Back in May I gave 1 lucky person the chance to win a signed copy of the Tommy Emmanuel Live CD ‘Center Stage’ well to mark the release of the ‘Center Stage’ live DVD Guitar Noize is giving you the chance to win the entire catalogue of Tommy’s Favored Nations releases! Favored Nations is Steve Vai’s record label that includes guitar virtuosos on his books such as Eric Johnson and Andy Timmons, but also has an Acoustic artists section including Peppino D’Agostino and Pete Huttlinger.

• Center Stage DVD
• Live At Her Majesty’s Theatre DVD
• Center Stage CD
• The Mystery CD
• Endless Road CD

And we’re not giving away 1 pack, we’re giving away 2 prize packs! All you have to do is head over to the Competition page and enter your name and email address to be in the running, simple!

The live ‘Center Stage’ DVD is fantastic by the way, it is one thing to listen to Tommy play but to watch him play tracks such as ”Mombasa” (which has a great intro where Tommy uses his guitar as a drum kit!), Train To ”Dusseldorf” which Tommy plays so effortlessly and Tall Fiddler which just makes you want to give up playing! Well ok, not give, aspire to play it like Tommy! The performance also features Harmonica extraordinaire Bob Littell who joins Tommy onstage for a few songs such as ”Georgia On My Mind” and ”Amazing Grace”. Tommy has an amazing amount of dynamics in his playing which really shows with his accompaniment of the songs with Bob Littell.

If you haven’t heard Tommy Emmanuel play before, check out his site which has a few YouTube links which showcase Tommy’s amazing talent. And what better way to get into Tommy than to win his entire Favored Nations back catalogue?

Tommy Emmanuel Competition page

If you are guitarist, and lets face it you’re at the wrong site if you’re not, you are going to love this DVD. Solidbodies the movie documents the greatest rivalry in guitar history, Fender Versus Gibson. The film includes interviews with Joe Bonamassa and vintage guitar guru George Gruhn and Henry Garza of the Los Lonely Boys, there is also little excerpt of a Joe Bonamassa gig playing his sparkly gold strat, which is funny considering Gibson just released the Joe Bonamassa Gold Top Les Paul! The film is only 50 minutes long so it moves along at a quick pace but there is a lot of interesting information about Gibson and Fender from the early days which I had no idea about such as the design of the Gibson SG, if you don’t know then you’ll just have to buy the DVD and find out! They talk about how the ‘59 Les Paul became the guitar that everyone wanted in the 60’s when it had temporarily ceased production and how the later 60’s Les Pauls still didn’t match the ‘59 so it became even more desirable. It also shows how the CBS takeover of Fender affected the quality and almost ruined the reputation of the Stratocaster and Telecaster until CBS finally sold the company and they made a comeback. There is also a section about how companies like Kramer eclipsed Gibson and Fender in guitar sales throughout the 80’s as players looked for guitars with a Floyd Rose and a modern look before the grunge scene put Kramer out of business! Of course Kramer is now owned by Gibson and focusses on cheap asian made (Korean maybe) instruments.

The film is very well shot and produced which is something that is sometimes lacking in independent films, they have obviously spent a lot of time on the details. There are a few clips of guitarists, Wes Jeans, John Roth and Steve Selvidge playing Les Pauls and Strats to show the difference between the Les Paul’s powerful humbucker sound and the Strat’s brighter twangier blues and country sound with a little bit rock as a nod to Hendrix. I would have liked the film to have been fleshed out with some concert footage from some of the great Strat and Les Paul players like Hendrix, Page etc. but I assume there were legal problems or licensing issues, thankfully Joe Bonamassa complied. I would also liked the film to have been longer as the running time is only 50 mins, I could have easily watched another hour and would have liked to seen some of the guitarists in question talking about their personal collections especially Joe Bonamassa but apart from that I think it is a great DVD and one that should be among every guitarists collection!

Check out http://solidbodiesthemovie.com for details on how to purchase the DVD.

I just finished watching Strat Masters, The definitive history of the world’s most famous guitar. The 3 hour 2 DVD epic documentary claim’s to be the history of the Fender Stratocaster but that would be selling this DVD somewhat short. This is not just the history of the Fender Strat, this is the history of the Electric guitar! Ok so you’re not going to see any other guitars in the film aside from the occasional Gibson, especially the very nice Charlie Christian model (ES150) played by Trefor Owen, but it puts into perspective the impact that this guitar had back in 1950’s and how without hardly any visible design evolution it has continued to do so.

At the beginning of the film there is a quote by Hank Marvin who says if someone had to draw a guitar they would probably draw something like a Fender Stratocaster and I think that sums up the importance of this design, it is the shape that people consider to be an “Electric guitar” what more endorsement could you want? The film has lengthy interviews with the likes of Ry Cooder, Mark Knopfler, Hank Marvin and the late Rory Gallagher including some unique footage of Rory playing his beat up old Strat. Each of these people have such distinctive sounds and yet play the same basic instrument which shows the versatility of Fender’s masterpiece. Of course a lot of the sound has to do with pickups so who better to explain how these were created than the master pickup creator Seymour Duncan. The film goes inside the Seymour Duncan and shows Seymour hand winding a pickup, something I really knew nothing about prior to seeing this, I have always taken pickups for granted I must say! There are also plenty of shots inside the Fender manufacturing facility and explaining each part of the process, its pretty funny seeing the production lines of ladies hammering in fret wire, it makes you realise why you pay extra for the custom shop guitars!

I could go on all day about this film but I really think you should just buy it for yourself and watch it, if you are a guitarist I guarantee you will enjoy it! Where else are you going to get 3 hours of Robert Cray, Chris Rea (I didn’t realise he had arthritis!), Richie Kotzen and Jeff Beck showing off their Strats and in Mark Knopfler’s case demonstrating the difference between 3 of his personal collection. I would like to have seen a bit more of Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan mentioned and maybe John Mayer or Eric Clapton but it is still great viewing.

You can find out more information on Strat Masters here.