Guitar Nerds Anonymous

@Apone: Tele pickups, honestly I dunno, there are soooooo many. What do you need? Trad? hot? Don Mare is probably the hippest Yank brand. Over here, Oil City and Mojo Pickups are worth a look. I use Lollar Vintage Ts. Got some Lollar Specials, Bare Knuckle Country Boys and Rio Grande Tallboys in the spares box if you wanna try some stuff out.

I don't know. I've just always felt that the stocks are a touch on the thin side. Would love to try some others out.

I'm going to be in your neck of the woods his evening if you fancy a snifter as it happens. Meeting Rich at the Stormbird at 6. Pop down if yr free?

^ If I'm back, deffo.

Why is it all the guitars I want are impossibly rare and super expensive? Thought I'd do a bit of research on the guitar that Poison Ivy used to use in the early days of The Cramps... Turns out it's a Bill Lewis, as used by Gilmour, Clapton, Harrison et al... Total rock star toy!?! Madly in demand and rare as hen's teeth... I'd spend less getting hold of a Zeimatiss...

Bah!

More info, 23 made and only 22 still known to exist... I give up...

Commission a commission?

Nah, thought it was gonna be a cheapie... Even less of those made than the Travis Bean Wedge!?!

I've got a guy looking out for those 2011 Melody Makers for me... I want one of each, all in white... ;)

They're so rad.

Was talking to Rickster last week and amongst other things we discussed our respective bag of stock "licks". Rick mentioned the standard 23 (or something) that every decent player has. I think my bag contains three at best these days. I've held such an aversion to dad-rock/blues rock Guitarist cover feature fodder for so long that I've studiously avoided learning any standard "licks" and in retrospect that was stupid and self-limiting.

The upshot is that I've been studying Albert King and SRV tunes and copping left right and centre. It's been fun!

As a side effect of trying to play along with Texas Flood I tuned my Tele down to Eb. What a difference! Holy shi*t. Suddenly I can bend with some degree of accuracy! I can bend up and add vibrato on the 1st string, something I never really had the strength or control to do on a Fender with 10s tuned to standard. It was always a bit hit and miss before but this is a world of difference.

I think I'm going to leave the Tele in Eb for a while....

My old Gold Top was a bitch to play, used 10s on it but for some reason it was much more difficult to bend the strings on it than any of my other guitars (or any other Gibson I played)... If I didn't pick it up for a week I'd struggle the next time I tried to play it... #csb

I'm learning a lot of new licks playing this Turbonegro stuff, bloody hard work... I'm nowhere near EuroBoy, gonna have to fake a lot of the super fast bits...

I do know loads of licks but keep forgetting to use them when I actually need them... Practice, practice, Patrice... EuroBoy said that... ☺

The bet's off Joe, I want my MM back ;)

Licks? I struggle to play things that have been written for other people's fingers and prefer to do my own thing ( usually something slightly too complicated for me to do without bumming notes, FML)

I was speaking to a professional brass section musician the other day about how theory can become a barrier to creativity and he surprisingly agreed with me. Anyone else find that thinking too much about where things are 'supposed' to go can sometimes bogart your mojo?

Oh and Eb is the way forward man. I can suddenly sing all my songs again properly

When @rickster and I had that soul revue band all those years ago, I was very frustrated that the horn section couldn't improvise in pentatonic... The baritone sax player could just about do it but trumpet and alto sax were next to useless...

@RPM I'll be playing the MM all day today... 😁

Dunno why I was talking about a particular number of stock licks Apone, I was drunk at the time… I hardly have any. I basically dig myself a massive hole and then try to climb out of it.

One of my best mates is a 70 year old gent called Mick, severe and hilarious, who was in Ireland's first ever electric blues band, then a London pub rock hero, then an '80s Irish/rock'n'roll/country circuit stalwart. With the right backing to bring it out of him, his trick bag is unbelievable. He's better than Albert Lee (they know each other from those times). I wish I had that depth of stuff to pull out. I never will...

@TS… dude. Forget that Bill Lewis, get a Kawai KS-12.

Don't worry, I already have...

Want!

I hate to keep banging on about it but I think that little Melody Maker is the best guitar I own... I've not had this much fun playing in many, many years...

Dunno about avoidance of stock phrases being the enemy individuality/creativity. It’s really the opposite for me to be honest. I'm just not enough a good player or musician to be able to go totally off-piste and play interestingly and convincingly without reference to tricks. Plus the kind of music I play is fundamentally retro-looking, almost slavish in its reverence of a formative golden age so if you don't reference these things, you're not doing it right. Progressive it is not. I'm really ok with that.

It could be detrimental for some people I suppose. If you’re talking about those who just emulate and produce parrot-fashion facsimile, then yes I agree. I’m definitely not a fan of note-perfect dead-eyed wedding band guitarist either. But I tend to find that without learning specific new things regularly I get stuck a rut and become doomed to repeat the same tired shapes. I suppose do go on totally improvised flights of fancy every now and again but they're more often than not tied together with little "set pieces" that I know will work.

I've got a blister on my third finger today from practicing the opening solo from Texas Flood yesterday. it's probably only about 5 seconds long and I played it over and over again all afternoon. I think I Just about have it in the muscle memory now. The great thing about it is that having spent that time picking it apart I now understand a little bit about why it’s cool* in a way that my uninformed pentatonic flailing never is. The bonus for me is that now I have a few more little nuggets of theory and muscle memory that I can transfer to other keys, other songs and other styles to mess about with.

*There are two bits in that opening flurry of notes that are just so cool to me: After the opening bend and roll thing which is pretty much the kind of Chuck Berry thing that I always do whenever I’m required to play a solo, there’s a weird little trill that brings in a flat 9? (help me out here, is that what an G# would be in the key of G major?). Then right after that, there’s a bend on the 1st string 6th fret from the minor third of G (Bb) that bends up a whole tone to the fourth (C) then repeats but the second time only bends up a semitone to the major third (B) and hangs there. Deliciously. Uh. So good.

You lost me in that last para... #ihavenoideawhatiamdoing 😜

In other news, I may have found an SG Melody Maker... Quite close by too! Will find out tomorrow... Fingers crossed it's still there and that it's white...

No I'm fumbling in the dark too. Hope you bag it dude!

Looks like they might have the Explorer too... Oops...

It's not so much avoiding stock phrases, as a bit of a blues/country fellow they're in the mix for me also. It's about starting to think more (too much?) about the theory and whether something fits into a particular scale or style than just getting on and trusting your ears.
I'm basically a very poor player looking for excuses, but that's not really going to change. When I improve I just improve at doing my thing. I've really no interest in copying other people to the hilt (dead eyed wedding band guitarist).

I've been looking at local blues jams, but the repetitive, soulless cronieism would kill me. Even if I were good enough to improv over 24bars of anything.

We've all seen and heard muso bands. Note perfect and tight, but they rarely evoke emotion or empathy. These guys can play all of us into a cocked hat with any instrument you care to mention but then don't ever cut a record of anything they've written themselves. Instead acts like the White Stripes and Seasick Steve make "it". C*nts.

Looking for bass and drums for my new band "the dead-eyed wedding band"

"Blues jam"

*shudders self to death

It's not the way is it?

Second only in awfulness to 'pizza & live jazz'

For me, blues either has to be traditional 20s/30s acoustic or spliced with dirt, big riffs and minimal widdle.
I'm afraid all the ploddy electric 'blues' which serves as a vehicle for lead playing leaves me cold in it's tone and general demeanour. I try my best to tolerate it in the pursuit of improving my lead but I never last long.

I tend to agree. I have been making an exception for some SRV this week tho.

I read a really funny piece on a guitar mag website that introduced SRV in the context of the mid-80s pop music scene something along the lines of "He didn't need any gimmicks or a flock of seagulls haircut to make his point, he was raw/the real deal" etc blah blah: cut to Stevie on stage wearing a giant wide brimmed hat, absurd dangly earings, feathers in his janky ponytail, indian necklace, baggy pants tucked into cuban heeled pointy cowboy boots, playing solos behind his back and generally mugging it up a treat. No gimmicks there then.

Still. what a fuckin' player.