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Somewhere back in the early 90s mostly likely before I got out of High School I got the bright idea that I’d rip apart all my guitar magazines and collect the sheet music into a giant binder. All these years later I’m not sure if that was a good thing or not. First, 3 hole punched sheet music in a binder doesn’t hold together well, something I learned really quickly. Second binders fill up pretty fast. Third, the paper they use in magazines, isn’t so great, and finally it’s an organizational nightmare.
What do you do all these years later? I guess hope that all those songs that you wanted to learn back in 1992 are not songs that you’d even consider playing in 2008. Which of course is a problem for me, since much of my musical listening hasn’t really progressed much since 1992. Now that’s not to say that there’s not some pages that can’t be burned before anyone finds out that I ever tried playing them. After looking through the binder and sorting through 3 folders of random pages I found quite a bit of music that I had to wonder why it was there.
There were a few gems though, I found a copy of Pantera – Cowboys from Hell from Guitar School – September 1992. A few Megadeth songs and a few other things that I should really noodle around with. Most of the pages will probably sit for another 20 years waiting for me to finally just cast them away to the recycling bins.
So what’s the plan, well I’m going to scan and PDF all that interest me for the moment, not going to be a quick thing but if I do one or two a day I’ll get through them. After all they’ve been around this long what’s another 15 years.
Do you care? Didn’t think so, go do something useful.

It seems today that everyone is into passing around YouTube clips of various guitar heroes. Well I’m trying to avoid that thread because, well I’ve seen people iTunes shares, you guessed it a dozen emails with EVH playing Eruption. The musical depth and variety here is tragic.
Here’s a few tasty bits that I happened to track down on YouTube. Warning lots of hair and spandex in the following links…
Spread Eagle – Switchblade Serenade
http://youtube.com/watch?v=GnQ7mWWi7Gs
Possibly one of my favorite guitar songs of all time, this band was totally out of place back in 1990, they gave us 2 albums, one of the few bands from that era that I can still throw on and actually listen to without wanting to turn it off halfway through.
Roxxi – Drive it to ya hard
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kOhiS66YgSQ
Okay I’m putting this one here because watching this today is only the 2nd time I’ve ever seen this video. It aired once on HBB and was never seen again. Great band (for 1990) great album.
Ha this is turning into a “holy crap I forgot all about them” kind of post…
Heaven’s Edge – Skin To Skin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ywR19g-rdY
Yeah I remember these guys, decent 1990s shredding glammy kind of stuff. Some crazy solo work on this album, I think I may have it on CD, if not it’s in one of the 3 16′ cube boxes of cassettes in my storage area.
XYZ – inside out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7H2HBZ8lYU
Yep, crazy tapping solo going on here somewhere, decent guitar tone, ha I know I don’t have these guys on CD..Heck I remember learning this song at one of my guitar lessons back in umm…1990ish? My guitar teacher at the time used to hate when I’d bring this stuff in for him to play. Wow it’s kind of strange that I could remember there was a crazy tapping part at the end of the solo but I can’t remember what happened yesterday…
Roxx Gang – Scratch My Back
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7DzkHw4_xA
Okay here’s another band’s CD that I can throw on and rock out, this and Spread Eagle never leave my iPod. There are some great examples of 1990 guitar on here. I think this is the video where the trash the Gibson SG…drag it around behind a car on a chain or something.
HFS!!! See this is why I love YouTube…
Vain – Beat the Bullet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQrpgsiSIU4
A few years ago this CD was going for $100 on amazon. No I didn’t sell it. I’m not sure I can make it through this whole album, there may be a track or two that I’d skip but you know it was the 1990s, they all had the same thing going on. track 1&2 rockin, track 3 was usually a ballad, track 4 would rock again, 5 or 6 would most likely be a ballad, flip the tape, track 1 hit or miss, could go either way, 2-3 more rockin tracks, another ballad and possibly finish it off with another rocker.
Moving on…
Hey another one I fogot about, Tom loved this band, can remember much about much about them.
Sea Hags – Half the way Valley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fMvsJRga_8
Salty Dog – Come Along
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpeveNqlXoM
Ha, I remember these guys, I think I remember hearing that the singer graduated from one of the local high schools. Decent album, couple of ballads, #6 and #12, even some banjo in this album if I recall…
Roxy Blue – Rob The Cradle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnT0Jjrx15k
Just for fun. I think they were trying to be Van Halen…
Okay enough, more trips down memory lane later…

I’ve raved about Line6’s GuitarPort and guitarport.com in the past. I’ve recently reactivated my subscription and have actually been playing a bit again. While I have a million things that I should be doing it’s just a great feeling to be back to playing guitar a bit.
As I mentioned a few posts ago, there were quite a few years where my playing time was minimal. While I’m never going to get to play as much I’d like, I’m hoping to make sure I can log a few hours each week from now on.
Watch for more reviews of the latest Guitar magazines to start up also. I’ve got a subscription this year so I won’t miss any issues. I’ve got a back log of issues, I’ll try to throw some more info up here about them.

Guitarworld.com now offers free access to their beta Tabs area. An exciting combination of “Premium Tabs” and user submitted tabs. Premium Tabs are of course from Guitar World and so far I’m impressed with the offerings. I’m hoping the continue to add to the site and keep it free.
This is the thing about the internet, if I had the amount of information available to me 20 years ago as beginning guitarists have today, I’m sure that my playing would have been vastly better then it ever was. Also the tools offered by having access to the computer give guitarists today many more opportunities to learn.
Cover Gallery
Cover Gallery is also online from Guitar World. Featuring every cover since their first issue. I noticed one thing while heading back through years. I didn’t buy very many issues from say 2000 to 2005. I’m sure that’s because I wasn’t playing many of those years. Sad, very sad.
Check both out, very good stuff.

Guitar World – September 2007
I’m back with another update about guitar mags. I just picked up the “new” Guitar World, and yes new is kind of a joke if you ask me. My first impression when I saw the cover was, Oh Eddie Van Halen, big deal, already have about 20 issues with him on the cover, next there was “Hey ‘Paul Gilbert Super Lesson’” awesome if it’s similar to the latest lesson that was in another mag I’m all for it.
So I paid the money, walked to work, popped in the DVD and was oh so excited to watch Paul Gilbert rip it up in this “new” lesson. So about 5 seconds into it I realize it’s the same freaking lesson (or a version of the lesson) that appeared in the Total Guitar UK Shred Special. WTF!!
This set me off, I started to think about the rest of the content of the magazine. Let’s start with Tabs. AC/DC, Plain White T’s, Pantera, Van Halen, The Rolling Stones. Other then Plain White T’s, whoever they are, how many times do we need to have tabs from these guys? I mean I appreciate a nice tabbed out version of them but I really think there are some other bands out there that deserve some attention.
This is the only issue that I picked up this month, nothing else jumped out at me, Total Guitar had something with Ozzy and Zakk on the cover but I didn’t have time to see if it was worth it.
Be back next month if there’s something interesting. Maybe by then I’ll at least have dusted my guitar off. I should since I’ve now paid twice for a Paul Gilbert lesson that’s probably on YouTube.

Dimebag Darrel Guitars

I’m back with another update on Guitar Mags. It will be short because I haven’t really paged through the mags yet. So look for this to be updated at some point.
Guitar World July 2007: Slash on the Cover
Interested in the G3 Lesson and the Atreyu – Shameful Tab.
Total Guitar April 2007: Trivium on the Cover
Cool “Bullshit free chord book” included. Might be useful
Trivium – Detonation Tab.

Total Guitar
Yeah UK mags are expensive but sometimes they are worth it. The month “Total Guitar” has the Shred Special. Here’s what’s in the issue.
Steve Vai’s infamous 10 hour workout
26 lessons from Paul Gilbert
and several tabs including:
“For the love of God” by Steve Vai;
“Hot For Teacher” by Van Halen
“Mouth For War” by Pantera
“Bat Country” by Avenged Sevenfold
Now, I’m not a huge fan of the format that TG uses to tab out their songs. I feel like they aren’t really there to learn the complete song. I think they more or less focus on teaching the important bits and let you put things together. One thing I do love is that all their tracks come with both a performance track and a backing track.
I haven’t really dug into working through any of the exercises but I’ve read the issue from cover to cover. Yeah I know, I don’t play enough these days to really pull off most of the magazine but hell it’s just fun seeing guitarist ripping it up again.
Sat here doing some work while watching Paul Gilbert’s video lessons. The guy still amazes me. Lots of good exercises in his examples and some really good insight.
Guitar Edge
I think this issue is the first I’ve ever picked up, but I have to say that I like the mag. It’s a bit lean on content, but they make up for it with Tabs. And the quality of paper they use to print the tabs on. None of the brown looking newsprint this is nice bright white paper that makes the tab extremely easy to read.
I picked up the issue because I’m pretty much willing to pick up any mag that has any insight into how the guys from Shadows Fall play. This issue they have the tab for “Redemption” of the new album.
Again I haven’t had the opportunity to dig into this mag but I read through the mag but am going to make sure that it’s on my radar from now on.
Though seriously I really just need to break down and subscribe to these guitar mags, the discount on them is so unbelievable it makes no sense to buy it off the rack.
Guitar World
Last issue I’ve found has the Beetles on the cover. Pretty much a useless issue for me, they had an article with the guys from Shadows Fall, which as I stated above I’ll buy anything that has them in it. Personally I wish I’d have just looked on YouTube for the Shadows Fall portion. There’s nothing really very useful to me in here. The part that I bought it for wasn’t terrible, better then spending it on a day at Starbucks I guess.

Okay, now if Paul Gilbert can play a Spice Girls song I can post about.
Here’s the deal, Mashups are the in thing these days, rap artists have remixed *cough* stolen *cough* music for decades. So here’s Paul Gilbert playing a Spice Girls song, with the solo from “Stairway to Heaven” (it’s about 1/2 speed if you listen you’ll hear it) then finishing it up with some Black Sabbath.
Yeah it’s pretty slow today and I’ve got nothing better to be posting about…

I’ve been picking up Guitar World pretty consistantly the past few months and the December Issue features Children of Bodom’s “Are You Dead Yet”. A great track from the disc of the same name. It’s a good challenge and I’m always excited to see a Tab from something I’m actually listening too. There’s a few parts that are pretty rough to nail but I’m getting there. I haven’t had much time to work on it, so I’m still focused on the initial riffs. There’s one part that ends the first riff that I’m struggling with, not sure if it’s just that I haven’t memorized it yet or what. Plus it’s a faster tempo and since I’m just starting back, it’s taking a while to get back up to speed.
It happens at approximately 25sec, someone was nice enough to post it to youtube.com see below…

Outta here…