News and Rants

Late night, bored surfing the ether I spot an ES 335 up for auction, no it’s a 345. Easy mistake, they’re all red and roundish, usually. Sometimes a bargain’s to be had but looking closer this was not only owned and played by a Mr James Marshall Hendrix, among a...

Assuming you are still alive and having carefully extracted your guitar from some orifice, following an ill advised “relicing cream” suggestion (see some earlier drivel I wrote), have a thought on this : I’ve just been reading one of those glossy monthly guitar publications – “Repetitive Guitar Bollocks”. Next to...

I‘ve just had to remove a scratch plate for a bit of tinkering with a customer’s Strat. A lovely white pearloid number with a Custom Shop logo to the rear. What a mess. Warped and twisted, lifted at the edges. Jammed tight around the pickups, preventing any adjustment. A piece...

Christmas away. Heavy weather in Cornwall, there’s another storm brewing – don’t travel says the Weather Man. Bollocks we’re off, its Christmas. Gutters groaning. High winds, something tapping on the roof. Santa’s been and gone, blown home with a tail wind. A walk on the beach, a different beach. Glistening,...

When I was a kid having a treat was stuff of Sunday afternoons. Sardines on toast & an extra parcel of sea coal on the fire. – you think I’m joking. All sat in one small room, no TV, huddled round the grate, faces glowing, backs freezing, or so it...

The “Guitar Shop” intrigues me, I don’t know why as I’ve been in many in various countries around the globe. Strangely they all follow the same formulae – 100’s, if not 1000’s of guitars crammed in to all sorts of places. All carefully placed so if you so much as...

Soho, Saturday afternoon. Looking round the hot sweaty queue, from my even hotter casual repose on the sunny side of Frith Street, I wondered if we were all really the same, those of us with a common interest ? Was I like them ? A bunch, or rather line, of...