In order to fully understand what is going on with the Norton Python Guitar and indeed any of the Norton Guitar range you first need to look at what is happening behind the scenes. Check out the Norton Mainframe® which is the basis for all norton instruments. The neck is fixed to an aluminium block (block is a bit crude, they use the term assembly!) that houses the pickups and bridge, the pickups can be moved by sliding into the desired position and the pickups, bridge and neck can all be tilted for some reason?! The Python uses the Norton Tube Frame which is aircraft grade aluminium augmented with radial wound carbon fiber tubes.

Aside from this unique approach to the bridge, pickups etc. they also use an aluminium nut which I don’t think I’ve ever seen on a guitar before? I know you can use Brass like on the Yngwie Malmsteen strat and Graphite nuts but aluminium? interesting. All this innovation doesn’t come cheap however, the Python will set you back $3500 so you might want to try before you buy!

Due to the competition entries slowing down I have decided to move the date forward to Sunday 3rd February, cut off time is midnight, so that the winner doesn’t have to wait as long to get their hands on the goodies! So if you haven’t already entered head over to the Competition page now and post a comment!

Now don’t expect all the tutorials to be by the original artist that isn’t really the point, but what they do seem to have done is to put together some great high definition video tutorials from very capable teachers. The only thing I would say is that it is a little pricey, for instance just to learn Jet’s “Are you gonna be my girl” will set you back $4.99. There are, however, some tutorials that are free to download at beginner and intermediate levels which I’m sure they will expand on.

Also worth a mention is a similar service called nowplayit.com which also offers tutorials by artists (although at $8 per video they are a little bit more expensive) but you can also get a Lite version and an in-house version. ‘In House’ tutorials are exactly the same format at the ‘Full’ tutorials, but instead of featuring the actual artist who wrote or performs the song, it features our own in house tutor. The Lite version is a bit weird, it is like the Full version except the artist is removed… so really you just get a music video with tab overlaid? hmm…

The interface for iVideosongs is far superior to nowplayit.com which is primarily based around a search rather than categorised content.

ESP are well known for their crazy creations out of their Custom Shop but how about this one to kick off 2008! The Shinigami, it reminded me of the Masaki Kyomoto Special also from ESP. Unfortunately there are no details currently available for the Shinigami but I will update this post as and when information comes in.

UPDATE: Shinigami first appeared on the header bar of ESP Japan site in December. It was produced by the Craft House. The guitar is likely to retail at over $20,000!
Thanks to bmusic.com.au for the extra info.

Thumbrella has just noticed that the Ernie Ball Musicman Global Warming custom guitar built for Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) of Spinal Tap is up for grabs on ebay. Don’t get too excited though, the current asking price at the time of writing this is $14,420! However it is for a good cause, all proceeds go to the ‘Casey Lee Ball Foundation’ a nonprofit organization where 100% of every dollar donated goes directly to pediatric kidney research. Casey Lee Ball, third son of Sterling Ball, President of Ernie Ball, Inc., was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease at age two. At age five, while Casey and Sterling were recuperating from kidney transplant surgery at UCLA, they decided to create the Casey Lee Ball Foundation.

This isn’t the first auction the Casey Lee Ball Foundation have done for Spinal Tap items, in fact they actually auctioned off the musicman featured here on Guitar Noize back in August 2007, as well as the awesome Marshall Stack guitar!

So if you have about $15,000 kicking around that you’re not sure what to do with and you like one off custom guitars that has a thermometer fretboard that lights up get bidding!

How cool is this! I love it when artists go to town on a guitar!

At the moment all the information I can find on Lucy McClauglan is that she was born in my home town of Birmingham, England and that she painted this Gibson Les Paul Goddess 2006 with Enamel paint. So what is a Les Paul Goddess I hear you cry! Well it would seem that it is a Gibson marketing ploy to get more girls picking up a Les Paul. This article explains that it is actually a joint venture between Gibson and Agent Provocateur! The Les Paul Goddess is lighter than the Les Paul Standard and is available in variety of colours such as Violet Burst, Sky Burst and Ice Burst which must appeal more to women?

Now having said all of that this article was back to the 8th June 2007 and if you search the Gibson site for the Goddess the only place you will find it is on the Japanese site so maybe it wasn’t such a great marketing venture after all? Maybe Gibson should leave it to Daisy Rock to make girls guitars?

Well that will go down in history as one of the most bizarre album titles, but apparently Joe Satriani is set to release his new album “Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock” on April 1, 2008 according to The Guitar Channel. If it was April 1 today I would question that title!

The photo here is a rare image of Satriani sans hat and sunglasses and weilding an acoustic. This was taken from his studio photos taken during the record sessions for the new album and was apparently taken by John Cuniberti himself!

Now this might come across as favouritism seeing as I have already featured 3 of McSwain’s guitars over the past month but Stephen McSwain sent these images to me of his latest creation, the ‘Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas’ guitar which he created with Ralph Steadman, the original artist who illustrated Hunter S Thompson’s classic book. I believe the plan was to choose 6 different ‘Fear & Loathing’ prints and make 10 guitars of each print. Each guitar will be signed by Stephen McSwain and Ralph Steadman and dedicated to the client with a certificate affixed to the back of the guitar.

Slash didn’t hang around in getting the first one as you can see in the photo!

Well Ibanez have not exactly been trying to keep this one secret in fact Steve Vai actually talks about this new pedal and shows a prototype that he has been using on tour in this video, a must watch for Vai fans as it shows he shows his entire touring rig (make sure you check out part 2 as well!).

The twin stomp box is not yet featured on the US site but I found it on the Ibanez Japan site. So first of all Vai chose the vomit coated finish reminiscent of his Passion & Warfare era Ibanez Universe UV77MC. The unit has 2 identical distortion units, apparently with a Boss DS-1 distortion type sound is on one side, and an Ibanez TS9 sound is on the other according to Music Radar. It will be interesting to see this pedal in action as the information is a little scarce at the moment, Ibanez seem a little slow to update their site after NAMM unlike many of their competitiors.