It’s tricky to know where to start when Boss springs this big a surprise on you! With literally last minute notice for two top secret projects that Boss has quite evidently been working on for a while.

The guitar is something rather more unusual for Boss - so perhaps I should start there. I’m not sure many of you recall Boss’s last foray into guitars back in 2017 - as a collaboration with Strandberg Guitars - for the Boss V Guitar - a heavily customised and evolved ...

For me, this turned out to be the best The Guitar Show yet - where I pretty much managed to round off all my pre-show goals - in terms of seeing what and whom I wanted to / needed - as per the following highlights. I caught 2 great lunchtime showcases - first by Mikey Demus of Skindred / Redbeard Effects fame and then Rabea Massaad of Andertons, Chapman, Dorje, Toska, etc. fame - and D’Addario as it turned out - albeit people were really just there to see Bea play.

I must have circled the ...

I spent the whole of yesterday at the Islington UK Guitar Show - which turned out to be quite a different experiences for me compared to last year’s somewhat haphazard inaugural event at Olympia - this was much better organised, and I really enjoyed attending the many breakout events at the show.

For Pedal fans it was really quite a simple show with relatively few Pedal purveyors - and with one stand having most of the action - i.e. the Audio Distribution Group - with 16 brands -...

Readers of this blog will know how much I love PRS Guitars. And for the longest time I considered a PRS 513 my ideal guitar - in terms of combination of tones, features and looks. Yet Paul never sits idle for long and he has concocted his finest alchemy yet with some really smart switching options - that pretty much put the Modern Eagle V in a class of its own.

It comes with all the usual superior PRS Private Stock appointments you would expect - Mahogany body, Curly Maple ’10&...

At heart I’m very obviously a Strat-type or double-cut guitar shape fan and have been so from day one - I feel these instruments are just better ergonomically balanced and aesthetic-wise much more favourable than their single-cut brethren. That said I tend to get hung up on headstock shape, tuner alignment and type, perpendicularity of string pull etc. - and have tended to therefore gravitate towards those designs from PRS, MusicMan and Schecter - typically 3+3 or 4+2 variations.

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As posted on this site - I spent yesterday/Saturday at ’The Guitar Show’(poor SEO) which is actually the UK’s most significant guitar show - but still relatively compact and bijoux and with lots to notable absentees. No Fender or Gibson, and strangely no Chapman Guitars either - they seem to have an odd approach to their own domestic market!

In any case there was plenty to see at the show - still nothing really compared to what takes place in Germany or the USA, but enough for a day out. I ...

2018 has been a pretty decent year for new guitar releases - with genuinely something exceptional for near enough every variety. Fender released the really cool alternative range of Parallel Universe guitars - including the above Troublemaker Telecaster. And Gibson released the perfectly packaged Les Paul Junior Tribute.

We also saw Ibanez, Music Man and PRS further build on their quality reputations - while Music Man concentrated more on its Sterling diffusion range as it was so busy ...

So I attended the inaugural Future Publishing UK Guitar Show this past Saturday at the Olympia Exhibition Centre London - Levels 2 & 3. It was not the most auspicious day for an event in London, considering there was a strike on the Piccadilly line, and the important chunks of the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City, and Metropolitan lines were down for maintenance. I therefore ’tubed’ it to Shepherd’s Bush or Westfield essentially, and walked down from there - a ...

I always expect to be excited by the new prospects introduced at Summer NAMM, but it can be somewhat antic-climactic, particularly compared to this year’s very formidable Winter NAMM show. Several pedals that were announced there are still alas somewhat in the ether. I was expecting to see updates of the Empress Zoia and the Keeley Stereo Tape Delay pedal - but those were not forthcoming, which most probably means some production delays - I certainly can’t imagine the Zoia is going ...