Reading - May 2016

Guitarist (June 2016 / Issue 407)

Interesting article about Zemaitis guitars.

The Week (23 April 2016 / Issue 1070)

The Week (30 April 2016 / Issue 1071)

Serious by John McEnroe (with James Kaplan) (2002)

An easy and interesting read, but a little repetitive. He downplays how much effort and practice it must have taken him to reach the standard he did (all autobiographies do this, though) and the recitation of match after match gets a bit dull, although in this it probably reflects the reality of a touring life. The book could do with an update, since it's 14 years old and McEnroe is still very active on the circuit, both as a seniors player and commentator. (edit: the follow-up, But Seriously, is due in June 2017, according to Amazon.)

The Week (7 May 2016 / Issue 1072)

Guitar & Bass (June 2016 / Vol 27 No. 09)

The Week (14 May 2016 / Issue 1073)

Private Eye Annual 2009 edited by Ian Hislop (er, 2009)

I found this at the "book exchange" at work. It's been fine for occasional dips into when I have a few spare moments (it's taken me over a month to finish) but reminds me why I stopped subscribing to Private Eye - it's very repetitive.

The Man Who Sold The World: David Bowie and the 1970s by Peter Doggett (2011)

Well written, full of facts and insights ... and just a teensy bit dull.

Guitar Effects Pedals: The Practical Handbook by Dave Hunter (2013)

Effects pedals are a recent enthusiasm of mine (I had four at the beginning of 2014 and I now have sixteen, only one of which is one the original four). If you frequent the online forums, you'll see a lot of posts about Tube Screamer variants, specific op-amps and chips that supposedly contains the magic smoke needed to sound like SRV ... all very confusing to someone just finding out about these things. This book contains pretty much all you need to know to hold your own in these discussions - a history of how pedals came about, descriptions (including basic circuit diagrams) of the different types, in-depth discussions of classic pedals (like the aforementioned Ibanez Tube Screamer) and newer variants, and interviews with some prominent figures in the burgeoning world of "boutique" pedals. Great stuff for a guitar geek.

The Week (21 May 2016 / Issue 1074)

The Week (28 May 2016 / Issue 1075)

Bedlam by Christopher Brookmyre (2013)

Third time around, this is really starting to grow on me. Also, I now own it (£3 at Fopp, thank you very much).

Guitarist (July 2016 / Issue 408)

The Man Who Sold The World

David Bowie and the 1970s
Peter Doggett
2011

Well written, full of facts and insights ... and just a teensy bit dull

This book ticks so many boxes for me. David Bowie was the first "serious" artist I discovered as a teenager; I have known and loved all (well, most) of his seventies albums for as long as I have really loved music. Plus Revolution In The Head, to which this is explicitly a sequel/homage (apparently the late Ian MacDonald was intending to give the same treatment to Bowie as he had The Beatles), is one of my favourite books about music. If that wasn't enough, Peter Doggett wrote the fascinating You Never Give Me Your Money. And given its structure - essentially, short essays about every song - it should be perfect for dipping into whenever there is a spare moment.

Despite all those good things, I struggled with it, and I'm not entirely sure why.

The structure doesn't help actually; there's no easy flow through the book since it's always stopping and starting - I found the same with Revolution In The Head, if I'm honest. I also realised that there are larger parts of Bowie's seventies output that I am unfamiliar with than I thought (particularly Pin Ups, 'Heroes' and Lodger), so the discussions of those songs didn't engage me much.

However, where TMWSTW differs the most from the Beatles' book is that while MacDonald gives lots of interesting facts about the music (personnel, instrumentation, keys etc), Doggett concentrates on interpreting the words. I've said before that I don't listen to lyrics much. It's pop music, not pop poetry. I understand that it's much easier to write about what is said than what is not said; as the famous quote goes, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture".

Nevertheless, it's incumbent on any music journalist to make the attempt, and while Doggett does so sometimes, it's not a particularly good or informed analysis. He admits in his introduction that he can't claim the same level of musical knowledge as MacDonald (a "trained musicologist", apparently) and so paid more attention to other aspects - to the detriment of the book, in my opinion.

I learned many things about David Bowie I didn't already know and it served me as a reasonable substitute for a biography (I find them pretty dull usually). It also gave me some interesting things to think about next time I listen to the albums. What it failed to do - and this is the fundamental test for any writing about music - is make me want to rush back and hear them again with new ears. And so on those grounds it must be judged as less than a success.

Reading - April 2016

The Week (2 April 2016 / Issue 1067)

Guitarist (May 2016 / Issue 406)

Guitar & Bass (May 2016 / Vol 27 No. 08)

The Science Of Discworld by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen (1999)

A great way of injecting science in the guise of entertainment. Given the age of the book (17 years!), it's possible that some of the facts and theories might be slightly out of date, but still as good a primer as any on the thinking around how did the universe start and how does evolution work. Very readable and amusing.

The Week (9 April 2016 / Issue 1068)

The Art Of Being Brilliant by Andy Cope & Andy Whittaker (2012)

Relentlessly trivial and shallow - although mercifully short - book on being happy. Could be condensed into about 2 pages.

Global Village Idiot by John O'Farrell (2001)

Amusing articles from a left-wing perspective, suffering from the usual problem that these kind of articles do - the perceived need to end on a joke. See Clive James's TV reviews for an object lesson in how to do it properly.

The Week (16 April 2016 / Issue 1069)

Lunarbaboon Vol. 2 by Chris Grady (2016)

Still by turns sweet, funny and whimsical, another lovely compilation of the best bits of Lunarbaboon. And (even better), this one has my name in it! (as a funder of vol 1)

Licence Renewed by John Gardner (1981)

The original relaunch of the James Bond "franchise" - in book form, anyway. being somewhat separate from the film franchise. As far as I know, none of the post-Fleming novels have become films (although some of the films have been novelised). I bought this from my local library while in my teens and still like it. It has all the right components, almost "Bond by numbers", but it's still a good read.

The Sacred Art Of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre (2002)

My first Brookmyre and still a favourite.

Guitar Aficionado: The Collections edited by Tom Beaujour & Christopher Scapelliti (2013)

Lavish coffee table guitar porn. Beautifully photographed and presented, but difficult to read in practice without breaking the binding, putting fingerprints on the shiny pages or accidentally scuffing the jacket. Made worse by the fact that it was lent to me in pristine condition. Also, it turns out you can see too many pictures of '59 sunburst Les Pauls. Who knew?

Reading - March 2016

All Fun And Games Until Someone Loses An Eye by Christopher Brookmyre (2005)

Unbelievable and yet believable. Within its own world it all makes sense, but it's a completely Hollywood fantasy. Should totally be made into a film.

The Week (5 March 2016 / Issue 1063)

The Week (12 March 2016 / Issue 1064)

The Week (19 March 2016 / Issue 1065)

The Week (26 March 2016 / Issue 1066)

Reading - February 2016

Legends of Tone: Gibson (Guitarist special, 2015)

Guitarist (March 2016 / Issue 404)

Guitar & Bass (March 2016 / Vol. 27 No. 06)

Guitar porn blow-out at the beginning of Feb! It's interesting to note the differences between Guitarist house style and Guitar & Bass; the latter is a lot more technical and geeky. There's a whole article dedicated to the very technical ins and outs of an old 50s Fender amp, for example. It's nice to have the coverage but I can't really justify having both magazines. I'll need to decide soon ...

The Week (6 February 2016 / Issue 1059)

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding (1996)

This is twenty years old! Still, other than a few references that date it (trouble programming a video recorder, shopping at Cullens), it's pretty timeless, not least due to being based on Pride & Prejudice. It's funny, yes, and if the humour is a bit obvious sometimes it's probably worth remembering that it wasn't obvious until Helen Fielding made it so.

The Chandler's Ford Story by Barbara J. Hillier & Gerald Ponting (2005)

This was a lovely present for my birthday. It's a brief but interesting look into the origins of the small town where I now live. Since it only really goes back about 150 years, there's not that much to tell, but it's fascinating to see pictures of familiar sights in unfamiliar surroundings. There's a photo taken at the top of our road in 1930, just after the houses were all built (it literally was all fields before) and while the houses are clearly the same (particularly the post office), the gardens, the road and the cars are so different. Niche but nice.

The Week (13 February 2016 / Issue 1060)

Going To Sea In A Sieve by Danny Baker (2012)

A memoir from someone who was on the frontline of music journalism in the early 80s. Oh wait - except he wasn't. Yes, he was there, but his interest has always been more personal and eclectic and the NME was clearly just something he did for a while, rather than being "dedicated to the cause". And he's probably all the better for it, frankly (don't get me started about some of the other losers who wrote for NME). He's very full of himself but always entertaining.

The Perfect Neighbour by Nora Roberts (2000)

A sweet romance. Crying out to be made into a movie.

Ten Little N***s by Agatha Christie (1939)

You can't buy this book any more - or at least, not under this title. It's now called And Then There Were None and I believe all the other references to the unacceptable word in the title have been changed to "Indian". However, this is the copy I have and this is what I read, borrowed from the school library, when I was about 13. Different times, eh? A timepiece and very dated, but still a cleverly plotted whodunnit.

The Week (20 February 2016 / Issue 1061)

Country Of The Blind by Christopher Brookmyre (1997)

I wonder why Brookmyre doesn't write this kind of thing any more? Or why it hasn't been filmed? Fantastic stuff.

The Mighty Quinns: Brody by Kate Hoffman ()

The Mighty Quinns: Teague by Kate Hoffman ()

The Mighty Quinns: Cal by Kate Hoffman ()

Notionally three separate books, although clearly written at the same time, occupying the same fictional space and time, and cross-referencing each other. Brody, Teague and Cal are three brothers who live and work on an Australian cattle station, who all meet the women of their dreams in the same week. Modern romance with a higher than usual emphasis on sex; nice to see the women being (almost) as assertive as the men.

The Week (27 February 2016 / Issue 1062)

The Secrets Of House Music Production by Marc Adamo (2013)

This is a great starter reference to modern music production in general, not just dance music. A great companion piece to The Producer's Manual by the same publisher. There are loads of interesting walk-throughs of applied techniques, a load of audio examples that can be downloaded, and a whole bunch of cool samples - samples being Sample Magic's main product, of course. My only slight complaint about the book is the format: the A4 landscape format makes it difficult to hold on my lap!

Lady In Satin

Billie Holiday
1958

I'm finding this a hard album to love. It's an album of standards, in the same vein as the contemporary Sinatra and Fitzgerald albums. But while those two singers were at the top of their abilities at the time, it's clear that Billie Holiday was at the end of her career, and it's uncomfortable listening to her voice. She sounds tired, and there's an underlying feeling that she might only be doing this because she has to (although from what I have read, this is not the case; she wanted to make this album this way).

Bill Holiday's phrasing is as distinctive as ever, although I can't help wishing sometimes that she'd clear her throat first, and the arrangements and musicianship are first rate. There's not much variation across the tracks and because her voice is so unusual, it also serves to blend the songs together somewhat. The overall result is to make the album a less enjoyable experience for me.

Gordon-Smith GS2/60 (2011)

An underrated British Classic

The Gordon-Smith GS2/60 is similar to a Les Paul Junior. The GS is their entry level range, featuring slab bodies and simple finishes. The "2" indicates two humbuckers, while the "60" designation means that the body style is a single cutaway rather than the GS twin cutaway shape. There were also a number of options available when ordering, which I'll go through below. It cost about £800 in 2011 and it's been my main guitar ever since. I only play at home nowadays, so it's not even seen the inside of a rehearsal room, but I still play every day and this is the guitar I pick up most.

Why I bought it
I wanted a guitar with humbuckers, having spent the last decade playing various Fenders. Given my budget at the time, I was looking at the more expensive Epiphones and lower-end Gibsons. I decided on a Gordon-Smith because I'd owned a really nice one in the past, a GS1.5 (sold to make way for a Strat Plus); I'd played a few since then and they always struck me as very playable; and finally, I liked the fact that they are made in England and I could actually talk to John Smith about it before ordering (he was very nice).

The Gordon Smith Guitars company - now without the hyphen - was bought by Auden Guitars last year, but the GS range and the options you can select are largely unchanged. They have a reputation for variable quality, something I didn't know at the time and which I am sure Auden are doing their best to rectify.

Construction

• The body and neck are made from "Brazilian cedar" (cedrela), a member of the mahogany family. The alternatives at the time were spruce or poplar but given that I was going for an all-over paint finish, John Smith recommended the cedar.
• The standard GS body is quite thin, so I upgraded to a thick body to give a bit more oomph to the tone. It's about 43mm / 1.75" thick. It's a pretty standard LP shape and dimensions.
• The neck is glued in and the scale length is 24.625". The fretboard looks like rosewood or something similar, and is probably not a great piece - it's quite varied in colour and texture, with coarse grain in some places and closer grain in others. That said, this doesn't get in the way of playing at all.
• The playing surface is 12" radius (roughly) with jumbo frets. Position dots are pearloid, well put in apart from the 17th fret marker which has a small chip alongside it.
• The nut is brass, screwed in to the end of the fingerboard. This is a Gordon-Smith feature on many of their guitars. It's supposed to be adjustable, but I can't see how.
• The neck is pretty chunky - 44mm wide at the nut, a sort of D/U shape and quite a handful. Truss rod adjustment is via a wheel at the body end, covered by a small plate.
• The body, back of the neck and headstock are finished in matt black. This was small extra cost over the standard natural finish. The finish is mostly consistently applied, although there are a couple of corners where it's obviously a touch too thin, in the cutaway and on the headstock. It's been worn to a nice smooth shine on the back of the neck over the years.
• The finishing inside the pickup and control cavities is pretty rough, and the bridge pickup cavity in particular is not quite deep enough - the bridge pickup needs to go down more and this isn't possible because it is already hitting the bottom. Annoyingly, it's also not flat, so now that the pickup is down as far as it will go, it's not quite level.
• Overall weight is about 7.9 lbs / 3.5 kg.

Hardware & Electrics

• The stopbar tailpiece is by Gotoh while the bridge is a tune-o-matic type, make unknown, but presumably by the same manufacturer. This was an upgrade over the standard wrap-around bridge, because when I tried some GS guitars before buying, I found the bridge posts on the wrap-around bridge were too big and dug into my hand when I was palm-muting.
• Tuners are unlabelled but I have been told they are Van Gent. They work fine.
• The guitar has Schaller straplocks fitted. I always use these. I supplied them to GS and they were fitted at the factory instead of the standard strap buttons.
• Pickups are Gordon-Smith's own humbuckers, medium output and covered with black plastic covers. Aesthetically I would have preferred metal covers but John's recommendation was that this would dull and diminish the output somewhat.
• Both pickups are tappable via pull/push pots on the volumes. The tones have a "direct" notch at the top end of their travel - I believe this means they are effectively out of circuit at this point. There's a very slight audible click through the pickups when you do this. All controls are smooth - maybe a bit too easy to move and knock by mistake.
• The pickup selector is down by the bridge. It's not a very positive switch and is too easy to knock into the middle position. Also, every now and then it needs a spray with switch cleaner or it glitches and there won't be sound via one or other of the pickups.

Sounds
Unplugged, it's a nicely resonant guitar. Clean it has a lovely snap, particularly on the neck pickup. There's a great clean rhythm sound with both pickups on and the neck tapped. There are of course crunchy sounds aplenty with light gain, and the expected big rock sounds on the bridge pickup with a decent amp. With the tones out of circuit (i.e. on 10), the guitar is quite bright, but this is easily tamed by judicious use of the tone controls and gives more options. Overall, it doesn't sound like the most refined LP style guitar I've ever played but it has an honest rock vibe about all its sounds.

Pros & cons

+ Solid & well constructed.

+ Great sounds and a good variety.

+ Very playable neck, if you like bigger necks.

- Pickup selector switch is easy to knock by accident, flicks too easily to centre and occasionally cuts out.

- Some minor finishing faults and rough edges.

Summary & Verdict
I haven't owned many guitars (about eleven, I think) but this is my favourite of all of them. It's a good, solid, no-nonsense rock guitar. It captures the sound of the humbucker roar I have in my head very well and is capable of a wide range of sounds (all but one of the solo of the month entries I have played up to now have been on it). I often play quite hard and it is absolutely up to being thrashed. Gordon-Smith guitars are sometimes described as being workhorses and this is what I like about it.

(originally published as a review on The Fretboard)