“They’re so scarce. Fender only made 200 and the majority of them have been monkeyed with”: The Stratocaster was in constant flux during its first year of production – and these two 1954 models prove it
“Herein lies the beauty of the blues”: Joe Bonamassa explains why varying your pick attack is a fundamental part of your playing style
“Mutt said, ‘Give it a go, and if it doesn’t work get rid of the guy.’ And that’s exactly what we had to do, because Jim was less than useless!”: Why Def Leppard couldn’t make their monster hit Hysteria with Jim Steinman as producer
“I was a session guitarist for a bit, which is unbelievable because I can’t read music. I used to pretend to flip the music sheets during sessions!” Dan Hawkins says it’s a miracle The Darkness have survived so long
Learn the all-purpose passing chord – the get-out-of-jail-free hack used by everyone from Kurt Cobain to Billie Joe Armstrong
“Lindsey was beating his guitar as hard as he could and screaming his lungs out. The first time I heard it, I thought, ‘What the heck is going on?’”: Inside the making of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours
“It changed what we thought was possible for electric guitars”: How a $20 box designed for cheap speakers became the secret weapon behind Metallica’s massive Black Album guitar sounds
“Frank who? They were like, ‘Frank Ocean!’ He listened halfway through, took a picture, and posted it”: How Cashier’s DIY alt-rock sound is winning them fans in high places
“We wanted people to say, ‘Wow, that’s Cypress Hill?’”: Cypress Hill’s beat-master Eric Bobo tells us why the band recorded their new album entirely in Spanish
“One of the most impressive designs we’ve encountered in quite a while”: Valiant Mercury Distressed review
“Ever since seeing Kiki Wong play it at Lollapalooza we want one bad”: My pick of the best new guitar gear launched this week – featuring a Dimebag-approved classic, Bonamassa signature acoustics and quite possibly the future of the S-style
“When Kraftwerk became an institution we stopped being contemporary. Instead we became salesmen of nostalgia”: Karl Bartos reflects on the end of Kraftwerk’s golden era
How Pete Townshend’s drunken night with two Sex Pistols inspired The Who’s last classic song with Keith Moon: “I used to go to clubs and get insulted. Just stand there and endure these snotty little kids saying, ‘Boring old fart!’”
Suno’s Studio 2.0 adds an AI chatbot that can control your project, transform sounds and generate custom plugins
“At this price point, there is no room for anything other than excellence, and despite a few niggles, that is what this guitar delivers”: Gibson ES-335 ‘50s review
“One of the secrets that they will deny to this day was that they could not come up with the sound that I wanted”: Why Ritchie Blackmore’s iconic Marshall stacks were actually Vox amps in disguise
“I asked what the artist’s name was. He said, ‘Meat Loaf.’ I thought he was joking. He said, ‘Just show up at the studio tomorrow…’” Bass journeyman Kasim Sulton on Meat Loaf, Todd Rundgren, Joan Jett, the New Cars, and the hand he never got to shake
