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Anders Thidell interview, inventor of the True Temperament fretting system
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
One of the new guitar technology I really want to check out at the MusikMesse 2013 is the True Temperament fret system invented by Anders Thidell and played by guitar greats like Alan Holdsworth, Steve Vai, Mattias Eklundh and many more.
I had the great pleasure to chat with Anders for 15 minutes, here's the interview :
Mattias IA Eklundh Caparison Apple Horn with the True Temperament frerboard :
Enjoy,
Pierre.
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My first contact with Rodney Branigan was through this amazing YouTube video of the song "Body Language" (see below) where he can be seen playing simultaneously a guitar and a mandolin while singing!
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The Hellfest festival has become a must for all that concerns heavy music. It takes place West of France in Clisson.This year I think the program is very attractive with some of the biggest names in heavy rock like ZZ Top, Europe, Whitesnake or Def Leppard as well as other bands like Gojira, Korn. In all it's more than 150 groups that will feed the torrent of decibels 21-22-23 June 2013 in Clisson.
For the first time, I'll cover this festival with a Press pass to bring a maximum of picture, audio and video.
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This is the setup I use to make video soundseeings for the show. The MOTU Ultralite mk3 interface plays the lead role since it serves both as a preamp for Shure SM58 for vocals for comments and as a mixer for the output of Torpedo CAB Two-Notes.
Note that the camera used is a Lumix GH2 with a 14-42 lens. This camera has a stereo mic stereo input required to make a good sounding video.
Be careful though as this input is very sensitive and is quickly saturated if you are not careful.
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Mika Tyyskä (alias Mr Fastfinger) interview at the 2013 MusikMesse
Saturday, 04 May 2013
When I stumbled onto Mika Tyyskä (aka Mr Fastfinger) in Hall 4.0 of the MusiMesse, I immediately asked him to do a video interview and he accepted at once.
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Here's an interview I did at the MusikMesse 2013 with Mattias IA Eklundh. I met him for the first time in 2009 for an audio interview you can find in episode #38.
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During the MusikMesse 2013 I had the opportunity to meet Ola Strandberg who is the master mind and luthier behind .strandberg* guitars.
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Guitar blogcasters chat with Guitar Noize, Six String Bliss and Muzicosphere
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Here's a special episode for you with an international conversation among guitar bloggers and podcasters from Australia, the US and France !
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Frankenstrat Project – The body, the neck, the vibrato and the luthier
Sunday, 24 March 2013
Here is a series of pictures documenting the evolution of the Frankenstrat Project at the moment where I have the neck and body supplied by EG Solidbody and vibrato provided by Hantug.
I read a long time ago somewhere on a guitar forum that a test to do to check the quality of the couple body / neck was to see if the body would hold to the neck without any screw.
Test result: it holds as you can see in the picture below.
Patrick Querleux, luthier of project inspecting the 3 elements that I brought him.
If you're a fan of the electric guitar, you must have seen on stage without knowing it at one time or another the guest of this episode, Mike Keneally.
In fact, Mike has played behind Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Frank Zappa and many others.
During the interview we talked among other things about his excellent solo album Wing Beat Fantastic which I offer some excerpts before the interview as usual.
Extracts from Wing Beat Fantastic:
+ Wing Beat Fantastic
+ You Kill Me
+ Inglow
+ Bobeau
Until the next time, keep on playing the guitar !
Pierre.
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In the previous article dedicated to Frankenstrat Project, I showed you some pictures where you could see the boards that were to be used by Denis from EG Solidbody to machine the body.
Here are the following steps until the final body and neck.
As a reminder, the purpose of the project is to build a replica as accurate as possible (except for the famous black and white stripes) of the Edward Van Halen guitar that can be seen on the cover of their first album.
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Glenn Hughes interview about Black Country Communion album Afterglow
Friday, 15 February 2013
Here's a legendary bass player in that episode #185 with Glenn Hughes (aka @glenn_hughes on Twitter) who is currently playing with Black Country Communion with Joe Bonnamassa.
He is not only a great bass player but also a very unique singer with a voice you recognize at the first word of a lyric.
Extracts from "Afterglow" played before the interview :
+ Cry Freedom
+ Afterglow
+ Common Man
+ Crawl
Enjoy,
Pierre.
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Hello,
First update after the launch of Project Frankenstrat with the first pictures of body manufactured by EG Solidbody.
There is a lot of information on the Internet about the wood used on the Frankenstrat. The problem is that all this information does not agree!
However there seem to be a general agreement toward Ash.
As a big fan of Eddie Van Halen, I long caressed the dream to add to my harem of girlfriends (aka my guitars) a Frankenstrat.
I've always been fascinated by electric guitars with a single pickup (Les Paul Jr, SG Jr, Esquire, etc.) and the Frankenstrat is a very good specimen of that category.
So the Frankenstrat Project is born!
Objective of the project: build a replica as faithful as possible of the famous Frankenstrat guitar in its version called VH1 (Van Halen 1) in a reasonable budget (see below).
As I say often, there will never be too many blogs and podcasts about guitar, that's why I am very happy to present you with an interview of Jonathan Bloomer who manages the excellent Guitarnoize I am a big fan of.
Yes, we both talk about guitars. No, we are not competitors.
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Steve Lukather interview about Transition, a great solo album
Friday, 18 January 2013
For the release of his solo album Transition I had the pleasure to meet Steve Lukather for a video interview. I have fond memories of playing over and over a VHS tape (yes, I am that old) where Steve explained his licks so you can imagine I was quite thrilled to meet the man himself.
Subjects discussed during the interview
+ His new guitar, the Luke III from Ernie Ball Music Man
+ The recording of his latest solo album Transition (which I think is great)
+ His guitar playing over the years
+ His current projects
+ And many more
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Dear artists, give me the means to listen to your music properly. Let me download it!
Even now, some artists with whom I come into contact suggest I listen to their music online either through Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube or other similar services.
These tools are very good to discover the music of a musician but not really suitable for quality listening in my opinion.
I prepare my interviews by listening to an album many times on my stereo at home or on my iPhone with a good pair of headphones.
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We all have in mind the slightly annoying synth riff of "The Final Countdown" when it comes to Europe.
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It seems that the countries from northern Europe have something special to have so many incredible guitar players, Mika Tyyskä from Finland and also known as Mr Fastfinger is one of them.
"In Motion" is a great music album full of superb guitar playing. Yes you will hear some heavy shredding in there but this is NOT your typical shredder's album, it's way more than that.
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For the first time ever in the show I present you with an interview of an american musician whose main instrument is NOT the guitar but her great voice.
Beth Hart has played with so many guitar players (from Jeff Beck to Joe Bonnamassa) I thought it was interesting to interview her.
Her last album Bang Bang Boom Boom is full of great songs and cool guitar tones by Randy Flowers.
I can also highly recommend the album she has recorded with Joe Bonnamassa "Don't
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It's a very special interview I propose you in this show because you might not know that but I am a big fan of Rory Gallagher who died in 1995 so I jumped on the occasion to interview Rory's brother, Donal, who followed him a lot on the road and who his taking care of Rory's legacy now.
In this interview Donal tells the whole story about how Rory almost joined the Rolling Stones after Mick Taylor quit in 1974.
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Marty Friedman is one of those guitar super stars who seems to be going from one project to another non-stop.
I had the pleasure to catch him on Skype for the interview you will hear in this episode.
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I was very happy to interview Simon McBride (aka @smcbridemusic) via Skype as his music kept on showing up when I did some listening in shuffle mode to go through all the music I receive.
And each time it happened I said to myself "I really MUST have this guy in the show!".
That's the method I use: I hit play and if the music I hear interests me I take a note.
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For this episode I am very happy to present you with an interview from guitar super star Richie Kotzen (aka @Richie_Kotzen) himself! He was in Paris a couple of weeks ago for a concert and I had the opportunity to meet him right before the gig.
I cannot recommend enough his latest CD "24 Hours" which is shock full of good songs, excellent singing and awesome guitar parts.
Extracts from his album "24 hours" played before the interview:
+ Get It On
+ 24 Hours
+ I Don't Know Why
+ Help Me
Richie's guitar pics right before the show (notice the
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I am very happy to present you with the second interview on the Channel of a women guitar player with Clare Free (aka @ClareFree1).
As a reminder the first women interviewed was Heike Matthiesen whom I interviewed in french in episode #103 at last year MusikMesse.
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Another guitar super star on this episode with none other than Lee Ritenour. I had the opportunity to call him on his cell during a 15 minute break he was taking during a recording session of his next album.
The Six String Theory website: sixstringtheory.com
Extracts played before the Lee Ritenour interview
In the episode you will get to hear three extracts from the "Six String Theory" album published in 2010:
Lay It Down (feat. Lee Ritenour & John Scofield)
68 (feat. Neal Schon, Slash & Steve Lukather)
Why I Sing the Blues (feat. Keb' Mo', B.B.
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Hello,
Last week in episode #145 I published the interview with Eric Bibb, now is the time to enjoy a song performed by him and beautifuly filmed as always by my usual partner in crime for video, Nicolas Esposito (aka @nesposit) from Rendez-Vous Création.
The link to Nicolas's blog post on his own website is here.
Enjoy,
Pierre.
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It's a great pleasure for me to present you with a second interview with the great blues man Eric Bibb (aka @ericbibb). The first one is in episode #68.
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Last week I published the Bryan Beller interview in this episode, this week none other than Guthrie Govan himself.
As you can guess I was thrilled to speak to Guthrie who is one of the srongest rising star of guitar playing.
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The Aristocrats is what you can call a super group with Guthrie Govan on the guitar, Bryan Beller on bass on Marco Minnemann on drums. I had the great opportunity to talk to 2 out of the 3 members of the band.
Here is part 1 of 2 with the interview of Bryan Beller who also played with none other than Steve Vai among many others.
I tremendously enjoyed the Aristocrats debut album.
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