Welcome To The Jangle

At the time that Guns N’ Roses released their debut album, Appetite For Destruction, in 1987, I was a guitar teacher and so I had a ringside seat from which I could observe the effect it had on my younger students. All of a sudden, it seemed, everyone under the age of 25 wanted to learn Slash’s opening guitar part to Sweet Child O’ Mine, closely followed by the riff to Welcome To The Jungle. No doubt about it, there was a new guitar hero in town. In the intervening years, the band’s fortunes have seen many changes in line-up – not exactly a unique thing in the tinsel-and-tiara-strewn landscape of rock ’n’ roll, you have to admit. But now we welcome in another kind of debut from the behatted stringsman of G N’ R in the form of his own range of Gibson Les Pauls and you can read what we think about them in our review on page 94. There are even a few words from the man himself following closely on behind.

NAMM is, without doubt, one of the most important dates in the music industry’s diary and the pick of this year’s spectacular newgearathon introduces some interesting trends. There’s a definite upsurge in modelling amps, for instance, and the development of ever more deviously contrived effects pedals continues apace. As an example of the pedal designer’s cunning, Green Carrot’s ‘Comfortably Plum’ – which we review on page 124 – combines the charms of a Big Muff with those of Colorsound’s Power Boost, resulting in a dead ringer for David Gilmour’s tone on his anthemic solo on Comfortably Numb. Funnily enough, in our video demo, we found we could easily get into the Sorrow ballpark, too.

Elsewhere in the magazine we speak with Peter Frampton on the eve of his farewell tour in the UK and experience the jaw-dropping talents of acoustic maestro Richard Smith in our specially filmed masterclass.

I hope you enjoy the issue and I’ll see you next month.