Poor Lily Allen. Ten days ago, she joined Metallica in the “poacher turned gamekeeper” chapter of pop history when she spoke out, not only against filesharing in general, but also against the Featured Artists Coalition. She’s a bit hazy on factual accuracy in there, but we’ll let that pass for the moment. It’s always funny [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Music'
Gibson’s New Coke?
September 23rd, 2009 · 4 Comments · Guitar, Music, Music industry
Back in blogging mode, and I must apologise to non-guitarist readers, as this is a bit guitar-geeky. This month’s big guitar news has been the deal between Gibson and Janie Hendrix, sister of the legendary Jimi, and senior honcho at the Authentic Hendrix, the organisation which takes care of the great man’s work and archives. [...]
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Les Paul 1915-2009
August 14th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Guitar, Music
It was probably inevitable that the mainstream media would focus on Les Paul’s connection with the solidbody electric guitar, in some cases almost implying that he invented the electric guitar. The average evening news viewer has little concept of multi-track recording, but can easily understand what an electric guitar is, and that the model used [...]
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Selling my Tokai Love Rock
July 10th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Guitar, Music
Yep, I’m so bad at selling guitars that I’m now selling another! This is an early noughties Japanese Love Rock, model LS95F, and obviously it’s left-handed. The “F” indicates that there’s a thin flamed sycamore veneer on top of the usual maple cap. This is common on recent mid-range Love Rocks… it means that they [...]
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Selling my JJ Retro
July 9th, 2009 · No Comments · Guitar, Music
I’ve never been particularly good at selling guitars. Despite my best attempts at rationality, and despite not usually being a sentimental person, I always seem to find myself erring on the side of nostalgia and emotional attachment. They’re just tools, fergawdsake! However, the need to declutter and the impending arrival of something new and rather [...]
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Michael Jackson 1958-2009
June 26th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Music
I’m not going to burble insincere drivel about a musician in whom I only had the vaguest passing interest. There are plenty of self-satisfied rent-a-quoters already doing that on every news report. However, I will draw your attention to this wonderfully inappropriate BBC headline… “Latest live coverage”… in the 24/7 glare of modern media, even [...]
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Useful: Preamp valve outputs
April 16th, 2009 · No Comments · Guitar, Music, Technology
This is probably only of use to the most insufferably geeky guitarist, but I’m putting it here mostly so I can use the URL in delicious. It also shows what a wonderful thing Twitter is… @hifitubes_org 12AX7 (gain of 100) 5751 (gain of 70) 12AT7 (gain of 60) 12AY7 (gain of 45) 12AU7 (gain of [...]
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Why we need experts
April 9th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Huh?, Music, Technology
Let me introduce you to Expert Village. A few mates and I have been swapping links from this exciting site recently, amazed at the high quality of tuition on their videos. Experts in a wide variety of subjects share their knowledge on the Expert Village site… for free! My two favourite tutors are Athena Reich [...]
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Does Satch have a case?
December 12th, 2008 · 3 Comments · Art/Culture, Guitar, Music
Although my days of listening wide-eyed to Joe Satriani are long gone (I haven’t really enjoyed anything he’s done since 1995) I was still pretty surprised to see his name appear on the BBC website. Satch vs Coldplay in plagiarism case? Being hopelessly curious about this sort of thing, I decided to put my ears [...]
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Jazz guitar without tears
July 4th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Friends, Guitar, Music
Ooh, forgot to mention before… if you’re looking to pick up some jazz guitar skills, but have no idea where to start, my friend Matt is bloggishly documenting his own chronologically accurate journey of discovery… Swing to Bop
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