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There are some people in the music business that ascend to legendary status over the years, Dave Mustaine is certainly one of them albeit for more controversially than he probably would have liked. Dave Mustaine is obviously a major driving force in the Heavy Metal genre with records spanning almost 3 decades! Unfortunately Dave has not always been the best with words, especially when talking to the press and many people take a disliking to him personally due all the band “sackings”. The thing is, I’m one of those people that read stories about Dave and said oh no not again, he’s made some dodgy comment and offended someone or sacked his guitarist for no good reason. Even though I’ve been a fan of Megadeth’s music for 20 years I’ve never once actually made an effort to read about Dave Mustaine before and try and work out why he seems to have so many problems. I was expecting “Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir” to be very defensive and one-sided and I was totally wrong I actually felt that this book was brutally honest, open and insightful. I had no idea about how much Dave has suffered from Drug and Alcohol addiction over the years as have many of his band members, in fact this book really explains why the band has been subject to so many problems over the years and why certain members were sacked. Dave also, obviously, talks about the Metallica sacking and issues that followed over the years and how he never really dealt with it properly at the time. Anyone who has seen “Some Kind Of Monster” will have already seen the start of Dave Mustaine dealing with how he was affected by this series of events and it does actually make much more sense when you read about all of the things that have happened over the years.

The book follows Dave’s life all the way up to the recording of “Endgame” including how Dave almost lost the use of his left hand back in 2002 due to a crazy injury brought on by falling asleep with his arm over a chair which caused almost catastrophic nerve damage. I think it is pretty amazing to be told you will never play guitar again and not only prove the Doctor’s wrong but to then go on recording and touring. At the start of the book I did think that this was going to be just like every rock bio I’ve read such as Slash, Anthony Kiedis and Motley Crue where it degenerates into a listing of every time they scored heroin on the street and how they would shoot up in the toilet at rehab or whatever but Dave’s life has had so many twists and turns it literally had me gripped from the start and I read it faster than any book I’ve owned in years. All I can say is that if you want to hear Dave’s side or if you are even just a little curious about Dave’s life this book is a must, you won’t want to put it down I guarantee it.

I’m surprised that Chimaira have taken this long to release a TAB book I’m sure there are plenty of fans who want to figure out Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries searing guitar work. Music Dispatch have the new book available for US $24.99 here and it contains the following songs:

The Flame
Impending Doom
Implements Of Destruction
Inside The Horror
Nothing Remains
On Broken Glass
Power Trip
Pure Hatred
Resurrection
Salvation
Secrets Of The Dead
Six
The Venom Inside

Head over to Music Dispatch to order your copy and while you are waiting for that to be delivered check out my free Chimaira Lesson I posted here on Guitar Noize.

http://chimaira.com

I was a big fan of Pantera back in the early 90’s, I think my first introduction to them was someone handing me a cassette of “Vulgar Display Of Power”, still my favourite album, then I worked backwards to “Cowboys From Hell” and finally forwards again with “Far Beyond Driven”. After that my musical landscape changed for a few years and I didn’t even hear “The Great Southern Trendkill” until years after its release. Growing up playing guitar and seeing someone like Dimebag live was amazing, he had riffs that made everyone else at the time sound like nursery rhymes, he had blistering solos that were flowing and effortless, full of passion and massive wide vibrato, he also had his signature Dean guitar even before it was an actual signature model and most of all he had a sense of humour and liked to goof around. Dimebag Darrell was a guitar hero who graced the cover of every guitar magazine and won just about every award going. On December 8 2004 Darrell Abbott was gunned down mid-song and killed along with security and crew members whilst on stage with his follow up band Damageplan.

Black Tooth Grin not only covers in detail the events that night at Alrosa Villa including the lead up to the senseless murder, some background on the killer and the events following Dimebag Darrell’s untimely death but also celebrates his career as one of the most revered guitar heroes of all time. Former Dallas Observer music editor Zac Crain gives an unauthorized biography of the Arlington, Texas shredder. From Darrell’s youth hanging out in his dad’s studio and through the early days of Pantera on the club circuit and how they were propelled from Texas clubs to world tours with Dimebag making friends the world over with his brand of alcohol fuelled fun.

Black Tooth Grin also covers the demise of Pantera fuelled by Dimebag’s alcohol consumption and singer Phil Anselmo’s heroin addiction and covers both sides of the story from the messy breakup. This is an area of Pantera that I really didn’t know much about as, like many others in the late 90’s, I had moved on seeking new musical inspiration that I wasn’t getting from Heavy Metal at that time. The sad incomprehensible slaughter of Dimebag actually inspired me to revisit his music and this book has had the same effect, since reading Black Tooth Grin I have listened to all my Pantera albums and have bought Damageplan’s “New Found Power” just to hear the last recording Dimebag made. It is sad to see Dimebag being exploited by Dean guitars after his death, after reading this book and reading how humble Dimebag was he would never have wanted to see someone selling 32 signature Dimebag guitars. Anyway that aside this is a fascinating insight into the life and death of Darrell Abbott and one that I highly recommend.

The other day I was reading a review on the always excellent Stratoblogster about a guitar teaching ebook called “Rob’s Totally Awesome Guitar Teaching Handbook”, aside from the great title I thought the book cover was pretty cool too and after reading the review decided to head over to Rob’s website Heartwood Guitar Instruction for a few more details and decided to buy the ebook for myself. Originally I hadn’t even intended to review the book I just thought it would be a good read as I’m thinking of taking on some students once I move house and actually have the space. Now I have taught guitar before including teaching at a high school but it has been a while so I figured any advice Rob could offer would be helpful.

The book is broken up into 3 Chapters, “To Teach Or Not To Teach?”, “Money Makin’” and “Teaching 101”. Chapter 1 is fairly short and basically poses a few questions about whether you should teach, if you are capable and patient enough, if you are knowledgable and whether you can cope with running your own business. As Rob points out, setting up a guitar teaching business costs next to nothing so even if you find out down the track it is not for you after all, you are likely to only lose out on the cost of a few flyers. Rob includes suggestions for lesson pricing, how to set up a waiting list and advice on how to stop teaching overtaking your life. Rob was an English teacher at an Elementary School before embarking on a guitar teaching business where he now has a 5 year waiting list for students so he has a good amount of experience with both teaching, motivating kids and running a business.

Chapter 2 is all about the main goal, making money and this includes how to set up your teaching space to begin with. Rob also talks about something probably often overlooked, gaining the trust of parents of younger students which is more important these days and the last thing you want are any accusations from disgruntled parents so don’t skip this section. Other subjects in this chapter include branding your business, advertising, alternative income ideas and accounting.

Finally the 3rd and largest chapter covers everything you ever needed to know about teaching your students. How to set up a teaching plan, how to steer distracted students back to the task in hand, how to break down tasks for students. Actually this subject is very useful, it covers how to teach a simple skill. It might be something second nature to you and therefore frustrating to see someone struggle, so Rob explains how to use his formula which you can then apply to anything you need to teach. Rob also goes into muscle memory and making sure students don’t let their muscle memory remember a mistake by slowing things down.

Along with the eBook you also get access to some of Rob’s teaching aids from his website which include song tabs for loads of tracks that you can use for your own students, he also includes downloads of blank Tab, a practice list, practice sticker chart for kids and a milestone chart. There are also student payment tables which you can use for your own business.

The eBook costs $30 and is available direct from Rob’s website Heartwoodguitar.com, if you are thinking of becoming a guitar teacher and think that $30 sounds a bit steep, just remember you will get that money back in 1 lesson and like Rob points out music books, music, gigs, tabs etc. are all tax deductible to guitar teachers so that makes this book even more of a bargain. I found it really helpful not as a bunch of lesson plans but as a teaching aid and motivational book and it is something I will definitely be re-reading once I am ready to take on some students.

Thanks to Stratoblogster for the heads up.

The Soul of Tone

Recently I’ve been absolutely obsessed with my guitar rig. Maybe a little bit too much. Actually, it’s probably been definitely too much. I’ve been searching everywhere for little bits of secrets here and there and whilst doing that I stumbled on a book released by Fender, The Soul of Tone, which was published to celebrate 60 years of Fender amplifiers.

Now, I’m not going to pretend I know anything about writing books and review but this book is absolutely lovely! It’s how a book is meant to be! It’s got some incredible photography of some extremely beautiful Fender amps in there and also comes with 2 CDs. The first takes you through Fender’s Vintage amp range and the second takes you through Fender’s Modern range. Both of these CDs are absolutely fantastic and give a really brilliant sonic insight to what are quite honestly some stunning amplifiers. The CDs complement the book extremely well making this one of my favourite guitar books.

It’s been fascinating for me to read about how something we take for granted, the sound of the electric guitar, was almost entirely crafted by Leo Fender and his teams 60 years ago. It truly is phenomenal that these 60 year old beasts still sound so incredble. These amps are still copied today.

Be warned, if you read this book and listen to the tone demos you will want to get your mits on a vintage Fender amp!!

Highly recommended and not just for Fender fans but rather for anyone with an interest in understanding guitar tone.

There have been a distinct lack of books mentioned on Guitar Noize of late, in fact the last non-ebook book review was back in September 2007! so I thought it was about time to feature something that I think many of you may find quite interesting.

Precious Metal is a behind the scenes look at 25 Metal albums featuring interviews with the original band members from the recordings. The book is edited by Editor-in-Chief of Decibel magazine Albert Mudrian. I am not familiar with Decibel, so I did a quick google search and found their website which has the following introduction:

Decibel is America’s only monthly extreme music magazine. Since 2004, Decibel has delivered in-depth and intelligent coverage to the doorsteps of a legion of dedicated fans.

So it seems only fitting that Decibel’s Editor-in-Chief has written a book not only cataloguing “25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces” but also the stories behind the making of these albums straight from the horses mouths so to speak which are expanded versions of interviews from Decibel’s “Hall Of Fame”. I’m not going to pretend I know all of the albums featured in this book but there a many that I do and there was enough to have me reading way later into the night than someone with a 7 month old daughter should!

The book is in chronological order starting with Black Sabbath’s first album without Ozzy and replacement Ronnie James Dio Heaven and Hell, Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations, Slayer Reign In Blood, moving into the 90’s with albums such as Morbid Angel’s Altars Of Madness, Kyuss’ Welcome To Sky Valley and Meshuggah Destroy Erase Improve and has just 1 album from this century Converge’s Jane Doe.

I skipped a few albums that didn’t interest me but that is the good thing about this book, you can read it in a non-linear fashion. It has some pretty informal interviews where the band members really open up and aren’t afraid to talk about band conflicts during the production process which is what makes the book interesting. I don’t want to read that everyone turned up, played and it went well I want to hear about Ozzy’s alcoholic decline and how Paradise Lost covered a drumming recording mistake with sound effects which is exactly what you do get.

You really need to be into “Extreme Metal” to fully appreciate this book, I was hoping that there would be some classic Metal albums included such as Megadeth’s Rust In Peace or Iron Maiden’s Number Of The Beast but I suppose it was not always possible to interview certain bands and maybe they didn’t consider these albums “Extreme” enough to be included in Decibel.