Welcome everybody to the Medway Towns

Social commentary on my home towns...

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Let's talk plectrums...

... or should that be plectra I'm no good at that kind of English... to boldly go and all that. (If you are not a guitarist here is a health warning about this post, it may lead to you attempting to chew off a limb to retain conscious or keep your sanity...) My history of plectrum use is... Bloody huge triangular Gibson ones, heavy, I used to wear them out so they ended up pretty much circular in a matter of days/weeks. Odd at that time I had a Strat copy and used Gibson Strings and Gibson picks - I even went for Gibson strings with a wound third at one point after reading heavier strings gave a better tone... yes but you can't play the damn thing and could never get the intonation sorted out after an older mentor showed me what that nonsense was all about. For a long time there after I used Fender medium the hard once, often in tortoiseshell as I thought that classy for some bizarre reason. "Hello darling look at my tortoiseshell picks." I never had many girlfriends ...
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Fitting a Fishman Rare Earth pickup

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I've fitted the Fishman Rare Earth Pickup I got as a birthday present. I was fitting it to my trusty old Yamaha LL11.  I bought this guitar brand new in London in the old London Acoustic Centre, which was based down in Wapping in those days, it was in the mid 90s at some point.  So this is heading for 20 years old now.  It is a lovely guitar, most of my recordings have featured this guitar via a microphone.  However live I've used a CPX500 for some time or I have used the LL11 with a Dean Markley soundhole pickup but whilst that sounds ok it isn't the best solution.  Recently I bought a Vintage Gordon Giltrap that has a Rare Earth Blend pickup, that was really impressive when I used it live and I thought I'd get one of them, but the blend (which has a magnetic humbucking pickup and a small gooseneck mic as well) is £250 vs about £130 for the humbucking only model.  So this is the non blend model I'm fitting here - which the darling Mrs F bought me for my...
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Gibson Les Paul Standard 2019 - what's the furore?

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Here is a picture of the new Gibson Les Paul Standard 2019 model. In the snazzy looking Blueberry Burst.  Not possibly the colour I'd choose if I was buying this guitar but interesting and actually quiet innovative for a production guitar finish - you've got a standard burst idea - i.e. fade from light to dark from the centre out to the edges and a colour transition from the neck joint to the base of the instrument.  Now - if you search on the Internet for Gibson Les Paul Standard 2019 - you'll find a whole host of articles and videos with people in melt down.  I've not seen this level of hate for Gibson Les Paul since the addition of robot tuners and the height adjustable brass nut. I thought I write and give my take on this... firstly by talking history. Exhibit one the original Les Paul model as introduced in 1952. (from GuitarHQ.com) Let us roll on to 1957. (This is actually Snowy White's guitar that he has used throughout his career with Pin...
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