Mayones & Blackhawk Music Competition closes at midnight!
June 30, 2009
It’s been a long two months but we finally reach the end of the hugely popular Mayones & Blackhawk Music endorsement competition!
There have a been a massive ( at time of publishing ) 349 entries! Does that make it the biggest youtube guitar competition ever?
It’s definitely caught the eye of many youtube players and there are some stunning entries.
It’s certainly been a great promo for the players involved as well as for Rob Chapman, Mayones and Blackhawk Music.
The power of the ‘tube man.
A winner will hopefully be chosen by July 12th, so just a little more time to wait.
Good luck to all!
R.I.P Michael Jackson
June 26, 2009
It’s still hard to believe that Michael Jackson has died.
Without a doubt his passing will be felt by a huge percentage of this planet’s population.
That in itself says it all.
He crossed musical boundaries and influenced a generation of Artists with his groundbreaking music, dancing, videos, tours and record breaking albums sales.
Too many of his songs defined my youth and left a indelible mark on my musical psyche. But here, as small tribute, are some of my all time favourites:
Guitar Idol 2009: Daniele Gottardo Wins the Steve Vai prize!
June 24, 2009
Just spotted on truthinshredding and announced in the Guitar Idol forums. Daniele Gottardo has won the Steve Vai Guitar Idol prize.
Steve Vai watched over the performances of the Guitar Idol finals and it looks like Daniele caught his eye!
Steve said
“There is a whole new breed of guitar players emerging. Players that are redefining the parameters of guitar virtuosity. It was a pleasure to judge the Guitar Idol contest and see many of these young innovators in action.”
Congrats to Gotty and as a reminder here is Daniele’s amazing performance from the finals:
Great article on the inner workings of a Record Label
June 24, 2009
Check out this great article from the fantastic Musician Wages website entitled “What I Learned at My Record Label Job“.
The author, Cameron Mizell, writes about his time at Verve Records and what he learned from working with various departments such as digital production, strategic marketing, design, manufacturing and distribution etc.
One way to understand the whole process of selling records is to actually start with the Sales department suggesting a new angle on a product, such as a reissue series, that they feel will do well at certain retailers. Then the A&R, Creative, and Production departments jump into action to make the product a reality. Sometimes this involves creating exclusives for particular accounts (such as a Borders’ version with a bonus track). Exclusives are usually added to the schedule last minute and involve some quick manuvering through the processes mentioned above.
Andy Timmons DiMarzio Interview
June 23, 2009
Via truthinshredding, cool video interview with Andy Timmons chatting about the new Ibanez AT100CL and the DiMarzio Cruiser and AT-1 pickups.
MasterThatRiff! 49 – Pantera “Cowboys From Hell”
June 22, 2009
YOU voted for it and here it is!
New MasterThatRiff! looking at ‘Cowboys From Hell by Pantera
\m/ >< \m/
LIMS and Guitar Idol 2009
June 18, 2009
Had a great time down in London over the weekend, meeting up with some mates, attending the London International Music Show and of course getting to see the Guitar Idol 2009 Finals.
We arrived a little late on the Saturday morning, gotta love London Transport! As a result we sadly missed Silvio Gazquez and Alexandros Tefarikis’s performances and arrived halfway through George Marios’s set. Considering how early it was ( the finals started at 10:00! ) there was already a moderately sized crowd assembled.
All twelve finalists put on a great show and let’s face it, it takes some guts to get out there and perform in front of your typical ‘arms folded guitar type’ crowd. My faves, Muris Varajic, Daniele Gottardo, Hedras Ramos and Jack Thammarat, stood out from the crowd with their technique, overall performance and most importantly their songs.
You can see each finalist’s performance ( and the winners ) here in this playlist, see if you agree:
The actual announcement of the winners wasn’t until much later in the day so after the performances we headed out for a nosy around the main exhibition floor. Was nice to see Blackhawk music there with a bunch of Mayones guitars, yeah the guitars from that competition. I had a little feel of the necks ( spot the guitar player 
) and they felt very nice indeed!
Barring some amusing Spongebob Pants Ukeleles and a cool Jazz Cafe stand with a live band, there wasn’t much there that grabbed my interest to be honest. There wasn’t even a single stand with Suhr Moderns! 
Of course there was something I was really looking forward too, and that was Mr Guthrie Govan and Mr Alex Hutchings.
( Bad Angle Fuzzy phone pics only I’m afraid, as my digital camera died just before the Guitar Idol finals 
)
I had been really, like really, looking forward to seeing Guthrie Govan and Alex Hutchings playing. Thankfully I had some ‘insider info’ and knew when they were going to play . I was glad I didn’t miss anything!
Guthrie first played through ‘Wonderful Slippery Thing’ and ‘Waves’, fantastic as usual and his new Suhr sounded awesome. A little later on we finally got to see Alex Hutchings and Guthrie Govan jam. At that time the drummers were going for it over in the drum area of the hall so it was hard to hear exactly what was going on, but what we could hear was, as you’d expect, awesome. It was great to see them having a good time and the fact that Alex Hutchings wasn’t phased in the slightest.
Hanging around the Rotosound stand it was funny to see alot of familiar faces from the land of Youtube milling around Guthrie. At various points in the day Jack Thammarat, Silvio Gazquez, Hedras Ramos and Daniele Gottardo could be seen chatting away with him and checking out those Govan licks.
We stayed for the announcement of the Guitar Idol winners and I was delighted when Jack Thammarat was crowned Guitar Idol 2009. A good haul for Jack who ended up with a PRS a Rob Williams guitar *and* the Marshall JVM stack they had all played through!
Daniele Gottardo, Hedras Ramos and Muris Varajic all came away with prizes and I have to agree with the judges, they were the best on the day.
We left slightly after, not staying for the Steve Vai, Phil Hilborne and Nicko McBrain concert. We had been up 22 hours the day previously and we felt it!
All in all a great day out that seemed to fly past too quickly. Looking forward to next year and Guitar Idol 2010!
