Electric Guitar Beginner Advice

Fellow GWJers, I am a complete newbie who really wants to learn to play an electric guitar. I received one for a birthday gift and have bought a few books, spent some time practicing from them. But it's difficult to progress without some directed learning. And the books I have are mostly reference books, even if they try to be a "soup to nuts" type of resource. Unfortunately I have no time or free funds to take actual lessons, which is obviously the best way. So I was wondering if there are online lessons or site or some kind of "thing" where I could find lessons to watch and play along with to learn. Preferably that progress from no experience to advanced.

I realize there are many sites out there that advertise just this, I've looked. But knowing what's good and what's bad, what would work and what wouldn't is impossible to a newbie like myself. So I'm hoping someone with experience could direct me to something useful.

Thanks!

My weapon of choice is an Epiphone Les Paul Special II:
IMAGE(http://images.epiphone.com.s3.amazonaws.com/News/Features/2012/20121201_electricpacks/N_120112A5.jpg)

http://justinguitar.com/ is quite popular. I would also toss out the idea of Rocksmith, if a game that lets you use your own guitar to learn to play appeals to you.

While there are many great resources our there, I can personally recommend Justin Guitar as a place to go to. I've learned a lot from his videos and really enjoy his attitude and presentation.

edit: gah, tannhauser'ed

If you use Rocksmith, I would still supplement it with something that shows you technique also. You want to start building good habits from the beginning.

Definitely JustinGuitar.com over Rocksmith, but the two together makes for a powerful combination.

To supplement the great advice you already received.

I'll come and add links later once I'm on a PC, but the big thing to remember is you want to learn songs.

Go Playalong is a fantastic piece of software that links tab files with audio files so you can ummm... Play along.

Also pick up some 'fake' books. These are song books with simply arranged versions of popular songs. It's nice to throw yourself a bone and learn a campfire version of 'All Right Now' while you do more technical stuff, if you do go that direction.

There was another thread that became the sort of default catch all that may have some good advice, unless someone beats me to it I'll dig it up later too.

Thank you for the great advice. Looking forward to giving it another try.

A few previous guitar threads that have some fun chatter and advice you may or may not see repeated here

Rob Anybody's thread. http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/5...

Blacksabre's http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

For tabs http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/

Go Playalong http://www.goplayalong.com/

I've been playing with Rocksmith for about a year and it's a great tool to keep you going when you're struggling with motivation, and a good tool to make the tedious basics of improving finger strength and movement more fun. It's not going to turn you into Freddie King or something but it is still a fun way to improve and I play it tons. The "guitar karaoke" aspect of it can't be oversold - the fact that are no fail states is nice.

Just this week I also picked up the whole kit 'n' kaboodle of the Justin Guitar physical pack, as having to put the DVD in the player as well as having a real book to work from is a big deal for me in terms of focus. I'm beyond some of the basic stuff, but I got the whole pack because I am certain there are some exercises that will help me regardless of the fact I already know who to form an A chord. Plus Justin just seems like a good guy and deserves to make money off his work.