A CHIEF CONSIDERATION when playing with a slide is the tuning. Many of our favorite slide players — Elmore James, Duane Allman, Johnny Winter, Derek Trucks — play slide almost exclusively in an open t

IF YOU’VE SEEN recent footage of Eric Steckel in action, you’ll probably have noticed that his take on the blues is an undeniably aggressive one. It’s a new thing for him, he tells GW, having started

AS I STATED last month, my favorite band line-up is the guitar-bass-drums power trio. With the guitar being the primary chordal and melodic instrument in the ensemble, there are challenges inherent in

CRAFTING AN APPEALING guitar solo for a song is always a creative challenge. There are many different approaches one can take: Do I follow the chord changes so that the notes line up perfectly with th

SINCE FOUNDING BIG Wreck in the early Nineties, Ian Thornley has filled his band’s songbook with arena-conquering melodies, Led Zeppelin-hailing heft and some of the most super-heroically knuckle-bust

IF YOU SPEND just 10 minutes listening to the music of the whacked-out, Los Angeles-based psych-punk rockers Frankie and the Witch Fingers, you’ll undoubtedly think, “How on earth does that guitarist