Tales from nerdville

ANOTHER OF THE many Gibson guitars that I love (are there any that I don’t?) is the ES-350. This is a semi-hollow “jazz box” type of guitar, deeper than a ES-335 but still kind of skinny when compared

ON JUNE 23, the guitar world lost a true legend — Mick Ralphs of Bad Company and Mott the Hoople fame. He was 81. Besides being an amazing songwriter, Ralphs was a criminally underrated blues/rock gui

MUSIC FANS KNEW Ozzy Osbourne as the Prince of Darkness or maybe even the Messiah of Metal, but among the hard-rock guitar community, he’ll always be remembered as the Godfather of Heavy Guitar. Thank

IF ONLY HALF the rumors about him are true, Ozzy Osbourne should be dead. Yet, after 21 years of twisted public behavior, the man who brought you songs like “Paranoid,” “Bark at the Moon” and “Childre

ALL’S BEEN QUIET for several years on Jake E. Lee’s proverbial Western Front. The guitarist has taken extended breaks before, like the one after the demise of his beloved Badlands in 1993. Still, afte

WITHOUT A SINGLE doubt, the most familiar character in heavy metal, the late Ozzy Osbourne, was presented to the public as a madman, a maniac and a court jester whose life was a constant ricochet from