On the night of the induction the 50 guitars from the Six-String Masterpieces Dimebag Darrel Art Tribute were auctioned off at California’s House of Blues. Many musical figures participated in the original art exhibition over a year ago. The musicians each painted a Dean ML guitar in their own style. Some of the artists who took part include James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett, Joe Satriani, Billy Gibbons, Marilyn Manson, Tom Morello, and Kelly Clarkson. In fact, the guitar decorated by Kelly Clarkson brought in a surprising $3000, beating out both Dave Navarro and Rob Zombie. Earlier in the week I reported that some people were expecting a guitar painted by popular modern artist Mark Ryden would sell for over a million dollars. The guitar only ended up going for $34,000 which is nothing to scoff at, but very short of 1-mil. The money raised was donated to The Little Kids Rock Project who make free musical instruments available to public school students.

Visit Tomorrow’s Productions to see a whole bunch of pictures from the event. Then there are some more pictures over at ZRock.com.

[Via Blabbermouth, Modern Guitars Magaizine]

One more video after the jump.

This second video is just a simple jam/improvisation he did.

So, it looks like this guy is not so “never heard of”. But I have never heard of him, so thats why he is here.

I think he needs to cinch up that guitar a little higher. He still has a little bit of movement left!

D’Agostino was born and raised in Italy. He picked up the guitar after seeing his cousin perform at church in Torino. He is self taught and cites musicians like Paco de Lucia and Carlos Santana as influences.

[Via Modern Guitars Magazine]

There are several reasons why I love Chuck’s style. First off, he was very good at utilizing alternate timings in a song. You don’t have to listen very closely to hear the timing change at several different points in the above video and it really works.

Just watching Schuldiner’s fingers move is amazing. His style of playing was very strange. He brought his fingers so high off of the fingerboard when shredding, yet his playing is so fluid.

Sadly, Chuck passed away of a brain tumor in 2001 after struggling through treatment for two years. Initially there were reports that he was on his way to recover after surgery, but later it was discovered that the initial diagnosis was incorrect. There was a relapse and when Chuck needed immediate treatment he was denied due to lack of funds. Many artists in the industry held events to raise money for Chuck, but he continued to grow weaker and died of pneumonia on December 13th.

If you are interested in hearing more of his music, visit the Chuck Schuldiner memorial website.

His musical style can not be classified very easily. It is an instrumental kind of new age fingerstyle acoustic rock. He goes from very relaxing tunes to very up-beat technical songs. Here is one of my favorites from the videos available on YouTube.

If you do a quick search though you can find many more. Three songs I have listened to now and I can already see that he is going to become one of my new favorite acoustic artists.

If you like his music, head over to Don Ross’ official website and buy his CD.

First emerging as a 13-year-old guitar prodigy in the 80s, Lagrène was often compared to guitarist Django Reinhardt. At that time the boy had been playing for 9 years already. That’s right… started when he was 4. After a few albums Biréli tried to shake the Reinhardt parallels by changing his style to more of a rock-fusion sound. His current music is more jazz oriented, but still has that strong Reinhardt influence.

If you liked the above video, check out Biréli Lagrène’s official website.

I have been a huge Children of Bodom fan for about 2 years now. They are one of the many great metal bands that have come out of Eastern Europe over the past few years. Alexi’s call to fame was his amazing playing style and his unique vocals. Although, in the interview he admits he didn’t choose to be singer, he was “stuck with it”. He credits a lot of his technique to virtuoso Steve Vai and living metal legend Zakk Wylde. Personally I love the guy for his ability to play in such harmony with the bands keyboardist Janne Wirman.

Modern Guitars gives a few paragraphs of background on Children of Bodom for those of you who aren’t familiar with the group. After that you can listen to a stream of the song Living Dead Beat off the band’s latest album Are You Dead Yet?. Then the author, Brian D. Holland dives right into the interview.

In the interview I found it interesting to hear what Alexi had to say about Yngwie Malmsteen:

I read somewhere that although you’ve been a huge fan of Yngwie Malmsteen, you’ve since gotten away from him and his style of playing.

Alexi: Yeah, well, Yngwie is Yngwie. I mean, what can you say? He’s fuckin’ bad ass, and that’s like stating the obvious. I was more into that neo-classical guitar thing when I was younger. Yeah, I was a huge Yngwie fan. You can hear that influence, especially on the first two albums. At that time, in Europe, there were so many guitar players, you know, Yngwie-copies running around everywhere. They all wanted to be like Yngwie and sound like Yngwie. It kind of pissed me off, you know. I didn’t want to be one of them. So I kind of turned off to that whole style of playing and decided it wasn’t going to be my thing. That’s Yngwie’ thing. He’s one of the greatest ever. End of story.

I just that it was funny… seems like over there Yngwie is like Jimi Hendrix or Zakk Wylde is here, everybody wants to be them.

Anyway, this was a great read for me and I’ll be excited to pick up the new DVD. Check out the whole interview for yourself.

Source: Alexi Laiho Interview at Modern Guitars Magazine

Some people criticize Page for being a sloppy player. The solo from Heartbreaker is an example of exactly what I’m talking about. To the untrained ear yes, it just sounds like a barrage of random notes with no reason. However, in all that chaos I hear a great solo. I think that is exactly what it was supposed to be, a slew of highly overdriven notes. The truth is guitar players are generally over critical by nature. I think it is a side effect of wanting to be the best you can be. Maybe if you can play the Song Remains the Same version of the Stairway to Heaven solo without slipping up where jimmy does it makes you a better guitar player. To go a step further, maybe you are a better guitar player if you can play it AND do the exact same mistakes (on purpose) Jimmy made when he played it live. Who knows… What I want to say is I get the feeling when listening to a Zeppelin that if I were to have had the chance to hear it live it would have been just as good if not better played as on the album, mistakes and all. He is human right?

Reasons why I love Jimmy Page

He is a master of stringed instruments. He can play acoustic, electric, 12-string, mandolin, whatever, and he is amazing at them all.

His guitar solos have got rhythm. Jimmy didn’t use any of the techniques that are popular today like sweep picking, tapping, shredding, or tremolo, but his solo skills are still idolized to this day. He did an amazing job of writing a solo that complemented the song.

He wrote great acoustic songs. Although he was clearly a rock and roll man, he knew how to create a rock song with an acoustic guitar.

Top 5 Jimmy Page Songs

Everyone hates a Led Zeppelin top list because it always includes Stairway and it is usually at the top. My list is no different. However, this is only because of the amazing Stairway performance from the Song Remains the Same DVD. This is my all time favorite Jimmy Page moment so here is a video. is a crappy rip and just the solo, but I have included a link to the full song just below. It’s much better quality.

The full Live Stairway to Heaven video is here.

Top 5 Jimmy Page Guitar Pro Tabs

1. Stairway to Heaven (Song Remains the Same Live version)
2. Over the Hills and Far Away
3. White Summer Black Mountain Side
4. Ten Years Gone
5. The Rover

Get Guitar Pro 5 now to use these tab files.

My reasons: Over the Hills has my favorite acoustic riff at the start. White Summer is all over and uses an alternate tuning, Ten Years Gone was the first Zeppelin song I learned. The Rover has an awesome solo that really flows. Obviously there are lots to choose from, and I chose these as my personal favorites, but I’m sure everyone has their own. What are yours?

For Your Malice Intro Lesson

This first video is just Mark Morton showing us how to play the intro riff to For Your Malice off of 2003’s As the Palaces Burn.

I can vouch for this tab below. It is correct. You will, have to practice the open Ds a bit to get the right rhythm though. The way that I got it was its d u d u dud u dud u dudu where down = d and up = u. If you listen to it a few times and commit the rhythm to memory and then try it it will be easier. Start out slow and build it up. Also, take note that this is played in drop-d tuning.

Dm/A
e---------------------------------------|
B--10-10-10-10--------------------------|
G--10-10-10-10--------------------------|
D--12-12-12-12--------------------------|
A--12-12-12-12--------------------------|
D--------------0-0-0-0-000-0-000-0-0000-|
---d--u--d--u--d u d u dud u dud u dudu 

E7/A
e-------------------------------------------|
B-10-10-10-10----------9--9--9--9-----------|
G-10-10-10-10----------9--9--9--9-----------|
D-12-12-12-12---------12-12-12-12-----------|
A-12-12-12-12---------12-12-12-12-----------|
D-------------0-0-0-0-------------0-0-0-0---| 

Bb
e--------------------------------------|
B-11-11-11-11--------------------------|
G-10-10-10-10--------------------------|
D-12-12-12-12--------------------------|
A-13-13-13-13--------------------------|
D-------------0-0-0-0-000-0-000-0-0000-|
--d--u--d--u--d-u-d-u-dud-u-dud-u-dudu 

e--------------------------------------------||
B-11-11-11-11---------11-11-11-11-----------o||
G-10-10-10-10---------10-10-10-10------------||
D-12-12-12-12---------12-12-12-12------------||
A-13-13-13-13---------13-13-13-13-----------o||
D-------------0-0-0-0-------------0-0-0-0----||

Lamb of God – Hourglass

This second video is Mark Morton and Will Adler showing us how to play all of Hourglass. I don’t have a tab or anything for this, so if anyone has a good one they would like to post that would be great. I havn’t tried to learn this one yet. If I ever try I’ll post mine too.

Lamb of God in the Studio

This final video that I leave you with isn’t really a lesson, but is more of just a “this is lamb of god’s sound” video. It is a 5 minute clip of them being interviewed while in the studio, and I like it. So check it out.

Morton uses three different guitars. His main guitar is a Jackson MM1 Mark Morton Signature. His second and third are a Jackson Swee-tone Archtop and a Jackson RR5 Rhoads. Each guitar has a Seymour Duncan Invader pickup in the bridge and a Seymour Duncan Jazz in the neck. GHS Boomer 10 – 46 gauge strings are strung on the guitars and tuned in either a drop-d (D-A-D-G-B-E) or a double drop-d (D-A-D-G-B-D).

From Guitar to Amp

• Jackson Custom MM1 Mark Morton Signature
• Sennheiser EW100 Wireless Unit
• Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner
• Whirlwind Selector

From this point on the guitar signal is split into two channels. Each channel goes through the compressor, a noise gate, and into the Mesa/Boogie heads.

• DBX 266XL Dual Compressor
• 2 Mesa/Boogie Mark IV Heads
• Rocktron Hush Super C Two-channel Noise Gate via the FX loop of the Mesa/Boogie heads
• 9 Mesa Rectifier Straight-front traditional 4×12 cabs with Celestion Vintage 30’s

I think the idea for splitting the sound between two heads is really sweet. I would love to have a chance to play around with something like that one day.