Norse Guitar Feeds

The Jim Irsay Collection auction at Christie’s in New York is well under way, with yesterday’s lot featuring sales of some of the most iconic guitars in rock history. As you might expect, some fetched truly astonishing sums.

Widely described as the greatest guitar collection on Earth, the Jim Irsay Collection was the pride and joy of late billionaire and Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, and features hundreds of guitars and instruments once played or belonging to rock’s most revered elite.

• READ MORE: Why the sale of Jim Irsay’s Greatest Guitar Collection On Earth is a sad moment in guitar history

Following Irsay’s death in May last year, his estate took the decision to sell off his collection via a landmark auction at Christie’s in New York. That auction is taking place across March, with an online auction from 3-17 March, and live auctions featuring the bigger hitters on 12, 13 and 14 March.

Yesterday’s auction saw history made, as David Gilmour’s black Fender Stratocaster once again took the crown as the most expensive guitar ever sold, raking in an eye-watering $14,550,000. Yep, over 14 and a half million… It smashed the previous record by some margin, held by Kurt Cobain’s MTV Unplugged Martin D-18E, which sold for just over $6M in 2020. The value of Gilmour’s Strat has more than tripled since 2019, when Jim Irsay purchased it for $3,975,000.

David Gilmour’s famous Black Strat needs no introduction. Purchased at auction for $3.9m in 2019, at the time the guitar was the most expensive ever sold

But that was far from the only multi-million dollar sale. In fact, the auction saw five of the top 10 most expensive guitars ever sold at auction – in a single day.

Eric Clapton’s iconic 1964 Gibson SG Standard “The Fool” also hit the auction block, and sold for just over $3 million, way above its $800,000 – $1.2 million estimate. That’s also a considerable markup, after Jim Irsay added the guitar to his collection in 2023 for $1.27 million. “The Fool” – named after the Dutch design collective that did its artwork, was used extensively by Clapton during his time in Cream.

Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images / Christie’s

The Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia’s custom-built “Tiger” electric guitar also demolished its estimate, fetching a final sale price of $11,560,000 – way above its $1m – 2m estimate.

Irsay purchased Jerry Garcia’s Tiger for $957,500 in 2002. Built by luthier Doug Irwin, it was the Grateful Dead star’s main guitar from 1979 onwards and in 1995 was the last guitar he ever played in public

The Fender Mustang used by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain in the Smells Like Teen Spirit music video was only the third highest-selling guitar from the auction at $6.9 million, but still above the previous record holder for the most expensive guitar ever, Cobain’s MTV Unplugged Martin D-18E.

Credit: Christie’s

Another guitar once belonging to Eric Clapton – his Martin 000-42 acoustic used for his 1992 MTV Unplugged performance – sold for $4.1 million, way over its $800,000 – $1.2 million estimate.

The updated list of the top 10 most expensive guitars ever sold can be seen below, with the new entries following the first day of the Jim Irsay Collection in bold:

1. David Gilmour’s Black Fender Stratocaster – $14,550,000
2. Jerry Garcia’s “Tiger” guitar – $11,560,000
3. Kurt Cobain’s Smells Like Teen Spirit Fender Mustang – $6,907,000
4. Kurt Cobain’s MTV Unplugged Martin D-18E – $6,010,000
5. Eric Clapton’s MTV Unplugged Martin 000-42 – $4,101,000
6. Eddie Van Halen’s Hot For Teacher Kramer – $3,932,000
7. Eric Clapton’s “The Fool” 1964 Gibson SG Standard – $3,003,000
8. John Lennon’s Framus Hootenanny 12-string – $2,857,000
9. Eddie Van Halen’s 1982 Kramer – $2,734,000
10. “Reach Out to Asia” Fender Stratocaster – $2,700,000

Other notable sales from the first day of the Jim Irsay Collection included David Gilmour’s Wish You Were Here Martin D-35 ($2,393,000), The Edge’s Gibson Explorer Reissue ($635,000), George Harrison’s 1964 Gibson SG Standard ($2,271,000), John Lennon’s Paperback Writer/Rain Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins ($1,270,000), Lennon’s stage-played ‘Rose-Morris’ Rickenbacker ($1,270,000) and Janis Joplin’s Gibson J-45 ($381,000).

A number of non-guitar items also fetched large sums, including John Lennon’s Broadwood upright piano, which brought in $3,247,000 – well over its $400,000 – $600,000 estimate – Miles Davis’s Martin Committee trumpet ($1,651,000) and The Beatles’ logo drum head used on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 ($2,881,000).

All in all, day one of the Jim Irsay Collection auction brought in $84,091,350.

You can take a look at all the final sales figures from day one of the Jim Irsay Collection auction at Christie’s. The auction continues today – you can preview what’s hitting the auction block now.

The post The Jim Irsay Collection saw five of the top 10 most expensive guitars ever sold at auction in a single day appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$1,399, rivoltaguitars.com

If you’re reading this, you probably already know about Dennis Fano: the man who created two of the most respected and revered boutique electric guitar brands of the last few decades – first with his own name and more recently under the Novo marque.

• READ MORE: Eastman Fullertone Offset ’62 review – “it has a unique sonic voice and retro feel all of its own”

There’s a compelling argument to make that in terms of electric guitars, nobody on earth knows how to make a better playing, better sounding instrument than him – as the monster waiting lists and remarkably consistent resale values of Novo and Fano guitars will attest. The problem is that even on the used market, you’re veering into ‘half-decent used car’ territory – and very few of us are whispering “Treat Yo Self…” at the prospect of dropping five grand on a guitar, no matter how good we’ve been.

Mercifully for those of us not burdened with an overabundance of paper, there’s Rivolta – the brand partnership between Fano and purveyors of affordable, quirky guitars Eastwood, which celebrates its 10-year anniversary this year.

In the beginning, Rivolta was a place where Fano could get weird and explore some of his most esoteric ideas – full-length block inlays! Weirdo top carves! Baritones! – but over the years the brand has evolved.

Rivolta is still a place where Fano can take big risks design-wise – last year’s gloriously unique Forma series being a perfect example – but here in 2026, some of the more polarising edges have gradually been shaved off to create something that’s a lot more universal.

This has never been more overt than in the brand new Mondata CC – and in terms of the overall package of aesthetics and functionality, it might be the most compelling Rivolta yet.

Image: Adam Gasson

Rivolta Mondata CC – what is it?

The magic of Rivolta was always found as much in who designed them as who made them. Despite being made alongside Eastwood’s other guitars in Korea, Rivolta guitars added a level of refinement and quality borrowed from Fano’s US-made instruments.

The rub was that there were always some eccentric elements to the design and functionality that meant that these guitars didn’t become as popular as they deserved to be – the Mondata CC might well be the guitar to change that.

Because, for starters, just fucking look at it. Dennis Fano has built a career doing marvellous and unique things with offset shapes, but the Mondata in its CC form is something special. Stripped of the extraneous switches, elaborately over the top pickguards and polarising headstock combos that have been a fixture of the model (and the Rivolta line) since it debuted in baritone form half a decade ago, now replaced with an understated elegance across the board.

Most notably, instead of the usual three-a-side angular headstock, we get the beautifully proportioned stepped six-in-a-line number seen on the original Fano-branded instruments, and the first Rivolta Regata semi-hollow model.

I cannot overstate what an improvement this makes to the guitar’s overall look – combined with the majestic body shape, it feels complete and considered in a way that no other Rivolta guitar has before it.

Speaking of the Simarouba body, the Mondata’s raised central block has always nodded to the guitar’s Firebird inspiration. But here, with a simple understated pickguard, Gibson-style four-controls and a three-way switch wiring, tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece, and of course those mini-humbuckers, that spirit is in full effect. The finest compliment I can give this guitar from a visual perspective is that it looks more like a lost classic from the Kalamazoo drawing board than what Gibson actually found in Ted McCarty’s filing cabinets.

Image: Adam Gasson

Unlike a Firebird, however, the Mondata CC is a more traditionally set-necked instrument, with a scale length that’s bang on 25 inches – splitting the difference between Gibson and Fender is a theme we will come back to, I suspect.

That neck is of the one-piece roasted maple variety – a recipe Fano has used almost exclusively for Novo guitars over the last decade or so – though you wouldn’t be able to tell as it’s sprayed with a caramel satin finish that fits nicely with the rest of the guitar’s gloss tobacco burst.

You get an ebony fretboard that’s bound with white plastic, and a generous complement of 24 medium jumbo frets. The ‘board’s edges are factory rolled, while the 12-inch radius will make any Gibson fan feel right at home. The inlays are Rivolta’s own pearloid ‘MOTO’ style – that’s rounded off blocks to you and me. I’ll admit I don’t love these as much as I’d love dots or regular blocks, but they’re about as inoffensive as quirky inlays can be.

Equally inoffensive is the set of quality Wilkinson tuners keeping things in check on the peghead. Those vintage Fender-style buttons further add to the hybrid vibe of the whole thing.

The pair of mini-humbuckers are Rivolta’s own design, and the output measured 6.5k at the bridge and 7.5k in the neck. There’s no case as standard, but you can add a custom-fit premium gigbag for an extra $100 or a wooden hard case for $200.

Image: Adam Gasson

Rivolta Mondata CC – build quality and playability

The first thing to note about the Mondata CC is that this is a pretty big guitar for a solidbody: as evidenced by the fact that it pretty much obscures every trace of my trusty Jazzmaster when I rest the Mondata on top of it for comparison’s sake. This is worth remembering because it’s also impressively lightweight for such a chonky boi – barely tipping 7lbs on my trusty luggage scale.

This is no doubt down to the use of Simarouba for the guitar’s body. This South American wood is quite an uncommon tonewood, but it’s notably less dense than most traditional timbers used in guitar building, giving it a lower overall weight. The more classic and familiar pickup, electronics and hardware arrangement no doubt contributes to this too – there are no extraneous pots, switches or a vibrato here to add mass. It’s a well-balanced guitar both on the strap and on the lap too, with no noticeable dip at either end. The rear body contour on the top also makes it a more ergonomic and enjoyable instrument when played seated.

When I reviewed the Forma series, I enthused at length about Rivolta’s wonderfully characterful necks – and the Mondata gives me another excuse to rabbit on about it. Novo guitars might have the most wonderfully playable necks in the business, and Fano has clearly brought that knowledge to bear here.

I’m so used to mass-produced guitars having necks that simply exist in the middle ground of generic inoffensive usability, it feels almost subversive to make a guitar at this price point with a neck that reminds you that actually, a guitar’s neck is designed to enable a meaningful and organic connection between player and instrument.

Quite how the Rivolta Chunky C+ neck carve does this is quite hard to quantify – it’s not slim, it’s not a baseball bat… it’s just… right? At every point up the neck it feels like the connection is meaty enough to feel secure, without ever feeling like you’re having to wrestle with it. It’s really quite some feat of craftsmanship to do this at scale.

The general playability is helped by that new super smooth satin-finished neck (a real improvement over the gloss on the Formas), some nicely rounded ‘board edges, immaculately installed and polished frets, and a body shape that allows excellent upper fret access, should you be that way inclined.

It’s a similar story all over really – the finish and build quality is first class, internal wiring is neat and tidy, and everything feels solid, dependable and ready to take on the road. There’s nothing here that would instantly hint that this was a guitar made in Korea and not the USA, bar that price tag – and that’s a very good thing indeed.

Image: Adam Gasson

Rivolta Mondata CC – build quality and playability

It’s worth noting out of the gate that, despite appearances and the lack of adjustable poles, the pickups here are listed as mini-humbuckers and are not the same as Firebird pickups. You might wonder why I’m splitting hairs here, but traditional ’Bird pickups do have quite a different kind of construction to a mini-humbucker – with alnico bars set in the bobbins themselves, and steel reflector plates on the top and bottom.

This is what gives Firebird pickups their distinctive single-coil-esque quality – albeit without the hum, of course. Mini-humbuckers are constructed much more like traditional buckers, just smaller, and so have more in common with their big brothers – albeit with some sonic differences.

Plugging in the Mondata CC, you can readily tell this out of the gate – but that doesn’t detract from it being a rather glorious experience. Mini-buckers tend to offer the grunt and power of a full-sized bucker but with increased clarity and high-end response, and flicking the three-way toggle switch to the bridge position and running it through a dirty Marshall Plexi, you’ll find the sort of unrestrained fun that respectable people would no doubt disapprove of.

Interestingly, given the snarl and grunt at play here, I find the bridge pickup uncommonly usable when cleaning things up too – it’s strident, sure, but without the piercing nature that a lot of bridge buckers can offer.

Switching to the neck and there’s an enjoyable woodiness to proceedings, but without the darkness that you’d normally find from a neck humbucker. It’s more like swimming in maple syrup than molasses if that makes any sense? It’s thick, it’s warm, but you don’t feel like you’re losing too much of the inherent character of your sound.

The middle splits the difference between the two nicely, offering a punchy, insistent sound with a soupçon of fluteyness – it’s again very usable. While this isn’t a guitar that’s going to offer you glassy, Fender-style cleans, there’s a quality spectrum of Gibson-adjacent tones to be found in here.

Image: Adam Gasson

Rivolta Mondata CC – should I buy one?

It’s increasingly rare in this job when a guitar comes across my desk that has me looking at my guitar rack and having some genuine hard internal conversations about which one of my treasured instruments is going to have to have a new home under the bed in the immediate future.

But the Mondata CC has been making me do those equations virtually since the moment I pulled it out of its box. I’ve played some really impressive mid-priced guitars over the last few years, and while there’s no doubt that the Mondata CC is not the most inexpensive Korean-made instrument you can buy, it might very well be the best.

The only hair I can really split is the fact that at the moment it’s only available in a single finish – imagine this guitar in Pelham Blue, Shoreline Gold or some of the other legendary DuPont metallic shades? The lack of an included gigbag or case also feels a little on the mean side. It’s certainly not the cheapest guitar you’ll find coming out of Korea either, but if you want a fantastic-sounding, elite-playing, rock-ready guitar that stands out from the crowd, you need to check this out.

Image: Adam Gasson

Rivolta Mondata CC – alternatives

An even more affordable Asian-made guitar that’s seeking to offer a killer blend of unique looks and high-quality characterful build is Eastman Fullertone Offset ’62 ($999 / £899) – it’s a killer guitar for the price. If you want real Firebird mojo then Gibson’s new Firebird Platypus ($2,499 / £2,199) is a very cool, USA-made option. Another USA-made offset guitar that’s more in the ballpark of the Mondata is the PRS S2 Vela ($2,049 / £1,699) – it’s a stripped-down, no frills thing, but personally that’s part of the charm.

The post Rivolta Mondata CC review: sets a new standard for what a mass-produced offshore guitar can be appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

What price for a piece of bona fide rock ‘n’ roll history? Well, if that piece happens to be an iconic guitar used by an equally iconic guitar player, then the last few decades have demonstrated that price is ‘an awful lot indeed’ – especially if that guitar has been sold at auction.

• READ MORE: Why the sale of Jim Irsay’s Greatest Guitar Collection On Earth is a sad moment in guitar history

In the decades since Eric Clapton’s iconic Blackie Strat was purchased by Guitar Center for just shy of a million dollars, more and more legendary guitar players have put their collections under the hammer, and it’s led to increasingly outlandish sums being paid for some of the most iconic guitars in rock.

The 2024 auction of Mark Knopfler’s guitars at Christie’s saw some practically every lot smash its estimate, but despite that the most iconic item of the day – a 1983 Gibson Les Paul Standard that the Dire Straits legend used to write and record Money For Nothing and Brothers In Arms – smashing its $19,000 estimate and selling for a whopping $753,231 (£592,200), it wasn’t enough to make it onto our list (in fact it wasn’t even the biggest seller of the day, with a Burst Knopfler bought in 1999 selling for a massive $880,186).

Even Blackie itself – once the benchmark for outrageously expensive electric guitars, no longer occupies a place in the top 15 most expensive guitars sold at auction, falling out of the list in June 2024. It shows how wildly the market for rock star guitars has inflated in the last few years.

The seemingly endless appetite for rich folks to pay increasingly outlandish sums for iconic instruments has meant that several guitars have appeared on our list for a short time before dropping off. Bob Dylan’s ‘Newport Folk Festival’ Strat, the guitar used when the folk messiah turned “Judas” with an electric band on 25 July 1965 sold for $965,000 in 2013 and had a home on our list, but not anymore.

Bob Dylan’s ‘Newport’ Strat. (Image: Eleanor Jane)

Another guitar to fall off the list was Rory Gallagher’s iconic 1962 Stratocaster – which barely lasted three months on the list before being unseated in January 2025. Another brief entrant into the list was Jeff Beck’s ‘Anoushka’ Fender Custom Shop Strat – it barely lasted 10 months on our list but holds the distinction of being a rare non-vintage artist instrument that cracked the million dollar mark.

Also not making it into the list are some of the most iconic guitars of all time that never made it to auction. It’s almost impossible to confirm private sale figures, so the rumours that Kirk Hammett paid $2 million for Greeny – the 1959 Les Paul previously owned by Peter Green and Gary Moore – or that the late Microsoft founder Paul Allen paid $1.3m back in 1993 for Hendrix’s Woodstock Strat will have to remain just that: rumours.

The most seismic change in this list came in March 2026, however, when the collection of late Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay came to auction at Christie’s in New York. We had christened Irsay’s collection ‘The Greatest Guitar Collection On Earth‘ when we got an up-close look at it in 2022 – and many of the guitars already featured on our list, having been bought by Irsay for huge sums at auction.

It was perhaps no surprise then that the sale completely redrew the landscape of rock star guitars at auction, with nearly half of our top 15 guitars being moved or replaced in one crazy afternoon. We’ve entered the age of the eight-figure rock star guitar – and these are the most expensive ones of the lot.

 

15 David Gilmour’s 1954 Fender Stratocaster $1,815,000

The Pink Floyd man’s second most iconic Strat is the one steeped in the most controversy – for years people assumed that the serial number #0001 meant it was the first Strat ever made. Instead, it turns out that #0100 was actually first, but this is still one of the first pre-production Strat prototypes ever made. The fact that this guitar is also laying down the rhythm parts on Another Brick In The Wall Pt 2 only further adds to this guitar’s legend.

It was sold in 2019 when Gilmour auctioned off a huge amount of his iconic gear for charity – it’s the first guitar from that sale we’ll see in this article, but it won’t be the last…

14 Jerry Garcia’s Wolf Guitar $1,900,000 (2017)

The Grateful Dead guitarist loved weird and heavily customised guitars, and this one made by luthier Doug Irwin, is perhaps the most eccentric guitar the late guitarist owned (though not the most expensive…), with a body made of ultra-strong purpleheart, capped back and front with bookmatched maple.

The guitar also features an innovative plate system for mounting the pickups, which allowed Garcia to swap them from their original SSS configuration to the HHS it currently sports. The Wolf was auctioned in 2017 with proceeds benefiting the Southern Poverty Law Center.

13 George Harrison’s ‘Revolver’ Gibson SG $2,271,000 (2026)

George Harrison acquired this 1964 SG Standard in 1966 and it quickly became a studio favourite, featuring on Revolver (Photo: Eleanor Jane)

The most expensive Beatles electric guitar ever sold at auction isn’t one of the iconic Gretsch and Rickenbacker guitars that John Lennon and George Harrison used to such seismic effect in their early career, instead its this humble-looking SG that became a real favourite of Harrison in the studio in the later part of their career, and was used particularly heavily on the peerless Revolver.

The guitar was part of Jim Irsay’s enviable collection of Beatles gear, which also included a pair of John Lennon-owned electrics – a Rickenbacker and a Gretsch. All three were sold at Christie’s in March 2026, and while the Lennon guitars went for exactly the same figure ($1,27m) this one pipped them to the post, and sneaked onto our list.

12 David Gilmour’s Martin D-35 $2,393,000 (2026)

The first guitar to have the distinction of dropping out of our list and then jumping back onto it later, this guitar was originally sold for $1,095,000 in 2019, when it was bought by Irsay, but then catapulted back onto the list in 2026 and more than doubling its previous price. And it’s honestly not hard to understand why this special guitar was so in demand. This 1969 D-35 is, of course, the sound of Wish You Were Here – we certainly wish we could afford it…

11 John Lennon’s 1962 Gibson J-160E $2,410,000 (2015)

John Lennon tuning his Gibson J-160E during the filming of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’. Image: Max Scheler – K & K/Redferns via Getty Image

With its electric-like volume and tone knobs and the pole pieces of a P-90 pickup rather artlessly sticking through the top between the neck and soundhole, the J-160E wasn’t Gibson’s most elegant design, but it was the perfect instrument for young songwriters craving amplification in the early 60s, including a couple of cats called John Lennon and George Harrison. This particular J-160E can be heard on Love Me Do and continued to be a favoured acoustic for Lennon throughout his career.

10 ‘Reach Out to Asia’ Fender Stratocaster $2,700,000 (2004)

Reach Out To Asia Stratocaster. Image: Fender Wiki

Something of a curio on this list, this guitar isn’t an iconic artist instrument at all, but rather a stock Mexican-made white Fender Stratocaster that just happens to have been signed by (deep breath) Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Brian May, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, Mark Knopfler, Ray Davies, Liam Gallagher, Ronnie Wood, Tony Iommi, Angus and Malcolm Young, Paul McCartney, Sting, Ritchie Blackmore, Def Leppard and organiser Bryan Adams. The guitar was auctioned off to help the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and certainly did its job.

9 Eddie Van Halen’s 1982 Kramer $2,734,000 (2025)

Image: Kramer

“It’s very simply the best guitar you can buy today”. If you’re a guitar player of a certain age, you probably remember flicking through a guitar magazine and being presented by a striking picture of Eddie Van Halen, guitar in hand, lit cigarette tucked under his E string alonside this quote. It’s one of the most memorable and iconic guitar ads ever, and one that certainly did the Kramer brand no harm in the early 80s when EVH was at his most godlike pomp – the brand briefly became America’s biggest guitar brand off the back of this in the middle of the decade.

The guitar used in that shoot was a custom Kramer modelled on Eddie’s iconic ‘Frankenstein’ guitar – but with a striped Kramer ‘hockey stick’ headstock – and was also used for various shows in 1982 and 1983. Then later on in the decade, he gifted the guitar to his tech Rudy Leiren, and it still bears the autograph “Rude – it’s been a great ten years – let’s do another ten. Eddie Van Halen”.

Leiren sold the guitar to Mötley Crüe’s Mick Mars, who would use the guitar extensively on the band’s Dr. Feelgood record.  The guitar would later come to be auctioned at Sotheby’s with a massive $2 million estimate – a sign that expectations for iconic artist instruments are catching up with demand – but it still smashed through that. It’s not the most expensive Van Halen guitar on our list however…

8 John Lennon’s Framus Hootenanny 12-string $2,857,000 (2024)

Credit: Julien’s Auctions

The guitar that was famously used on Help! and its accompanying album was thought lost to the sands of time for decades, until it was found in by the new owners of a house in the British countryside when they were clearing out the attic. The guitar was given to Scottish guitarist Gordon Waller, half of the pop duo Peter and Gordon, and then later handed over to one of his road managers, but the guitar hadn’t been seen in public for over 50 years.

The guitar, which is seen being used by Lennon in the Help! movie during the performance of You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, was also used by Lennon to record It’s Only Love, I’ve Just Seen a Face and Girl, and by George Harrison for the rhythm track of Norwegian Wood. Before the auction in May 2024, there was speculation the guitar might end up becoming the most expensive ever sold at auction, but in the end the Framus had to settle for being the most expensive Beatles instrument ever, eclipsing Lennon’s J-160E (above).

7 Eric Clapton’s ‘Fool’ 1964 Gibson SG $3,003,000 (2026)

Eric Clapton’s Fool guitar at the media preview for Julien’s “Played, worn, torn rock ‘n’ roll iconic guitars and memorabilia” in 2023. Image: Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images

Perhaps Eric Clapton’s most distinctive instrument also has the distinction of being Slowhand’s most expensive electric sold at auction – twice! Hailing from Clapton’s Cream era, the Fool is celebrated as an enduring symbol of the psychedelic era in music, the 1964 Gibson SG earned its name from the Dutch art collective that gave it its striking finish. Sunshine of Your Love, White Room, I Feel Free… Clapton’s iconic Woman tone is all this guitar.

It was sold at auction in 2023 for $1,27m by Jim Irsay, but when it returned to the market in 2026 it smashed its estimates and eventually went for $3,003,000. It’s not the most expensive Eric Clapton guitar ever sold, however…

6 Eddie Van Halen’s Hot For Teacher Kramer $3,932,000 (2023)

Credit: Sotheby’s

Eddie Van Halen’s guitar designs have become almost as iconic as the man himself, but with most of EVH’s most iconic gear still treasured by his family, it’s rare for a bona fide EVH guitar to make it onto the open market. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that interest in this guitar, used by Eddie in the Hot For Teacher video, was so high – and the price tag followed suit.

5 Eric Clapton’s ‘MTV Unplugged’ Martin 000-42 $4,101,000 (2026)

Eric Clapton played this 1939 Martin 000-42 during his MTV Unplugged performance in 1992 (Photo: Eleanor Jane)

The impact of MTV’s Unplugged series on the popular perception of the guitar is hard to understate, and as we’ll see more than once on this list, the impact of these concerts clearly resonates with collectors, too. Eric Clapton’s legendary Unplugged performance, and its accompanying platinum-selling album not only revitalised Clapton’s career, it had a huge impact on the popularity of the acoustic guitar in general.

The 000-42 that Clapton played for the performance is hugely important in a variety of ways – Martin credit it with revitalising interest in the 000-sized guitar overnight, while it also inspired the company’s most successful and long-running signature model. Irsay bought the guitar for under a million dollars back in the day, but it smashed expectations to become the second most expensive acoustic of all time in 2026.

Kurt Cobain performing with his Martin D-18E during Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged. Image: Frank Micelotta Archive/Getty Images

4 Kurt Cobain’s Martin D-18E $6,010,000 (2020)

From one Unplugged moment to another! If there’s one Kurt Cobain guitar moment that’s become even more iconic than the Teen Spirit video, it’s Nirvana’s incredible, bittersweet performance on MTV Unplugged. Kurt bought the D-18E in 1992 at Voltage Guitars in Los Angeles, and it’s a rare bird for Martin guitars in that it came out of the factory with the DeArmond pickups, but Kurt disliked their sound and had it modded with a Bartolini 3AV soundhole pickup.

The guitar was left to Kurt’s daughter Francis Bean, and then ended up with her ex-husband Isaiah Silva as part of their divorce settlement. The guitar was purchased by RØDE Microphones founder, Peter Freedman in 2020 and topped our list for the best part of half a decade – until the 2026 Irsay auction redrew the map somewhat.

3 Kurt Cobain’s Smells Like Teen Spirit Fender Mustang $6,907,000 (2026)

The Fender Mustang used by Kurt Cobain in the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ music video on display at Hard Rock Cafe in Piccadilly Circus, 2022. Image: Rob Pinney/Getty Images

What does an iconic moment in guitar history cost? About seven million dollars? It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Smells Like Teen Spirit music video changed the world, and in it Kurt Cobain is playing a rather fetching but typically unconventional lefty Lake Placid Blue Mustang with a competition strip – 1.5 billion YouTube views and countless hours of MTV airtime later, its place in the pop culture firmament was assured.

Ironically, the guitar wasn’t really one of Kurt’s favourites, only really getting a run-out live on a few other occasions but its place in the Teen Spirit video assured its place in rock history, and in the Jim Irsay collection in 2022 when it was sold for $4,550,000. Interestingly, when the Irsay sale was announced, this guitar had the largest estimated sale price of $2.5-5m. While it comfortably smashed that, it ended up being outshone on the night by two less heralded instruments…

2 Jerry Garcia’s ‘Tiger’ $11,560,000 (2026)

Image: Eleanor Jane

Over the last few years, the magic of the Grateful Dead has been experienced by an entire new generation. Fuelled by the popularity of the John Mayer-aided Dead & Co tours, Deadheads are arguably more numerous and passionate than they have been at any point since Jerry Garcia’s passing in 1995. The sad passing of Bob Weir earlier this year, and the global outpouring of love that has followed reminding us all of the enduring power of the band and its music.

Tiger was built for Garcia by luthier Doug Irwin, and it became his main guitar from 1979 onwards. It was also the last guitar he ever played in public before his death in 1995. Irsay bought Tiger for $957,500 in 2002, and all of the above combined to make those in the know raise eyebrows at the relatively modest $1-2m estimate at the Irsay sale in 2026.

But even they were gobsmacked by how much it eventually went for – $11,560,000 made it the second most expensive guitar of all time, and the second ever guitar to reach eight figures at auction. The power of the Dead endures, clearly.

1 David Gilmour’s Black Fender Stratocaster $14,550,000 (2026)

Image: Eleanor Jane

The Black Strat is David Gilmour’s most iconic guitar and is also one that’s been heavily modified over the years – bought from Manny’s Music in New York, this 1968 model was originally Sunburst but had been refinished in Black by the time Gilmour bought it in 1970. It originally had a maple neck with a late-60s big headstock, but throughout the 70s Gilmour frequently swapped between two 50s necks, one with rosewood and maple.

That wasn’t the end – over the decades since the pickups, tuners, pots, trem and scratchplate have all been swapped, and in fact it’s now estimated that the only original parts of the guitar remaining are the body, selector switch and (maybe) the bridge plate. Despite this, the Black Strat remains Gilmour’s most iconic instrument – the sound of Money, Comfortably Numb and scores more.

Despite its status as effectively the most important and iconic partscaster of all time, that didn’t stop it reaching a world record sum when it first sold in 2019 for $3.9m and became the crown jewel of the Jim Irsay Collection.

In the following years it would have its title usurped by a pair of Kurt Cobain guitars, but the 2026 Irsay auction didn’t just cement the guitar’s status as the most valuable guitar on earth – it completely redrew the map. The gasps as the guitar sailed past $10 million were audible in the Christie’s New York sale room, as the guitar finally sold for a scarcely believable $14,550,000. Where do we go from here? Well, if the last decade is anything to go by, the only way is up…

 

Editor’s note: this article was first published on 1 February 2024 and most recently updated on 13 March 2026. All figures below are converted into US Dollars and were correct at time of auction and not adjusted for inflation. 

The post The 15 Most Expensive Guitars Sold At Auction appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

David Gilmour’s most famous and iconic guitar once again owns the title of the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction, nearly than tripling the previous record by selling for $14,550,000 including fees.

• READ MORE: Up close with Jim Irsay’s guitars: the greatest guitar collection on Earth

Today’s Jim Irsay Collection auction at Christie’s in New York was always likely to reset the market for rock star guitars at auction – we dubbed it the world’s greatest guitar collection in 2022, after all.

But with an estimated price of $2-4,000,000, even wild estimates would never have imagined that the guitar – which was bought at auction by the late Indianapolis Colts owner for $3,975,000 in 2019 – would command such an unprecedented price.

All images: Eleanor Jane

The sale makes the Black Strat not only the world’s most expensive guitar again, it more than doubles the previous record held by Kurt Cobain’s Martin D-18E which he used on Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance.

That guitar was sold for $6,010,000 in 2020, though interestingly another Kurt Cobain guitar that was also part of the sale and expected to fetch the highest price did relatively modestly by comparison.

Kurt’s Smells Like Teen Spirit video Mustang held the record for the most expensive electric guitar going into the sale, having sold for $4,550,000 in 2022. It sold in the end for ‘only’ $6,907,000.

That still wasn’t good enough for the silver medal on the night however, as another rock star guitar came out of nowhere to become the second most expensive guitar sold at auction.

Irsay purchased Jerry Garcia’s Tiger for $957,500 in 2002. Built by luthier Doug Irwin, it was the Grateful Dead star’s main guitar from 1979 onwards and in 1995 was the last guitar he ever played in public

Interest in the Grateful Dead has exploded over the last few years, and so perhaps it’s no surprise that Jerry Garcia’s legendary Tiger guitar would comfortably beat its $1-2m estimate.

For it to fetch an astounding $14,560,000 however? That certainly wasn’t on the script for the evening.

The sale also saw Eric Clapton’s “Fool” SG sell for a little over $3m, while a treasure trove of Beatles gear also fetched big sums – most notably George Harrison’s Paperback Writer SG which sold for $2,271,000.

The post David Gilmour’s Black Strat is the world’s most expensive guitar again – selling for a staggering $14,550,000 appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Gibson’s long-standing Songwriter series has welcomed two new acoustics to its lineup. Designed to be the perfect tool for studio recording sessions, the Recording Artist and cut-away variant Recording Artist EC promise to be the perfect way to capture Gibson’s classic tone with a “modern, professional” polish.

Handcrafted in Bozeman, Montant from thermally aged Sitka spruce tops, rosewood backs and sides, and long-scale mahogany necks, the Recording Artist and Recording Artist EC have been designed with reliable studio-worthy clarity in mind.

With their 25.5” scale length and combination of tonewoods, both guitars harnessing the essence of the 1936 Advanced Jumbo – resulting in a rich, warm and balanced Gibson sound.

• READ MORE: Rich Robinson on why the Black Crowes channeled the spirit of “20-year-olds showing the f**k off” on their new album

Both guitars also boast a bound headstock with a rosewood veneer, classily inlaid with the Gibson logo and crown. The guitars also have a bone nut, while gold Grover open-back tuners add a premium feel to the instrument. Then there’s an ebony bridge with a bone saddle, TUSQ bridge pins, and mother-of-pearl arrow inlays.

Credit: Gibson

Elsewhere, both models also employ an L.R. Baggs HiFi electronics system, which features dual bridge plate sensors and an internal preamp to help provide you with a natural acoustic tone. Soundhole-mounted volume and tone controls are also in place to keep your controls discreet, but still easy to access.

Visually, the guitars also opt for timeless Rosewood Burst and Antique Natural finishes. The top also has a tortoise pickguard, while the sound-hole is framed by an abalone rosette.

Credit: Gibson

Whether you’re opting for the Songwriter Recording Artist or the Songwriter Recording Artist EC, you’ll be getting the same quality build. The primary difference is the EC’s cutaway – so you can opt for either model that allows you to feel most comfortable playing without sacrificing that rich Gibson voice. They also both cost $4,999, so you wont have to splash out more on a certain model, either.

Both the Songwriter Recording Artist and Songwriter Recording Artist EC are available now for $4,999. For more information, head to Gibson.

The post Gibson expands its Songwriter line with new Recording Artist and Recording Artist EC models appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

At the beginning of my career, I made a lot of mistakes. The beginning is the time for it. If you’re lucky, and you are surrounded by enough good people (as I thankfully was), you begin to learn what’s important and replace the mental noise with hard work.

Buried in the center of all the mental stuff is, for a lot of bass players, the inevitable pursuit of sound through gear. Sometimes it’s totally justified; other times it’s what has become known as GAS: Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

In those early years, I knew nothing about gear. I had very little of it. Maybe three or four basses and a total of two pedals and a tuner. (The EBS Octabass and a Boss Chorus, for anyone wondering.)

If you know anything about me now, almost 30 years later, you literally can’t move in my studio for pedals. Sometimes I grab a gig bag out of the closet to go to a gig and find a bass inside that I forgot I owned. This isn’t a flex; this is just to highlight how things have changed, how absurd they have become, and to perhaps lend some validity to what I want to talk about today, considering the amount of experience (good and bad) I’ve had with gear.

My good friend Ian Martin Allison, who you may know from Scott’s Bass Lessons or from countless recordings and tours, recently collaborated with Walrus Audio on a preamp/DI, the Mantle. I was fortunate enough to receive an advance unit to check out and give feedback on. I posted an episode of my podcast featuring it, and the outrage at the price point of the Mantle is on a level I haven’t experienced before on my channel.

It’s fascinating to see how far the algorithm has come in terms of brainwashing us into thinking we either need, or deserve, every new thing that is announced, regardless of whether it makes any sense for what we do, and more importantly, regardless of what our personal means are. People look at the price, know they can’t afford it, and immediately accuse the company of greed, all the while having never used it, never been involved in R&D, and with no experience of the artist/brand relationship.

I was very careful on my podcast to highlight the fact that there are a multitude of entry points into the world of preamps, and at $749, this latest one might not be the thing for you, no matter how much FOMO you think you might have or how much you love the way it sounds.

I really like how the Bugatti Chiron looks, and boy would it be a special moment to be able to drive one and experience engineering that is incomprehensible to most of humankind. But the $4-million-plus price tag lets me know it’s not for me, that I should appreciate it from afar, and reminds me my Mazda (at 0.63 percent of the cost) still has four wheels, AC, Bluetooth, and gets me where I need to go in quite some comfort.

“Not only do you probably not need the latest, most expensive thing on the market, you really don’t need to be mad about its price.”

I think the internet has changed the way we bass players chase things like sound, and a healthy dose of awareness could not only save you a ton of money but get you to the thing that is actually right for you. Is it a unit that is $749 (Mantle), $1,400 (Noble Preamp DI), or $449 (JHS Colour Box)? It could well be. If that is the case, and you are a professional who requires high-quality gear that you will actually use, then fantastic. Question asked, question answered.

If your budget doesn’t allow for that right away, definitely try to have the patience to save until it does so that you buy once and cry once. Patience now for a short period of financial pain and a lifetime of happiness with your sound.

Is your budget sub-$300? This is also great information, and you have so many options for bass preamps. I used the EP Booster from Xotic for years. I think I paid $100 for it used and still have it to this day. Want more EQ options and a DI? MXR Bass Preamp at $189. Want an industry-standard DI that will never die? Radial Engineering JDI for $260.

This isn’t a commercial piece for any of the aforementioned companies or products. It’s just a heads up that not only do you probably not need the latest, most expensive thing on the market, you really don’t need to be mad about its price. If we can start asking bigger questions about our own needs and means, we’ll be able to shut out the mental load marketing algorithms place on our decision-making process and live a far more streamlined existence with the absolute best gear for us.

When it comes to gear, Josh Homme is known to opt for the “underdog”. And in a new interview with Guitar World, the Queens of the Stone Age frontman recalls the time he showed one of his rigs – a Yamaha hollowbody bass into a Peavey Decade practice amp – to his Them Crooked Vultures bandmate, former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, and his reaction that followed.

“I showed the Decade to John Paul Jones when we were in Them Crooked Vultures,” Homme says. “I have this Yamaha hollowbody bass with flatwounds on it, which I call Lame-aha. Instead of a pickup switch, it’s a volume knob, so you’re on the spectrum of which pickup you’re using. I said, ‘Try that with the Decade and a Coles ribbon mic.’”

• READ MORE: Josh Homme says “you have to be willing to lose your fans sometimes” when writing new music

Jones was bewildered. “He laughed – and I love that, because the looks are deceiving,” Homme explains. “You’re like, ‘What is this entire piece-of-shit setup?’ Then he played it. It was fun to see him go from giggling about how shitty something looks to complete joy. It’s fun to do that to people and it’s fun to do that to yourself, too.”

Homme embraces the ‘shitty’ look, because he knows how good he can make ‘shit’ sound. It’s a mindset that keeps his sound unique, as well as intriguing audiences and peers alike. “You’re looking for any way, visually and sonically, to do something that nobody else is doing,” he explains. “Getting shit from people is the best thing that could happen. It made me think, ‘Never again will anyone ever say I sound like someone else…’”

As Homme puts it, his goal was that “within three seconds, you know it’s [him]”. The approach has been a constant through the Queens of the Stone Age’s three-decade run, even spanning back to his downtuned guitar work in Kyuss.

Employing quirky gear helps the process, and Homme has worked his way through countless pieces of rogue gear. “Anything is an amplifier to me,” he says. “I love playing out of old stereo tuners, old tape machines; anything with a speaker and a jack. With a Les Paul and a Marshall I know what’s going to happen there. Music is about matching your own evolution.”

“It’s hard not to want to get behind the underdog, because music is about being an outcast,” he continues. “All I need is insurmountable odds and I’m in. Give me your worst guitar, a boutique amp made in someone’s mom’s garage, and a pedal that’s not supposed to be there, and we’ve got something. When you do that, you instantly feel like these things are yours.”

Now, Homme has worked on reviving the Peavey Decade. The Peavey Decade Too “revives that voice and makes it accessible again” while removing the need to “hunt for vintage originals”.

Back in 2022, Acorn Amps transformed Homme’s Peavey Decade into a nifty pedal. The Solid State pedal serves as a “full circuit recreation” of the compact 10-watt practice amp.

The post “What is this entire piece-of-s**t setup?”: Josh Homme once showed his Peavey/Yamaha bass rig to John Paul Jones – this was his reaction appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

It’s hard to control your facial expression when you’re lost in the music. From blissfully closed eyes to rock-ready stank-faces, you can see when a musician is really in-tune with their instrument – and when they aren’t. Parliament-Funkadelic’s Michael Hampton in particular has been prone to look quite stone-faced if he isn’t ‘feeling the funk’ on-stage.

In a new interview with Mojo, he laughs about how his power-funk sound might have seemed at odds with his grumpy demeanour. “The way I may have come across on-stage, it might have been like I wasn’t having a good time,” he says. “[I might have looked] a little bit bored… because I can’t fake the funk, if I’m not feeling something.”

• READ MORE: Rich Robinson on why the Black Crowes channeled the spirit of “20-year-olds showing the f**k off” on their new album

Just as other guitarists can’t contain their excitement, he couldn’t contain his disinterest when he wasn’t in the mood to perform, or when the performance wasn’t feeling particularly magic. “I went as far as I could go and, you know, you get tired,” he explains. “Still to this day I’m not the one dancing around. I like to joke a bit but I’m pretty serious about playing. I just go with the flow and kind of stay in my lane.”

“Nowadays on tour, I’m not as loud as I would like to be, there’s a lot of vocals,” he continues. “I really miss the part of it when we’d crank up the amp all the way and do Cosmic Slop. But it’s another day and time. I’ll play Maggot Brain until I’m told, ‘Okay, it’s time to end it.’”

When the late Eddie Hazel stepped down from his Parliament-Funkadelic duties in 1971, the group quickly sought out his successor. They’d find the perfect guitarist in 17-year-old Michael Hampton, enlisting him to join the collective after witnessing him perform the 10-minute Maggot Brain solo at a Parliament-Funkadelic aftershow party.

Despite worries that he may have appeared “bored” onstage, his work with the band was anything but boring. Plenty of his time performing in Parliament-Funkadelic was electric and “spontaneous”, just like that first solo that convinced the gang to take him on board. “Everything’s pretty much a spontaneous surprise and it’s all inter-changeable,” he explains. “The last time we played [in 2025], it was good, you know?”

Michael Hampton’s Into The Public Domain EP is out now.

The post “I can’t fake the funk”: Parliament-Funkadelic guitarist on why he’s often looked so miserable on stage appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Changing pickups on an electric guitar is a surefire way to quickly shift the sound of your instrument, this know-how being very helpful for troubleshooting, repair and maintenance. This is a potentially expensive endeavour once you add up the prices of pickups themselves as well as the tech to install them, so a quick lesson on the basics can save you in the long run. A quick word of warning though, removing this barrier and furthering your knowledge will enable a deep dive into the tonal rabbit hole, one you may never escape from!

• READ MORE: How to tab a basic riff in Guitar Pro – the essential guide

First, be aware that this isn’t a step by step guide for absolute beginners to work their way through the process – think of it more as an overarching explanation of how and more importantly WHY it’s fun and interesting to do this job. With some helpful practical advice along the way of course.

Learning to solder is essential here, and unfortunately the best way to learn is to dive in. Your initial attempts might be messy, but you’ll learn how to work with the solder best. While I can’t hold your hand through the learning, I can set you on your path with this: tin your contact points for hot solder joints, buy a solder-sucker and don’t hold that dang iron on contacts for too long!

Getting Started

At its most basic level, a single pickup will have two wires connected to the magnets that pick-up the sound of your guitar strings. These two wires can serve as either your “hot” or “ground”, the “hot” carrying signal to the output jack and the “ground” being sent to ground. The output jack (often incorrectly cited as an input jack) features two terminals intended to mechanically connect these two wires to a cable (connected to pedals or an amp) to the hot and ground of your pickup. Everything else simply intercepts this initial connection.

When installing a new pickup, it can be as simple as tracing their connection to a pot or switch and de-soldering the old pickup to make way for the new pickup, after you’ve identified the hot and ground in your new pickup. This goes for switches, pots and anything else you might have jammed in that control cavity! Troubleshooting or augmenting your electric guitar, however, is where things get more complicated.

Pardon the pun, but these interceptors potentially include potentiometers to be used as volume and tone pots. These have three terminals that (when used as a volume control) serve as input, output and ground. Switches for toggling between pickups have connections for ground as well as a switch (usually blade-style or toggle) that switch between different hot connections. At its most basic level, this is guitar wiring in its entirety. Humbuckers act like two pickups connected (therefore usually have four wires), pots can be used for tone roll off frequencies for a warmer sound, and additional complex switching options like those in a Fender Jazzmaster or active pickup switching augment this basic connection principle.

In terms of signal flow, adding a potentiometer at the end of the chain, right before the output jack will serve as a master volume, as all signal is passing through it before output. However, a pot before a switch will only affect the signal before the pot, usually a single pickup, so this would be a dedicated volume for that pickup.

Fender Jazz Basses, for example, work in this way, where each pickup has a master volume and no switch, the sound summing at the output jack. A Les Paul on the other hand, features volume for each humbucker before a three-way toggle, so you can adjust the volume of each pickup independently and toggle between them or choose to engage both pickups (middle position) and blend.

How To Troubleshoot

When troubleshooting, understanding this signal flow can help find problem areas. For example in a two pickup guitar, if one pickup is working and not the other, the problem is most likely at the pickup stage, not at the master volume or output stage, otherwise both pickups wouldn’t be working. Conversely, if there’s no output at all, it’s most likely a master volume or failed connection at the output jack, rather than two pickups coincidently failing at once— though stranger things have happened!

Generally speaking in terms of wiring, pickups are either single coil or humbucking, the latter being two pickups wired out-of-phase with one another to cancel, or buck, the ground hum out of the signal. All grounds are still sent to ground, and all hot are still sent to hot terminals in your wiring, though be aware that different manufacturers colour code the wires differently.

Capacitors can also play a huge role in tone, being used to to turn potentiometers into tone pots. Instead of adjusting the volume output of the signal after the potentiometers, a capacitor controls how much high end bleeds out of the hot signal from the pot, allowing just the low end to continue on, reducing the treble of the signal.

Therefore, a tone pot on its ‘maximum’ setting is actually allowing the entire signal to pass, whereas turning it down allows more high end to filter out. The tone pot isn’t adding more treble, it’s just reducing it.

Overall, as confusing as schematics and control cavities can appear, it’s about tracing where the signal begins and where you want it to end up. At a basic level you’re connecting the pickup to the output jack, and everything else between it is auxiliary. Switches and toggles simply (usually) switch which hot signal flows onward to the output. Capacitors turn potentiometers into tone pots and they filter out high end from the main line, and your carefully crafted tone can flow onto pedals, amps, cabs and listener’s ears!

The post Stop wasting your money on professionals – here’s how to install a new guitar pickup yourself appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

“Any time we make a record, it’s like we’re taking a snapshot of where we’re at that particular time,” says Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton. “I think it’s inevitable that over the course of your career you start to understand what people respond to and what they don’t. But we’ve never chased the approval of anyone—not critics, not even our fans. We’ve always rallied very strongly around the idea that we’re making music for the five of us in this band. I mean, if we can’t get excited about what we’re doing, how can anybody else?”

For Morton, the process of gearing up for Lamb of God’s 10th studio album, Into Oblivion, involved a period of reflection. After the band (which also includes guitarist Willie Adler, bassist John Campbell, drummer Art Cruz, and singer Randy Blythe) finished their 2024 Ashes of the Wake 20th anniversary tour, he went through the group’s catalog and listened to a number of songs they had never performed live. “That kind of spun me off into thinking, ‘Who was I back then? Where was my head at when I was writing those songs?’” he says.

Morton decided to investigate further, and went down the rabbit hole of bands he listened to some 25 years ago, like Meshuggah, At the Gates, and the Haunted. But he didn’t stop at early 2000s Swedish death metal; he also reconnected with records by local bands from Lamb of God’s hometown of Richmond, Virginia. “I’m talking about Breadwinner and Sliang Laos and some other bands that never got the kind of notoriety they deserved,” he says. His listening binge then segued to old favorites like Fugazi and the Jesus Lizard. He notes, “We have a new song called ‘Sepsis’ that’s like the Jesus Lizard and Sliang Laos spun together in a modern metal song.”

Before hitting the studio with Lamb of God, Morton issued his second solo album, Without the Pain, an engaging and thoughtfully crafted Southern rock-tinged set that featured collaborations with Cody Jinks, Charlie Starr, and Jason Isbell, among others. Coming out the other side, the guitarist felt ready—refreshed and rejuvenated—to reconvene with Lamb of God. “I think longtime bands can only survive if there’s room for members to pursue other opportunities,” he says. “I can get other music out of my system and still allow Lamb of God to maintain its character and personality.”

He doesn’t beat around the bush as to the nature of the band’s identity. “We’re a heavy metal band,” he says. “We make heavy metal records. It’s what I want us to do, and it’s what we want to do. We’re really good at it, and we keep trying to get better. I respect what we’ve done in the past, and I feel obligated to honor our history and help us make something that’s worthy of that body of work.”

Which wasn’t always a walk in the park. The band went through an intense vetting process while writing material for the album, weeding out anything that sounded like reworked versions of songs from their past. “That was the challenge,” Morton says. “If you want to get to a new place, you’ve got to be willing to put the work in, and it can be hard. You listen a lot, rewrite a lot, try new ideas. If something sounded fresh or out of the ordinary, we ran with it. Even if it didn’t pan out, at least we were out of our comfort zone.”

​Mark Morton’s Gear

Guitars

• Gibson Mark Morton Les Paul
• 1969 Gibson Les Paul Custom
• Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster

Amps

• Mesa/Boogie Rectifier Badlander (rhythms)
• Mesa/Boogie Mark IV (solos)

Effects

• Vintage Ibanez Tube Screamer
• Klon Centaur
• “Any delays, choruses, or phasers are done with outboard gear in the mix.”

Strings, Picks, and Cables

• Stringjoy Mark Morton Artist Series
• Dunlop Tortex 1.00 mm
• Mogami cables

The guitarist recalls each band member using a certain word throughout the writing and recording period: stock. “We said that over and over,” he says. “It became our touchstone. We had to be brutal. If something felt stock—a riff, a song, a performance—we’d toss it. You keep listening, and you go, ‘It’s not bad. It’s not broken. There’s no mistakes. But it feels stock.’ Good enough wasn’t good enough. Regular-schmegular wasn’t gonna cut it. It had to be great. So you keep going till you get there.”

Morton embraced self-scrutiny when it came to his own guitar playing. If he found himself playing the same patterns as a result of muscle memory—it’s as typical among musicians as it is with athletes—he sought a new approach. He credits longtime band producer Josh Wilbur for his unsparing, pull-no-punches approach in the studio. “Josh has been with us for close to 20 years, so he knows the work in and out,” the guitarist says. “I’ll play something and he’ll go, ‘How many times have we said this already? This riff feels like it’s been on two other records. Can we say something else?’ A lot of other guitarists would have their pride hurt, but I don’t mind. You have to rally around the perspective that you’re trying to do something of value.”

Morton calls himself a “card-carrying tone chaser,” and to that end, he found what he was looking for years ago and stuck with it. Into Oblivion is brimming with his two-tone approach: For rhythm tracks, he ran his go-to guitars (either a signature Gibson Mark Morton Les Paul or a 1969 Les Paul Custom) through a Mesa/Boogie Rectifier Badlander with a vintage Ibanez Tube Screamer in front (“I put the gain all the way up and the overdrive all the way down”), and for solos he used a Mesa/Boogie Mark IV with a Klon Centaur boost pedal in front. “I didn’t feel the need to try to change my sound for the sake of changing it,” he says. “The self-editing I felt I needed had more to do with my actual playing.”

“If we can’t get excited about what we’re doing, how can anybody else?”

Any band that gets to their 10th album might sound as if they’re coasting, but Lamb of God are full of frenzy on Into Oblivion. As they have from the beginning, they serve up a vicious mix of sledgehammer heavy metal and metal-adjacent subgenres (metalcore, thrash, post-metal, death metal, doom metal), but the beauty of it all lies in their seemingly indefatigable ability to make each song’s wicked grooves and way-out licks sound like inspired bits of improvisation. What’s even more remarkable is that, unlike on their previous album, 2022’s Omens, which was recorded live in the studio, Into Oblivion was tracked in sections, with various band members operating in different locales (Morton cut his guitars at his home studio).

“I don’t think recording live off the floor is the standard anymore, for any band,” the guitarist says. “We enjoyed doing it on the last record, but this time we did things individually, and cool stuff came from it. It’s fun to open up the files and listen to tracks one of the other guys did. It’s like opening presents on Christmas. That’s not to say that everything is a total surprise—we’re all very involved with the writing and pre-production. These are just steps along the way when we’re working independently to bring material in.”

The album’s title track is fiery stuff, built around a pile-driving, high-velocity riff that Morton kicked around in pre-production. “It was one of the last songs we worked on,” he says. “Josh and I were sitting in my studio, and I had a riff that we started building into a song. We actually did speed that up about four bpm,” Morton remembers, “which isn’t huge, but we have to be careful about that kind of thing because tempos have a huge impact on the song.”

“Sepsis” comes on like a volcanic beast from hell. Blythe howls and hollers like he just laid his hand on a smoking cast-iron skillet, and a pummeling guitar-and-bass riff adds knockaround punishment. Mid-song, Morton goes weird and wonderful, ramming the message home with jarring dissonant chords that evoke the styles of the Jesus Lizard’s Duane Denison and indie producer Steve Albini. “I love both those guys,” Morton says. “The Melvins, too—they were huge for us. When we talk about Lamb of God, we have to talk about punk and alternative, but also Slayer and Pantera. All that stuff is vital for us.”

The award for Naming Songs For Exactly What They Sound Like goes to Lamb of God for “Blunt Force Blues,” an overwhelming nod to Vulgar Display of Power-era Pantera that asks the musical question: Why have just one corrosive metal riff when 20 will do? “We all have a hand in the songwriting, but that one is a clear example of Willie Adler’s train of thought,” Morton says. “He has this incredible stream of consciousness that sometimes we have to roll back and sometimes we don’t. It can be a wild ride interpreting what’s inside his head.”

When asked if the band has yet tackled the song live, Morton laughs and says, “No. I might need to bring some notes if we do get to that one.”

“Regular-schmegular wasn’t gonna cut it. It had to be great.”

The band hits the brakes on their high-speed tempos for the somber and atmospheric “El Vacio,” a mini-epic of sorts that’s distinguished by layers of gorgeous, echo-drenched, clean-toned guitar textures. “That one began as a bit of an assignment given to me,” Morton says. “Josh and Randy were out in L.A. doing some vocals and writing, and I got a text from Randy: ‘Hey man, send us something weird. We’ve got great songs, but we need to shake the snow globe. Even if we don’t use it, give me something super out of the box.’”

Morton accepted the assignment as a challenge and came up with “something that feels a little like the Cult from their Love period. It was really different for us, and the band loved it.”

Not every song on Into Oblivion features a guitar solo (Morton has never presented himself as a particularly self-indulgent player), but “Parasocial Christ” is a standout. Amid rugged rhythms, the guitarist shoots lead fireworks, abusing his instrument like it owes him money and even tossing in a heaping helping of old-fashioned dive bombs. “It’s nothing I’ve ever done in my professional career, but I did all that stuff when I was younger,” he says. “I did all the tapping and dive bombing that everybody else was doing. There’s actually a lot of whammy bar stuff on the record, which is entirely attributable to Josh Wilber. Every time we cut a solo, he’d say, ‘Why don’t you do a dive bomb?’ I was like, ‘Did you just discover whammy bars or something? I play Les Pauls, so what are we gonna do?’ He just went, ‘We’ll figure something out.’”

Ultimately, the producer got his wish, and to that end Morton utilized a Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster “super-Stratted” by master builder Mike Shannon. “Whenever you hear a dive bomb, that’s me playing the Strat,” Morton says.

“I didn’t feel the need to try to change my sound for the sake of changing it. The self-editing I felt I needed had more to do with my actual playing.”

Whether he’s detonating dive bombs or digging deep into earth-moving rhythms, Morton burns through it all with the zeal and youthful stamina of someone making his first album. For guitarists seeking pre-album training tips, Morton says simply, “By the time we start tracking a record, we’ve spent months doing pre-production, running through the songs and trying different ideas. At that point, I’m ready to go.”

Pressed further, he admits that there is a bit of a science to the art of capturing the perfect guitar performance. “It can come down to all sorts of things, or even just one thing,” he says. “Am I in a good mood? Am I excited about what I’m doing? Do I feel good physically? Am I undercaffeinated or overcaffeinated? It rarely takes me two days to track a song, but if we have to do something again to get it right, we will. The bottom line is, I try to stay in a good mental space.”

Asked if he has any special tricks for that one, Morton cracks a grin. “Yeah—I turn off social media.”

Back in the 1970s, Eddie Van Halen asserted that he hated “store-bought, off-the-rack guitars”. As a result, he would go on to design and configure many axes throughout his career, with his most iconic creation being the EVH Wolfgang. And, as one Fender luthier discovered, the Van Halen frontman was very involved in the building process.

In a new interview with Premier Guitar, Andy Hicks recalls working on the production line for the EVH Wolfgang, unaware that Eddie was surveying his craftsmanship. While working on guitar necks, the guitar builder felt himself being watched – but he didn’t suspect it would be the designer himself. “It’s Fender – we have tours all the time!” Hicks explains. “This guy comes over, leaning on me, and he looks like some dad wearing a baseball hat.”

• READ MORE: Keo are proving that Gen Z still love guitar music: “We do feel like we’re on the tail of those bigger bands”

Of course, he soon registered what was happening, mentally noting the fact that “Eddie Van Halen is just standing here watching us work”. However, his Fender peers were still none the wiser. “The guy I was working with was in the middle of complaining: ‘Man, these stainless steel frets. With just these Wolfgangs, we’ve gotta do 12 stainless steel necks today.’”

Rather that feeling insulted by the complaint, Eddie decided to chime in with a “playful” comment. “He said something along the lines of, ‘I’m sorry my guitar is such a pain in the butt,’” Hicks laughs. “It was incredible.”

Eddie truly hadn’t taken the comment to heart – in fact, he later invited the entire production team to an ultra-exclusive Van Halen show in 2012. The gig was intended for friends and family of the band, and took place at the Forum in Inglewood, California. “My dad was sitting next to Tom Morello, telling him that his son made Eddie Van Halen’s guitar,” he says. “I had to say, ‘Dad, please stop talking to Tom Morello…’”

“He was so excited to talk to somebody, and he just happened to be talking to Tom Morello!” he adds.

Throughout his career, Andy Hicks has helped many signature models come to fruition at Fender. He also had the honour of making a guitar for Iron Maiden’s Dave Murray. “It was completely insane,” he says. “They were about to start this multi-year tour and wanted another guitar. I was working really closely with his tech, fine-tuning his model a little bit.”

“I shipped it off and got an email a couple days later from Dave,” he continues. “It just said ‘Regarding the guitar’ [in the subject line], and it’s a Schrödinger’s cat situation: ‘I’m gonna open this email, and one of two things happens: He either likes the guitar, and that’s good, or he doesn’t like it, and now what do I do?’ He said how much he loved it. His guitar tech reached out and said it was going to be his number-one for the tour.”

The guitar has even been recreated for fans to purchase, with the $11,000 Masterbuilt Strat being announced back in December. The special release came just in time to mark the band’s 50th anniversary.

The post “I’m sorry my guitar is such a pain in the butt!”: Eddie Van Halen once apologised to the Fender production line for the EVH Wolfgang’s fiddly frets appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Back in 2022, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine vowed that he was never going to perform alongside ex-bandmate David Ellefson ever again. Even in light of Megadeth’s grand farewell tour, Mustaine is sticking to that promise – and Ellefson isn’t happy about it.

Despite going on record saying that his Megadeth firing was a blessing in disguise akin to being “kicked out of hell”, the bassist has changed his tune. He’s made it very clear that he is “available” for the band’s final run of gigs, recently telling Gustavo Olmedo’s Quemar Un Patrullero podcast that he holds no “bitterness towards Dave or Megadeth” [via Blabbermouth].

• READ MORE: Keo are proving that Gen Z still love guitar music: “We do feel like we’re on the tail of those bigger bands”

However, Ellefson does still hold a few grievances. Namely, he has an issue with comments Mustaine made in a 2025 interview with SiriuxSM, where the frontman said that he wouldn’t be enlisting former bandmates for Megadeth’s farewell tour due to “the behaviour of one of [his] band members in the past”.

While Mustaine didn’t delve into specifics, one could assume he is alluding to Ellefson’s previous allegations of sexual misconduct in 2022, after explicit videos were shared online. Ellefson denied any wrongdoing and filed a ‘revenge porn’ lawsuit against the person who uploaded the videos to social media.

In light of Mustaine’s comments, Ellefson has one thing to say: “Fuck off… just fuck off”.

“Who is that one person?” he ponders. “It wasn’t me, because I didn’t do anything that would prevent me from coming back at all… And so this sort of deflective thing, to get on some moral high ground? Gimme a break.”

“I had rock stars much bigger than Dave coming to my side and coming to my aid, standing by me, saying, ‘Man, just let me know if you need anything, that’s really fucked up,’” he continues. “It’s fucked up how I was discarded. People were saying, ‘I’m really disappointed that they chose business over brotherhood’. At the end of the day, the brotherhood will always last beyond the business of owning a rock band – especially something we started and built together.”

“I could call a lawyer, I could go back into defamation lawsuits, and I have every right to – trust me,” the bassist adds. “But at the same time, there’s two ways to win in tug of war. I either pull you over the line or I just drop the rope and let you fall on your ass… And that’s what I’ve chosen to do.”

In a recent chat with Argentinian rock radio station UnDinamo, Ellefson implored Mustaine to consider allowing old bandmates to join Megadeth on their last tour. His reasoning was that it would “give [the fans] what they want”.

In a January NME interview, Mustaine explained that his reasoning boiled down to his ex-bandmates “saying bad things in the press” about him. It’s fair to assume Ellefson’s cries of “fuck off” probably wont help his case. Nor will his comments about the band’s final album, a record Ellefson told The David Ellefson Show that he “[doesn’t] care” about, since he’s “really moved on from Dave, from Megadeth”.

The post “Just f**k off”: David Ellefson isn’t satisfied with Dave Mustaine’s reasoning for not enlisting ex-bandmates for Megadeth’s final tour appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Despite regularly performing Eddie Van Halen’s riffs while touring with Sammy Hagar’s Best of All Worlds band, Joe Satriani wasn’t always brave enough to tackle Eddie’s iconic tone. In fact, even when Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth asked him to perform at a Van Halen tribute event in 2021, he was too intimidated to accept the invitation.

Speaking to The Weekly Show With David J. Maloney, Satriani recalls how, when the Van Halen drummer and frontman approached him to perform at the We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert event, he refused. “They wanted to put together a band, and they were insisting that I was the guy to do it,” he explains [via Blabbermouth]. “I kept saying, ‘I’m not the guy! Call Nuno Bettencourt, he can really do it!’”

• READ MORE: Rich Robinson on why the Black Crowes channeled the spirit of “20-year-olds showing the f**k off” on their new album

Satriani was adamant that they should reach out to another guitarist. Despite being a “huge fan” of Eddie’s, the Satriani explained that he’d spent his entire career trying to avoid comparison with the guitar legend. “There’s thousands of kids around the world who’ve dedicated their life to sounding exactly like Ed… And I’ve always tried not to sound like Ed,” he says.

However, the Van Halen pair were “insistent” that Satriani was the perfect fit. “We rehearsed, and we came really close to doing our first show, but it all kind of started to fall apart,” he explains. “I’m not really sure what happened with that. And I was busy as well, so I was just waiting to hear what was happening month by month.”

Despite the project not coming together, Satriani would eventually become comfortable with the idea of tackling Eddie’s riffs. When he was approached by Sammy Hagar to join Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham for the Best Of All Worlds band in 2024, a tour that largely tackled Van Halen’s vast back catalogue, he accepted.

“Sam called and he surprised me by saying, ‘Look… how about if we did a retrospective tour – not an Eddie Van Halen tribute thing – where we get to do Montrose, Hagar, Chickenfoot, and even some David Lee Roth era of Van Halen?’ And I liked that idea,” he says.

“I liked the idea that we would create our own sound as a band…” he adds. “I had to remind Sam [that] I don’t really play like Eddie, but he kind of knew that. He said, ‘That’s not what it’s about, we’re not gonna do that – let the imitators do that.’”

This year, the band are embarking on yet another tour. Kicking off this month, the band will be warming up with 6 dates performing at the Las Vegas Dolby Live, before the summer will see them performing across the US in June and the UK in July. The year will be rounded off in September, with the band returning for 5 dates back in Las Vegas to wind down.

For more tour information, head to Ticketmaster.

The post “I’m not the guy! Call Nuno Bettencourt!”: Why Joe Satriani turned down Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth’s request to perform at a Van Halen tribute show appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Developing a healthy and positive mindset will go a long way toward helping your musical success.

John Osborne loves Telecasters. Given that he’s a firebrand guitar player in a major country act, that’s hardly surprising – Osborne’s melodic, expressive lead playing is a huge part of the sound of Brothers Osborne, and it’s lent an extra edge by the Telecaster twang. It’s no surprise, then, that he’s the latest artist to be tapped by Fender for a new signature model – one that recreates his very own well-used and well-traveled Telecaster.

• READ MORE: Rich Robinson on why the Black Crowes channeled the spirit of “20-year-olds showing the f**k off” on their new album

Image: Fender

Partscaster’d together

The story of the new John Osborne Telecaster starts with John’s first main guitar that he used on stage and in the studio. A vintage 1968 example, John obtained it from a local Nashville music shop when he was in his early 20s – with the help of a few trade-ins of the rest of his gear, and $700 borrowed from his mum. “I didn’t have guitars,” John explains. “I just had this one 1968 Telecaster. So I played it on everything – every gig and every session.”

Part two of the story would come with John’s first introduction to b-benders. “When my brother and I went to record our second record, called Port Saint Joe, a friend of mine who has since passed, Keith Gattis, a total b-bender master, lent me one of his guitars to play on that record. And I fell in love with the b-bender. I had played b-benders a few times, just here and there, but never live or on a record. And I could not put it down. I was obsessed!”

From there, John knew what needed to happen to his main guitar. “I went looking for maybe a cheap b-bender Telecaster I could put together myself – and I found a body preloaded with a b-bender, and that was it. No pickups or anything. So what I did was take the neck of my ‘68 and put it on that body – thus proving that 80-90% of a guitar is really in that neck, how it feels, how it plays – because it was really not too dissimilar to how it felt before. I found some pickups and so on, assembled it all myself – that was the real genesis of that guitar!”

For some, the idea of changing just one of the bridge saddles on a 1968 Telecaster would be close to sacreligious – let alone replacing the entire body. But for John, it’s just abiding by Leo Fender’s original ethos. “He was a very utilitarian, pragmatic person – this was before people learned how to take frets out of necks easily. He had the idea that once the frets wear out on the guitar, you just take the neck off and you put a new neck on it – like changing a set of tires. And because of that, because of the simplistic design, it’s allowed people to modify these guitars themselves into their own personal canvas to create on.”

And for those who are worried that the original ‘68 body is hiding in the back of a wardrobe somewhere, it’s luckily still fulfilling its purpose under a different guise. “I still have that original ‘68 body, and I actually converted it into a baritone guitar with a long conversion neck!” John says.

Image: Fender

The spirit of a Tele

The spec-sheet of John’s new guitar stays essentially as close as possible to his self-assembled guitar, itself aiming to keep the voice of a traditional Tele, not replace it. “At the end of the day, I still wanted it to be a Telecaster, not another guitar shaped like a Telecaster,” John says. “I wanted the three brass-barrel saddles, compensated, obviously but even that’s not perfect – and that’s ok. Those imperfections are what make music special. I’ve had six-saddle Teles over the years, but I start to miss that honk and spank that comes from having those brass barrels – even with six brass saddles, you lose some of that character.”

This approach carried over to the electronics, too. “I still wanted a Telecaster bridge pickup, because that is the sound. And I did want to keep the neck pickup, but make it a little punchier. I didn’t just want to put a Strat pickup in there! But I wanted something to compete with a louder bridge pickup, so there wasn’t a drop when I switched position. You know, everyone’s favourite pickup on a Strat is the neck – we all want to pretend we’re Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan, even when we’re playing a Telecaster. So I really wanted something that could speak in that way, but still retain some of the tradition of the Tele.”

Image: Fender

A new toy

There is, of course, one big concession to bucking tradition – that b-bender. If you’re unfamiliar, it offers a hands-free way to bend just the b-string, as a lever translates a downwards pull on the strap to a tightening of the b-string behind the saddle. This lets you easily bend the b-string within chords in order to mimic the sound of a pedal-steel guitar – and it can be totally transformational to all aspects of your playing, lead and rhythm alike.

Regardless, anyone who gets their hands on a John Osborne Telecaster will likely spend a good while doing absolutely nothing but chewy pedal steel chord-bends on it – and, if John’s experience is anything to go by, have a hard time not using it on everything. “When I first got the b-bender, I wanted to put on every song. I was having so much fun – it was like learning a new instrument again,” he says. “When anyone gets a new toy, they just want to use it the whole time. I’ve got three-year-old twins in the house, and they’re no different!”

“When guitar players get that new pedal, it’s like, ‘this is going on every song!’ – until eventually you learn where it needs to go. But that’s all part of the fun – discovering, experimenting and then finding out how to incorporate that sound into the larger palette of colours that you have,” he explains. “Now, I don’t even really think about it anymore. It’s just part of my voice as a musician.”

For John one of the coolest things about his signature is taking all of the quirks of his guitar – b-bender and all – and putting them out there into the hands of a much wider range of players. “I’m really looking forward to seeing how other people use it, all the things that they will do that I couldn’t even think of,” he says, and notes that like the Telecaster itself, the b-bender is definitely not just chained to country. “The pedal steel – which is what we’re all trying to emulate with it, really – has been used on a lot of rock and pop records now, so the sound is not tied to this one genre of country. You’re able to cross over with these things. I mean, hell, Jimmy Page had some great b-bender stuff back in the day! It’s just another tool in the toolbox to create the music that you want to create.”

Image: Fender

A well-worn look

And like any good tool, John’s own guitar has seen its fair share of wear-and-tear. “I grew up plumbing with my dad,” he notes, “and the tools in that toolbox are just beat to hell, because they’ve been used. Guitars are the same – you know it’s a good guitar if it’s been used!”

The signature guitar wears a road-worn finish – while it’s not a total one-to-one recreation, the spirit of the original is carried over, particularly given that the second-hand b-bender body he found had actually already been relic’d when he put the ‘68 neck on it. “But as time went on, with the thousands of hours I played that guitar, it created a lot of different wear, especially in the forearm – I really wanted to make sure that was there,” John adds.

It’s also clear that John’s just a fan of a rough-and-ready look in general. “I’ve never really been a fan of glossy guitars – I’m not a glossy human, and I don’t really want my guitars to look glossy because it makes me look even less glossy!” he jokes. “The instrument should be a bit of an extension of who you are, and it just made more sense from that perspective. Also subconsciously – it shouldn’t be about how it looks, but at the end of the day, it kind of is, because when you look at an instrument, it does put you in a mindset, and how you play is a reflection of that mindset.”

And in some ways a road worn finish is particularly applicable to any given Telecaster. “I’ve literally thrown that guitar across the stage, and my tech picks it up, and it’s still in tune,” John adds. “That’s the thing about these Teles in particular – they are made to be beat up.”

Find out more about the Fender John Osborne Telecaster at fender.com

The post “I’ve thrown that guitar across the stage and it’s still in tune!” – John Osborne talks the joys of creating Fender’s first B-bender signature model appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Winzz Guitars introduces the Lead Burner 30W

In the spring of 2020, I found myself quarantined in Nashville, staring at screens for too many hours, with TikTok feeding me an endless scroll of protests, police confrontations, and cities on edge. Meanwhile, right here in Music City, protesters smashed windows along Lower Broadway and set fires near the state Capitol. It felt surreal, chaotic, and unpredictable. The entire world was wondering: What’s going on?

During that time, I rewatched the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown. It occurred to me that our current chaos hit exactly half a century after Marvin Gaye captured the same bewilderment in his landmark 1971 single and album. Recorded in the summer of 1970 at Motown’s Hitsville U.S.A. in Detroit, What’s Going On emerged from a man who’d grown weary of the polished pop machine.

Before this, Marvin Gaye was the ideal Motown product: handsome, polite, safe. Hits like “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You),” “Ain’t That Peculiar,” and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” made him a star. But by 1969, depression had sidelined him. He stopped touring. His brother Frankie returned from Vietnam with haunting stories of war’s toll. Detroit’s streets boiled with police brutality and unrest. Singing only love songs started feeling dishonest.

The spark came on May 15, 1969, when Four Tops member Renaldo “Obie” Benson witnessed police attacking anti-war protesters at Berkeley’s People’s Park on “Bloody Thursday.” Shaken, Benson wondered aloud, “What’s going on here?” Why send kids overseas to die? Why beat them in the streets at home? Back in Detroit, he collaborated with songwriter Al Cleveland on a tune inspired by those questions. Benson pitched it as a love song—about love and understanding—but his bandmates dismissed it as protest. Benson insisted: “I’m not protesting. I want to know what’s going on.”

Motown in the ’60s was a hit factory modeled on Detroit’s auto plants. Berry Gordy ran it with iron discipline: Songwriters cranked out material, producers cut poppy versions, and weekly quality-control meetings decided releases. The goal was to make Black music that white America would embrace—no politics, no anger, no “inside” references. Songs focused on love, heartbreak, dancing—emotional ground that was safe enough to cross racial lines. The Funk Brothers delivered grooves that ruled dance floors with tight time driven with a ubiquitous tambourine, two drummers, and James Jamerson’s funky bass lines. Albums were a collection of singles and filler.

Marvin Gaye thought this song would not fly under the constraints of Gordy, so he booked a late-night session with a core of trusted Funk Brothers—including Jamerson, who, legend has it, was so drunk he had to lay on his back to play, reading charts upside down. Jamerson’s line never really repeats; instead, he weaves chromatic passing tones into a jazz-influenced swing that rarely hits the tonic and never loses the pocket.

“Marvin Gaye’s masterpiece endures because it refuses rage for its own sake.”

The whole vibe of the sessions feels loose, spontaneous, alive. This wasn’t assembly-line Motown; it was personal, socially conscious, adventurous. The song doesn’t shout protest. It asks questions: about war’s human cost, community violence, poverty, ecology. “Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying / Brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying.” The refrain—“You know we’ve got to find a way to bring some lovin’ here today”—pleads for compassion without condemnation. Marvin invites reflection, empathy, unity.

When Gaye presented it to Berry Gordy, Gordy called it “the worst thing I ever heard.” It was too political, uncommercial, poorly structured, sonically weird, very un-Motown. Marvin, leveraging his star power, essentially went on strike and refused to record anymore until they released the song. Gordy relented for a single release, expecting it to fail, after which Gaye would fall back in line. Instead, the song soared to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 1 on the R&B chart. The public connected. Gordy greenlit the full album, shifting Motown toward artist-driven, thematic works. It paved the way for Stevie Wonder’s creative control and proved personal vision could sell.

Now, the question—what’s going on?—feels eerily fresh to me. I’m by nature an optimistic person, and I suspect Marvin Gaye was as well. Otherwise, he would not have jeopardized a wildly successful career to make a statement for change. Marvin Gaye’s masterpiece endures because it refuses rage for its own sake. It calls for love amid chaos, understanding across fractures. “War is not the answer / Only love can conquer hate.” In 1971, it challenged Vietnam and domestic strife. Today, it speaks to endless cycles of conflict, brutality, and disconnection.

Marvin Gaye risked everything to say something true. The result wasn’t just a hit; it was a mirror. Sometimes the most revolutionary act is refusing to look away.

Fender has claimed victory in a recent intellectual property case in Germany against a Chinese guitar manufacturer, stating that its win in the case sets a new legal precedent that strengthens Fender’s protection over the Stratocaster shape.

• READ MORE: Gibson denied opportunity to appeal court ruling that its ES body shape is generic – but the final terms of its legal victory over Dean have been laid down

The case was against the Chinese-based Yiwu Philharmonic Musical Instruments Co., and took place in the Düsseldorf Regional Court in Germany. According to Fender, the decision made by the court agrees with Fender’s claim that the company had imported guitars that “reproduced” Fender’s Stratocaster body design, and that the design in question is not just a functional trademark but is instead a “a copyrighted work of applied art”, according to German and European law.

Aarash Darroodi, Fender’s general counsel and chief administrative officer, said in a press release: “This ruling is a meaningful affirmation of the Stratocaster as an original creative work and an important step in continuing to protect the integrity of Fender’s designs and intellectual property. It reinforces our commitment to originality, supports fair competition, and helps ensure that when players encounter these iconic Fender guitar shapes, they can trust the craftsmanship, quality, and heritage behind them.”

While the ruling is clearly bad news for Yiwu – a Chinese maker that seems to primarily sell budget guitars and other instruments via AliExpress and other online marketplaces – the potential wider impact of the case is yet to be tested.

Importantly, Backstagepro.de reports that the judgement was not as a result of the sort of lengthy legal battle that has characterised many recent trademark disputes in the guitar world, but was instead a default judgement. In effect, the defendant did not respond to a summons, and sent no legal representation to defend and therefore did not appear to defend itself in court.

This could have major implications on how much precedent is set – the decision is enforceable against Yiwu Philharmonic Musical Instruments, and theoretically against others, but a default judgement does mean that Fender’s claims have not yet faced any legal counterarguments.

In practice, this means that if Fender were to attempt to use this decision against another manufacturer that sought to challenge the ruling in court, it would face a much more thorough proceeding to establish why the design is more than just a standard trademark.

Fender may also have to draw out a clearer distinction between a guitar that, as Fender argues Yiwu did, “reproduces” the Stratocaster body, and a non-infringing “S-type” guitar.

A related case happened very recently in the US, with the loss of Gibson’s ES trademark despite an overall victory over Dean in a long-running trademark dispute. The ES body shape was ruled generic because expert witnesses for both Dean and Gibson admitted that many guitar manufacturers have used the shape in the years since its introduction – a potential argument surrounding the Stratocaster body shape could see similar claims being made.

Regardless, the speculation does not change the fact that the ruling is very much enforceable. Yiwu Philharmonic Musical Instruments Co. is now legally prohibited from “manufacturing, offering, or distributing” guitars featuring the Stratocaster body shape in Germany and the EU, and could face large fines or even prison time if the fines are not able to be enforced. Whether that will apply to other brands who import similar guitars is unclear, however Fender does now have a stronger legal precedent it can use to protect the design.

The post Fender wins legal battle over Stratocaster shape in Germany – is it the end for S-type guitars in the EU? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

As a single-pickup, hardtail guitar, the Reverend Charger Jr. wears simplicity as a badge of honor. But thanks to excellent execution of practical design updates and a basic player friendliness, it’s not as limited as one might suspect.

Its combination of a single-cutaway body, bolt-on neck, Steelhead P-90-style pickup (designed in-house,) and string-through hardtail bridge brings to mind a cross between a Fender Esquire and a Les Paul Jr. But part of what makes that marriage work is originality that lets the Charger Jr. hint at those two classics while staking out its own territory.

Hot Rod Heart

The solid Korina body (beautifully finished in metallic cherry, with cream binding and a back-sprayed gold pickguard) produces an unplugged tone somewhere between ash and mahogany—warm, but with plenty of snap. The roasted maple neck, topped with a rosewood fingerboard, has a comfortable medium oval profile. It’s a little chunkier than a typical C shape, but far from baseball bat territory.

This review was my first go with roasted maple, and I’m a convert. Smooth to the touch and pleasing to the eye, the wood stood up to very dry New York winter heating that had me refilling my acoustic guitar humidifiers at an alarming rate and finding jagged metal on electrics I’ve had for years. Not the Charger Jr.’s medium-jumbo (.110 x .050) frets, though. They’re fine.

“The Charger Jr.’s Steelhead P-90 delivers purity that’s hard to resist, while offering enough variety to cover roots, punk, and even metal.”

Reverend is great at effectively updating familiar design elements. The bolt-on neck, for instance, attaches with six screws rather than the traditional four—and it is a tight joint. The strings pass through an aluminum ferrule block, up to a Bonite (synthetic bone) nut, and under a cleverly designed 3-string tree, before terminating in Reverend Pin Lock locking tuners. High build quality brings the best out of these intelligent upgrades, making the Charger Jr. a pleasure to play and listen to, with solid tuning stability and consistent tone up, down, and across the neck. The guitar came out of the case with good intonation and low, buzz-free action, too.

At 43 mm (1.69 inches) at the nut and sporting a 12-inch fretboard radius, the 25.5-inch, 22-fret playing surface is a great platform for chords, runs, and bends. Even after deep bends, the guitar stays true and in tune.

Rocks In the Head

While the Jr. has only one pickup, the 3-way switch combines with a very effective treble-bleed volume control and a wide-range tone control to offer an impressive array of tones. The forward switch position (what you would otherwise call the “neck” setting) rolls off treble but preserves more of the Steelhead’s grindy personality than you get by simply turning down the tone knob. At times, it’s almost like a fixed-position wah. The back position offers more cut and spank, and a lot of upper-mid emphasis—reminiscent of a hot Telecaster pickup but with a hint of combined bridge-and-neck jangle. The middle position is my favorite of the three and the most P-90-like. There’s plenty of top-end bite, beefy lows, and a little scoop in the midrange that makes single notes jump and chords fill space.

The Steelhead pickup seems made for my modded Fender Vibro Champ, which can switch between a Bandmaster-style EQ and a raw, tweed Champ-like signal path (no EQ, higher gain). With the Champ’s EQ active, and treble and bass maxed, the Charger’s switching offered three distinct but totally compatible voices. Overdriven, the middle and bridge settings worked best together, and thanks to the treble-bleed volume control, you can mellow the tone out for rhythm without getting lost in a mix. The Champ’s snarly raw mode favored the brighter bridge pickup position alone, with the middle, unadulterated Steelhead sound a close second. Rolling back the Charger Jr.’s volume yields very nice clean tones.

Through an uber-clean SWR bass amp, the switching system still offers impressive variety. The front rhythm position is more effective in this kind of super-clean signal path, and ranges from darkness to twilight depending on the guitar’s tone control position. Where the other two positions scream through the Champ, they pop and chime through the SWR. What’s more, the Reverend’s natural sustain lends these super-clean single notes plenty of presence and body.

In a way, I was most impressed by how the Charger Jr. sounded with my Universal Audio Apollo interface while I was sitting in front of a computer, because the guitar’s low noise floor is remarkable. Noise can make single-coil pickups—and P-90s in particular—a nightmare when running into an interface. But not here. Factor in the guitar’s comfort and tuning stability, and you can imagine why I used the Charger Jr. for composing and recording sessions a lot in recent days.

The Verdict

From the moment it came out of the case, the Charger Jr. felt as comfortable as a broken-in pair of leather gloves. At just less than $1,100, it boasts the materials and build quality of a considerably more expensive instrument. If one pickup seems limiting, the Charger platform is available in other guises with different pickups and different bridges. That said, the Jr.’s Steelhead P-90 delivers purity that’s hard to resist, while offering enough variety to cover roots, punk, and even metal. If you crave simplicity that deviates from Esquire and Les Paul Jr. templates, this Charger is highly recommended.

{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Product", "name": "Charger Jr.", "image": ["https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=65211496&width=980"], "description": "", "brand": { "@type": "Brand", "name": "Reverend" }, "offers": { "@type": "Offer" , "price": 1,099, "priceCurrency": "USD" , "url": "https://sweetwater.sjv.io/L0X6ka" } } /* Container */ .pg-product-card { box-sizing: border-box; width: 100%; max-width: 760px; margin: 24px auto; border-radius: 14px; border: 1px solid #e3e3e3; padding: 16px; background: #ffffff; display: grid; grid-template-columns: 1fr; gap: 16px; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", sans-serif; } /* Layout modifiers */ .pg-product-card.pg-layout-full { grid-template-columns: 1fr; } @media (min-width: 720px) { .pg-product-card.pg-layout-split { grid-template-columns: 220px minmax(0, 1fr); align-items: center; } } /* Image */ .pg-product-card__image-wrap { position: relative; border-radius: 12px; overflow: hidden; background: #f4f4f4; aspect-ratio: 1 / 1; } .pg-product-card__image-link { display: block; width: 100%; height: 100%; } .pg-product-card__image { width: 100%; height: 100%; object-fit: cover; display: block; } /* Body */ .pg-product-card__body { display: flex; flex-direction: column; gap: 8px; } /* Badge */ .pg-product-card__badge { display: inline-block; padding: 4px 10px; border-radius: 999px; background: #111111; color: #ffffff; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: 0.06em; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 2px; } /* Company + title */ .pg-product-card__company { font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0.08em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #666666; font-weight: 600; } .pg-product-card__title { font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.25; margin: 2px 0 4px; font-weight: 700; } /* Description */ .pg-product-card__description { font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: #222222; } /* Meta / price */ .pg-product-card__meta { margin-top: 6px; margin-bottom: 10px; } .pg-product-card__price { font-size: 13px; display: flex; gap: 6px; align-items: baseline; } .pg-product-card__price-label { text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.08em; color: #777777; font-weight: 600; font-size: 11px; } .pg-product-card__price-value { font-weight: 700; font-size: 14px; } /* Buttons */ .pg-product-card__actions { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 8px; } .pg-product-card__btn { display: inline-flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; padding: 8px 14px; border-radius: 999px; font-size: 13px; font-weight: 600; text-decoration: none; border: 1px solid transparent; cursor: pointer; white-space: nowrap; } .pg-product-card__btn--primary { background: #000000; color: #ffffff; } .pg-product-card__btn--secondary { background: #ffffff; color: #000000; border-color: #cccccc; } /* Disclosure */ .pg-product-card__disclosure { margin-top: 8px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.4; color: #888888; } /* Mobile tweaks */ @media (max-width: 540px) { .pg-product-card { padding: 14px; } .pg-product-card__actions { flex-direction: column; align-items: stretch; } .pg-product-card__btn { width: 100%; } }

A student of Reverend Gary Davis, Book Binder spent decades sharing the blues with audiences everywhere from concert halls to small clubs.