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Showing posts from April, 2023

New Gigs Announcement

 I am very pleased to announce the latest dates booked in for gigs.   The list below show the confirmed dates and I am hoping to add to the list...

The most 'un-boutique' guitar I have tried but it's not bad! The Jet Guitars JS-400.

When I visited the Guitar Show UK , I had a list of guitars that I wanted to try out, most of which were mid range and up in price but I did have an outlier that I wanted to check out. Jet Guitars. Jet Guitars are a budget guitar company that claims to do the following: "JET guitars offer a premium playing experience at an affordable price." So there must be hundreds of brands doing something similar such as Squire, Cort, Harley Benton and many more, so how is Jet going to stand out? The Jet Guitars JS-400 in Sea Foam Green Relic So I have to say that I was setting a low expectation.  I knew how cheap these guitars retailed for and surely any profit they make would be based on many unit sales rather than per unit at these prices, especially as they work through the distributor Hal Leonard , who would need to have some kind of margin. My expectation with Jet Guitars was that I was going to be trying out something that was probably going to be well built but not something that

My Epiphone Emperor Swingster: It was all going so well!

Long story short... My family got me an Epiphone Emperor Swingster for my birthday from GAK , it arrived and was fine until I noticed some issues with the binding on the neck coming off.  Not good!   So I arranged for a return and this is what happened....   Key links: Find out about the Epiphone Emperor Swingster using the link below: https://www.gak.co.uk/en/epiphone-emperor-swingster-delta-blue-metallic/943595

BluTone & The Druid Play Chill#2, Station Square, Cambridge.

  Blutone & The Druid at Chill#2, Cambridge On Saturday 15th April 2023, my old friend, Drew Keen joined me for delivering the Blutone & The Druid set at Chill#2 in Cambridge.   I have been in the fortunate position to be able to take a list of songs and deliver the same list in different formats as a soloist,  a duet and with The Blutone Band ( next gig the 27th May at The Carpenters ).  The process is interesting as each song of course sounds different when delivered in each of the different formats. The Blutone & The Druid format has been particularly interesting in that having already done a few gigs, we both realised that two guitarists together whilst technically sounds ok, the sounds are so similar and a lot gets lost in the 'mix'.  Whatever it was both of us were not that happy with the sound in that format.  In discussing this, Drew came up with a ingenious solution, what if Drew had a crack at playing bass guitar instead? It was an idea worthy of a try and

The Chapman Guitars ML1X unboxing and hands-on review: How not to 'chug' on a Chapman!

  I have been profoundly challenged by the nice guys at Chapman Guitars.   At the recent UK Guitar Show I met Rob Chapman and also Dan Orchard, International Sales and Marketing Manager. In chatting with Dan, I said something like "I have never bought a Chapman Guitar because I am not a 'shredder' like Rob Chapman'. I definitely had a perception in mind that Chapman Guitars would not have a guitar that would appeal to my style of playing which is more akin to Blues and Rock n Roll. Dan agreed that this can be a perception but with the recent signing of Danish Pete as a signature artist and the announcement of the development of the DPT  , Chapman Guitars were looking to broaden their appeal to players who's style doesn't fit that perception. Then came the challenge...  Chapman Guitars have only gone and sent me an ML 1X to review!  I have one month to thoroughly get to know this guitar and I will be sharing a proper review towards the end of April 2023, but at