As it was scheduled, ex Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman did a special performance at the D1 Drift Racing Grand Prix on May 23. At the show Marty open his performance up by playing Japanese national anthem's song before performing the songs from his new album.

Marty's appearance at the event itself wasn't his first as it is his second time in a row. Not only that apparently this year's appearance is more special as by being selected to play the Japanese's national anthem, the guitar virtuosos has become the first foreign musician to play the "Kimi Ga Yo" at a major sporting history.

In other news, Marty's performance at the event itself is also a nice advertisement for the release of his new solo album titled "Tokyo Jukebox" that has been dropped in Japan on May 20. The new album itself was being worked for about seven months and it reflects the chaotic lifestyle of Tokyo, its unique music and Marty`s futuristic interpretation of it.
support Marty's work and music visit his official site

An exciting news arrives for the new rock supergroup Chickenfoot's fans as the band have just announced through their official news letter that their self titled debut record which supposedly be released on June 9th will be move up to June 5. However there are no clear explanation from the band on what causes the schedule change.

Moreover, to support the debut album's launching, Chickenfoot plans to do a special stuff which is a listening party collaborating with Apple, right on the release date. This special plan is being done to give chances for the band's die hard fans who won't have the chance to go to the store that day, so that they will still be able to check out the record. More news about this event will be posted shortly by the band.

Beside the listening party, as every musicians tradition on their album's release date, Chickenfoot will also do a signing session on June 5 at Best Buy Store (West L.A.) and it will start from 8:00 P.M. - 9:00 P.M. However due to the time limit and the possibility of a crowded attendance for the autograph session, the rockers decided that they method of the signing session will be first come first served, so for fans who wants to meet and get their CD's signed just come early.

In other news, following their first video podcast explaining about the tracks of their new record, now Chickenfoot have already streamed mode videos to public. The two new videos that can be viewed below will be explaining about track 2 and 3 of the rock act's new self-titled debut.

Following his recent South American tour dates (plus two shows in Costa Rica), guitar virtuoso Richie Kotzen doesn't seem getting tired as he already plans another shows on his schedule. Announcing on his official website, Richie stated that he will playing an acoustic set on June 7th at Stazione Birra, Rome.

The show on June 7 itself is being staged as part of the benefit concert that being presented to those who was affected by the latest L'Aquila earthquake that has happened in Italy. Moreover, beside the benefit concert, Richie also confirms that from August 1st until August 25, he will also do a acoustic tour in Italy, however the dates and venues are still not mentioned as just yet.

Beside those scedule in Italy, on the site Richie also reminded his fans that he will also be performin in the U.S. on July 28 in NYC at the BB King's Blues Club. The show which is being done by the collaboration between Eddie Trunk and the former Mr. Big guitarist's new effects company Zoom.

Previously, in an earlier news, just before he took of to staged his tour in South America, Richie already announced that he is also working on a new album this year and that he has also finished about three songs from the upcoming record. "Just finished recording 3 new songs for my next cd! Nice Times!" Richie wrote on his site.




written by Dewa Nugraha

An exciting news for music fans and specially guitar heads in Italy as they will have the chance to witness a great show from two guitar heroes in one stage. The two virtuosos that will be appearing in some venues in Italy are Vinnie Moore and Kee Marcello, the tour itself was actually Kee's original tour, however later on it seems that Vinnie got invited too.

According to Vinnie's official site, the guitar virtuoso will be playing about 6 shows in Italy, and looked to start on July 20 too July 26. However the venue for three early shows, which will be on July 20, 21 and 22 haven't been set yet, in contrast to the later shows on July 24 (at Tivoli, Rome), July 25 (at Go West Estivo, Taranto) and on July 26 (at Afragola , Naples)

Beside preparing for his solo tour, Vinnie is also set to do tour with his current band, the legendary rock act, UFO as a bid to further promote the band's latest album "The Visitor", that was released in Japan on May 20 and will be hitting U.S. on June 16. The rock act's tour is scheduled to start on May 31 and set to end on November 1st with more addition to come.

Meanwhile, Vinnie himself has already finished his new record titled "To The Core" that is being released on May 26 in Europe and U.S. via Mascot Records. The album has about 12 tracks and in finishing the record, Vinnie was assisted by Van Rommaine (drums), John JD Deversio (bass) and Tim Lehner on (Keyboards)

Just as it was promised by Dream Theater back then when they first announced their new album's title and release date, the progressive metal act finally released the first cover single that they plans to out regularly just before their new album get dropped. Announcing the news at Roadrunner Records official site that the first cover track that the band dropped via iTunes is Rainbow's "Stargate".

Explaining about the reason they chose to do cover songs, the band's drummer Mike Portnoy spoke in a video at Roadrunner's site explained that it was simply because doing cover songs is a common thing they done live, and they thought it would be nice to record them too. Mike also said that by doing this they would also be able to introduce some good music for their fans that doesn't really know the bands that actually played the songs.

Moreover, revealing about the reason they picked "Stargate" as one of the songs that they covered, Mike stated that the track is a suitable track from Dream Theater as it is a classic Hard Rock-Heavy Metal kind of song. Not only that, the drummer also stated that "Stargaze" is being selected because it has great vocals and guitar solos.

In other news, beside preparing the release of their new record titled "Black Cloud & Silver Linings which will be dropped to the market on June 23 via Roadrunner. The band are also gearing up for a world tour in support of the upcoming album, and one of their highly anticipated road trip is the annual Progressive Nation tour which will kick off on July 24. More details about the band's schedule can be viewed at their official website or their official MySpace page.

The new guitar event, Guitar Idol can't seem to stop getting more attention and acknowledgment not only from guitar heads all over the world now even guitar master such as Steve Vai is giving a special attention for the event. Proving it the latest news stated that Steve will be awarding a special prize for his own favorite finalist of the guitar contest, right on the final day of the competition.

According to the press release outed from the competition's hosts, Steve will be giving what it's called as "The Unsigned Steve Vai Shredder" and guess what the prize is a specially signed Ibanez guitar, which the guitar master will be handing himself to his favorite finalist. The Guitar Idol Final itself will be staged on June 13 at the annual London International Music Show event, on which the former Whitesnake guitarist will also attend as he will do his master class there.

However, unfortunately Steve won't be able to watch the final of the Guitar Idol on the stage as at the same time he will have to do his Alien Guitar Secret Masterclass session . In order to see and pick his own favorite guitarist, the guitar virtuoso will be watching the event via LickLibrary.com and choosing his winner from the event's footage.

In other news, there's havent been any new news about a new album or a live concert tour from Steve himself, as at the moment he is very-very busy touring for his Alien Guitar Secrets Masterclass program. The masterclass itself is a huge success as many venues were sold out and request from lots of coutries keeps on coming, the latest schedule that Steve received was to take his masterclass to Meinl Guitar Festival in Germany on June 27. For a complete list of Steve's schedule just visit his official website

An interesting stuff is being prepared by guitar hero Steve Lukather for his upcoming birthday as the ex-TOTO axeman revealed that he plans to play a special gig on the day which will be on October 21. Writing on his official website, Luke stated that the event which will be held on Roxy is set to be a special event as he will have some special guests and also prepare other exclusive stuffs for the attendants.

Explaining about the plan for his upcoming Birthday concert, Luke wrote, "Thats my Birthday gig and I will have some very special guests and there are a few other things I cant talk about now BUT rest assured its gonna be a killer gig! Toto started there and it seems fitting to play the Roxy- LA in Hollywood this time. I am co-promoting the show myself so please come. I will have more info soon to tease you even further." For fans who are interested to be part of these upcoming special gig, they can purchase tickets for the event at Ticketmaster.com.

Beside announcing about his upcoming special Birthday party gig, on the site Luke also revealed to his devotees that he will be adding some more dates on his upcoming European Summer Tour. Promising a surprise, however the guitar virtuoso, said that he won't confirm anything as the deal is not done and dusted. " there will be more summer europe dates posted in the next 2 weeks. A few surprises in there but I cant say till its firmed up, Luke said."

On the last note, Luke also share a news about the project that he has been working on recently, which is writing and co-producing a track for the upcoming George Benson's album. To his fans the former TOTO guitarist said that the song is finished and he promised that it will be a great one. The track Paich and I wrote and co-produced for George Benson is done and being mastered today and it is a killer," Luke explained. "The whole album is killer and an all star line up. His last one did 1.5 million so we are hoping for the best and hopefully the first single but maybe I am jinxing it."

Another new update just came from Luke as he announced that he will be doing some guitar clinic to this summer. Here is the guitar master's words from his website, "I am about to embark on a MusicMan promo tour at a bunch of Guitar Center's with Sterling Ball, Steve Morse, myself, and John Ferraro on drums. It is NOT a concert or a clinic per se, it is a promo hang, Q+A and some jamming, very loose. As a matter of fact I have NO fucking idea what we are gonna jam on but I am sure it will be fun. As far as I know its free." Moreover he also said about the dates and venues for some clinics, which are, "Orlando on May 25th, Detroit on May 27th, San Jose the 29th, Hollywood the 31st and San Diego June 2nd. All Guitar Center venues."

For more new updates about Luke just check out his official site


learn Steve Lukather guitar licks and techniques at LickLibrary, just click here:




written by Dewa Nugraha

An exciting news arrives from blues guitar legend Eric Clapton as he announced on his official MySpace page that his latest live performance at the Madison Square Garden, New York with Steve Winwood will have an exclusive theatrical premiered in selected theaters all across U.S. on May 18. However the video will be premiered in selected theaters and it will be shown one night only, so fans better prepared and booked their seats for that show.

The video that will be premiered is the clip of Eric and Steve's three days performance at MSG sometime in February 2008, the video is being recorded and set to be released in CD and DVD format this month. The official release of the Live CD/DVD will be done on May 19, so the premiere of the video on theaters is to celebrate the world wide release of the packages.

According to the schedule posted on Eric's MySpace there will be quite a lot of theaters that will premiered the live show in the U.S. plus also one in U.K. which will take place at Odeon Covent Garden, London. To ask for information about tickets and everything else for the upcoming premiere, you can just see them at D and E Entertainment's official site.

Previously two clip from the upcoming live video have been premiered at two websites, Guitar World and also Ultimate Guitar. On Guitar World, the video that were shown was the clip for a song titled "Hard to Cry Today", meanwhile the video premiered on Ultimate-Guitar is for "Dear Mr. Fantasy.

Great news arrives for Asian guitar heads as one of the best virtuosos at the moment Andy Timmons has just confirmed that he will be coming to the continent in the coming months. According to his official website, Andy will do a two parts clinic in Asia, the first leg will include visit to country such as Japan, China and South Korea.

The first part of the Asian clinic tour itself will start on May 24 in Tokyo, Japan and is set to end on June 3 in Hongkong. Meanwhile, the second part of Andy's clinic will take him to Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Philipines, despite no official dates have been announced yet according to Andy's site the 2nd leg of the clinic will start in July.

In other news, Andy himself recently has just perform at the Dallas Guitar Show on April 19 and he managed to pleased the music fans that attended the show. At the event the guitar hero played his hit tracks from his old to his new records with the addition of his interpretation of some Beatles songs.

Beside that another exciting news from Andy is the release of a new signature BB pedal collaborating with XOTIC. The new preamp BB pedal is a limited edition so fans might have to catch the gear as soon as it hits your local dealers in all over the world. To find out more about this just visit Andy's site

Still continuing his Alien Guitar Secret Master Class tour, guitar legend Steve Vai will take his class to Germany on June 27 at the Meinl Guitar Festival. Beside his program, according to his official site Steve will also join other guitar hero Andy Timmons at the fest for an "All Star Jamm" at the event.

The tickets for the master class itself are being limited to 70 tickets only and fans can already booked or purchased the tickets at this link. As always it won't be easy to get tickets for this exclusive program that Steve has, so for guitar heads that are really-really interested they'd better get the tickets as soon as possible.

Beside announcing the news about his master class program, on his site the guitar virtuoso also announced his involvement on Spinal Tap's upcoming record titled "Back From the Dead" that will be released on June 16. Beside Steve, there are also other guitar heroes that were involved at the project such as, Phil Collen, Keith Emerson and John Mayer.

To get the official schedule for Steve's alien guitar secret master class, just go to Steve's official site

An exciting stuff is being offered for die hard Dream Theater fans as the band through their record label Roadrunner Records gives a chance for the band's devotees to download a song from the rockers titled "A Rite of Passage". However this special offer will only be given on May 6 only, so all of you Dream Theater fans better get them at this link now.

"A Rite of Passage" itself is one of the tracks that will be putted on Dream Theater's upcoming record "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" which will be released on June 23 via Roadrunners. The album will be the band's 10th studio album and will be the second outing under their new label.

Beside preparing for the release for the new album the band are also gearing to do some road trip this summer in support of their new album. One of their upcoming and most anticipated tour this summer is the Progressive Nation Tour on which they will be accompanied by Zappa Plays Zappa, Pain Of Salvation & Beardfish, the complete tour date of the band can be viewed at this link





written by Dewa Nugraha

Just as it was scheduled guitar virtuoso Richie Kotzen start again his road trip and head back to South America, after taking a short break following his recent European tour. Richie started his South American journey on April 25 at the Roxy in Argentina and scheduled to end in May 3 in Brazil.

Beside playing in South America, Richie will also play in Central America at Costa Rica to be precise, where he is being scheduled to held two shows on May 2 and 23. Not only that another important gig that the guitar virtuoso will be playing is at B King's Blues Club in NYC on July 28. The show is presented by the collaboration between Eddie Trunk and the guitarist's new effects Zoom.

In other news, during his break time from his previous tour, the former Poison and Mr. Big guitarist's revealed to his fans that he has already begin the working process for a new record. The latest news that he posted on his official site stated that he already finisher recording three new songs.

Here are some new Live videos from Richie's latest South American Tour: