Performance Notes

HOW TO PLAY THIS MONTH’S SONGS

HOWLIN' MULE

Believe it or not, GOV’T MULE’S latest album, Heavy Load Blues, is WARREN HAYNES’ first foray into full-on blues (and it all happened while they were recording another album entirely)

FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK

And now, everything a guitarist needs TO HEADBANG ON A BUDGET, including five metal-friendly axes for under $500

Zakk's Dirty Dozen

From Ozzy Osbourne's “Miracle Man” to Generation Axe’s “Highway Star,” Zakk Wylde Discusses 12 Musical Milestones From A Career Spanning More Than Three Decades

Love at First Stang

Fender Kurt Cobain Jag-Stang

Blitzkrieg Rock

PUNK LEGEND BRIAN BAKER KEEPS BAD RELIGION — AND FAKE NAMES, HIS LATEST PUNK SUPERGROUP — ROLLING WITH HIS STASH OF VINTAGE GUITARS

Twice As Nice

FENDER DUAL MARINE LAYER REVERB AND DUEL PUGILIST DISTORTION

Separated at Birth

DID YOU KNOW KIRK HAMMETT’S FAMOUS AND HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT 1959 GIBSON LES PAUL, GREENY, HAS A SIBLING? AND THAT IT’S OWNED BY HIS FRIEND, GIBSON BRAND PRESIDENT CESAR GUEIKIAN? NEITHER DID THEY! UNTIL VERY RECENTLY...

Rockabilly Renaissance Man

CANADIAN GUITARIST PAUL PIGAT GETS BACK TO BASICS ON COUSIN HARLEY’S LET’S GO!

The ROYAL TREATMENT

SIX-STRING HEAVYWEIGHT ERIC GALES DISCUSSES HIS TRIUMPHANT NEW ALBUM, CROWN, AND HIS JOURNEY TO ULTIMATE BLUES SALVATION

Romance Play - EASTMAN ROMEO LA

IF YOU’RE IN the market for a thin-line semi-hollow electric, there’s never been a better time to shop than the present. Whereas only a few years ago the selection was pretty much limited to large, double-cutaway 335-style models with a pair of humbucking pickups, today one can find semi-hollow guitars in a variety of body sizes and styles with a wider variety of pickup and electronic configurations.

KINGPIN of the BLUES

JOE BONAMASSA RETURNS WITH TIME CLOCKS, HIS STRONGEST AND MOST DIVERSE ALBUM TO DATE — AND ALSO DISCUSSES HIS NEWFOUND ROLE AS 2021’S FOREMOST BLUES/ROCK IMPRESARIO

Orange Is the New Shred

Dean Guitars Md24 Floyd Roasted Maple

Echoes From Another World

Cheap Trick's RICK NIELSEN talks John Lennon, Jeff Beck, "cool little guitars" and the band's milestone 20th album, In Another World

SENDING UP A FLARE

Sedulous tone maverick explains how simply recording big, hairy, gnarly guitar riffs into his iPhone became his “life raft for sanity,” getting him out of his bunker, forging new connections and birthing a creative oasis amid the chaos

THE COMMITTED SINNER

JOHN 5 — a guy who really, really, really loves playing guitar — tells you everything you need to know about SINNER, his brand-new solo album featuring a QUEEN cover, some carefully hone driffs — and guest appearances by DAVE MUSTAINE and KISS man PETER CRISS

ONWARDS

STALWART YES GUITARIST STEVE HOWE ON THE INSPIRATION, TONES AND SENTIMENT BEHIND THE QUEST, THE PROG-ROCK MASTERS’ FIRST STUDIO ALBUM SINCE THE PASSING OF FOUNDING BASSIST CHRIS SQUIRE

Port Authority

GIBSON GENERATION G-00 AND G-200 ACOUSTICS

Metallica in the Black

Thirty years after famously fracturing the world of metal (and heavy rock in general), metallica’s self-titled 1991 masterpiece — aka the Black Album — is getting the deluxe reissue treatment. In this exclusive interview, James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett pull back the veil on the album that became “the master key to everything”

Young 'N' Hungry Dirty Honey

Dirty Honey guitarist John Notto explains why this riff-fueled Los Angeles four-piece is ready for literally anything — including the big, big, big time

Blacklisted!

On the Metallica Blacklist, 53 acts try their hand at reinterpreting one of the Black album’s 12 tracks in their own voice. Here, four artists — St. Vincent, Ghost’s Tobias Forge, Royal Blood’s Mike Kerr and Rodrigo y Gabriela’s Rodrigo Sánchez — discuss how they did it, and what Metallica means to each of them.

Danko Jones: Loud and Proud

Power trio, the outspoken canadian rocker’s latest, is drenched in the kind of swagger that’s been missing from rock since Mötley Crüe called it a day the first time around

Billy Gibbons Goes To The Desert

How ZZ Top legend Billy F. Gibbons and his band (guitarist Austin Hanks and former Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum) headed to the California High Desert to seek Rock ’N’ Roll inspiration — with a side of “mystery”

Bernth

How an Austrian shred whiz took inspiration from his own popular weekly YouTube videos — and rabid fanbase — to complete his first album, a dazzling project four years in the making

Speed Shop

CHARVEL PRO-MOD SERIES

Combo Breaker

BOSS NEXTONE SPECIAL

ROAD- TESTED Royalty

Christone “Kingfish” Ingram assumes his throne atop the Delta blues tradition

Liz Phair

AFTER AN 11-YEAR SELF-EXILE, LIZ PHAIR IS BACK IN TOP FORM — WITH SOME UNCOMMON TUNINGS

PERFECTLY FRANK PERFECTLY

THE TRUE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF EDDIE VAN HALEN’S LEGENDARY FRANKENSTEIN GUITAR

Enslaved

THIRTY YEARS INTO THE GAME, THESE VENERABLE NORWEGIAN EXTREME METALLERS ARE STILL SHAKING THINGS UP WITH “A BIT OF CHAOS”