Rudi

1/ Echo solid bodied electric. No idea what model it was supposed to be. Never saw another like it before or since. It was ancient by 1970. It had 4 pickups and a whole bank of pickup combo selector buttons (there may have been about 18 of these). The button bank looked like something off an accordion. It had a white pearl effect face and the neck was slightly bowed. NO LONGER HAVE IT. 2/ Yamaha steel strung acoustic. Can’t check the model of this either as it is at my house and I don’t live there anymore. It is an ‘F-something’. For the last 8 years it has remained in open C tuning. I bought it around ‘71 or ‘72. STILL GOT IT. 3/ Fender Stratocaster. Classic sunburst & with maple neck & trem. Used it for about 25 years. Loved the sound, hated the way it played. Part X’d it for the Jackson. 4/ Fylde steel strung acoustic. Bought this from the luthier (Roger) at that time in Kirkham Lancs about 30 years ago. I spent the day with the luthiers playing all their ‘imperfect finish’ models. Had lunch there. By the afternoon I had chosen a Rosewood back & sides model, which is now in need of a little restoration. Today these guitars now go for some serious money. I wonder what mine is worth? STILL GOT IT. 5/ Charvette solid bodied electric. Floyd Rose bridge. The budget Charvel. Bought for ‘fun’ This was the lightest most perfectly balanced guitar I ever held. Shame about the sound quality & cheap pickups. I had intended to replace the pickups but was persuaded to sell it to a friend. Asked him to give me 1st refusal if he got tired of it. He got tired of it and forgot about me. NO LONGER HAVE IT. 6/ Washburn solid bodied electric. Floyd Rose bridge. Cheap enough but has terrific tone and action. Hardly used much now as has only 22 frets. STILL HAVE IT. 7/ Jackson Soloist XL. Solid bodied electric. I disabled the Floyd Rose system by means of a lump of wood to secure the bridge. Almost perfect in every way. WILL NEVER SELL IT. 8/ Camps nylon strung Spanish guitar. Bought recently. It is a PIG to play but has a beautiful tone. I have hardly played another guitar since getting it (gigs notwithstanding). STILL GOT IT.

Hi Trev. I am unable to unzip your file. Any chance of streaming it from somewhere?

Broke my naffing thumbnail! I can just about cope with fingernail loss but the thumb is hurting when I pick. Gave up practice after 45 minutes due to throbbing thumb. Nails are a perishing nuisance (literally perishing). Powered up the Mac to download Yahoo Messenger. Installed it and placed it on the desktop. Then noticed it had 2 icons in the dock. I couldn’t remove either of them. Got out the manual, did what the manual said and it seemed to work for about 5 seconds. Then it reappeared in the dock again. Tried to power down, and again the screen went blank as the fan went into overdrive. Had to hold down the power button to get it to shut off properly. Naffing computer. Powered up PS2 and resumed The Bards Tale. I left the world map and went to Kirkwall, which was in flames, and the villagers were shrieking and milling about in panic. I got Bard to conjure up the hag and the bodyguard and set about killing all the skeletal horses with the flail. But the villagers still wouldn’t shut up. Then I had an idea. I saved the game there and opened up the Fender flight case. I managed to dig out an old Dobro thumbpick from the bottom of the case & resumed my guitar practice. Hadn’t used that thumbpick for many many years. It’s a bit loud & harsh, but at least I could play. Worked on the instrumental. Decided to leave out the 7/8 8/8 bars as they were just too funky for a ‘classical’ type composition. I MUST remember them for something else later on though. After an hour I checked the right elbow and it was aching again. This is happening all the time now. I’m going to have to pay more attention to my playing posture. Played ‘All My Friends are Gone, Girls In My Life, Jupiter and You Are My Sunshine, which I used to experiment with bar lengths & varied timings. 8.30pm Poured a glass of wine and put on Respighi’s Fontane di Roma as I tidied up kitchen and did the dishes. Naffing washing up.

Looks great. But when I pressed play from the link, it quit.

The spanish guitar has pretty much taken over all of my practice time. Although it’s a sod to play I am gradually finding it easier. I am trotting out a piece I began in my 20’s. I called it Flamingo. Like all my own compositions, it evolves. Bits got forgotten and other bits got tacked on later. I have the bare bones of Flamingo resurrected now and can play most of it. More importantly I have added some more and it has taken on a life of its own once more. It’s now as long as it ever was and still growing. It’s like an infant demanding its bottle. With every feed it takes a little bit more. It demands a good deal of practice. Last Saturdays gig. Considering I only prepared with half my usual ‘revision’, the gig went well. This was the first gig since getting the GT-5 repaired and it has a clean bill of health now. However the ‘Move On Up’ solo was weird and I couldn’t figure out why until after the song. I had hit the wrong patch and selected ‘Jazz Scoil’ (Jazz Single Coil: a warm clean sound) instead of ‘Twin’ (Twin Reverb: a louder biting sound). For the first time in several years, we didn’t get an encore (though there was a DJ taking over from us). They all danced though. Every woman was wearing a strapless top; must be the fashion I suppose. The thing about those is that they have to be pulled up every few minutes, especially when dancing. We played an extra long version of ‘Hey Ya’ in appreciation of this. It was pretty hard checking out the progress of each top as the song went into overtime. On the way home after the gig Jan mentioned the ‘slipping strapless top’ business. I of course tactfully expressed surprise.

I see what you mean. It does look like that silhouette of a lapel badge. I found the shot of the headstones adorned with caps etc. the most moving.

hmmm.... I never knew about this competition, or I might've schemed up a Strat with a playable fingerboard.

Hi Colonel, I'm the guitarist with 'Blown Out', I never realized our little demo CD had travelled so far! The 'Nashville Handshake' - had to laugh at that one!

hi and welcome. (Amanda makes me feel like joining all over again)

Welcome to the community. (from the presently cold & wet Portsmouth UK)

Hey Donna, every good parent feels like that. It gets easier. It also helps if they don’t move too far away. Eventually they all remember they’ve got a mum. Meanwhile stay active!

Ah ! Your in the same club I am. I now feel alienated at work much of the time. What is worse, I now no longer confine my rants to other people, but I rant at inanimate object too. Some times I even attack them (objects not people). 10 years ago I punched a hole in the porch door. 5 years ago I knocked the kitchen door off its hinges. Now at my mum's house, there are a whole different set of doors.

Well I cut my finger with my razor sharp cooks knife on Sunday. Should have put the knife down while I was peeling the wrapping off the cucumber, but the hand slipped wacked into the blade. Lucky it was the knuckle side and the bone stopped it going too deep. TCP, surgical tape & waterproof plaster and am about ready to play again now. Lucky it was after the gig.

Of course he is a cute little feller. When I knocked on the window he fled behind an armchair. When I entered the room I saw a small wide-eyed face peeking out from behind it. I sat still in another chair & within a minute he was walking all over me, sniffing my fingers, chewing my work-badge. Y'know, kitten stuff. He is a fluffy tabby. He can sit in the palm of your hand. I prefer dogs myself, but there is something quite endearing about Stanley. This puts me in mind of my friend’s granddaughter Catherine. She has always wanted a cat, but her family are in rented accommodation in Pennsylvania (British working in US) and pets are not permitted. They will soon move and buy a house nearby, but meanwhile Catherine had a change of heart. She visited a friend who had a small puppy and became besotted with it. She came up with a ploy to get attention for her new ‘want’. She wrote dozens of notes saying ‘I really want a puppy. Some were small notes, some A4 sized notes and beyond. She set to work placing these anywhere she thought best. Her mum would open the book she was reading, and there is a note from Catherine. More turn up; one in the broom cupboard, one on the kitchen bulletin board, one in the vegetable rack, one pasted inside the bathroom cabinet door, in the breadbin, the trunk of the car etc etc. The best one was discovered by Catherine’s dad, when he got up in the night to visit the toilet. He lifts the seat, and there, taped across the pan, is another colourful ‘I really really want a puppy’ note. Back to Stanley, he did 10 minutes stir in the punishment room (the kitchen) after biting Ben’s finger. He did the full 10 minutes with no remission. So now Stan’s got some form. At night when Ben's preparing for bed, he engages Stanley in a game with a catnip toy. This makes him sleepy (Stanley). I expect he has fallen asleep in his saucer of milk before now (erm.. either of ‘em probably).

oooo... I wonder what it sounds like!?

I copied it to my MUSE folder. Cheers John

I am to visit my son Ben this evening. He has a new kitten. The kitten’s name is Stanley. Apparently Stanley likes to chew cables & wire. This could be a problem. Cats seem to delight in non-cooperation, except for lions. Other creatures benefit from mutual cooperation, ants, wolves, herring, porpoises, bees, sheep. Why couldn’t he have adopted one of those? A budgerigar would have been easier. After all birds inspired the likes of Wilbur & Orville Wright. The chord of an aircraft wing (SMC) was inspired by the wings of birds. The physics involved are equally applicable to both budgerigars and the Airbus A380. If Wilbur & Orville had been inspired by cats, what would they have ended up with? Some device to help humans run up curtains probably. What will Stanley inspire Ben to do?

Bird Song - Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia

I have a gig tomorrow, and I hav’nt picked up the electric in 3 weeks, so a bit of practice will be pretty much essential tomorrow afternoon.

Hi Martin, What do you play? Do you sing? Welcome aboard...........

Welcome to the community Pete. Have a good look around. I will check out your links in a minute. Yep, done it but couldnt get any music to play on garagebend nor podshow.

The key to the city. Great. Was this for the song?

Thanks for your contribution Tony. Its a good take on the subject. I forgot about this thread. Also I have not used hooks for ages now. BTW, My former post re- Kevin Ayres. I had forgotten that the 'song' I Did It Again appeared on the ist Soft Machine album (Kevin's former band)

Hi Colonel, Wecome to the community. Ive never heard of torch before. What is that?