Blogging » Guitars, blues, rock, jazz and the music biz
I’m in London for two weeks, living in a great corporate apartment in Kensington High Street neighborhood, just across the road from posh South Ken. So my first spot of tourism was to hightail it over to the guitar stores on Denmark Street, not far from Piccadilly Circus and next to Tin Pan Alley. This unassuming and small street is the analog to our 48th Street in NYC.
I hopped out of a taxi at one end of Denmark Street and walked from store to store. My window shopping spree included looking around the following stores:
Not surprisingly, I found many of them to be simple and decent shops, small and mainly stocked with inexpensively to mid-range priced guitars. I really did not see many guitars that were compelling except for the stock in two stores, Vintage and Rare Guitars and Westside M.I.
I also had a blast walking into Rockers, and watching a portly, balding, pasty-faced, business-attired Brit wailing with a Strat and a Marshall stack! The staff and I were duly impressed with the playing ability and the visual image of this guy attacking the axe with his large belly and working stiff demeanor.
With no proof other than personal experience, I’ve found that if the guitar store stocks an expensive or vintage range of guitars in addition to decent inexpensive guitars, then the staff is knowledgeable and treats you like a fellow guitar player versus potential client.
Before I even walked into Vintage and Rare Guitars, I was eyeing the beautiful tweed-style amp in the window (note it at lower left of store window above and pictured to the right). American-made, hand-built, tube amp from Swart Amplifiers based in North Carolina. Inside I was greeted with a raft of sweet, vintage guitars. Custom Strats and Teles, vintage axes from every decade; and that’s just the Fender collection; they were awash with all the great brand names. What specifically caught my eye, in addition to the amp, was beautiful 1969 Thinline Fender Telecaster, only 8,900 British Pounds. 
Well, not wanting to walk that beast home, I instead bought a second-hand pedal, a sweet-sounding overdrive from T-Rex, the Mudhoney. Hah, and they let me try the box on the $1300 Swart amp with the $15K Thinline Tele. Way nice.
The other store that caught my eye, Westside, had a collection of Tom Anderson guitars, and I’ve had my eye on these for a while. They currently carry about five of his unique and near-custom guitars. I’ll be going back there to try those out soon.
All in all, fun was had. The guitars and their siren calls will sing to me again this week, and I’ll take another quick fly through.
Ah, May. Oh, Jeez, this post is late; June is here in two days. Ah, June!
Last few Summers, I convinced myself to buy new guitars. Trying to abstain this summer. LOL. Regardless, we can dream, and in that vein, let’s look at the world of May guitar mags here and across the pond. You’ve heard it here before, “we read ‘em so you don’t have to.”
Digitech iStomp
Guitar & Bass
Feature story this month is an informative and visually appealing jaunt through the history of the single-coil pickup and how it is maintained its place in the pantheon of iconic guitar tones even though being passed by technologically by humbuckers and other innovations.
Other features include reviews of two new Gretsch electrics and a Gretsch junior Jet Bass; interviews with Steve Morse and Walter Trout; and a review of new Digitech iStomp pedal released at NAMM 2012. This looks like a smart and interesting play for pedal lovers: buy this pedal, which is housed and built like your other stomp boxes, but load in digital pedal effects so you can try out many different stompbox tones. You get two effects free and the rest you have to purchase for $7-8 apiece on iTunes, letting you experiment with different sounds before buying a new $100+ pedal. It goes on your pedal board, part of the signal chain like the rest. Innovative idea.
The single-coil feature has the main theme of noting that the pickup made popular and eventually iconic by Fender, is old tech, but still maintains a place in modern guitar tones. The history and the basics of single-coil pickups is covered thoroughly, starting with the technical explanations and diagrams showing the six Alnico polepieces and how the wires wound around each.
Great images and overview from the 1932 Rickenbacker Frying Pan lap steel guitar – ‘world’s first usable production electric,’ including the 1936 Charlie Christian single-coil pup part of his revolutionary electric sound, the pups designed in the 40s such as Leo Fender’s first, Walter Fuller-designed Gibson P90 and others, leading up to the early 50s and the pickups in the Fender Broadcaster, Telecaster, and Stratocaster. A goodly amount of info in a strong article.
Rickenbacker Frying Pan • Charlie Christian pups • Vintage single-coils
Guitarist
Rory’s Glories is the cover story, a long feature on Irish blues-rocker Rory Gallagher, celebrating the 40th anniversary of his solo career. Interesting feature, good detail and great shots of his iconic strat and also of his other gear used over the years. Focuses on key years from his short career, 1971 – 1974.
Nice historical article on the talents and collaboration of an incredible pair of guitarists, Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang, star musicians from the 1920s:
They challenged racial prejudice to work together as a team, fusing Lonnie’s bluesy licks with Lang’s jazz virtuosity, [and] they made guitar into an instrument that would dominate music for the next 90 years.
This in-depth feature happens to be written by Denny Illet, a great blues jazz guitarist in his own right, and it covers the ground smoothly. From Lonnie Johnson’s roots to his becoming a big recording star for Okeh records in 1920s. Eddie Lang, ‘godfather of jazz guitar,’ was busy recording and touring, eventually joining Paul Whiteman Orchestra and later as Bing Crosby’s main accompanist in the early 1930s.
The author notes that on 15 November 1928, Johnson found himself backing blues singer Texas Alexander, and the guitarist found himself sitting next to Eddie Lang. A few days after this the two guitar legends recorded sessions together, including the nuggets Two Tone Stomp and How To Change Keys To Play These Blues.
The course guitar music took from that point on is largely to do with what Johnson and Lang played that day in the Texas Alexander session.
Mound City Blue Blowers
Who waxed the first guitar solo, Lonnie or Lang? Illet lays down the accepted wisdom. At once widely believed to be the first record to feature a single-string guitar solo, Lonnie’s Mr. Johnson Blues, recorded November of 1925. This was preceded by Lang’s Deep Second Street Blues, cut in December of 1924 with the Mound City Blue Blowers. Turns out they were both trumped by ‘now-forgotten’ Nick Lucas who recorded tracks in July of 1922, Pickin’ The Guitar and Teasing The Frets.
Guitar Player
Hendrix at 70 is the theme of the cover feature this month. GP gathered remembrances and commentary from luminaries such as: pickup maker Seymour Duncan, amp master Jim Marshall, pedal inventor Roger Mayer, engineer Andy Johns, Electro-Harmonix founder Mike Mathews, and 20+ notable guitarists. Good reading.
My guitar teacher, Jake Hertzog, has his Hey Jazz Guy column this month on transcribing solos. And his Hey Jazz Guy blog relaunched and looks snazzy, check it out.
Other notable features:
Suhr Shiba LE Overdrive
Surfed the web this morning, boy, remember that term, guess that dates me! So does my recent high school reunion. Hah!
Here’s what’s going on in the gear and guitar blogosphere today, from my faves and, in part II, a few newcomers.
Guitar Noize
Consistently a strong guitar, gear and music blog, Guitar Noize reviews a new Suhr overdrive pedal;
…very transparent and adds a nice level of sustain to an already overdriven tone or creates a very natural overdrive tone on the clean channel… works well in series with other drive pedals to create your own cascading gain… [this is] a limited edition version in Black called the Suhr Shiba Drive LE.
Fernandes Ravelle Deluxe Bass (top), Music Man Bongo Bass
I’d like to own a Suhr Guthrie Govan Modern, would be cool to try out this stomp box as well. Read more about this pedal at Guitar Noize…
I Heart Guitar
This guy is my new hero. A prodigious blogger and columnist, Peter Hodgson writes for guitar and music mags down under and for Gibson, and has a way popular blog noted here and on our blogroll. This week he reviews two fine and eclectic electric basses, the Fernandes Ravelle Bass Deluxe, and the Ernie Ball Music Man Bongo Bass.
Also reviewed is a new Epiphone Les Paul Standard Ultra II, and this review shows his attention to detail and solid copywriting prowess:
Epiphone Les Paul Ultra II
The mahogany body (chambered for resonance and lightness) supports a quilted maple cap, while a mahogany slim-taper glued-in neck sports a satin finish, a rosewood fretboard and 22 medium jumbo frets on a flattish 12” radius. The scale length is your classic 24.75”. Hardware includes a LockTone Tune-o-Matic bridge and LockTone Stopbar…Electronics consist of two Alnico Classic pickups with individual volume pots for each; a master tone…; a volume control for the NanoMag sitting where the bridge pickup tone control would be. There’s a 3-way pickup selector switch in the usual place and, ‘round back, treble, bass and gain controls for the NanoMag pickup. But wait, I don’t see any wires poking out of the bridge. So where is this mysterious NanoMag pickup? Oh wait, there it is, set into the neck between the 22nd fret and the rhythm position humbucker. Crafty! This little wonder seeks to do away with the quackiness inherent in conventional piezo pickup designs, and instead it uses good old-fashioned magnetic means to capture the sound, strategically placed at a sweet spot where you’ll get the maximum fullness and tone.
These features offer you the added tonal variety of getting acoustic sounds out of your electric. I’d like to try that and compare it to the James Tyler Variax or the Roland Strat G-5.
I’m on the PRS emailing list, so I saw the release of their new David Grissom model the other week, The PRS Private Stock Collection Series II DGT. Recent posts at great guitar blog Guitar Noize reminded me of how cool this guitar looks, and how sweet the specs are. The GN gang details the guitar and provides video link to a demo. This PRS guitar sparkles. I love the quilted top and the micro bursts.
PRS Private Stock Collection Series II DGT
I met Paul Reed Smith the other day, when he came to Rudy’s Music in NYC for a PRS Experience 2011 tour. Great experience, I must admit. He had his guitar tech take my Custom 24 to their factory for mods! (More on that later.) Got a chance to see David Grissom play and hold a guitar tone clinic that day. He was playing one of his DGT Standards.
David Grissom & Paul Reed Smith
This new guitar looks special, and at $15K, you would certainly expect so.
On the subject of custom guitars, this xmas got a book about the Fender Custom Shop. Beautiful coffee table book. Mouth watering. Went over to the Fender Custom Shop to drool today.
The Dream Factory by Tom Wheeler
Thinking a thinline masterbuilt telegretscher with bigsby would look and sound awfully nice, yes?
TeleGretscher - Fender Custom Shop
@GuitarPlayerNow, Twitter feed for Guitar Player magazine posted link to this awesome video on YouTube. It’s a factory tour of the Fender shop in 1959. Cool. No computer routers back then, all hand built guitars. As pointed out, every guitar made by hand in that shop then is worth a small fortune today.
