The Guitar Channel

Uncle Moe's Space Ranch - Moe's Town available for pre-order

Great news! The new Uncle Moe's Space Ranch album "Moe's Town" will be released May 8th. It is now available for pre-order through Amazon.com (link is below). This much-anticipated album features Brett Garsed & T.J. Helmerich on guitars, Gary Willis on bass, Dennis Chambers on drums, and Scott Kinsey on keys.

Pre-order Moe's Town

New Jean-Luc Ponty album with Holdsworth to be released May 22nd

Jean-Luc Ponty's new album "The Acatama Experience" (featuring Allan Holdsworth and Phillip Catherine on guitar) will be released May 22nd 2007.

Press Release

Brett Garsed clinic video

Here's some great footage of a recent Brett Garsed guitar clinic at Guitar-X in the UK. On May 18th, Brett will play at The Baked Potato in Los Angeles with Joel Taylor - drums, and Ric Fierabracci - bass.

UPDATE: Brett will also be playing May 11th at Tone Merchants, with Joel and Ric.

Review: G3 - Chicago, IL 3/24/07

I saw the G3 show last night at the Congress Theater in Chicago, and was completely blown away. Talk about getting your money's worth. The current incarnation of G3 for 2007 features Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci, and of course Joe Satriani. Each guy played an amazing set of tunes, before all 3 got together at the end for some great jams. 

Paul Gilbert opened the show, and his set was my favorite of the night. He played several songs from his latest album, Get Out Of My Yard, plus some Racer X tunes, his solo tune Space Ship One, and some Mr. Big stuff at the end. Bruce Bouillet (Paul's old partner-in-crime from Racer X) is playing second guitar in Paul's band for this tour, and he's one of the reason's I liked this set so much. Bruce was AWESOME. He's playing better than ever, and the inclusion of a second guitar really enhanced the tunes. It was so cool to hear Scarified, for example, done up right with the original guitar harmonies. Bruce added harmony lines to the Get Out Of My Yard tunes also, and had several great solos (ie. the outro to Radiator). He was whipping out some awesome Zakk Wylde-esque pentatonics, and lots of cool string-skipping and hybrid-picking licks too. I definitely want to hear more from Bruce in the future. Paul's playing was incredible all night. It sounds like a cliche, but he makes everything look easy. I prefer his playing now to when he first came on the scene with Racer X back in the mid-80's. He has a real strong blues/classic rock influence in his phrasing that wasn't there 20 years ago. His bending and vibrato are always dead on, and the dynamics in his touch sound very mature. Having said that, he was also shredding his brains out. His fast picked stuff was so punchy and tight that you felt like you were getting kicked in the chest on some of his runs. All his fast stuff was squeaky clean. His playing on Rusty Old Boat was particularly good. Very cool, funky phrasing with awesome shredding as well. Paul's wife Emi took a nice keyboard solo on that song also. Overall, Gilbert's band had a fun, enthusiastic presence that made them sound like they've been playing together for a long time. This was a well-rehearsed, tight band that was fun to watch.

John Petrucci came up next, and if I had to describe his set in one word, it would be HEAVY. His opening tune, Jaws Of Life, was the heaviest thing I have ever heard. Petrucci played a seven-string Ernie Ball guitar on that song, and some others, which made things even heavier. However, on some tunes, it was  so heavy and loud, that it was hard to discern what was being played. He did play a couple of lighter songs as well; Lost Without You was really good. But overall, Petrucci's set had the effect of a heavy metal freight train bearing down on you. His solos were great, but some of his picked runs were just a blur. This was especially true if he was using the neck pickup, and the run had smaller intervals. Petrucci was backed up by Dave LaRue on bass, and Mike Portnoy on drums. LaRue had several nice solos (LaRuuuuuuue!), and Portnoy was just a mad-man. What a great drummer. He was throwing sticks all over the place, and was just generally beating the crap out of his kit. He and Petrucci were both very popular with the crowd (I saw lots of Dream Theater t-shirts).

Joe Satriani's band played last (Double-duty Dave LaRue played bass for Satriani also). I really liked Satriani's set. He mentioned Surfing With The Alien was released 20 years ago, so he played several songs from that album. Ice 9 and Circles were both great. My favorite song from his set was Cool #9. The thing I dig about Satriani is his use of old-school blues licks, and Cool #9 was a great example of this. When he goes into pentatonic box territory, the bends, vibrato, and phrasing are always very solid and authentic-sounding. Another fun tune was Crowd Chant. In this song, Satch plays a line, then has the crowd repeat it back to him. The audience was way into it.

One of the fun parts of G3 of course is the big jam at the end. After Satriani's final song (Always With Me, Always With You), he went immediately into a slow major-sounding three chord vamp. Petrucci then walked on and played a very cool solo that kept building and building. Then Gilbert came on played a fantastic solo with some of his patented string-skipping triad lines. Very cool. They then played a Hendrix tribute that consisted of Foxy Lady, Purple Haze, and a snippet of Voodoo Chile. After that it was the Jeff Beck classic Going Down, and finally Jumping Jack Flash closed the show. Satriani sang Going Down, and Gilbert sang the others (Gilbert's vocals on Jumping Jack Flash were really great). Going Down was my favorite jam of the night. All 3 guys sounded great on this tune. I kind of wish they'd play some different stuff for these jams though. These are great tunes, but they've been doing Hendrix songs for years now. There are lots of classic instrumental guitar jams they could play too (speaking of Jeff Beck, how about playing Freeway Jam or Led Boots for a change?). Regardless, the jams did not disappoint. Gilbert was wailing, and he seemed to enjoy listening to the other guys play too. At one point, after Petrucci played a wicked fast-picking run, Gilbert used his classic pick-enabled drill to counter Petrucci's attack. Too funny.

This was an awesome night of guitar craziness. I'm not 100% sure of this, but I heard they won't be filming any of these shows for a DVD. That's too bad, because it would sell like hotcakes if they did. If this version of G3 comes to your town, you must go see it. Highly recommended.

View more photo's from the Chicago 3/24/07 G3 show      

Rich

List all reviews

UPDATE: Here's a video I took of Going Down. The audio is not great. It was so loud in there, my cameras built-in mic got overloaded.

Eric Clapton Announces 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival will Be held in Chicago

PRESS RELEASE
Credited throughout his career with creating super sounds in super groups, the ultimate Clapton collaboration will take place July 28, 2007 when he gathers the past, present and future of guitar music onto one stage for an incredible full day musical event. Announced today, the second Crossroads Guitar Festival, scheduled for July 28, 2007 at Toyota Park in Chicago, will be a cornerstone of this year's summer music festival season. Profits from the Festival will benefit The Crossroads Centre in Antigua, a treatment and education facility founded by Clapton for chemically dependent persons.

Since its inception, Clapton's vision for the Crossroads Guitar Festival has been to create an event where his friends and contemporaries can have fun and jam together for the benefit of a good cause. This year's Festival will feature a full day of musical performances with once-in-a-lifetime guitar collaborations. Known as pioneers in their field, the roster of artists spans old and new, from BB King to John Mayer (anticipated guest list below). The audience can expect unrivaled entertainment, brilliant guitar work, surprise guests and impromptu jams that are the hallmarks of these performers.

The first Crossroads Guitar Festival, in June 2004 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, was an unprecedented collection of guitar icons from blues, rock and contemporary music. The sold-out show was chronicled in a 2-disc DVD that has since gone on to become one of the world's top-selling music DVD's, recently achieving the 8x platinum mark in the United States alone.

"The Crossroads Festival is the realization of a dream for me, to gather a group of amazingly talented musicians to perform on one stage," said Clapton. "The Crossroads performers are all musicians I admire and respect."

Additional Festival artists and elements to be announced shortly.

Ticket Sales Information
Tickets for the Crossroads Guitar Festival will go on sale to the public on Saturday, March 31 at 10am Central Time (11am EST) via www.ticketmaster.com or Ticketmaster phone charge at 312-559-1950 or Ticketmaster retail outlets. Both reserved and general admission tickets will be available for this event. All tickets will be priced at $90 plus applicable ticketing/service charges. The ticket price includes parking for the day and the concert begins at NOON.

About Toyota Park
Conveniently located just 15 minutes southwest of Downtown Chicago (at 71st and Harlem in Bridgeview), Toyota Park (www.toyotapark.com) is Chicagoland's newest and most exciting outdoor concert facility.

Current Artist Listing (Confirmed)
Jeff Beck
Doyle Bramhall II
Eric Clapton
Robert Cray
Sheryl Crow
Vince Gill
Buddy Guy
BB King
Alison Krauss and Union Station
Sonny Landreth
Albert Lee
Los Lobos
John Mayer
John McLaughlin
Willie Nelson
Robert Randolph
Hubert Sumlin
Derek Trucks
Jimmie Vaughan
Steve Winwood

Allan Holdsworth concert pics

Found some great pics from last nights Allan Holdsworth concert at Ramshead Tavern in Annapolis, Maryland on the PhotoCamel Photography Forum. Check them out.

Link

Michael Landau interview on The Jamcast

Guitar Jam Daily has a new audio interview with Michael Landau for their Jamcast interview series.

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

Session 4

Amazing Journey - One Night In New York City now available

A CD and DVD of Mike Portnoy's all-star tribute to The Who, Amazing Journey, is finally available for purchase. This incredible band featured Paul Gilbert - guitar, Billy Sheehan - bass, Gary Cherone - vocals, and Portnoy - drums. AMAZING JOURNEY - ONE NIGHT IN NEW YORK CITY captures the bands May 31st 2006 show at BB King's in New York. You can purchase the DVD or CD version of this release through Mike Portnoy's website.

Purchase Amazing Journey - One Night in New York City

Review w/pics from G3 opening night

Someone posted a review of the first show of the current G3 tour (w/ Joe Satriani, John Petrucci, and Paul Gilbert) on the Petrucci forum. There's some cool pics included as well. Here's the link to the post:

G3 - 3/14 Phoenix review and pics

I'm going to the show in Chicago next Saturday. Can't wait!

New Alex Machacek project

I got the inside scoop on guitarist Alex Machacek's new project. Alex will be recording an album with drummer Jeff Sipe (ARU, Jonas Hellborg, Project Z) and bassist Matt Garrison (John McLaughlin, Gary Husband, Dennis Chambers) in a few weeks. Look for the release sometime in August. This should be an incredible collaboration; all three of these guys are monster players.

Frank Gambale video

Here's a clip of Frank Gambale with Joel Taylor and Ric Fierabacci from March 9, 2007 at The Baked Potato. Great stuff.

Paul Gilbert interview with Guitar Player

Found this on Truth in Shredding - Guitar Player has a short interview posted with Paul Gilbert.

Link