We are pleased to announce that our eleventh issue (Fall 2008) issue has arrived from the printer and will be mailed to subscribers in just a couple of weeks. In what is the longest story we’ve run to date (no small feat for us!), Fretboard Journal reader and two-time Grammy winner Ben Harper interviews fretted instrument virtuoso David Lindley about his early days of playing music, the Topanga banjo contests Lindley repeatedly won, playing alongside Jackson Browne, Dumble amps and much more. Harper also interviews Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, David Crosby and Graham Nash about what makes Lindley such a special musician. Included are all new photographs of Lindley (and Harper) and some of Lindley’s very special gear, including the Dumble amps and Rickenbackers used on the classic Browne recordings. But wait, there’s more! We also show off some of Harper’s favorite gear, including his Weissenborns, Dumble amp #109 and the new Martin signature model he has. Beyond all that, we also have in-depth stories on Tony Trischka, Barry Tashian, an essay on the magic of Brazilian rosewood, a tribute to the 12 string guitars of Carl C. Holzapfel and much more. This is a pretty special issue even by our standards and we imagine it will sell quickly, so subscribe today if you’d like to be ensured a copy (it will be the first issue mailed out for all new subscriptions. -JV
August 21st, 2008
Not sure if this is an official Fender-endorsed event or not, but if we were in NYC next month, we’d definitely be going to the Knitting Factory for this show. Jazzmaster enthusiasts Tom Verlaine, Nels Cline, Thurston Moore and J. Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.) take the stage to celebrate the 50th birthday of one of the coolest guitar designs ever made. Like Mascis, Elvis Costello now has an official Jazzmaster signature model. Wonder if he’ll show up? -JV
July 14th, 2008
Every Fretboard Journal reader knows we’re suckers for interesting photography, so we were happy to see a couple of music related photo essays on CNET’s Road Trip 2008. The first trip went to Gibson’s electric guitar factory in Nashville. (I love the shot of the carousel of guitars awaiting completion). The second trip, and perhaps even more interesting to some of us, is their trip to the United Record Pressing plant. Check out this shot of a bin of blue vinyl pellets waiting to be pressed into records is pretty dang cool. JV
July 8th, 2008
UK-based publication The Word is one of the few music magazines (besides the FJ, of course) we’ve been enjoying lately. They recently added a very cool Album Atlas to their website: using Google Earth you can see where famous album covers were photographed (ok, so maybe Half Moon Half Biscuit isn’t so famous… ). Lots of fun. Sadly, I’ve only been to two locations! -JV
June 27th, 2008
The new Carr Raleigh guitar amp (the amp to the right of the Hammerhead) boasts a 10″ speaker (yes, part of the cabinet design blocks a bit of the speaker… there’s a lot crammed in there), 3 watts and a clean / OD channel. Tubes are two 12AX7s and an EL-84 power tube. Doesn’t take up much room, sounds great and, yeah, cute.
June 21st, 2008
The Bogdon upright bass comes dropped to your home or store in its own cardboard box body and costs around 100 dollars. You can choose between the two- and three-string options and, for a limited time, the black or red ink on the box (I guess they’ve stopped using pricey red ink). The build-it-yourself bass boasts a proprietary pickup (sounded fine plugged in to me), cut out lines in the box where you have to install the enclosed neck, tuners, bridge, nut, strings and everything else you may need to make a bass out of a cardboard box. The “tuners” look remarkably like bolts and require a wrench (included). Your eyes tend to glaze over when walking the halls at NAMM. Then you see something like an upright bass made out of a cardboard box and making music seems like fun again. Besides, it’s about time that the world of cigar box instruments and IKEA met! -JV
June 21st, 2008
Moog is the little company (ok, not so little) that could … Just when you think they’ve tapped out of ideas or that the Moog craze has slowed down (it’s been a while since Stereolab had a hit record, right?) they unveil something new. The new Moog Guitar, while not cheap at $6500, sure looks like fun. I’ll try to get my hands on it at the Summer NAMM show this weekend and give it a full review. In the meantime, the Moog homepage has a video with Lou Reed and others putting it through its paces. -JV
June 17th, 2008
Various news agencies are reporting that Bo Diddley passed away this morning at the age of 79. Sad news…
June 2nd, 2008
We’ve seen a lot of guitar websites over the years, so it’s nice to see a new one that has a clean, simple design and a ton of information. The Guitar Sherpa is a huge directory that you could get lost in for hours. Look up makers, restoration experts, instruction, recording gear, etc. Pretty cool site and growing fast. -JV
May 28th, 2008
The world lost one of its greatest music photographers last weekend with the passing of David Gahr. Over the course of his 85 years, Gahr captured Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Miles Davis, Janis Joplin and numerous other rock and folk greats in their prime. He seemed to have an all-access badge and his camera on-hand at all the right times; to call some of his shots anything less than “iconic” would be a mistake. His out-of-print book from the late ’60s, The Face of Folk Music, remains a must-have classic.
Over the course of ten issues, we’ve probably printed a thousand images in the Fretboard Journal and I’d have to say that the lone Gahr contribution is one of my absolute favorites. It ran in our very first issue, alongside a piece that Allan Evans wrote about taking guitar lessons from the Reverend Gary Davis. We had contacted a few other photographers for Rev. Gary Davis photos but we wanted something special. A call to Gahr’s answering machine was made and, after a couple of long chats with his daughter and eventually David himself, he faxed over several unpublished Gary Davis shots. The one we ultimately selected for the article, of Rev. Gary Davis sitting on a bench playing his Gibson while his wife Annie looks on, is simply amazing. Thanks for letting us look through your lens and share in some of your memories, David. –JV
May 28th, 2008
We are pleased to announce that our eleventh issue (Fall 2008) issue has arrived from the printer and will be mailed to subscribers in just a couple of weeks. In what is the longest story we’ve run to date (no small feat for us!), Fretboard Journal reader and two-time Grammy winner Ben Harper interviews fretted instrument virtuoso David Lindley about his early days of playing music, the Topanga banjo contests Lindley repeatedly won, playing alongside Jackson Browne, Dumble amps and much more. Harper also interviews Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, David Crosby and Graham Nash about what makes Lindley such a special musician. Included are all new photographs of Lindley (and Harper) and some of Lindley’s very special gear, including the Dumble amps and Rickenbackers used on the classic Browne recordings. But wait, there’s more! We also show off some of Harper’s favorite gear, including his Weissenborns, Dumble amp #109 and the new Martin signature model he has. Beyond all that, we also have in-depth stories on Tony Trischka, Barry Tashian, an essay on the magic of Brazilian rosewood, a tribute to the 12 string guitars of Carl C. Holzapfel and much more. This is a pretty special issue even by our standards and we imagine it will sell quickly, so subscribe today if you’d like to be ensured a copy (it will be the first issue mailed out for all new subscriptions. -JV
