HIM mastermind Ville Valo (VV) will release his debut solo album, “Neon Noir”, on January 13 via Heartagram Records, distributed by UMG/Spinefarm. The LP will arrive four months after Ville released “Echolocate Your Love”, the second single from “Neon Noir”. Five months earlier, Valo issued “Lovele…

Bass player James LoMenzo spoke to Ashdown Engineering about how he ended up returning to MEGADETH as a permanent member of the band. LoMenzo was MEGADETH’s bass player in the mid-2000s and stepped back in as a touring member for the 2021 leg of “The Metal Tour Of The Year”. In May 2022, it was anno…

ANTHRAX bassist Frank Bello spoke to Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio station about the cancelation this past August of two shows on the band’s North American tour with BLACK LABEL SOCIETY and HATEBREED. ANTHRAX called off dates in Dallas and Austin due to what at the time was being described as “a…

DISTURBED guitarist Dan Donegan spoke to Rock 100.5 The KATT’s Cameron Buchholtz about the band’s plans to hit the road in support of its newly released eighth studio album “Divisive”. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Hopefully we’ll be able to announce [some tour dates] soon. It’s def…

ARMORED SAINT frontman John Bush rejoined his bandmates on stage last night (Saturday, November 19) at Penn’s Peak in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. It was his first full show back with the group after dealing with a bad respiratory infection for several days.
Bush missed three shows on ARMORED SAINT’s U…

Guitar shopping is certainly different than it was 18 months ago. And we’re all grateful that manufacturers like Martin and Taylor are shipping more new guitars. That means your favorite music store probably doesn’t have as many empty hooks as it did during the crazy days of Covid. Stores that sell new instruments are also moving inventory more slowly as recent Wall Street jitters over inflation and the economy filter down to dinner-table talks about family finances. Even worse, personal budgets for music gear have to compete with vacations, events, and dining out. As a result, some guitar shoppers are wondering if that new guitar purchase should be postponed, especially considering that most new models will be available in the future when the world will hopefully feel at least a little more secure and predictable.The put-it-off brakes are harder to apply, however, when it’s a bucket-list vintage instrument you’ve been looking for since long before we even knew how to spell “Covid.” What do you do when a guitar turns up that has everything you’ve wanted and the condition is just what you were hoping for, with the right combination of real-life wear and originality? It has the sound and playability you’ve been after and doesn’t need any work, so there’s no guessing about whether a neck reset and gluing those loose braces will change the sound, but in the wrong direction. And what will make passing up your bucket-list special even more difficult is knowing you might have to wait years before another example comes along that checks all those boxes.“Even if only a few hundred Gibson J-185 models from the early 1950s, for instance, have survived in playable condition, there will still be significant variation in those examples today.”This is where the differences between players who buy new guitars and those who buy used and vintage become obvious. Those who search for new models are often looking for the right combination of woods, body style, and neck shape, but within a known set of parameters determined by the builder. A new Taylor is always going to have a certain feel and look that’s distinctly different from any Martin or Gibson, for instance. But Taylor offers a lot of variety within the boundaries of “Taylorness,” especially when you add torrefied tops and different bracing patterns into the mix. Taylor probably offers more distinctly different steel-string models today than all American guitar manufacturers combined were putting into music stores in the 1960s. Martin and Gibson now offer multiple options of the same model, depending on how far back you want to turn the clock. The reissue of a D-28 from 1937 is different from a reissue of the 1954 version, which is different from the Standard Series D-28, and so on. Martin and other instrument manufacturers more than hold up their end of the bargain when it comes to offering variety, yet all new or nearly new guitars have one thing in common, and that is while they do vary, they are not unique. This is partly because current manufacturing methods are so dialed-in thanks to technology like CNC, but it’s primarily because those guitars haven’t lived a guitar life yet.In contrast, a production guitar that’s many decades old is often very different even when compared to other examples of the same model from the same year. Yes, guitars back then were made more by hand, so even siblings from the same batch will often vary both in how they sound and how they feel. But the biggest difference is usually because of what happened to those guitars after they left the factory. A few lived ideal under-the-bed-in-a-case lives, some were played often but carefully, some got played a lot—often carelessly—and show it, some were heavily modified, and some were simply played and cracked and cooked and traveled until they were worn out. Even if only a few hundred Gibson J-185 models from the early 1950s, for instance, have survived in playable condition, there will still be significant variation in those examples today.Those who seek out vintage guitars usually have their own standards for what kind of wear and repair they will tolerate. Some are more focused on originality of all parts and finish and will tolerate small cracks and repairs; others can’t live with a cracked soundboard no matter how superb the condition of the rest of the guitar. So, when a vintage-guitar seeker finds the right combination of features in an old instrument … well, you can see where this is going. Fiscal uncertainties may prevail, and the purchase of a new guitar will get postponed. But when the just-right old guitar comes along, many of us will go for it, even if the price is steep. As one true vintage hound told me years ago, “I’d rather buy the right guitar at the wrong time than be dreaming about the one that got away years later.”

Axl Rose has paid tribute to NAZARETH singer Dan McCafferty, who died earlier this month at the age of 76.
The GUNS N’ ROSES frontman took to his Twitter on Saturday (November 19) to write: “Haven’t addressed this… been a tough pill to swallow. Very, very sad to learn of the passing of Dan McCaffe…

KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons has dropped another $1 million from the asking price of his Southern Nevada estate.
Simmons put the home on the market in October 2021 for $14.95 million, but that price came down on November 17, 2021 to $13.5 million, on May 19, 2022 to $11 million and again…