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Last Call

Jared James Nichols’ 1952 Les Paul Standard.

The hype around vintage guitars has made them more expensive than ever before—but arguably, you can find all that you need in “cheaper” gear.

It’s official: We are living in the most expensive time ever. According to the United Texas Credit Union, “Since 1970, the Consumer Price Index saw a 500-percent-plus increase.” Even after adjusting for inflation, the numbers prove that 2023 dollars buy a whole lot less than they did 25 or 50 years ago.

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A band of brothers: Van Halen during the OU812/Monsters of Rock era.

How I’ll always remember Edward.

One memory often triggers another, so, while writing about my experiences with Metallica over a crucial decade in their career for this issue, I kept flashing back on my sole encounter with Van Halen—the man and the band. It was during 1988’s Monsters of Rock, and I was on assignment for the tour’s two-day stand in Akron’s Rubber Bowl, a decrepit concrete pit turned convection oven by the summer heat, to interview all the guitarists on the tour: Kingdom Come’s Danny Stag, Dokken’s George Lynch, Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield of Metallica, Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs of Scorpions, and, of course, Edward.

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The Foo Fighters’ frontman once took my Les Paul at a Halloween gig and played it onstage, with glee, for 90 minutes. But his new autobiography is full of better stories and plenty of wisdom.


“Life is just too damn short to let someone else’s opinion steer the wheel.”
Dave Grohl, The Storyteller

In 2013, I was playing a Halloween party at Paul Allen’s Beverly Hills home/studio. It was a surreal gig, playing “Season of the Witch” with Donovan while supermodels, musicians, titans of industry, and celebrities like Sacha Baron Cohen, Dan Aykroyd, and Gina Gershon weaved around the packed yet spacious and spooky dance floor. Right in front of me, dressed like an Amish farmer, was Dave Grohl bobbing his head to the music. I held out my guitar to him and shouted, “DO YOU WANT TO PLAY?” He shrugged his shoulders like, “why not,” jumped onstage, took my Les Paul, and proceeded to play for 90 minutes, pretty much nailing every cover song requested by the crowd.

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From left to right: John Bohlinger, Gabe Burdulis, Brooke Eden, Megan Jane, and Carl Fields on the set of The Today Show.

One of my recent gigs was playing pedal steel with country artist Brooke Eden on live TV in front of millions of eyeballs. Here’s how it went.

Yesterday, I played The Today Show with country artist Brooke Eden. I’ve played Today and/or Good Morning America seven or eight times over the past 28 years: a few times on guitar, four or five on steel, and once on banjo (I’m terrible at banjo but can play a simple part under pressure). Here’s an inside look at the gig while the memory is still fresh.

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John Bohlinger and Thom Bresh backstage filming a Premier Guitar Rig Rundown in 2020.

Here’s a story about the most interesting man in the world.

“The guitar is my first love, my partner in life. We grew up together and we’ll most likely die together.” —Thom Bresh

One of the best benefits of being a musician is that musicians know musicians, and musicians are the most interesting people you’ll ever meet. Albert Einstein, Charles Dickens, Georgia O’Keeffe, the Marx Brothers, Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, Juliette Lewis, Jack Black, and Zooey Deschanel are or were musicians, albeit not full-time.

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