Tim henson

TODAY I'D LIKE to talk about downpicking — picking or strumming consecutive downstrokes — and why it can be so musically effective. This is something I learned from studying the riff-writing style of

FOR A HALF-CENTURY AND COUNTING, THE THIN LIZZY SOUND HAS BEEN FORGED AND RECAST BY SCOTT GORHAM AND THE GREATS WHO PARTNERED HIM ON DUELLING LES PAULS, INCLUDING THE LATE JOHN SYKES. GORHAM LOOKS BACK ON THE HIGHS, LOWS, JOY AND PAIN OF HIS CLASSIC PARTNERSHIPS

The month’s best guitar music – a hand-picked selection of the finest fretwork on wax

Why are more and more guitar builders making their own pickups, wonders Dave Burrluck, and does it affect us players who are used to decades-old designs road-tested by giants?

When the Irish band were a folksy blues three-piece, it was Eric Bell who defined Thin Lizzy on their 1971 self-titled debut and early 70s follow-ups, Shades Of A Blue Orphanage and Vagabonds Of The Western World

From his early days in the repair shop to heading up one of the world’s leading pickup brands, the master pickup maker tells us how his problem-solving mindset led to him working with some of the biggest names in the biz, and why he humbly still seems himself as “crew”