Guitars and Life

I can't believe I'm back here posting about another loss but Jimmy Bain bass player with Rainbow, Wild Horses and Dio has sadly passed away aged 68.  Whilst never a household name Bain was in the original Rainbow line up, then formed Wild Horses with Brian Robertson following Robbos's dismissal from Thin Lizzy.  However when he reunited with Ronnie James Dio in his post Sabbath project his writing ability shone through with him credited with several co-writing credits on Dio's biggest hits whilst he also worked with Phil Lynott on his solo material even appearing on keyboards on some live gigs before Lynott's sad dimise. Here is one his best co-writing efforts with Dio ... Holy Diver...

Flipping heck.  St Peter must have some big shindig to organise clearly given the list of music stars who've recently been taken from us.  A set of people who've been there throughout most of my life providing music I listened to and was interested and inspired by. Of the three Lemmy from Motorhead was the biggest personal loss to me.  I've seen Motorhead live possibly more than any other band/artist I can think of... maybe Gary Moore (another one in St Pete's line up now) just shades it but it'll be close.  My funniest memory of them is at Hyde Park when they supported The Foo Fighters.  We were about half way back in the huge crowd that afternoon.  You'd see the roadies changing over the amps etc.  You'd see them trying stuff out but the piped interval music from the PA drowned out the stage volume where we were clearly... I mean we were further away than you'd be in any but the largest arenas... until the Motorhead crew began to soundcheck... yep ...

I was thinking the other day about what are for me "must have albums".  By that I mean ones that I have always had close to any regular playlist.  I then thought about it and some shine out as I've bought them on multiple formats over the years.  Some were cassettes that got trashed so an LP was bought, or bought as vinyl to be replaced with a CD or even some direct as MP3 downloads.  This shows to me that they are my "must haves" due to my needing to maintain them in my listening format of choice. Steve Earle - Copperhead Road Weather Report - Heavy Weather Rush -   Moving Pictures Supertramp...  Crime of the century and Crisis? What Crisis! John Martyn. Solid air  and Grace and Danger Marillion. Season's End, Misplaced Childhood and Script for a Jester's Tear Thunder - Laughing on judgement day Joe Satriani -  Surfing with the alien Ufo - Strangers in the night So all of the above have been bought by me at least once on a replacem...

I've had this on my Amazon wishlist for a while now.  It's not a cheap book and in the end Mrs F perusing said list for inspiration for a Christmas present bought it for me. I have to say my knowledge of Gibson's ES-300 series isn't that good.  I can easily spot Les Paul's, SGs, Strats and Teles readily knowing the age (or increasingly the reissue basis) etc. quickly but other than telling an ES-335 from an ES-345 or ES-355 my knowledge lacked.  To that end this has been a really useful read.  I knew that through the 60s and 70s the ES-335 moved from dot finger board with a stop tail-piece to block inlays and a trapeze one but the other changes around particularly the internal construction and the move from "mickey mouse" ears etc. made this a good read. Also Adrian covers a lot of other models, notably the obvious sister Epiphone line with Sheratons, Casinos etc. which in the UK are possibly more sought after with their associations with Lennon, Welle...

A true legend RIP David Bowie. Writing this in my way to work as the news breaks. I'll simply share my favourite ever Bowie track, today some ironic with it's title ... and also one of the weirdest videos ever.

This is a debut novel by Amy however it doesn't read like it at all. It is a crime drama set in Long Island in the 1980s. Our heroine, Angela,  is approaching her graduation from business school when through her boyfriend she meets a mob boss. He sees something in her and offers her a job helping with the books of his business. The business in question is loan sharking but it is the kind of job she wanted in terms of maintaining accounts etc and no body ever says no to her boss Dominic. Slowly she is drawn more into the grimey side of the business witnessing the violence that ensures compliance in the customers. However her life changes completely when she breaks off with her boyfriend and she becomes the centre of unwanted attention. Will she survive in the mob world? The portrayal of the gang members at work and not draws you in to feeling they're not all bad and there are twists and turns throughout which meant I was unable to predict the final climactic conclusion. Reall...

Any of you who've been around this blog a while will know that I own a PRS CE22 - 2001 model if memory serves that I bought second hand in about 2009.  It is simply the go to guitar for a jam session etc. as it can cover just about anything.  I always thought the removal of it from the catalogue a mistake. Many seemed to think it a "poor man's custom" but for me frankly it is an alternative.  The bolt on maple neck gives it more spank - think Fender spank but with some of the girth you get in a Gibson or PRS custom Mahogany  / Maple set up.  To me actually it is better at nailing the best of both worlds sounds than the custom which given I have a Gibson and a Gordon Smith and a Peter Cook is too similar to all of them.   Think a Fender Strat with a humbuckers in it along side single coils ... but the humbucker sounds much closer to a Gibson one thing a humbucker in a strat will never do to my ears. Well the super duper news is that PRS obviously...

Only when just checking my stats page on Blogger did I realise that my first post in 2016 was the 1000th post on this blog.  So this is the 1001st

Hello welcome to the first post of 2016. Sorry it has been so quiet on here but I was ill throughout December and frankly did very little! Quick update on some Music Reviews on the CDs, DVDs etc. I got for Christmas. Newton Faulkner - Human Love. Terrific album.  Newton has moved on and developed as an artist.  His first video release of a track from this album before it was released in November was  Get Free .  On this Newton sits in a chair singing whilst hacking off his famous dreadlocks with a pair of scissors.  He now has a new short dreads piled on top of his head look.  However this is a definitive metaphor about his moving forward as an artist. This new album has more electric guitar tones on it and a different more band orientated vibe.  However the second half is a selection of the tracks re-recorded as pure one man solo songs, no doubt so that he can show you that if you see him live he can still play these tracks in his one-man-show...