How about this for a guitar pedal, not exactly what you were expecting is it! These bicycle pedals would make a good gift for the guitarist who seems to have everything. Here are the stats:

Anodized in 2 colors
Triple bearings
Extruded/CNC-machined body
Body 6061 aluminum, extruded/CNC-machined, anodized, replaceable pins
Axle CNC-machined Cr-Mo (cartridge)
Bearings LSL bushing, sealed & needle
Size 109 x 92 mm
Weight 264 g/pc

You can buy these pedals now on ebay for US $60.99.

I’ve always been “drawn” (ha ha) to hand painted guitars ever since I saw Joe Satriani’s black guitar with the silver doodles on it, I think someone stole that guitar while he was touring “Flying in a Blue Dream”? Anyway I digress. I just came across these fantastic Les Paul guitars hand illustrated by Colby Nichols and Josh Kenyon, not only are these one off guitars great to look at but the two pictured above, ”Legends in the Wood” and ”A Household Nightmare” are part of the ’Music Saves Lives Gibson Guitar Project‘, yes it is quite a mouthful.

Music Saves Lives has focused its main efforts on blood donation and the bone marrow registry, reaching out by sharing facts and educating. The guitars were auctioned off on eBay but you can still buy prints and T Shirts. Check out the other guitars that were part of this worthy cause.

The guitars used are Les Paul Melody Maker’s with a Mahogany body, Rosewood fretboard, Chrome wraparound tailpiece and specially designed single coil pickups.

What do you buy the guitarist who has everything? How about a Braithwaite Orpheus? ”designed for the guitar player who knows that playing the instrument is more than just a hobby” and only $105… surely worth the money because not only can you fit all your cards and cash in this leather wallet but also 3 guitar picks because of course they take up so much space in your pocket!

”Without picks inserted, you can see the black silk lining the back of the pick holder, creating a look reminiscent of shark’s gills. With picks in, the true purpose of the wallet (and its owner) becomes clear.”

Yeah because with those picks in there I had no idea what the true purpose was!

Good news Aussies I have news of another competition just for us! FasterLouder.com.au, the Access All Areas pass to the latest in Australian rock music is giving 1 lucky person the chance to win this fantastic prize, a Gibson Les Paul Studio. 10 Runners up will receive double tickets to the ’Shine A Light‘ Gala screening on May 28 and the ‘Shine A Light’ soundtrack.

To enter simply head over to FasterLouder.com and register for a free account.

When I discovered Kangaroo Amp Covers I was excited that I had found another Aussie company after featuring JLF Guitars yesterday however I was a little disappointed to find out that despite the name they are in fact an American company, ah well I’ll forgive them. Now have you ever needed to protect your guitar amp from a military invasion? Well you might want to consider buying a cover made from 1050 Denier Ballistic Nylon as used in bulletproof vests!

Kangaroo Amp Covers give you the choice of either ballistic nylon or 32 oz. heavy duty sierra vinyl to ensure your amp will be protected in the back of the band’s transit van, in fact Kangaroo Amp Covers say it is “the next best thing to having your own roadie”. Apart from being rugged enough for your amp to survive a pub tour of Baghdad each cover features exterior pockets for all your extra bits an pieces, kettle lead… erm and whatever else you can’t fit in your guitar case. The covers also have a 3/8” high density foam padding (thats 10mm in the wonderful metric world) to help protect your amp as it bounces around the outback with skippy.

Founder Jason Fazio developed his woodwork and steel skills creating artistic furniture and sculpture. But due to his keen interest in music his craftsmanship turned to Lutherie and JLF GUITAR was formed in 1995. Jason was inspired by the late Tony Zemaitas and chose to follow his style of combining wood with steel to create his instruments. The classic, pictured left has a mainly Mahogany body but also has a steel chambered section which houses the volume and tone controls for the single coil DiMarzio pickups and the top third of the guitar has a much thinner profile embellished with a sculpted steel design which makes for a very unique looking guitar. The guitar is finished with a Schaller fixed bridge and Grover machine heads.

Check out more of these unique Aussie guitars on the JLF Guitars website.

Good morning pop pickers its time for another Guitar Noize CD review and this time its an eclectic mix up that should appeal to pretty much every guitarist, covering most genres with a few suprises in there too! The album opens with a track from legendary Led Zeppelin bass player John Paul Jones called ‘B Fingers’, that was the first suprise. It’s a catchy overdriven bass riff too with Trey Gunn from King Crimson providing some backup on guitar. The next suprise was that track two is Jeff Beck, no he isn’t the suprise it is the fact that he is playing the classic reggae track ‘54-46 was my number’ with Toots and the Maytals! The next suprise comes by way of Zakk Wylde, now he suprised me a little bit years ago with a track that started with long country chicken pickin’ intro but then soon turned into typical Zakk, however on Guitar Masters Vol 1 Zakk plays on the classic Stevie Wonder track “I Wish” with Randy Coven where he displays a much more restrained playing style than his usual all metal assualt, gone are the pinch harmonics and wide vibrato which are replaced with the bluesy side of Mr Wylde!

OK, one more suprise and then I’ll stop with the suprises! Track 4 is by rock bass master Billy Sheehan, another bass player? Yeah but hang on not only does Billy play bass on “Unleash the beast” but also guitar and he’s quite the shredder! I suppose I shouldn’t be that suprised after all he plays the bass like it is a guitar anyway, if this is any indication expect to hear more of Mr Sheehan on the old six stringer in the future.

So what else can you expect to hear on Guitar Masters Vol 1? Well how about Stanley Clarke and Joe Satriani playing together? And a very funky track “Hair” is too, these two should collaborate more! Also Steve Morse appears on a Southern Rock flavoured track by Randy Coven. There is also a great track called “Picture of a purple sky” by Violet Samdura featuring Steve Booke which sounds like one of Jimmy Page’s eastern flavoured songs, think Kashmir without the vocals and awesome acoustic guitar solos, the guitar and violin double track melodies over a fantastic percussion backing. This track is definitely one of my favourites on the album. There are also tracks from John Scolfield and Doug Doppler and a great acoustic track called “What can I say” by Carl Tosten who uses tapping and open tunings like the late great Michael Hedges to create soulful melodies and an intricately developed arrangement.

One of the things that impressed me the most about this album is that it isn’t just an instrumental shredding album there are plenty of actual songs, yes with vocals! So there is plenty of music to be enjoyed by everyone not just the guitarists out there. So if you are looking for a bit of inspiration or just want to hear some of the greats doing what they do best check out Guitar Masters Vol 1. I look forward to hearing the next installment!

Check out Bohemian Productions MySpace and Company site.

I was contacted recently by a guitarist called Jian who wanted to bring to my attention their guitar teacher and in particular this teacher’s guitar method book that she wrote. I was intrigued and was put in contact with Susan Palmer, a guitar instructor at Seattle University. Susan is very passionate about teaching guitar which led her to create ‘The Guitar Lesson Companion’. This method book was created to help students get more out of their lessons and provide a structured framework that provides teachers with an outline to expand upon and exercises that students can work through on their own.

First of all the book is ring bound which instantly makes it very usable, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to play from a book that keeps closing, this book will sit on your music stand, table, lap whatever and stay open at the page you want. This is usually overlooked by publishers or maybe it is more expensive to produce books this way? The book starts with the basics of playing guitar and reminded me of the Fred Noad classical guitar book that my teacher used when I was starting my classical guitar studies. To begin with there are some warm up exercises which a beginner will probably have trouble with but it is something that they can continually reference and use and it makes sense to be at the start of the book. Next up Susan dives into musical notation in relation to open strings. If you have ever wanted to learn how to read music, even if you can already play guitar, it is essential that take it slowly and learn to recognise each note on the stave in relation to the fretboard. Susan’s studies give you the opportunity to step through the reading exercises filling in the blanks so that you are reading the music, rather than just looking at it.

So Susan’s idea is you start out slowly, using a few notes on the top E string to progress through basic Rhythmic exercises. Each exercise is available on the included CD to help you to follow the rhythmic examples to start out. After a few pages of studies Susan moves on to the B string and so on slowly building in rhythmic complexity and expanding your fretboard knowledge and reading abilities until you are reading music that covers all 6 strings in the first position (first 3 frets and open strings). This is a great stepping stone for learning to read music across the entire fretboard and is the first thing you learn as a classical guitarist. The next section of the book moves on to scales and theory with plenty of exercises to help you learn. Susan has written studies to take you through the Major keys starting with G Major and then through the cycle of fifths each using all 6 strings to play the scale, a scale pattern and then arpeggiating the major scale to finish.

The next section of the book focuses on chords, using diagrams and TAB for chord changing exercises and jams. Each chord sequence either has a melody using the Major/Minor and Pentatonic scales that you have already learned or a set of scale diagrams that you can use to improvise over the changes. There are diagrams showing the Major and Pentatonic Minor scales in all 5 “box” positions and exercises to complete to make sure you know the actually notes as well as the scale degrees. There is also a section on the CAGED system of movable chord shapes to help you open up even more possibilities over the fretboard.

All in all it is a very thorough book, so who is this book for? Well it is definitely aimed at guitar teachers and students who are beginner to intermediate level or perhaps the more advanced player who simply wants to learn to read standard musical notation rather than just TAB. I can see how teachers would benefit from having this teaching framework to aid their own teaching syllabus and it gives students the opportunity to complete exercises on their own and work with the CD between lessons. Every aspect of learning guitar is covered in a systematic but simplified manner. What I’m saying is, don’t expect to learn entire songs or instrumental pieces however you will have the chord and scale vocabulary to learn your favourite songs if you follow Susan’s method, practice and don’t try to rush through it (easy to say I know!).

If you would like to order ‘The Guitar Lesson Companion’ head over to Lead Cat Press.

UK based Swineshead Pickups have some very interesting pickup designs, for instance the Swineshead Warthog which is a high output humbucker with a powerful thick tone has a Paduak wood finish.

The other wood finishes available are Maple, Rosewood, Ebony, Mahogany, Zebrano and Lacewood. And that is just the wood finishes! Check out some of the other special finishes available such as Diamond Tread, Red Sparkle or their colour combinations. Oh and the customisation options don’t stop there, you can also have custom engraving on your pickups!

But how do they sound? Well I don’t know there aren’t any sound samples, but the humbuckers all use Alnico magnets as shown on this tone chart.

Last month Randall Amplifiers announced the RM100KH LTD Half Stack, well today Randall have announced the erm un-limited edition? This monster amp now comes in a 3 channel full stack!

”The RM100KH custom Kirk Hammett amplifier features 3 MTS modules that capture the wide array of all-tube tone from Kirk’s career, including clean, rhythm, and hi-gain lead tones. The amp is versatile enough for the recording studio and durable enough to gig at live shows. The custom head cranks out 100-watts of power, while harnessing the vast range of the accompanying MTS modules. The three custom Kirk Hammett modules allow for tones that run the gamut from classically clean to brutality crunchy, representing tones from Kirk’s early, mid and later years. The MTS preamp modules are fully swappable and interchangeable, allowing musicians to pair existing modules with Kirk’s legendary tones to build the ultimate rig.” - Randall Press Release.

”We perfected the tones of the amp by working side-by-side with Kirk for well over a year, making sure we had his input and insight every step of the way. It’s this intense attention to detail that makes the Kirk Hammett Custom amp a versatile rig for guitar players practicing at home, recording in the studio and playing live.” - David Karon, Artist Relations Manager at Randall Amplifiers.

Room for up to 3 swappable MTS modules for endless array of tones. It comes pre-loaded with KH1, KH2, and KH3 MTS modules:
KH1 - Classic clean tone
KH2 - Signature rhythm tone
KH3 - Legendary high-gain rhythm
6L6 power tubes
MIDI In/Thru
Parallel loop with front panel mix control
Series loop
Rear tube bias section

Pricing and Availability
The Kirk Hammett Custom Amp retails for $1,999.00 and is available at exclusive Randall dealers. To locate a participating Randall dealer, please visit http://www.randallamplifiers.com/dealers/index.asp.