Guitars and Life

I'm an armchair festival goer these days, all that sleeping in tents, queuing for hours for the showers and standing for hours in a muddy field waiting for the roadie to stop saying "one... two" every 10 seconds.  So luckily at least whilst BBC3 exists on-air I get to watch some festivals on tv.   So it is Glastonbury weekend.  I'm writing this on Sunday morning so premature review perhaps but with Dolly Parton and Kasabian the big acts on Sunday if I was in a tent in Somerset I'd be thinking about packing up early and beating a retreat in advance of the rest of the army anyway. Friday was a great line up.  Elbow and Paolo Nutini were the highlights both delivering terrific sets.  Elbow are the best festival band around with their huge sing a long anthems and charismatic stage presence - a band that simply walk on in jeans and shirts and nail the music first and foremost.  Paolo I've loved since first seeing his début on Jools Holland's Later some years ...

Ok so here it is the completed board!! "Hang on!" you say... "that's smaller"... yes yes, I had to admit that it was too bloody big.  So I cut a bit off the back shelf to allow the vol and wah to go back and viola a more compact solution.  I ended up with the chorus on the front row as it is one of my most used effects. First outing for live use this Sunday hopefully. I used the Planet Waves pedal board kit to make up some of the cables - it works out about £9 a cable which isn't cheap but you can make the cables to custom lengths easily which is great.  Very easy to use, cut the cable with the cutter provided, undo the little screw on the jack, carefully push the cable home using a little back and forth movement, do the screw up and ... finished cable.   I removed the rubber feet off the wah and vol pedals to help fit them on the board better.  I've kept them safe in case of needing them again in the future. Other thing I used was ...

I found a spare afternoon, got out the jigsaw, drill and screwdriver and tackled the pedal board project I mentioned the other week. I had a sheet of 6mm MDF board that I'd bought as part of a model railway project with my son some years back.  It'd been sat in the garage for a long time - you might note some odd staining on it due to what it has been sat behind.  The wood was some off cuts from a shed roof repair job a year or so ago.  So far so good.  No additional cost!  Haha!  So here we start - my test diagram - life size on some old wall paper. Next cut out the mdf board... the two pieces will become clear in a moment...  Here I've cut out two bits of wood that'll form the sides and just drilled the holes.   Next glue and screw the wood end pieces and a couple of supports too... Then put the top of the back section as I wanted the pedals at the back to be lifted above the ones at the front, esp as ...

... well that probably is over egging it a bit but this month sees the superb Guitar & Bass magazine featuring Flat Eric's incredible collection of basses and guitars . Now look at the cover... I've made that as big as I can... see bottom right... the collection in question... now look closer (sorry) in the middle of the first standing rank? (I've added the picture now it is available to help... ) My old Peter Cook bass that I owned from sometime in the early 90s when I saw it languishing covered in dust at the back of a clutter of basses in the old Unisound shop in Chatham until I sold it to Eric a few years back after he saw pictures I'd put of it on a vintage guitar forum.  After I'd bought it from the guy at the shop, actually handed over the readies etc., I told him that Entwistle had played Peter's instruments.  The guy said "Oh should we have charged you more?"  I smiled as I left with it. It probably was the best made instrument i...

For many years now I've been talking (mostly to myself... oh that's another post...) about building a pedal board.  I have a bunch of pedals on the floor next to my Hughes and Kettner amp.  When ever I'm off playing I normally just take those I really really need.  But that is a pain and unpluging, setting up, breaking down, resetting up at home etc. is a pain...  and they "wander" over the floor, under the hifi unit etc. So finally I'm in the process of sorting out a pedal board.  Might take a while as I have a list of household chores to do as long as my arm but anyway I'm up and running. First steps...   I drew out a plan on some old scrap wall paper to get the size I need and check layout etc.  I then thought I really need to finally get the compressor I've wanted.  So I left a space on plan - went onto the computer and one of those "weekly deal" emails from a company I'd previously bought for had landed in my inbox, I opened it h...

I've been featured this week on a great series over at running sobers blog in which people are describing their lives through 6 songs ...