Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton........

I was fortunate enough to see Jeff Beck live at the House of Blues a couple of weeks ago with some dear friends of mine. Jeff Beck is still one of the greatest guitarists alive imho. No one I know or have performed with even comes close. His style, technique, tuning, timing, and musicality, was top class. He played a Fender Stratocaster with a whammy bar (he must of found it in Joe's garage). He almost never used a pick and his hand was practically glued to the whammy bar. He never tuned the instrument and the flow of the set was impeccably timed. When he used the slide above the pickups he actually played melodies not random sound effects. I heard no microphonic pickup squeal at all. His tone was sweet. No hybrid/solid state amps in his rig! I was also happy to see an old friend of mine, Scott Bradoka, a jazz rock fusion guitarist from Allentown. He had the opportunity to open for Jeff Beck on some dates in Germany this past summer. If you can, check him out at www.scottbradoka.com

I was also fortunate enough to play the Clapton concert at the Wachovia center pre-show party for 1500+ Eric Clapton fans this past mon. 10/9/06. I played with John McNutt, Bobby from Octane and Bernie Carville, at the Cingular Pavilion and did two sets of vintage Cream and Clapton songs. I used an Eric Clapton model Fender Stratocaster that my father was kind enough to lend me, my baby blue '57 custom relic strat and Paul Hammond built 57' tweed twin amp, vintage vox wah-wah, and my latest creation - a tonebender fuzz like Jimmy Page's hand built by your's truly with all custom tweaked components. The vintage germanium transistor fuzz box definitely channeled the tone and vibe of the greats and you can expect to hear it's awesome power unleashed at the upcoming GTLO concerts. I was able to see Eric Clapton's guitar tech check his guitar rig before the show. I watched Clapton play some classic songs and saw what his stage show was all about. It was nothing short of top level. He is a rock guitar hero/legend for a reason. The 16,000+ fans were not disappointed at all.