Johnny Marr Guitar Style and Sound

Johnny Marr rose to fame with The Smiths in the 1980′s. Marr’s guitar playing not only became an instantly recognisable and key colour in The Smiths sonic palette but one of the defining guitar styles and sounds of the era. Such was his influence that guitarist such as Noel Gallagher of Oasis, John Squire from The Stone Roses and Ed O’Brien from Radiohead have cited Marr as a key influence in their own guitar work. What makes his guitar sound unique is a combination of a resonant, bell like and ringing “mod” guitar sound  with plenty of depth – it isn’t over driven or dirty at all but it still has plenty of depth, power and truck loads of attitude.

Johnny Marr and The Smiths

The unique sound and anti-hero politic and stance of The Smiths made them the leading  alternative group of the decade and many critical publications have cited their third album “The Queen is Dead” as one of the greatest ever made.

NME magazine called The Smiths the greatest rock band of all time. Johnny has also  played with other highly influential acts such as The The, Electronic, the Pretenders, Johnny Marr and the Healers, Modest Mouse, and the Cribs.

Fender Signature Series

The Johnny Marr signature Fender Jaguar guitar gives you the classic Marr sound in an unforgettable 1960′s UFO aesthetic – white and chrome. More importantly Johnny has clearly put his years of writing, recording and live experience into designing this guitar with Fender – he has removed any problemmatic equipment and design faults to deliver the best possible Jaguar playing and sound experience.

Custom Pick Ups

One of his key innovations is to move the high-pass filter to the upper horn, include a second filter to complete the very highly configurable pickup configuration, mustang saddles, make bridge improvements, and include custom designed vintage pickups with identical polarities (delivering a telecaster like focus).

Custom-wound Bare Knuckle® Johnny Marr single-coil neck and bridge pickups
Custom-shaped maple neck based on Marr’s 1965 Jaguar, with vintage-style truss rod
Four-position blade-style pickup switch mounted to the lower-horn chrome plate
Two upper-horn slide switches
Jaguar bridge with Mustang® saddles, nylon bridge post inserts for improved stability, chrome cover and vintage-style floating tremolo tailpiece
Marr’s signature on the front of the headstock
Vintage lacquer finish

click here to visit Fender Guitars.

At the same time the Madchester scene lay gasping for air and anonymous dance-house-techno music spread like a drug fuelled virus through the underground club  acid scene the Guns n Roses album Appetite for Destruction (1987) muddied the mainstream rock n roll waters with a ferociously hedonistic and self destructive blend of high energy, gritty, bar room brawlers soaked in the “whiskey” of corporate stadium rock.

Punk Grunge Injection

The isolation of the Seattle scene had provided the perfect breeding ground for a musical style that injected filth into the rotten corpse of punk rock to produce a sludgy, down beat, no frills approach to rock music that pissed on everything before it. The core influences at the heart of grunge were bands such as the Melvins, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney and early 70′s bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

Alienation, Distortion

Grunge was rock music but it was diseased, low-fi, burnt out, angry and unwashed – left out in the acid rain, alone, to decompose.

What made grunge unique was the howling expression of alienation, dissatisfaction and boredom through an irreverent do-it-yourself ethic of high volume, ear splitting noise and distortion – grunge gave guitar music exactly what it needed – a hard kick in the teeth.

Nirvana Bleach – Negative Creep

BY 1989 the Seattle scene was ripe to the point of rotting and it was time for the mainstream descent into the murky depths of limitless overdrive, distortion and discordance. The “new” anti-heroes wheeled out for the masses as champions of Grunge proved to be Seattle’s NIRVANA.

Bleach

Nirvana’s first album, accurately titled BLEACH was released in 1989 on SUBPOP and delivered an edgy, bleak and claustrophobic, monochromatic, hard hitting and heavy sound on the verge of collapse. The record was named Bleach after Cobain found an AIDS prevention poster while Nirvana were driving through San Francisco. The poster advised heroin addicts to bleach their needles before use.

Load up on drugs – kill your friends

Cobain later suggested the band had crafted the songs in such a manner as to keep record label SUBPOP happy: they had been listening to The Smithereens and Celtic Frost and he had written the lyrics almost overnight; that he had suppressed his predilections for writing songs with a more melodic influence and pop alignment. Bleach is an explosive debut and a definitive insight into Cobain’s unique, locomotive, guitar talent – incisive, bastardized and frenzied, punctuated with the broken gunfire of melody.

Smells like Teen Spirit

NIRVANA moved to Geffen records and their second release, the gargantuan NEVERMIND (1991), stained the topology of rock music forever – Cobain claimed later that the record was “too slick.” With the release of the single “Smells like Teen Spirit” Cobain was immediately annointed as the iconic anti-hero and wasted demon of Generation X, a position he despised, loathed and treated with customary irreverence.

Kurt Cobain Guitar Sound

On Nevermind, Kurt Cobain played a 1960s Fender Mustang, a Fender Jaguar with DiMarzio pickups, and a few Fender Stratocasters with humbucker bridge pickups.

Fender Cobain Jaguar

Fender have released a Jaguar guitar meticulously modeled on Cobain’s unusual, battered and bruised 1965 left handed, Jaguar. The worn finish, dual humbucking pickups (DiMarzio humbucking DP103 PAF 36th Anniversary neck pickup and DP100 Super Distortion bridge pickup) together with triple knurled “chrome-dome” knobs, three-position toggle switch, black chrome Adjusto-Matic bridge and Gotoh® sealed tuners accurately replicate Kurt’s guitar.

Fender Cobain Mustang

Fender have also re-produced Cobain’s prized Mustang guitar. The Mustang features an  angled single-coil Mustang neck pickup and completely ferocious Seymour Duncan® JB humbucking bridge pickup mounted directly to the body. Like Kurt’s guitar there are dual on-off/phase in-out switches for each pickup, a polyester-finished alder body and an Adjusto-Matic™ bridge with dynamic vibrato tailpiece.

You want to sound like Bill Frisell?

Here is a great Bill Frisell effects pedal video illustrating how Bill achieves some of his signature guitar sounds. Frisell is reknowned for his idiosyncratic signature sound and Jazz playing but, his style is in fact more highly eclectic. Bill uses a wide range of effects to enhance his playing, but, he is equally at home using a bare minimum of pedals, or none at all. Listen to more of Bill Frisell’s amazing music catalogue here.

The guitar effects pedals that Bill features in this video are as follows:
Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2
Boss TU-2
Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer (stock)
TC Electronics Hall of Fame
Electro-Harmonix Freeze
Line 6 DL4
Wright Sounds Fuzz Stang

Shown, but not used in the video:
Electro-Harmonix Micro POG
Way Huge Electronics Ring Worm
Aguilar Audiolex
Z.Vex Ringtone

Frisell’s custom Jazzmaster was built by J.W. Black, with custom art by Terry Turrell. The amp is a vintage Gibson GA-18.

Fender and Roland (Boss) have joined forces to integrate Roland’s history of guitar synthesis into the legendary Fender Stratocaster guitar to bring two new Stratocaster models built around Roland’s COSM modelling experience.

Basic Model – Fender Roland G-5 Stratocaster

In addition to the usual range of Fender Strat’ tones and capability, the G-5 uses a fourth Roland pick-up at the bridge. This pick up powers Roland’s COSM technology to deliver a range of electric and acoustic guitar tones and modelled pick ups at the turn of dial – no additional hardware is required – everything is built into the guitar. The guitar is available in two colourways/designs: black with maple neck or Sunbust and rosewood neck. The tonal versatility extends into alternate tunings – you can change your guitar tuning at the touch of a dial – here are the core options on the G-5 Stratocaster.

Steel String Acoustic Guitar
Nylon String Acoustic guitar
Vintage Humbucker tones
Authentic Telecaster bridge and neck tones
Wide range tele bridge & neck pick up
Bright extended range bridge & neck humbucker
Big box jazz guitar
Electric Sitar
12 String tuning
Instant reverb

Click here to visit the Fender Roland G-5 Stratocaster website.

Advanced Model  – Fender Roland GC-1 • GK-Ready Stratocaster

If you are really looking for an advanced Guitar Synthesis controller then the GC-1 delivers all the features of the above basic model and combines the full functionality of Rolands GK-3 pick-up, again,  in a Fender Strat guitar, plus a 13 pin connector to drive sophisicated synthesizer hardware such as the Roland GR-55, VG-99.

The Roland GR-55 Guitar Synth

• - A revolutionary fusion of guitar synthesis and powerful COSM guitar modeling
• - Up to four sound sources at a time: two PCM synth tones, plus COSM guitar modeling and normal guitar input
• - Easy to use and easy to play with hundreds of great, ready-to-use sounds for rock or pop guitarists
• - Advanced Roland technology provides superb sound quality and lightning-fast processing
• - Over 900 of Roland’s latest fully editable PCM sounds, including pianos, organs, strings, vintage synths, and much more
• - COSM guitar and amp modeling
• - Two types of multi-effects engines, plus global reverb, chorus, and delay effects, and an onboard looper
• - Built-in USB audio player with foot control

 The Roland VG-99

If the GR-55 isn’t quite hot enough for you then the Roland VG-99 will deliver the radical, next-level of expression and guitar synthesis to take your music and your guitar playing to the next level. 3 powerful processors together with highly expressive performance controls such as a Ribbon Controller and a D BEAM, mean that this remarkable synthesizer / instrument redefines guitar-modeling and performance technology. Again, the VG-99 delivers a huge range of COSM-modeled guitars and amplifiers including new electric, acoustic and bass guitar models, a new GR-300 synth wave, and much more. It models two signal paths simultaneously: dual processing allows you to play two different guitar sounds simultaneously.

Both modeled guitar and amp paths can be active simultaneously, or dynamically switched & blended. You can control the switching foot controllers, buttons or knobs on the unit, or even according to the dynamics of your picking and playing. The level of parameter edit detail on the VG-99 is astounding – each string has it’s own midi-channel – each modeled guitar or sound can be assigned to individual guitar-strings.

• - Dual modeling engines allow guitar and amp models to be dynamically switched, layered and combined.
• - New COSM electric, acoustic and even bass guitar models, and new synth waves such as the famous GR-300
• - Guitar to MIDI converter for direct connection to keyboards, sound modules, soft synths, computers, and other MID compatible devices.
• - Supports USB audio and MIDI for easy digital recording and sequencing.
• - Dual GT-Pro-class effects processor enables unequalled flexible tone creation.
• - Advanced performance controls, including D BEAM, V-LINK, and Ribbon Controller take guitar performance to a whole new level.
• - Simple and intuitive knob based interface and new design support live performance.
• - Graphical Editor software included to support sophisticated sound making.
• - Versatile I/O including USB, S/PDIF, XLR provide pro connections for virtually every type of music production and performance on stage to professional studio recording

Alternative Tunings:

The VG-99 can produce custom tunings — anything the player desires on any virtual guitar. A virtual Les Paul ® , for example, could be tuned down four or five steps for a heavy sound, while a nylon string could be tuned as a 12-string, and also tuned down four or five steps at the same time. Open and drop tunings are also supported as well as user defined custom tunings and can be applied to any COSM guitar, so the player can switch instantly between tuning setups without physically switching guitars or having to manually retune.

Direct MIDI connection:

Now Roland delivers the most-requested new features in the VG-99, including an onboard guitar-to-MIDI converter for direct connection to keyboards, sound modules, soft synths, etc. Audio output via USB or S/PDIF digital out, and optional RAD-99 rack mount adaptor further enhance your music production environment. Built in stereo XLR and 1/4” outputs are ideal for live stage performances and touring. The striking new on-screen editor makes programming the VG-99 easy.

Watch the series of videos below from Roland which detail the VG-99 capabilities:

You can find out more about Roland’s guitar synthesis technology here, on their V-Guitar website.

Digitech IStomp Pedal at NAMM 2012

Digitech have announced the latest addition to their product line today, just in time to debut at NAMM 2012. The iStomp programmable Stomp Box pedal. The first thing you’ll notice is that the iStomp doesn’t appear to have any set control parameters – just a row of four control knobs!

iPhone +iStomp = the ultimate pedal

This is because the iStomp pedal connects to your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iOS iPod using a DigiTech Smart Cable (supplied) and you can programme it exactly how you like.

The End of the Pedal Board?

Once connected to your Apple hardware the DigiTech StompShop initially delivers the DigiTech Total Recall Delay and the DigiTech Redline Overdrive. The StompShop app also offers access to additional effects from the Digitech effects line below which means that you can dial in whatever you want straight from your iPhone. The iStomp pedal has four knobs to control effects parameters, which change their function according to which effect is loaded. Furthermore you can try before you buy.

Find out more here at Digitech.

Some of the gutar pedals available from digitech for download:

• DigiTech Compressor-Versatile compressor/sustainer effect based on dbx™ compression
• Red Compressor-Classic compressor great for balanced sustain with both clean and distorted tones inspired by MXR® Dyna Comp™
• DOD FX25-Classic DOD® analog envelop filter gives a funky Auto Wah effect perfect for guitar and bass
• Octaver- Produces signals one and two octaves below your original note, inspired by the Boss®OC-2
• Screamer-The standard of overdrive effects inspired by the most popular overdrive pedal the TS9 Tube Screamer by Ibanez®
• DigiTech Amp Driver- Provides exclusive mid-boost to super charge your tone, designed to give you the sound of an overdriven amp
• Glimmer Drive- Flexible overdrive pedal with overdrive and clean tone inspired by the Sparkle Drive™ pedal from Voodoo Lab®
• DigiTech Rock It Distortion-Highly versatile distortion that works great with clean and overdriven amps.
• Rodent-Modern distortion with unique filter control making it great for all styles of music, inspired by the ProCo® RAT™
• DigiTech Death Metal- The legendary pedal that cuts through with relentless metal distortion
• Face Fuzz-Warm and thick fuzz distortion inspired by the legendary Fuzz Face™ pedal from Dunlop®
• CE Chorus-Warm analog chorus effect with speed and depth controls inspired by Boss CE-2 pedal
• DigiTech Blue Pearl Chorus-2-voiced chorus effect with subtle to lush tones in true stereo
• DigiTech Jet Flanger-True stereo flanger effect capable of chorusing to hyper sonic effects
• Flanger Affair-Vintage flanger effect with chorusing to extreme jet airplane sounds inspired by Electro-Harmonix ® Electric Mistress pedal
• DigiTech Phaser Beam-Mild to ultra-wild phase shifting effect in true stereo
• Stone Phase-Vintage phaser effect inspired by Electro-Harmonix Small Stone™ pedal
• Opto Tremolo - Truly classic tremolo effect inspired by Fender® amp’s tremolo sound
• DM Delay-Thick, warm, and dirty delay inspired by the Boss DM-2 Analog Delay pedal
• DigiTech Vintage Tape Delay-Vintage tape delay effect in true stereo with tap tempo
• 240 Plate­-Classic plate reverb effect in true stereo inspired by EMT™ 240 Plate Reverb

There are great looking guitars and then there are handbuilt Teye guitars. After devoting 25 years of his life to Flamenco, playing with the Joe Ely band, using Zemaitis electrics and Manuel Reyes acoustic instruments Teye has taken his pursuit of sound focus, his experience and knowledge to handbuild a range of custom guitars that exceed expectatiuons in material, sound and aesthetics.

Handmade Custom Guitars

Teye makes his handmade guitars and basses according to three pricing levels each with it’s own level of sophistication, adornment and feature sets. The vision behind each guitar is identical – these are all unapologetically serious guitars built according to a long European and American stringed instrument heritage. With as much an emphasis upon beauty and design as well as upon tone and feel Teye’s custom guitars emerge victorious in comparison with the most prized vintage classics.

Handmade Custom Electric Gypsy Guitars

Teye’s Guitars  combine the turquoise accents of the Native American Southwest with a wild and florid Spanish New World and vivid gypsy flavour. The borders of the guitars recall Cordoban and Vaquero artisanry  whilst the tight curves of the body echo the Moorish architecture of Andalucia. While the use of aluminum contributes to the sound, the intricately crafted designs used on the aluminum make every guitar an especially expressive and visually stunning piece of artwork. The A-Series guitars are completely engraved by hand, and custom work is available.

Aluminium Mahogany and Engraving & Acoustic Tuning

Teye uses an ancient technique learnt from sculptor Russ Thayer in which the mahogany pores aren’t filled but rather bridged. The extra time and effort is well worth it. The A- and the E-series feature a combination of French Polish and varnish (“barniz” or “bernstein”). I caress it on by hand to achieve a beautiful deep satin shine. Not too much, not too little, and quite different from the usual high gloss electric guitar finish. The A-Series guitar bodies are domed and acoustically designed to eliminate any dead notes and wolf tones and tuned to  a specific interval, to create a ring that makes each well tuned piece of Teye guitar mahogany unique.

Pick ups & Unique Guitar Tone filters

Teye houses his pickups in a specifically designed and engraved ring / housing and uses the famed high clarity humbucker pick ups of guitar luthier Jason Lollar as well as DiMarzio pickups. The guitar electronics are extremely versatile yet simple to operate. Teye ignored everything that could be ignored about existing guitar wisdom, except the idea of feeding great pickups straight into your amp. With all knobs on “10″, his unique filtering is NOT engaged. Rolling off the treble ingeniously repositions the peak of the frequency curve, whilst the MOOD knob allows the thickness of the guitar tone to be manipulated.  This combination of twin tone filters allows a rich and vibrant versatile and multicoloured palette of sonics unique to these guitars. If you like your guitar signal pure these guitars use NO pre-amps or active electronics.

Teye Guitars Website

Shine a light

Bill Clinton introduces Keith’s band and a member of the crowd gives it the cigar treatment. The whole shebang smacks of big-business and self congratulatory, big time schmooze – but 45 odd years in any game will turn to gold surely? But the gig starts off as a loose, throw it to the dogs performance, only saved by Buddy Guy’s vocals, Richards’ crumpled face, Mick Jagger’s gob iron (harmonica) and the rock steady, self effacing solidity of Charlie Watts and the amazing Ronnie Wood. Wood of course proves exactly why he was stolen from the Faces and given an offer that was probably impossible to refuse?

Ron Wood – Jack White

So it’s back to Richmond were the Stones started in 1963, when they were rough and ready, dirty and despicable, for this bunch of scruffy, ragamuffin, raven like millionaires – well they are a rock band after all. We’re put through the usual all-star guitar-jam over subscription and self indulgent schlock as a dark circled, pallid looking Jack White is wheeled out for the ‘yoof’. It looks as though all the hot chicks in the front 5 rows have been hired from Models One – by Bill Wyman, even though he isn’t playing.

Keith Richards Guitar Mix

But the backing band, including the stellar Bobby Keys are on form. The truth is it’s just heating up. Seeming far too well lit at the beginning, especially for a giant boudoir, Ron Wood sounds so damn good, especially on that reverse head Firebird and the old strat’ – it’s a slow burner of a gig and ultimately it’s still pretty good – despite being RUINED, on our equipment, by a ridiculous audio mix that makes very little sense of Richards’ guitar, overexposing it in places.  They’re a clever bunch, don’t ever think it was any other way, and they know exactly what they’re doing despite the swagger. These cats are too smart to die.

Guitars, Guitars, More Guitars, and Clothes

An absolutely stunning array of guitars, and clothes, are borne across the gig as an almost emaciated Sir Mick Jagger, ermine absconded in fear, but telecaster ahoy, preens, poses, prances and oscillates his way through the set: “You made the goat man cry” he wails. Poor Satan – he might have the best tunes but he can’t dance half as well Mick. He’s the ghost of Spike Milligan in Michael Jackson’s body.

Keith Richards – Mick Jagger

Richards sings and it’s an ode to joy, hilarious but brilliant, beautiful too, in an almost self reflexive parody of decay, a fading carbon copy of an ancient south London bricklayer,  warmingly comical, humble, warts and all, he delivers some stellar moments in rhythm guitar too whilst smirking behind the evil twin. Suddenly Christina Aguilera appears – what a voice.

But Jagger is great – as usual he manages to parody himself to perfection. The whole thing is all a bit tongue in cheek, and Keith even looks like he’s trying to remember which song he’s going to sing at one point, shame it isn’t “Happy”. He is however, amazing: like Max Miller, like Chaplin.

Rock n Roll

The film should have really been called “Million Dollar Smile” because you can see it in their Faces: “I love this!” Richards seems to effortlessly convey, as he always does – and there goes another 50k or so. That’s what makes them Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the world, and the most downright real and honest – they are dinosaurs. It’s great to see the Union Jack flying in the big Apple (“I hope THEY don’t get back together”).

Paint it Black – Undercover of the Night – Exile on Main Street

The “extra” material is absolutely magnificent and it is worth seeing the film for this alone – SO why is it an extra? – Especially Paint it Black featuring Brian Jones’ ghost on guitar and the Burroughs inspired Undercover of the Night. Rock the Hell On. Get the film out. Break out the vino, and rip a string off the tele’, but just don’t get busted in Toronto. If you get a chance to see them – go they always blow the roof off at Wembley, if you can’t, get your hand on the album Exile on Main Street.

Space Oddity Guitar

Bowie’s career took off in 1969 when the BBC featured David’s single Space Oddity a pert of their coverage of the Apollo 11 launch and moon landing. The single was promoted via advertisements for the Stylophone which Bowie had used on the Space Oddity Single. Here is David playing Space Oddity live in 1969 using the Hagstrom 12 string in our Rare Star Guitar Collection.

The Man Who Sold the World

Bowie followed with his album “The Man Who Sold the World” which featured a more Hard Rock sound and a Stateside media campaign where Bowie promoted & exploited his androgynous appearance wearing the dress from the album’s cover art in a series of coast to coast interviews. After discovering proto-punk artists Lou Reed and Iggy Pop Bowie began to play with the idea that he would create the ultimate pop and rock icon in the character of Ziggy Stardust.

Hunky Dory

He next produced the album “Hunky Dory”  an ambiguous, pastiche of kitsch pop styling including the self-reflexive opening track “Changes”, the curious “Song for Bob Dylan” and the Velvet Underground inspired “Queen Bitch”. Although it was not a vast commercial success “Hunky Dory” allowed Bowie to put together the Spiders from Mars band – look out you rock ‘n’ rollers!

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Further Inspired through a meeting with Vince Taylor (a rock n roll icon who after a breakdown was convinced he was both a God and an Alien) and psychobilly progenitor The Legendary Stardust Cowboy. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine Bowie had this to say :

The time is five years to go before the end of the earth. It has been announced that the world will end because of lack of natural resources. Ziggy is in a position where all the kids have access to things that they thought they wanted. The older people have lost all touch with reality and the kids are left on their own to plunder anything. Ziggy was in a rock-and-roll band and the kids no longer want rock-and-roll. There’s no electricity to play it. Ziggy’s adviser tells him to collect news and sing it, ’cause there is no news. So Ziggy does this and there is terrible news. ‘All the young dudes’ is a song about this news. It’s no hymn to the youth as people thought. It is completely the opposite.

The end comes when the infinites arrive. They really are a black hole, but I’ve made them people because it would be very hard to explain a black hole on stage.

Ziggy is advised in a dream by the infinites to write the coming of a Starman, so he writes ‘Starman’, which is the first news of hope that the people have heard. So they latch onto it immediately…The starmen that he is talking about are called the infinites, and they are black-hole jumpers. Ziggy has been talking about this amazing spaceman who will be coming down to save the earth. They arrive somewhere in Greenwich Village. They don’t have a care in the world and are of no possible use to us. They just happened to stumble into our universe by black hole jumping. Their whole life is travelling from universe to universe. In the stage show, one of them resembles Brando, another one is a Black New Yorker. I even have one called Queenie, the Infinite Fox…Now Ziggy starts to believe in all this himself and thinks himself a prophet of the future starmen. He takes himself up to the incredible spiritual heights and is kept alive by his disciples. When the infinites arrive, they take bits of Ziggy to make them real because in their original state they are anti-matter and cannot exist in our world. And they tear him to pieces on stage during the song ‘Rock ‘n’ roll suicide’. As soon as Ziggy dies on stage the infinites take his elements and make themselves visible.

Bowie released the single “Star Man” to promote the Ziggy Stardust album and also recorded “John, I’m only Dancing” and “The Jean Genie”, the lead single from the “Aladdin Sane” album, during the Ziggy tour.

Hard Rock Cafe Richie Sambora Acoustic

We recently visited the Hard Rock Cafe in Barcelona to indulge in some rather exotic cocktails and to have a look at the Hard Rock Barcelona guitar collection. They certainly aren’t short of memorabilia – it’s an Aladdin Sane’s cave of 1950′s themed, rock n roll, guitar madness.  The service is sharp and the drinks are stellar too – the Hard Rock in Barcelona make a mean, mean mojito. The bar features a large metallic blue Vintage American Car, a 50′s Cadillac or a Plymouth.

Rare Star Guitars Richie Sambora Custom Gibson

We were surprised to find ourselves sitting beneath another black, autographed Richie Sambora acoustic six string guitar! The Sambora guitar in our collection is an electric, custom Gibson 6 string – one of only two in the world. We’d like to have them both but unforunately Richie Sambora owns the other one. You can check it out here.

Hard Rock Cafe Cocktails

TRIPLE PLATINUM MARGARITA
Sauza Gold Tequila, Cointreau Orange Liqueur, Grand Marnier and fresh squeezed margarita mix come together to provide the ultimate margarita experience.

BATTERY BALSTER
For the true Hard Rocker, this mix of Jägermeister and Battery screams PARTY!

PURPLE HAZE
A combination of Absolut Vodka, Beefeater Gin and Havana Club Anejo Blanco Rum mixed with sweet’n sour then topped with lemon-lime soda and Chambord Raspberry Liqueur.

SOUTHERN ROCK
Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, Southern Comfort, Chambord Raspberry Liqueur and Absolut Vodka, mixed with sweet’n sour and topped with lemon-lime soda.

The complete Hard Rock drinks and cocktails menu is AVAILABLE HERE

Jeff Beck proving time and time again that he just can’t stand still. Here is Beck live in the studio with UPP, 1974. As versatile a guitarist as he is an eclectic one Beck has always pushed the guitar envelope, refusing to rest upon his laurels – his career path is marked by twists, turns, decisions and projects that even he found ‘questionable’ – the Jeff Beck biography delivers a remarkable insight into Beck’s retrospective thoughts.

After our recent visit to Eric Johnson’s Saucer Studios, we continue the space rock theme! One of our readers, calling himself Captain Kirk and formerly a guitarist with 1980′s group Phasers On Stun has sent in a photograph that he took of the Orion Nebula or M42 as it is known. Perhaps it’s time to pour a rather strong space cocktail and contemplate the infinitely vast expanse of dark matter whilst listening to Space Boogie from Jeff Beck’s platinum selling 1980 album “There and Back”. If youare interested infinding out more about Jeff Beck’s Hot Rod collection we have the Jeff Beck  Crazy Cars interview here.