What Your Favorite Guitarist Really Wants for Christmas

What do most guitarists want for Christmas? Another guitar, of course! But if you are a rockstar axeman with enough six-strings to fill an airplane hangar already, you’ll be wanting a more inventive gift. Based upon the wonderful and weird hobbies of guitar stars, and with festive fun in our hearts, here are some speculative suggested gifts that may please your favorite twanger…

David Gilmour
Gift: Triplex World War I pilot goggles

When he’s not playing guitar, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour is also a qualified pilot and aviation enthusiast – Pink Floyd’s “Learning To Fly” is a quite literal song about his hobby. Gilmour once owned his own company, Intrepid Aviation, through which he amassed a collection of historical aircraft, though he later sold the operation, as it became “too much of a business.” But even these days, Gilmour says he has “a nice old biplane that I pop up, wander around the skies in sometimes.” Hey, who doesn’t have a nice old biplane? Triplex were the RAF’s best goggles.

Steve Vai
Gift: A fancy beehive and plenty of glass jars

When we say “beehive” we are not talking retro hairstyles. When Steve Vai isn’t playing honey-toned guitar lines, he’s making honey – his passion outside of guitar shredding is keeping bees. As a keen apiarist, Vai even has toured U.S. schools talking about his sweet hobby. Just when you thought rock stardom could not be more surreal, here is Steve Vai being asked about apiary via a Russian interpreter. “Beers? No, bees!”

Jeff Beck
Gift: A 1926 Chrysler Roadster, without wheels

Jeff Beck releases new music only when he wants. Why? He’s too busy fixing cars. In 2008, he recalled:  “I’ve built 14 or 15 street rods in 25 years. And I’ve kept most of them. The ones I bought whole over in L.A. in ’76, and had them shipped back to England – they started to go rusty. And I thought, ‘I’m not going to rebuild this. I didn’t build it in the first place.’ So I cleaned it up, except the ones that were already clean, and let somebody else have them. But I never sold anything after. I can’t see 18 months of work go down the driveway. In a flash someone else has got the car, for a few bundles of notes that are all going to go out the window. So I’ve built a special shed for them.” Beck is regarded as one of guitar’s greatest players, but it seems he just prefers fixing vintage cars. Go to 5 minutes in this Car Crazy video to hear Beck talking about his true passion.

Ronnie Wood
Gift: The rarest stamps

Ronnie Wood is famed as a Rolling Stone, bon viveur and painter. But “Woody” has another hobby: philately. And any stamp collector wants the ultimate. The U.K’s “Penny Black” was the world’s first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system, issued in Britain on May 1, 1840. A mint “Penny Black” stamp is valued upwards of $15,000. Or go large! The world’s highest-valued stamp was printed in Sweden in 1855 and was the result of a printing error and instead of printing the three-skilling stamp on green stock, it was printed on yellow/orange stock paper. The one-off rarity was last sold for $2.3 million in 1996. If Ronnie doesn’t find this one stuck to his Christmas tree, he’ll have to remind himself: you can’t always get what you want.

Bill Wyman
Gift: Roman coins

Ex-Rolling Stone bassist Wyman is a metalhead. Yes, he is an avid metal detector and has his own website BillWymanDetector.com. So, buy Bill some old Roman coins, throw them in his garden, and make his life easier. Or if you are feeling generous, how about the OKM eXp 5000 Pro metal detector with 3D eyeset for “seeing” 25 meters underground. At $56,799, “Satisfaction” is surely guaranteed?

Kings of Leon
Gift: Penfolds Grange Shiraz 1952

Kings of Leon live the high life, and they live it with style. The quartet love their vintage wines and are particularly fond of Australia’s Penfolds. For Christmas, they’d appreciate this rare red. The half bottle (375ml) is signed by winemaker Max Schubert. Just one half bottle left when we checked, at $12,500. Gulp!

Eric Clapton
Gift: Hardy Zane Ti Saltwater Fly Fishing Reel

When Eric Clapton isn’t playing scales, he’s hooking them. EC is a keen fly-fisherman, and sitting by a river gives him repose. Indeed, he credits a fishing mishap for turning his life around. “It was the fishing rod that told me I had hit rock bottom,” he told Esquire magazine in 2007 of his drinking days. “Everyone says I’m in a fix. Am I in a fix? I don’t know, am I? I don’t feel like I’m in a fix. How do I get out of the fix I’m in? I’ll go fishing. I had always thought of myself as a good fisherman. I drove to the River Wey and found a spot. I had just managed to get my gear set up when I lost my balance, fell over onto one of my rods, and broke it. I could no longer even fish. Bang, I was at rock bottom. You are not a fisherman, mister. Wake up.”

Clapton will want the ultimate fishing tackle these days, so how about the limited edition Hardy Zane Ti Saltwater Fly Fishing Reel, made from Titanium? $9,700 will keep Clappers reeling in happiness.

Kirk Hammett
Gift: Roy Stewart’s Baron surfboard

When Metallica’s Kirk Hammett isn’t riding the lightning, he’s riding the waves. A keen surfer for over a decade, Kirk would no doubt appreciate New Zealander Roy Stewart’s top-line made-to-order Baron surfboards that cost $528,000 apiece. What?? The Baron is made of Paulownia wood, so if Kirk doesn’t like it he could always chop it up and build a guitar? Here’s Kirk talking about surfing…

Jack White
Gift: A vintage stuffed elephant’s head

The White Stripe and Raconteurs man Jack White used to run his own upholstery business, refurbishing vintage sofas and more. His shop motto was “Your Furniture’s Not Dead” – unlike his other stuffed-related hobby, taxidermy. In an interview with Believer magazine in 2003, White revealed his personal vintage taxidermy collection includes “a zebra head, two gazelles, an eland, a kudu, a giant white elk,” and more. But he hasn’t got an elephant’s head. For a man whose breakthrough album was Elephant, maybe this could be an ideal gift? Beware: you cannot send Jack White just any stuffed animal. He once complained to WENN about fan gifts, saying, “Sometimes people get it wrong, and it’s so insulting. They’ll buy me a squirrel playing pool or some s--t like that.” White’s hobby may be strange, but he’s still picky. Okay?

Many more guitar heroes have fascinating hobbies, of course. Such as... Billy Gibbons (hot-rodding), Joe Perry (cuisine), Ted Nugent and James Hetfield (hunting) and Blur’s Alex James (cheesemaking). We hope all the above – and you – get some great gifts.

More seasonal cheer:

Guitars and Goodies for Every Budget

Zakk Wylde’s Christmas EP - interview

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Gibson Les Paul Guitars - Americas Favorite Electric Guitar

Gibson Les Paul 2008 Standard: Gibson's newest version of the Les Paul Standard was released August 1st 2008, and it features built-in lock on strap buttons, a larger neck tenon, with an uneven neck contour to make for a comfy neck, frets leveled by Plek machine, and locking Grover tuners with an improved ratio of 18:1. The newest 2008 guitar Gibson has introduced their weight relief chambering, which has included routing chambers in precise areas of the mahogany slab body as specified by Gibson R&D. Before the 2008 release, Les Paul Standards were holy like it had holes routed into the body, but it was not chambered like most of the guitars now are.

Gibson 1961 Les Paul SG Guitars: Gibson experienced a huge fall in electric guitar sales mainly because of their high prices and huge competition from Fender's equivalent but much lighter double-cutaway design in 1960 on The Stratocaster Guitar. Gibson then made changes to the infamous guitar line. The 1961 guitar was thinner and much lighter than the previous guitars, with two sharply pointed cut-aways and vibrato system. Nevertheless, the revamp was done without Les Paul's knowledge...ooops. The musician saw the guitar, he gasped, and he asked Gibson to remove his name from the guitar and he said goodbye to Gibson. Even though this separation happened in 1960, Gibson had a huge stock of Les Paul logos and truss rod covers, and so they continued to use the Les Paul name until about 1963. That is when the SG guitar's name was finally altered to SG, which stands for Solid Guitar. Plus the SG line, Gibson continued to issue the less expensive Les Paul Jr's and Les Paul Specials (and the Melody Makers) with the newer body style. These were the standard Gibson electric models until the reintroduction of the Les Paul Standard Goldtop and the Les Paul Custom guitars to the market in 1968.

Gibson Les Paul Recording Guitar: This guitar is often shunned by guitar purists who consider it to be too full of gadgets and buttons. The Recording features low-impedance pickups, many switches and buttons, and a highly specialized cable for impedance-matching to the amplifier. Less noticeable changes included, but were not limited to, maple fingerboards (1976), pickup cavity shielding, and the crossover of the ABR1 Tune-o-matic bridge into the modern day Nashville Tune-o-matic bridge.

Gibson Les Paul Deluxe Guitars: The Les Paul Deluxe was in the midst of the newest 1968 Les Pauls. This guitar featured "mini-humbuckers", also known as "New York" humbuckers, and did not at first demonstrate to be very popular. The mini-humbucker pickup fit in to the precarved P-90 pickup cavity having an adaptor ring developed by Gibson, actually just a cutout P90 pickup cover, in order to use a supply of Epiphone mini-humbuckers left over from when Gibson moved Epiphone production to Japan. The Deluxe was introduced in 1968 and helped to normalize production among Gibson's USA built Les Paul guitars. The 1st materialization of the Deluxe featured a one-piece body and three-piece neck. The body was a thin layer of maple sandwiched by two layers of Honduran mahogany. Later a small volute was added. 1969 Les Paul Deluxe's mark the Gibson logo devoid of the dot over the "i" in Gibson. In 1970 the dot over the i had returned, with a new Made in USA stamp on the back of the headstock. By 1975, the neck construction was changed from mahogany to maple, until the early 1980s, when the production was returned to mahogany. Vintage, new and used Gibson Les Paul Guitars can be purchased on sale and a great bargain can be had online.

Gibson Les Paul Studio: In 1983 The Les Paul Studio guitar was introduced and is still being made today. The planned market for this guitar was the professional studio musician. Consequently, the design features of the Studio were for optimal sound output. This guitar kept only the elements that added to the tone and playability, together with the carved maple top and standard mechanical and electronic hardware. Nonetheless, the Studio design left out many stock Gibson decorations that did not affect sound quality, including the binding on the body and neck. A notable exemption to this is the Studio Custom, a guitar in the mid 1980s that incorporated body and neck binding, though with dot fingerboard inlays instead of more ornate trapezoids.

Gibson Les Paul Robot Guitar: The Gibson Les Paul Robot Guitar was released in December 2007. The guitar has a computer built into the guitar body with a master control knob next to the volume knobs, which can be pulled out, turned, or pressed to issue different commands to the guitar. One of the more memorable features is the capability to tune the guitar to standard tuning simply by pulling out on the master control knob and strumming the guitar, while the tuning pegs amazingly adjust themselves to standard tuning. Another use of the master control knob is to be able to tune the guitar to alternative tunings, such as drop D, by pressing on the control knob to fit the setting. The Les Paul Robot Guitar has a new custom silverburst blue finish. While the guitar was advertised in the American as a world's first, similar systems, some external, have been in use for decades.

Gibson Les Paul Dark Fire Guitars: Just recently on December 15, 2008 Gibson publicized a new interactive computerized guitar that produces more sounds and it is named the Dark Fire. The guitar has a computer built into the body and controlled by the Master Control Knob or also called the MCK. The MCK gives guitar players the skill to change the pickups and coils, fine-tune each tone and tunings automatically and at once, even while a song is being played. Similar to the Robot Guitar, the Dark Fire Guitar features the capability to tune the guitar, nonetheless, enhanced over the Robot Guitar, the player can tune it up to 500 times per battery charge, letting the tuning pegs adjust themselves to different tuning styles. Using the Chameleon Tone Technology Gibson says this guitar will produce every imaginable guitar sound. In addition to the enhanced and advanced tuning features, the guitar has 3 various types of pickups, which includes: Burstbucker (humbucker), a P-90 single-coil and a bridge-mounted piezo acoustic--all of which add to organic blends of original sounds.

http://music-memorabilia-posters.com/ Vintage, new and used Gibson Les Paul Guitars can be purchased on sale and a great bargain can be had online.

Keith Richards Reveals New Album Plans, Favorite Beatles Song

Rolling Stones legend Keith Richards appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Wednesday night in an interview filled with stories of drug-laden Bentleys, the Beatles-Stones rivalry and giant lemons. Among the many tales, though, was a spicy tidbit about Richards’ own plans for 2011.

When asked whether the Stones would be working together this year, Richards answered evasively, “I’m trying to nail them down, but I don’t want to crucify them.”

Fallon revealed that he had visited Richards working in a New York recording studio two weeks before.

“Well, I’d got to working with [drummer] Steve Jordan with The X-pensive Winos and, you know, when inspiration hits…yeah,” he enthused. Richards went on to say that a new X-pensive Winos album was “starting to blossom.”

Richards later answered a fan question, asking the guitar legend to name his favorite Beatles song:

“I’ve always told McCartney, ‘Please Please Me.’ I just love the chimes, and I was there at the time and it was beautiful. Mind you, there’s plenty of others, but if I’ve got to pick one, ‘Please Please Me’…oh, yeah!”

Richards will appear in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which hits theaters on May 20.

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The World's Favorite Piano Music

Lullabies provide a time to be close to your child physically, emotionally and musically. The anthology collection LULLABIES, from MUSIC TOGETHER, was created in response to frequent requests from parents enrolled in Music Together's parent-child classes that a compilation of lullabies from their various song collections be created. The songs come from a variety of cultural traditions, from Appalachian folk tunes to songs from Spain, Scotland and Russia. The musical arrangements rely on soft, comforting acoustic arrangements and a variety of singers. The CD has been the recipient of seven awards, including Dr. Toy's "10 Best Audio-Visual Products for 2009" and the iParenting Media Award.

Price: $8.99

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