"A 1990 black lacquer electric guitar with rosewood neck. No serial number. Comes with hard case. This was Slash's back up guitar for when he performed the song ""Dust & Bones"" during the 1992 UYO tour with Guns N' Roses."
Hello, and welcome back to Mod Garage! Let’s pick up where we left off with our Telecaster.
Our next step will be to take care of the neck pocket, which is a very important and crucial task. This is the contact point of the body and the neck, so we want a tight, precise connection for maximum tuning stability and playing comfort.
I don’t know if it’s the same on all Harley Benton T-styles, but the fitting accuracy of the Harley Benton’s neck and neck pocket is perfect—I wish I saw this kind of quality on guitars which cost more than 10 times the price of this one! No need to modify our neck pocket by gluing in some wooden veneer to make it tighter; we can leave it just the way it is.
While the fitting is commendable, unfortunately the craftsmanship of the neck pocket itself is not that good. Besides wooden debris and chips, there’s a lot of “stuff” inside that I can’t identify for certain, but it’s likely some grain filler and clear coat. We’ll need to remove a fair amount from the neck pocket to ensure the heel of the neck has a completely level surface for installation.
SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
I decided to use a simple razor blade, a Japanese carving knife, and a razor knife to scrape all the junk away. You can also use some micro chisels, or even simply sanding paper. Special knives that are used for guitar lutherie as well as violin-making are ultra-sharp, and with some practice, it’s easy and fast to use them for such tasks. I was surprised by how much material there was in the neck pocket; it had a strong chemical smell to it, so it went immediately into the garbage.
SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
Next, I took some sandpaper of different grits to make the surface as smooth as possible. I started with 150-grit and worked my way up to 1000-grit. After blowing away all dust, the neck pocket was absolutely even and clean, offering the perfect surface for the neck heel. Pleased with the result, I moved on to the next task.
For some reason, there was a big hole in the neck pocket, which I think has something to do with the CNC routing or the painting process. While this hole is not a problem regarding stability, and it’s invisible after the neck is installed, it’s not in the original Fender design, and my inner monk can’t live with this, so it had to be closed with a wooden dowel. After measuring, it turned out to be a metric 10 mm hole, and I knew luck was on my side—as is often the case, IKEA would be my best friend. You’re probably familiar with the bevelled wooden dowels used on almost every IKEA product to attach two parts together. They’re made out of strong beech wood and available as individual spare parts with an 8 or 10 mm diameter, so I always have a good collection in the shop. This was easy going: I simply cut the dowel to length and put it in a cup of warm water for a couple minutes so it expanded a little bit for a tight fit. After drying it for a short time, I put some wood glue on it, plus some in the hole, before pushing it in and wiping away the excess glue with a damp cloth.
SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
A tip from the shop: Ask your local optical store what they are doing with the old lenses from their customers. If there’s a chance you can get some for free, this is the perfect helper for any glue job—I always have a good collection of such lenses in the shop, and they’re easy to clean with a bit of rubbing alcohol. Put the wood glue on the concave side of the lens and use a toothpick to apply the glue to the dowel and hole. Afterwards, wipe the rest of the glue away, clean the lens with water, and it’s ready for the next time. This also works for super glue, but you’ll have to throw away the lens afterwards.
Here, we can clearly see how many different pieces of wood are glued together for the body (I count four pieces alone in the small neck pocket), that the body is laminated horizontally, and the thickness of the paint.
As you can see, the routings for the bridge pickup and the electronics are a little bit strange. The bridge pickup’s cavity is relatively shallow, and a Forstner drill bit was used to create deeper spots for the three screws holding the pickup in place. At the bottom of the electronics compartment is a block of wood, which I’d guess was there to shorten routing time and reduce production costs. I still haven’t decided on the pickups and electronics I’ll use for this guitar, but I certainly don’t want to run into any trouble making them fit. The wooden obstruction here could limit what sorts of pots and pickup-selected switches we can use, so it’s best to get ahead of that and remove it from the equation. (Even if it doesn’t end up being 100 percent necessary, it’ll remove a bit of excess weight!) So, let’s carve out some space here.
SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
The professional way would be to mask the whole body with tape and use a handheld router to remove the wood. Since I bet most of you don’t have that sort of tool, we’ll do it the old-fashioned way, using a Forstner drill bit and a drill press. I don’t recommend any handheld drilling device for this—if you don’t have access to a drill press or a handheld router, ask your local carpenter if he can do the work for you. After masking the body, the drilling process is easy to do with a sharp Forstner bit. I used a smaller one for the edges and a bigger one for the rest.
SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
It’s a crude but effective—and fast—way to remove the wood. After the drilling, I used some sandpaper to smooth out the surface and put some shellac on the bare wood, but this isn’t mandatory—my inner monk, you know? Take care to not drill too deep, which happened to me years ago on a custom-made Jaguar body with a very special paintjob. That wasn’t fun to explain to the customer.
Next month, we’ll finish the work on the body, before moving on to the hardware and electronics. The good news is that our $340 budget is still in hand for future investments, so stay tuned.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame® Inductees, GRAMMY® Award-nominated icons, and RUSH Co-Founders Geddy Lee [bass, keys, vocals] and Alex Lifeson [guitar, vocals] have announced their return to the stage for a very special 2026 headline tour, Fifty Something, in celebration of RUSH’s music, legacy, and the life of late drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. It notably marks the first time Lee and Lifeson have toured together in eleven years since the finale of RUSH’s R40 Tour on August 1, 2015 at the Forum in Los Angeles, CA, bringing it full circle with a return to the Forum to embark upon these special shows.Of the tour, Geddy Lee says:
“It’s been over 10 years since Alex and I have performed the music of RUSH alongside our fallen bandmate and friend Neil. A lifetime’s worth of songs that we had put our cumulative hearts and souls into writing, recording and playing together onstage. And so, after all that has gone down since that last show, Alex and I have done some serious soul searching and come to the decision that we fucking miss it, and that it’s time for a celebration of 50-something years of RUSH music. So in 2026, my BFF Lerxst (aka Alex Lifeson) and I are going to hit the road once again to pay tribute to our past and to Neil by performing a vast selection of RUSH songs in a handful of cities. No small task, because as we all know Neil was irreplaceable.
Yet life is full of surprises, and we have been introduced to another remarkable person; an incredible drummer and musician who is adding another chapter to our story while continuing her own fascinating musical journey. Her name is Anika Nilles, and we could not be more excited to introduce her to our loyal and dedicated RUSH fanbase, whom, we know, will give her every chance to live up to that near impossible role. Before we hit the stage, we also hope to add another musician or two to expand our sound a wee bit and free up Alex and I, in order to show off some of our new fancy dance steps.
Lerxst, Anika and myself, along with many of our longstanding crew members have been hard at work rehearsing and designing the kind of RUSH show you’ve grown accustomed to expect from us. We dearly hope you will come along and help us celebrate our history together.”
Carrie Nuttall-Peart and Olivia Peart, Neil’s widow and daughter share:
“We are thrilled to support the Fifty Something tour, celebrating a band whose music has resonated and inspired fans for generations, and to honor Neil’s extraordinary legacy as both a drummer and lyricist.
Neil’s musicianship was singular. Compositions of intricacy and power that expanded what rhythm itself could express. As both drummer and lyricist, he was irreplaceable. Inimitable in his artistry, and unmatched in the depth and imagination he brought to the lyrics that inspired and moved so many, he profoundly shaped how fans connected with him and the band, giving voice and meaning to their own lives.
As the band enters this new chapter, it promises to be truly unforgettable. We are excited to see how their new vision unfolds, and to hear this legendary music played live once again.”
Earlier today, fans got the news via a Rush newsletter from a home video that announced the celebration of upcoming dates with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson at Geddy Lee’s home studio. Watch here.
Last night the band celebrated in a private event at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland with this on-stage interview and Q&A. Watch full clip here.RUSH will perform multiple shows in 7 cities across Canada, the United States and Mexico, beginning June 7, 2026 at The Kia Forum in Los Angeles. These special “evening with” shows will find the band playing two sets each night. Each show will feature a distinct selection of songs and RUSH will build each night’s setlist from a catalogue of 35 songs including their greatest hits and fan favorites.
For Fifty Something, Lee and Lifeson will be accompanied by German drummer, composer, and producer Anika Nilles, who has performed as Jeff Beck’s drummer for over 60 shows and has released four solo albums.
Fans will be able to participate in the RUSH Artist Presaleby signing up at https://livemu.sc/rush by Thursday, October 9 at 11:59pm ET.
Artist Presales for this tour are hosted by multiple ticketing sites but anyone who signs up can join the sale. For Artist Presales on Ticketmaster, no code is needed – access is tied to your account. The Artist Presale on SeatGeek for Cleveland will require a code. The Artist Presale begins on Monday, October 13 at 12PM local time in the US and Canada and Thursday, October 16 at 12PM local time in Mexico. General onsale begins here on Friday, October 17th at 12pm local time for the US & Canada, and 11am local time for Mexico.
Additionally, these pre-sales will be available:
Citi for US shows: Citi is the official card of the RUSH 2026 tour. Citi cardmembers will have access to presale tickets in the US beginning Friday, October 10 at 12pm local time until Sunday, October 12 at 11:59pm local time through the Citi Entertainment program. For complete presale details visit www.citientertainment.com.
American Express for Canada: American Express® Card Members can purchase tickets for the Toronto show before the general public beginning Friday, October 10 at 12pm local time through Sunday, October 12 at 11:59pm local time.
Banamex for Mexico City: Banamex cardholders will have presale access ahead of the general onsale. Times vary based on Banamex card type, see list below for more details.
(BEYOND BANAMEX):Presale available Monday, 10/13 9:00 AM local to 11:59 PM local
(ELITE BANAMEX):Presale available Tuesday, 10/14 9:00 local to 11:59 PM local
(ALL CARDS):Presale available Wednesday, 10/15 11 AM local to 11:59 PM local
Rush invites fans to get closer than ever with three elevated offerings: an all-new VIP program, the first-ever 2112 Platform Experience, and curated Travel Packages for fans making a trip to see the show.
Sun Jun 07 Los Angeles, CA Kia Forum Tue Jun 09 Los Angeles, CA Kia Forum Thu Jun 18 Mexico City, MX. Palacio de los Deportes Wed Jun 24 Fort Worth, TX Dickies Arena Fri Jun 26 Fort Worth, TX Dickies Arena Thu Jul 16 Chicago, IL United Center Sat Jul 18 Chicago, IL United Center Tue Jul 28 New York, NY Madison Square Garden Thu Jul 30 New York, NY Madison Square Garden Fri Aug 07 Toronto, ON Scotiabank Arena Sun Aug 09 Toronto, ON Scotiabank Arena Thu Sep 17 Cleveland, OH Rocket Arena
Additionally, RUSH just revealed the 50-track super deluxe anthology, RUSH 50, that Rolling Stone called “an epic saga, that functions equally well as an introduction for the uninitiated or a companion piece for the super fan.” RUSH 50 is available in five distinct configurations, including the (1) Super Deluxe Edition, (2) RUSH Store Exclusive Super Deluxe Edition, (3) 7-LP Deluxe Edition, (4) 4-CD Deluxe Edition, and (5) Digital Edition. It represents breadth of their discography, beginning with the first-ever reissue of their 1973 debut single and concluding with a live recording the final song Lee, Lifeson, and Peart played together during the R40 Tour closer at The Forum. Purchase HERE.
Get ready to celebrate the music of RUSH with Lee and Lifeson live in 2026!
The body of Kirk Gresser’s Alcaster is fashioned from cherry wood harvested in Ontario and fitted to a Squier neck. It sports a ’60s Kent bridge pickup and a Seymour Duncan P-90 humbucker, each with its own volume control.
My dad, Al, was a skilled carpenter who did all manner of woodworking, including reproductions, cabinetry, and custom jobs. In the early ’70s, he and my uncle Bruno harvested a pile of walnut and cherry logs at a sawmill in Erin, Ontario. I went along, and it was a fantastic experience. The entire mill, both the main rip and cutoffs, was powered by a John Deere two-cylinder tractor with a 20-foot belt attachment. Wow!
Reader: Kirk Gresser
Hometown: Brantford, Ontario
Guitar: Alcaster
The planks were stored at my uncle John's farm for 10 years, and two brothers who assumed the business name Flintstone and Kramden (honoring Jackie Gleason, of course) decided to use them, along with butternut they purchased, to make a series of grandfather clocks. The guts of the clocks were from Germany, so they were costly, and then Ethan Allen came along and that was that for the clock business. Still, they made quite a few clocks, and by the time they were done there were just a few planks of the original wood left over. After my Dad passed I inherited three of them.
I wanted to use them to build a guitar, but having no experience in that world, I reached out to a talented local luthier, Jesse Livingstone. I gave him the cherry planks to shape the body, which would be his first electric-oriented project. I wanted a T-style but tend to find traditional Telecaster bodies chunky, so I used a 1/4" thinner Squier Telecaster as a template. Jesse also carved a Stratocaster-like belly and forearm cuts, and so the body feels much more like my Stratocasters—in other words, perfect.
“I wanted a T-style but tend to find traditional Telecaster bodies chunky, so I used a 1/4" thinner Squier Telecaster as a template.”
An inventive local amp repairman, Pete Vanderveen, installed the rosewood Squier neck, and stuck a Seymour Duncan P-90in the neck position and a ’60s Kent single coil, which reminded me of an old Kelvinator refrigerator handle, in the bridge. The Wilkinson bridge enables stringing through the body or as a top-loader, and two Gibson speed knobs serve as volume controls for each pickup. Pete also installed a series/parallel switch.
The pickguard, made by Greasy Grooves, is designed to resemble rust. I had hoped to match the cherry red of George Gobel’s Gibson L-5 but couldn’t find the exact color, so I used burgundy leather dye and five coats of lacquer. The result, which I call the “Alcaster,” looks like black cherry. The whole guitar comes in at a light 7.5 pounds. With D'Addario .011-.049s, the guitar delivers a Les Paul-like tone on the neck pickup, while the combined sounds go from round to Howlin’ Wolf.
As for me? I've been writing songs for 50 years (not one of them has bought me so much as a cup of coffee) under the name Purple Joe. Imagine Mark Knopfler, Jimi Hendrix, and Neil Young playing poker with Scott Merritt and Carole King—and losing!
Darkglass Electronics is a bass player’s company. And like many bass-centric brands, they sometimes seem determined to ensure that guitar players aren’t the only ones having fun when it comes to amps and effects. If that’s true, the DSP-driven Anagram may be their most impressive form of revenge yet.
All The Things, All So Small
The Anagram is a sleek unit with just three footswitches and six knobs above the touch screen. Plug in the unit (there’s no on/off) and the screen lights up, welcoming you to your journey. It’s an inviting interface, and it’s hard to avoid the impulse to just start tapping and scrolling.
Connection options are plentiful: There’s a send and return that can be configured as a stereo effects loop or a mono loop and expression pedal input, a 1/8" headphone jack, and a USB-C port along with two 1/8" MIDI ports for connecting an external MIDI controller and sending MIDI. Four outputs take up half of the back panel, with two XLRs and two 1/4" jacks.
Looking Through the Darkglass
There are 19 pages of tutorial you can scan on the touch screen after the initial power up, but that shouldn’t be discouraging. The Anagram is, in general, easy to grasp. There are three modes that can be used to navigate its many features. Preset mode uses footswitches to move between presets, though there will be an audible gap when you switch between them. Stomp mode allows you to use the footswitches to toggle between three virtual stompoxes within a preset, so you can, for instance, use the chorus on a bridge and overdrive for your bass solo. The deeper scene mode enables you to seamlessly switch between scenes, which can include completely different groups of pedals and settings. Think of it as an octopus switching multiple stomps and turning knobs for you all at once.
Three screen views are available: chain, bindings, and name. Chain view provides the most pedalboard-like representation of the signal path. This is where you can manage and route your preset’s effects in an efficient, more “analog” way. It’s intuitive and the most direct way to create a preset from scratch or reshape an existing one. Bindings mode allows access to parameters within a preset and enables you to assign the most critical controls to the six knobs at the top of the Anagram. Name mode displays—you guessed it—the name of the active preset. It’s the easiest readout to see in a low-light stage setting. But if any of the individual views don’t serve your purposes, the modes can be combined in multiple configurations.
The Anagram makes editing global settings a breeze. Hold down the sixth knob to enter mixer mode, where you can control the L/R and XLR outputs—either individually or linked for consistent volume—as well as the headphone and master outputs. Tapping the “EQ” box in this screen takes you to the very precise global EQ, where you can adjust gain, width, and frequency in a range from 25 Hz to 16.0kHz.
Ana-tons of Tone
With more than 50 effects (Darkglass says that thousands of additional effects and amps are available via integration with the Neural Amp Modeler), Anagram's factory presets are a great place to begin exploration. I jumped down the rabbit hole starting with Factory preset 01—“harmonic booster.”In this preset, there are six elements in the chain, and when one of the six knobs along the top row are pressed, the corresponding effect goes dark, signaling that the effect is off. The same six knobs also control user-defined parameters within the effect, or a virtual speaker cab, if you switch one into the chain. Once you’re happy with your tweaks, you tap the three dots on the touch screen and save the preset. It’s really simple. Swapping effects within a preset is just as quick—tap the pedal icon you want to change, and you’ll jump straight to its edit screen.
While the sounds are superb, the Anagram truly shines in its ease of programmability and the precision with which you can switch things up.
Paired with my passive, J-bass-style Bluesman Vintage Eldorado, the harmonic booster preset was enough to make my day. Though there are 12 effect blocks available—or 24 in parallel—in that preset, only five are used in its factory preset form, permitting me to add rich chorus and octave to the already satisfying tone. The depth of familiar effects and amps is impressive. With searing overdrives, signature Darkglass pedals, and a super-wide range of bass-centric effects, I was like a kid in a candy store. And there are also 20 cab options and a boatload of mic options that can be situated in different positions relative to the cab. The options are seemingly endless.
The Verdict
The Anagram is ideal in a lot of settings. For fly dates, it’s compact and easy to re-program if, say, you add a new song to the set on a whim. Provided there is a proper P.A., the unit is truly all you need to get the job done. Able to run the gamut of vintage and modern sounds, it could be a cover-band bass player’s best friend. And while the sounds are superb, the Anagram truly shines in its ease of programmability and the precision with which you can switch things up. From an economic standpoint, the Anagram is the equivalent of purchasing several traditional floor pedals … and then getting hundreds more for free. At just under $1,200, that’s math that makes sense.
Janek Gwizdala explains that he notates his transcriptions because he’s “simply not able to remember the information long term. I want to come back 10 years later and be re-inspired all over again.”
I’m in the middle of writing a book about transcription and ear training. Broadly speaking, I think the two are essentially the same thing.
Transcription, at its core, is about the connection between listening and playing. It’s the real work we do to become more fluent as musicians. Listening, I think, is a relatively low-effort exercise since you can do it almost anywhere, while doing almost anything. On some level, the performance element of our playing could also be considered low-effort when compared to the work required to get there.
There are, of course, exceptions to both—especially in situations like active listening, where you’re learning a piece of intense music in a short space of time, or when you’re on a gig and reading something complicated. Both of those are anything but low-effort. But in general, the real workload comes when we are bridging the gap between them.
Now, whether you refer to it as ear training or transcription, what I’ve come to realize over the three decades I’ve been training my ear and writing things down is that it’s actually all about the feel—and has comparatively little to do with the notes.
Think about being in a room with two people speaking fluent French. You don’t speak a word of it, but there are a few sounds that resemble English. Immediately, you can mimic the sound of their voices, the tempo of their speech, and even approximate an accent. Yes, it’s going to sound terrible at first, and it might come across as if you’re mocking them—trying to speak like them without any actual vocabulary.
But I believe that by mimicking the time, the sound, and the feel of their language, you’ll get closer to fluency much faster once you start adding even the smallest amount of vocabulary. Being able to say hello, goodbye, how are you, and a few other basic phrases with a legitimate-sounding accent and tempo will give the outward impression that you know what you’re doing—and the inward confidence that every new word you learn will feel more authentic than if you had just memorized phrases without ever hearing the language.
I’m a jazz musician, and this method of bridging the gap between listening and playing has been my life’s work. I still practice it almost every day. That doesn’t always mean transcribing pages and pages of John Coltrane solos, but my intent is always guided by curiosity. As soon as I hear something great—or something I don’t immediately understand—I switch into transcription mode and get down to work.
“Singing along to a bass line is priceless. It not only locks the rhythm into your brain, but it also builds instinct for where the root motion of the harmony is going.”
Vocalizing as I listen has always been a fantastic way to get into transcription. It’s not great for anyone listening—I’m a horrific singer—but it’s not about singing all the pitches perfectly in tune. It’s about getting the feel and the rhythmic language of the music embedded in your brain long before you pick up your instrument to learn it, or put pen to paper to write it down. Singing along to a bass line is priceless. It not only locks the rhythm into your brain, but it also builds instinct for where the root motion of the harmony is going. More often than not, the bass is at the bottom of the chord, and being able to pick out the root motion is a superpower when it comes to learning songs or working in a band.
And if, as a result of active listening, vocalizing, and transcription, you build a strong connection between your ear and your instrument, then the feel of the music is always going to be front and center.
Even though everyone in the band should be equally responsible for the time and the feel of a song, we all know that bass players often shoulder more of that weight. We have so much rhythmic and harmonic control from our position in the mix that I think it’s imperative we work even harder on our feel than everyone else. Call me biased, but I think history might back me up on that one.
