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Happy Birthday Leo Fender!

Today, August 10, 2009 would have been Leo Fender's 100th birthday, so in honor of him, I present to you an awesome gallery of his life-long accomplishments.

The Fender Esquire (1949)

1950 Broadcaster


1954 Fender Stratocaster


1980 G&L F-100


G&L S-500


G&L ASAT


G&L Legacy (the last model Leo ever created)

This is the Most Gorgeous Guitar I Have Ever Seen

I stumbled upon this beauty while on the electric guitar forums over on Harmony Central. Its a Huber, and this is the first one I have ever seen. From the small amount of Google research I did, this is a Bolt-On model.

A little about the company:

Nik-Huber-Guitars was founded by Nik Huber in 1996. Since then, the company grew slowly but constantly. Today a team of 5 highly skilled specialists is building around 120 instruments a year. All hand-crafted.

Since the first attendance at the Frankfurt Musik Messe in 1997, Nik Huber Guitars gained a worldwide reputation as a serious manufacturer of high-class electric-guitars.

In 1999 the expanding company moved to a commercial park in its hometown, Rodgau - 20 km south of Frankfurt/Germany, and resides now in a fully, state-of-the-art equipped workshop.

Marshall Introduces New Class 5 1x10 Combo Amp

Looking for that perfect bedroom amp? Well Marshall Amplification seems to have created it. The Class-5 is an all tube, 1x10" amp that keeps things stripped down and simple. Including only four controls (volume, treble, mids and bass), the Class-5 allows you to get sparklng cleans and also tune in that distinct Marshall British natural, tube overdrive.

This amps specs get even more juicy:

A single EL84 powers a 10" Celestion G10F-15, which Celestion specifically designed for this amp. According to Marshall and Celestion, this speaker gives the Class-5 a surprising amount of low-end for a tiny amp while still retaining its clarity. The amp even includes a headphone jack and 16 Ohm output, allowing it to power a 4x12 if you so desire. It also has Joe Bonamassa's seal of approval ta boot!

Check out a video demo here.

Basone Guitars: A Color-Changing, Laser-Loaded Guitar

This special little guitar fro Basone has some pretty cool features. This specific model is unfortunately one-of-a-kind, but that doesn't mean we can't look at it.

This strange design features a chambered Honduran Mahogany body with a carved maple top and a stability arm that connects the body to the headstock. This unique feature is said to give the guitar more resonance, thus improving sustain. Prince rocked one of these in the 80s. The finish is also painted on with a special kind of paint that shifts from a light, icy blue to cyan to gold, depending on the lighting.

Now this is where the Talon gets interesting...

This guitar has a 20 milli-watt, military-grade laser bored into the headstock! That's not all, its also got LEDs in the fretboard inlays that all have their own stitches to turn them on and off.

Now, just imagine Prince with this throw-back to the 80s! I can see the new Purple Rain video now...

Anyways, Basone guitars are made in Vancouver, BC and their custom guitars start around $1800. Pricey, but cool. 

Now Blogging via. ScribeFire

This is pretty much just a test to see if this works. Basically, ScribeFire its just a plug-in for FireFox that allows me to blog to KuzTunes form whatever page I'm already on, and it's damn cool.

Guitar Hero Getting More "Real?"

Recently, a company called Open Chord has released an electric guitar that can also be plugged into your Xbox or Wii and be used as a Guitar Hero/Rockband controller. When I first heard of this, I thought, "Oh cool!" That was the last time a positive thought crossed my mind.

After watching their "demo" video, it makes no sense. You have to plug the guitar into an amp and then into the system, so when you play random notes and chords in accordance with the game, it sounds like crap. I wonder if they realize that songs require more than just the first 5 frets to play.


Don't get me wrong, I love me some Guitar Hero. I don't see anything wrong with the game. If anything, it is inspiring kids to listen to rock n' roll again and maybe even take up the real guitar.

I was chatting with the owner of Advance Music here in Burlington, VT one day about Guitar Hero. He told me that since the game was released, he had seen more and more kids coming in with their parents to pick up a starter pack because of the game. Now to me, that sounds awesome. Any way we can get kids to listen to real music again is fine in my book.

I digress...

My point here is lets keep the game and the real thing separate. Its call well and good to try new innovations and whatnot, but a real guitar doesn't belong in a video game. If you want to learn the guitar, pick yourself up a nice Squier starter pack and check out some YouTube guitar lessons. They're extremely helpful.

How Many Guitars is Too Many?

How many guitars do you have? One? Two? Seven? None?

Regardless of how many you may or may not have, how many is too many? Don't get me wrong, I do love my guitars (all five of them), but do I really need six different guitars? My answer: Of course.

Each one of my guitars does something, or produces sounds that the others cannot. For example: I have two strat-style guitars, but one has a humbucker in the bridge.

Single coil sounds? check.

Then I have a semi-hollow telecaster-style guitar loaded with two P90 soapbar pickups.

P90 and semi-hollow sounds? check.

Then there's the tried and true Les Paul.

Dual humbuckers? check.

Then of course, you have to have an acoustic.

Whats my point in all this blabbering about my gear? My point is that you only need enough guitars to be able to satisfy different tonal needs. Why would you need two Les Paul R8s in the same finish? (and yes, I've seen it) It just isn't necessary.


A fun little fact about a number of guitars: Over in the Harmony Central electric guitar forums, there is a thread attempting to count every guitar the users own. Right now the count is up to 4,562 and it gets bigger every day. That's a hell of a lot of guitars.

KuzTunes: Now Available in a New Flavor

Just a heads up for you guys... I've started writing a little bit for a website called Ask A College Kid. It's run by a friend of mine, and he asked me if I wouldn't mind writing some music and guitar-related posts for his site. So, check it out, and you'll see my first two posts on the homepage.

PRS Releases New Model: the 305

Wow. What a looker. I have always loved PRS guitars. The look and feel are just amazing. Their playability is unsurpassed in the industry. The only problem is that they just cost to damn much!

The 305, based on the older 513, features three proprietary single coil pickups designed to produce that "classic sound." (i.e., a strat).Other features include: an alder body, maple neck, banded melon ‘513’ bird inlays and 25 ½” scale length. I personally can't get enough of those 513-style inlays.

Gotta get down to the store and check out one of these! Here's a full body shot for all you droolers out there. Check out the PRS website for a full gallery.

A History: The Les Paul Jr.

This is a new section I think I'll start to run. A "history of" section dedicated to looking into where certain guitars, amps, companies etc. find their roots.

For the first post, we'll look at the Gibson Les Paul Junior.

First introduced in 1954 as a cheaper alternative to the popular Les Paul model, the LP jr. sold for $99.00 and came in sunburst, TV yellow and cherry red. It featured a more cost effective aluminum wrap-around bridge, a slab of mahogany (without a maple cap like the Les Paul standard), and had one dog-ear P90 single coil pickup.

Over the years, the Les Paul Jr. some changes, including in 1956 when the bridge and pickup were repositioned to fix a problem of having the bridge lean too closely to the pickup.

In 1958, the Les Paul Jr. started to come with a double-cut design, instead of the classic single cut.




Then, in 1961, the Les Paul Jr. became the SG Junior.

Production went on pretty much unhalted until 1992 when the model was discontinued. Following a fairly large cult following and appreciating collecting value, Gibson began making the LP Jr. again in 1998.

For more info, check out the article on Guitar Time.

Hip-Hop group from the UK: The Howling

I just learned about these guys today, actually. From the little information I've been able to find, the group is a collaboration between two UK MCs, Legs and Whitney. This album is about a year or so old, and it's a damn shame more people dont know about them.

Check out this link, thanks to Needle in the Grove Records, for a FREE DOWNLOAD! of the album. I definitely suggest you guys check this out.

RIAA Suing Student for $675,000!

Now, this being a "music" blog as well, I felt that I had to mention this story. Basically, a student, Joel Tenenbaum, is being sued for $675,000 by the RIAA for illegally downloading 30 songs. Now, if the math is done, that's $22,500 per song!..... WHAT!?......

To me, this is just absurd. There is no way that 30 songs can require damage reparations upwards of $20,000 each, from some kid who just wanted some music. Granted, he did do something illegal, but the punishment here doesn't seem to fit the crime. Clearly, this kid has to file for bankruptcy now. So what is the RIAA saying??

"If you take any music from us, we'll take all your money...well all of it we don't already have."

Its not like this kid was selling illegal copies of music at $1,000 a pop; he was just listening to them, as I'm sure most of you are listening to illegally downloaded music reading this right now.

It just makes no sense.