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“We’re very sad… more than we can express”: The Beths appeal for help after guitars and gear stolen on tour
New Zealand indie rock band The Beths have appealed to fans for help after having their instruments and touring gear stolen while on tour in Europe.
In a post to Instagram, the group say their guitars, bass, cymbals, snare, pedalboard, and “entire rented backline” were taken overnight from their van in Tourcoing, France, near Lille.
“If you see any of these instruments turn up on resale, or if you have any tips please get in touch – info@lookoutkid.com,” the band writes. “We’re pretty sad, these instruments have a lot of time and love in them. More than we can express really.”
Among the missing items are frontwoman Elizabeth Stokes’ Martin 00-15M and Trent M2 model, guitarist Jonathan Pearce’s Burns Double Six 12-string, and a 1978 Goldtop Les Paul Deluxe. The band also shared photos of the stolen gear on Instagram in hopes of tracking it down.
Fortunately, thanks to “the generosity of friends”, The Beths were able to play their scheduled show in Tourcoing.
“Show tonight is going ahead thanks to the generosity of friends,” the post reads. “Thanks so much Florianosaure and Admlg for helping with backline, Dateline for lending instruments and Gabriel Delicious for lending a pedal board.”
Currently touring Europe in support of their new album Straight Line Was a Lie, The Beths still have 14 shows scheduled for October. Check out the full list of dates at the band’s website.
Meanwhile, gear theft remains an ongoing problem for touring musicians. Earlier this year, Australian jazz/funk outfit Hiatus Kaiyote had equipment worth “tens of thousands of dollars” stolen from their studio in Melbourne, while Heart reported the theft of two “irreplaceable instruments” just before a show in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in June.
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“You have to love creating music to do this – everything else is the bad part”: Wolfgang Van Halen on being a musician in 2025
Having joined one of the biggest rock bands in the world when he was just 16 years old, Wolfgang Van Halen is no stranger to the ups and downs of the music business.
In a new interview with Baltimore radio station, 98 Rock, the musician reflects on what it’s like navigating the industry in 2025 as the leader and frontman of his own band, Mammoth.
“You certainly learn more and more. It’s not the greatest business, but what is nowadays? I think especially in the day of streaming, you’re the product,” says Wolfgang [via Blabbermouth]. “You don’t really have much choice in how you get used.”
He argues that the rise of AI has only made things worse: “And then you’ve got all this AI stuff that’s kind of ruined stuff even more. So you have to really love playing and creating music to do this, because that’s the good part. Everything else is the bad part.”
According to Wolfgang, staying grounded in the chaos comes down to persistence, luck, and surrounding yourself with the right people.
“I believe there’s that one Hunter S. Thompson quote that’s really… I don’t think I can say it right now, but, yeah, I think you just keep moving. You learn and you surround yourself with people you trust, and hopefully, you throw a little dash of luck in there and you can somehow find your own niche, so to speak.”
Asked if he’d ever used AI as a “tool” himself, Wolfgang says that while he’s dabbled in it, he sees it as little more than a utility.
“I’ve messed with it just randomly, but to me, it’s like a ruler,” he explains. “Use it if you wanna do a slightly more in-depth Google search. But I’m not gonna sit here and be, like, ‘write a song’ or ‘draw a picture.’ AI should be putting mufflers on cars, not making music and doing our creative jobs. It should be doing the menial stuff we don’t wanna do.”
The musician also doubled down on the issue in a recent interview with Springfield, Missouri’s Q102 radio station, calling generative AI “really stupid”.
“I just think it’s dumb. I think it’s a waste of time,” said Wolfgang. The 34-year-old was equally blunt about the role labels play in pushing AI into music, arguing that it all comes down to cost-cutting, not creativity.
“Yeah, it’s lame. Well, you know why? ‘Cause it allows you to pay less people,” he said, adding that “it’s never really about what’s being made” but rather “how quickly you can make it and shovel it out to people”.
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Here’s what Ozzy Osbourne taught Andrew Watt about mixing rock songs: “He would always say to me, ‘Listen to Led Zeppelin and tell me what the loudest thing is’”
At 34, Andrew Watt has seen just about everything the music world has to offer. The Grammy-winning producer has worked with the Stones, Elton John, Post Malone – and, perhaps most famously, Ozzy Osbourne, producing the Prince of Darkness’ final two albums, Ordinary Man (2020) and Patient Number 9 (2022).
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Watt opens up about what it was like to be mentored by Osbourne, as well as some of the key lessons he picked up from the Black Sabbath legend in the studio.
“You have to understand. This man was making Paranoid when he was 21 years old. So he had a 55-year career where everything was grandiose and at the highest level,” says Watt. “And he’s one of the smartest people I have ever met, and a history buff, and a genius, a literal genius. His persona was [just] persona. He was incredibly brilliant, incredibly sharp.”
According to Watt, Osbourne’s ears were second to none.
“His ears were reactive. You could think he wasn’t listening and he heard every single thing. There’d be times we’d be in the studio listening to something and he’s just drawing and I’m like, “Oh, he is not listening.” And then he’d just give me this one line that cuts so deep, in a positive way.”
One lesson, in particular, has stayed with him: “He would always say to me, ‘Listen to Led Zeppelin and tell me what the loudest thing is.’ And me, having my confidence, I’d be like, ‘It’s the drums. John Bonham.’ He said, ‘Nope, not the drums.’ He said, ‘It’s the bass.’”
“He pointed out the bass is the most important thing in a rock song. You have to make sure the bass is there and pumping and cutting through and providing that sense of rhythm, because it’s the bridge between the drums and the guitars.”
“It makes the song heavy,” Watt continues, “because the guitars can poke through if you have them mixed in the right way. The bass is a hard thing to really get cutting, but also representing the bottom.”
That philosophy shaped the records they made together: “He was very bass-focused, mix-wise, and making sure the bass came through,” says the producer. “And if you listen to the records that we made together, there’s a lot of bass on those records. Under the Graveyard has so much low end, if you check that out. He was involved in every detail of every single mix-down, too. That’s how much he cared.”
In other news, Watt has confirmed that new music with the Stones is on the way, following the success of 2023’s hit record Hackney Diamonds.
“I’ve said it before, but it’s like working for Batman,” he told Rolling Stone. “When the tongue [logo] is up in the air, you just go… I can say we did some recording together, but that’s all I can say.”
The post Here’s what Ozzy Osbourne taught Andrew Watt about mixing rock songs: “He would always say to me, ‘Listen to Led Zeppelin and tell me what the loudest thing is’” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Is this the future of guitar tone? Groundhog Audio’s new AI-powered pedal promises the end of tone-chasing by matching your tone to any song instantly
You can ask ChatGPT to write a verse or Midjourney to conjure up an image – so why shouldn’t guitarists get their own AI shortcut? That’s the idea behind the OnePedal, the “world’s first AI-powered guitar pedal” from Chicago-based startup Groundhog Audio.
Designed for both bedroom players and gigging musicians, OnePedal uses artificial intelligence to instantly match your guitar tone to any reference track.
Simply search or upload your favourite song through the companion app, and the pedal – after analysing the guitar track from “millions of songs” – will recreate the sound using virtual amps, cabinets, and effects.
It even recommends pickup selections, knob positions, and playing styles tailored to your guitar. Those settings can then be saved directly to the pedal for offline use, making it equally at home onstage, in the studio, or in practice sessions.
Navigating and switching between tones is just as effortless: A giant middle knob lets you scroll through songs quickly, while a tone switch allows players to toggle between different sounds mid-song. The unit also features a 4-inch screen for easy navigation.
With studio-quality audio and ultra-low latency, the OnePedal aims to end the hours of knob-twisting and preset-scrolling that have long defined the quest for perfect tone.
“Guitarists shouldn’t have to spend hours dialing in knobs or scrolling forums to get the right sound,” says Groundhog Audio founder Max Engle. “We want to give musicians time back to focus on what they really love – playing.”
The OnePedal will launch on Kickstarter on 30 September, priced at $399 for early backers (retail price $549). Backers can also snag limited-edition “Founding User” perks and lifetime software updates as part of the campaign.
Learn more at Groundhog Audio.
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More Unusual First Guitars That Rock Stars Started Their Careers On
Most of us in the guitar-playing community started out our musical journey on some sort of cheap brand of guitar or perhaps a hand-me-down guitar with action that is way too high, rusty strings, and worn-out frets. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the guitars that many of our rock idols started out on. I took a look at some of them a while back, and as with this time they were generally not top-of-the-line professional instruments…
Jimmy Page
Long before Jimmy Page became the legend we know him as, he started his career like any of us do, with a cheap guitar. His first-ever guitar was an acoustic that was found in a home that Page’s family moved into — presumably left behind by the previous family. It wasn’t long before Page’s family realized that he was invested in learning to play guitar, so they bought him a Hofner acoustic before upgrading once again to his first electric guitar – a 1958 Resonet Grazioso Futurama.
The Futurama was a unique and simple guitar manufactured for a short time in the late 1950s by the Drevokov company in Czechoslovakia. The body somewhat resembled a Stratocaster shape with a unique vibrato system and individual pickup switches rather than the sliding selector switch on a standard Stratocaster.
It’s possible that Page would have started his electric career on a Stratocaster if not for the trade embargo on American goods, including guitars, that the British government put into place following World War II. That embargo ended in 1959. An example of how world politics can have a hand in shaping the development of musicians.
Kurt Cobain
There are some conflicting stories regarding Kurt Cobain’s first guitar, but it is most commonly believed to have been a left-handed Univox Hi-Flier. Allegedly, he received it as a gift from his uncle, Chuck Fradenburg, on his 14th birthday in 1981, when his uncle gave him the choice of a used guitar or a bicycle – thankfully for an entire generation, he chose the guitar.
Cobain would go on to own and use several Univox Hi-Fliers during his years playing with Nirvana, including in the studio for the recording of the band’s debut album Bleach but by the time they recorded that album in 1988, Univox had gone out of business the previous year. The Hi-Flier, specifically, was loosely based on the Mosrite shape. Univox guitars were produced by Japanese manufacturer Matsumoku, who were responsible for making a lot of guitars on the cheaper end of the spectrum (yet still surprisingly high in quality for the price) for brands like Epiphone and Aria.
Eddie Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen’s first guitar, purchased as a child from a Sears and Roebuck catalog, was a Teisco Del Rey. He played the guitar in his elementary school band, The Broken Combs, developing a lot of his guitar playing basics. Teisco guitars were built in Japan from 1948 until 1967. It remained defunct until 2018 when it was relaunched by BandLab Technologies (the same parent company that publishes Guitar.com). The Teisco Del Rey was only made between 1964 and 1967 for the American Market.
There were several iterations of the Del Ray model, and Eddie Van Halen has said in interviews that he had four pickups (he also said it had three pickups, but we have photographs of him, as a kid, holding a four-pickup model), which means that it was a WG-4L sub-model. Those usually had a vibrato system and switches for each individual pickup. They were fairly cheap but were nonetheless a fine instrument for a beginner. There were many young men and women who began their careers on the very same guitar. You can find them available for relatively cheap on the used market today.
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix, like so many of us, started out on an acoustic guitar that had a warped neck and high action. But nevertheless, young Jimi persevered and after about three months, he realized that he needed an electric guitar, so in mid-1959, his father bought him a white Supro Ozark 1560 S. Hendrix played that guitar in his first band (name unknown), who allegedly fired him for showing off at his first gig. He played the Ozark in his first proper band, the Rocking Kings, and the guitar was stolen when he left it at the venue overnight.
Supro is a brand owned by Valco that made musical instruments in the Chicago between 1935 and 1968. They were a budget brand of National Dobro and the guitars were affordable. Supro is probably best known for making high-end amplifiers. They were actually the first company to build a combo amplifier with reverb. Supro amps were a favorite of Jimmy Page, who used it for the solo on Stairway To Heaven. But Supro guitars were far less revered by professional musicians. The Supro brand was reintroduced in 2013 and they continue to make guitars, amps and effects.
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stevie Ray Vaughan is the only player in this article whose first guitar was a Fender or Gibson. It was a 1957 Gibson ES-125T 3/4 Sunburst Archtop that he received from his brother, Jimmie, in 1963, who had been gifted it by their father. The ES-125T was introduced to the Gibson lineup in 1941 as an entry-level guitar that had several iterations over the years, but the ES-125T was a non-cutaway with a single P-90 pickup in the neck position.
The ES-125T was not a cheap, obscure guitar like others on this list. It had been used by BB King in the early 1950s. Many other guitarists after Stevie Ray Vaughn also used the model at some point in their careers such as Tracy Chapman, Marc Ribot, George Thorogood, and Thom Yorke. The model was discontinued in 1970.
Vaughan used this guitar when he joined his first band, the Chantones, in 1965. He used this guitar until his brother gifted him another guitar, a 1951 Fender Broadcaster (Nocaster) that he dubbed “Jimbo”. In 2008 that guitar sold at auction for a quarter of a million dollars. As for the ES-125T, we aren’t sure what became of it. It was sold at auction in 2021 by Heritage Auctions, but it was not made public if the guitar sold, who bought it, or if it remains in the hands of the original seller. Another musical mystery is afoot.
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“It will never stop – thank God”: John 5 names three modern guitarists who are ensuring that the guitar will “keep evolving”
While conversations about typical guitar heroes generally tend toward the likes of Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page, there are plenty of modern players pushing the envelope.
And in a new interview with We Wreck Records, Mötley Crüe and Rob Zombie guitarist John 5 names some of the guitarists he feels are keeping the instrument exciting.
John 5 – real name John William Lowery – is quick to rattle off the names of Polyphia (guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage), as well as English guitarist Guthrie Govan and Animals as Leaders founder Tosin Abasi.
“It will always keep evolving. And you know what? Thank God for it,” he says [via Ultimate Guitar]. “There’s so many incredible guitar players. And even before Jimi Hendrix, we had Chet Atkins, we had Roy Clark, all these people that were just ripping it up on guitar.”
John 5 believes the widespread adoption of social media has led to the emergence of talents who would have otherwise stayed hidden.
“I love anybody that is ripping it up,” he says. “And that’s why I love Instagram so much, because you can see people all over the world. But before, you just would see people in Hollywood or hear about them in Guitar Player magazine. But now I can hear about somebody in Russia or someone in Brazil, and it’s wonderful.”
Asked to name three guitarists who have had a big impact on him personally, John 5 names some more traditional guitar heroes: “The three guitarists that changed music…
“I think where I was really taken aback and it really changed my life, I would say Eddie Van Halen definitely was that for me. And when I heard Eddie, I loved it so much, just like everybody else. He really took it to the next level.”
“Then I would say Yngwie Malmsteen, because I just love that… That ‘less is more’, I’ve never gotten that. I’ve always gotten the, ‘No, more is more.’ And that’s what I loved about Yngwie. And then I’m gonna go with even Guthrie for today, modern. I just love him so much. I just love how he creates his solos and how he plays live.”
“I appreciate great guitar players so much, and it’s so hard to find inspiration, but I’m always looking. But I really, really love when I find these certain guitar players that are super inspiring, to me and the world.”
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Kirk Hammett says Tony Iommi uses “smart chords” – this is what he means
Over the years, Metallica and Black Sabbath have shared many stages; the heavy metal unit performed at Sabbath’s grand Back To The Beginning gig back in July, but they’d previously opened for Ozzy Osbourne back in 1986, while bassist Robert Trujillo was also an official member of The Prince of Darkness’s band between 1996 until 2003.
However, no matter how many times they performed together, Metallica never stopped being stunned by the talent within the Sabbath ranks. In episode 112 of The Metallica Report, Trujillo reflects on the unique style of each member of the band. “Take Bill Ward, for instance, as a drummer,” he says. “He’s so unique in his style of playing and that swing that he has, it reminds me of big band music… [Then there was] Ozzy with his very bluesy, soulful style of singing.”
He then points to guitar legend Tony Iommi and his own brand of ‘smart chords’. “His chords are – well, Kirk Hammett calls them smart chords,” he explains. “[They’re] basically jazz chords, which he incorporates into the riffs.”
Of course, Iommi’s style is partially the result of an injury he suffered as a 17 year old. Ever since slicing the tips of his fingers off at a factory job, he’s had to adjust his style, now playing with artificial leather fingertips. “Even just the fact that his fingers are different… it creates a certain sound, a certain riff,” Trujillo explains.
Elsewhere in the chat, Trujillo recalls how Ozzy’s wife, Sharon Osbourne, had initially labelled the band as an “alternative” act. “It was so different from anything that was happening back then,” the bassist says. “And there’s a lot of reasons for that… A lot of [their music] is just very unique, very soulful.”
Reflecting on Sabbath’s Back To The Beginning gig, Trujillo recalls it as being yet another reminder of why Black Sabbath are the crème de la crème of heavy metal. “They were soundchecking, and Ozzy wasn’t even on stage yet… but just hearing them warm up, it was another level,” he says.
“This is like Muhammad Ali [hitting] the speed bag – it’s that intense. It’s crazy… they’re just warming up – drum fills, some tribal beats Bill was doing, and you hear Geezer Butler [bassist] kind of noodling a bit. And then Tony [plays] some kind of chords here and there.”
He recalls watching the band run through Into The Void, a track that Anthrax would instead perform during the final show. A few members of the supporting bands watched the performance – and it was pretty emotional. “We just started headbanging, and we were all smiling… but some people were crying,” he notes. “It was so beautiful, and it was a powerful moment. Anybody that witnessed it, that’s something that they’ll probably remember for the rest of their lives.”
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“To me, progressive rock is very serious players who can really do their stuff”: David Gilmour “never thought Pink Floyd were prog rock
A conversation about prog rock titans is hardly complete without mention of Pink Floyd. But as David Gilmour explains in a recent interview with Rick Beato, he was never keen on the label.
He says that he and his bandmates “never talked about style”, and that they were creating the music they were creating “long before” the ‘progressive rock’ moniker came around.
“I’ve never talked about progressive rock, or thought that we were – whatever – progressive rock,” Gilmour tells Beato [via Louder Sound]. “To me, progressive rock is very, very serious players who can really do their stuff.”
“I think we were doing it long before the term ‘progressive rock’, and I think I was probably a grumpy old man in my 20s. You know, sort of, ‘Nah, that’s not us.’”
He concludes: “The whole idea of labelling – it’s become more essential in this day and age. But I’m not keen on it.”
Arguably, the genres by which certain bands are described are done so by fans, while artists both old and new prefer not to pigeonhole themselves as purveyors of one style of music only.
Regardless of Gilmour’s position on the ‘prog rock’ moniker, Pink Floyd are widely considered to have been behind some of the best prog albums of all time, including The Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, and Wish You Were Here.
In other news, David Gilmour recently explained why he’s “never learned” the classic Pink Floyd guitar solo in Comfortably Numb.
“To me it’s just different every time,” he said. “Why would I want to do it the same? Would it be more popular with the people listening if I did it exactly like the record? Or do they prefer that I just wander off into whatever feels like the right thing at the time? I don’t know. I suspect they prefer it to be real, and to be happening, you know?”
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“The most important thing is to be able to hear something and play it”: Tim Henson on the importance of learning guitar by ear
What’s the most efficient way to become a better guitar player? Is it endlessly practicing scales and music theory? That certainly doesn’t hurt, but according to Polyphia guitar maestro Tim Henson, all guitarists should seek to learn as much as they can by ear.
While theory is no doubt important – and will help you better understand why certain note patterns and chord progressions work together – Henson says there’s a certain value to “learning everything you can by ear”.
- READ MORE: Strandberg launches N2 – the “most significant evolution” of its Boden headless guitars yet
“I started playing violin,” he tells The Music Zoo in a new interview [via Guitar World]. “Before I started playing guitar, I started playing at the age of three. I can sight-read violin pretty well.”
However, he says he learned to play guitar by ear, partly because “violin was so rigid, and it killed any sort of love for music”.
“It made me hate music,” he says. “Especially in classical music, you’re essentially just doing cover songs all the time. There’s no room for creativity. And when I picked up the guitar at 10, I saw it as an escape from that.”
Polyphia’s music is some of the most technically complex in the game, so for many guitarists, resorting to the tablature is a must. But Tim Henson says they should learn as much as they can by ear before checking the official tabs for accuracy.
“We sell our tablature,” he says. “It’s one of the things that helps us pay our bills, and I think it’s a great tool and a great helper. But for the young guitar players who want to play guitar, learn it by ear. Just learn everything that you can by ear.
“And if you want to get the tab afterwards to double check and maybe, if there’s something that you were struggling with that you couldn’t just quite get, sure, do it, but learn it by ear. That is going to be the most important thing for any musician is to just be able to hear it and to play it.”
The extent to which guitarists should know theory has long been a subject of debate. While most don’t discount the usefulness of theory entirely – some say it’s not necessary to make high-quality art.
Earlier this year, former All That Remains guitarist Jason Richardson said it’s not essential, explaining: “Remember, it’s called music ‘theory,’ not ‘law’.” And YouTuber Become the Knight explained how “you can have these tools in your tool belt and still make pretty mediocre art”.
A big advocate of knowing your theory, though, is jazz-funk maestro Cory Wong, who earlier this year slammed guitarists who don’t know every note on the guitar’s fretboard.
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Strandberg launches N2 – the “most significant evolution” of its Boden headless guitars yet
Strandberg has lifted the lid on N2, its new generation of headless guitars which represents its “most significant evolution yet”.
The N2 line debuts with two new models: the Boden N2 Original and Boden N2 Standard, both sporting an all-new arched body design, which brings the guitar closer to the player “for an even more comfortable and connected experience”.
- READ MORE: EarthQuaker Devices Easy Listening review – can an amp simulator this simple actually sound good?
Specs found on both models also include EGS Arc hardware – a full-body contact bridge system which maximises resonance and sustain while simplifying setup and maintenance – and a titanium-reinforced EndurNeck, with dual titanium rods for “unmatched stability, resonance and clarity across every register.
In terms of electronics, the Boden Original N2 is fitted with Strandberg’s POWR:D pickups – developed in partnership with Fishman. These deliver “distinct voicings for ultimate versatility: from fluid modern distortion to classic crunch and shimmering cleans”.
Meanwhile the Boden Standard N2 is loaded with Seymour Duncan Pegasus/Sentient pickups, offering “tight, punchy and balanced tones that adapt seamlessly from heavy riffs to pristine textures”.
Elsewhere, the Boden Original N2 features a chambered swamp ash body with a flame maple veneer – and comes in Black Denim Burst Satin and Sunset Coral Burst Satin – while the Boden Standard N2 sports a solid basswood body, and roasted maple neck and fretboard, and comes in Black Satin Metallic and Transformative Teal Metallic.
“With the N2, we’ve created the most refined Strandberg to date. It’s designed to feel like an effortless extension of the player’s creativity,” says Founder and Creative Lead Ola Strandberg.
“Every detail, from the arched body and titanium-reinforced neck to the new hardware and pickups, reflects our vision of building instruments that truly inspire musicians.”
Both the Boden Original N2 and Boden Standard N2 are available now in six-, seven- and eight-string versions. For more info, head to Strandberg.
Credit: Strandberg
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EarthQuaker Devices Easy Listening review – can an amp simulator this simple actually sound good?
$99/£115, earthquakerdevices.com
Maybe modern life really is just too complicated. Annoyed that your five favourite TV shows are on five different streaming services? Exasperated that there’s an app for everything even if it doesn’t need one? Bemused by the complex control arrays and secondary functions of digital amp simulators? The EarthQuaker Devices Easy Listening is here to help… well, with that last one anyway.
- READ MORE: Walrus Audio Mako Series MkII ACS1 review: “this is as good as digital amp and cab simulators get”
Fully analogue and fuss-free, this one-knob wonder is designed to make it as easy as possible for you to enjoy playing the electric guitar – with or without effects pedals – in silence. And considering it’s made in the USA, it’s as cheap as it is straightforward.
EarthQuaker Devices Easy Listening – what is it?
Is a pedal even a pedal if it doesn’t have a footswitch? That’s the level of simplicity we’re dealing with here: power it up, plug a guitar in on the right and some headphones on the left, then turn it up to one notch shy of permanent hearing damage – congratulations, you have now explored the full functionality of the Easy Listening.
Tonally it’s based on the legendary Fender Deluxe Reverb, so that should mean plenty of top-end chime and a sweetly scooped midrange. Will it also mean a lovely bit of crunch when you crank it? Nope, because there’s no crank to crank: that single control is for output level, not input gain, and we’re promised lots of headroom to ensure it’ll stay clean and take pedals without getting squishy.
The output is a proper quarter-inch type, and this can also be fed to an audio interface for direct recording. It’s TRS so you could even send it to two channels, though as this is a mono device that’s not exactly a major selling point.
Image: Press
EarthQuaker Devices Easy Listening – what does it sound like?
In a sense, the words ‘pure’ and ‘basic’ mean the same thing… but with very different connotations. So yes, the fixed tone of the Easy Listening is pure – it’s clean and bright in classic black-panel Fender style, with a nicely rounded bottom end – but it’s undeniably a little bit basic too.
Maybe a better word is ‘unrefined’: natural compression is a key feature of small amps like the Deluxe Reverb, but here the dynamics are left wide open – which might be why you still get a hint of the dreaded plasticky DI ‘slap’ when you attack a note or chord. This is most noticeable with bridge humbuckers, which can sound alarmingly raw. The good news is, adding dirt pedals definitely helps – and all that headroom does indeed offer a giant playground for them to run around in. Overdrives that prefer some amp gain to work with might feel somewhat exposed here, but it’s a reliably blank canvas for everything else.
As for recording… well, I wouldn’t use it for anything important, but my test tracks ended up sounding quite respectable with a bit of software compression and reverb plus a slight EQ dip around the 2.5kHz mark. A decent result, then, but don’t throw away your favourite digital amp sim just yet – sometimes it’s good to be complicated.
EarthQuaker Devices Easy Listening – should I buy it?
Be warned: there’s much more to a good amplifier than EQ filtering, so a simulator as stripped-back as this is never going to get you the whole amp experience. But the Easy Listening is pitched as a handy little practice gadget – albeit one with solid made-in-America pedigree – and that’s exactly what you’re getting.
EarthQuaker Devices Easy Listening alternatives
Most modern amp sims are very much digital affairs, but there is a powerful analogue contender in the DSM & Humboldt Simplifier MkII ($359/£349) – and an old-school survivor in the battery-powered Electro-Harmonix Headphone Amp ($52.60), which presumably only exists because they forgot to discontinue it.
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“I’ll probably be buried with it!”: Greta Van Fleet’s Jake Kiszka on his most beloved and battered guitars
Few guitarists have a bond with their instrument quite like Jake Kiszka and his 1961 Gibson Les Paul SG. And that bond was strong from the moment he laid his hands on it.
As the story goes, Kiszka and his now-beloved SG first met during the early days of Greta Van Fleet, when he paid a visit to Chicago Music Exchange, of which the band’s manager knew the owner. As he tells Guitar.com in the latest episode of My Guitars & Me, the owner suggested he try the guitar out, “based on everything I was into at the time”.
And the moment he plugged it in, it was a moment of “divine intervention”, he recalls. “It was like lightning split from the sky – it was really unbelievable. It was everything that I had been looking for sonically in a guitar my whole life was right here.”
While it commanded a hefty $25,000 price tag, the owner generously let Kiszka walk away with the guitar and take it on tour with GVF, on the condition that he pay him back when he was able. “It was incredible on him for letting me do that,” Kiszka says.
The ‘61 Les Paul SG has been Kiszka’s go-to guitar ever since, and you don’t need a magnifying glass to tell it’s taken some wear and tear over the years.
“This is what happens when you start wearing rhinestones on suits with no jacket over them. And this is what my nipples have done,” he jokes. “It looks like a cutting board, doesn’t it? It’s a lot lighter than when I got it – I’ve sanded it away!”
The wear and tear is so extreme, Kiszka says, that Gibson would have to invent an “entirely new specification of aging level” to recreate the guitar as a true-to-life signature model.
Through their thousands of hours together, Jake Kiszka has developed a bond with his SG that few guitarists will ever enjoy with their instruments.
“I’ll probably be buried with it!” he jokes. “There’s a piece of me in this guitar, but there’s also a piece of this guitar in me. In reality, a lot of my playing, and the way that I’ve developed playing have actually come from this very specific instrument.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Kiszka shows off the custom Martin 00-28 he had designed specifically for his side project, Mirador.
“I wanted to find something that could be the guitar that would be the Mirador acoustic. I went to Gibson. I went to tonnes of people to do something specifically, with certain types of inlays, obviously. I went to Martin and asked if they could do this and they said, ‘Yes.’”
Kiszka says he was after an aged-looking “renaissance”-style guitar, and one with a slotted headstock. “I’m like, ‘Could you guys build me a pirate guitar.’ This is what they came up with, which is quite brilliant,” he says.
Watch the full episode of My Guitars & Me with Jake Kiszka below.
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Ace Frehley cancels show following fall in his home studio
Founding Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley has cancelled his upcoming show at the Antelope Valley Fair in Lancaster, California after suffering a fall in his home studio.
In a statement posted yesterday (25 September) on his social media channels, Frehley’s team offered more detail about the incident.
“Ace had a minor fall in his studio, resulting in a trip to the hospital,” the statement reads. “He is fine, but against his wishes, his doctor insists that he refrain from travel at this time. As a result, he is forced to cancel his performance at the Antelope Valley Fair on Friday, 26 September.
“Please go to the fair to support his friends in Quiet Riot and Vixen, and Ace looks forward to continuing on his tour and finishing work on his next album, Origins Vol. 4.
Despite the statement, the 74-year-old guitarist has yet to release the third installment of his Origins album series, following Origins Vol. 2 in 2020.
Earlier this year, Frehley told Eddie Trunk that Vol. 3 was in the process of being recorded with producer Alex Salzman, who also worked on the first two installments.
“We have a formula that we came up with and it seems to work,” he said [via Blabbermouth]. “I was listening to the records last night on YouTube, you know. In my office, on my desk, I have a set of Bose speakers, and the album sounds just as good as the new album, 10,000 Volts [which landed in 2024]. So I’m gonna keep that.”
“I’m gonna go back to my old formula with Alex and maybe I’ll bring back Steve [Brown, Trixter guitarist who also worked on 10,000 Volts] to do the studio album since he’s a very, very good songwriter and guitar player and engineer, as well.”
In other news, Frehley recently detailed how he declined an invitation to appear at the Kiss Kruise: Land-Locked in Vegas event. “They asked me and I declined. There’s no way I’m gonna be involved in that,” he said.
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Brian May admits he still finds it hard to play Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody: “I still have to keep my wits about me or I’ll fall off the train”
You’d think after half a century of playing one of the most famous songs in rock history, Brian May would have it down cold. But according to the Queen guitarist, Bohemian Rhapsody remains as tricky as ever – so much so that he still has to ‘keep his wits about him’ every time he plays it.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, May shares how the complexity of Freddie Mercury’s writing made the track both exhilarating and challenging to play.
“The idea for all the instrumental stuff in Rhapsody was growing while I was listening to him developing the song,” he says. “Freddie had some amazingly lateral thought processes. It was always easier for me to play on his songs than mine, ’cause there was so much stimulation coming.”
That said, the six-minute track is no walk in the park, even for its original guitarist.
“Bohemian Rhapsody is never that easy to play, even after all these years,” May admits. “I still have to keep my wits about me or I’ll fall off the train.”
And while the song continues to test him, the grind of constant touring is another challenge altogether. Though fans may be clamouring for yet another Queen tour, May, now 78, admits that life on the road no longer holds the same appeal.
“ I’ve had 50 years of touring and there’s a part of me that thinks it’s enough,” he says. “I don’t like the idea that you wake up in your hotel room and you’re trapped. I had a few experiences recently where stuff happened at home with my family and I could not go home. It got under my skin and I just thought, ‘I’m not sure if I want this anymore.’ I feel like I’ve given up my freedom too many times. So my feeling at the moment is I don’t want to tour as such. I still want to play shows. I still want to innovate.”
That innovation may soon find a new home in Las Vegas. May has his sights set on a Queen residency at the Sphere, the high-tech venue with 360-degree visuals that left him stunned after watching the Eagles perform there.
“ I’m very keen on the Sphere,” says the guitarist. “It’s got my mind working. I sat there watching the Eagles, thinking, ‘We should do this. The stuff that we could bring to this would be stupendous.’ So, yeah, I would like to do it. We’re having conversations.”
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“Why would I want to do it the same?”: Why David Gilmour “never learned” this classic Pink Floyd guitar solo
Few guitar solos are as universally revered as the climactic second solo in Comfortably Numb. It’s the soaring, heart-wrenching finale to one of Pink Floyd’s most enduring songs, and the kind of performance many guitarists have spent decades trying to replicate. Yet the man who wrote it – prog wizard David Gilmour – admits he’s never actually learned it when it comes to playing live.
Speaking with Rick Beato in a recent interview, the Floyd guitarist explains that the solo, while immortalised on The Wall, has never been something he felt the need to reproduce exactly.
“I’m not thinking about the audience and what they want, to be honest,” he explains. “I just like it starting the way it starts, and the rest of it is so ingrained in me that the various parts of it are going to find their way into what I’m doing.”
“But I’ve never learned it. Yeah, I’ve never learned that guitar solo.”
For Gilmour, the live experience is about feeling the moment rather than sticking to a routine formula: “I mean, there are a lot of guys who can play that. But I don’t play it,” he laughs.
“To me it’s just different every time. Why would I want to do it the same? Would it be more popular with the people listening if I did it exactly like the record? Or do they prefer that I just wander off into whatever feels like the right thing at the time? I don’t know. I suspect they prefer it to be real, and to be happening, you know?”
Still, his improvisational spirit doesn’t mean he’s completely unmoored from the studio version.
“There are cues within it, which I use to tell the band, ‘We’re going to end,’ or, ‘We’re going to do this,’” says Gilmour. “And so, they crop up as being the same every time, pretty much.”
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Fender Player II Modified Telecaster – “this guitar just begs to be played for hours”
$1049.99/£949, fender.com
When Fender launched the Player II series last year, it felt like a significant leap forward in the quality and especially playability of the brand’s most affordable Mexico-made instruments.
Fender’s Ensenada factory guitars have also proved to be great modding platforms for pros and weekend warriors alike for decades now, and so it is that less than a year later, the Player II Modified range has sought to do the hard work for you.
Whether it’s Noiseless pickup-loaded Strats or Floyd Rose HSS offerings, the results have been pretty impressive so far – but can they say the same for Leo Fender’s original brilliant electric guitar design? Let’s find out…
Image: Adam Gasson
Fender Player II Modified Telecaster – what is it?
The original Player II Telecaster was a very impressive guitar as it is. And many of the original’s best features are kept for the Modified version – that means an alder body and maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, and yes those ‘board edges are nicely rolled just like the original. That neck is the same 9.5-inch radius’d C-shape as the Player II too.
Another holdover on this test example is a three-colour sunburst finish, but unlike the vanilla Player II it’s accented rather nicely with a four-ply white pearloid pickguard to make it stand out from the rabble.
Under the hood, there’s a lot more going on, however. Most notably, you get a pair of Fender’s Player II Noiseless Tele units – which should come in handy for noisy environments – and more advanced wiring nestling in that body cavity.
In practice that means you get the ability to switch between series and parallel wiring, and there’s also a treble bleed circuit on the volume control to keep things clear and focused as you roll off.
You also get a set of Fender’s locking tuners to make string changes a doddle, while a soft-shell gigbag is included in the price here too – something that was notably absent from the basic Player II range.
Image: Adam Gasson
Fender Player II Modified Telecaster – feel and sounds
One of the chief concerns one might have when buying a conventional Telecaster, or any guitar with only single coils – at least if you are slightly more hard rock-inclined – is that the absence of a humbucker might prove inhibitive.
But thanks to the Player II Modified Telecaster’s push-pull tone pot-activated series mode – which utilises both the neck and bridge pickup at once in series – a sound is included in your palette which very effectively fills that humbucker void.
I’d class myself as a ‘recently country-curious’ player who primarily comes from a hard rock and metal background. With this in mind it’s a very pleasant surprise when I almost automatically dial in a high-gain tone and jam some quickfire palm-muted chugs in series mode.
Look, if you’re looking to venture into extreme metal territory you’re not going to find your perfect match here, but Player II Modified Tele definitely holds its own with heavier sounds with both pickups engaged – no doubt in part due to the Noiseless nature of the design. There’s a reason why Idles were involved in the marketing campaign for these instruments.
Image: Adam Gasson
Fun side note, though: there’s a space between the series-on and series-off settings on the push-pull tone knob where signal is cut entirely, so the more creative among you might be able to use it as a makeshift killswitch and channel your inner Tom Morello.
Moving into the sort of tones that you’d probably expect this guitar to handle, here the pickups show their versatility and their quality – with the Noiseless factor adding real punch and clarity to blues, country and rock licks.
The bridge pickup boasts that classic Tele twang, while the neck pickup has a gloriously warm tone, while retaining a level of articulation by which the guitar just begs to be played for hours.
The treble bleed circuit is another really useful extra tool to have in your arsenal when you’re indulging in grittier tones. The ability to roll off the volume and clean things up without losing clarity adds another string to this versatile instrument’s bow.
If there’s one slight bugbear I have with the guitar straight out of the box, it’s that the action is a little high to really get the most out of the playability. It’s a relatively easy fix that any half-decent tech can handle if you’re not confident with doing it yourself of course, but it’s still suboptimal.
Otherwise, the general fit and finish of everything is truly top class – there are zero noticeable visual hiccups or sloppiness. The neck itself is effortlessly smooth, with those rolled edges really enhancing things again, and it really does feel every bit the road-ready pro instrument.
Image: Adam Gasson
Fender Player II Modified Telecaster – should I buy one?
Fender has expended a fair bit of energy catering to their ‘pro’ market in the shape of the American Ultra II and Ultra Luxe guitars, but those instruments are also priced at a level that many ordinary working musicians can’t really consider.
So for that reason alone, it’s great then that the Player II Modified exists. The standard Player II Telecaster will be plenty of instrument for many players, but if your needs are a little more unconventional and you venture into the heavier spectrum of sounds, this Modified version will be right up your street.
Fender Player II Modified Telecaster – alternatives
You could, of course, go for a non-modified, standard Player II Telecaster (from $839.99/£709) if you’re not overly fussed about the series mode, treble bleed circuit or locking tuners. The previous iteration of the Modified concept was the Player Plus range, and you can still find them kicking around with a healthy discount – they’ll also give you Noiseless pickups and those lovely rolled fingerboard edges.
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Selling your gear to make room for more? Reverb Wallet grants exclusive perks to sellers keeping their earnings on Reverb
Hot on the heels of the recent announcement that the marketplace was reducing its fees for sellers – down 3% to just 5% now – and adding a slew of smarter selling features, Reverb is continuing its innovative streak with a new Wallet experience.
Principally, sellers can now get even more value for their music gear by keeping their earnings from sales in their Reverb Wallet, and consequently take advantage of a 1% cashback bonus, faster earnings and future access to “exclusive perks that can help them fund their new sound faster”.
So, essentially at its core, Reverb Wallet offers sellers an alternative to cash for their gear sales, and the option to boost their earnings if keeping them within the Reverb ecosystem – certainly good news for sellers looking to shift gear to make space for more in their collection.
“One of the most important parts of music making is trying out new sounds,” says Reverb’s Chief Technology Officer, Jason Wain.
“Whether you’re upgrading from an Epiphone Les Paul to a Gibson, or starting a new project that needs the dreamy tone of a Roland Juno rather than the gritty sound of the Moog Grandmother, we want to make that journey as easy as possible.
“With Reverb Wallet, players get access to more gear when they turn their old guitars, synths, pedals, and other instruments into higher earnings that help them refresh their rig.”
Reverb says its new Wallet feature is backed by a “trusted and regulated payments platform”, and will see users granted access to “exclusive perks over the coming months”.
In terms of how Reverb Wallet works in practice, sellers can opt in by visiting “Shop Settings”, and selecting “Reverb Wallet” in the payment settings section on the “Policies” page.
The slew of new features in quick succession follows Reverb’s recent return to independence for the first time since 2019 after being sold by marketplace giant Etsy.
The sale was made possible by two investors: Creator Partners, also an investor in BMI, SoundCloud, Color Studios and Mogul; and Servco, which owns a majority stake in Fender.
Learn more about Reverb Wallet at Reverb.
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“Fender increased prices to offset higher costs from tariffs”: Report reveals how Fender is tackling tariffs and a “weaker macroeconomic environment”
President Donald Trump enacted hefty tariffs on the import of goods into the United States from countries around the world earlier this year, and they’re continuing to have a heavy impact on guitar manufacturers, including Fender.
Instrument and gear brands have been continually speaking out about the impact of these high tariffs on the guitar trade. Fender’s Executive Vice President Of Product, Justin Norvell, even travelled to Washington earlier this year in an attempt to mitigate the “devastating” impact of the global tariffs alongside industry figures including NAMM’s John Mlynczak and Gibson’s Erin Salmon.
According to a new report from financial information and analytics expert S&P Global [via Guitar World], Fender increased prices throughout the first half of the year to offset higher costs from tariffs, “especially from China, which makes up 40 percent of purchases (half of which enter the US).”
The report further claims that the Big F implemented a five percent price increase in July across its entire portfolio to tough out the financial challenges of the enacted tariffs, but also, it acknowledges the impact of a weaker economy on the business, and explains how sell-in habits – the sales from manufacturers and dealers – affect the brand.
The report states, “Sell-in has exceeded our expectations for retail partners like Guitar Center, SweetWater, and Amazon, as higher-income consumers continue to value the Fender brand.”
Despite this, it also notes: “Nonetheless, volumes continue to decline due to lower consumer discretionary spending, which we expect will continue throughout the remainder of the year. For example, smaller locally owned US dealers continue to tightly manage inventory amid a weaker macroeconomic environment as consumers trade down to the second-hand market or defer discretionary spending.”
S&P Global also claims that Fender is having some success in regards to its entry-level trade; it believes that Fender is “gaining market share” in low-end guitars due to competitor brands allegedly reducing “imports of low-end guitars from China due to tariff headwinds.”
In summary, S&P states: “In 2026, we expect improving volume trends from new innovations, though we continue to expect subdued consumer sentiment resulting in minimal revenue growth. We expect dealers will remain cautious on increasing inventory levels because of a weak macroeconomic backdrop with lower discretionary spending on big-ticket items like guitars.”
It continues, “We expect management will continue to exercise prudent cost management and limit marketing spending and compensation costs to offset its lower gross profit given a weaker macroeconomic environment.”
View the full product lineup from Fender, or find out more on how Fender and other guitar brands joined forces to try and mitigate the impact of high tariffs.
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Heritage Guitars’ Standard II Collection adds “meaningful refinements” to its original Standard Series
[Editor’s note: Heritage Guitars and Guitar.com are both part of the Caldecott Music Group.]
Heritage Guitars has unveiled its Standard II Collection, described as a refinement of its original Standard Series, and it’s kicking things off with the newly updated H-150.
The launch continues Heritage’s 40th anniversary celebrations, with 2025 continuing to be a “landmark year” for the brand. So far, Heritage has also notably debuted the Custom Shop H-717 archtop and the Ascent Collection: a line of accessible instruments designed to bring Heritage’s craftsmanship to a wider audience.
Marking the first model in the Standard II collection, the refreshed H-150 introduces several key enhancements in construction, tone, and versatility. It offers an updated headstock with a new veneer featuring the ‘Heritage’ logo, and its body is crafted from genuine mahogany with weight relief, offering greater comfort without compromising on tone.
It has a ’60s neck profile, which is slim for ample grip with a vintage-inspired feel, and it also comes in brand-new finishes including Wine Red, Bourbon Burst, and Chestnut Burst, alongside existing favourites Dirty Lemon Burst and Ebony.
Credit: Heritage Guitars
Further diving into tone and electronics, the Standard II H-150 is fitted with new Heritage Custom Shop 225 Standard Humbuckers – designed and wound in-house, and offering a “broad and expressive” tonal range. Built with 42 AWG plain enamel wire (neck) or 43 AWG poly wire (bridge) on Butyrate unpotted bobbins, and 2.5” roughcast Alnico 5 magnets, they feature potted covers to minimise unwanted feedback at higher volumes.
The model is also equipped with series/parallel switching via push/pull tone pots for tonal flexibility, capturing the brightness and clarity of a “single-coil” voice without the volume loss of traditional coil-splitting.
Speaking of the new series, Heritage Guitars adds: “With the Standard II Collection, Heritage Guitars reaffirms its commitment to continual improvement and refining every detail to deliver meaningful upgrades for today’s players, while staying true to its American-made legacy.”
The Standard II H-150 is priced at $2,599. To find out more or view full specifications, head over to Heritage Guitars.
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Judge orders Gibson’s damages in Dean legal case upped from $1 to $168,000
![Headstock of a Dean guitar [main image], and the headstock of a Gibson guitar [inset]](https://guitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Dean-Gibson-new-hero@2000x1500.jpg)
Back in March 2025, Gibson triumphed for a second time in its legal battle against Dean, with the latter having been found to have infringed on Gibson’s trademarks for the Flying V, Explorer and SG. However, that victory was tempered somewhat by the jury’s recommendation that Gibson be awarded just $1 in damages.
Now however, the judge in the case has increased this award, ruling that Dean’s parent company Armadillo Distribution Enterprises Inc, will have to pay Gibson just over $168,000 for the infringement, which is to be taken in disgorgement of profits earned through infringement.
In legal speak, disgorgement refers to the relinquishing or forfeiture of unlawfully obtained profits toward either the state, or in this case, to the party harmed, Gibson.
The original figure was so low because the jury felt that Gibson had waited too long to protect its trademark rights – Dean had been making guitars using the Flying V and Explorer body shapes since the 1970s, but Gibson didn’t take action against them for decades.
Now however, US District Judge Amos L Mazzant – who presided over the case – has decided that the jury’s recommendation is insufficient given the profits made by Armadillo over the period from use of the infringing shapes, and increased the damages to $168,399
Mazzant had the option to treble the damages or award Gibson statutory damages, but he declined to do so as he felt that any further financial punishment for Dean would be “punitive”.
“By requiring Armadillo to disgorge the profits it earned through infringement, the Court places Gibson in roughly the same position as it would have been had the infringement never occurred,” Judge Mazzant wrote in his latest opinion handed down on Monday (22 September).
“Here, statutory damages are unwarranted,” Judge Mazzant said in the ruling handed down on Monday. “The court already determined that disgorgement and injunctive relief are the proper remedy based on the equities of this case and any additional monetary award would be punitive.”
“Also, awarding statutory damages would be duplicative of the disgorgement award.”
The case wasn’t a total loss for Dean/Armadillo, however. While the brand was found to have infringed on the body shape trademarks for the Flying V, Explorer and SG – as well as the ‘Hummingbird’ and ‘Flying V’ wordmarks – but was found to have not infringed on either the ‘Dove Wing’ headstock shape or the ES body shape. In fact the jury even recommended that the ES trademark should be cancelled as it is generic.
In his latest opinion Judge Mazzant declines to elaborate further on this, though it could end up being a hugely impactful part of the case. He also neither accepted or denied Gibson’s request for Armadillo to cover the brand’s legal fees – both of these will be addressed in the final judgement on the case.
However, the injunction handed down now permanently bars Armadillo and Dean from making, advertising or selling products which infringe Gibson’s trademarks. Counsel for both Gibson and Armadillo have not commented on the matter at this time.
Brief history of Gibson vs. Dean
The legal battle between Gibson and Dean goes back to 2019, when Gibson accused Dean’s parent company Armadillo of trademark infringement, trademark counterfeiting, unfair competition and trademark dilution.
Armadillo subsequently launched counterclaims, saying a number of other guitar companies have been selling products with strong visual similarities to Gibson’s designs for decades. It argued, therefore, that Gibson’s trademarks should be cancelled for genericness.
But in 2022, Dean and Armadillo were found guilty of trademark infringement and counterfeiting pertaining to Gibson’s Flying V, Explorer, SG and Hummingbird shapes. At the same time, the jury found that Gibson had delayed in asserting its trademark rights for the Flying V and Explorer body shapes, and the Dove Wing headstock shape.
The case then went to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which in July 2024 ordered a new trial after finding that the district court had improperly excluded evidence.
However, after a second seven-day trial in March, Gibson once again triumphed – albeit in a more limited fashion than the first case. The jury found Dean had infringed on the Flying V, Explorer and SG – as well as the ‘Hummingbird’ and ‘Flying V’ wordmarks – but was found to have not infringed on either the ‘Dove Wing’ headstock shape or the ES body shape, and recommended the cancellation of the latter.
Guitar.com has reached out to both Gibson and Dean/Armadillo for comment on the latest ruling.
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