My pal Sean Kelly wears a few different hats. He's primarily known as a Juno-nominated guitarist who's played with Nelly Furtado, Lee Aaron, Coney Hatch, Helix, and several other acts. He's also a music teacher, and the author of three books.

He joins me today to talk about his newest work, the upcoming book entitled Battle Axes: A Hard Rockin' History of Pointy Guitars. The book examines the cultural and musical evolution of those wildly shaped guitars we've all seen, beginning with Gibson Flying Vs and Explorers, and progressing through later models produced by Hamer, Jackson, Charvel, Dean, and others. Throughout the book, Sean talks to some of the guitarists who helped put these companies on the map - Def Leppard's Phil Collen, GN'R's Gilby Clarke, Triumph's Rik Emmett, Twisted Sister's Jay Jay French, and even Metal Method's Doug Marks! Let the guitar geekery begin.

One July evening in northern Ontario back in 1994, I had a very unusual liaison with a person from the United States who would appear and then disappear within a span of about 12 hours, never to be heard from again.

After listening to last month's NSTS episode featuring the guitarists who auditioned to replace Ace Frehley in KISS, friend of the show and co-host of the Famous Lost Words podcast Tom Jokic dropped by the NSTS studios with a list of other interesting musical substitutions, featuring artists like Dave Grohl, Stevie Nicks, Lenny Kravitz, and The Doors.

According to Tom, Eddie Van Halen asked a well-known female singer to join the band before they asked Sammy Hagar, who was asked by The Grateful Dead to replace Jerry Garcia(!). Lots of interesting discussion in this episode.

When Ace Frehley left KISS in 1982, a lot of guitar players lined up to take his place. Many of them, upon not getting the gig, went on to do great things. Two of those guitarists were Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora and Slash from Guns N' Roses. And, Eddie Van Halen was also rumoured to be in the mix.

This week on the show I consider the ramifications of all of this - rock history as we know it would be significantly different. Sambora joining KISS would have prevented Bon Jovi from becoming Bon Jovi, and "Sweet Child o' Mine" could have been a KISS song. All of the bizarre possibilities involving these guitarists and others who auditioned are considered in this episode.

West coast band 54-40 is a group we all know and love up here in Canada. Last week 54-40 guitarist Dave Genn called in to the show to talk about their new record Porto, which drops this Friday, January 23rd. I've heard it, and so should you – quite honestly, it's really good.

Dave shared some great stories during our chat. Among them: his night out with Ronnie Wood and witnessing a funny Stones soundcheck moment; his piano teacher's icy response to Dave's fondness for Shaun Cassidy; and the very unorthodox way by which he found out that The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" is his favourite song.

Here's the second half of my chat with Rik and Ian live from Rik's place. We couldn't talk about the upcoming Triumph tour as it hadn't been formally announced yet, and I was sworn to secrecy.

But, there was so much more to cover - the retirement of Ian's longtime band Lunch at Allen's, how Ian used to get accosted by women at his shows and the hilarious commentary that ensues, the lyrics Rik and Ian chose to be engraved in their CSHOF awards, Rik's inspiration behind the lyrics of "Fight The Good Fight", and to add a Christmas flavour to this year-end episode, we wrap up with Rik and Ian sharing some Christmas party stories from years past.

Merry Christmas to NSTS listeners everywhere - I sincerely hope you have a wonderful holiday, however you celebrate. Thank you for listening.

I joined Rik Emmett and Ian Thomas at Rik's home recently to talk to them about being inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame together. This episode is the first of two parts.

The conversation was fantastic, complete with a look back on the ceremony, plenty of fascinating details about their songwriting tendencies, how Rik and Ian's mothers taught them how to sing harmonies, the fact that they both had a hit called "Hold On" (and whose charted higher), and how when they wrote their music, they both hoped it would be of some use to future generations. Was it ever.

And now for something completely different!

Catherine Fearns is a fascinating human being. Hailing from Liverpool and joining me from Geneva, Switzerland, she's a pianist, a composer, a guitarist, an author of six books, and an absolutely wonderful person to talk music with.

I contacted her because of a stunning video I saw on YouTube of her playing an Iron Maiden song on the piano, masterfully so. One of the most compelling guests I've had on the show in some time.