Jason Shadrick recently had the opportunity to interview Joe Bonamassa for Premier Guitar magazine. In the interview, Joe talks about several tracks from his new album Dust Bowl. In the video below, he talks about his new track “You Better Watch Yourself,” and he also talks about his recently acquired original 1959 Les Paul, among other things:

Check out the other videos from Jason’s interview with Joe on Jason’s website.

Guitarkadia recently posted about the Led Zeppelin channel on YouTube featuring many rare 8mm video clips of Led Zeppelin throughout the years. Here’s a great early clip of Zeppelin from 1969 playing Dazed and Confused:

Christopher Davis offers some advice on things that you should stop doing during your practice time.

Productive people often use to do lists. Sometimes using a to-do list is a great way to create a practice schedule. But super-efficient guitar practicers don’t just have to do lists. They have stop doing lists.

I find myself making some of the mistakes he warns against in my own practicing. I won’t spoil his advice, so go check out the article.

Black Country Communion have recorded a 2nd album, simply titled 2, that will be released on June 14, 2011 in the US. They’ve announced the track listing for the album, which is:

1. “The Outsider”
2. “Man In The Middle”
3. “I Can See Your Spirit”
4. “The Battle For Hadrian’s Wall”
5. “Save Me”
6. “Cold”
7. “Smokestack Woman”
8. “Faithless”
9. “An Ordinary Son”
10.” Little Secret”
11. “Crossfire”
12. “Crawl”

I liked the first album, but it felt a little rushed to me. I’m curious to hear how the second album will sound now that the band has had a chance to play together a little more.

Jim Campilongo, who I’ve mentioned on this blog several times, has been offering mail-order guitar lessons for some time now. The lessons cover many topics, from note-to-note transcriptions of his own songs to chord melodies to soloing concepts. He’s recently been converting many of his lessons for online delivery, and he has been offering them at a half-price discount off the mail-order price. This seems like an interesting opportunity to learn from one of the more inventive Telecaster players I’ve heard in a while. You can order the lessons directly from Campilongo on his lessons page.

Parts 1-4 of the Cry Baby Documentary have now been posted:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

It doesn’t get much more real than this. Son House playing “Death Letter Blues”:

In a response to an article titled “Want to Make $50,000 a Year in Music? Start with One Dollar a Day”, David Hahn provides a little history about the last 100 years of the music business:

For about 100 years there was this economic bubble in the musician industry. We called it the “Recording Industry” and it made a ton of money. Some people made money hand-over-fist. (Most of that money, though, went to the people that ran the business and not to the musicians, but that’s another story.)

The problem was that the whole industry was dependent on a closed distribution system built on limited technology. Eventually some smart people created a way to circumvent that distribution route with computers and the whole house of cards collapsed.

100 years. It’s really not that long. Humans have been on Earth for about a half a million years, so the record industry era represented just a tiny percentage of our history. Beethoven made a living as a musician, as did many of the musicians that played in his orchestras and operas. They never sold a record. So what’s the big deal?

I think the 100 years of the record industry created a set of unrealistic expectations and entitlements in the musician business, and we’re still having trouble getting past it. Selling recorded music used to make a lot of money – quickly – and we want it back. When we can’t get it back we try make up substitute business models that might bring in quick money just as easily.

So what kind of content do we see being served to musicians these days? Articles about the collapse of our beloved recording industry. Articles claiming to give advice on how to make quick money again. Articles about mega-stars that are still making quick money.

It’s all nonsense.

Hahn then goes on to provide some actual useful advice – advice based on his own experience – on how to make $50,000 a year in the music business.

The Planet Waves Guitar Rest seems like such a simple idea that I can’t believe no one else thought of this sooner. The Guitar Rest is a piece of molded rubber that you can put on any flat surface that you want to rest your guitar against. For example, in my music room I have a desk that I’ll sometimes rest my guitar up against. This can be a bit dangerous though, because it’s a slick surface and the guitar sometimes slides around. The Guitar Rest solves that problem.

Jon Bloomer recently demoed the Guitar Rest to give you an idea of what it can do:

As you may have heard, Steve Vai recently attempted to establish the world record for largest guitar lesson. He livestreamed the lesson to people all over the world. He gives some good advice in the lesson, and it has now been made available for those of us that missed it:

Click here if you don’t see the video above.