Guitar MX Blog

You may remember the story of Joe Satriani suing Coldplay for copyright infringement with their song “Viva La Vida”. The song bears a striking resemblance to Joe’s tune “If I Could Fly”. Well, someone else is claiming that Viva La Vida is their work. This time, it’s Cat Stevens, who now goes by the name Yusuf Islam. He is claiming that the song bears an uncanny resemblance to his song Foreigner Suite, which also predates the Satriani song. Stevens has not taken legal action yet.

So is there copying going on, and if so, who’s copying who? You can listen to the songs yourself and judge. The Coldplay part starts at 5:18, which a poster at MusicRadar mercifully pointed out.

You can hear the Coldplay song here, and the Satriani song here.

Moe Chickenfoot news. It seems the band has sold out nine concerts that had scheduled for May. These intimate venues sold out in record time, and it seems there will be high demand for their debut album to be released on June 9, 2009, which can be pre-ordered here.

The band released this video on their YouTube channel, announcing their spring tour.

You can find more Chickenfoot news here.

I recently saw this guitar featured in MusicRadar’s “14 more outrageous guitars from the internet” article. It is the Video Guitar. It’s a regular guitar, but with an LCD screen on the body of the guitar. The sounds triggers cool video images, and can play any video, as can be seen in this demo.

The Video Guitar is made by Visionary Instruments. You can read more about the guitar here.

Here’s a video guitar lesson by JamPlay.com instructor David MacKenzie, covering the basics of finger tapping, and then demonstrates a tapping exercise.

You can find this complete lesson, and other video lessons like this one at JamPlay.com. Be sure to also check out this Fretboard Tapping lesson for more information.

I stumbled upon this video today. It’s not new, but I thought it was a great idea. It’s a collaboration video by online guitarists from all over the world, shredding together.

Some really great guitar players in this video!

Here’s a video guitar lesson for beginners which explains how to read chord lines, by NLG head instructor David Taab. This is a great lesson for those just starting to play the guitar.

This video in an excerpt from the DVD titled “Explaining Tablature & Chord Charts”, which can be found at NextLevelGuitar.com.

There is more news concerning Chickenfoot, the supergroup featuring Joe Satriani, Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith. The band has released two of their new songs on their web site and MySpace page. The songs are called “Soap on a Rope” and “Down the Drain”.

The band will also be featured on the cover of next months edition of Guitar World.

Chickenfoot is currently working on their debut album. MusicRadar will have a full review of it soon.

Here’s a recently posted tribute video to Buckethead, created by JamPlay.com instructor Dennis Hodges playing Hog Stomp Bitch.

You can find Dennis over at JamPlay.com.

GuitarWorld.com recently published their list of the top 10 worst dressed guitarists. I was immediately impressed with the list when I saw George Lynch at the top, he certainly came to mind. The others don’t disappoint either. But the list is far from complete. Yngwie Malmsteen is just one of the glaring omissions. Here’s the complete list. The link goes to a photo of the artist.

• 10: George Lynch
• 9: Scorpions
• 8: Kurt Cobain
• 7: Dave Navarro
• 6: Ace Frehley
• 5: Wes Borland
• 4: Angus Young
• 3: Buckethead
• 2: Ted Nugent
• 1: Gary Shider

You can view the Guitar World article here, which provides an explanation for each pick.