Toys in the attic

The modern-day funk maestro on Strats, creative gear solutions, and why not to be swayed by the “mystique of gear”

LATE-FIFTIES OIL CAN echoes are fascinating pieces of gear. Imagine a rotating disk submerged in oil and built-in pickups that work in tandem to recreate the delay. Sounds a little wacky, right? But s

Thirty years after its release, Billy Corgan looks back at the making of The Smashing Pumpkins ’ era-defining big, bold, bombastic masterpiece Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness .

Richard Barrett is on a mission to make you a better blues player – with full audio examples and backing tracks

I’M NOT SURE if it’s the three-inch heels on her Doc Martens, but Emily Green dwarfs me as she strides across the stage. It’s about an hour before her band, Geese, soundchecks for their sold-out show

What was your first guitar? I wanted a guitar when I was 10, but it took until I was 12 before my parents gave in. We went to a shop in King’s Cross in North London, and they had guitars hanging up, i