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The Latest Breaking News from Frank Zappa

“Jesus, that was hard! But I got it. I welcome the challenges”: Guitar hero Steve Vai reveals the difficulties of playing King Crimson music - and how he gets by with a little help from Robert Fripp

“I’m a fan and want to play the exact notes,” Vai says

MusicRadar

“This was the first amp modeller that I’ve tried that feels like a real amp”: Vower’s Joe Gosney and Rabea Massaad reveal their festival Quad Cortex setups – and why there's a Zappa-inspired “harmonic exciter” on the 'board

In this video interview, the Gosney and Massaad talk modellers, hybrid rigs, and why they're now both fully onboard with guitar's digital transformation

MusicRadar

Squid get evil for killer new album: 'It's dark and grisly, but still funny'

Squid talk to us about their new album Cowards, which has evil as its theme and sounds like nothing you’ve heard before

Evening Standard

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“Stevie Ray Vaughan was a little worse for wear. He was eating KFC out of a box and then ate the box as well”: Jeff Beck’s wild tales of Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen and Frank Zappa

Sharing the stage with Page, giving Hendrix a guitar, being mistaken for Jagger – these were some of Jeff Beck‘s most memorable friendships

Louder

“Adrian and I connected on everything – we even went to the Whisky and paid $5 to see Van Halen play in a one-third full room”: Cult guitar hero Rob Fetters on his friendship with Adrian Belew – and the time they raced home to try tapping after seeing EVH

The Raisins co-founder has returned to making his own music after years of commercial work. He looks back on his fruitful friendship with Zappa sideman Belew – but can’t predict if they’ll reboot their former band

Guitar World

“I was on my way to Vegas to marry a French boy, who was asleep on my lap, and I was listening to this song thinking, I'm living the dream. Then he woke up and said, I can't marry you.” Du Blonde on the eight songs that changed her life

From Joni Mitchell to David Bowie via Billy Bragg, Led Zeppelin and Frank Zappa, here are eight songs that made Du Blonde the bold and brilliant artist that she is

Louder

“Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to talk to me. They thought I would be right for the part of The Terminator”: WASP frontman Blackie Lawless’ wild tales of Lemmy, Gene Simmons and The Village People

Metal Hammer

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“My job was to add feel and groove to Brian’s written bass parts. I tried to keep it cooking for him”: Carol Kaye on how she made Pet Sounds with the Beach Boys – and why good basslines don't come from scales

Kaye, the first lady of the electric bass, played her P-Bass through a Fender Super Reverb 4x10 combo on the iconic record

Guitar World

“This is gonna make her cry. I don’t care!” Bill Hader, punk rock aficionado, will make his daughter love the Misfits whether she wants to or not

The It, Saturday Night Live and Superbad actor also reveals he grew up listening to hair metal in a new interview with Amoeba Music

Metal Hammer

“This is a guy who worked for Frank Zappa. Frank said to him, ‘Whatever you do, don’t learn how to read music.’ He's all-creative –he's a miracle, really”: Steve Vai on BEAT, being a virtuoso in his 60s – and the Fripp riff he just couldn’t master

He reflects on how Frank Zappa helped him and Adrian Belew, the value of learning from rather than competing with other players and changing rig for his tour with Joe Satriani. But who’s going to be in the SatchVai band?

Guitar World

“I called Gene Simmons. He said: ‘How the hell did you get this number?!’ That was when I got the idea that we weren’t going to be best buddies”: Dee Snider’s wild tales of Robert Plant, Frank Zappa, Freddy Krueger and Kiss

From Johnny Cash and John Denver to Manowar and Henry Kissinger, former Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider has mixed with them all

Louder

Sound advice from John Cage

Letters: Readers offer their views on getting rid of earworms using the composer’s 4’33”

The Guardian - UK

“He stuck his head out and said, ‘Can you give me a ride home?’ Next thing I know, I’m driving Frank Zappa to Laurel Canyon”: When cult guitar hero Rob Fetters went to pick Adrian Belew up from a Zappa rehearsal – and ended up giving his idol a lift

In the late 1970s, Fetters swung by the studio to pick up Belew, but ended up picking up a rather famous plus one for the journey home

Guitar World

“He said he reflected the craziness around him – he’d see other people go nuts and write about that”: Frank Zappa’s talent for using popular music to sell unpopular music, by people who helped him

Jon Anderson, Adrian Belew, Mike Keneally and Don Preston discuss dealing with the filthy freak’s genius up close – and what you’re missing if you haven’t investigated his catalogue

Louder

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Louder

“I had just taken my first acid trip, and I had an African spear and a Chinese Warlord outfit”: Arthur Brown’s wild tales of Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, David Bowie and more

Jamming with Hendrix, partying with The Who, getting hit on by David Bowie’s wife – The God Of Hellfire has done it all and more

Guitar World

“Jimi Hendrix came in with an old Duo-Sonic. I had just put together a Strat I’d strung up left-handed, and I went, ‘I’ll trade you.’ I was docked three weeks’ pay”: Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter recalls the questionable guitar deal he made when he met Jimi Hendrix

A young Baxter was working in a local guitar store when Hendrix came searching for a new guitar

Louder

"It would have been cool if Jimi Hendrix had been the first": Pamela Des Barres on regrets, love and wild times with Jimmy Page, Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger, Keith Moon and more

Beneath Pamela Des Barres' infamous groupie exterior beats a romantic heart

Guitar World

“It dishonors that brand to say, ‘Now we’re King Crimson.’ But we do have the ability to say, ‘Look, this is legitimate – half of the band is onstage here”: Adrian Belew, Steve Vai and Tony Levin on how they made Beat – with Robert Fripp’s blessing

Performing material from King Crimson's trailblazing '80s oeuvre, Beat finds three kings of the strings with the peerless Danny Carey pushing the envelope and Steve Vai doing Robert Fripp proud

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Guitar World

“Frank asked me to transcribe St Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast after I told him I’d learned Inca Roads by ear. Maybe it was a challenge to see if I was bluffing!” When bassist Arthur Barrow survived an audition for guitar genius Frank Zappa

The 26-year-old bassist from San Antonio was given just two days to learn a song about church pancakes, stolen margarine, and the patron saint of Portuguese smelt fishermen

Louder

A beginner's guide to Jack Bruce in 10 classic tracks

A short tribute to one of rock's all-time great bassists, Cream legend Jack Bruce

Louder

“This was more than just music… It’s part of your DNA if you were that age at the time. It defines the times”: Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd alumni on what The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper did for prog

Rick Wakeman, Roger Waters and Robert Fripp were among those listening when the BBC played the record in full in 1967 – and weren’t the only ones who experienced artistic epiphanies that night

Louder

“The creative tension helped here and there. At other times it did not help… it’s difficult to define”: Thijs van Leer reveals his only real regret as Focus roll on in their 55th year

He recalls breaking out of the Netherlands, his relationship with former guitarist Jan Akkerman, and the one album he’d like to remake

Guitar World

“Out of nowhere the phone rings and there’s a guy saying, ‘It's Edward Van Halen.’ 15 minutes later, he’s at the house with a guitar”: Dweezil Zappa on the first time he met Eddie Van Halen – after the guitar great unexpectedly called him

A Van Halen-obsessed 12-year-old Dweezil Zappa was minding his own business on a regular school night, when he received a call from the guitar legend himself...

Louder

“A cornucopia… Most impressive of all are the alternative monitor mixes”: Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe (’) 50th anniversary edition

Dazzling deluxe expansion of his best-loved solo album

Louder

“There’s a few stations that’ll play my music; very few, and usually after midnight”: Frank Zappa’s final print interview, and the 12 words he signed off with

In 1993 a future Prog writer landed a magazine interview with his hero – neither of them knowing it would his last

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