Sunday, April 25, 2010

Play Rock Guitar at Weebly

There is a new website on weebly dot com with tips on playing rock guitar.
The page Play Rock Guitar at Weebly has quite a bit of content on it.  There is straight forward info on starting to play rock guitar and where exactly to begin.

Play Rock Guitar Tips at Weebly dot com

There is a guitar blog on the page here, Play Rock Guitar Tips which loads of posts on equipment, effects and the smaller more unusual accessory stuff like guitar cases, picks, strings, stands and straps.

So check it out and see what you think.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Iron Maiden Tour 2011

Just a quick note,  Iron Maiden are on tour this year.  They will be touring iwth their new album, The Final Frontier.  They start their European tour in Dublin, Ireland.  They play indoors at the O2, the only indoor gig announced so far for the summer.

Supporting is Heaven and Hell.  Ronnie James Dio with the rest of Black Sabbath members.  Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinnie Appice.  They can't call themselves Sabbath as Ozzy is still a member and not there.  I would think they would be doing a co-headliner slot set, at least an hour or more.  I seen Dio a few years ago and he was incredible.  Great voice, great gig, non-stop for 2 and half hours.

Iron Maiden, Heaven and Hell tour 2010

The gig will sell out quickly with these two big metal bands.  I would think there will be quite a few people coming from the UK.  I have two mates coming over and the Fan club are running a trip.  I have heard of hotels sold out already in Dublin for those dates.

Tickets go on sale from ticketmaster tomorrow, Fri at 09:00.

Get tickets as it is a chance to see three of the finest guitar players in rock.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Guitar Heroes at the BBC III

Continuing on with Guitar music programs, this week Guitar Heroes at the BBC III is on BBC Four all this week.  There are six episodes and the first one was on last night. Billed as a Compilation of classic archive performances from the guitar gods of the late 60s and 70s.  There is one episode every night from the 12th April on wards.

There should be some good stuff on it for Guitar Players to watch.  Some of the artists and songs are below.

Status Quo Guitar Heroes at the BBC

Status Quo appear playing Pictures of Matchstick Men on Top Of The Pops in 1968
The Who perform Long Live Rock in the Old Grey Whistle Test studio
Dire Straits play Tunnel Of Love
Lynyrd Skynyrd bring a taste of the south with Sweet Home Alabama.
The show also features rare performances from George Benson, Leo Kottke, Link Wray and Tom Petty.

I saw Episode 1.  Thin Lizzy with Phil Lynott, Brian Robertson, Scot Gorham playing The Boy are Back in Town last night. Piece of trivia, the song is about The Quality Street gang. They were group of criminals operating in Manchester in the 1960s and 1970s.
I also was watching a few guitarists I had never seen before so that was interesting to see.

The programs are not on the BBC iPlayer, probably due to copyright reasons so you need to record them or catch them live.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Live Heavy Metal Britannia at the BBC

This is a review of the live archive footage show Heavy Metal Britannia at the BBC.  The BBC have had all the big UK bands play on some program or the other both before and after they were famous.  This show was about half an hour long.

First on was Deep Purple playing Black Night on the UK chart single show, Top of the Pops, from October 1970.  Ian Gillian was behind the drum kit singing and Ritchie Blackmore was in the front playing guitar with his signature Bard hat.

Next on was Judas Priest playing their first single Rocka Rolla in April 1975.  They were playing on the Old Grey Whistle Test, a very serious music program from the seventies.  Rob Halford had long hair and they were dressed in a glam pop style with platforms.  You would believe they would become leather clad metal gods in the future.  The song Rocka Rolla did have glimmers of what was to come, you could hear what might influenced bands like Def Leppard.

The welsh band Budgie were next up on the Old Grey Whistle Test from June 1975 playing Who Do You Want for Love.  I had never heard them really before.  They are not exactly metal but had a good rock sound with a good groove.  Metallica covered two of their songs, Breadfan and Crash Course in Brain Surgery.  Iron Maiden covered I Can't See My Feelings.

Uriah Heep played Wise Man from April 1977 on Top Of The Pops.  It was a slow song with a story for lyrics (felt like a country and western song).  Uriah Heep are renowed as the first western rock band to play Russia.

Motorhead, Lemmy, Fast Eddie and Phil, 1978.

Motorhead were on with Louie Louie from September 1978.  There was Lemmy, Fast Eddie and Phil.  A good performance.  They were at number 75 in the charts on 16 September 1978 and then went up to number 68.

A modern Black Sabbath were on next with Paranoid.  No year given.  It looked to be an actuall concert so it may have been Top of the Pops.  The original lineup were there, Ozzy, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Geezer Butler.  They did film live bands for TOTPs, like Maiden and inserted them into the show in the 90's.  Footage was fuzzy at thimes, becuase of the lighing.

Iron Maiden came on then with their first single Running Free in February 1980 on Top of the Pops.  They insisted they play live on the show as artists usually mimed to their song normally.  They were one of the first band to play live on the show.  The band was Pail Di Anno, Denis Stratton, Clive Bur, Dave Murray and Steve Harris.  The studio turned the sound down on them and they didn't play the show again for years.

Next up was Saxon with Wheels of Steel in April 1980.  Looked to be in a studio with no audience so not sure what the show was.  Of note, Biff Byford had dark hair back then.  The drums, Pete Gills were out in front, bassist Steve Dawson to the left, Graham Oliver to the right, Paul Quin guitarist and Biff to the back.

Second last on the show were Gillan with Trouble from October 1980.  May have been Top of The Pops as the album hit the charts.  This was Ian Gillan solo band.  The song was old style rock n roll but with heavy guitars.  Was a pretty good performance.

To close the show were Diamond Head playing To Heaven From Hell in October 1982 with Sean Harris (vocals) and Brian Tatler (Guitar).  Not sure what the show was either, looked to be a studo again with no people but with a large stage and loads of Marshall amps.  A very good metal performance from NWOBHM era.  Again Metallica covered Diamond Head's Am I Evil and Blitzkrieg (Lars was a huge fan of theirs).

I enjoyed the half hour show, with all the great music it felt longer (in a good way).  There are a lot of the clips available on Youtube if you do a search for the band and the date so you could see a lot of it yourself.

Hope you enjoyed reading this,
Cheers,
Steve.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Guitar Blog Updates

Here is my guitar blog update.  I have been busy getting some internet guitar site stuff ready which I will tell you about in this post.

I am getting about four rock guitar video lessons ready for posting the next few weeks.  They will be aimed at the beginner guitarist.  I also will have two guitar books with lessons and tabs to acompany the videos.  I will have them all posted on this blog.

Also I have been working on two guitar minisites.  I will give you the web links as soon as they are up and running so you can pay them a visit.

So check back regularly to get the lesson videos and books here.  As I will let you know here when they are finished.

Thanks,
Steve.