Guitarist magazine celebrates its 25th Anniversary this issue with a special Collector's Edition, on sale now!
The cover feature is The 100 Greatest Guitar Things Of The Last 25 Years - a massive 18-page celebration of gear, artists, albums and more.
Deputy Editor Owen Bailey picks his Top 5 from the list
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
20 years on, this alchemical, generation-defining melting pot of late-'60s psychedelia, incredible lyrical and songwriting maturity, narcotic rhythms and beautifully melodic guitar is still unsurpassed by anything since. Dig it out again - it's still magical, from start to finish.
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Back in the '80s he saved the blues, and managed to do it while kitted out like a child brought up by sadistic trailer-park cross-dressers. But it was SRV's complete dedication to the guitar that impressed an impressionable me most of all. Hours, days, weeks, months and years of practice down the line, and I still can't play his stuff right. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying, though.
James Trussart Rusty Holey Steelcaster
With the exception of Roger Newell in a tuxedo, this is absolutely the most desirable thing to appear in our office over the last five years. Mindblowing looks and the perfect neck… We were not worthy.
The Internet
I'm old enough to remember life as a learner guitar player before this thing came along - endlessly rewinding dodgy VHS snippets of EVH, Gary Moore and Eric Clapton taped from some concert sandwiched in the early-morning TV schedules between Job Finder and Asian Eye. Doesn't really hold a candle to having the entire history of guitar performance at your fingertips on YouTube, now does it?
Line 6 DL-4
As well as being versatile and on many a top player's pedalboard, this is the ultimate noodling-around-on-a-Sunday-morning sonic hangover cure, especially with the looper and reverse settings. And full marks to whoever came up with the intuitive design, which makes perfect sense even to guitar neanderthals like me.
“Imagine standing in front of a wall loaded with tube amp heads and 4x12 speaker cabinets, grabbing your guitar and hitting a chord”: Crazy Tube Circuit’s Heatseeker is an amp-in-box to help you nail Angus Young’s high-voltage AC/DC tones
“It was probably the best two weeks that I’d had for years!”: Geezer Butler on the time Black Sabbath sacked him for a fortnight
