Gibson/Baldwin Moves and Grooves

Those 70s Rockers hit the road

Journey, Styx and REO Speedwagon, the arena rock kings of the late 70s and early 80s, are pooling their combined 90-plus years of rock and roll experience and hitting the road this summer. Their tour, titled Classic Rock's Main Event, kicks off May 10 in Las Vegas. Watch for Journey's guitar great Neal Schon playing a Gibson Les Paul with a Floyd Rose tremolo. We're expecting Neal to give it a hard workout, because Gibson made not one but four of these custom instruments for the tour.

The Roots become roots for Ben Kenny, now in Incubus

The Roots rocked the house at Roseland in NYC a few weeks ago, with Ben Kenny working out on an Alpine White EDS-1275 6-12 doubleneck, the same guitar he played on the Grammys, while his Les Paul Double-Cutaway Standard waits on the stand behind him. Ben's also a bass man - that was him on the Jimmy Kimmel show (4/3) with Incubus' Mike Einziger in the Time Lapse Consortium project, playing an Epiphone Jack Casady bass. Ben's appearance with Einziger came, coincidentally, at the same time as an official announcement that Incubus bass player Dirk Lance had left the group. Their new bass player? You guessed it. Ben Kenny.

Brubeck reunites with band from 60 years ago

Longtime Baldwin artist and jazz legend Dave Brubeck reunited Saturday (4/5) with his old bandmates, but even the most dedicated jazz fan probably wouldn't recognize the names. They're his old army buddies from World War II. Brubeck, 82, joined the Army in 1942 and was about to be sent into the Battle of the Bulge when a Red Cross band needed a pianist and he volunteered.

Like they say, Thrice is the charm

At least that's the way we say it around Gibson after seeing the California punk band in the May issue of Alternative Press. In a rundown of the gear used by Thrice's guitarists Dustin Kensrue and Teppie Teranishi's, Alt Press says, "Teranishi swears by his Gibson Les PaulKensrue prefers Gibson's SG and SG Junior; he also cherishes his artist-series Gibson - which he says sounds even better since he tore out its compression system."

In case anyone's wondering about the "artist-series" that Kensrue speaks so disparagingly of, it's not a current Gibson option. The Artist electronics package was available on the Les Paul, SG, RD (a klunky version of the Firebird) and a 335-style model in the late '70s and early '80s. Artist guitars had solid-state active electronics, designed by the Moog company, which Gibson's parent company owned, and they had a compression control among other features. Kensrue is not the only player who's found happiness with these guitars after a simple "mod" -- yanking out the solid-state stuff.

Look (and listen) for Gibsons and Baldwins

At the American Ballet Theater programs at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Baldwin is the official piano of ABT's series at the Met this season.