Clearwater, FL (July 25, 2008) -- Dean''s "Get Your Own Wings Shredder Search" now has YouTube capability. Instead of uploading videos straight to Dean''s site, shredders are now able to embed their YouTube clips on Dean''s website instead.
The company tells us that guitarists from over 35 different countries are now featured in the search. To upload your video, rate others shreds or check out the specifics, head over to Dean''s Shredder Search.
For more information: Dean Guitars
C. F. Martin & Co.® is proud to announce a new collaboration with multi-GRAMMY Award®-winning singer-songwriter Jason Isbell: two signature acoustic guitars and the launch of his first-ever signature set of strings, part of the all-new Martin Era™ line. The guitars, modeled after the 1940 0-17 that accompanied Jason through every track of Foxes in the Snow, bring his unmistakable sound within reach of players everywhere.
The Martin 0-17 Jason Isbell is a limited-edition model crafted to replicate the pre-war 0-17 at the heart of his latest album. Limited to just 50 instruments, it’s built entirely from solid sinker mahogany paired with Adirondack spruce Golden Era scalloped X-bracing for a warm, expressive voice. The sinker mahogany neck, inspired by Jason’s pre-war 0-17, combines with a Brazilian rosewood fingerboard and bridge for classic feel and playability. 17-style appointments and a vintage gloss finish complete its timeless look.
“This one replicates the 1940 0-17 that I used on Foxes in the Snow,” said Jason. “The Brazilian [rosewood] for the bridge and the fingerboard is a really special thing. The fact that Martin was able and willing to do that for these guitars makes me really, really happy… and the neck on this one is pretty identical in shape to the original guitar. It’s a very simple guitar to look at and to play, but certainly not simple to put together.”'
The Martin 0-10E Retro Jason Isbell brings that spirit to the Road Series in a stage-ready form. Featuring a satin-finished all-mahogany 0 14-fret body, scalloped spruce X-bracing, and Martin E1 electronics with a built-in tuner, it delivers warm, focused tone and plug-and-play performance. With East Indian rosewood accents, 17-style inlays, and nickel open-gear tuners, the guitar balances vintage-inspired looks with modern versatility.
“This guitar meets the artist’s criteria that the instrument can’t be the challenge,” Jason said. “They’re well made, they’re easy to play, they sound good, and they don’t scream, ‘Look at me.’ At this price point, a whole lot of people are gonna have access to it—and that’s great because it encourages beginner guitar players and singer-songwriters to have something that is quality. I could take this guitar and just make a living with it.”
In addition to the new guitars, Martin is launching an all-new line of strings: Martin Era™ Strings. Designed to set the standard for acoustic tone and playability, they combine the best of Martin’s string-making innovations into one premium offering. Era strings feature a patented Lifespan® treatment to protect against corrosion, Flexible Core construction to enhance comfort and fretability, and silk-wrapped ball ends to help protect your prized instrument. Together, these features establish a new benchmark for what phosphor bronze acoustic guitar strings can deliver.
Within the Era line is Jason’s first-ever signature set: Martin Era™ Jason Isbell Signature Strings. Developed with a traditional SP® core to match his distinctive sound, this Artist Light set is custom-voiced for strength, balance, and consistency. Finished with distinctive red silk-wrapped ball ends, they reflect his exact touring and studio-tested preferences, giving players direct access to the same feel and performance that inspire his music.
“I’ve used Martin phosphor bronze strings for a long time—12-54 on almost all of my acoustics,” said Jason. “I know how they’re going to react, how many shows I can get out of them, and they don’t take long to break in. You stretch them right when you put them on, they won’t go out of tune. This is a really big honor for me.”
Durability and reliability were essential to the design. “I don’t have to worry about being fragile, being gentle with the strings,” he added. “They sound good for a long time, I don’t have to change every show, which my tech loves, and I love also.”
Imagine being in a band with your best friends for over 40 years, and each night you step on stage you get to play one more show. That’s exactly what guitarist Trey Anastasio and his bandmates in Phish think about right before every sold-out arena or amphitheater show. “We're all hyper aware now, every night,” mentions Anastasio. “I mean, we just love it so much. It's like, I can't wait for the tour to start.” Anastasio’s energy and passion is infectious, even when he isn’t talking about music. Bring up hockey, 6L6-based amps, or even his generationally deep Iowa roots and watch as his eyebrows raise.
We had to do something special for the 100th episode of Wong Notes. We caught up with Trey while he was preparing for a November tour with his solo band. In part one, Cory Wong brings Anastasio in with some hockey talk before diving straight into his current full-circle journey with his rig, and he reveals a bit of an epiphany that all true gearheads know, but sometimes are afraid to admit. —Jason Shadrick
John Mayer Convinced Trey to Try a Dumble
Cory Wong: Your rig looks quite a bit different now. Tell me about the transition to using Dumble amps. When and why? When and why?!?
Trey Anastasio: I've only played three shows through a Dumble, which was a borrowed Dumble. A guy lent me one. I was doing the Dead 60 thing out there in San Francisco, and John was like, “You gotta try a Dumble.” We were backstage just talking and he's like, “Have you tried a Dumble yet?” I'm like, “No, no, I haven't.”
Wong: He did the same with me. He makes a pretty convincing case. Did he give you the whole like cost-per-gig spiel? What was his method of marketing to you?
Anastasio: He was just talking them up, you know, and I said, well, I would get one except that you own a third of them. [Laughs.] When he [Alexander Dumble] started making those Dumbles, he was trying to beat Randall [Smith] over at Mesa/Boogie. So, they're kind of in the same family. When I tried the Dumble on the last tour, I borrowed it from a very kind person for the Alabama and Hampton shows. And maybe I might have had it at SPAC too. I'm trying to remember, but anyway, it really worked. All the people who are like the arms-crossed, tone haters out there were like, “Okay, this works, because it sounds Fender-ish, but just sort of better.” The reason I've never tried one before is because I always thought that the price was just so obscene that I kind of rebelled against the whole concept of the thing.
But I think what flipped me around on that is that the last couple years I played with this four-piece string section that was at the Beacon Jams and stuff, we called it the Rescue Squad. And these string players who don't make a ton of money were explaining to me how it works in orchestras. One of the women had a Stradivarius from 1700, which is worth millions of dollars, right? Well, she doesn't have millions of dollars. And she said the way this works is that the orchestra you play with, if you get a seat, you know, there's investors and stuff. People think of themselves as curators of these instruments for a while. And then they give them to the next person. So if you get a seat in the Boston Symphony, you're probably going to end up with a better instrument one way or another, based on all the practicing and hard work that you did. One of the caveats is that you get to play a really beautiful instrument for a while. Yes, it's worth an insane amount of money, but you're really just taking care of it. I think that's kind of what's happening now that there's such a finite number of these Dumble amplifiers. John was like, “You should call my buddy at this music store in Seattle, Trevor,” and I called him, he's really nice. And he said they have an amp that maybe I should look at. I went to look at it, and it turns out that Keith Urban owned it previously. Keith and I have met at a couple of events, and I texted him and asked what he thought of this amp. He told me a few things about it. He's really nice. And so they get passed around.
Trey’s Early Influences
Wong: Where did it feel like the main source of your voice came from? And when did you feel like you had it?
Anastasio: I felt that way pretty early. It's interesting. I saw a live show from 1990 recently, and I was kind of surprised—looking backwards—how much of the bulk of this material, it was all originals we were playing. It was like, “It’s Ice,” “Maze,” “You Enjoy Myself,” and all these things that became who we are were already in place by the time I was 25. There was an enormous amount of material and I was writing obsessively by fifth or sixth grade. Still to this day, my favorite part of the whole thing is writing. Even when we were playing at Nectar's, I think I already had an individuality, but I kind of grew up listening to a strange mix of music that influenced me pretty strongly.
I was obsessed with the same things that all the kids my age were. I had every Led Zeppelin record and all that stuff—of course, I had the whole catalog memorized by 14. I think I mentioned earlier that my mother had moved to New York in the late ’40s, and she was lucky enough to go to all the golden age of Broadway shows. She gave me all those records when I was very young. These very lyrical, deeply written, composed pieces of music.
There's a place in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, called the Bucks County Playhouse that Oscar Hammerstein opened. It was a place where all those Broadway shows would come on Tuesday nights, and the original cast of the Broadway shows would do the show at an affordable price. Every week we would go see Gypsy or West Side Story. I was always interested in soaring melodies and also harmonically complex music.
My grandfather was a classical music nut. He and his brother had lifetime season tickets to the orchestra. When I went to his house, he would play me Brahms and Ravel and Rachmaninoff. He liked serious, heavy, melodic classical music.
When I was 15, I saw the Discipline Tour when King Crimson came through Alexander Hall [in Princeton, New Jersey]. There was just a lot of cool stuff going on in that era. I saw Zappa numerous times. I was a huge fan of his guitar playing much more than anything else he did. I was an absolute geek for Zappa's guitar playing and I was blessed to see him lots of times. He just ripped shit on that thing. I mean, it was just so cool. And I loved his rhythmic variation. And I love Fripp. I was obsessed with all of the early- and mid-’70s Eno albums. That was how I got into Talking Heads—through Eno. I kind of worshiped at the altar of Eno because I liked "AnotherGreen World” and “I’ll Come Running” and “St. Elmo’s Fire.” That was one of the first solos I learned.
Thanks to some key years working at a celebrated music store, this band of brothers has the goods.
The Band Royale, the Chicago-based brotherly “yacht metal” outfit, know a thing or two about gear—guitarists Joel and Zach Bauman, plus bassist Marc Najjar, all worked at Chicago Music Exchange, one of the premier music shops in North America. PG’s Chris Kies traveled deep into the band’s bunker in Chicago for this Rig Rundown with Najjar and the Bauman brothers.
This 1972 GibsonLes Paul Custom was Joel’s first “real” guitar, which he bought from CME. It’s all original except for the tailpiece, and weighs in at a whopping 11 pounds. Joel keeps it in open D6 tuning.
Mock Mockingbird
Someone brought this fake Mockingbird into CME one day, and Joel decided he had to have it. It boasts neckthrough construction with maple and mahogany, a Bill Lawrence dual blade pickup, brass nut, and heftier .012-gauge strings. The original builder must’ve liked the sticker he added to the body; it’s underneath the lacquer.
Warming Up
While Brian Carsten was still an amp tech at CME, Joel bought this Carstens Amplification Warm Machine off of him—the first he ever made. It’s designed around a master-volume, 50-watt Marshall head circuit, with a bit more warmth. Joel has had this one for over two decades now, and runs it through a Fender Bassman 2x12 cab with Celestion Creamback speakers.
He’s also been experimenting with a Quilter Overdrive 200 for a lighter solution, which he runs through a Bergantino 2x12 cabinet—Joel calls the cab and Quilter combo a “game-changer.”
Joel Bauman’s Pedalboard
The jewel of Joel’s board is a 1981 Ibanez Tube Screamer, gifted to him by Josh Klinghoffer. There’s also a Durham Electronics Sex Drive, EHX Micro POG, Xotic EP Booster, Friedman BE-OD, Boss CE-2W, Strymon El Capistan, and Strymon Flint, plus a Korg Pitchblack Advance tuner.
Holesome
Zach Bauman isn’t bothered by the gaping hole in his 1990 Gibson SG; it gives the guitar a whole lot of character. This guitar has a Gibson T-Top Burstbucker in the bridge, and has been modded to have just two pots for master tone and volume. Zach strings it with .011–.052s.
Painted Paul
Zach snagged this 1979 Les Paul while working at CME, and scraped off a nasty previous paintjob with a card before getting to work making it his own. A friend painted the headstock, and another made him this custom pickguard. It’s also got T-Tops in the neck and bridge.
Mig Buff
Zach loves his Sovtek Mig 60 head, which he plays through a cab he built himself at a pipe-organ shop in Denver. Every glue joint is lined with thin leather for maximum air tightness, and it’s stocked with Celestion G12M Greenback speakers.
Zach Bauman’s Pedalboard
On Zach’s board, we find a Klon clone, Ibanez Tube Screamer, Boss VB-2W, Ibanez Mini Chorus, Strymon Flint, and Strymon El Capistan, along with a Dunlop Volume (X) pedal and a TC Electronic PolyTune.
Bergantino’s Best
Najjar has deep love for Holly and Jim Bergantino and their Bergantino Audio Systems products. He plays with both a Forte and Forte HP Ultra—a 2000-watt prototype—through a Bergantino HDN112 cab and special 3x10 cab.
Bass for Babies
Najjar’s Sandberg Forty Eight finished in shoreline gold, nicknamed the “golden baby,” was the first of its kind.
Going to California
This Sandberg California TT4 has ’70s-style J-bass pickups and a 34” scale. Najjar gets a “Geddy Lee-style” vibe from it.
Marc Najjar’s Pedalboard
Najjar’s tone temple is topped off with a Bergantino Super Pre brass preamp into his Neural Quad Cortex.
This special edition of the Jerry Cantrell Cry Baby Wah channels the raw intensity of the prolific artist’s latest solo record, I Want Blood. Finished in bold black and red, it features a killer custom-molded tread inspired by the album’s striking cover art, and its bottom plate features the no-holds-barred title track’s full lyrics.
Sonically, the Jerry Cantrell I Want Blood Cry Baby captures his fierce sound with a tight, punchy heel-down tone and a rugged side-control knob for fine-tuning the toe-down frequency. Go for blood, and get yours now.
The author’s original Improvising Blues Guitar book.
Back in October of 1971, I bought my first guitar. It was the day after I had attended a concert by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. Elliot Ingber (aka Winged Eel Fingerling) had improvised a life-changing (for me) guitar solo at that show, which sent me to a guitar store to purchase a black FenderTelecaster. While there, I saw a book on the counter next to the cash register: Improvising Blues Guitar, by the staff of Green Note Publications. It contained tab transcriptions of electric solos by many of my favorite guitarists at the time: B.B. King, Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, etc. I took the book and guitar back to my college dorm room.
The first thing I did was put a slide on my left hand and play along, making uneducated and non-technical sounds, with several albums that were favorites of mine. Those albums were from artists including the Grateful Dead, Captain Beefheart, Derek Bailey, and Sonny Sharrock, as well as a 1964 album of valiha music from Madagascar. Over the decades that followed, I came to meet and play and record with all of the artists that I played
along with that day. When David Lindley and I traveled to Madagascar in 1991 to record our A World Out of Time albums, we recorded with Sylvestre Randafison, my favorite of the valiha players on that 1964 album. How could this possibly have happened? I believe that I have guitar tablature to thank!
Like many self-taught guitarists today, tab was my primary mode of instruction for learning how to get around the fretboard. Tab was the way that I mastered the guitar solos of my guitar heroes—and, more importantly, their musical concepts and ways of expressing their ideas and feelings. In 2025, I’ve thought back about this, wondering how long tab has been in existence, and how it became a dominant feature of guitar instruction.
After a bit of online research, I decided to speak with many of the musical educators and artists who, 50–60 years ago, were involved with the published beginnings of tab in the U.S. Long before that, though, tablature likely originated with the Chinese guqin more than 1,500 years ago. Written guqin music did not directly tell what notes were played. Instead, it was written in a
tablature detailing tuning, finger positions, and picking techniques, comprising a step-by-step method and description of how to play a piece—just like the Improvising Blues Guitar book I purchased with my first guitar. Although that book did have conventional Western music notation printed above the tab.
“Like many self-taught guitarists today, tab was my primary mode of instruction for learning my way around the fretboard.”
As far back as the 15th century, Europeans had created lute tablature that closely resembled modern guitar tab. Yet it wasn’t until the 20th century that the system made its way to the guitar. The first appearance of published tab in America was in Pete Seeger’s 1948 book, How to Play the 5-String Banjo, in which he seemed to reinvent tab methodology. Tab then jumped to guitar in Pete Seeger’s The Folksinger’s Guitar Guide, in 1955. These books inspired guitar teachers to begin creating their own tab. The earliest example I’ve found on the West Coast is Jerry Garcia, who in 1964 was teaching at Dana Morgan Music in Palo Alto and drawing on the Seeger banjo book for his tab approach. On the East Coast, around the same time, Stefan Grossman was creating his own tab transcriptions of country blues 78s and tunes that he personally learned from Reverend Gary Davis. Stefan’s early books from Oak Publications are likely the first post-Seeger published guitar tab.
The first electric guitar tab likely showed up in a few Green Note Publications books, like that 1970 one I bought with my first guitar. Rather than notating simple melodies, they decoded the
intricacies of famous blues and rock players’ techniques. Tab eventually began to illustrate ornamentation and string-bending. Soon, it was appearing in guitar magazines and hundreds of books. Instructional audio and video tapes quickly followed. And thus, tab became an expected necessity of guitar education in America.
Tab has had its celebrators and its enemies. I’ll note that Stefan Grossman originally did not want Oak Publications to print misleading western music notation with his tab, as he felt that the rhythmically divisional form of notation could not represent the actual rhythms of Afro-American country blues artists. To Grossman, you had to hear the music along with the tab to understand that. As for me, I finally felt that I was a real guitarist when Steve Vai transcribed my solo on the Golden Palaminos’ Omaha in DownBeat magazine. Thank you, tab!