That Obscure Object of Desire

For my readers who are musically inclined and especially those who gravitate towards electric guitars, here's something that might pique your interest. My pal, Shawn Demots, is a well-established luthier in the Seattle metro area and has been repairing, setting up and modifying guitars for many years. Now he's decided to start building his own instruments and recently I've had the pleasure playing one. This particular one, in fact.  It's gorgeous, plays beautifully and is totally bad-ass. Needless to say it has terrific tone. Basic specs are in the pics below.  So if you fancy a unique, hand crafted, "Heathen" guitar instead of the ubiquitous, mass marketed, big names, drop Shawn a line or give him a call  (his contact details are at the bottom of the post). 

The guitar has a 22 fret neck with a 24.75" scale length: its tones are warm but it is also capable of delivering lovely ringing sustained notes.

The instrument is fitted with Lollar Imperial Humbucker pickups: the neck pickup  is the "Peter Green" model which can be switched to be out of phase with the bridge pickup and gives a very distinctive tone.

The body is hand-carved mahogany and is finished with nitrocellulose: no tone killing polyurethane here!

The mahogany neck is set through rather than bolt on: the finger board is ebony, the tuners are top-of-the-line Schaller.

The instrument has a beautifully carved headstock and a bone nut. "Heathen": remember the name!

If you fancy one of these hand-made beauties you can contact Shawn at: shawn@northwestguitars.com
Alternatively you can phone him on +1-360-540-8172 (tell him I sent you).

Jethro Tull Live: Bourée

Ahhah, got it at last! This YouTube upload process can be tricky, especially with a slow internet connection. Anyway now I'm back in Seattle things have moved a bit. So here for your viewing pleasure is a video clip taken by yours truly of Ian Anderson et al. playing their old warhorse, Bourée, at the San Diego concert last Thursday. It was not a bad 40th anniversary gig even though I wasn't invited backstage. I have to say that while Mr Anderson did a virtually note-perfect solo, David Goodier's bass playing wasn't a patch on Glenn Cornick's original. Oh, well...!

PS Sorry about the less than professional vid quality but you can't expect too much from a 5mp Canon Elph still camera. And considering the above, the sound quality is quite amazing as I was recording from a distance of around 100 ft.

Stairway to Heaven

BackpackDave was there. The rest of us are jealous. Thanks for the post, Dave...

Stairway to Heaven

Unfortunately Mad Dog will not be here.

Damn! On that day I'll be Over the Hills and Far Away. Here, specifically. Clearly a Communications Breakdown.

Summer of Love 1

There seems to be a musical leitmotif going on around here at the moment. Probably something to do with all the stuff I keep hearing about the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love. Was it really all that remarkable or is my retroscopic vision bathed in a rosy glow of nostalgia? Well here's what was in the UK Top Ten charts in August 1967:

1. The Beatles: All You Need Is Love
2. Scott McKenzie: San Francisco (Flowers In Your Hair)
3. Dave Davies: Death Of A Clown
4. Vikki Carr: It Must Be Him*
5. The Monkees: Alternate Title (aka Randy Scouse Git)
6. Tom Jones: I'll Never Fall In Love Again
7. The Turtles: She'd Rather Be With Me*
8. Stevie Wonder: I Was Made To Love Her
9. Pink Floyd: See Emily Play
10. Procol Harum: A Whiter Shade Of Pale

Remarkable? It was bloody amazing...!

* My apologies to Vikki Carr and The Turtles but I couldn't find suitable video clips.

Twinkle Twinkle Super Star

Brian May on the Roof of Buckingham Palace Plays for the Queen.

Well congratulations to Brian May of Queen who sucessfully defended his PhD dissertation in astronomy yesterday, 36 years after abandoning it for a career in music. As I always told my graduate students, the key to success in science is tenacity. Now a word of advice. Bri, it's been 29 years since you, Freddie and the boys had me standing on my seat at Wembley Stadium and I've been a fan since the early 70s, but don't you think that permed hairdo is a little bit passe and unseemly for a 60 year old man?

PS I wonder if you're going to do a postdoc now...?

So What Were You Doing When...?

Elvis Aaron Presley, January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977.

Bloody hell, has it been 30 years? Where did they go? I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when John Peel announced that “…the BBC has received an unconfirmed report that Elvis Presley has died…”. I was living in Wembley, North London and sharing a flat with an old pal from undergraduate days (Colin Watters, where are you now?). In the daytime I was exactly six weeks into my first professional job; the rest of the time I fully engaged in the tedious task of writing up my PhD. And thus it was in the evening of Tuesday 16th August 1977 when I was labouring away on the introduction of “The immune response of the dogfish, Scyliorhinus canicula L” that the news was delivered.

So where were YOU and what were you doing?

Friday Music Blogging: Curved Air

Darryl Way of Curved Air absolutely shreds his violin, Hendrix style, in this rendition of Vivaldi. And how we love analog synthesizers. One of my all time favourite 70's prog rock bands.