THE FINE PRINT - Alex Skolnick Drops By; The GW Office Guitar
Afternoon everyone...Alex Skolnick is in our video studio right now doing a lesson on how to play "Practice What You Preach," as well as "More Than Meets the Eye," a track from Testament's upcoming album, The Formation of Damnation. Look for this lesson on the July issue CD-ROM, with a story on the new Testament album in the same issue (as well as the start of rhythm guitarist Eric Peterson's new Guitar World column!).We've always been big fans of Alex's around here...he's one of the nicest guys we deal with, and is always happy to come up to the office to do a lesson whenever he's available. We don't even need to involve managers and publicists when it comes to Alex...wish there were more guys like Alex out there, believe me.Having Alex here this afternoon made me realize that you all would probably be interested in seeing the Guitar World Office Guitar. It's a nifty white Gibson Les Paul Studio that we keep on hand specifically to have artists sign. We only started the process a few months ago, and in that time we've acquired sigs from Dave Mustaine, Yngwie Malmsteen, Mark Morton, John Petrucci, Rudy and Matthias from the Scorpions, and now Alex Skolnick.Over time we plan to keep adding to it so that one day it becomes an invaluable item, loaded with signatures from all sorts of celebrity players. Maybe we'll give it away or have a charity raffle or something.And while I'm glad we're finally doing it, what really hurts is the fact that we've haven't been doing it for years and years! Imagine who we could have gotten in all this time...so many legendary players have passed through our doors, and we let them all leave with barely a handshake.Oh well, live and learn.JK
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As a teenager, Jeff Kitts began his career in the mid ’80s as editor of an underground heavy metal fanzine in the bedroom of his parents’ house. From there he went on to write for countless rock and metal magazines around the world – including Circus, Hit Parader, Metal Maniacs, Rock Power and others – and in 1992 began working as an assistant editor at Guitar World. During his 27 years at Guitar World, Jeff served in multiple editorial capacities, including managing editor and executive editor before finally departing as editorial director in 2018. Jeff has authored several books and continues to write for Guitar World and other publications and teaches English full time in New Jersey. His first (and still favorite) guitar was a black Ibanez RG550.
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