The Part time Glorious Golden Rock God of Derby

So many wires, but even more books

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:26:40 GMT

We are re-arranging our house. At a basic level the computer and the tv are swapping rooms...
in reality this means moving one large corner unit, two book cases, one large sofa, one tv unit, throwing out the old sofa bed (it rarely gets used as a bed), moving all the DVD's and books and a lot of re-routing of wires.
We started Sunday and are half way through. At the moment my computer is not yet switched on, come to think of it I can't even see it as it's behind a pile of books, boxes, dining table and TV unit.
Thus I'm typing from Karen's lovely mac book, which is rather nice to use :0
So far there have been no major problems (despite the computer unit threatening to collapse mid rebuild) but it's hard work.
When finished the middle room will be a proper lounge with no computer of guitar amps and both the two and three seater sofas. front room will the study/recording studio/dining room/hobby room/library. This is closer to how I wanted the house when we first moved in... but we went the other way and it did work, but this will work better :)

Slide it in baby

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:56:47 GMT

It’s all telemeister’s fault.
After being asked if I played slide on Tush it got me thinking about setting one of my guitars for the purpose of playing slide. As they were the action was too low and once open tuned would neck adjustments. So I took my trusty Ibanez down from the wall, knocked up the action and flattened the radius at the bridge (not something easily done on my LP) and then tuned to open G.
I could get to like this, but it needs heavier strings and I’m not sure my cheap metal slide is up to the job either.
At this rate I’ll need a minion to pass me guitars at gigs :)
I could also do with a dedicated open tuned guitar… possibly a tele of some form or other.

Open mic night meets the sunshine band

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:36:38 GMT

So last night saw the first stage appearance of my new blues rock band.
Now we've accidentally acquired the moniker of Johnny and the sunshine band as our drummer (John) thought it would be funny... I'm actually warming to the idea :)
Must say it was cold last night and the pub was no warmer and combined with nerves meant that I didn't really play that well as my fingers felt like rubber. But we bashed through three ZZ-top songs (as it was Billy Gibbons Birthday yesterday) and later on we were asked back up and stormed through some of our more rocky numbers and John and I dept at the end of the night for a couple of AC/DC tracks... hardly a polished performance, but most definitely a fun one.
Me thinks that rock numbers do suit that sort of occasion better than slower blues tracks, although it shall be the slow blues tracks will probably be more of our mainstay in the future. There's no shortage of rock covers bands round these parts, decent blues bands is a different matter :)

Blues at an open mic night

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:51:48 GMT

We rocked.... That is all :)

It's time for my favourite Christmas songs of all time :)

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:41:32 GMT

Return of a legend or two... or is that three?

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:17:40 GMT

It's actually quite an exciting off season in F1. Lots of rumours, new teams, big names pulling out etc.
In all of this some legendary names are returning to the fold:

Cosworth will be returning as an engine manufacturer after a few years out. They produced the single most successful F1 engine of all time; the double four valve, or DFV for short.

The Lotus name will also return, although a far cry from the all british team it once was and I'll be surprised if they're anything but back field entrants for the first season.

Next year will also see the return of the name Senna. No, a Brazilian voodoo priest has not raised the great Ayrton from the dead but it's his nephew who has defied his family (he was made to stop racing by his family when his uncle tragically died) and is now standing up to be counted... I shall be watching his progress with much interest.

There are also strong rumours that some German bloke called Michael may be coming back driving for what will be the Mercedes team who have just won the world championship for both driver and manufacturer under the name of Brawn. By all accounts it's a done deal... but so was F1 going to Donnington.

I don't think the new teams will be up to much, but ya never know. Been a long time since Cosworth really made a great engine, but I still expect it to be strong.

I expect the teams to watch will be McLaren, Re Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari.
I expect Hamilton to outperform the new world champion Jenson Button, no doubt with complaints of favouritism from certain areas of the press and fans.
Vitel will be the red bull to watch, he's just plain faster.
If Schumacher does return I expect him to win races and maybe even challenge for the title, but I'm not convinced he would still have the edge and baby Rosberg could make him work hard to be the top dog in the team.
Alonso I expect to be the top dog at Ferrari , then again I thought Raikkonen would blitz Massa, which he never really did.

My predictions are top three drivers to be Hamilton, Vitel and Alonso and for them, and their teams to be the ones to beat. Second tear will be Button, Massa, Shumacher and maybe even Rosberg... if he wins early in the season he could be in with a shout.

If you like Leonard Cohen

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:00:29 GMT

Then you may not like my version of Dance me to the end of love

Ya know what? I don't like Sharon Osbourne!

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:35:11 GMT

There are not many people in the public eye who I actively dislike.
Most politicians I have little time for and Thatcher and Blair I may well dance on their graves given half a chance, but general media people, even Katie Price (AKA Jordan) don't bug me much.
Sharon does my nut.
Ok, so she has saved Ozzy from an almost certain early grave and helped him to huge success and world wide admiration for being a drunken half-wit, drug addled, wife beater (She did actually have him up on charges in the late eighties when he tried to strangler her).
The fact that she's a complete media whore is one thing, but the manner in which she does it is beyond reproach to my mind.
There was one occasion when she pulled the plug on Iron Maiden so she could shout the praises of her idiot husband at a gig, and the number of lawsuits against the pair of them for unpaid royalties from certain Ozzy albums is quite outstanding.
recently Ozzy has started legal proceedings against Tony Iommi (guitarist in Black Sabbath) over the the name "Black Sabbath' now this just stinks of Sharon, Ozzy is probably quite happy as long as he's got a quad bike to play with... or perhaps just a bottle of Jack.
Now as far as I know the legal precedent on this is reasonably simple... who ever came up with the name owns it, in the same way as who ever wrote the song owns it, even if some one else made it famous.
Now the Osbournes have already managed to stop the rest of Sabbath touring under that name so to go for full rites is just the final nail in the coffin.

So, I'm not a big Sharon Osbourne fan.... come to think of it I've never been a big Ozzy fan either... but he's a colourful character and rock music needs that kinda person :)

For I am the god of hell fire

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:40:35 GMT

Well must say Karen's b'day yesterday seemed to go very well.
She seemed very chuffed with her presents and dinner went quite well... apart from a small pan fire that melted the internals of the extractor fan to the point of making a very loud knocking sound and the duck breasts needing a second go to get them cooked properly :)

Anyway, this morning saw me taking said extractor fan apart to cure said problem which involved a certain amount of clunks on head and rapping of knuckles and a small amount of blood (which did seem to go everywhere).
But it is now fixed and shortly I shall be indulging in wine or beer or similar type beverage as Karen is not in work tomorrow thus it is now the weekend :)

Come see some Blues

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:23:28 GMT

My fellow musical amigos and myself shall be bluesing it up at the Old Bell's open mic night next Wednesday, if anyone fancies coming along for a laugh.
We'll probably be hitting the stage some time after nine but there will be other stuff before us :)

So that's the Old Bell, Sadler Gate, Derby, Wednesday the 16th of December from 8

A haw, haw, haw, haw.

Monday monday monday

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:11:04 GMT

Must say that was a rather jolly weekend.
Mum's birthday nibbles followed by Lou and Aaron's post wedding bash on Friday.
Saturday day was usual domestic bimblings followed by the lovely Karen's 'surprise' b'day bash.
Cheers to Tanya for the lift into town, must say finding somewhere to park was, ehm, interesting :)

Cheers to all who came, there was a point that I thought no one would be there but as it was there were a good number of people and I had a very happy girl, although perhaps we should have not stayed out quite so late and had quite so much beer.

Sunday was a wash out really, although we were sort of out of bed before lunch, but not by much and spent most of the day zonked in front of the snooker.

I did briefly make it out of the house to buy tea bags and borrow a friend of mines Marshall Vintage Modern to see if I liked the sound... I don't as the when driven it sounds harsh and nasty, which is not what I'm after.

Today I need to sign on, oh joy, but there is band later :)

Cos telemeister told me it was too quiet

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:56:39 GMT

Ive been at it again - new song

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:16:59 GMT

Tears to gems remix

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:13:31 GMT

Just redid the vocals and remixed :)

Play it baby

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:55:54 GMT

Tonight was blues band night (we must come up with a name) and it really is starting to come together.
Quite allot of that is me actually learning stuff properly, but he ho :)
The big difference between doing this sort of thing and 12SC is the lack of a rhythm guitarist, meaning that I have no where to hide if I mess up but does mean I can control the intensity of the sound and can really great some dynamics that can really work. Tonight they were starting to really work :)
Hopefully we'll be invading a local open mic night in a couple of weeks so we can try it out on the unsuspecting public.

Punk the steam

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:44:46 GMT

The BBC has an interesting article on Steampunk

Blackened the USSR

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:52:25 GMT

Crazy Scottish brewers

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:26:04 GMT

Mad guitar playing - Bach content

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:20:47 GMT

Guitar news - the bass of no frets

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:12:17 GMT

As a general rule I prefer fretless bass as a player, but most of the basses on sale these days have those confounded bits of metal in the way so when my lovely girl bought me a new bass earlier this year it came complete with frets.
Now this is not a big problem as it's a lovely, lovely instrument and for many things it makes no odds and in the case of playing metal the frets are really useful.
But as I don't play metal but do have to add the low end to people like Jo Lewis fretless is more what I'm after, so I decided I needed a fretless bass more than I need three electrics so one is now being sold.
Unfortunately the only fretless basses available in the price bracket available were, quite frankly, shonky.
Thus I took my trusty weapon to a local Luthier who, for the princely sum of £140 (including swanky new strings) took the frets out, replaced with strips of maple and then sanded, levelled and oiled.
I picked it up today and it is now even better than it was with frets on. I love my bass... not as much as I love my girl mind ;)

Next time anyone is Japan they should try this

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:41:37 GMT

It's a spa of wine :)

Fear my iron

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:49:43 GMT

I've spent big chunks of this afternoon/evening wielding a soldering iron.
First up was modding some of the circuits in my valve guitar amp to fatten the sound.
Just the odd resistor change here and additional capacitor there.
Seems to have gone ok and no smoke pours out when I turn it on.
Unfortunately I've not had chance to wind it up yet... perhaps tomorrow.
After that it was yet another attempt at fixing my trusty Bosch Ixo cordless screwdriver.
Now this has been my faithful companion for the best part of three years and has been used for amp/guitar repairs, building DIY and even as a string winder, but recently the switch has gone a bit funny and despite my attempts to fix/replace said switch I may have to call it a day.
Hopefully santa will be kind as it's terribly useful to have around.

Having a bad day? Try Muppets doing bohemian Rhapsody

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:15:38 GMT

Go with the money and the glory

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:42:43 GMT

Well it looks like Jenson Button is moving the McLaren.

Not a huge surprise really, although if they lose to Brawn next year I bet he’ll feel a right prune :)

Win some, lose some, it's all the same to me

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:19:19 GMT

I think it's Tuesday, Karen having yesterday off has left me a little out on days of the week :)

I did not sleep well last night, for which I blame the bottle of coke I had during band practice, then again I easily managed a night of no beer and also did at least manage some sleep without chemical assistance (I'm don't really like taking sleeping pills too often).

Today is a going to get busy at about lunch when I have pratice with singer songwriter girl at 1, followed by sorting tea and then practice with a covers band called the lego men.

Not going to see much of my lovely girl today but that's it for the week.

Tomorrow we have men coming round to fit a new front door and a new bedroom window which should cut down on the exterior noise at night :)