The Players
News and happenings from the world of your favourite guitarists
Kurt Cobain’s recordbreaking Martin wasn’t the only big draw at Julien’s Auctions’ Music Icons sales. One of the first four Cloud guitars Prince ever commissioned sold for $563,500 (around £502,000). The 1984 Blue Angel Cloud 2 was used by the late legend on his 1985 Purple Rain and 1992 Diamonds And Pearls tours, as well as Saturday Night Live’s
15th anniversary special. But it’s not the most valuable Cloud to sell at auction: Prince’s blue teal Cloud, built by luthier Andy Beech, fetched $700,000 in 2017.
Brian May has been voted the best rock guitarist of all time in an online poll organised by our sister title Total Guitar via GuitarWorld. com. “I’m absolutely speechless,” said May in reaction to the news. “I’m blown away. I have to say it’s completely unexpected. Obviously, I’m deeply touched that people feel that way about me. I’m not under any illusions that, technically, I’m even on the tree of great guitarists… I guess this tells me that what I’ve done has affected people, and that means a great deal to me. I will never claim to be a great guitarist in the sense of, you know, a virtuoso. I guess I just try to play from my heart.” The other guitarists who made the top five were Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen and Eric Clapton.
In other poll news, Classic Rock magazine readers have voted I Believe In A Thing Called Love by The Darkness as the greatest song of the 21st century so far. It beat strong showings from AC/DC’s Rock N Roll Train, Alter Bridge’s Blackbird and Foo Fighters’ Best Of You.
15 years after his first solo album, Suspended Animation, Dream Theater’s John Petrucci has finally announced the followup. Terminal Velocity will be released this autumn.
Mark Tremonti has confirmed a 100-watt version of his popular PRS MT-15 head is on its way, and he has an early prototype in his home studio. “Right now, I’m trying to do something different,” he told Ultimate Guitar. He’s drawing on his collection of highly desirable amps to help deliver it. “The MT15 had this great highgain channel and a great clean channel with a boost on it,” says Tremonti, “but this MT-100 is going to have, obviously, a ton of headroom, but it’s also going to have a very Dumble-esque boost on the amp. That’s what I’ve really been digging on right now. It’s just an amazing tone. When I collect amps at home, I have a few Dumbles and other amps like that; I got so addicted to that tone and I want my amp to have a great version of it. That’s what we’re dialling in at the moment.”