EdwardMarlowe

Nice! Black Teles with a rosewood board always remind me of Joe's number one: Joe's was, from memory, a 66 burst that he oversprayed black - body and guard both. I have half an eye on the HB 52 style Tele myself. Seems like it should compare very favourably to the Squier CV 50s Tele or the JHS Vintage 52 style model, but at a more easily justified price...

Sale link... https://www.thomannmusic.no/social_harley-benton-25.html Runs til 3 August. The Classic MR and MR Modern Mosrite types are in it too if anyone has been looking at those...

Whoops.... accidentally found the HB25th Ann "loyalty sale" 25% off 25 products..... That DC Junior type on my list is now on its way to me. I'll have to save a little more for that 25th Ann series J bass.... (Next step will obs be to have a custom torty guard made up for it and play it loud... LAMF.)

Yes, there's quite a lot of that.... I can sort of see people trying to claw back some of the cost of "upgrades", but nakedly trying to flip something with an upcharge when it can be bought new for less.... You'd think so, yes.... tbh, though, I think eBay are so big now they don't care... and they've long wanted to get away from little guy sellers to the big low price, high volume unit shifters, so maybe it's not a market they care about not losing.... shame, though. The number of even fakes now no there are shocking.

Sound wise, yeah, it's a bit like the old maple / rosewood board debate on a Strat. To my mind, the primary benefit would be their durability more than affect on the sound. Not yet - thanks for the steer, I'll check that out.

On the plus side, there are a lot of genuine deals out there too. If I was right handed, I'd have a bid in on this one... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334933526697?hash=item4dfb9808a9:g:UbEAAOSwJ75koIly&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwAvsgjrLmMPCecbgr%2FahbksSjlrFOLgccRZrHBOZILsVvU0w6%2BphO1mzp8JYiZgxbFnxSrlZ4%2FM7h1Q2VLKE%2FLda62zSaIsM2XgjIhv%2F1tW1h0HKsJWdaxNPcfctuG9fBIt1hbaeNJWrA7brjPjem0YZ8Vgso654ebR3sXNxiDwxpe8Rb%2FlCPv4xq6rNYREc3TfA1b7TcPZQ5j1eDfSmzCobQdLJvCZs%2BSSmJhZCH2m%2FRN3oJlEZYsXiaDjp3uD5Gg%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR6CIw-mkYg

That'll be great! Met Matlock at Rough Trade East a few weeks ago when he did a solo appearance / Q&A / signing. Lovely guy. He picked up on the accent and mentioned he would be doing this show. Naturally I made a complete tit of myself mumbling "you wrote songs that changed my life, thank-you." He was probably thinking "Bloody Pistols fans, I've done so much else!"

I know many people place a lot of stock in the invisible hand of the market, but I often think there out to be a rule against people listing readily available items for sale on eBay at much more than the item is readily available for new... I was recently thinking this about this auction in particular - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165726661876?hash=item2696142cf4:g:jDwAAOSwAEtjSbSd&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0PXzv7Zcej2j53JwUAg%2FDYoACkhdAnErAgNVtYnfHpQz%2BjmwFF6Miu51SMPwiWNpEzPzxC4GvGctYAwpc6pV%2BH9Deeb%2FkS8pHq6Y1VImTeKunSf%2BY%2FvgNX%2Bp061TA3BuBDl1kpMPKVoRfSUASUZUhz%2BKrnZh31Froo%2BaQZ2JrGvEQv4VeYjjJ8vCyQA6P5qk0ctmiwLXN7gtTIPSEeo0y%2F8xudHuzMGtB8StLDpdpz%2FeJwk96lCYJ%2BMZwgVVHiRDlcA2o4UL1MqdOx%2FzuMRQQc8%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR4bk5emkYg - Available new on Thomann for £150 odds, start price here £325, and today I stumbled across this rather special auction: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225640944287?hash=item34893f929f:g:Y-wAAOSwDvZkmles&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4LEU%2BJbiDArpHgtRyTZ1mHGF6P9ga13h3f9TlpkKgylkHqwhim%2BCoe3y%2FkR6cHumMKwlZfx1ZFoMp0ccIaj1S4z9QILFHk7vWLxiY53L9t2ijJlNqlasQ2nnkgkPGHtMfAfMLyXDLhUAaSHiMmnzV28OBz5qsPsny2sWvDyGHi0ZZB6TTOy1mUcfN51Vf0ItVZWmO9f7l%2FBTlsGslmquhU%2BBwxv%2FEs7Y%2BkFNAfx3L3zFMTfUAK3GYswkcZRgtJ8q1ndjmVVu67mbqtmrHzB13c2Ff1Q0bUKo0Vb%2Fs%2F%2BwFeH0|tkp%3ABk9SR-7VzOmkYg Just over £800 (plus seventy odd quid shipping from Japan!!!!) for a HB bass that sells for £100 new. I mean, they're great, but that seems.... optimistic. These are just stock items, not the expensive used ones people are trying to claw back the cost of putting big money pick-ups in or whatever... Anyone else seen bizarros like this? The only honest explanation (i.e. not trying to rip somebody off or money laundering) I can think of is "Of course, dear, I know I have too many guitars. I'll list some on ebay and if they sell there I suppose I can part with them......" <Puts them on ebay at a crazy price noone will pay>. Or maybe people who don't want to sell, but think that putting a crazy high reserve or start price but asking for offers is a good way of getting an idea of (or raising) market value?

Dog Day Afternoon - yes, that's the one! Great show. Buzzcocks and Lambrini Girls on the bill too.

Sounds about right. No harm to the fella, but he can be overwhelming negative to the point where it comes over more like a Stewie Griffin rant than anything - even if some of his points are fair enough.

So..... I cracked and ordered one of these beauties a couple of weeks ago. Should be shipped in September or late August: I really want one of the JA60CCs in blue as well - the blue one I'll mod with a trem. They're not in stock currently either - I'm trying to hold off in the hope that post 2023, they do the anniversary spec as a DLX model in the CC colours. I'm indifferent on the "upgrade" of the body from basswood to alder, and the locking tuners instead of the standard, but stainless steel frets is a huge plus imo. The difference in price, once you take out the £20 gigbag is about the same as the upcharge for ss frets alone I've seen elsewhere. This sort of spec applied as a "DLX" model would be great elsewhere too - would love it on a 50s-model Strat type with 21 frets. (Probably my little, odd quirk as a player. It's not a deal breaker per se, but I do have a very marked preference for a 21 fret neck, shorn of that little 22nd overhang. I almost never play above fret 15 anyhow.... ) Left handed, with the 25th style specs, 21 frets, and a (roasted) maple fingerboard, LPB body... I honestly would buy that over the Tidepool Player Series strat currently on my want list... I'm really keen on the matching J bass for this as well - let's see if I can clear some space out at home to justify it before end 2023. I know it's easy to get carried away with "budget" guitars, but for a hobby player, this sort of spec could really be the perfect sweet spot between stock spec and price. Of course, HB's 'factory to buyer via Thomann's operation' makes all the difference. One of the best things is how broad their left handed range is. I just looked at Squier's website by comparison, very limited range. A lot of the big names are the same. Ironically, as a general rule I've often found over the years that the "copy" brands cater better to lefties than the "originals". I'm actually quite excited, to a sad degree, to be able to buy an LE like this. My old american Strat, bought new in 1994, was a 40th anniversary year American Standard. The AS guitars right handed that year had, as with much of the range, a special logo badge added, but for whatever reason (shape, probably) it was not put on the left handed models that year - nor anything in its place. HB score for remembering the lefties here! Full review to come when this lands. I've gotten a little excited about the offset shape all over again after watching one of Iggy Pop's guitarists wielding a brace of Fender offsets on Saturday night...

Aye. His videos can be interesting (I watched the one on Ed Roman the other day), but he's a bit tunnel vision about everything. On the spectrum, I think. (Which all men are, of course, to some degree - hence male hobbies. Like me wanting the same guitar in all the colours.....)

I've handled many's a Tanglewood in the last thirty odd years. There's a good reason they are (or were at least) to biggest selling acoustic brand in the UK. Vintage also make some very nice acoustics. Hear good things about Harley Benton's offerings in that vein, but not had a chance to try one.

Yes, I think that's fair. Not all left handers are fully on the left end of the spectrum - there are those for whom it is natural to play a guitar right handed. I'm like that with scissors, oddly enough - but very definitely not guitar.

His youtube videos are interesting - I particularly liked the ones he did about Vintage guitars, though I suspect he's not nice to be on the wrong side of (even if I share his frustrations about people having sometimes unreasonable expectations - "I bought this guitar for twenty pence and it's only 90% as good as that one at three grand - what a pile of shit!"). It's sad seeing Denmark Street go, it was so badly handled. I 'know' (online) a guy who was very involved in the campaign to save it. They had some successes (saved the building the Pistols rehearsed in and that Matlock and Jones lived in for a bit), but the level of shouting the developers do about celebrating its heritage is in direct proportion to the sheer destruction thereof they have committed. The really sad thing is I'm told they struggled to get some of the guitar shops on board until too late... Great place back a few years ago; at one time I used to be a semi-regular, unofficial 'announcer' for the host of a cabaret night there. Great, late nights in the Alley Cat, great afternoons window shopping. I bought my first bass there in 2001 - and a few years later a Bassman 1000 Silverface which I'll have to sell - damn thing turned out to be just too loud for home use, who'da thunk? Lovely, though.... So sad the old place is almost gone. A lot of the chains aren't the same, though to be fair I've had good experiences in every branch of Guitar Guitar I've been in - I think it's now owned by the workforce after a buyout of the management? (The latter being the guys who went on to buy over Burns, though the website holding page has been updated - sort of - from "coming in 2020" to "coming in 2022" (which it still has in the headline, with 2021 in the text, so I don't hold out much hope of seeing those again.).

Dick Dale used to play trumpet for part of his show... But yeah, that's.... special. Mrs Marlowe might be tempted to see if I could sound worse on that than guitar.... (the answer is yes, yes I could... I'd be like an angry, drunk goose.)

This may be a case of teenage exposure to early Bob Dylan talking, but sometimes an acoustic does just hit the spot that even with the time to plug up an electric won't. (Is that a reverse Judas? Ha!) That said, over the years I've had a weird enjoyment from playing my electrics entirely unplugged around the house. Like an acoustic, but much quieter! Can't hear it in the next room, doesn't drown out the TV if you're watching yourself and just want to noodle... I had an oddly great acoustic sound some years back from - no lie - a late 90s Chinese Squier Standard Stratocaster, with the plate / pots / pickups removed, and the bridge blocked with a synthetic wine cork. Of all things.... A semi (think 335 type) will give you the next level of volume up unplugged - though again without causing annoyance in the next room.

Was ever one man so indelibly associated with a specific guitar? Probably in that regard, Brian May and the Quo boys are the only ones that come close? Hendrix is a good example. He was associated with a few guitars, but I'll always picture him with an inverted Start. This image in particular in in my mind, as this photo was in a poster on my bedroom wall for years: Although my Strat is a 94 American Standard, actually left handed, and lack the big headstick of the CBS era, this is the reason it's a three-tone burst and a rosewood board. Of course, eventually I do want to have an actual Hendrix replica Strat. Either a Partscaster (most likely), or a black CIJ 68RI if ever a deal came up, or even a Squier Classic Vibe if they saw sense and did a 68 model.... Just like Black Beauty, Jimi's reputed favourite, and one of two (rumour has it three - that there was another white 68 other than the Woodstock guitar) he had towards the end of his life. I did once get to play this.... That is the actual Black Angel, Jimi's custom lefty Flying Vee. Now, ti might just have been my imagination, but never have I lifted a guitar with as much mojo as was seeping out of that one, and I normally don't even like Vees.... A spiritual experience. I wish I'd had the change o plug it in, but even playing it unplugged was such a rush. Particularly special as a left handed player, given most of my guitar heroes' instruments would be upside down for me. (Including, ironically, Dick Dale's).

Steve Jones and his legendary ivory white LP Custom: http://img.wennermedia.com/920-width/rs-136459-e03d576a3be5ca7cf841357d5e452e4ee019ab33.jpg (widely considered the "Bollocks" guitar, though the LP he actually played on the album was a black Custom - a 58, I think - with p90s!) Joe Strummer and his '66 Tele Dick Dale and The BeasT:

I can think of a few. 1] If you're left-handed, buy a left handed guitar. DON'T listen to that (inevitably right handed) guy who gives you a load of guff about "the guitar isn't handed" or who tells you "you'll be better off with your dominant hand on the fretboard (id that were true, *he'd* - and it's ALWAYS a 'he' - be playing with his right hand on the fretboard). 2] Learn full songs. Even if it's only basic open chords. It's far more fun to play full songs with other people than it is to show off dozens of intros to famous songs and bits of solos you've learned. 3] Get lessons (I never have, and I regret that - plan to do something about it in the next year.) While it's cute to be able to say you're "entirely self-taught!", the vast majority of us will progress faster with some good guidance as well as the practice. 4] Play what you enjoy playing. Don't sit there feeling inferior to the guy doing all the shred workouts because you can't. Sure, you could learn, but do you want to? I'd love to have the level of skill Steve Vai does, for example, but it's not stuff I personally get any joy from listening to, and it would be a chore. (I'm thinking of years of taking piano lessons because middle class, at a time when I had zero interest in piano based music... I never put the work in and just didn't really get into it. Would have been better on guitar all that time.) If you like Link Wray or Johnny Ramone, learn to play in that vein and make it your own. It's not to say that I think there's nothing to learn from being open to something outside your normal parameters, just that, well.. music isn't a competition, and being able to play one genre isn't qualitatively better than another if that's what you enjoy. Johnny Ramone forged an entire career from the root 6th barre chord, and not many players (other than Daniel Rey, ha!) have excited me as much with their sound on a primal level. 5] Listen to music, not instruments. I honestly think the people I've encountered who were the best guitarists were those who didn't limit themselves to only listening to guitar music. (This doesn't conflict with #4 , that's about being who you are, this is about appreciating who other musicians are. And finding inspiration in the oddest of places sometimes: that piano riff that makes Elvis Costello's Oliver's Army so melodically compelling was inspired directly by Dancing Queen by Abba - Lemmy's favourite band.). When it comes to equipment... 1] Buy quality not brand. Don't assume that the bigger brands are always best, equally don't assume that they have to be overpriced. When I started out, I doubt I could have much told you the difference between a Squier and a US Fender, much less an Epiphone and a Gibson in a blind test (and those differences were a bit starker back then). In time, I could - and lusted after all the high end stuff. I've now reached the sweet spot where I can tell all the differences, and I'm a lot more confident about the point along the track of the law of diminishing returns at which I jump off the train. I no longer feel I *have* to spend as much as I possibly can, and I'm a lot more confident about assessing a guitar, knowing it's foibles and what the next price rung up will get me, and being happy about my own choice when I decide that I don't want / need / consider that "more" to be either worth the extra or necessary to me. A real Eureka moment for me was realising that I actually prefer the specs of Fender's Mexico lines (at least much below a level of cost in the US models that just isn't worth it to me as a hobby player - were I a pro, that might be different). I think this is something that just comes with experience (to judge an instrument on its own merits confidently, instead of the security of it being "reassuringly expensive", though I also believe that with the right mindset you can get there a lot faster. A psychological breakthrough with this came for me when I started to think of guitars in the same way as I would clothes, or a car... Sure a Rolls would be nice, but a Morris Minor is more me - and cheaper to buy, insure, feed, less likely to get keyed by some class warrior down the supermarket carpark.... and still does everything I need it to. I also no longer buy flagship mobile phones.... I think what I'm emphasising here is the importance of knowing your own needs as a player, and being realistic about what point at which those are met, and what's just spending more money... I should note, I'm' not against spending more money if you have it, aren't going into hock for it and want the pricier guitar - just buy it knowing it's a luxury, not a necessity. And yes, there is a value in buying a "dream guitar" if it really will make you want to play more and enjoy it more. 2] Not judging a guitar by country of origin is another one - though I think that's also helped by the fact that I've never really felt a great need to buy a guitar "made here", and when you're not in the US, a US guitar is just another import the same as one made in China or Korea or Germany, all other things being equal.

The Voice of the Mysterons.... That's the sort of thing as could give you the willies til you figure out what's happening! For years, we lived right in front of the RUC station in Whitehead, with its huge radio tower. I didn't take up the guitar til we'd moved to another house, but it did make me wonder what could have happened if I'd had it then. (My mother did claim to hear the odd snatch of radio signal, through her amalgam fillings from it.) HB are lucky that kid who's raging at them on Youtube over microphonic feedback (same one as started the feud with Rob Chapman a couple of years ago) didn't have that experience. Makes me think, though, there's another feature that those little travel amp-blutooth speaker combos should work in - DAB radio. That'd be a killer app...

So without getting involved in a lot of unnecessary background, I did a bit of digging around reading online about stainless steel frets. Found this article, which is pretty cool - about the whole process at Sweetwater in the US: https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/do-stainless-steel-frets-make-a-difference/ (Plus props to the lady doing this in what is still all too often an overly male-dominated world.)

Belated thanks! I've noted that for future reference.

I've heard of folks favouring a slightly heavier string for this (more a thing with electric rather than acoustics), but yeah, I can't see it being an issue. I once tuned by ear and played a full step down for a week or so before I realised - nothing different than the norm. (As an aside, for years I felt that I was cheating by using a capo until the penny dropped that it's no different than using an alternate tuning. I particularly liked playing d chord shapes with the capo on 1 - basically playing in e flat, but with a much brighter tone than down tuning half a step and playing E shapes. AFAIK it's how Dylan recorded Blowin' In The Wind.)

Ah, didn't know it was gone entirely! I remember those preformal nights, about five songs that were "our" stuff, then us all thinking it was a great idea tot tit bout to stuff like 'Rhythm is a dancer' the rest of the night... fun times. In the days before mobiles, I missed Darren's eighteenth due to a glitch in meet-up times (if memory serves, the party wither skipped Dobbins' Inn, or was late to it). I remember the photos, though.... carnage is not the word!