If you’re like us and sometimes find yourself falling prey to worshipping false gods, well, we’re not alone. The organizers of the Musikmesse understand.

The Musikmesse, the world’s largest music trade fair taking place March 24-26, 2010 in Frankfurt, Germany, has announced that next year’s fair will include a vintage instrument and memorabilia exhibit. Among the “toys” they plan to have on display are both Clapton’s “Blackie” and Stevie Ray Vaughans’ “Lenny,” axes worth an estimated $1.8 million.

For more information consult the special International Vintage Show page. The page hasn’t been translated (yet anyway) so you might want to check out the links to the videos and photos which are actually spoken and captioned in English.

You’ll find the latest about the Musikmesse 2010 up on the official website, which has a new, cool animated splash intro. We think it could use different background music, though, sorta like this  

With Thanksgiving dinner barely digested and the first candle on our Advent wreath broken in, we’ve begun pencilling in some items on our Christmas wish list.

• An all-inclusive package to Don’s shows at the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls coming up on January 7-9, 2010. With the falls view, of course.
• A banjo-playing Steve Martin. We listened to this recent show recorded while he was on tour on NPR’s World Cafe and liked what we heard.
• The new Kenny Edwards album Resurrection Road available on his site. And while we’re at it, throw in a show or two of his in December with Karla Bonoff.
• Stephen Stills’ new Live at Shepherd’s Bush (CD/DVD). We were at the fantastic Amsterdam show during that solo tour and want to compare notes. (Sample video clip)
• This cool silent guitar from Yamaha. Helps preserve relationships with non-music-loving partners forced to endure late night practice sessions.

Now all we gotta do is tweet this, link it on Facebook, burn the feed on Feedburner, mass e-mail the URL to our Outlook contacts, upload a version on YouTube, text it to Santa and print a hard copy for Mom.

UPDATE 2/2/2010 – Steve Martin’s “The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo” won a 2010 Grammy in the category Best Bluegrass Album

Ask Don!

This week, Don took some time from his busy schedule to field another round of fan questions from the Guitar Q & A mailbag.

Find out some of his tips and tricks with delay pedals, a little history behind the recording of “All of You,” and what his Stratocaster can’t do without. Plus he reveals a new treat in his guitar collection.

Check out the updated Q & A page for more!

Ask Don!

If you haven’t seen your question answered yet, be patient. We collect and submit them to him on a regular basis.

By the way, fans are also welcome to share their own music, photos and anecdotes.

If our site analysis statistics accurately jive with our visitors’ search queries, then “Guitar Q & A With Don” is our second most frequented page (after the front page.)

This month, Don answered another round of questions which we’ve added to the Q&A. Find out among other things what gear he uses, how he “customized” his first doubleneck guitar and what we might expect from his forthcoming album.