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In a new interview with the uInterview channel, ANVIL frontman Steve “Lips” Kudlow spoke about what keeps him and his bandmates motivated to continue making new music more than 40 years after the group’s formation. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “The motive is not to make millions and…

Revv Amplification is giving you yet another chance to WIN in today’s Stompboxtober giveaway. Enter for your shot at a G4!Revv G4 – Preamp/Overdrive/Distortion Pedal

The Revv G4 distortion pedal with voicing based on Revv Amplification’s “Red Channel” from Generator series of amplifiers. Thick, sustaining, amp-like tones under your foot.Stompboxtober Day 16 Revv G4

KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons is the featured guest on “Howie Mandel Does Stuff”, the podcast co-hosted by the comedian and his daughter Jackelyn Shultz. You can now watch video of Gene’s appearance below.
Simmons, who was born as Chaim Witz in August 1949, at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, Israel,…

During an appearance on the October 11 episode of SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, QUEENSRŸCHE frontman Todd La Torre, who joined the band a decade ago as the replacement for original vocalist Geoff Tate, was asked if he feels like has been fully accepted as the singer of QUEENSRŸCHE afte…

New SKID ROW vocalist Erik Grönwall spoke to The Rock N’ Roll & Coffee Show about how he has been accepted by the band’s fans since he joined the group earlier this year as the replacement for ZP Theart. He said: “There’s so many different types of fans. I’ve realized that… ‘Cause when we did th…

Music has always been my escape. For a while, I was collecting obscure records from obscure bands, and that was just about as much fun as collecting obscure guitars. In my eccentric music collection, you can discover fife and drum music of Mississippi, 1960s Cambodian garage, furious punk, rap, hip-hop, ska, reggae, and raw blues that could peel the paint off the walls.There was one legendary record that I was always on the lookout for: Philosophy of the World by the Shaggs. The only version I had was a scratchy cassette with a washed-out photo of the album cover. I was turned on to the band by one of my good friends, who also turned me on to the Ramones! But the Shaggs were really something else entirely.There are two things that are most interesting to me about the Shaggs. One is the mixture of their off-tempo, off-beat sound with an innocent and endearing quality. It sounds like someone handed some sheltered kids instruments and then simply had them write songs without any training or theory or ideas of what was popular music. And that’s pretty much the deal!The band’s backstory is basically this: The Shaggs consisted of the Wiggin sisters from Freemont, New Hampshire. Their father somehow thought that, through some kind of divine intervention, his daughters were to become a famous musical act, and the man devoted himself to forcing the sisters to practice, write music, and even record an album. This was in the mid-to-late ’60s, when there were plenty of strange musical ideas being explored, but the Shaggs’ sound was really different. It was music written in a bubble inside a cultural vacuum. And I think it’s glorious.The second thing that drew me to the Shaggs was their guitars. In the grand tradition of matching instruments, the girls played an uber-obscure guitar called the Avalon AV-2T. I wrote about this exact guitar way back in 2014, but as I was thinking about the Wiggin girls, it got me to examine how a guitar can influence an artist’s sound or writing style. The Avalon was a Fujigen product from the late ’60s, and during that era the guitars all featured rather slim, laminated necks that were perfect for smaller hands. But the tiny frets required some finesse to apply enough pressure. And the action was usually only decent up to around the 12th fret, so your chords and keys were limited. Plus, the bridge offered very little sustain. I mean … that is the Shaggs’ sound! These Fujigen pickups have that resonant, thin tone that you can hear all over the recordings.The body style of the Avalon is so psychedelic, like a crossbreed of a Burns Bison and a Mosrite, pollinated with a Teisco Spectrum 5. Like … this was one of the craziest of the old Japanese guitar designs and it was adopted by a family band from a small New England town. The daughters were home-schooled and weren’t allowed to date until they were 18. And yet there they were on their album cover sporting tiger-flame maple electrics! If you think about popular bands or popular guitar players, most have a signature guitar that serves as the canvas of a signature sound. The Wiggin girls had the Avalon.These guitars were only made for a year or two, circa 1968. But now they’re real finds on the used market. There was also a bass version of the Avalon that came with either two pickups (AV2B) or one (AV1B).If you want a truly radical music experience, search out the Shaggs and give a listen. While you’re listening, think about the guitar sound, 1969, or whatever else you’re tripping on at the moment. Because after you have a listen, you’ll be changed.

Former MEGADETH members David Ellefson (bass) and Jeff Young (guitar) played the third show of the KINGS OF THRASH “The MEGA Years” tour last night (Friday, October 14) at The Space in Las Vegas, Nevada. They were joined at the concert for several songs by another former MEGADETH member, Chris Polan…

Former SEPULTURA members Max Cavalera and Igor “Iggor” Cavalera have spent much of the last few years celebrating the band’s seminal “Beneath The Remains” (1989), “Arise” (1991) and “Roots” albums (1996) by performing them live. Asked in a new interview with the “That Metal Interview” podcast if fan…

UFO frontman Phil Mogg is still recovering from the heart attack he suffered nearly two months ago. The 74-year-old British-born musician was rushed to the hospital in late August where he had two stents implanted into his coronary arteries. This is known medically as a coronary angioplasty and aims…