Spin.com Legendary folk singer Yusum Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens) has something in common with guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani. No, Islam isn’t joining the Sammy Hagar-fronted supergroup Chickenfoot. But he is the latest to accuse Coldplay of copying his song. Islam attests that his 1970s tune “Foreigner Suite” is the basis for Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.” Satriani has also claimed that the hit tune plagiarizes his song “If I Could Fly.” “There’s been this argument about Coldplay stealing this…

BBC News A Queen fan has won a private guitar lesson with Brian May after bidding more than £7,500 at a charity auction in London. The winning buyer, who has chosen to remain anonymous, paid £7,600 for the two-hour, one-to-one tutorial which will be held at May’s home. It will be the first time the rocker has given a guitar lesson. The auction was held in support of the Action for Brazil’s Children Trust, of which May is a patron….

MusicRadar.comAn art exhibition by former Urban Verbs guitarist Robin Rose features a circle of guitar FX pedals stuck to a wall, and a Fender Stratocaster stuck to a ceiling.The works, part of a collection called Cypher, are on display at the American University Museum, Washington DC (until 17 May). We’ll let Robin Rose explain the reasoning:“Ascendant (below, starting top-right) captures the skyward joy that comes when you catch a good groove. Gearheads (that’s us, presumably), from top to bottom: that’s…

Go Bristol! I just hope city officals have been following www.guitarnewsdaily.com so they are aware of the giant guitar statue theft potential. TriCities.com BRISTOL, Tenn. – Lorie Hand was blown away when she saw the 20-foot-tall guitar the Bristol Tennessee-Virginia Chamber of Commerce put in its front yard. “It’s awesome,” said Hand, a Piney Flats, Tenn., resident who was walking through downtown Wednesday with some friends from New York. “It fits right in to the area.” Chamber executives and local…

Man, the Cigar Box Guitar News just keeps coming! This from The Canadian Press. MONTREAL – At a time when the current economic downturn has consumers singing the blues, a small Montreal company is making a product that symbolizes the resourcefulness often needed in lean times. Daddy Mojo builds handcrafted guitars from cedar and mahogany cigar boxes. The instruments, which are smaller and lighter than standard guitars, sell for between $265 and $735 and have found a following among blues…

We saw this amp at NAMM and dug it. Now it’s your turn to see it. April 28, 2009, PEAVEY INT’L. HEADQUARTERS – The Peavey VYPYR Tube 120 and VYPYR Tube 60 combos, a pair of tube-powered modeling guitar amplifiers in the award-winning Peavey VYPYR Series, are now available from Peavey retailers. The VYPYR Tube 120 2×12 and VYPYR Tube 60 1×12 combo amplifiers feature 24 amp channel models – two channels each of 12 popular amps for the first…

Dream Theater and Zappa Plays Zappa has to be one of the coolest Guitar Nerd double headers we’ve heard of in a long time. See the story from Blabbermouth.net below. New York progressive metal veterans DREAM THEATER will take their Progressive Nation tour back on the road for its second incarnation with a run through America and Canada in July/August 2009. In addition to a headlining set by DREAM THEATER, this year’s package will feature the outstanding musicianship of ZAPPA…

We are total suckers for smart people coming up with new guitar technology. This sounds like an interesting one… TheRecordLive.com Music lover / engineer combines both passions This past weekend, engineering students descended upon Lubbock for the IEEE Region 5 Conference, presenting papers on wind farms and medical technology. Some were self-admitted nerds. Some had probably seen “Star Wars” a few too many times. But Lanston Fults of Bridge City, and his project, were in keeping with Lubbock’s most famous…

OldTownSchool.org Jack Schwarz, Fender’s Vice President of Global Customer Service will be performing electric guitar bench checks at the Old Town School Music Store. Bring in $5- $10 worth of canned food to help support the Greater Chicago Food Depository and get a basic setup on your electric.The Bench Check includes a new set of Fender guitar strings, action, neck, bridge and pickup adjustment and an intonation check. All brands of six-string electric guitar are welcome, but please remember one…

inyork.com by Mike Argento If you’re going to choose someone to model your life after, you could do better than the late James “Rebel” O’Leary. Rebel was well known in these parts for his family’s musical extravaganzas. For years, Rebel and his band, The Rebelettes, performed on the back of a flat-bed truck in York’s Halloween Parades. Later, when, perhaps, the flat-bed wasn’t available, Rebel would promenade in his Econoline van – the red one emblazoned with a Confederate flag…