I saw a few stand out gigs in 2011, I saw John Mayer at the Hammer Smith Apollo that was simply stunning, Phip Sayce at the Bristol Tunnels (supported by Marcus Bonfanti) and the original Jayhawks line up at the Manchester Academy.

• Philip Sayce released the album “Ruby Electric”, a mix of some great new songs and some quality live recordings of past favourites
• I found Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band “Live In Chicago” – I’ve never liked Kenny Wayne Shepherds music on albums (despite his obvious talnet) but live he really shines.
• The Jayhawks original line up returned to release the album “Mocking Bird Time”
• Laura Marling released “A Creature I Don’t Know”, this is nothing like Laura Marlings other albums and is a lesson in music production from Ethan Johns.
• Through the Eric Clapton Crossroads festival DVD’s I really started to appreciate Derek Trucks, especially the album “Already Free”
• Ryan Adams released “Ashes & Fire” each album Ryan Adams puts out I enjoy a little more than the last (apart from Easy Tiger which I think is his best work)

2011′s musical dissapointments consisted of

• Aimee Mann – no new music
• Lisa Loeb – no new music
• John Mayer – delaying the release of “Born And Raised” due to a problem with his throat
• Black Country Communion’s album “2″ – better than the first but still poor compared to what it should be
• Joe Bonamassa’s release “Dust Bowl” a real dissapointment, possibly spreading himself too thin ?
• Joe Bonamassa’s general move away from focus on music to pushing out albums and signature gear, seriously signature Les Paul (various models), signature Les Paul Studio, Signature Epiphone Les Paul, signature guitar picks, signature fuzz face, signature Wah, signature Carolanne amplifier, and even a signature microphone….his live rig is now consisting of 6 amps ??? This guy can play and write, I hope 2012 sees a return onto less but more quality output.

For me personally I’ve really found my feet and style as a guitarist and I actually like what I play, how I play, how I sound and what I write for the first time in years. Listening and reading a lot more to quality guitar plays such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Mayer and Philip Sayce, I think I’ve really started to understand how to use a guitar amplifier well and even multiple guitar amplifiers combined as one. I’ve learnt how to use and control gain and over drive through quality amplifiers and effects pedals and I’m surprised how little drive I use these days. Through discussions and listening to musician friends both real world and online cyber friends I’ve exeprienced other peoples positive and negative experiences which has helped me become more comfortable with my own. Because of the wide scope and age of music I’ve listened to this year I’ve started to see and appreciate more how much of an effect a producer has on how music is recorded and the importance of working with someone who not only has the skill to bring music to a high quality recording but also shares the same vision and direction of your own.

Best wishes to anyone who reads this blog, all 6 of you……

I’m giving to give an example of how it can really inspire music and in some cases take it to a higher level.

I’m going to offer up the solo from John Mayers song “Belief” from the Continuum record. It’s a very simple but effective solo and one of my favourites.

If you don’t have this album, buy it now, but I digress.

Lets look at the album track first of all, here is the album solo

Belief – Album Solo

As you can here a lightly driven guitar for a short and simple solo, very nice very effective.

Now lets listen to it live, this was taken from the album launch gig.

album-launch-belief-solo

As you can here, it’s a slightly different sound, a little harder driven, the tempo is a little up and there are minor changes to it. It’s a great live sound and has a bit of feel to it.

Fast forward a year or so, and we are back to another live performance.

where-the-light-is-belief-solo

The sound has matured as has the live performance, the tempo is a little up again, and the driven sound much smoother, the solo is based around the original studio recording with a few tweaks, a little more than the album launch gig. As you can see he’s getting more comfortable playing it and is improving it and playing around with it more, to keep it fresh to the audience as well as to himself as a player.

Now we fast forward on another year or so, the songs been around for over two years now and it’s been played, lord knows how many times live.

becon-belief-solo

The tempo is again quicker than the album track, but there is a real intensive feel about this one, much more than the others, the sound is similar to the most recent gig, a smoother but harder driven sound, this time the solo is based on the concept of the album solo, but is much more advanced and free, it’s a much more technical and impressive solo (one of my favourite guitar solos to date).

All the times this has been played live, you’d think it would get tedious, but from what I’m hearing I can hear it progressing as a guitar solo, and a piece of music, plus I think it’s probably improving the player and expanding his range and ideas for future tracks.

I’d like to hope I’m right about this and playing the same song over and over does actually inspire you to do it better and better rather than sit there playing the same notes over and over.

thoughts ?

While listening to Country Music TV’s Cross Roads  projects I’ve found Brad Paisley and Keith Urban. I’ve certainly been aware of them as guitarists for a long time, however I’ve never really listened to their songs. They are actually really good and very diverse in style as well as being very good guitarists with very different styles and techniques. Brad’s use of a B-Bender on his telecasters is very subtle and clever, and Keith’s right hand rhythmic technique is very impressive. While I won’t be playing B-Benders any time soon, the clever bends are something I may try to use in future.

I’ve also been listening to Aynsley Lister, a UK blues rock guitarist and song writer who writes some lovely melody lines with clever guitar progressions. He also does a superb cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Cross Town Traffic which I think I’ll rip off and add to my own set, it’s great.

Despite my new listening pleasures, I’ve got to keep myself in check listening to all this country based music, I need to make sure I don’t turn into a cowboy.

Drummers contact me if you want to play.

Unlike most guitarist I found Hendrix very late, so he didn’t really mean that much to me, in fact I never got him at all. I thought his playing was dull, his songs mumbled and his tone “noise”. Now I’m prepared to be shot for admitting that, as to any guitarist that is blasphemy. As times gone by and I’ve matured both as a human and a guitarist I’ve really started to appreciate Hendrix (just like the Beatles). A lot of my earlier criticisms where harsh and ill founded.  Is his playing dull ? no, certainly not, it’s just not flash, which with time I’ve learnt to appreciate is much more of a skill than flash playing. His songs, are they good? yes they are. In my younger form, quality of recordings was a sign of how good a musician you where, this is wrong. This music was recorded a long time ago before the quality of kit that is available today was even dreamt about. If you cut the recordings some slack and pay attention to the songs, I’ve found that they are fantastic, well thought out sections of music with intelligent composition ranging from short simple songs, to complexly written pieces of music with equally complex arrangements. The lyrical content ranges from thought out statements to free form exploration. Some stand out more than others to me. Bold As Love, Spanish Castle Magic, Wait Until Tomorrow, Cross Town Traffic and Hey Joe stand out to me along with Purple Haze, Voodoo Child and Fire which are well know classics. I could go on.The one area I still feel the same about is Jimi’s guitar sound, I still don’t get the buzz that’s around it. I fully understand and enjoy (hell I use them) the pioneering effects Jimi created and used the Leslie/vibe sound, the Octavia, the aggressive fuzz but it’s just not a stand out tone for me, but then if you read my earlier posts Marshall driven sound has never been my amp lust, maybe part of that is down to the low quality of the recordings.

What did Hendrix mean to me? as a guitarist growing up, nothing, nothing at all, however he did help me find a lot of the base skills such as speed and phrasing that used to be a core part of my playing by not wanting to sound like him, now what does he mean for me? A lot. I now enjoy and feel inspired by his songs and his playing, he’s helped open me up to other players such a SRV who I always enjoyed as a player technically but never as a listening pleasure. A key area Jimi has effected me is helping me understand how to make a full sound with a small group. I’m currently playing in a Trio and when I’m playing and writing for the Trio I don’t just focus on the guitar parts, but how to work with the drum, bass and vocal parts to make the sound full and rich, for example how to make a wild drum section controlled and not stand out but fill out an empty sonic space. I’m pleased that I’ve found Jimi from a listening point of view and from a musicians point of view as now that I actually enjoy him I can appreciate him and that influence has helped make me a better player, songwriter and producer of music.

1. Lisa Loeb, Album: “Tails”, Track: ‘”It’s Over” This is a great album anyway, but listening to this song, the moment where the song moves from a melodic acoustic number to the full rock/pop tune with a simple pause and crash on the drums is great. A big part of it is how it just fits with the song, while augmented by a good drum/snare sound. Which brings me to #2
2. Lisa Loeb, Album: “Tails”, Track: all of them. The recorded drum sound on this album is great, as a sound it’s a good drum sound, especially the snare, a real snappy snare, but the drum sound suits the music perfectly. This will keep in my head to make sure in future the drum sound fits the individual song and the whole recording in general.
3. John Msyer, Album: “Continuum” , Track: “Gravity” Once of my favourite songs of all time, but the thing that gets me on this is the guitar solo, it’s got such a perfect sound, played on the bridge end pickups of a strat, harsh and tinny, in total contrast to the main guitars sound. The solo is short, and ever so simple, yet if you listen you can hear how skilful it is, each note isn’t struck but an arrangement of slides, hammers and pull offs. A fantastic bit of playing. I’ll try to keep in mind that less can often be more, especially in solos.
4. Perl Jam, Album: “Backspacer”, Track: “The Fixer” Two things hit me in this track, first of all how an almost non-existant guitar riff can lead a track, listen to the main guitar sound, it’s a wimpy fuzz sound that’s not even a stand out riff, more an improvisation in the background, yet it’s the thing that stands out most in the song and appears to be leading it. Genius. The second is the stereo guitar parts, great recording split left and right, two totally complimentary guitar parts, that work so well together you don’t really notice there are two parts rather than just one sound. The fuzz guitar panned hard to one sound with a funk style riff complimenting the bass, and the more classic rock sound blasting out controlled bursts on a wah pedal panned hard to the other side, writing, playing and recording quality.
5. Philip Sayce, Album: “Innerevolution”, Track: “Gimme Some More” it’s hard not to be influenced by Philip’s playing, but on this listen the playing and recording on “Gimme Some More” really captured  that modern take on Hendrix. The recording suggests a casual carefree jam, with ad-lib comments and guitar licks thrown in, it’s only when you actually focus and listen you realise how tight the band and song are and how good the recording is, it’s a testament to the players and recording engineers how natural and casually live this track sounds. This track has made me keep in mind how good natural music sounds, it doesn’t have to be over produced or multi-tracked, a natural live feel can really be a good thing.
6. John Mayer, Album: “Battle Studies”, Track: “Heartbreak Warfare”. Still impressed by this, the main guitar sound on this track, clean, but cleverly delayed simple guitar riff that’s bounced of the guitars trem in time with the delay. Way to pull a new sound out of nowhere and make it a key part of a song. I’ll try to work more on guitar sounds and the use of simple phrases rather than busy riffs.
7. Lisa Loeb, Album: “The Purple Tape” Track: all of them. In point #1 I reference the Lisa Loeb album “Tails” which is a professionally produced band album, the album “The Purple Tape” is the first recording of a lot of the songs that ended up on “Tails” (and Firecracker and Cake and Pie) in their original format of an acoustic guitar and singer. For me it’s really interesting listening to how some tracks translate to a full band track sound so different, yet retain the sound overall feel, while others just don’t translate at all and end up as acoustic songs. It really shows that working on a song and getting the structure and lyrics right allow you to then arrange that song into something much more than when it first started. (This is also true of point #6 with “Heartbreak Warfare”). If you can, Lisa Loeb put out a 2CD version of the purple tape ( here ) that has an interview that talks about the writing and recording of the songs. It’s worth while, and the whole process of viewing the two albums side by side is a good food for thought for song writers and producers.

These are all things that have hit me out of the music I’ve listened to this week. There has been much more that I’ve listened to and enjoyed, but these things stood out to me this week. I’ve love to hear what’s inspired other people this week and feedback on my comments.

Tube Amp Book ISBN 978-0-87930-767-7

It’s called the Tube Amp Book,  for someone with an interest in amplifiers, their workings and their history it’s a great read. It’s the size of an A4 folder and contains pretty much every amp builder from Fender through Mesa, to Budda. It even has a great section on the legend that is Dumble.

The book shows Dumble

For the more advanced in the electronic and amplifier world there is also a lot of detailed schematics for pretty much every amp I can think of, a few escape, Two Rock, Dumble, etc the more top secret builds. It’s not the easiest book in the world to get hold of, but it’s worth it. I’ll be using it as a reference on going and with a little luck as a basis to make some changes to amps.

Recording

I’m meeting up with a bass player and drummer this week for our first get together practice for a new band. We’ll jam out some covers to get to known each others playing a little better, but also work on some new songs. This inspired me to get on with some song writing and finishing off some works in progress.

Recording with Protools

In days gone by you’d have to play bits to other people and try to describe what you wanted, however using my home setup I can record some rough tracks to get the idea across, even better I can give it to them before we turn up to pllay so they can not only get an idea of the song, learn it and work out their parts and contributions better. I finished off two songs tonight and started a porition of one. They are all rough recording and not very polished however it’s enough to the idea across. Once I have the right people and the parts arranged I’ll record them properly (I’m terrible with digital drums so a good live drummer is key.) I’ll hopefully have a positive post on this next week saying “all’s well, we’re recording next week”.

BA003

BA003 Work In Progress

Work on BA003 is progressing nicley, I’ve got the bare componets ready for the next stage. I’ve got a dark alder body routed for 2 TV jones pickups (I made a little nic by the bridge pickup) and a hard tail strat bridge. The neck is birdseye maple with a Brazilian rosewood board. I’ve made a mistake in drilling the tuner holes too small, but that’s easy corrected. I’ve put together a wiring diagram based on the Fender custom shop’s S1 switching concept. I’ll try to start on finishing the bodywork this week and get a solid paint job on it. The TV Jones’s are stil a few weeks away so it should all tie in nice. I also need to hunt for the parts for the electronics. I also want to try to get some different saddles made for the bridge, but I’ve not found anyone who can do this yet and it’s way outside my skillset.

More updates to come

On a personal note I’ve decided to set myself some fitness goals that I may even document on this website

I’m a little disappointed that a drummer who seems a really nice guy and interesting musically and who had a bass player with him appears to have vanished leaving me again in the unenviable position of looking for people to play with. It’s more frustrating to watch people I’ve played with in the past rocket ahead falling into bed with good musicians that are carrying them.

I’m doing a charity running event this weekend at a reasonable distance away from home so I’m not sure when I’ll get both the time and the mind set and motivation to sit down and progress these ideas.

As a side note the UK has just had a large government change from the long standing Labour gonvernment to a Conservitive + Lib Dem. I can see and hear thousands of musical people writing about this now, but I have no interest in it from a musical context as I don’t see it as real subject matter.