Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of "Evil Things," the new music video by the Black Angels.

The track is from the band's 2013 album, Indigo Meadow.

The clip, which was directed by Kevin Castanheira, takes dark, gritty scenes from a child's dreams — many of which include an ominous black horse — to create a fitting accompaniment to the sounds and themes of the droning, chugging track.

The band has been hard at work on new material and recently wrapped up a winter tour with Roky Erickson. The Black Angels will be playing South By Southwest, Austin Psych Fest, Sasquatch Festival and Maverick Festival.

Recently, the band appeared on PBS's Austin City Limits, performing songs from Indigo Meadow.

The Associated Press said, "Imagine tossing bands from the pantheon of American psychedelia like the Electric Prunes, Count Five, 13th Floor Elevators and the Seeds into your blender, adding a splash of Sabbath and a dollop of early Soundgarden or Mudhoney, and you've got Austin's the Black Angels."

The Black Angels are Christian Bland (guitar, drone machine/organ), Alex Maas (vocals, bass, organ, drone machine), Stephanie Bailey (drums, percussion), Kyle Hunt (keyboards, percussion, bass, guitar) and Jake Garcia (guitar, bass).

For more information, visit theblackangels.com and their Facebook page.

Matt Sorum's resume is studded with highlights, including — but not limited to — being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Guns N' Roses and high-profile stints with the Cult and Velvet Revolver.

The newly married Sorum has fought the demons of addiction and has come out the other side a stronger person. So it seems only fitting that he'd create a highly introspective album — Stratosphere, which was released today, March 11.

The album, which is credited to Matt Sorum’s Fierce Joy, is an organic rock record that suggests mid-Seventies and 2014 at the same time.

We recently spoke to Sorum about the new album, guitars and more.

GUITAR WORLD: You have a pretty interesting new record with Stratosphere. This isn’t what people are used to hearing from a Matt Sorum-associated record. How did this collection of songs came together?

Well, this is a quite a different thing for me. I’m singing and playing guitar and piano on the album, and I play drums on only one track. I’ve always been a guitar player and a singer. I’ve played piano since I was a little kid.

I’ve been writing these songs and waiting for the right time to put it out. It felt like where I’m at with my life now that I should wrote this introspective album. I felt the music needed to be played a certain way. It really was an organic process, and I've been working on the songs for quite a few years. I’m very happy with it — but it is quite a different album for me.

The album sounds like it was very comfortable for you.

I love Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie and Nick Cave. There are a lot of styles and different music I listen to besides rock and roll.

Do you write alone or do you prefer collaboration?

I wrote about half of the record by myself, and I worked with another friend of mine who I’ve written with for quite a few years. He was good with chord structures, etc., that weren’t in my wheelhouse. But everything started with me on the initial ideas with the melodies and chord changes.

As far as lyrics, you can tell current events had an influence. Where there any particular themes you tried to focus on?

I had some friends listening to the record, and they were like, “Wow, Matt. Some of this stuff is pretty heavy." In rock bands, we sing about different things, current events, tragedy, personal things and all that stuff. For me, this is a little bit of all that, but songs like “The Sea” are about my spiritual awakening.

Not unlike Philip Seymour Hoffman, I struggled with addiction in the past and was able to get clean about seven years ago. That song was about me having that awakening and realizing life is not that bad. I felt it was a good song to open the album. Songs like “Lady of the Stone” are my take on global warming and the planet.

There are songs about family. Everyone in the lyrics of “What Ziggy Says” is members of my family. As you get a little bit older, you don’t take your family for granted. “Josephine” is about my grandmother, who's 101. I wrote a love story about her and my grandfather. A lot of the lyrics were things that naturally came to me and the way I was feeling.

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Do you plan on doing any touring with this record?

I’m working on that at the moment, making plans. It’s a lot harder for new artists. I’m not a completely new artist, but I am in the sense that this is a new project. It’s harder to just book a tour. I have to figure out interesting ways to subsidize that. It’s harder these days to do that kind of stuff.

Hopefully people will gravitate toward the album. Maybe my old fans will like it. Some may not. We’d love to find new fans. Either way, I’m really excited about it. That’s the beauty of the modern world with social media, podcasts, etc. I did the record on my own, and I'm releasing it on my own. It’s a new paradigm.

Your resume sort of went from zero to 60 with Tori Amos and then GNR and the Cult. It's a new thing for you to start at ground zero. It has to be refreshing.

Listening to the record, I had no pressure. No one said, “You need to make a rock record." I can just say, “Here’s the record, this is what I came up with." It’s very freeing.

What sort of gear are you using on the record?

When I made this record I was very careful of the musicians I worked with. The first thing I asked the guitar player, Randy Ray Mitchell, was, "Do you own a Rickenbacker 370?" He had a six-string and a 12-string. So I asked him if he had a Gibson ES-335. He did. I asked him if he had any Gretsch guitars. He had a Country Gentlemen.

I was very particular about the instruments that were on this record. There aren’t any Les Pauls on the tracks. Mostly we used hollowbody or semi-hollowbody guitars. I bought a 1970 Martin D-41; I love their guitars. I have a Gibson J-45, and I play a Gretsch White Falcon and a ‘59 Country Gentlemen Reissue. Live, I'm going to play the '59 Gretsch, the White Falcon and a handwired Vox AC30. I clean it up and it can jangle like an acoustic. The hollow body gives me a clean tone, almost like the Byrds or early Beatles.

My guitar player will also plays through a Vox. In my studio, we used my amp collection that includes Silvertones, Magnatone amps, a collection of Sixties Ampegs, a Gemini, a Jet, a Reverb Rocket. Of course, I have a couple of Fender amps and a few old Marshalls. The keyboards were all B3 and Minimoog. The bass player, Paul Ill, used a bass from the Seventies with flatwound strings. We used an Ampeg SVT for the bass rig.

I love listening to old Seventies records and wonder why they're so cool. A lot of that has to do with the gear. I treated my album in that sort of way. We recorded most of it live. The drums are old Gretches. We didn’t use the computer. We recorded it to a Seventies Trident board and mixed it as old school as possible.

Any chance we’ll see this on vinyl?

We're already talking about that!

Matt Sorum's Fierce Joy’s Stratosphere was released March 11 on Rok Dok Recordings via Kobalt Label Services. For more information, visit mattsorum.tv.

Ernie Ball's new online series, Real to Reel with Slash, debuted February 25 on Slash's official YouTube channel.

Part 2 of the series, which you can watch below, shows Slash & Co. — better known as "Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators"— hard at work at a studio in Los Angeles working on their next album.

Each clip in the series showcases a behind-the-scenes peek at the band's sessions. This episode puts the focus on Todd Kerns, who talks about recording bass for the album. You can check out Part 1 right here.

Stay tuned for the next episode and continuing news about the upcoming album.

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In this video, Chris Thomas, senior artist relations manager for Martin Guitar, shows off the new additions to the company's Performing Artist Series. All the models were unveiled at the 2014 Winter NAMM Show in Anaheim, California.

The GPCPA4 Shaded Grand Performance cutaway and the DCPA4 Shaded Dreadnought cutaway are the warmly shaded top versions of the GPCPA4 and DCPA4 models.

Find out more at martinguitar.com.

Occasionally, I'll kick my '63 Fender Reverb unit to get an unbeatable crashing sound during surf shows — but what the guy does in the video below takes that to a whole new level, to say the least.

In the clip, which was created to demonstrate the durability of Four Force guitar amps, a dude kicks the amp, drops it off a ladder, throws it and more — all while a guitarist plays a funky rhythm part.

From the company:

"Ever wanted to pick up your amp on stage and smash it, but were afraid of breaking something so valuable? Check out this indestructible amp from Four Force!"

You'll notice the amp doesn't stop working during the video.

For more information about Four Force amps, check out this review that appeared on GuitarWorld.com last year (with audio), and visit fourforce.us.

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Korg has introduced — or shall we say re-introduced — the Nuvibe. The classic Korg modulation effect is being offered again with modern enhancements.

From the company:

In the Sixties, Korg debuted a modulation effect pedal that drew the attention of guitarists around the world when it was used by a legendary guitarist in a historic performance at Woodstock.

For more than a half century, the inimitable sound of this distinctive modulation effect has captivated guitarists and audiences alike. Now, under the original engineer's supervision, this legendary classic has been reborn in its new incarnation: the Nuvibe.

As with the original, the Nuvibe effect pedal offers a switch for selecting vibrato or chorus, plus Intensity and Speed knobs for producing its distinctive sound. The buffer circuit that was an integral part of the original's sonic character has been re-designed for the modern player by the original engineer. The CdS photoresistor that was the heart of the original pedal has been recreated using 79 transistors, providing an accurate simulation that meets today's standards.

Nuvibe also includes some newly designed features not found on the original effect unit. Most notable are the ten WAVE sliders that allow users to not only create a variety of effects faithful to the original, but create their own sounds via custom LFO waveforms as well.

As on the original, a dedicated expression pedal enables guitarists to use their foot to control the modulation effect. An unlatch switch lets the modulation effect be easily cancelled.

The Nuvibe runs on both batteries and AC power. It will be in stores in early summer 2014 for a U.S. Street price of $499.99.

For more about Korg, visit korgusa.com.

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C. F. Martin & Co. will unveil four new models at Musikmesse 2014 in Frankfurt, Germany, March 12-15.

Two new retro-inspired models, the 000-18 and OM-28, both highlight distinct vintage design and include features that can be found on coveted Martin pre-war era guitars.

Additionally, two new cutaway models are being introduced, the DC-Aura GT and GPC-Aura GT, both of which will come equipped with Fishman F1 Aura Plus electronics.

The 000-18, which has a beautiful aging toned top in Sitka spruce with ¼” scalloped “X” bracing, is married with mahogany back and sides. The body is edged with tortoise color binding and complemented with a polished finish. The 24.9” short scale model’s neck features a modified low oval profile with Performing Artist taper, with a width of 1-3/4” at the nut and 2-3/16” string spacing for easy playability. Nickel open-geared tuners with butterbean knobs are found with a rosewood headplate, which displays a large old style Martin logo. MSRP $2,899.00.

The OM-28 is constructed with all the features of the OM-28E Retro without the electronics package. Aging toner and a polished gloss finish are applied to the Sitka spruce top which features ¼” “X” scalloped bracing. The polished gloss East Indian rosewood body is edged with ivoroid binding. Like the 000-18, the model’s neck features a modified low oval profile with performing artist taper with a width of 1-3/4” at the nut and 2-3/16” string spacing for easy playability. The 25.4” long scale produces powerful notes which are great for a variety of playing styles. Nickel open-geared tuners with butterbean knobs are found with a rosewood headplate, which displays a large old style Martin logo. MSRP $3,799.00.

DC-Aura GT and GPC-Aura GT: The new Dreadnought and Grand Performance are special models consisting of East Indian rosewood bodies with a satin finish and a polished gloss Sitka spruce top featuring a two ring pearl rosette. Added features for both models include certified African blackwood bridges and fingerboards with hexagon pearl inlays. The chrome ratio tuners with skeleton knobs allow each string to have its own gear ratio, making tuning easier. The skeleton button adds a jewel like appearance and lessens the weight of the tuners. Both models come equipped with Fishman F1 Aura Plus electronics and a hard shell case. MSRP $2,699.00.

Find out more at MartinGuitar.com.

Deep Purple have released a promo video for the upcoming deluxe reissue of their classic 1972 (U.K.) and 1973 (U.S.) live album, Made in Japan.

The album, which will be released May 19, will include previously unseen footage on DVD, bonus material and mixes, memorabilia and a hardback book. It's available for pre-order here.

The album was recorded live over three nights — August 15 to 17, 1972 — at Festival Hall, Osaka and Budokan, Tokyo. Four of the tracks come from the band's 1972 Machine Head album.

It features what many consider the classic Deep Purple lineup — Ian Gillan (vocals), Ritchie Blackmore (guitars), Roger Glover (bass), Jon Lord (organ) and Ian Paice (drums).

Originally recorded only for the Japanese market, the album has since become seen as one of Deep Purple's seminal albums and one of the greatest live albums of all time.

The Made in Japan formats are:

• Limited Edition Super Deluxe 4 CD+DVD+7" Boxed Set
• Limited Edition Super Deluxe 9LP Boxed Set
• Deluxe Edition 2CD
• 180g 2LP
• Blu-Ray Pure Audio
• HD Download
• Mastered For iTunes Digital format
• Standard Digital formats.

Since its appearance in Guitar World in 1990, Steve Vai's intensive guitar regimen has been the Holy Grail for serious players.

In our new book, Guitar World Presents Steve Vai's Guitar Workout, you'll find the lessons that shaped a generation of guitarists. Vai sat down with guitarist/transcriber Dave Whitehill and outlined his practice routine for the January 1990 issue of GW. Never before had a guitarist given such an in-depth explanation of his musical exercise regimen.

It became a must-have for guitarists. Many of the players interviewed in GW have cited it as an influence on their development as guitarists. Here's a chance to experience the workout in its original form and to learn some of the things Vai has done to develop his formidable chops and remarkable music vocabulary.

In this book, Vai reveals his path to virtuoso enlightenment with two challenging guitar workouts – one 10-hour and one 30-hour – which include scale and chord exercises, ear training, sight-reading, music theory, and much more. These comprehensive workouts are reprinted by permission from Guitar World magazine.

This book is available now at the Guitar World Online Store for only $14.99.

Here's a fan-shot video of Paul Gilbert and Guthrie Govan jamming on ZZ Top's "Cheap Sunglasses."

The video, which was posted to YouTube last October, was shot at Gilbert's 2012 Great Guitar Escape at Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, New York.

Note that while the clip itself is pretty lengthy, the song actually kicks off at the 5:01 mark. The guitar solos take flight at 7:08.

This August, Gilbert is hosting the G4 Experience, which he describes as, "more than a show, more than a seminar, more than a backstage pass." Attendees will give you inspiration and ideas that'll keep you playing guitar for years. Those who have attended Gilbert's Great Guitar Escape camp know he puts everything into making these camps into unforgettable events.

Gilbert will be performing, teaching and offering everyone who attends a chance to jam with him. For the G4 Experience, Gilbert will team up with Joe Satriani, Andy Timmons and Mike Kenneally.

For more about the G4 Experience, visit g4experience.com.

GuitarWorld.com is revisiting Steve Vai's classic mag column, "The Ultra Zone," for this crash course in ear training.

I could never overstate the importance of a musician’s need to develop his or her ear. Actually, I believe that developing a good “inner ear” — the art of being able to decipher musical components solely through listening — is the most important element in becoming a good musician. Possessing a healthy imagination is a necessary ingredient for creativity.

But without the ability to bring those imagined sounds into the real world, one’s creative aspirations will remain crippled. Training one’s ears to understand and recognize musical sounds and concepts is one of the most vital ways to fortify the connection between the musical ideas in one’s mind and the musical sounds created on one’s instrument.

All musicians practice ear training constantly, whether or not they are cognizant of it. If, when listening to a piece of music, a musician is envisioning how to play it or is trying to play along, that musician is using his or her “ear” — the understanding and recognition of musical elements — for guidance.

This is also true when trying to emulate a piece of music, or transcribe it, or even just finding inspiration in it. No matter what one is playing, one’s ear is the navigational device that steers the musical ship where it will go. Without a good ear at the helm, you could find yourself musically adrift at sea.

I have always been fascinated with looking at music written on paper. When I was in college, I took a class called solfege, which entailed learning how to sight-sing. Sight-singing is the art of looking at a piece of written music and singing it. First, you identify the key center, and then you sing the written pitches, using the “doe-ray-me” phonetic structure, just like that song in the movie The Sound of Music. “Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do” (pronounced “Doe-ray-me-fa-so-la-tee-doe”) represents a major scale; there are other monosyllabic sounds that represent the other pitches that reside within a 12-tone octave. These solfege classes in college were difficult courses, but they were well worth the time invested. A thorough study and analysis of solfege within the confines of this column would be impractical, so I can only encourage you to investigate it on your own.

I’ve always considered transcribing to be an invaluable tool in the development of one’s musical ear and, over the years, I have spent countless glorious hours transcribing different kinds of music, either guitar-oriented or not. The most well-known example of my guitar-based transcribing labors is The Frank Zappa Guitar Book (Hal Leonard), for which I transcribed, among other things, the entire Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar series of recordings. Many musicians, however, do not have the ability to pull the sounds — guitar solos, rhythm parts, melody lines, etc.—off the records that they love. Transcribing is an art that takes a lot of practice and a study that I encourage everyone to experiment with.

But fear not: you do not need to have the ability to sight-read or transcribe in order to practice ear training exercises. If you are just sitting there with a guitar, there are still a great many ways to develop your ears, in the quest to strengthen the connection between your head and your fingers. Below, I have outlined some of the ways a guitarist can work on ear training exercises using just the guitar.

As guitarists, there are certain things that most of us do that are simply part of the program: we learn some scales, develop some exercises intended to improve our physical abilities, work on chord forms on different parts of the neck, etc. I believe it is extremely important to put aside some time dedicated solely to focusing on ear training.

One of the easiest ways to begin working on ear training is to sing what you play. For example, you can play a C major scale (C D E F G A B) in any position — preferably one that is physically comfortable for you—and sing each note of the scale as you play it, being very careful to sing on pitch as accurately as possible. Start with one note: play the note, sing it, and then play and sing the note simultaneously. Then go to two notes. Once you feel comfortable, take a little piece of that scale, say, the notes C, D, E and F, and create a very simple melody with these notes for you to sing simultaneously, à la jazz guitarist George Benson.

This is an easy way to get your ear in sync with the sounds your fingers are creating. Whether you’re soloing over a rhythmic vamp or are playing alone in free time, you have to really stick with it, and don’t allow yourself to slip up or drift into something else. The idea is to endlessly improvise and sing what you are playing, using any key.

Another good thing to do is to record a simple one-chord vamp to play over. First, only play/sing notes that fall within the key, staying within a basic note structure of a five-, six- or seven-tone scale. Don’t start wandering off into your favorite guitar licks to play; save that for another time, when you’ve developed your ear to the point where you can sing just about anything you can play. This is an exercise in discipline: do not play anything that you cannot follow perfectly with your voice. Whether you stay within one octave of the guitar, or you sing the notes an octave lower than the sounding pitches, or you use falsetto to hit the high notes, you must be able to recreate all of the notes played on the guitar with your voice.

If you work on this every day, you’ll find yourself getting better and better at it, and it will become easier to do. The cool thing that happens is that you’ll begin to hear music more clearly in your head, allowing you to formulate musical ideas—write music—within your head, without the aid of a guitar. When you finally do pick up the instrument, you will discover that you will instinctively be able to play these ideas that have taken form in your mind.

To take this a step further, try this exercise: without a guitar at your disposal, picture the guitar’s fretboard in your mind, and then envision playing something so that you will “hear” and “see” the notes as they are played. It may be helpful to sing the notes as you imagine them being played. This is an excellent exercise that will fortify your mind-fretboard relationship and actually improve your ear by strengthening the acknowledgment of “pitch relativity” (how one pitch relates to another, in terms of sound and placement) on the guitar’s fretboard. You may discover some cloudy areas in your mind’s eye/ear, but if you work through it, the picture will soon become clearer and clearer.

These techniques do not address the act of playing one thing on the guitar and singing something completely different. Someone like Jimi Hendrix had the uncanny ability to play very complex rhythm parts and single-note riffs while singing complementary parts. This technique requires a whole different set of brain muscles and is very difficult for many players. Playing one thing while singing another must be worked on as an independent field of study. If I could play the guitar and sing at the same time, hey, I might have a career! I’ll be back next time with some more effective ways to help you to develop your ear.

Gibson has introduced its new limited-edition 1965 Donovan model J-45 acoustic guitar. The guitar is based on the Gibson J-45 Donovan bought on Sunset Boulevard in the mid-Sixties.

"I wrote every song on it from late 1965 into ’70, when it was stolen during a college-town gig," Donovan told Guitar World last month.

This meticulously recreated J-45 honors Donovan and the music he created on the original guitar — and bear in mind, we're talking about rock classics that include "Sunshine Superman,""Season of the Witch,""Mellow Yellow,""Wear Your Love Like Heaven,""Hurdy Gurdy Man" and many more.

The body radius, neck, finish and Sixties-style adjustable bridge were carefully recreated in order to build a custom-shop signature model for one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the last century.

The guitar features the LR Baggs Lyric acoustic guitar microphone, an amplification system featuring a bridge-plate-mounted, featherweight microphone. You can check out Guitar World's review of the Lyric system right here.

Labels on the guitars are personally signed by Donovan; all his proceeds from the guitar will be donated to teaching transcendental meditation. The guitar was built in Bozeman, Montana.

"I was speaking to Peter Leinheiser from Gibson two years ago, and I said, 'My little J-45 still hasn’t turned up'," Donovan said. "I think he said, 'You’re being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Why don’t we make you one?'”

For the rest of this conversation (during which Donovan discusses the guitar, his picking style, working with Jeff Beck, Rick Rubin, Jimmy Page and more), check out the "Dear Guitar Hero" feature in the upcoming May 2014 issue of Guitar World magazine.

For more about Donovan — and his guitar master classes — visit donovan.ie. For more about the limited-edition Donovan J-45, check out the specs below and visit gibson.com.

GIBSON DONOVAN J-45 SPECS:

Body style: J-45 series, with a Sixties period-correct radiused body
Wood: Sitka spruce top, mahogany back and sides
Binding: Multi-ply top, single-ply back, multi-ply double-ring rosette
Finish: Period-correct Cherry Sunburst, Nitrocellulose Lacquer
Electronics:LR Baggs Lyric microphone
Strings: Gibson light gauge .012-.053; La Bella Silk & Steel strings are included in the case
Tuning machines: Vintage-style white button, 15:1
Pickguard: Tortoise Fifties-style pickguard
Bridge: Traditional rosewood belly up with adjustable saddle
Scale: 24 3/4”
Fingerboard: 12-inch radius rosewood with MOP dot inlay
Nut width: 1.725” bone
Neck-to-body: Compound dovetail secured with hide glue at the 14th fret
Neck: One-piece mahogany

Below, check out "Faith Is a Room," a new song by KXM, a band that features guitarist George Lynch, Korn drummer Ray Luzier and King's X bassist dUg/Doug Pinnick.

The song is from KXM's new self-titled album, which was released yesterday, March 11.

"When you’re working as a pro musician in LA, you're frequently running into other players who you know and respect," Lynch told RevolverMag.com.

"A lot of times, the 'dream band' conversation comes up. It's fun to talk about. A lot of times, it's the alcohol talking. But the reality for most of us is that we're locked into other commitments and obligations that in the cold light of day don't really afford us the time or flexibility to pull off these projects that look great on paper."

For the rest of this conversation with all three members of KXM, visit RevolverMag.com.

KXM’s self-titled album was released March 11 and is available at ratpakrecordsamerica.com.

Hi everyone, and welcome to my new column for Guitar World.

Over the next few months, I will be demonstrating many of the totally awesome solos, rhythm parts and techniques I use in creating the incredible music for my band, Steel Panther, surely one of the greatest heavy metal bands to come out of Canoga Park in the last three years.

I’d like to kick things off with a song of mine called “Gold-Digging Whore.”

This is a topic I think everyone can relate to, even you eight-year olds out there, because there’s always some girl that is just talking to you because you have extra lunch money. It never stops. At my age, ladies see me driving by in my ’92 Toyota Corolla with 22-inch rims and they know immediately that I have a lot of expendable money.

The solo in “Gold-Digging Whore” is a timeless classic, so let’s focus on the rhythm and lead parts for this section of the song in this column.

FIGURE 1a illustrates the primary four-bar rhythm pattern (see Gtr. 1 part) behind the solo. Starting on C#m, I use a palm-muted low C# note as a pedal tone, played in steady eighth notes. This note serves as a common bass note for the next two chords, B/C# and A/C#, which are both accented on the last eighth note of bars 1 and 2, respectively.

This four-bar rhythm part is basically played three times, but the third time I end it by going to the “five” chord, G#5. This is shown as the first bar of FIGURE 1b, at the end of bar 12. The G#5 tonality holds through bars 12–15, with little power chord slides between A5, G#5 and F#5. In bar 16, I descend to F#5 and E5, ending with a vibratoed D# note, which is the fifth of G#.

Onto the solo, which is shown as FIGURE 2 (see bars 1–16). In most of my solos, I like to rely on melody and slow, wide vibratos, because I know this is what the ladies like to hear. In bars 1–4, I use notes from C# Aeolian, or natural minor (C# D# E F# G# A B). Bar 5 features a cool lick built from repeated hammer-ons that move across the first through fifth strings, starting with a wide stretch on the high E, with the index finger at the fourth fret and the pinkie hammering onto the ninth fret.

Let me tell you that, even though they don’t have Grammys for guitar solos, this solo was nominated for a Guammy on the island of Guam, for Best Solo, based on the note choice alone.

PART ONE

PART TWO

The all-new April 2014 issue of Guitar World is available now!

In the new April issue, we check in with guitarist Paul Stanley and bassist Gene Simmons, who celebrate their upcoming Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with a pair of revealing interviews about their 40 years in Kiss. Also, Stanley and Simmons rate Kiss guitarists past and present: from Ace to Tommy Thayer.

In addition, we make the case for 15 artists still waiting to be admitted into the Hall of Fame, including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dimebag Darrell, Ted Nugent and Soundgarden.

Also, read about how a new generation of acoustic guitar fingerstylists is blazing a daring style of percussive, alternate-tuned shred. Then, try it out for yourself! Guitar World presents an instructional guide to the inspired techniques of percussive acoustic guitar playing.

Finally, the Scorpions wrap up their nearly 50-year run with a new Unplugged release and a farewell album of songs from their Eighties heyday.

PLUS: The best gear of the New Year — Guitar World picks the greatest guitars, amps, effects and accessories from the 2014 Winter NAMM Show.

Five Songs with Tabs for Guitar and Bass

• Daryl Kellie - "Bohemian Rhapsody"
• Kiss - "Black Diamond"
• Lamb of God - "Now You've Got Something to Die For"
• Daft Punk - "Get Lucky"
• Arctic Monkeys- "Do I Wanna Know?"

The April 2014 issue of Guitar World is available now at the Guitar World Online Store!

This is an excerpt from the April 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the rest of this story, plus an interview with Paul Stanley and much more Kiss (not to mention the Scorpions, three kings of acoustic shred, the hottest gear from the 2014 NAMM Show and more), check out the April 2014 issue at the Guitar World Online Store.

Love them or hate them (and really, is there any area in between?), Kiss—and in particular its stalwart co-founders, visionaries and greatest proponents and protectors, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons—continue to not only exist but also scale greater heights.

Here we are in 2014, and the band, now roughly 10 lineups in with current guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer, are experiencing yet another renaissance. Their most recent (and 20th) studio album, Monster, was an unusually strong effort, more energetic and enjoyable than should reasonably be expected from any band at this stage of its career.

This year marks Kiss’ 40th anniversary (their self-titled debut was released in February 1974), and in April, Stanley and Simmons, along with former, and now estranged, original members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. To celebrate these dual milestones, Guitar World met separately with Stanley and Simmons at their Los Angeles homes to discuss just a few of the many triumphs and tribulations that led the band here.

Below is an excerpt from our interview with Gene Simmons. In the new issue, the bassist opens up about setting his hair on fire and convincing Eddie Van Halen not to join Kiss.

Artists tend to act like they don’t care about getting into the Hall of Fame…until they get into the Hall of Fame. Now that you’re finally in, do you care?

I care about everything. If you’re in any band, you have to take a certain amount of pride in what you do in order you get up onstage, spread your legs, hold your guitar right in front of your cock and just bash away. But mostly it matters because it matters to the fans. Because every step along the way we were lambasted—by critics, by people who never did anything—but not by them. And this room [motions with his hand to his home office, which is crammed full of 40 years’ worth of Kiss memorabilia], yeah, it’s self-worship, but it’s also a reminder that everything Kiss achieved had to be clawed and scratched and fought for. Nothing was handed to us. The mountain did not come to Mohammed. We had to go to the mountain.

Your own relationship to the band changed in the early Eighties. You were devoting less time to Kiss and more time to trying to make it as an actor in Hollywood.

We were all discovering who and what we were, because for all of us Kiss opened doors. All of a sudden you could call anybody. You could call the White House, because Jimmy Carter’s kids were fans. So the idea that anybody would give me the time of day, much less the opportunity to be on TV… I wasn’t born in America. I never even saw television until I was about eight years old. It’s nuts. So I came out to L.A. and I started taking meetings.

While all this was going on, do you think Paul felt like he was left on his own to do the heavy lifting in Kiss?

Yes.

Was it discussed?

Oh, sure. It was starting to affect the band. It was not rock and roll. Ace was complaining, too. He was right. They thought, as usual, that Gene Simmons wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. And I like cake. But maybe I just wanted to be appreciated outside of Kiss. My life in Kiss is like being a girl with huge tits. All anyone talks about is the makeup, or “Let me see your tongue.” Sometimes you want to say, “Can’t you just focus your eyes up here so that we can have a conversation?”

Paul was the one who saw the situation in the band as dire enough to suggest taking off the makeup. Had the idea of “unmasking” yourselves ever been raised prior to that point?

No. We couldn’t have imagined it. But when we did it, if it worked—and it did work—it was because of Paul. People really liked Lick It Up. The arenas filled up again. Then came Asylum, Animalize. Multi-Platinum albums. Even with all the different guitar players—Vinnie Vincent, Mark St. John, Bruce Kulick—it just didn’t seem to matter to the fans. We continued to chug along.

Speaking of all the guitarists who passed through Kiss’ ranks in the Eighties, is it true that Eddie Van Halen wanted to join the band around the time of Creatures of the Night?

That is true. And he was very serious. He was so unhappy about how he and [David Lee] Roth were—or weren’t—getting along. He couldn’t stand him. And drugs were rampant. And so he took me to lunch, to a diner right across the street from the Record Plant. Vinnie Vincent, who was not yet in Kiss, tagged along, too. Sneaky guy. And Eddie said, “I want to join Kiss. I don’t want to fight anymore with Roth. I’m sick and tired of it.” But I told him, “Eddie, there’s not enough room. You need to be in a band where you can direct the music. You’re not going to be happy in Kiss.” I talked him out of it. It didn’t fit.

For the rest of this story, plus an interview with Paul Stanley and much more Kiss (not to mention the Scorpions, three kings of acoustic shred, the hottest gear from the 2014 NAMM Show and more), check out the April 2014 issue at the Guitar World Online Store.

Early this morning at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, at least two people died and more than 20 were injured after a car ran through an intersection, according to the Austin Police Department.

The accident took place outside the Mohawk venue, where Crosses — the electronic-based side project of Deftones vocalist Chino Moreno — had performed Wednesday evening.

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said police officers initially tried to pull over the driver at a gas station on Interstate 35 around 12:30 a.m. CT for a suspected DWI. The driver then went the wrong way down a one-way street and turned onto a street that had been closed with barricades for the festival. Acevedo said the driver hit pedestrians at a “high rate of speed.”

The driver, in his attempt to flee, hit a man and a woman on a moped before stopping the car, getting our and running. The driver was pursued and taken into custody.

The driver will be charged with two counts of capital murder, as well as 23 counts of aggravated assault with a vehicle.

When learning how to play jazz guitar, we often spend time working out scales, arpeggios and single-note riffs, as well as chord shapes and common progressions.

But what about those sounds in the middle of these two sonic poles — double stops?

Double stops are a great way to add a new texture to your jazz guitar chord soloing ideas, over Dominant 7th chords as in this lesson, or any harmony you are exploring. Also, they are less demanding technically, so they can juice up your chord-soloing lines at faster tempos when full chord shapes are too tough to grab on the neck.

In today’s lesson, we’ll be exploring two of my favorite shapes for playing double stops over dominant 7th chords on guitar, as well as checking out a sample lick you can use as a stepping stone to improvising with these ideas on your own in a jam or gig situation.

Dominant Double Stop Shapes 1

To begin, let’s take a look at double stops built around an A13 chord, with the root on the fifth fret of the sixth string, or the fifth fret of the first string, depending on how you want to look at it.

Since this chord is used a lot in jazz guitar, 13th chords with no root, we’ll use that as our point of reference for these double-stop ideas, killing two birds with one stone as you work on double stops and rootless chords in the woodshed.

Try practicing and memorizing these double-stop fingerings in various keys around the fretboard, starting with the key of A and moving on from there.

Having a handle on these shapes in various keys will allow you to quickly and comfortably apply them to your improvised solos in ii V I progressions as well as over jazz blues progressions and standards such as “Watermelon Man” and “Killer Joe,” both built around 7th-chord harmonies.

When you can play these double stops comfortably, try putting on an A13 vamp and soloing over that chord using these double stops to build your lines and phrases. From there, repeat this exercise in the other 11 keys in order to work these shapes in all locations around the fretboard.

Dominant Double Stop Shapes 2

As well as learning dominant double stops based around the sixth/first string root chord, as you did in the first example, you can also learn them based around a fifth-string root chord.

Just like you saw in the first example, here there is no root note in the chord shape that I’m basing my double stops from, but you can think of the note D as being on the fifth string, fifth fret and use that as a reference.

Playing rootless chords is something many jazz players do in their comping and chord-soloing ideas, so if this is new to you, check out my lesson "9th Chords Made Easy” for more information on the subject.

Once you have these shapes under your fingers, try jamming over a D7 vamp and soloing using only these double stops to build your lines. From there, you can take these fingerings to all 12 keys and then practice soloing over a jazz blues chord progression using these, and the first set of double-stop shapes to build your improvised lines and phrases.

Dominant Double Stop Lick

To help you get started with these double-stop fingerings over 7th chords, here's a sample lick you can learn over the first four bars of an A blues.

I’ve used an A pedal note, the single-note A that keeps coming back, as this is a common technique used by jazz guitarists when playing double stops, and one you can explore further in your own practicing.

As you can see, working out these two positions of 7th double stops will give you a cool, organ sound in your jazz blues guitar lines and comping. Check out these shapes this week in the practice room and see where they lead you in the woodshed and out on the bandstand.

Do you have a question about dominant double stops? Share your thoughts in the COMMENTS section below.

Matt Warnock is the owner of mattwarnockguitar.com, a free website that provides hundreds of lessons and resources designed to help guitarists of all experience levels meet their practice and performance goals. Matt lives in the UK, where he is a lecturer in Popular Music Performance at the University of Chester and an examiner for the London College of Music (Registry of Guitar Tutors).

GuitarWorld.com is revisiting Steve Vai's classic mag column, "The Ultra Zone," for this crash course in ear training.

As I mentioned last time, a valuable method of training your ear is to practice singing the notes that you play on the guitar. I’d like to elaborate on this fun approach and offer you some specific advice on how to go about doing this on your own.

A good way to start this training method is to stay within one scale and key and make sure that you can follow with your voice any melodies or licks that you play. Obviously, you can only sing one note at a time, so you’ll probably want to stick with playing single notes, at least for now, so you can zero in on specific pitches.

Let’s say you’re using the A-minor pentatonic scale, illustrated in FIGURE 1A, as your starting point. FIGURE 1B is an example of a line to play and sing simultaneously. This drill can be challenging, but it’s ultimately rewarding.

The next level of this exercise is to venture outside the fixed structure of one scale and add chromatic “passing” tones—the notes that fall between the scale degrees—to the lines you’re trying to sing and play.

FIGURE 1C is an example of how you might go about doing this within the A-minor-pentatonic pattern we just looked at. Venturing away from the fixed structure of the diatonic key presents a great challenge to your ears and will strengthen your “pitch-recognition muscles” immensely. If you practice this drill every day, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how quickly your ears will “grow.”

An essential element in ear training is the thorough understanding of intervals. An interval is the distance or gap between two notes: if you start on an A note and go up two frets to B, the intervallic distance between the two notes is a major second. If you were to go up four frets from A to C#, the interval between these two notes would be a major third.

FIGURE 2A depicts the A-major scale and indicates the intervallic relationships between the tonic (root note) and all the other notes in the scale. FIGURE 2B shows the chromatic scale, starting on A and covering an octave and a half, with the intervals indicated. I highly recommend memorizing all of these intervallic relationships; a good way to do this is to recite each interval name while playing the notes of the scale.

There are many different exercises one can do to strengthen interval recognition. Here’s one that I like: get a tape recorder and record yourself playing pairs of notes, using root notes combined with either major or minor thirds, as illustrated in FIGURE 3A. Play random pairs of major or minor thirds all over the guitar neck and, after each pair is played, wait a moment and then say either “major” or “minor” to identify the interval.

After filling up a 60-minute tape with this random stuff, listen back and try to identify the intervallic relationship by saying “major” or “minor” before your voice on the tape provides the answer. The purpose of this exercise is to train yourself to quickly identify major and minor intervals in all keys, anywhere on the guitar.

The next step is to proceed to other intervals, such as fourths and augmented fourths, which are one half step (one fret) higher than fourths. FIGURE 3B shows random pairs of fourths and augmented fourths; again, fill a 60-minute tape with pairs of notes, then go back and try to identify the intervallic relationships. Another idea is to make a tape of fourths combined with major and minor thirds, or fourths and augmented fourths combined with major and minor thirds. Then, continue this approach using all of the intervals in different combinations.

Another good exercise is to play every type of interval against a fixed root note. For example, if you choose the key of B, begin by playing a low B, and then play a variety of higher notes against this low B. After the higher note is played, identify on the tape what the interval is, and then move on to another interval. This type of exercise is illustrated in FIGURE 4.

By the time you’ve gotten this drill down cold—to the point where you consistently attain a near-perfect score—you will have established a firm grasp of intervals. You may have to make three or four 60-minute tapes, each in a different key, but, in time, you’ll end up knowing this stuff inside out. The study of intervals is something that many musicians work on their entire lives.

I’ll be back next time with some more ear training advice.

Many players believe the process of practicing scales, chromatic patterns and other dexterity-related exercises is an essential part of advancing one's technique.

The problem is that this process often can become tedious and boring. In response, teachers and self-taught musicians have devised various methods and strategies to lessen the monotony of this laborious yet necessary aspect of everyday practice.

One approach I personally enjoy is watching TV while running through my exercises. This is something I started almost by accident. Back when I was first starting out, I knew what had to be done in order to get better: Constantly practice.

I wasn't fully aware of the concepts of muscle memory, but I intuitively recognized (like most people) that the more you do something, the better you get. Some people hate the idea of going on a diet or starting a workout regimen. But if you stick with it, you will start to notice changes in your mood, energy levels and physical appearance that can further fuel your motivation.

So when I didn't have enough time on a particular day to watch a specific TV show and also devote at least an hour or two to practicing, I would do both (Fellow GuitarWorld columnist Ben Rainey wrote about this topic in greater detail in November).

Of course, there's always a trade off. Practicing with the TV on is beneficial for basic finger mechanics, but it also could be construed as passive practice. This isn't necessarily bad, but it should be treated as a means to an end. In a perfect scenario, the passive practice is a warmup that leads into the more fulfilling part of your practice routine.

Another option is to run through your various scale and dexterity exercises over backing tracks. This approach has become much easier to accomplish now with the ubiquity of free jam tracks on YouTube, Spotify, various apps and countless other sites. Even as a warmup, practicing over jam tracks will minimize passivity and maximize musicality. By that, I mean it should fully immerse you in the sound and quality of whatever scale you decide to utilize.

But once again, there are two sides to every coin. If you have a comprehensive list of scales, licks and arpeggios that you practice every day, it might be overwhelming to try and fit them into certain jam tracks. It's as if your mind is racing to finish a checklist instead of focusing on what actually sounds good. The potential result: a weakening of your improvisational chops.

In this context, when I mention "chops" I'm not necessarily talking about technical prowess. Improvisation has as much to do with the amount of silence you can tastefully inject as it does with the amount of notes. Also, creating melodic passages that complement the backing chord progression is equally important and helps achieve that "song within a song" effect.

For these reasons, you should not feel obligated to include every scale/lick pattern within a particular backing track. Those who do, ironically, might find themselves back to square one: passively practicing.

So how do we balance passive and active practice methods? For starters, we can always treat the first backing track as our "warmup." Pick a track that's a little longer (maybe eight minutes in length) and allow yourself to run through your mental list of patterns and exercises without hesitation. If you want to increase the speed of those exercises, pick another track with a faster tempo and repeat the exercises (perhaps in a different order to keep things interesting).

At this point, you would have roughly 15 minutes of solid warmup time, which is half passive and half active. The third track you play along with should be the start of a fully musical practice session. Disregard the pressure of including every exercise and focus only on what's best for a particular backing track. If you have a lot of time, find multiple tracks with different moods (major, minor, Lydian, Dorian, blues, etc.). Or you can alternate the type of tracks you use on different days.

For scales/licks that are still brand new to you, it might be best to practice them in isolation or maybe with the 'TV' approach at first. Just be careful to avoid a habit of only practicing while the TV is on. You might feel like you've accomplished something for the day because your fingers touched the guitar, but did your mind touch the guitar?

As I often say, balance is the key. There's nothing wrong with some passive repetition for technical improvement, but always counter that with a steady diet of mentally engaging practice.

Photo: -Jeffrey- via photopincc

Chris Breen is a New Jersey-based guitarist with 14 years of experience under his belt. He, along with his brother Jon (on drums) started the two-piece metal project known as SCARSIC in 2011. They've recently been joined by bassist Bill Loucas and have released an album, A Tale of Two Worlds (available on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify). Chris also is part of an all-acoustic side project called Eyes Turn Stone. Chris teaches guitar lessons (in person or via Skype). For more information, visit BreenMusicLessons.com.