Zakk Wylde guitar giveaway!

No matter how shitty-sounding your guitar is, aesthetics work at the end of the day.




(Ain't that the truth!)

I guess I'm trolling here no matter how much I hate debates. I still hold on to my opinion, don't get me wrong,  the guitar should sound fine. But isn't playing in front of many people the reason why we started rockin' at all? Club or arena, for damn sure I want my guitar mean-looking as hell if I am to shake my ass in front of people!

Point is, if I have all the money in the world, I can get good guitar brands with quality sound. Now the issue is not the quality, but the 'type' of sound. And yes, of course, the looks. If I want to play blues straight away, I'd get a Strat. And not just a Strat, but a Road-worn Strat. But I'm not your full-on blues guy, I also play metal rhythm. Now we should be talking Dean, or ESP in that regard. But no matter how many designs I look into, I still go back full circle to Zakk Wylde's Bullseye.

It's gonna be my 'safe queen' if ever I get my hands on one.

Win Zakk Wylde's Guitar!

Check out Classic Rock for all the details. The actual sweepstakes site is in Facebook though.

For whatever reason my eyes swept past again on all the details and were caught suddenly on that 'only persons residing in United Kingdom..' eligibility of the raffle. Man, I almost lost all interest to read on further. Often as well I'd find videos in Metal Hammer and Classic Rock, which, upon clicking, slaps you right off in the face with 'streaming only available in the uk'. Whenever I see that one hell of a disclaimer I always feel the urge to give my childhood buddy and former bandmate/drummer Vincent, who's now based in the UK, a buzz to check those things out. But in this case, I reckon it's not much of a reason of a disturbance to him, or any of my other friends in that country, who are now all too busy with Wimbledon, and are in mourning of the Three Lions' recent trouncing from Germany. Besides, my buddy's a drummer and the prize here ain't no drumkit. 

But off I went on to read more.. Fact of the matter is, I only saw the SG top half of the guitar in the pic above. Now I wanted to learn more about it and how Epiphone plans to pull-off the Bullseye pattern famous with the Les Paul, on the not-so-rounded body of an SG. Problem is, details say its half SG top and half flying V bottom. Curiosity is at an all-time high already as I cant even imagine the bullseye rings in an SG, let alone in a hybrid of two famous designs. Damn the extra effort of going to Google images.. but I'm saving you the hassle of that.

I can't say I'm particularly excited about this one. But I'm pretty much sure I don't want something that reminds me of snorkeling and agitating some starfish underwater. 

Always have been drooling over the bullseye design. It defines everything I love about Zakk Wylde -his playing, his attitude, his 'wrestler' stance, his fist-pumping, muscle-flexing, saliva-spittin', water-sproutin' antics and most of all, his blindingly fast pentatonics. He rips those leads and you're caught in a hypnotic trance. It's the same effect when you look into the rings of the Bullseye pattern!

However, as with this Epiphone ZV, Zakk has a tendency to use designs not so in-sync with his image. I did not like his take on the dotted Flying V pattern ala- Randy Rhoads, and more especially his bottle cap riddling off the Les Paul top. He better be sober when conceptualizing Guitar models, or else it gets too weird, not wild. And it says so in the Black Label Society site, which I quote "Here is a tip for the faint of heart - never put these three things together: Zakk Wylde, a bar napkin, and a pencil." I was thinking sarcasm, except it was not. I got it from the complete Gibson* Zakk Wylde ZV promotional donwloadable pdf that you can get here.

*you heard right, Epiphone is a subsidiary of Gibson but they maintain different production plants.

I think I'll be satisfied dreaming of just the orange Buzzsaw for now..

Guns N' Roses Family Tree Double CD

I'm a big GnR crackhead always at the ready for my fix, but I called in sick on the last fanclub hieros gamos and entirely missed this piece of news here.

Guns N' Roses Family Tree

released on the Argentina record label Music Brokers Arg., May 2010.

If you are all too familiar with long-standing bands which have become somewhat like 'revolving doors' for different members, you might have ended up going to forums and sites trying to see who's the bassist, guitarist, or even singer for a particular point in a band's career. Say you've got numerous Whitesnake albums, and you have been impressed with the second lead guitar solo of this one song, but dunno of it's Doug Aldrich or Vivian Campbell who's playing (Doug has become some sort of replacement for every band Vivian has ever been to that he almost kind of replicated the 'delivery' of the latter), then you end up tracing the band's 'Family Tree'.

They're scattered all over the internet, those Family Trees. Whitesnake, DiO, Def Leppard and even to some degree, yes, Guns N' Roses. Not that they have really been a 'revolving door' band for the better part of their career, but some crazy-ass fans just kept on documenting its members and session musicians off of their Sunset Strip days up to the present Entropy of a line-up. You might not all be willing to agree that the current line-up is still GnR, but great band they may be, I, as well, belong to the camp which prefer them better left as "Axl & Friends". 


As I have originally intended to write this online resource for friends who have stopped researching on new material, I found the urge to write this and inform them of this 'must-download' stuff. Problem though, is that if you're probably one of them GnR die-hard fans with too much time on your hands, you must have amassed enough mp3's of your heroes that you may find nothing new in here.. 


Save for, maybe, the original studio version of Nice Boys. 


Nonetheless, I reluctantly loaded my iPod with this double album and duplicated some of my other files in the process. I noticed I already have some of the tracks from my Roots of Guns N Roses - Gilby Clarke and Fred Coury re-mastered, L.A. Guns studio recordings, Tribute to Aerosmith..etc..


But I'm having mighty grand time comparing the quality of those same tracks. My eardrums may be  all too hammered but I figured right off the bat that the ones from this Family Tree compilation seem to have been quality mastered before distribution. I may just as well end up saving the tracks from this record instead.


Tracklist: 

CD1

1  Anything Goes  -  Hollywood Rose
2  Welcome To The Jungle  -  Gilby Clarke, Tracii Guns & Kevin Dubrow (Quiet Riot)
3  No More Mr.Nice Guy  -  Slash & Roger Daltrey (The Who)
4  Sex Action  -  L.A. Guns
5  Sweet Child O Mine  -  Gilby Clarke
6  Killing Time  -  Hollywood Rose
7  Elected  -  Duff Mckagan, Matt Sorum, Steve Jones (Sex Pistols) & Billy Duffy (The Cult)
8  My Michelle  -  L.A. Guns
9  It’s So Easy  -  Tracii Guns, Gilby Clarke & Fred Coury (Cinderella)
10 Last Cigarette  -  Hollywood Rose Feat. Teddy Zigzag

11 You’re Crazy  -  Gilby Clarke, Tracii Guns & Stevie Ranchelle (Tuff)
12 Nice Boys  -  Guns N’ Roses (Rare Track – Original GnR Lineup)


CD2
13 Pour Some Sugar On Me  -  L.A.Guns
14 Rocker  -  Hollywood Rose
15 Mr. Brownstone  -  Bang Tango Feat Tracii Guns & Gilby Clarke
16 Toys In The Attic  -  Tracii Guns & Stephen Pearcy (Ratt)
17 Jailbreak  -  Hollywood Rose Feat Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones)
18 Used To Love Her  -  Gilby Clarke, Tracii Guns & John Corabi (Motley Crue)
19 Gypsy  -  Slash & Tommy Shaw (Styx)
20 Wanted Dead Or Alive  -  L.A.Guns
21 Patience  -  Gilby Clarke, Tracii Guns & John Corabi (Motley Crue)
22 Don’t Cry  -  Spike (Quireboys), Tracii Guns & Gilby Clarke
23 Shadow Of Your Love  -  Hollywood Rose
24 Lay It Down  -  Stephen Pearcy (Ratt) & Tracii Guns




Now if only you can show me that one golden link to a fine copy of those Rumbo Tapes...

The Big Four of Thrash - first picture together in one room!!!!

To what may be the most outstanding photograph in the annals of heavy music...

I only have a few words to say, you see I was thrilled with some news that might be good enough to get your asses all fired up, but I'm shoving that aside lest it gets in the way of this killer of a boulder!!!

Stole this from Megadeth.com. The biggest event in the history of Thrash, and Heavy Metal  in general, happens tonight in Warsaw, Poland at the Sonisphere Festival.

For the story behind that picture above, click HELL!

Damn you Jeff Hanneman!!! Where the fuck were you when they were raisin them devil horns?!!!

EDIT 17 June:

More pictures from BLABBERMOUTH..

I am practically in tears.. (WTF?)

Randy Blythe, Emerson Knives and New Emerson Brand Apparel Bushido shirts!!

I got another Emerson shirt for me last Christmas, paid for the damned shipping costs with a chunk of my bonus, but it was worth every fuckin' penny. Wanna know why? 'Cause there's nothing else in the world like the one I got!

I just can't stop 'bout my other hobby now, can I?

Well, I could have. Really. Except that Trivium is so Japanese and so Heavy Metal that it's almost impossible to delineate the boundaries. I can rant on further, but just think about this: a meteorite may hit Earth and blow us all to oblivion but Japan will still be boilin' with Heavy Music!

I don't know why. Maybe it's in their samurai blood. Lots of hard to deny facts about that. For one, Anvil who's from the other side of the globe seems to have almost lost its fanbase in North America but still maintains a loyal following in Japan soil. Marty Friedman. Tyrants of The Rising Sun. All the sold-out shows in Budokan which eventually turned out to be the best-selling live albums of all time. There are just more than a thousand reasons to get Japan-inspired tattoos.

And shirts..

Further, that previous post on Emerson Knives and Emerson Brand Apparel could have been my last one too. But PULP just released those Lamb Of God photos again, in their 'Slam issue.

And I know there's a bunch of folks out there sittin' around and just wonderin' 'hey that's Mesa Boogie on John Campbell's shirt, but that is not the FUCK SUBTLETY shirt that Randy's wearing, right? what is that?'

We all know Randy loves books, survival lessons, bullwhips, grilling and the outdoor in general. Apparently he also loves fighting knives. And not just plain fighting knives, but the best ones he can get. Emerson Knives.

And he says so in that shirt he's wearing.

So now he has got me talking about those clothes again. Emerson Brand Apparel is just so dang cool. I can switch from Japanese to American Classic Tattoo themes in just one browsing. 

Or even Southern US themes!


Check this next shirt out. In faded charcoal hue, the design gives more of a Hard Rock swagger rather than Heavy Metal ferocity. And it's so perfect, not just for my conservative ass, but for the next Razorback gig as well!

It's just about the only band in this godforsaken country that I reserve the right to tag as 'rock', so i'll be wearin' this!

1979! If it ain't my year, baby, it's somethin' else! What an honor to be born in that same year when Emerson Knives started gearing up for world domination.