DBZ Guitars is a new guitar company founded by guitar visionary Dean Zelinsky.  Dean was the creative force behind the original Dean Guitars and in many ways launched and drove the hard rock guitar market.  Rock players in the 80s and 90s that were looking for an alternative to Gibson found solace in the stylings of Dean Guitars.  Great classic Dean guitars included the Dean Z and the Dean V.

Fast forward to 2008 and Dean is no longer with Dean.  Enter DBZ Guitars, a Northbrook, IL guitar company that again is putting out very awesome rock guitars.  But there are new guitar ideas brewing over at DBZ that take rock in a new, creative direction.

The DBZ Imperial is a solid body guitar that cleverly employs both new and classic style elements to create a playable guitar that is at home with many styles of music.  In fact, a jazz player looking for warm tones will find a guitar with numerous ES-335 elements and a warm sound.  A rock player will love the V neck and the sustain from the mahogany body and neck.  A Blues player will love the humbuckers and the full tone that flows from the axe.

DBZ Imperial Premier AB in Goldtop

The true uniqueness of the Imperial comes out when you view the profile of the guitar.  It seems to taper into nothingness…creating a comfortable playing surface that never interferes with your right arm.  It’s truly special and cool.

DBZ Imperial FM in Trans Wine profile

DBZ Imperial FM in Trans Wine

Check out the DBZ Guitars currently in stock at Fat Tone Guitars

Welcome to Fuzz Of The Week.  Today, we’re examining the Barber Electronics Trifecta Fuzz.  The Trifecta Fuzz pedal is a vintage sounding fuzz that with a small amount of tweaking, you can get to sound like 3 different fuzz boxes and giving the pedal it’s name.

While the Trifecta is laid out in a standard way, the player can navigate the pedal and dial in different sounds.  Barber uses a knob they call the “Sludge” knob which in essence, gives you control of the bass frequencies.  In application, the Sludge knob makes the Trifecta sound great with all kinds of pickups–humbuckers and single coils.

Next, the Trifecta includes a 3 way switch (Trifecta) that connects you with 3 different vintage style circuits.  At the end of the day, guitar players can grab lots of vintage sounds that run the gamut from smooth and silky to giant overdriven fuzz.   Great Big Muff style sounds abound.

Barber Electronics Trifecta Fuzz

The record business is in serious disarray which means that many acts are on perma-tour status.  In my opinion there are few things better than live music.

This past weekend, Fat Tone Guitars had the pleasure of hosting a hard touring Chicago band, The Steepwater Band, in our showroom.  Playing close to 150 shows a year, The Steepwater Band is made up of Jeff Massey on guitar and vocals, Tod Bowers on bass and Joe Winters on drums.  Taking their cue from both classic British bands like The Faces and Humble Pie and American bands like The Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Steepwater boys play heartfelt roots based heavy music. While their music has the feel of classic rock, it’s performed with total feeling in the here and now.

The Steepwater Band at Fat Tone Guitars

I’m a big fan of their tunes and their sound and they really rocked the house at Fat Tone Guitars.

You can visit their website here.

You can buy their latest album, Grace and Melody, here.

Jeff Massey's Pedalboard

As you can see from Jeff’s pedalboard, he’s a connoisseur of great tone.  Great pedals on this board include Analog Man, BMF Effects, Electro-Harmonix, Klon, Dunlop and more.

Today, we have a little twist on our Fuzz Of The Week series.  You can enter a giveaway to win this week’s entry, the Earthquaker Devices Tone Reaper Fuzz Pedal.

The Earthquaker Devices Tone Reaper is a strong and raunchy fuzz pedal that uses a germanium/silicon hybrid transistor to deliver a biting Fuzz drenched tone.   The Tone Reaper will make your guitar sound awesome in a group format, pushing you through a loud rhythm section.

The EQD Tone Reaper’s layout is standard with a level, fuzz and tone knob.  Playing with these controls lets you add thick, molasses like fuzz and sustain to your lead lines, or dial it up for spittery, popping chopiness.

You be the judge.

Earthquaker Devices Tone Reaper

Fat Tone Guitars is giving away a brand new EQD Tone Reaper pedal as part of our October scary promotion.  You can enter the giveaway by telling us the first album or CD you ever bought with your own money.  A winner will be chosen randomly from all entries.  There is no purchase necessary to enter.

Fat Tone Guitars hosts events in the showroom from time to time.  Many of the artists that perform on our small stage are local musicians who are simply looking to play for an audience and have a good time.

Past performances include:

Rebeltone at Fat Tone Guitars

and

Super Mini Trio at Fat Tone Guitars

and

Bob Corritore, Patrick Rynn and Chris James at Fat Tone

and

Chickenbone at Fat Tone Guitars

and

Roger and The Wraybands at Fat Tone Guitars

and

The Debauchers at Fat Tone Guitars

and my favorites….

The Bottle Rockets at Fat Tone Guitars

Cool huh?  Will you be next?

I wanted to share with you some interesting data from our recently completed “Tell us your favorite guitar solos” promotion.  Some of this stuff really threw me for a loop.

• Nels Cline, currently playing with Wilco, delivered the 6th most popular solo.  The song, Impossible Germany featuring Nels’ impeccable fretwork came in 6th, ahead of famous tunes like Sweet Child O’ Mine, Boddhisatva, and anything by Joe Satriani or Alex Lifeson.
• If you’ve never heard it, go dig out Maggot Brain by Funkadelic.  Eddie Hazel, an underrated guitarist whips out his axe for a huge solo and was recognized by many of our respondents.
• Neil Young was mentioned more often than Alex Lifeson and tied with Jeff Beck
• Robert Fripp was mentioned more often than Duane Allman, Richie Blackmore and Randy Rhoads
• Eruption accounted for 75% of the Van Halen favorite solos
• Stairway To Heaven accounted for 48% of the Led Zeppelin solos

My takeaway from this non-scientific delving into the music preferences of our customers is that well phrased solos, that have a place in a song are more loved than jams.  What do you think?

The Analog Man Peppermint Fuzz Dark is the Fuzz o’ the Week.

This tasty fuzz pedal from Analog Man is one super fuzz.  Derived from the original Fuzz Face pedal that Jimi Hendrix used, the Peppermint Fuzz can give you standard Fuzz Face tones, along with both mild overdrive and in your face FUZZ.

The name Peppermint Fuzz is in homage to the old Strawberry Alarm Clock, which had the hit, Incense and Peppermints back in 1969.

To get your tones, tweak both the Fuzz knob which is on the top right as well as the Buzz knob which is in the center.

Analog Man Peppermint Fuzz Dark

Check out this pedal.

A few days ago, I blogged about my favorite rock guitar solos.  As I said, Fat Tone Guitars ran a promotion and entry into the promotion involved telling us your five favorite guitar solos.  Now that our promotion has ended, I’m left with some extremely interesting data regarding people’s taste in guitar music.

What’s truly interesting is that guitar players still love Pink Floyd.  I was in high school when The Wall was released, and it was a great album and all, but I never truly got into it, never even memorized the order of the songs.  I did spend a fair amount of time listening to Dark Side of The Moon, but Pink Floyd never impressed on me more than as great purveyors of post psychedelic, dreamscape type music as well as chart toppers.

However….Pink Floyd remains way up there in the world of guitar lovers.

Here are some cool findings from the Fat Tone Guitars giveaway entries, including top songs and artists.  Top artists in order were:

1. Pink Floyd
2. Jimi Hendrix
3. Led Zeppelin
4. Stevie Ray Vaughan
5. Van Halen
6. Eric Clapton/Cream
7. Neil Young
8. Eric Johnson
9. Duane Allman
10. Slash/GnR

Top individual songs with guitar solos are:

1. Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd (by a wide margin)
2. Stairway To Heaven
3. Eruption by Van Halen
4. Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix
5. Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits

It’s amazing to me that Pink Floyd was mentioned in about 40% of the entries followed by Jimi Hendrix in about 30%.  The Pink Floyd songs mentioned were primarily Comfortably Numb followed by Time and Money from Dark Side.  The Jimi Hendrix songs mentioned were spread out pretty evenly amongst Voodoo Child, Foxey Lady, LIttle Wing, Machine Gun and others.

The most interesting finding to me was that guitar gods like Joe Satriani (4 mentions) and Yngwe Malmsteen (1 mention) were almost no-shows.

I’ll post more interesting tidbits next week.

One of the fundamental building blocks of rock music is the Guitar Solo.  The character and soul of much of rock and roll comes out in the solo.  Even more so than a drum solo or driving rhythm guitar riff, the guitar solo evokes a visceral response that is unrivaled in popular music.

Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s World found solace in their favorite guitar solos, courtesy of Jimi Hendrix and Brian May.

Wayne's World

People that scream for Free Bird when at a live rock show are paying homage to that venerable, overplayed classic rock staple, not because of the upward looking lyrics, but because there is an over the top, killer 3 guitar solo that goes on ad nauseum, at the close of the song.

Through September 30, 2009, Fat Tone Guitars is having a promotional giveaway with an MJM London Fuzz Pedal as the prize.  To enter the giveaway, you must visit this website and submit your five favorite guitar solos.  A winner will be randomly selected from all the entrants.

To get things going, I’ll submit my 5 faves–in no particular order–with a little commentary on each.  Thanks for playing.

1. Sweet Jane and Intro, Lou Reed’s Rock and Roll Animal: What is so ironic is that this album, put out by the godfather of punk not only showcases some killer lead guitar work throughout by Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, but also is the blueprint for the brand of arena rock that bands like Journey and Styx milked for years.
2. Astronomy, Blue Oyster Cult’s Some Enchanted Evening: Donald (Buck Dharma) Roeser is one of the unsung guitar heroes from the first wave of heavy metal.  I’ll never understand why guys like Michael Schenker got so many props while Buck had all the chops and much more nuance and feel for a song than Schenker ever did.  Astronomy, from this under appreciated live album was my first true guitar epic.
3. Things You Didn’t Know, The Bottle Rocket’s 24 Hours a Day: A slow burn song that follows that classic rock tradition of ending in a flurry of guitar, Things You Didn’t Know is a poignant tune that pulls great feeling out of the lyrics and the tasty guitar solo.  Brian Henneman recalls Neil Young and Billy Gibbons while coaxing some awesome sounds from his Gretsch Tennessean.
4. County Fair, Joe Walsh’s So What: Apparently Joe Walsh quit the James Gang because he was sick of carrying a power trio.  His next 3 albums as a solo artist incorporated lots of classically inspired dynamic arrangements and layered keyboard and guitar.  County Fair is a masterpiece of tension and release.  Feel the guitars building on both speakers until they fairly explode and then the song is over.  Best when listening through headphones.
5. Smiling, Marc Ford’s Neptune Club: Marc Ford paid his bills for 10 or so years recording and touring with the Black Crowes but his strength has always been as a quasi-bandleader playing post Band inspired music.  Possessing immense chops, Ford constrains himself on this album (and this song) while still getting great tone and emoting with the best of them.

Well, there you go.  Have fun with this.

Blackout Effectors is a cool little pedal company out of North Carolina.  They have been making neat fuzz pedals for awhile and their flagship pedal, the Musket Fuzz has been getting a lot of press lately.  Fat Tone Guitars’ Fuzz Of The Week however is the Blackout Effectors Fix’d Fuzz.

Like all the Blackout Effectors pedals, the Fix’d Fuzz is a highly tweakable fuzz pedal that takes a standard fuzz type tone and allows the player to add additional sizzle and grit to the sound.

The Fix’d Fuzz combines straight overdrive sounds plus a boost, as well as two different fuzz controls.  The two fuzz controls will get you smooth, polite fuzz or snarling, razorsharp snap crackle and pop.  Getting the Fix’d Fuzz to do what you want takes a little practice but it’s well worth the learning curve.

Best of all, the Fix’d Fuzz is way affordable at $165.  Check it out.

Blackout Effectors Fix'd Fuzz Ants Version