Latest articles by Matt Parker
“A traveling museum of rock music”: The Jim Irsay Band is playing a free show in LA next month featuring Buddy Guy, Billy Gibbons, Kenny Wayne Shepherd – and some of the world’s most valuable guitars
The owner of the world’s most famous guitar collection is hosting a star-studded concert on the west coast – and tickets cost nothing
“Guitarists appear to be caught in a paradox”: A new study by UK academics says the modern-day guitar virtuoso is torn between perfection and authenticity – and must be a cultural entrepreneur
Rock Guitar Virtuosos: Advances in Electric Guitar Playing, Technology, and Culture is available for free download and is essential reading for guitar scholars
There’s no beating the Boss: Reverb reveals its best-selling guitar pedals of 2023
From an orange classic to Josh Scott’s fake-it-til-they-make-it hit, here are the stompboxes that shifted over the last year
“Blending themes of pop culture with techniques of the old masters”: Epiphone quite literally tops off the Adam Jones Les Paul Custom Art Collection with Mark Ryden’s Queen Bee – the only guitar in the series to use front-facing artwork
The Tool guitarist’s limited edition series has created a buzz – and we’re sad to see it go
“Big Cliffs Of Dover vibes”: Sophie Lloyd’s shred version of The Office theme takes the classic intro song into Eric Johnson territory – and we’re blown away by it
The British guitarist manipulates the TV classic into a complex guitar instrumental, laced with soaring highs and lighting fast shred licks
“Ran into an old friend”: Wolfgang Van Halen and Michael Anthony meet up for the first time in 20 years
The two Van Halen bassists reunited at Mammoth WVH’s recent show in Las Vegas
3 Les Pauls, 2 vocalists and 1 broken string: Slash, Billy Gibbons and Warren Haynes trade solos in a star-studded reprisal of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man at Haynes' Christmas Jam
The storming live take features three solos from three Gibson Les Paul players – and they all sound completely different
Three “God-like guitarists” join forces and stadium-conquering rockers channel their inner spy: This week's essential guitar tracks
Must-listen-to tunes from Guns N' Roses, Architects, IDLES, The Libertines, Devon Ross, Ryujin and many more
“I loved Hendrix – he was my first guitar hero... But seeing Stevie Ray Vaughan was transcendent. He made me understand Hendrix better”: Mike McCready says SRV helped him make sense of this Hendrix technique
“When he [Vaughan] did Voodoo Child, it was so bad-ass," McCready says. “He changed how I wanted to play, and if you listen to Even Flow, you can hear me trying to emulate his stuff”
“A revolving collective of Gibson artists”: Guitar brand becomes a guitar band, as the Gibson Band debuts its first single, featuring CEO Cesar Gueikian, Serj Tankian, and a solo from Tony Iommi
The original new song, Deconstruction, is being released as part a new fundraising initiative, accompanied by Tankian’s original artwork and what else? A Les Paul with a custom finish
Just days after launching his own amp brand with Mojotone, Alex Lifeson gets his teeth into the pedal market with his first stompbox – the LERXST By-Tor
The second announcement from the Rush guitarist and his collaborators at Mojotone aims to offer the Marshall-like tube tone of his $2.5k head in a $300 pedal
“The iconic solo was about to come up and it's like, ‘Oh god. This is not gonna work out well’”: Bumblefoot says he received death threats after fumbling the Welcome to the Jungle solo – while he was stuck in a stormtrooper helmet
The guitarist ranks the onstage mishap with Guns N’ Roses as his ultimate Spinal Tap moment
“Eddie Van Halen handed me a guitar and said, ‘I had to learn that damn riff for Wolfie. Show me how you played it!’” Power Rangers composer Ron Wasserman discusses how he “fooled the master” in his performance of the iconic theme
The man behind the X-Men and Power Rangers soundtracks says EVH asked him for pointers on the track he wrote in just two-and-a-half hours
“20 watts, four Galaxies, IR equipped”: Soldano’s Astro 20 is a tech-ed up tube amp that offers another dimension (or rather three of them) for high gain tone
The tube amp stalwart turns its eye to the stars with this forward-thinking take on a modern, made-in-the-USA amp design – and all for less than $2,000
“Our first artist model for a female guitarist”: Kramer’s Lzzy Hale signature Voyager makes its debut – with a custom body shape and a blinding Holographic Sparkle finish to match
The Halestorm leader’s new guitar represents a string of firsts for Kramer
“The last person to really play it like that was Ed”: Eddie Van Halen personally gifted this guitar to Jason Becker in 1996. Now Norm’s demo whiz Michael Lemmo puts the #69 Peavey Wolfgang through its paces in a killer EVH-style demo
The guitar is headed to auction later this month and was brought down to Norman’s Rare Guitars for a preview
“He just could not be contained. That was what was so beautiful... If you’ve been tasked with the job of imitating him, it’s like, ‘Well, which moment?’” Joe Satriani says the biggest challenge in covering Eddie Van Halen is pinning him down
The virtuoso has been sharing his thoughts on how to tackle covering one of the world's greatest guitarists – and how to find the sweet spot in EVH's rigs
“It’s called Roman because of the Roman numerals I etched into the back”: James Hetfield owns five ’59 Gibson Les Paul Standard ’Bursts – and he’s carved a massive ‘12’ into one of them
The Metallica man’s new guitar book Messengers showcases perhaps the ultimate example of zero-f**ks-given guitar ownership
Harley Benton’s new resonator costs less than $200 – and looks surprisingly classy for it
The new acoustic-electric has looks to kill and a price that eats the competition for breakfast
10,000 volt lead licks and the bluesier side of Peaky Blinders: This week's essential guitar tracks
Killer new cuts from Ace Frehley, Judas Priest, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Anna Calvi, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Alkaline Trio, and many more
“There has been an explosion of guitar music in the past 5 years… LERXST amplifiers provide a platform for these players”: Alex Lifeson unveils LERXST amp range in collaboration with Mojotone – and there are new guitars, pedals and pickups to come
The Rush guitar icon’s previously limited-edition Omega amp build is now available to all, alongside a new Chi head and combo – with more to come…
Musician's Friend Cyber Monday deals 2023: The mega Musician's Friend sale is still live with up to 50% off
The deals you need to check out in the Musician's Friend Cyber Week sale
My local guitar store owner has $20k custom shop models sitting about, yet he plays one of these Lava acoustics every day – now you can scoop one up with a healthy 25% discount
You’ve seen them all over YouTube, but the touch-screen guitar is now on sale
I’ve lost count of the players who told me they got their start on a Squier Stratocaster – now Fender is offering them for under $150, a huge 40% discount on the go-to learner guitar
For a limited time you can pick up a Surf Green Affinity Strat for just $149
The best discounts I've seen this Cyber Monday are almost all on bass guitars – with up to 44% off some of our best-reviewed models
Bass discounts eclipse the offers on guitars this year – with almighty savings to be had on Fender, Spector, Guild, Squier, Sterling by Music Man and many more, it's a good time to go bass shopping
