guitar

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Smashing Pumpkins' Ad for New Guitarist Is a Smash Itself

More than 10K applicants are interested in the slot left empty by departing guitarist Jeff Schroeder

(Newser) - Jeff Schroeder recently left the Smashing Pumpkins after more than 15 years, leaving the rock band short one guitarist. They certainly have plenty of people interested in the gig, however: After putting out a call for a new band member earlier this month, the group has been inundated with applications,...

Cobain's Unplugged Guitar Smashes World Record

It fetched $6M at Beverly Hills auction

(Newser) - The guitar Kurt Cobain played during Nirvana's legendary MTV Unplugged performance less than five months before his death sold for $6 million Saturday, obliterating the record set last year by the sale of Pink Floyd member David Gilmour's iconic black Stratocaster. Gilmour's guitar went for $3.95...

An Iconic Guitar Is Going Up for Auction

Kurt Cobain's guitar from 'MTV Unplugged' performance has a starting estimate of $1M

(Newser) - The cardigan Kurt Cobain wore during Nirvana's iconic performance on MTV's Unplugged sold for $334,000 . Now the guitar he played during the New York show, which took place just five months before his 1994 death, is going up for auction. The Guardian reports the rare 1959 Martin...

April Wine Frontman Gets 'Unbelievable' Message

His beloved Gibson guitar wasn't actually destroyed

(Newser) - Myles Goodwyn loved that guitar—and then it was gone, for 46 years. The former April Wine frontman says he played his Gibson Melody Maker on songs like "You Could Have Been a Lady" and "Bad Side of the Moon" with the Canadian band in the early 1970s,...

Musician Plays Guitar During His Brain Surgery to Help Out Doctors

Musa Manzini was able to give medical team 'real-time feedback' during 'awake craniotomy'

(Newser) - His skull still open, a South African musician with a brain tumor played several notes on his guitar during an operation to remove most of the growth. Musa Manzini's guitar-playing helped guide the medical team in their delicate task while preserving neural pathways, says neurosurgeon Dr. Rohen Harrichandparsad. Manzini...

It's Chapter 11 for Guitar Maker to the Stars

Les Paul maker Gibson to 'refocus' on musical instruments

(Newser) - It made what VH1 calls "arguably the most famous guitar in rock," the Les Paul Standard cradled by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page. Now Gibson needs help churning out its guitars also favored by David Bowie and John Lennon . The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday,...

After Dad's Death, Teen Gets Amazing Birthday Surprise

A guitar his dad purchased months earlier

(Newser) - When Johnny Crow first discovered music, he viewed it as a kind of therapy. "It was amazing how it made me feel," the 16-year-old says. "It made that sadness go away." So when Johnny's 49-year-old father died of a heart attack in April despite Johnny'...

Deadhead Sells Jerry Garcia's 'Wolf' for $1.9M

'The time is right for Wolf to do some good'

(Newser) - A guitar that Jerry Garcia played everywhere from San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom to Egypt's Great Pyramids fetched over $1.9 million at an auction Wednesday night. The Grateful Dead frontman's guitar—named Wolf—was sold at the Brooklyn Bowl, a bowling alley, restaurant, and music venue. The...

Eric Clapton Now Struggles to Play Guitar

71-year-old guitar legend has nerve damage

(Newser) - A tough break for Eric Clapton: The 71-year-old guitar legend says he now struggles to play at all because of nerve damage. "It started with lower back pain and turned into what they call peripheral neuropathy—which is where you feel like you have electric shocks going down your...

Rocker St. Vincent Designs Guitar for Women

Singer says 'ergonomic' instrument has 'room for a breast ... or two'

(Newser) - A "badass" guitar designed for women is coming to market in March, Esquire notes, and female shredders have Annie Clark to thank for it. Clark, better known as alternative rocker St. Vincent, has designed a signature guitar for manufacturer Ernie Ball Music Man, and as Clark notes on Instagram...

No One Told Kurt Russell Not to Smash Priceless Antique Guitar

And a museum isn't happy about it

(Newser) - Kurt Russell defeated the Thing , shook the pillars of Heaven and Earth , and escaped from New York . A 140-year-old antique guitar never stood a chance. SSN reports the actor accidentally smashed a priceless 1870s guitar on loan from the Martin Guitar Museum while filming a scene for Quentin Tarantino's...

Ringo Starr Is Hawking a Treasure Trove of Beatles Stuff

Drummer auctioning off more than 800 things he owned

(Newser) - More than 800 items owned by Ringo Starr and his wife, Barbara Bach, are going to auction, including rare Beatles memorabilia like his three-piece drum kit used in more than 200 performances and a Rickenbacker guitar known as the "Beatle-Backer" that John Lennon owned and later gave to Starr....

John Lennon's Lost Guitar Turns Up in Weird Way

Gibson instrument expected to fetch up to $800K

(Newser) - John Lennon last saw his prized J-160E Gibson guitar—the instrument he played when recording "Love Me Do"—in December 1963, during a Beatles Christmas show in a London park. The guitar went missing and stayed that way for about 50 years, when an amateur guitarist realized he'...

Changed Tune: Guitars Now OK as Carry-Ons

Small instruments to be treated as any suitcase aboard US airlines

(Newser) - In technical terms, Section 403 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2012 is now in full effect. What that means for travelers: As of Dec. 30, 2014, small musical instruments now qualify as a "carry-on" on any US airline. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch shares the American Federation of Musicians'...

Bob Dylan's Epochal Electric Guitar Fetches $1M

His Stratocaster from Newport festival in 1965 is auctioned

(Newser) - The Fender Stratocaster that Bob Dylan plugged in when he famously went electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival sold today for nearly $1 million—the highest price ever paid for a guitar at auction. Christie's auction house did not immediately identify the absentee buyer who agreed to pay...

Guitars Make Men Sexier
 Guitars Make Men Sexier 
STUDIES SAY

Guitars Make Men Sexier

French study suggests music is linked to physical and intellectual abilities

(Newser) - There's now evidence to support what many women have long accepted as fact: There's something sexy about a man with a guitar. A French study published in the journal Psychology of Music has found that a guy with a pretty face and a guitar case is much more...

Charles Manson Recordings on New Album

LA shop owner releases music the killer made in 1980s

(Newser) - The owner of a Los Angeles shop has put out an album of music made by Charles Manson—with the killer's blessing, reports the Los Angeles Times . Manuel Vasquez, 26, says he has sold about 200 copies of the album, which features six "low-fi, mono" songs Manson wrote...

47 Years Later, Dylan's Iconic Electric Guitar May Have Surfaced

Daughter of his pilot claims she has it, but singer's lawyer says no

(Newser) - When Bob Dylan plugged in an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, folk music fans—who were used to Dylan's acoustic protest songs—were outraged. The Fender Stratocaster may very well be, the AP notes, "the most historic single instrument" in rock and roll. It...

Google Doodle Guitar Lives On at Own Web Page

Popular, playable tribute to Les Paul will remain available

(Newser) - The Google Doodle guitar tribute to Les Paul has proven so popular that Google is keeping it available permanently, reports Mashable . The playable gizmo now has its own standalone site here where fans can pluck away. Thousands of songs already have shown up on YouTube, including Stairway to Heaven . PC ...

4K Google Guitar Tunes Posted to YouTube

Bonus: Google will leave Doodle up one more day

(Newser) - Got your guitar out? No, not your Stratocaster, but your Google guitar? Stretch your finger, because the Christian Science Monitor and several other sites are posting directions for and YouTube demos of some of the top songs tech-strummers are playing on the Google Doodle posted yesterday to honor guitar innovator'...

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