups! I don’t normally give short answers to questions, but I’m trying to. Originally, I had a Tele – or originally I had a Strat, and you couldn’t get a fat sound.
Yeah, I had a Tele which had a humbucker just put in it. And I said, ‘I like this bad sound that’s the Gibson, but I also like what the Stratocaster can do.’
So I took the neck off the Strat, put it on the Tele, and then I had a bunch of room to work with because I took the pickup off the Tele and put it in the middle and then bought a Fender humbucker, put a new bridge on it and just basically carved up the guitar starting over.
That became my Frankenstein, that I played for so many years with the [Dixie] Dregs, you know? And the Steve Morse [signature guitar] thing, even in the early days then, Ernie Ball had bought Music Man and I was already was using Ernie Ball strings when he came to me.
Listen to the full interview (approx. 20 minutes) below or on Spreaker.
Thanks to Gary Poronovich for the info and to the Ultimate Guitar for the transcription.
I reckon you’re in
On the strength of the recent interview with Ian Paice, we started digging in the Everyone Loves Guitar back catalogue and discovered a Steve Morse interview originally published in December 2018. This one is over 2 hours long — someone had been doing those long form interviews even before the pandemic! Set some time aside and dig in. Continue Reading »
Soul crushing in Milan
A new episode of Paicey’s Tales from the Bar. “This episode contains a stripper!” Continue Reading »
Big band rock’n’roll
If you liked the latest installment of Tales from the Bar, you gonna love this one. Nearly an hour of Paicey telling stories from his illustrious career for the Everyone Loves Guitar podcast:
Continue Reading »
Bed and a book
Ian Gillan was interviewed by The Guardian. The interesting tidbits (among the old anecdotes previously seen elsewhere) are that he is in touch with Blackmore:
Ritchie has nothing electronic in his house – no computers, no telephones, nothing like that. So he’s completely unreachable. But we do pass messages, and the atmosphere is quite good.
…and how he spends his time after a show these (pre-pandemic) days:
Bed and a book. I realised some years ago I had to radically change my lifestyle, because you can’t sustain it as you get older. When they stopped smoking in bars, that’s what did it for me, because I enjoyed a cigarette with my drink, just calming down and having a chat after the show with the guys. And then suddenly you couldn’t smoke, and I thought, ‘Good time to bin it, really.’ So I stopped going to the pub and I stopped drinking after the shows. Now I carry a kettle, a little mobile kettle, and I come back and have a cup of tea.
Read more in The Guardian.
Thanks to Hein Bierman for the info.
A little bit uplifted
David Coverdale recently spoke to The Cassius Morris Show podcast, and they’ve discussed how fast the bears move, ostrich eggs, box of tissues, changing wallpaper, revolving doors, baking, common sense of Yorkshiremen, Linda Lovelace, bastard children, and, occasionally, music. Continue Reading »
To preserve it and play it
Joe Bonamassa recently appeared on Guitar magazine live podcast showing several axes from his collection. Among them was the American Flag Les Paul that once belonged to Tommy Bolin.
It’s my job not only as a collector, but as a player to keep the legacy going, and make this guitar make music again. It’d been dormant for almost 44 years when I got it, and it’s a working guitar – just played it the other day on stage at the Ryman [Auditorium in Nashville, TN], in front of cardboard cutouts, and the cutouts loved it.
…And the other cool thing about it is — because Tommy was hanging out with a bunch of Brits, [his guitar tech] David painted this American flag on the pickguard. This is the original pickguard, and I rarely play it live with the original pickguard because this is folk art and this is indelibly linked to the guitar.
Thanks to Jim Collins for the info and to Ultimate Guitar for the transcription.
That was an improvement
Paicey’s Drumtribe is back after a brief hiatus with the next installment of Tales from the Bar — the early morning edition. Continue Reading »
The man who reinvented the guitar
Eddie Van Halen passed away on Tuesday, October 6, from complications due to cancer.
Ritchie Blackmore paid tribute to the fellow guitar wizard:
Eddie Van Halen was a brilliant guitarist who started a technique of guitar playing which was emulated by a whole generation of guitarists. He was one of the nicest musicians I ever met in the music business. Very shy and not at all conceited about his ability as a guitar player.
Frank Zappa said [Eddie] reinvented the guitar. I agree.
He will be sadly missed but his brilliant legacy will always be remembered. The ultimate guitar hero.
David Coverdale twitted earlier:
Omg…RIP, Edward…Our Thoughts Are Prayers Are With Your Family, Friends & Fans…What An Incredible Loss…Truly An Astonishing Musician…💔💔💔
Eddie Van Halen Dead at 65 from Cancer https://t.co/oA0P9VrnGp— David Coverdale (@davidcoverdale) October 6, 2020
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing