The coolest Ibanez guitar of 2018
And would you believe it's under $400?
Believe it. The Ibanez AX230T in Metallic Forest is it, and wow does this guitar get a lot of things right.
First, you see something ordinarily only seen on "Black Beauty" Les Paul Custom guitars, three humbuckers. If you look closely, you'll see the bridge side pickup has the adjustable poles positioned back while the other two are positioned front. This is correct.
Second is a Bigby-style vibrato system with "butter knife" arm. Also cool.
All the controls are placed out-of-the-way of the player so you never hit them while strumming. Very nice.
Green guitars are usually awful, but not this one. It's just the right shade and the metallic flake along with the pearloid pick guard really sets it off right.
Block inlays and bound fingerboard. Easy to miss, but it's there.
The front strap button is at the PROPER position at the tip of the top horn. No neck dive here.
Roller bridge? YES! This keeps the string in tune better.
I mentioned the Black Beauty Les Paul above. If you can imagine that with a Bisgby vibrato, that's basically what this Ibanez is - except it costs WAY less yet you still get a quality guitar.
This is without a doubt the coolest Ibanez of 2018. Yes, there are plenty of more expensive Ibanez models out there, but few as cool as this one.
1970s glam rock was always better than 1960s hippie garbage
I got asked this question and said it would take an entire article to voice my opinion on it, so here it is.
This was the specific question:
Which is your take on seventies glam rock? Personally, I think it's way better than 80's hair metal crapola.
I'll first say that I don't consider '80s hair metal to be 100% bad, as there were a few songs that were really good musically. Still of the Night by Whitesnake is an example of really good hair metal, mainly for the reason it's actually '70s glam rock cleverly disguised as '80s hair metal.
Whitesnake originally formed in 1978, and in the mid-1980s decided to modernize their sound. From that, their biggest hits happened, and Still of the Night is one of them. Big sound and perfect '80s tone with David Coverdale putting a masterful lead vocal over it.
My favorite part of the song is the outtro from 5:17 to end. A synth is dropped in at 5:55 to fill the space and wow, does it work well. The repeating chord progression is also nothing short of incredible.
Okay, let's talk about the '70s
Take New York Groove by Hello. This is one of my favorite 1970s glam rock songs. Those who are fans of this era all think this is a song by Ace Frehley of KISS. Nope. Never was. It's a Hello song.
The best thing I like about '70s glam rock is that it's not '60s hippie garbage.
I do not like hippie rock. Call it freedom rock, call it hippie rock, call it stoner rock, call it acid rock, call it whatever. Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of late '60s junk. All you have to do is listen to Who's Next (1971) by The Who to understand how much that absolutely stomps the '60s trash.
And yeah, I know, some of the "best" guitar work ever recorded came from the late '60s. That doesn't change my opinion.
Another one of my '70s glam favorites is All the Young Dudes. David Bowie wrote this song and Mott the Hoople released it in 1972.
This song is a total triumph. It's very emotional lyrically and musically. Even if you know none of the lyrics, this just works so well for what it is. Everything in this song "cries". It is amazing.
Bowie never meant for the song to be a glam masterpiece, but that's what it ended up being. I'm personally very okay with that. This is '70s glam rock at its finest.
And of course you can't talk about '70s glam without a mention of T. Rex's 20th Century Boy from 1973.
This song has been covered so many times by so many people it's ridiculous. Heck, there's even a rockabilly version of it in the movie The Truman Show. But of course this lends to just how catchy this song is.
20th Century Boy has a sound that's gritty and dirty. Fuzzy guitars, very '70s doubled-up vocals (this happened a lot back then), compressed-everything... and it works. This studio recording is only a sound you could get there and never be able to replicate it live. The song was made for radio. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Do I prefer '70s or '80s glam?
I have to be in the right mood to listen to glam no matter the era, and I can only take it in short bursts.
Glam is purposely meant to be over-the-top, sugar laden stuff... and that's something I can't listen to every day. I consider glam the same as junk food. Nice to have once in a while, but not every day.
But if I had to give an answer, my nod goes to '70s glam over '80s, but only by a little. And it's only because '70s recordings to my ear have more of an organic sound to them.
Ibanez Roadstar II is a very good lower priced vintage guitar
Most guitars from the 1980s suck, but this one doesn't.
Most vintage guitar buyers shy away from electric guitars made in the '80s because a lot of them were just plain crap across the board. To put this in perspective, the modern low-cost Ibanez GRX20 is made better than most of the '80s garbage.
The '80s was of course the era of glam rock, so most guitars were built for shredding. However, there were a few guitars are there that didn't fall into that trap, and that's where the Ibanez Roadstar II really shines.
Roadstar II models from the early-to-mid 1980s were made in Japan, feature a neck that's slimmer but not paper thin, and came in several pickup configurations such as SSS, H/S, HH and HSS.
The bridge, tuners and even the strap buttons are on the chunkier side which does add to their longevity, but that's not the reason they've lasted as long as they have.
The main reason near-mint examples of these guitars exist today is because so many players ignored them at the time they were new. They're not flashy nor do they have any crazy shreddy-stupid hardware. That's not what players wanted in the '80s - but it is what modern players are looking for now.
And the best part? Really nice Roadstar II axes can be picked up from $300 to $500 in very, very good shape.
Bear in mind these are mid-1980s guitars. For a 30+ year old axe with solid construction that plays great, sounds great and was barely played if at all, that's a steal.
If you were looking for something vintage where you really get a good bang for your buck, seek out a Roadstar II like the one seen above. You'll really like it. If you don't want to deal with a vintage guitar (and I wouldn't blame you,) go for a new GRX20, or for something slightly better without breaking the bank, an Ibanez GRG guitar.
The weirdness of Space Age Pop
This predates surf rock, and it's one of those in-between music genres that's tough to define.
There's this specific genre of music called Space Age Pop, which is sometimes called Bachelor Pad Music. It's difficult to pin down how long this genre lasted before fading into obscurity, but from what I can tell it was from around 1951 to 1961.
What makes Space Age Pop weird is that its sonic palate is wide while still having a very specific flavor to it. It can be anything from orchestral based like Ritual of the Savage by Les Baxter to synthesizer-based like Telstar by the Tornados.
Space Age Pop is absolutely not hard-edged like surf rock is, but at the same time just has such an oddball character to it.
One of the best examples is Skin Diver Suite by Leo Diamond.
This is not your typical pop style music. Not at all. It's not rock-and-roll, but it's definitely daring. And oddly enough it's a style you can listen to for hours. It teeters right on the edge of being annoying but stays just musical enough to be pleasing. This is the only genre of music I know of that's like this.
Skin Diver Suite in particular jumps all over the place with its pieces. It's not something you tap your feet or nod your head to. It's music that fills a lot of space very purposely. Some parts can even bring you to tears in a good way.
Is this "elevator music"? No. It has too much attitude to be that. Space Age Pop is just one of those oddball daring styles that came and went. Very experimental, very cool.
I think the best word to describe Space Age Pop is cinematic. While listening to this, I guarantee you'll hear things that sound like old Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons from the '50s and early '60s, which is of course right when this music was most popular.
I don't even know why this genre is called pop, because it follows no pop formula I've ever heard. But that's what makes it so great.
Rock's dead era of 1959-1964
This is one of rock's stranger eras, and for a time one I dove headfirst into.
If you've ever heard the song American Pie by Don McLean (which is off the album of the same name), that references to The Day The Music Died. And that specific day is February 3, 1959.
What happened on that day? A plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson).
For whatever reason, many considered that tragic crash as a sign that rock'n'roll was dead. Shortly after that, music on the airwaves changed. A lot. Things got softer, calmer, more processed, and sometimes outright campy... at least on the pop side of music. The music industry sincerely believed this whole thing called rock'n'roll was a fad, and that the plane crash was the incident saying loud and clear that the fad was over and it's time to move on.
All this led to this five-year limbo period in rock music from 1959 to 1964. In '64, The Beatles happened and that changed everything. But within the limbo period, things got weird.
Where things got weirdest was surf rock, and this is the style of rock music I got into when I bought a Jazzmaster guitar. Because rock music was so unbelievably dead as far as the music industry was concerned, this made the field wide open for others to step in. In 1961, Let's Go Trippin' by Dick Dale happened. Arguably, the main reason why the song got popular in the first place was because rock was dead.
The gentle touch of rock's dead era
Surf rock is what some believe to be the first heavy metal music because of its sound and attitude. I suppose there is some truth to that with its rebellious nature... sort of.
But then there's the soft stuff like El Paso by Marty Robbins.
Country, Western and Tex-Mex always had a place on the charts in rock's early days. But after February 3, 1959 you saw a lot more of it. El Paso was released October 1959, and it's probably true that had the plane crash not happened, this song would have never gone to the top on the Billboard 100. Yes, this actually was a #1 hit song.
It's songs like this and others similar to it that were soft around the edges dominating the charts from the '59 to '64 dead era.
Yes, there was surf rock and other rock songs that snuck into the charts periodically. But for the most part, the lion's share of music chart space was occupied by soft, "safe" songs.
Truth be told, I do like some of that soft stuff. Surf, not to be confused with beach music, was hard-edged while the Westerns and ballads were on the calm side. And sometimes it's nice to put on a song to relax to.
The middle ground music of rock's dead era is stuff I'm not into at all. Swing dance songs with loud saxophones were somewhat popular. An example of that is Running Bear by Johnny Preston. Can't stand songs like that.
Did rock truly die from '59 to '64?
The best answer to this is yes and no.
As far as the music industry was concerned, yes it was dead. Totally, absolutely, without-a-doubt dead.
As far as music listeners were concerned, no it wasn't, and not by a long shot. Rock was exciting, "dangerous" and fun.
And where musicians were concerned, of course there was this thing called the electric guitar that had become popular just a few years ago. They seemed to be selling very well... and maybe it would stick around for a while?
Oh yes, it would.