Blutone's Boutique Baby!

  We have all seen those performances when the lead guitarist takes to smashing up their guitars or pouring lighter fluid on them and setting them a blaze.  From a performance perspective, these acts on stage may look cool but equally what a waste when us poorer guitarists would quite happily take those guitars off their hands BEFORE impact. Then you have those guitars that have been given a relic finish, they could cost in the thousands for some brands, just to get that old worn in look. So what if you are someone who enjoys that extreme of the relic look, the (and I have just coined this phrase) ‘Smashed Up’ finish? Brighton based luthier, Daniel Devilson is making it an art form to produce guitars that look smashed up with his company, Devil and Sons. I recently met Daniel at The Brighton Guitar Show and was keen to check out the completely ridiculous End of the Road Stratocaster.  In short Daniel gets different guitars and then ‘destroys’ them and then puts them back together so th

  I was recently given the opportunity to try out a loan Vintage V6 Icon electric guitar.  Given that this is a cheap to mid priced guitar modelled on the Fender Stratocaster was I really going to fall in love with it? In this article I am going to share my thoughts on the Vintage V6 Icon after having played with it for for a few weeks.   I have jammed with this guitar... I have taken this guitar to band practise... ... and I have simply grabbed it throughout the day as I have worked from home.  By now I think I know it pretty well but would I recommend it and why? What were my initial impressions? My initial impressions were summed up in my first YouTube video about this guitar which can be seen below: Here are the specifications of the Vintage V6 Icon as lifted from the Vintage website... Vibrato: The Wilkinson WVC vibrato bridge featured on the Vintage V6 is a masterpiece of detail. Positive location, 6 screw design provides return to pitch accuracy; perpendicular bend, high grade s

  ThorpyFX The Dane In this second part of my blog series on the Brighton Guitar Show and Effects Expo I want to write about someone that I met who had a surprising impact on me. As I was walking around the Effects Expo, I came across ThorpyFX 's booth.   Thorpy FX was set up by  'Thorpy'  or Adrian and Georgia Thorpe in 2014.  After a career in the military as an explosive ordnance disposal specialist, Thorpy took a passionate hobby of designing guitar effects pedals and turned it into the business of  designing and selling guitar effects pedals.  Thorpy and Georgia scaled their business from working in their home across a kitchen table and using the downstairs loo as the storage area up to a thriving business hiring a number of staff in designing and producing their pedals. As a follower of Andertons on YouTube, I was aware of ThorpyFX given that Thorpy designed The Dane in collaboration with a Danish bloke who plays guitar and loves the colour purple .  The Dane is an e

Matt Oram from Fidelity Guitars. The very first Brighton Guitar Show and Expo took place at Brighton Racecourse on the 15th July 2023 and what a show it was. It was an interesting show in that it separated guitar and amp manufacturers from effects manufacturers and as a result brought about two areas of activity that had a different feel that worked well in terms of being able to find exactly what guitarists was looking for.  It genuinely made the focus on products more enjoyable. In a separate area workshops were taking place being led by the wonderful chaps from Guitar Nerds Podcast . The Fidelity Guitars Double Standard Lite II In this article I would like to share the highlights for me from my experience of attending The Brighton Guitar Show and Effects Expo. Fidelity Guitars and Hamstead Soundworks.  It’s always nice to meet up with Matt Oram (owner) of Fidelity Guitars and try out his guitars.  He was sharing the booth with Peter Hamstead and Brian Love of Hamstead Soundworks a

  Another loan guitar to review from the very nice people at Vintage Guitars.  So I want to share some initial videos with you as I have had this guitar for less than two days but will be posting a full review before my allotted one month review period is over. After I posted that video I then took the V6 Icon to band practise... Then I messed up a solo on it.... This guitar is only £329 on Gear4Music !!  Totally nuts!  It is, on first impressions, an awesome guitar! Want to know more about the guitar?  Click here .