january-2014

This affordable, battery- or DC-powered multi-effector is a sonic smorgasbord for guitarists on the go.

A lot of old-school guitarists will turn tail and run at the sight of a multi-effects unit. But multi-effect fear isnā€™t altogether irrational, because, letā€™s face it, a lot of multi-effect pedals and rack units are bears to work with, especially when time is short and you just want to plug in and play.

With the new ME-80, however, Boss clearly prioritized ease of use, and this surprisingly utilitarian, powerful, and portable unit is relatively simple to operate, a lot of fun, and great for home demo studios, small, informal gigs, and even unorthodox tinkerers who like the straightest possible line to the most possible sounds.

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Essential for Bloomfield freaks, Head, Heart, Hands will also move anyone fascinated with the collision of rock, blues, and folk music in the turbulent 1960s.


CD/DVD Box Set


Michael Bloomfield
From His Head to His Heart to His Hands
Sony Legacy

By 1981, when Michael Bloomfield was found dead in his ā€™65 Chevy from a drug overdose in San Francisco, the 37-year-old blues guitarist had been largely forgotten. Popular music had moved far away from the gritty, high-octane sounds Bloomfield helped pioneer in the ā€™60s as the lead guitarist in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and the screaming Telecaster licks heā€™d played behind Bob Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festivalā€”that infamous event that split the folk-music community into acoustic and electric campsā€”had faded into history.

But between 1964 and 1970, Bloomfield was one of the most revered electric guitarists of the dayā€”an inspiration to Carlos Santana, Jorma Kaukonen, and Jerry Garcia, who saw Bloomfield as the 6-string master of their generation. In 1966, Eric Clapton said, ā€œMike Bloomfield is music on two legs.ā€ And Dylan claimed Bloomfield was the ā€œbest guitar player I ever heard.ā€

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An octave fuzz that makes even humble rigs sound monstrous.

Some fuzz players are so mired in pursuit of classic tones they forget that, above all, a fuzz should be able to scream like a banshee and stand out like a rabid, fanged rhino on jet roller skates. This forgotten knowledgeā€”the loss of the essential fuzz spirit, some might sayā€”has found us swimming in a Great Lakesā€™ worth of same-sounding fuzz riffs while a panoply of dirty, unique fuzz tones goes largely ignored.

The coolest thing about Crazy Tube Circuitsā€™ Pin Up octave fuzz is how readily it sends you down those less-trodden paths. But the other best thing is that there are copious classic tones on tap, if you want them. The Pin Up does fuzz a lot of different ways. Itā€™s not the most outlandish, radical, or deviant fuzz out there, but its ability to accommodate weirdoes and classicists equallyā€”and so effortlesslyā€”makes it a very powerful tool when youā€™re trying to quickly carve out a fuzz sound thatā€™s not so run-of-the-mill.

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