Scorpions will release MTV Unplugged, a new CD/DVD, January 21 through Sony International.

In advance of the release, they've posted a trailer, which you can check out below.
Recorded and filmed this past September 11 and 12, MTV Unplugged was culled from two sets at the Lycabettus Theatre in Athens, Greece. The open-air theater, which is 300 meters above the city, made for an impressive backdrop for the first-ever open-air show in the history of MTV Unplugged.


Scorpions are Klaus Meine (vocals/guitar), Rudolf Schenker (guitars/vocals), Matthias Jabs (guitars), Pawel Maciwoda (bass) and James Kottak (drums); additional support on the DVD includes contributions from Swedish musicians and producers Mikael Nord Andersson (guitars, mandolin, lap steel, vocals) and Martin Hansen (guitars, harmonica, vocals).

Fender has launched a pair of new travel acoustic guitars which hinge at the neck, allowing them to be folded away for ease of transport.

The CD-140S VA and CD-60 VA feature Fender's Voyage-Air patented neck hinge, which means players can essentially fold the guitar in half and pack it into a small case.



We're guessing you're going to need to give it a thorough tune up every time you use it, but for guitarists on the go an acoustic that fits into an easily transported case will be an attractive prospect.

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Lydon says he has 'a good liking' of Jagger because of his generosity when Vicious was accused of murdering Nancy Spungen

John Lydon has spoken about his admiration for Mick Jagger, who paid Sid Vicious's lawyers when the Sex Pistols bassist was arrested for the alleged murder of girlfriend Nancy Spungen.

Spungen was found dead on the floor of the couple's New York hotel room on 12 October, 1978 with a single stab wound to the stomach. Vicious was arrested and charged with murder but died of a heroin overdose four months later after being released on bail.



In an extensive new interview with the Daily Record, Lydon said of the incident: "Nancy Spungen was a hideous, awful person who killed herself because of the lifestyle and led to the destruction and subsequent death of Sid and the whole fiasco. I tried to help Sid through all of that and feel a certain responsibility because I brought him into the Pistols thinking he could handle the pressure. He couldn't. The reason people take heroin is because they can't handle pressure. Poor old Sid."

"Her death is all entangled in mystery," Lydon continued. "It's no real mystery, though. If you are going to get yourself involved in drugs and narcotics in that way accidents are going to happen."



Later in the interview Lydon praised Jagger for helping Vicious when Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren failed to come to the bassist's aid. "The only good news is that I heard Mick Jagger got in there and brought lawyers into it on Sid's behalf because I don't think Malcolm lifted a finger. He just didn't know what to do," Lydon recalled. "For that, I have a good liking of Mick Jagger. There was activity behind the scenes from Mick Jagger so I applaud him. He never used it to advance himself publicity-wise."

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It is hard to imagine modern life without the electric guitar or imagine how the social and sexual revolution of the 1960s could have occurred without it.

Les Paul’s great invention changed the world. Without the electric guitar there would have been no Elvis Presley, no Beatles, no Rolling Stones and no pop culture as we know it.

The electric guitar may have been a revolutionary instrument, but its evolution has been extremely conservative. Designs for the electric guitar have barely changed in the last 50 years. The market remains dominated by Gibson and Fender. Their marquee brands, the Gibson Les Paul and the Fender Stratocaster, are icons of modern culture and remain trusted by generation after generation of musicians. For that reason, the guitar-buying public remains notoriously conservative.



As the Gibson company found to their cost, the guitar-buyer eschews anything that smacks of being a gimmick. Two years ago Gibson launched the Firebird X, a guitar which had built-in effects and came with a hefty price tag, but it flopped.

Into the void has come Irish electric engineer, musician and entrepreneur Rob O’Reilly (30) from Killarney who set up the Pay As You Please restaurant in his hometown.

His BE guitar is a revolution in guitar design and his ambitions are equally impressive. The elemental colours of black and white are redolent of the original iPod.

“I’m doing for guitars what Steve Jobs did for phone,” he says.

“There is no guitar like it anywhere. When people see it they go ‘Wow. I’ve never seen anything like that before’. The overall visual look of it is totally different to anything on the market. It is mixing the fashion industry with the music industry.”



Radical features
His guitar has two radical features. The first is a transparent centre made of acrylic, heresy for orthodox guitar players for whom the wood at the centre of instrument is a key part of the sound.

The guitar has space for inlays which you can customise with your design or even include lights or a mirror inside.

The other is the balance bar which locks the guitar in place whether sitting or standing and is patent pending.

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Lady Gaga admits to smoking a whopping 15 joints a day.

Pop superstar Lady Gaga says that she became addicted to marijuana after suffering from a hip injury last year.

Question: Will smoking Pot help, or hinder, a musicians ability to; write, record and perform their music?

The Poker Face hitmaker underwent an operation earlier this year after she sustained a labral tear in her hip, and she has now revealed she eased her pain by smoking up to 15 joints a day.





She admits in the London Mirror, "I was smoking fifteen joints a day... It was a habit that eventually occurred when the pain got so bad with the hip. I was just numbing, numbing, numbing myself then sleeping it off, then getting on stage, killing it in pain, then getting off and smoking, smoking, smoking, not knowing what the pain was. F**k if I know what hurts the most, you know?"



The singer admits she tried to kick the addiction, but found her cravings would creep back constantly, adding, "I would break the habit and it would sneak back in and I would break it and sneak back in."

However, the star has since managed to cut down on the habit, adding, "Now I smoke a little bit at night just, you know, for fun. But not to cope, that's the difference. I'm the soberest I've ever been in the past five years."

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The custom-designed instrument belonged to 25-year-old Mississauga resident Kara Shred, who died suddenly in September.

When Bon Jovi guitarist Phil X played his solo at the Air Canada Centre Saturday night, he made a dozen people cry.

That’s because the 12 were the only ones to understand the significance of the guitar in his hands.




The semi-hollow electric guitar, with three star-shaped ports, was custom-designed by Mississauga resident Kara Shred, who died suddenly Sept 19.

Kristi Vilmansen-Shred, mother of the 25-year-old’s graphic designer and hobby musician, found her daughter’s body when she went to wake her for work.

“We were told it was probably a congenital heart problem we didn’t know about,” Vilmansen-Shred says. “It’s been staggering.”

Kara was relentlessly happy. “Just so artistic, creative, crazy and fun,” Vilmansen-Shred says. “She’d get so excited about different things and she just wouldn’t stop.”

Larry Shred, left, and Kristi Vilmansen, right, with their daughter Kara's custom guitar at The Guitar World. The parents donated their daughter's beloved instrument so anyone who wished to play it could do so. zoom

Trying to find some solace, shortly after Kara’s death the family gifted her beloved creation to The Guitar World in Mississauga, asking store owner and family friend Jim Toris to allow anyone who asked to play the instrument.

The gesture was meant to honour the young woman’s love of music. Kara started playing piano at age 5 and picked up guitars after entering high school. Guitar playing was a special connection she shared with her father, Larry Shred, who had split from Vilmansen-Shred when Kara was 2. Kara had four guitars and the family didn’t want them to gather dust — especially that one.

“It is such a beautiful, unique kind of custom piece that has so much of Kara in it, we want it to be played by lots and lots of people,” Vilmansen-Shred says.

So they brought it to The Guitar World. Toris created a display, The Journey of Kara’s Guitar, and started a photo album on The Guitar World’s Facebook page, posting pictures of customers playing the instrument.

Enter rock star Phil Xenidis, known as Phil X, who recently replaced Richie Sambora as the guitarist with Bon Jovi.

 

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Posted by: Jon via "GuitarNoize" 


Ever wondered when seeing demos of Positive Grid JamUp Pro on YouTube how the guys are getting the audio from their iPad into their desktop computers in realtime?? As it turns out all you need is the Griffin StudioConnect for iPad. This clever little device not only acts as a stand for your iPad, but also has a mains connection so your battery doesn’t die during a recording or performance (it is also a charging dock) and it is a fully featured audio interface with multiple ins and outs.

The main input is obviously the instrument in so you can plug your guitar directly into that plus you have stereo outputs which you can run out to a powered speaker, power amp or a P.A. Also included are a headphone input (with a volume control on the front of the unit) and there are MIDI in and outputs, a 3.5 mm stereo input, plus a big Gain control dial on the front too.



In my case I plugged my Taylor SB2-S into the Griffin StudioConnect and then ran the outputs to the 2 inputs of my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 which is connected to my iMac via USB and then the recording was captured in Reaper.

I also recorded a bass track using JamUp Pro on my iPad and plugged in directly to the StudioConnect just the same as the guitar and got excellent results. I used Toontrack Superior Drummer on the final track to finish it off and as you can hear in my video the AD/DA converters in the StudioConnect are very good. In fact, there was no noise and no latency.

I will definitely be using this combination of StudioConnect/iPad for recording from now on rather than desktop modelling apps as it takes the load off the CPU and the result sounds so much better to me. I haven’t tried this yet but I’m also thinking it is probably possible to record the dry signal from within your iPad (via Garageband or similar) while recording so you can reamp at some point should you wish and then play it back from your iPad into your DAW.



The Griffin Technology StudioConnect is available direct from their website – http://store.griffintechnology.com/studioconnect-audio-interface-lightning.