Following up from that last post on Alter Bridge, I stumbled upon an interview with Mark Tremonti on Ultimate Guitar.

"Since I’ve matured a little bit as a guitar player, I’ve gotten more into blues guys. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Joe Bonamassa. "

Yay! The fan-boy circle is complete! There’s actually some interesting chinwaggery about the Blackbird album too, and you can read the full thing here.

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The last time that I played an album this much, all of the lettering rubbed off and the tape wore out.

It was probably either "Appetite for Destruction " or "Pornograffiti ", and it would’ve been the early to mid ninetees. There have been plenty of other decent albums since then of course, but nothing that I’ve been happy to listen to, pretty much exclusively, for the better part of a month.

The record in question is "Blackbird " by Alter Bridge, a band made up of Mark Tremonti, Brian Marshall and Scott Phillips of Creed and Myles Kennedy, formerly of The Mayfield Four.

As I often am with these things, I was quite late to the party. I’d heard of Mark Tremonti, but only in so much as him having something-or-other to do with a guitar made by PRS. It’s possible that I just didn’t hear about them, - surprising, as the album got to #2 in the UK rock album chart - or I assumed they were some sort of "Nu Metal" outfit.

I’m rubbish at writing reviews of things. I generally only critique stuff that I really love, so end up slobbering and drooling on about how wonderful it is. All I will say is that my standout tracks are "Buried Alive ", "Coming Home ", "Before Tomorrow Comes " and the absolutely enormous title track "Blackbird ".

If you like epic rock tunes, with monster guitar parts and some serious vocals, you should give it a whirl.

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It’s been mentioned before that I’ve never really been one to name my guitars. Even the sunburst Les Paul that my parents bought me for my 21st birthday, at a time when their ability to afford it was about as questionable as whether or not I actually deserved it, and which is undoubtedly my most cherished material possession, is just called "the sunburst Les Paul".

However, after the genesis of seeing the body on eBay, during the time it has taken me to acquire all of the necessary giblets and accouterments, the name "Flaming Blue" seems to have stuck.

So anyway, here she is. Click an image to see a larger version.

The body is American ash with a Canadian hard rock maple top and, as would seem obvious from the name, it has a gorgeous blue flame finish. I honestly don’t remember who made it, but it’s your standard Stratocaster body as far as I know.

Once I’d succumbed to flame lust, I had to decide what I actually wanted to attach to it. For my sins, I already own three Stratocasters of various quality and, although admittedly none of them are genuine USA models, I’m all good in the twang department.

After three years in the Mis-Spelled Band, something that really appealed was a workhorse guitar, versatile enough to put out both great, sparkly clean strat sounds and the raunchy rock riffs that I get with humbuckers.

After tinkering about on the intertubes for a bit, I discovered that what I was actually after was an Eric Clapton Stratocaster. Rumour has it that E.C. asked Fender to make him a guitar that would be able to play his Strat flavoured tunes and the older Les Paul (Cream) stuff, without taking an actual Les Paul on the road with him. Given the entourage that a Clapton tour surely entails, I can’t imagine that a Gibson or two would make all that much difference, but it’s a good idea at any rate.

So I got my myself the guts of a Clapton strat - a trio of Vintage Noiseless pickups and the electronanigens required for active mid-boost and TBX circuits, available as a kit from Fender. I’m such an utter boob that I didn’t even know how the hell to work the boost and TBX (which is supposed to mean Treble/Bass Cut - I guess they thought "TBC" wasn’t as sexy). It wasn’t until I asked Paul (we’ll come to him in a moment) why the middle pot had a middle "sticking point" - the neutral position - that it all became clear. I’m such a tool.

The TBX allows for some great tonal options and the pickups sound enormous. If you engage the treble cut, step on your wah and plug into a meaty amp, it’s instant "Bad Love". The mid boost seems very effective but I’ll probably get the most out of that as I start to experiment with the guitar live.

The trem is a Wilkinson somethingorother. They have model numbers I believe, but they are about as individually memorable as those given to Ibanez guitars. It’s a Wilkinson Wang Bar anyway, and was bought completely blind based upon the recommendation of my trusted strat advisor Ian Minogue-Corps. I was sat on the couch at my in-laws house in Maryland last thanksgiving, marveling at the magic of the crappy dollar exchange rate and how dramatically it can empower a pound-wielding, eBay explorer who has at his disposal a U.S. shipping address. Ian was awake at his customary stupid o’clock back in the UK, and gave me some invaluable advise - saving me an incredible amount, (you don’t want to know - it’s sickening) on the trem system, pickups and tuning pegs - thanks buddy!

Lastly on the body there’s the pearloid pick-guard and matching cover on the wang bar spring compartment - which also houses the battery for the Claptronics. Time will tell how often that needs replacing, although the impression seems to be that it’ll last quite a while. I would like to know what happens when it goes flat mid-gig though - do I lose sound altogether, or just the Eric flavours? Oh, and it’s also got a set of straplocks, but I have those on all of my guitars because, well, I’m clumsy.

Now, that stuff is all lovely and shiny, but the thing that makes this guitar is the neck. I asked Paul Creedy at arrowheadguitars (there’s no space between "arrowhead" and "guitars", and I’d advise you against suggesting otherwise), to build me a neck from "the nicest flame maple he could lay his hands on". Apparently his hands have far better maple laying-on abilities than I had imagined.

For some reason I’ve always had a terror of asking friends to do work for me. I don’t know if it’s some crazy idea that a highly skilled person that I actually know somehow isn’t capable of producing better results than an anonymous Mexican production line or - and I suspect this is more likely - a subconscious terror that I might not like what they do. This stupidity is compounded by the fact I’ve had work done by Paul before and it’s always been exemplary. In any case, when I walked in to collect the guitar I was completely stunned by how nice the neck is. People always "big up" their mates in posts like this, but the photos that Paul had sent (in which the neck looked pretty damned sweet) hadn’t come close to doing it justice.

It’s a 22 fret affair, (21 fret Strats are so last century people) in yum-grade flame maple upon a bed of stoic maple chunkiness. I’d have to turn to its creator for information regarding the "profile" or any of that caper. Due to my legendary inability to know jack about the chunk of wood n’ wires that I spend so much of my life attached to, I had absolutely no clue how to describe what I wanted without taking my existing Strat neck - which I love - along for Paul to measure and whatnot. Same goes for fret wire.

Topping all of this off is a set of six, staggered height Sperzels (negating the need for a string tree) for string locking convienience, and a logo decal that I chucked together in Photoshop using Paul’s existing logos and a vector outline created by Nige Eastmond.

It plays incredibly smoothly, has thunderous tones and first rate hardware. The only thing that I’d improve given the chance would be to make the finish slighly lighter, so that the blue flame is more obvious in low light. My blue Les Paul also suffers from this "looking black unless you shine a light on it" condition.

I was going to record some sound clips, but so far haven’t got around to it. I’ve been too busy playing it to even write this blog until now.

One thing is for sure - it’ll be hard to justify needing another guitar after this.

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My t.c. electronic G Major has finally kicked the bucket. When switching it on for the first time after a long hibernation, I was allowed a tantalising rummage through the presets before it decided that number thirty two was where it wanted to see out the remainder of it’s short life and steadfastly refused to venture patchwards in either direction. The customary "switch off and back on again" yielded nothing but a gently glowing screen, and the unit was pronounced dead.

It’s probably quite fixable but, given that it cost nearly four hundred pounds to buy, and has already had two hundred additional quids spent on resuscitating it the last time it dropped it’s sonic keys down the sewer grate of malfunction, it’s time it went to the giant rack in the sky. Even if I did get it back up and running, I’d certainly never trust it for a gig.

It’s a real bummer. It’s a sexy looking unit and sounds just killer, especially in my Hughes & Kettner’s effects loop. You can name the patches rude and amusing things and it has all sorts of buttons, knobs and light up bits. If those aren’t the hallmarks of first-rate audio technology, then I don’t know what is.

The question is, do I replace it with something else, or just stick with the all pedals arrangement that I have now?

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In all honestly, I had never heard of this mighty Brazilian axewrangler until Mark mentioned this phenomenal entry into the online "Guitar Idol 2008" competition. He is apparently something of a star on YouTube and is, without a doubt, the most cheerful guitar virtuosso that I have ever seen.

It’s definitely worth checking out Gustavo’s YouTube channel for some really stunning playing, and there are even some cool pentatonic ideas (Lição Pentatônica) involving repeating patterns and suchlike.

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Those of you that are pure and righteous enough to use both Macintosh computing equipment and Adium - God’s own Instant Messaging application - may be interested in the following embellishment to the program’s default dock icon:

Slash Adiumy

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I’ve never had much luck with recommendation sites. My "Amazon knows you better than you know yourself" page, for example, has long been polluted by my need to, every once in a while, buy very dull books that I need for work. This results in me logging on to browse the newest music releases, only to be greeted with: "Hey Nick! You might really dig: ‘JavaScript Programming For Hairy Palmed Nerds - 2nd Edition’. ".  Either that or it’ll show me a bunch of Poison albums. Either way, seldom does new musical territory present itself for plundering.

It was therefore with an unsurprising degree of cynicism that I tried out Live Plasma - a recommendation engine that utilises incredible new technology that allows us to join bubbles together with lines.

I’ve not explored much further than testing it out by entering bands that i really like to see if it recommends stuff that I know damned well are similar - but so far it has done a bang up job. Neil Young and Johnny Cash tend to pop up rather more than you might expect, but it seems to produce pretty decent matches for stuff like Aerosmith and Guns N’ Roses.

Give it a whirl, and let me know if you can get it to recommend anything wildly inappropriate. Maybe we could call it a "Plasmawhack".

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I’ve been registered with musician’s wanted / looking for gigs board bandmix.co.uk for the last couple of years. I think I initially signed-up after a particularly exasperating weekend with the Mis-Spelled Band, just to see what else was around. There have been some interesting opportunities - including lead guitar for an Alice Cooper tribute - but often it’ll say: "We found new musicians in your area!" only for you to discover that half of them are based on one of Neptune’s moons.

Although I’ve currently got more than a few musical irons in the fire, the bandmix emails still keep delivering their bands in my area, which today included these fine fellows:

Heavy metal bagpipes? Where do I sign up?

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I’d like to see the little bastard try to hide this lot under the couch.

The last time that I went to a guitar store, I played that age-old game where you stand gawping at Les Pauls and Stratocasters for just long enough to attract the hope-impregnated gaze of the owner, before sauntering up to the desk and petitioning said guitarmonger for a single packet of Hybrid Slinkies - approximate profit margin slightly less than enough to buy a biro.

To cushion the obviously painful falling of his crest, I also invested in a dozen units of God’s Own Guitar Pick - the Dunlop Delrin 500, 1.5mm, known in guitar circles as: "the purple tortoise one". This obviously bouyed his mood and/or endowed upon him various new opportunites for early retirment and, for my part, I left the shop safe in the knowledge that I, my children and possibly even their children, would never find ouselves in want of a guitar pick.

Imagine my surprise then, when I summoned my triangular footsoldiers to arms, only to learn that eleven are M.I.A. This despite the fact that I am now super careful with them, what with them spelling almost certain choking, frothy mouthed death to my offspring.

Where the hell do they go?!

To curb this shocking staff turnover, and in a move befitting the U.S. military, I have opted to flood the market with a fresh battalion of fifty triangular warriors to keep the insurgent pick fairies both shocked and awed. Yes, that’s right, I bought a big bag of the little devils. Fear my pick army!

Tune in next week for "Who the f@#k ate all my plectrums? ".

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Having read most of Slash’s autobiography I thought it probably wise to get another glimpse of one of the two reasons I picked up a guitar₁ before it all catches up with him. I can only imagine that either The Reaper is a huge fan, or he’s just cutting the guy some slack in the hopes of getting a go with the top hat when Saul Hudson’s nicotine stained number finally comes up.

I’m not a massive Velvet Revolver fan – their two albums are both splendid but neither grabs me by the throat in anything like the same way that Appetite did – although I think this concert may have made me a convert but for one small problem: I couldn’t hear a damned thing.

“If it’s too loud, you’re too old”.

It’s true that I’m well into the early years of thirtysomethinghood, and have acquired the permanent companionship of a gentle ringing in my ears, but I still like it loud.  We walked into the Brixton Academy foyer and immediately you could feel that bowel-rumbling thud of somebody kicking seven shades of shit out of his bass drum.

Once we actually got into the main room the sound was superb; loud, everything audible, just shy of being painful. The first support act, a band called Pearl fronted by Meatloaf’s daughter and featuring her husband – that bloke with the beard from Anthrax – on guitar, was already mid-way through their set. We acquired beer, settled into a comfortable position and my good lady did enthusiastically toss a number of goats at the entertainment.

Next up were Stone Gods – who are apparently The Darkness without Captain Falsetto. They seemed a tad louder but still quite audible. Dan Hawkins was always rather in the shadow of his brother in their previous band, and this time he was more literal about it – why can’t people who operate the spotlights in rock venues ever get the soloist right?

So anyway, it was all looking (sounding) good for the imminent arrival of the revolving velveteers. The equipment of the lowly openers was tossed aside, revealing six (reported as nine elsewhere – I could only see six) Marshall 4×12”s, Matt Sorum’s drum riser, Duff’s modest bass rig and the far-too-sensible tweedy backline of Dave Kushner.

After much hooting and hollering at the iconic, be-hatted sillouette₂ of Slash backstage, all hell broke loose as the PA experienced what sounded like some sort of sonic hernia.

Without any real need for it, aside from possibly trying to create a bombastic entrance for the main event, the volume had shot up enormously. While you usually expect the first tune or two of each band’s set to sound a little wonky as the engineers wrestle all of the levels into place, the sound lingered obnoxiously on “bloody awful” as the set continued.

From a performance point of view there was no faulting them. You can’t help wondering what it’d be like with Axl up front, but I think I actually preferred Weiland’s singing of “It’s So Easy”. Duff McKagen was cucumber cool and seems to have aged the best out of all of them, although Matt Sorum looks the same as he did during the Use Your Illusion tour and Kushner hides behind his cap for much of the gig, possibly trying to draw less attention to the fact that he isn’t Izzy Stradlin.

Weiland looks as Cliff Richard might, had he gone looking for Jesus but found smack and strippers instead. His Jaggeresque posturing and obvious divatude are a nice contrast to the aloofness of his companions.

Then there’s Slash – my reason for being there in the first place. I would say that he hasn’t aged much either, but how on earth could you possibly tell? He looks less “fucked up” than he has in the past, but everything else is as it was. The guy was on good form, from what I could hear, ripping out some meaty blues chops and dashing about the place like his arse was on fire. The top hat and shades look never gets old, and also on display were a lovely coven of Les Pauls various and a very pretty (Guild I assume) double-neck.

It’s funny, I remember getting real hero worship feelings when I saw Joe Perry, Eddie Van Halen and, to some extent, Clapton, but seeing Slash is like watching an old friend doing his thing. I couldn’t begin to explain why the difference – maybe it’s the sheer iconic nature of his appearance, almost as if he is some kind of cartoon character. Maybe it’s because I’m reading his book, or perhaps it was just the relatively intimate, smaller-than-a-stadium venue. When I saw Guns at the MK Bowl I wasn’t sufficiently “into” the guitar yet and rather too worried about surviving the gig, to really get star struck.

So the set ploughed ahead, featuring a good mix of their own stuff punctuated with both Guns tunes and some Stone Temple Pilots. It’s undeniable that the GnR material got the best reception of all, with the very first notes of the aforementioned “It’s So Easy”, “Patience” and “Mr Brownstone” all inspiring rapturous applause and entire herds of goats tossed about the place with joyful abandon.

At various points there were audible – to me at any rate – KRRARRCKKing noises. In all honesty I wasn’t sure if it was the fleshy skin coming off the snare drum of my ears, or the PA opening another bottle of Jack Daniel’s to numb the pain. Things didn’t improve. The only vocals that I was able to make out for the entire show were the Guns songs, and probably only then because I know them so well. Slash himself only truly cut through for a couple of solos: Fall to Pieces was an absolute belter and, of course, during his party piece solo section.

We had to leave just short of the end, due to an impending parking garage closure, but things were winding to a close with some sort of bizarre Pink Floydian romp. I cast a final quick glance at the cat in the hat and headed out into the night, ears wailing like bats on a rollercoaster.

¹ The other reason was Mr. Joseph Perry of Boston, Ma.
² Do they position back-lit stage doors on purpose, as part of the theatrics?

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