Guitar MX Blog

The following video guitar lesson is sample off of the Metal Guitar – Melodic Speed, Shred, & Heavy Riffs Instructional DVD by The Rock House Method, featuring Alexi Laiho of Children of Bodom.

You can find more lessons like this one at the Rock House Method web site.

Guitar World put together a list of the 50 Greatest Guitar Solos. Jim Hendrix made the list 4 times, so you know it’s not a bad list. Here they are, ranked from bottom to top. Links go to videos of each song.

• 50: “Shock Me” (Ace Frehley)
• 49: “Europa” (Carlos Santana)
• 48: “Sympathy for the Devil” (Keith Richards)
• 47: “Jessica” (Dickey Betts)
• 46: “Hot For Teacher” (Edward Van Halen)
• 45: “Light My Fire” (Robby Krieger)
• 44: “Alive” (Mike McCready)
• 43: “Sharp Dressed Man” (Billy Gibbons)
• 42: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (Eric Clapton)
• 41: “Brighton Rock” (Brian May)
• 40: “Reelin’ in the Years” (Elliot Randall)
• 39: “Cortez the Killer” (Neil Young)
• 38: “Whole Lotta Love” (Jimmy Page)
• 37: “Sweet Child O’ Mine” (Slash)
• 36: “Black Star” (Yngwie Malmsteen)
• 35: “Cemetery Gates” (Dimebag Darrell)
• 34: “Paranoid Android” (Johnny Greenwood)
• 33: “The Thrill is Gone” (B.B. King)
• 32: “Machine Gun” (Jimi Hendrix)
• 31: “Stranglehold” (Ted Nugent)
• 30: “Surfing with the Alien” (Joe Satriani)
• 29: “For the Love of God” (Steve Vai)
• 28: “Mr. Crowley” (Randy Rhoads)
• 27: “Pride and Joy” (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
• 26: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Kurt Cobain:
• 25: “Aqualung” (Martin Barre)
• 24: “Fade to Black” (Kirk Hammett)
• 23: “Bulls on Parade” (Tom Morello)
• 22: “Sultans of Swing” (Mark Knopfler)
• 21: “Time” (David Gilmour)
• 20: “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Brian May)
• 19: “Floods” (Dimebag Darrell)
• 18: “Little Wing” (Jimi Hendrix)
• 17: “Cliffs of Dover” (Eric Johnson)
• 16: “Heartbreaker” (Jimmy Page)
• 15: “Highway Star” (Ritchie Blackmore)
• 14: “Layla” (Eric Clapton, Duane Allman)
• 13: “Texas Flood” (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
• 12: “Johnny B. Goode” (Chuck Berry)
• 11: “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” (Jimi Hendrix)
• 10: “Crossroads” (Eric Clapton)
• 9: “Crazy Train” (Randy Rhoads)
• 8: “Hotel California” (Ben Felder, Joe Walsh)
• 7: “One” (Kirk Hammett)
• 6: “November Rain” (Slash)
• 5: “All Along the Watchtower” (Jimi Hendrix)
• 4: “Comfortably Numb” (David Gilmour)
• 3: “Free Bird” (Allen Collins, Gary Rossington)
• 2: “Eruption” (Eddie Van Halen)
• 1: “Stairway to Heaven” (Jimmy Page)

Guitar World provides reasons on why they chose each song on their web site, you can check it out here.

Activision has just announced that their much anticipated Guitar Hero Metallica video game will be released on March 29, 2009 for Xbox and PS3. Metallica is the second band to have their own Guitar Hero game; Aerosmith being the first.

The game will include the following tracks, provided by FEARNet.

• All Nightmare Long
• Battery
• Creeping Death
• Disposable Heroes
• Dyers Eve
• Enter Sandman
• Fade To Black
• Fight Fire With Fire
• For Whom The Bell Tolls
• Frantic
• Fuel
• Hit The Lights
• King Nothing
• Master of Puppets
• Mercyful Fate (Medley)
• No Leaf Clover
• Nothing Else Matters
• One
• Orion
• Sad But True
• Seek And Destroy
• The Memory Remains
• The Shortest Straw
• The Thing That Should Not Be
• The Unforgiven
• Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
• Wherever I May Roam
• Whiplash

XBox and PS3 users can also play songs from the Death Magnetic Guitar Hero download. In addition to these are tracks by other bands, including Alice in Chains, Foo Fighters, Judas Priest, Slayer, System of a Down and more.

Here’s a video promo of the game.

You can find out more about Guitar Hero Metallica here.

Chickenfoot first caught public attention when Sammy Hagar announced that the band could rival Led Zeppelin. Satriani later downplayed the comment, but did compare their music to early Zeppelin. You can listen to the audio on the web site and make your own conclusion.

Winter NAMM 2009 is going on his weekend in Anaheim, California. The NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Show is where music companies showcase their newest gear. The event is held twice a year, once in the winter and another show in the summer, with the winter event (WNAMM) being the biggest.

Many guitar makers use the Winter NAMM show to release their newest models. In this NAMM video, B.C. Rich shows off some of their new models, including an insane looking double-neck guitar.

Be sure to also checkout this photo gallery by GuitarWorld of the newest products showcased at the NAMM Ahow 2009. You can read more about the NAMM show here.

Here’s a new and fun video guitar lesson by NextLevelGuitar.com on “happy funk”, inspired by James Brown.

You can find more lessons like this one at NextLevelGuitar.com

Guitarist Ron Asheton of the Stooges was discovered dead today in his Detroit home. It’s believed that he died of a heart attack a few days ago. He was 60 years old.

Ron wasn’t a technical guitarist and didn’t have much commercial success, but was very influential in punk and hard rock music. He was a pioneer in punk guitar and influenced such guitarists as Kurt Cobain and Jack White. Rolling Stone magazine honored him on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Players of All Time and also included his song 1969 as one of the Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time.

I once went to an outdoor concert which had Iggy Pop and the Stooges on the venue. I wasn’t very excited about having to watch them, but they came out and blew everyone away. They were all great performers. Here’s a video of Iggy Pop and the Stooges. Ron Asheton moments begin at 2:28 and 5:37.

You can read more about Ron Asheton here.

The Rock House Blog recently posted their Top 10 Guitar Lessons of 2008. The Rock House Blog improved a lot in 2008, offering some great content. These were the most popular lesson posts among their readers, copied from their site.

• 10. Intermediate Rhythm Guitar Lesson – Explore some of the many different rhythym techniques and styles.
• 9. Finger Building Exercises for Guitar – A lesson to build up your little piggies.
• 8. Basic Rhythym Techniques for Guitar – Rhythyms that are standard popular progressions to get you started.
• 7. Hands of Steel Workout Routine – This is routine #3 from The Hands of Steel DVD presented by John McCarthy
• 6. 12 Bar Blues Progression Guitar Lesson – Dive into some basic fretboard visualization and 12 bar blues progressions.
• 5. Fingerpicking 101 Guitar Lesson – Tackling the basics of fingerpicking.
• 4. Alexi Laiho Video Lesson – Alexi shows how to create a great metal rhythm beat from The Children of Bodoms song “Living Dead”
• 3. Developing a Shred Picking Technique – This lesson not only applies to you metal lovers because It doesn’t matter what style of music you want to pursue, picking is an essential part of any guitar players technique.
• 2. Alexi Laiho Video Lesson – Alexi Laiho how to make a Single Note Riff Into A Heavy Rhythm.
• 1. 20 Songs Every Beginner Guitarist Shoud Know – The boys from Rock House put their thinking caps on and compiled a list of easy to learn songs that will challenge you but not make you want to throw your guitar in the fireplace.

Rock House creates the Rock House Method instructional DVD’s. You can find out more about their DVD’s here.

On February 10, Magna Carta Records will release a compilation CD called “Guitars That Ate My Brain”, as reported on Blabbermouth. The album includes 12 instrumentals by some great metal shredders, including guitar players from Megadeth, Strapping Young Lad, Korn, Guns N’ Roses and Testament. The CD is described as….

A dozen mind-altering instrumentals from today’s most accomplished metal axe grinders — a twelve-headed hydra of monster guitar riffage that slashes, shreds and gnaws its way into your very psyche — rides the lightning with enough electrifying precision to scorch and scramble your gray matter.

• 1. Paul Waggoner [BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME] – “Boot Dagger Boogie”
• 2. Kris Norris [DARKEST HOUR] – “The Life and Times of Sir Walter Sickert”
• 3. Dave Martone – “Hybrid Angels”
• 4. Ron Thal (aka “Bumblefoot”) [GUNS N ROSES] – “Disengaged”
• 5. Eyal Levi and Emil Werstler [DAATH] – “The Unwavering Collapse”
• 6. Shane Gibson [KORN] – “Artichoke Samurai”
• 7. Devin Townsend [STRAPPING YOUNG LAD] – “Nerd Alert”
• 8. Chris Poland [OHM] – “L.D.E.”
• 9. Ola Frenning and Christofer Malmström [SOILWORK/DARKANE] – “Hydra”
• 10. Mike Orlando – “Stomped”
• 11. James Murphy [TESTAMENT] – “Maiden Voyage”
• 12. Hugues Lefebvre and Yann Mouhad [ANTHROPIA] – “Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox”
  

You can listen to samples from this CD at the Guitars That Ate My Brain MySpace page.

It’s time to say goodbye to 2008. In a tradition started last year, let’s review some of the popular and interesting guitar stories talked about here at GuitarMX in 2008:

• How Can This Be Eddie Van Halen?
  The Van Halen reunion tour started showing some troubles as 2008 began. In a pre-New Years concert, Eddie Van Halen performed this very bizarre guitar solo.

• YouTube Pulls Parody Videos of Guitar Greats
  YouTube pulled the hilarious “Shreds” videos, which parodied the performance of guitar greats. They were removed due to copyright complaints, even though parodies are not bound by copyright laws. Some people need a sense of humor.

• The Top 25 Greatest Guitar Riffs Of All Time
  Music schools in London were polled and asked to rank the 25 greatest guitar riffs of all time.

• Gibson Claims Guitar Hero Was Their Idea, Activision Sues
  Wanting a larger piece of the Guitar Hero action, Gibson, who already had their name on the Guitar Hero controllers, suddenly remembered that they came up with the Guitar Hero Idea several years earlier.

• Dr Pepper Makes Bizarre Offer to Guns N’ Roses, Excludes Slash and Buckethead
  In what is probably the worst publicity stunt ever, Dr. Pepper offered a free can of Dr. Pepper to everyone in the United States if Guns N’ Roses released their long awaited Chinese Democracy album by year end. Dr. Pepper picked the wrong year to make the offer, because Chinese Democracy was released shortly after. Dr Pepper has since reneged on their offer.

• Hagar/Satriani Supergroup Claims to Rival Led Zeppelin
  Sammy Hager thinks that the new band he formed with Joe Statriani could be the next Led Zeppelin.

• Complaints Get 8-Year-Old Guitarist Banned From Performing in Taverns
  Guitarist Tallan “T-Man” Latz, who is just 8 years old, was banned from performing in Wisconsin taverns. What makes the story even more interesting is that it may have been jealous guitarists who originally filed the complaint.

• Joe Satriani Comments on Copyright Lawsuit With Coldplay
  Joe Satriani filed a lawsuit against Coldplay in 2008, claiming their popular song “Viva La Vida” is a rip off of his song “If I Could Fly”

  Check back here for the interesting guitar related stories of 2009. Have a happy and safe new year everyone.