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The Latest Breaking News from Frank Zappa

“Among fair fists at the greatest ‘hits’ are extensive improvisations that repeatedly just don’t work”: Frank Zappa’s Live At The Whisky A Go Go, 1968

Seems like there’s a reason this live recording remained unreleased in his lifetime

Louder

“I was so nervous my foot was shaking on my wah pedal. After the gig someone said, ‘Wow! How are you getting that sound?’” Weird Al Yankovic guitarist Jim “Kimo” West on shaky beginnings, parody rock glory – and his Grammy-winning third act

He found his way to fame via Frank Zappa, has scooped up multiple award nominations under his own name – and is so laid back that he didn’t mind when Rick Derringer played the leads on Al’s ’80s albums

Guitar World

“He took the lighter fluid, squirted it on the guitar and set it on fire. That might be the first relic’d guitar – and you can thank Seymour Duncan for that”: That time Adrian Belew DIY aged his Strat with a screwdriver, spray paint and motor oil

Belew bought a brown sunburst Strat to take on tour with Frank Zappa – but it wasn't deemed fit for purpose until going through a drastic cosmetic overhaul

Guitar World

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"The freedom and joy we had, and the confidence in each other, is remarkable": Ian Gillan looks back at Deep Purple's Machine Head era

With Deep Purple’s original plans for their sixth album having literally gone up in smoke, Machine Head was a triumph snatched from the jaws of disaster

Louder

Shuggie Otis's third album was hailed as classic, but his record company dropped him: It took 40 years to make a fourth

The son of an R&B legend, guitar virtuoso Shuggie Otis did it his way, turning down the Rolling Stones and David Bowie in the process

Louder

"I get that people are trying to keep the blues alive, but to me it feels super-limiting": Six things you need to know about Troy Redfern

Troy Redfern was raised on a turkey farm. He's been an accountant and a butcher. And you can dance to his new album

Louder

“I dreamt I was listening to a live Allman Brothers album, and they were playing exactly what’s heard on the record. I woke up and thought, ‘That’s not an Allman Brothers song!’” Andy Aledort on creating his Satriani and Vai-endorsed blues album

The veteran guitarist’s new album, In a Dream, features US guitar great David Grissom, plus covers of Jimi Hendrix, Cream and Albert King

Guitar World

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“Fans say, ‘You were part of the band.’ I was never part of the band… I was an employee. And all things come to an end”: Chester Thompson’s career in and out of Genesis

American drummer recalls his life and times with Frank Zappa, Weather Report, Phil Collins, Unitopia and even the Bee Gees

Louder

“David Bowie and Brian Eno used to laugh at me, saying: ‘You’re not supposed to be able to play that!’” Adrian Belew on Frank Zappa’s lessons, Robert Fripp’s synth guitar, and what’s coming up with Steve Vai

Still amazed that he managed to gather Vai, Tony Levin and Danny Carey into new band Beat, Belew reflects on his light-speed journey from 1977 to 1982, and how he plans to reactivate King Crimson’s ‘80s albums on stage

Guitar World

5 of the best speakers I heard at High End Munich: Burmester, Vivid Audio and more

I was on the ground at Munich's High End Show and these are just some of the most stunning driver-filled designs I heard.

TechRadar

“It takes $10,000 a day… the goal of getting on the road, playing in front of fans, outweighs the pain of losing the stuff”: Dweezil Zappa on sacrificing his out-there guitar collection, mixing Hendrix and building an immersive rig

The Zappa Plays Zappa tour is heading out this summer and Dweezil has funded it with an immense gear auction – the steep price, he says, is worth it

Guitar World

“I’m 16 and they were my heroes… They started to laugh because I was also playing the echo parts. I didn’t know they were a special effect”: Obsessive attention to detail was always Eddie Jobson’s superpower

From a backstage performance for Curved Air to being dragged onstage by Frank Zappa and out-complicating King Crimson, the UK violinist has managed to ignore distractions from making music

Louder

“The humorous interludes may prove divisive; it’s strongest when they dig hard into a groove”: Trifecta control the fusion in The New Normal

Steven Wilson band veterans Nick Beggs, Adam Holzman and Craig Blundell build on their 2021 debut

Louder

“This is an intensely crafted ‘Super Guitar’ with a separate piezo output…”: Dweezil Zappa’s huge gear auction is full of utterly unique guitars, including his Hot Rats Gibson Les Paul, a Madonna-clad Jackson and a true one-off custom PRS

The inimitable Zappa is selling off some of his most unusual and prized guitar possessions in order to raise funds for his forthcoming tour dates

Guitar World

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Louder

“Such a spectacle: 80,000 fans, eight-way spatial audio”: Did Roger Waters top Pink Floyd at Desert Trip in 2016? His guitarist Jonathan Wilson thinks so (and he wasn’t in the band at the time)

While not living his “Canyon life,” American musician and producer’s prog world includes Rush, Frank Zappa, Roy Harper, Robert Wyatt and others

Metal Hammer

"Prog music, or heavy music in general, is a very conservative scene. When you are willing to expose yourself emotionally, it’s a vulnerable place to be." Devin Townsend tackles The Prog Interview

From his early days with Steve Vai to battling through mental health problems and explaining to Prog just why he prefers Beefheart over Zappa, there’s much to cover in this therapeutic discussion…

Guitar World

From King Crimson to A-list hired gun with Talking Heads, Frank Zappa and David Bowie, Adrian Belew created his own language on the guitar – here are his 10 greatest guitar moments

With King Crimson, Talking Heads, as a solo artist, it didn't matter: Adrian Belew manipulated the guitar like no-one else, bending sound into new shapes

Louder

"It's so mid-eighties I can see Molly Ringwald and the rest of the brat pack dancing in a bedroom in my mind's eye": Mr. Mister master the period cliches on Welcome To The Real World

Mr. Mister released four slickly produced albums. Three bombed. Welcome To The Real World certainly didn't

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Louder

“The fact that he managed to mix the political with the comical and the absurd, without comprising his output, is a big influence”: Frank Zappa is Serj Tankian’s prog hero

System Of A Down vocalist hails the Mothers Of Invention leader for more than just his ambitious approach to making music

MusicRadar

“It was just another riff, like Into The Fire. We didn’t make a big deal out of it and it wasn’t being considered as a track for the album": Ian Gillan on the unlikely success story of writing and recording Deep Purple's Smoke On The Water

"The downdraft from the mountains caused the smoke to blow across Lake Geneva, like a film set or dry ice on a stage show. At this point, Roger wrote the words ‘smoke on the water’ on a napkin”

The Guardian - UK

‘We wanted to invade media’: the hippies, nerds and Hollywood pros who brought The Simpsons to life

The Simpsons’ roots run deep. And as Matt Groening’s early collaborators explain, it owes its global success to a perfect storm of punk zine attitude and TV professionalism

Louder

Tangerine Dream's Phaedra at 50 is on the cover of the new issue of Prog, on sale now!

Plus Chester Thompson, Big Big Train, Stackridge, Bill Nelson, The Pineapple Thief, Damian Wilson & Adam Wakeman and loads more...

Louder

“There was an amazing synergy. The longest single session was 72 hours. We fed the engineer speed pills… we’d scramble to write lyrics then pluck vocal harmonies out of the air”: How Nektar’s ambition and effort gave the world Remember The Future

The Bluebird character was invented at the same time by different creatives, a technical issue nearly killed off the recorded musical energy – and drugs fuelled almost every aspect of the production. But the resulting environment-themed epic was worth all the hard graft

Louder

"Epitomising the blend of prog-rock chops, pop sensibility and Zappa-influenced weirdness that was Max's secret formula": Max Webster's High Class In Borrowed Shoes

High Class In Borrowed Shoes is the second album by extravagantly dressed Canadian rock eccentrics and Rush buddies Max Webster

Louder

“The band thought I was dead. My neck was bent like it was broken”: the time Frank Zappa was severely injured after being pushed offstage by a fan

Frank Zappa survived being assaulted onstage by a fan in London in 1971 – but he was left with lifelong pain

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