What future rocker sold Eric Clapton a Les Paul when his was stolen? What metal guitar hero bought a Strat from Slowhand? Test your knowledge with The Ultimate Eric Clapton Guitar Quiz
“It was 2 in the morning. John plugged in and immediately jumped back from the amp, holding his ears, shouting, ‘Whoa! What have you done?!’” Ashdown Engineering’s 2am amp emergency with The Who’s John Entwistle
“We traded our guitars back. When he was out the door, the luthier said, ‘Do you realize whose guitar you were just playing?’” I played David Gilmour’s $14.5 million Black Strat as a teenager – and had no idea
“In Radio Ga Ga there are some very difficult chords – I don’t know what they’re called, but it doesn’t matter”: The making of Queen’s crowd-stirring ode to the radio
“Eurythmics records have loads of guitars on them. People don’t realize. Even on Sweet Dreams”: Dave Stewart on his partnership with Annie Lennox and favorite Eurythmics guitar moments
The best new guitar gear this week, ft. a major moment for Fender, the ultimate overdrive pedal, and a pocket-sized guitar studio
P.J. Harvey on why she stopped playing guitar onstage — and the real reason she chose her first pair of tour guitarists: “So I can look at their behinds.”
“I’ve a trick that I do with it – there’s a workaround if you experiment with the patching capabilities. You can get some pretty amazing, deep, cranium-quaking bass from it!”: A classic studio tour with Erol Alkan
“He put a piece of paper down and a pencil, and it was almost like, ‘How well do you know the song? Write out what you’re going to sing, what I’m gonna sing’”: Brandon Flowers recalls being tested by Bruce Springsteen before they duetted on Born To Run
“It’s a dare, to ourselves as much as anyone, to try and have the best night of anybody’s life”: U2 announce first dates on their Greatest Show On Earth tour
“He’s no musician. I heard them playing acoustic instruments, and they couldn’t. It was appalling”: Roger Waters takes aim at Metallica’s musicianship
“I watched the look on their faces, their jaws hit the floor – they’d heard something they couldn’t believe”: Rob Cavallo tells us about the thrill of producing Green Day’s most celebrated albums, and the anniversary of MCR’s The Black Parade
“It really took us by surprise when people started talking about U2 as one of the performances of the day. I thought we were crap!”: How an experimental song about heroin addiction lit up Live Aid and transformed U2 into stadium rock stars
“I don’t know. I have to take a series of tests before I know”: Billy Joel casts doubt on whether he’ll be able to perform live again
“It’s absurd to think technique has anything to do with music…” Joe Satriani on how to keep your head above water in a sea of virtuosos
“I went to Guitar Center and said, ‘I want an ES-335 so bad. But I only have $600’”: How Emily Wolfe ended up with the Epiphone that’s defined her career – after missing out on her dream Gibson
“They went ape!” A teenage Yngwie Malmsteen sent a cassette to Guitar Player and Kiss wouldn’t stop calling him…
“He ended up with a fully-fledged, pro studio – it just happened to have an engine and some wheels underneath”: David Gilmour, The Rolling Stones, Timbaland, Depeche Mode and more in nine of the weirdest recording studios ever built
