The Heritage H140CMV project

New Project just arrived at the postoffice.Having once again payed too much in customs and tax I took the Heritage out of her case and had a look at a great piece of luthier work.Beautiful nitro maple carved top on a mahogany base with a one peice mahogany neck.
This project has an interesting history as shes never been finished but isn't a factory second.Apparently she is a factory give away as the person painting the carved top managed to get some nitro on the rosewood fretboard on the sides.
So there are several holes that need to be made for the pup rings, the rear cavity cover , the truss rod cover holes,the tuner holes and of course the inserts for the bridge and tailpeice need to be fitted.
Last but not least the nut, made of bone of course, hasn't been cut and that work will be done by a luthier in town.I'm led to believe there is a very good Polish cahp who is good with his guitars.

At the same time The Heritage arrived I also recieved the very rare but useful split coil tap option dirty fingers pickups. They are Zebras and probably taken out of an 80's es variation which offered split coil. They have three magnets and come unpotted with a 16 plus ohm reading on the bucker and 8 ohms resistence on a single. Amusing to think they fitted these into Jazz spec guitars..I have three sets now as I feel they are the best pup Gibson ever made.
These are not only patent stamped but ink stamped and come from the infamous "Shaw" era..
This guy was head of developments at Gibson and decided he'd make exact copies of the infamous Seth Lover Patent applied for pickups as used on the 59 Les Pauls and others. They fetch a higher price.Not sure the Dirty Fingers get his ink stamp as they are at least twice as powerful as the 7,5 ohms the normal pafs resist.

Well, its Zebra Dirtys for The Heritage as this isn't just an H140CM, but an H140CMV. If you look at the pic again you'll notice three holes inline in the carved top which are made for a variphase system designed by H&D at Heritage. These will be filled by micro switches and will give the option of phasing, coil tapping and all the other goodies available with 4 conductor wiring.

The parts ready to be fitted are all TonePros nickel plated with a Gotoh Lightweight tailpeice which will help the sustain.maybe some graphtechs will slot into the Nashville bridge at a later date.

Exciting project regardless...

update

Ever felt you simply need a real timeout?

Not as I’m burned out, not at all, just need a holiday in the sun, as the Pistols sang about…

Basically going back to scotland is going home and not a holiday, same with having the kids down for the summer, however pleasant, it aint no holiday..
And as usual, despite trying to cut out the cancer we call coaching a rugby team and getting involved, all the weekends that have been available are now long gone as we once again look forwards into an eco challenged winter, rain, snow, hurricanes? who knows, one things for sure though, it's gonna get dark early and thats half the depression...

Dissing the challenges of another Scandinavian winter and darkness there are positives as there hobbies keep me going..hopefully after a whole year away from the gym I can start motivating myself back to hitting the stats, it’s the first time the lard has laid a pirelli and I’m stressing out ‘cos of it..

The world in general is meant to be going through a depression and we’re all to tighten our belts and stuff dosh in the matress as the establishment is helping the established banks get out of the trenches, or graves, they dug themselves..worrying indeed when I read my own bank “could be “ the worst hit as they bought into a failed project…wait and see. As Sweden went through 10 years of deflation I feel our boat will not be a rocked as many other nations..
We shall see…

There has been a swing in the hobbies dept. I just shipped my Spondon racing chassis to California, the engine went last year to Germany. Seems like the coffin lid finally closes on what was a fantastic experience. However, one cannot have that kind of equipment lying around doing nothing and I'm sure she'll end up in a better enviroment.
Mechanics wise I still have the 2004 gasgas supermotard to build up. Engine is currently stripped, cleaned and awaiting all the necessary parts to rebuild for season 2009.Awesome bike that may also be sold but I’ll have to wait and see when she fires up for the first time…

Guitars wise I’m currently working on the hardest project to date. Having purchased a question mark body for a fender telecaster from canada I soon discovered that despite the cheap costs it was definitly not going to let my 82 fender neck just drop in....
So it was down to Jarnia to buy a knife shaped like a chisel ( looking like a pikey they thought I was gonna rob the place…shifty character..)and start removing alder in quantities…this would also include the pickguard that would require custom chopping as opposed to custom shopping..

Once I finally got the holes in the body to align with the neck it was time to fit one of two bridges.I tried the 83 top loader bridge and strung her up…the strings were tight against the neck..remove strings…shim the bridge…string up....slight difference, not enough...remove strings...remove neck...shim neck...string up...too much...remove strings...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
…….
Ok…check truss rod and curvature of neck….adjust truss rod, bolt up to body with shim…string up….
Nope
Remove strings….remove bolts…change truss rod setting…bolt up…restring…..
At this point patience is a virtue…
All of a sudden, we had a green light for string clearance ….maybe too much string height but at this point anything was a blessing….

Just the beginning….the neck requires a tiny adjustment that will require larger bores for the 4 bolts to have some give, the bridge shim will have to be reworked slightly and in fact some graphtech saddles are on the way to have a strung thru body scenario in place..

Updates to follow….

Simply one of the best studio albums of all time

as promised and despite missing Presence...

Question: Are you a tube?
Answer: No, I'm solid State , mate

The guy had this up for 1500 kronks..before I'd stepped into his flat he's dropped the guts by 600 whilst handing me the presence pot and cap in my hand saying he'd removed it as he didnt use it anyway...
900 kronks and what a presence she is, without presence...

Swedbank?

...and yet again, tacky shit and I love it, soon to be joined by a pig that you sit in the fridge and it grunts when you open the door...sheer class behind glass...
This should be an icon for my bank.
45 minutes to wait for Övriga bla bla for 1 minutes service...
..and you'll notice of course that as the Good Ship Recession comes over the horizon we get offered more and more credit everyday..
why is it when we actually need money when its not a recession, they blame the recessions for not giving it too us?

talkin av the Dead Kennedys and Holiday in Cambodia

Seems ironic one can go in the local expensive and child labour enducing shop to buy tacky shit..

I call him Chrome Dome...Nobody seems to have a made a remark that we deface somebodies spiritual icon , paint it pink and chrome its head...Strange World indeed...god only knows what they'd do to our baby jesus, virgin mary et al. No characateur would do this justice, even in Denmark...where something is rotten in the state of..

sneek preview...Somewhere over the rainbow

84 Gibson flying V

Dirty fingers pups

Natural finish

Status: deal should be finalised within a few weeks..

Townsend SG and the pedals..

This week the theme is "The Jam" meets the Dead Kennedys....

With the original ad-80 and ST 9 and the rythm favorite SG signature we're hitting echo and tube scream..East Bay Dave and Weller both have a great sound with the DK guitarist loving the echo effect..

projects hiding in the shadows...

61 melody maker awaits a 61 transition pickguard to load with the minihumbuckers..badass bridge and 60's Grovers dwarf the headstock on the basic MM D 61...

the 82 telecaster neck awaits its body, arriving from Canada...top loader bridge arrived from Oz, an ex from 83, tuners from Arizona, matched up fender 82 and the pups are now ordered and also on the way..more on them later...pics to follow..

nuff said...

Marshall 5010...monday...

Stockholm 10's 2008 Memories...or not

The end of July and once again time for the Stockholm 10's with the South Pacific Masters....although this year there would be a twist as I headed off to Scotland on the thursday to catch some live favorites playing on stage at the liquid rooms, aka Music box in Edinburgh.
To my distain the gig was cancelled as the MetroPigs in derbyshire had decided to cancel an R&B / Bike festival the same weekend which kept the bands all the way from the Southern states of the US, at home.
I headed over anyway to meet and greet. Things were going spendid and on the friday I met up with my "så kallad" cousin in a seedy bar down Leith Walk.
I laughed as I walked from the rather stuck up centre of Edinburgh to what the Proclaimers signed off as " Sunshine over Leith"...very apt (even though they actually lived as neighbours in Marchmont when I lived there) and as I walked I noticed the props for "trainspotting" hadn't changed very much, nor the extra's for that film..
The dive..or shall I call it, Pub, was like the pub scene from the original "Star Wars" whith every new creature coming through the door creating a bewildered stare..
"where do these people crawl from" was muttered under the breath...
...a few hours in and I had to take a leek..as I walked up to the bar having taken a leek I heard the barman say to a stool of 4,
"mate, you've dropped a £20....."
As walked back to the gang with an armful of Stella draught I searched through my pockets to discover I'd dropped my cash....£80 to be exact...or maybe £100 all in..
I started sweating bullets and emptied all my pockets...nada...empty...over 1000 kronor....I took the plunge and went up to the 4 at the £20 table and asked,
"have you just found a large wad of cash by any chance?"...
..despite the look of the 4 and the general surroundings, it came as a pleasant surprise that indeed they had been handed all of £79 and £1 which had been picked up in the toilets...they handed it back and asked for nowt apart from that I'd buy a drink for the person responsible for picking up the money...he wasn't at the same table...strange indeed. I was introduced and he declined a beer.."so buy the barman a drink, he's a good lad"...fine by me..
£80 up and relieved, my kids Godfather and I shared a kebab and taxi back to his. The Stella had done it's job, Inter Stella style...and I lost my brand new mobile...FUCK!..

...I hadn't mentioned the rest of the plan...which was to fly back from Glasgow to Stockholm Skavsta on the night flight to arrive at 12.00 and then meet up with ma girl in town at 01.30 in the centre of Stockholm...so I looked up her name on eniro.se and phoned her 08 ,saturday morning to tell her there would be no sms or calls and to meet up at 01,30..
Flight went well...I got on the Expressbus which didn't go to the meeting place we had agreed so I asked a girl on the bus if I could sms her the changed plans...she was kind enough to let me use her mobile...then it came like a twist with lemon,
"where are you? Where are you staying?where have you been?Why haven't you answered my sms or answered the phone..?" etc...
..suffice to say from the time I had made the 08 breakfast call to now, she had tackled an Elefant in the first day of competition and landed backwards on her head incurring a severe concussion..so everything was lost to the matrix , even the fact that my mobile had gone and that I was coming back from Scotland to meet up...
I took a taxi to the hotel where the teams were staying..I managed to get room 604..
The door of 604 opened to an unknown face..strange as I knew every member of the squad...set watched to 01.40..popular as a donkey punch if I misheard which room....
"..is sara staying here?"
"..there's no sara staying here...my names Sara though(?????)...who r you?...how old is she?"
"is there anyone with a concussion staying here?"
"no...wait...there was someone who had been to the hospital..."
I was ushered in...and there , with a towel wrapped around her head and sitting up in bed..was the headcase...
whispering , knowing to be wary on the wakeup side of things, I poked and said "hi U"..
which was greeted with the mightiest "SAW 3" Sceam which woke up the entire floor....
Sara 2 apoligized at letting me in and started ushering me out as if I was a prevert....
Fortunatly the headbanger remembered that I wasn't the ghool from under the bed...
"ok, just keep waking her up every two hours to make sure she doesn't fall into a coma.."

So, about 2 hours sleep, a long trip and a coma victim..
The South Pacific Masters were happy to see me turn up and we went out to win for a third year running...

echo echo echo....

Its analog...its Organic..and it's on its way....

In all it's reconstructed Black Beauty....Project Blacky

features: rescued 71 Gibson project body and neck

Original Dirty Fingers bridge pup 16,9 ohms

One off 59 classic paf reiisue, stripped, rewound and unpotted 9ohms

63 gibson tailpeice with original studs

61 abr-1 bridge with stellagraph saddles with original wheels and studs

59/60 Grover tuners with the engraving on them

73 original Les Paul Custom Pickguard

Electrics are Vos spec Historic reissue with reissue bumble bee caps, vintage wiring harness

tone/volume knobs are original 70's

Its a mish and mash, weighs a classic ton and has sustain till next week.She aint no choker and the resulting sound is hard to describe. The value lies in the sound.

Fat for Slim, Making the Melody Maker a DD

So you've already probably realised that I just can't keep things standard ( unless it was a 59 les paul std...) , so upon aquiring the 5 digit 61 I immediatly started looking around at info regarding the pups on the std wood....As I've got the E johnson pups on Sami Mk1 and the P90's on the Townsend Signature, I decided I wanted something else...and lo and behold and lorks a lordy there is another custom man in the USA who also plays around and who makes this loaded kit to drop into old bits of firewood.
....he's also convinced that these old bodies are better than their SG equivalent if the right equipment is dropped in...mostly due to the neck to body config...so he has squeezed in two mini humbuckers into a 3 ply pickguard with orange caps and CTS 500 pots...the result is meant to ensure that you never want to play your les Paul again...we'll have to wait and c...
To tie the wires together is a badass finetuner wraparound bridge and top end tuners...
can't wait...

Gibson melody maker D 1961 project

...its probably on its way over the pond as I script this up...looks like a relic cos it is...but old wood is the best kinda wood and this little peice of history is a 5 digit 61 model...gutted and sad and ready to be heard loud n proud over the concrete and wooden infested hills of göte...

..close on 20 past the witching hour with BB live at san Quentin and I can't wait to hot rod this lightweight mahogny cheap n cheerful in 61..from the corners of the world police is also coming a genuine made in the us of a BADASS fully tuneable bridge as well as a loaded pickguard which hasn't got the usual single twangthang pups but a specially loaded pickguard with gibson mini humbuckers from the 70's which will turn this once surf twang into a wangotango sweet poontang monster.....73 grover tuners already await in the grey corners of the flat which should have this one singing the same day everything arrives.....

..I see a pearloid has dropped out in the 19th fret but otherwise I'm hoping this one will be sorted out...

One thing which is of interest is the fact that these beautys were built the same as the 50's late pauls when it came to the one peice body and neck so I'm hoping for great things.

I'll let you know once the tubes are warmed up in the davoli baby and its lock and loaded..

roadworks on the pathways?

Once again the clowds prepare for battle,
the weekend is a mismatch of what to do's,
and the end result are too many wee small hours in front of the Powerwindow.

Seems like there is a crossing and it's time to really make some decisions.Boring...
A great new fridge magnet, " a clean house is the result of a wasted life"....how true is that?
I kinda realised why the writing stopped for a while, my creative mind can't cope with bling plong guitar plucking AND spreading the words on the word processor...just don't seem to have enough hours to do both , or perhaps motivation...however, there are always reasons and one must live in the present and not the past nor future..

I feel we discover for every day that goes by what things are important and less..hence the fact that the more years you've been around the more you have upstairs to being down in an old box and empty into a conversation...this is what makes the "wannabgrownups" quite amusing as they haven't got...they're a large box of packing cubes trying to be a fridge..different weight.

Trinidad and Tobago.I saw a pic of some people on facebook with the comment" looks like a dream". So I suddenly decided this is where I will go as soon as I fill in the statuate paperwork for my dreams to be a reality, what we who don't only live the dream but work as well.Seems like the priority of visiting foreign lands stopped when I moved to this one..strange really, just not so high about paying so much to visit a culture on show for tourists..although...I have to say the Himalayas would be somewhere I'd like to go..

which reminds me..must go

hej upp

Well well well…

Its been a while…there have been drafts written but never published…suppose there are always hollow vanitys attached as to why…possibly due to me not really knowing if I wanted to write some of the “white paper" stuff

Not so much has been happening…much.As usual it’s a (life that is) a whole bag a nuts and bolts, trouble is they're all imperial and your looking for a metric..

This week has been heavily influenced by music for nce as opposed to Rugby which seems to devour way too much time compared to the pay back which is usually some frikken muppet making some worthless point as they were either too spoilt or not spoilt enough at childhood...this is the way when being a ..."leader"...
..hence the retreat back to the music and sound..for that is what its about when not an accomplished player..and what sounds..4 guitars rent space in my livingroom nowadays, each one with its own history, woodgrain and tuning.Despite the puny microcube I have now managed to persuade my wallet to part with the green bucks to buy a tascam GTI which means I can go out amongst the brds and the bees and playaway..

Last night I took a walk down to the local Kindergarden Disco to watch the mighty Ted Nugent playing. Having been a fan for the past 28 years it was a culture shock to watch so few people turn up on a Wednesday evening to watch THE master of a Gibson Byrdland playing some genuine rock'n roll Nugent style. the man is special with his hunting and NRA connections, but what the hell he still has what it takes..
Next week and a new inigma comes to the same Kindergarden Disco, Yngwie Malsteen.He kinda encapulates the Swede in the fact that he is technically one of the best in the world but at the same time simply does not know how to carry it across.His music and guitar solo's are technically brilliant but cold, leaving no feeling or passion with any note. SRV, BB or even Nugent, in my opinion, blow him away.As once quoted to Mozart...."too many notes.."

De facto is that the time n’ space between the notes is as important as anything else. Pretty much with everything else I suppose, its all about timing..

As the South will Rise again, I’m ehading back to scotland for one night of being very spoilt with a small club gig with two of my fav of all time bands taking the stage as a warm up, Molly Hatchet and Blackfoot play the Liquid Room which ironically used to be the Music Box, my old haunting place pre-sweden move as a guitar tech for my cousin..who in turn is ending a 25 year spate in his RocknRoll band and will be heading to Spain for a project that has managed to catch a lot of attention...so its all happening in July and holidays haven’t even started!

Ruggers continues but is on holiday until August 2nd. This year has been tough with no gym due to some weirdo problem I have in my right hand side…lack of training is making me worried about the third years Pacific Masters pledge, which fly back too on saturday from Glasgow to Stockholm…planning is later than usual and I simply hope I can get from Skavsta into Stockholm for a decent time and find a crash..With two wins in a row for the Masters the pressure is on.
I was gonna head down to the beach ruggers this weekend in Halmstad but instead I will finally have the time required to remove the bearings from the GasGas block and start looking at putting the SuperRetard back together.As usual I've left it way too late which as Zepp said, is "the song remains the same"..

Well, I’ll sign off and write again as soon as I know which pathway is open as the rest are closed due to roadworks…

"ur here for reason"

..facing another late night, early morning.
having just recieved a new title at work and balancing way too many tight deadlines and juggling balls in the air, you have to have to trigger to be able to switch off...

I just watched a program about people working in real estate.The boss hates kids, talking about kids and refuses to believe that his employees should take holidays...
its all about being put on the earth to do a job, he says
certain people are meant to sprint 100 meters, others to govern a country and real estate people to work...u guessed it...real estate.

jeez, this guy obviously gets impotent on poontang and hard on money and work...or what?
sure, guys got money, money,money, money...but is that ALL its about?
I don't know, I just kinda question his ethics..

Back to the Dalai Lama
I reckon life is about getting satisfaction from what you do.If money is involved, so be it.If people want to get fat and lazy at 30, get married, PLAN kids (??) and have their highest prio to buy a safe family car...let them.

The eyes are the window to the soul, not the wallet.Or?
Lifes variables are interesting, most important variable in the equation is knowing what part of the equation you represent yourself to work around the variable.
..with a family motto; either peace or war I was very black or white for many years and stood on that soapbox we call a one sided discussion. Now that the little hair I have has gone grey and with the years of battlescars from discussion I'm finally greying around the edges and its making more sense...Life is of course a war with many battles, and those battles you have to pick as there aren't many, if any, that can win every battle.

so, you may win a battle but it doesn't mean you win the war - life

...keep the dayjob...

Starting to play football at my age is a bit different. Whilst most were out and about kicking a round ball in the park, I was locked up in an instituition where football was regarded as a commoners game and only the purist sports of rugby, land hockey and cricket were allowed, alongside Fives and Squash...I even managed to get caned for listening to unsuitable records with patti smiths "piss factory" and the Ramones "sheena is a punk rocker".....

So now, at the tender age of 41 I head off every monday and tuesday to try and impress my self and the teams that I can play this universal game...confidence is high..
..and then comes the reality that I'm no more than a token who gets a few minutes to keep me quiet. "Keep your dayjob" kinda thing and it bugs me to hell, well it would. Despite having acceptable pace and fitness, the main problem is that I resemble a bunny rabbit under the headlamps as soon as I get a ball around my feet.

I will struggle on. As a friend remarked to me yesterday after an intresting korp game which ended with a fight, two red cards and a 2-2 draw, "it's just not your game ".Maybe I have two high expectations, as the photo above shows "Mr Happy Face" despite a 5-1 win AND they made me Capt, my disappointment is obvious..can't imagine what I'd look like on a 5-1 thrashing..

It's all about Tone....right?

Can't believe its a month since my last posting, christ how things are moving quickly!

Well the virus has gone and the sun has arrived which is one of the positives in Sweden, late nights will a hanging sun way up there! Negatives obviously being that i've missed the tipping point of beach 08 due to all the problems since november 07 and to date the x-ray count is up to 3 with a fourth and hopefully final x-ray (ultra sound) happening this coming wednesday.

They'll probably tell me I'm pregnant and I can sell the script to Hollywood about a man getting pregnant and having a baby...lets see, I could get Arnold Schwarzanegger to play me...and....dammit , its been done already....fucking amazing somebody got paid for that script, they must have seen the producer coming...
If you haven't seen that film, don't.Its beyond crap, and one step beyond that.

So, back to my x-ray, hopefully we'll get a green for go and I can try and get motivated to get rid of the layer of baconrasher thats formed since november.If I was an artist, (not the piss variety), they'd be calling this my " doinfuckall" period , with regards to training.
interesting how artists whose work commands great sums of gold get put into divisions of periods all depending on what drug they were dropping at the time.Lets face it, they're a weird sort, either lashed with wine or doped up with arsenic and acid and the resulting mess created in future generations is called something like, "Large Randy Spot" from XX's Blocks and Spheres period...estimated to auction at $53m...err, I'll have another one just like the other one...

So whats the guts I ask you?
well, many.It's all about tone, so whats that title about?
Once again I'm taking a trip , slightly hungover I may add after another "aprés-rugby soireé" to buy a Pete Townshend Gibson SG replica.I was asked yesterday,
why do you need more than one guitar?
my answer was simple, tone, sustain, sound, resonance, difference....you have to know the difference and hear it.Thinking about that its actually very similar to a lot of things, the differences in tone between guitars is the similar to the difference in people.
....some people you like, some people you don't, same with guitars, and the reasons are the slight imperfections in character, or the way they tone themselves, reliabilty, thick skinned would be like wearing powerslinkys and shredding your fingers,
.some guitars are easy, some are difficult, some appear to be easy and then surprise you by not being, some look good on the outside but are cheap behind the first layer...just like people...
...and with age and maturity they don't always improve despite the price increasing..
I'm at insane? well, nothing new there..

u see, i'm not an accomplished g-player, I just love the sound and the whole business of comprehension through playing and hearing the sound. I just finished the Gibson Les Paul Custom Black Beauty and she is simply amazing, a tone monster that simply sustains for minutes.This is the wreck I bought that was stripped of its parts and shipped from the great lakes in the USA with worn wonderfrets and a neck repair that went wrong and was badly fixed..
She now adorns only the very best gold platina vintage parts that despite costing a second morgage are the only parts she deserves, from 59 grover tuners to a 63 bridge and thumbwheels,60s lightweight tailpeice with original long studs...tone, tone tone
The list of parts on their own mean nothing, but the sum of all parts equates to awesome!

Just had a couple of hours in the old town of Stockholm.You forget just how many tourists come over to this beautiful city and at the same time just how much crap the local try to sell them...not sure how much glass or viking crap there exists, but its all there...I also realised that gamlastan has become Little Italy with a host of Italian restaurants...I recall somebody wrote around 10 years ago that the pizza was the most popular dagens food...so don't go looking for Isterband, you'll be disppointed...
It's actually quite nice to have 3 hours to kill in the capital, especially when its sunny.Every side street and you'll find creepy guys looking out for the fuzz as street hawkers that we've all been warned about trying to play "hide the split pean under a box" and rip off the tourists...its such a con and people actually fall for it...not sure how many pikeys I saw creeping in and around the old buildings...all looks like a foto shoot from a dickens story except they wear those fantastic training suits that you only find in the baltic states...

As I started with, things have been all go with work become interesting and a conference next week in Greece to go too.Suffice to say to the older blog readers there is a twist in the tail of this rather weird cocktail we call life, but more on that next week...as I said, it's all about tone, and my life is getting loads of tone and sustain at the moment, more positives than a mathematics convention regarding "the plus sign and it's function"..

I'm still trying out that new sport, football I believe they call it. Makes people laugh when I say that, but keep in mind I wasn't allowed to play football in school, it was only Hockey, Rugby and cricket...so my debut started with Korp football and is still a new experience for me..can you imagine how fun that is? actually getting "a kick" from playing the biggest sport in the world and trying to master it..so I play (see "try")in two teams at the moment which is great to have something so different and to have some new "goals"......

I'm still failing in everyway to get time to fix the bike which is a real pain and something I really need to put more effort into as the weather is perfect just now...

Right, i've gotta jump off the train, i'll get back to tone once I've plugged the sg in and given it an airing.......

frikken frikken frikken frikken VIRUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

nuff said...

four full days off work including last sunday... and now a 24 hour wide awake day on the go..

On top of that, at this very moment I'm 24,000kr outta pocket due to cyberspace fraud...

I never ever thought I'd be that gullible, but yep, ripped off 4000 dollars, money nicely sent wire to wire with a "thanks very much attached"...

Still could be worst, at least I've got my health...oh, thats right, I don't even fucking own that anymore as I obviously sold my soul the last time I was at the crossroads with the fender...

Anyhow, anywhere and anywot? just see how that pans out, its a lotta cash but things can always be worst.I hope.... it could be 240,000...you know, is the glass half empty or half full...yeah, like fuck off I dont need pedagogisk pearls of wisdom when facing an internet fraud...

Found these piccies of flu virus, looks like something jacque Cousteau would pull out of a sharks arse to be honest..who knows, maybe thats where they come from, maybe the garden gnome shark is tired of getting his flippers hacked off so some jap can get a hard-on and prove to his wife that his knob gets bigger than 4cm if he eats the age old potency remedies...dear oh dear..

Amazing isn't it. frikken amazing.

In a couple of years , young people everyday will have to enjoy the stenches and q's to Burger king at the local zoo to see any frikken live animal, doped up to its eyeballs and probably fed quorn as it "just wouldn't be right to feed it real meat"...cos the penguins really do enjoy their daily walk through the bubblegum and half lit cigarettes on the ground..hypocrits! Zoo keepers...nope, give them back their own country land, fence them in and let them roam, not stick them into what is in effect a frikken skatepark halfpipe made of concrete!!!

ok, where was I...aye, thats right, why are we losing the rhino, the elephant, the whale and shark..cos fucking Jimmy Nip and Chippy Chong need to grind down their horns, fins and testicles to get a fucking boner!!And we let them, cos we enjoy their plastic cheap shite at poundstretcher and fucking stereos!!!!

(the japanese government are currently in an International argument, saying they have to mass slaughter Whales ...get this.....for research!!! at which point they get asked,,,,so why don't you just tag them , dont you get a FUCKIN BONER THEN!!!!)

(Nb:this is true and if you care join the Greenpeace "save mr splashy pants campaign")

And you know what...we get Dolphin friendly cans of tuna....thats it....

right then, thats that vented...ffff....sorry bout the language, but I'm sure you'd also care if you watched your family shot, their horns removed and powered down so some impotent little prick can satisfy a "så kallad" toight Thai.

Now you see, if your religeous at all you'd start to understand why God has decided to throw the odd curve ball the only way he can, raining giant frogs, huge tidalwaves and of course the strangest of the strange , Gilbert, Wilma and Katrina...I mean, who names the strongest "killer" Hurricanes in history???not god anyway, he probably hears those names and mumbles obsenitys and then decides as he felt a name like "Tors hammer", "Slicer" and "Ripper" should have been used, he'd send another one, or wait, how about melt some of the icecap the next time President Bush signs a treaty against everything logical and wants the American car companys to build more SUV's....

Doesn't anyone get it? Animals, planet, weather....mix up the letters, write them on blotting paper and wash them at 60 degrees and when you get them out, just like the da vinci code you'll be very confused as to why the albino wears a potato sack and beats himself with a levi belt tightening a barbed wire jockstrap and of course , who shagged who?????

Got me anyways...

El Gath Gath (pronounced GAS GAS)

...is on the mend.

Its a cluster fuck, stripped to the bone, nuts and bolts getting tastly, air tools by KUKEN, Japan being borrowed..DRZ suzuki cams being bought from the highlands of Scotland to strip for decompressor parts, yep, its a long story but the deadline is within 3 weeks.

So far and over a day, the engine is down to the guts, the r/h block needs replaced due to a crack in the waterhousing (hairline) and whilst having a dig around the gear selector fork a mysterious looking object was found...

With pawnshop eyes

Just a great set of words, made into a poem, made into a song.
Thats all..

With a pawnshop eyes and a second hand frown
She sat silent at the table
Her boots were brown, should she leave town
To play the role of lover ex-patriot
A nod to the waiter,always her flirty behavior,
You know she always gets one on the house
She pulls out a letter from a bag
Under her sweater and before she
Reads she straightens her blouse

Theres a passion in being alone a grace in a loveless time
Theres no new cross, theres no new sign
Only the sun and the changing tide

And out of respect, well really must confess
I never lost your number I never
Lost your address
And if we remain friends at best
Sometime later no, no not yet
Well smile and remember it like this

She put back the letter,one tear
Falls like a feather and disappears
On this bar room floor
The gratuity included, you know
The letter concluded

P.s. all my love

”Getting the “bla bla” down first”

Over 3000 years ago, a seedling took root in the dark leech-ridden forests of south west Tasmania.
As it grew, the world witnessed the birth of Christianity, the signing of the Magna Carta, the Industrial Revolution, the discovery of the New World and assorted plagues, wars and natural disasters. That seedling is today an almost fully grown member of one of the world’s longest living species - the Huon Pine.
Its extraordinary longevity is just one of the many qualities of the Huon Pine. The rare wood contains an oil that prevents it from rotting - it is seemingly indestructible. It is favoured by artists and fine furniture makers and its lightness, strength and close grain make it the “holy grail” of boat-building timber.
Huon Pine - Lagarostrobos franklinii, (formerly. Dacrydium franklinii) is only found in Tasmania Australia.

With unique qualities of durability, longevity, amazing grains, rich golden hues that darken with age and fine texture, Huon Pine is a truly beautiful softwood timber, deep in character with exquisite aroma. Huon Pine is extremely slow growing with growth rates averaging a mere 1mm per year. Trees may attain heights of over 40 metres and are amongst the longest living organisms on the earth, they often live in excess of 2000 years and have been known to reach 3,000 years. A tree merely 20 cm in diameter could be as much as 500 years old.

The ‘Piners’, early timber getters, searched the inhospitable wilderness of Tasmania's West Coast to cut and haul out Huon Pine logs. The timber was used for everything where durability and ease of working was required; in furniture and tables, in washtubs and ships and in machinery and patterns for casting. Remaining trees are found in the western and south-western parts of the state, growing along river banks, lake shores and swampy localities in mixed formations.

Huon Pine derives its name from the stands which once occurred along the Huon River. The western and south-western Huon Pine stands are now protected and what timber is available comes from logs salvaged from rivers and areas flooded by hydro electric schemes or logs that are dead fallen. This above personalised panorama piece from the Gordon River Dam contains evidence of being salvaged as parts contain an additional rich orange tannin stain which is drawn into the timber as it lays for years in the water.

Huon Pine is the prince of Tasmanian timbers, the richness of its golden colour and features such as ‘birds eye’ and ‘fiddleback’, make it one of the world's most desirable furniture and veneering timbers. Its durability and workability make it one of the best boat-building timbers known. The wood contains a natural preserving oil with an unmistakable perfume which is also a natural insect repelant, its fine and even grain makes the wood exceptionally pleasant to work with hand tools.

true investment in a piece that is already of great age. As the limited existing sources of flooded and dead fallen Huon Pine diminish, due to its extreme slow growth and protected status, Huon Pine can only become more difficult to obtain and thus, even rarer.

The picture.You get it right?

So now and again something catches your eye and you take another wee peak onto the virtual paper screen that flickers and you mark it down as something to look at before the auction is over. Your expecting the item to go for a higher price than the asking price and at the moment the piggy bank is sliced and in the frying pan.
So, after 7 days you see nobody has made a bid and your curious.
Then , at the same time your selling a 197X Yamaha TZ500/700 motorcycle hub and rim and you guessed it, the same buyer owns what you’ve been looking at.

So, by now you wanna know whats the guts with whats been looked at.

No surprise really, the song remains the same just now.

Life at 41 is about tone and sustain and things of beauty...oh, and of course that have a jackplug and pups that can be plugged in so one can actually use both eyes and ears on that tone and sustain as well as the ever so important resonance.
Yep...another guitar. You see, unlike Joe normal boring person I only have the bare essentials in my living room and as opposed to filling it with ikea cardboard I'm going wall to wall woods and steel strings. Each corner adorned with a different story, different year, different sound. At the moment we have two Gibsons, a fender and a univox. And soon to join the guitar which a certain luthier decided to build and which is a one off...for many reasons, as the wood only exists on one island in the world and is not allowed to be chopped down, the man in question obvioulsy ended up with a chunk and made an exact copy of an early 60's fender Stratocaster body.As his work was guitars, he obviously had bits and bobs sitting around, and to the one off body he added a 1963 pre cbs maple neck as well as certain other items from an L series strat.

"so.....gettin old......"

So do you ever get down to the laundry room too early, say 4 minutes , so you can't be bothered to go back up to your place, and the first thing you do is crouch down and look at the laundry going round and round...I've always wondered why...
Next time it happens though, try and remember your first initil thoughts...mine tend to be scenes from films where somebodys head or a cat has ended up in the machine..

So whats that gotta do with gettin old, obviously nothing. However, you do tend to analyse things more and more.

Last couple a months, since november to be exact, and I've been in and out of x-ray rooms, emptying myself with toilax micro laxative, not eating for 24 hours for examinations and burning my guts on too many perscriptions. So it hasn't been easy and I'm now up for an ultrasound on my pancreas.Lifes been tough and without training its a bear with really bad headache.
With my resignation as National coach and the incoming guitars and more guitars, and of course the comhem tv channels, I've kinda gone backwards in the evolution.

The more time I thought I'd have for training is bye the bye and instead I've put all my energy into trying to play and retaining my sanity. Although, now with the garage doors swung open, the amp valves warming up and the weather changing, I'm hoping for a brighter future.
One of the problems faced with anything in the "petrolhead"void is the chassis, and mine is broken for the now.

It's funny though, as despite my age some things just haven't changed.I stood waiting for the number 60 bus, TZ racing wheel in hand, UFO's version of "Doctor Doctor" blasting in my headcans whilst I plan the building of a 71 Les Paul Custom and at the same time trying to focus on two business trips that require pre-study to Dubai and Switzerland.My back is aching and it suddenly dawns on me, standing there with a smile and strumming my pick hand, that the mix is fantastic between the mental and the pysical, always keeping me in check. The chassis is rusty and hopefully the panel beaters and rust repairers (Roger Daltreys first job) and I realise that around every corner is an anxiety regarding the next pathway, but all in all, its great to have somehow found the DeLorean from "Back to the future" and been caught, back in reverse!

Hurricane Katrina meets a Gibson 69'ner

Things are easy if you have money.
However, maybe you have more fun if you need to work hard and build pieces , or find a skill and improve on it.
A good condition 69 Gibson SG will set you back around $6000.So, if you don't have that kinda money the next best thing is to find a relic and start the hunt for parts.
Its a gamble obviously, as the neck on this one fell off and the whole guitar got reliced under the influence of Hurricane Katrina, The killer Hurricane that killed thousands and destroyed billions and billions. Still, its got history, the neck has been repaired and ok, it looks like crap but its old wood, and thats one thing you just can muck about with.It's a bit like experience, you really have to have the years before you get the suss, although some people really thing they can cheat that equation, which says it all really that they don't have the experience to see you cant.

So, its out there with a price tag..the 71 les paul (c earlier) is on its way so I'm not sure if I need another project, But I'd love to stick some soapbar p90's in it with a badass tail...ala townshend.

"Big Wheels Keep on turnin...."

It's interesting just how many thoughts come through the bottleneck when your standing at a wee shelter in the middle of nowwhere awaiting a bus.Its saturday and the number of buses to the ends of this "earth" can be counted on one paw, so I missed one and have 90 minutes to wait..of course I'm too scared to go back in the workshop for fear that "just perhaps" a bus turns out.

So, its a nice evening and the ipod is charged, and in the middle of this surreal situation I have a 1975 Yamaha TZ500 wheel to take home and weigh up, a beautiful rock breaker Estwing and japanese butterfly blade for company. The butterfly blade was found amongst all my junk and is basically a remembrance from my young teen years where I bought this one in Geneva just to see if I could carry off the spin.The Estwing is from Colorado and the wheel comes from an early project in 87.It's now a rarity, just try and find one on Google or ebay for sale.So I'm letting it go and have to weigh up to ship...anyway, back to the shelter and the ipod. I ran " The Rocky Horror Picture show"..now theres a classic for those of you around th weirdos in the 80s.

To this day Theatres in America run the show and the cult following is incredible.So, there I stood, suns going down, wheel under one arm, a Musical about transvestites and smelling of burned rubber and old oil.

Rewind five days earlier:

Okay, some people would argue your not a man until you've done this and that, kinda changes with the crowd. Well, I'd say you if you've never removed a tyre from an alloy rim with a high beaded edge, you just don't know the concept of "steaming ears"...bloody hell, draw blood first so you don't get disappointed..I even tried to cut through the tyre just to break the bead, but not luck. 1 hour and a ruptured disk later and the bleeder was ready to take off..sweating bullets and blood shot eyes. Its about this time you really need some time in the "quiet room" with Vince Furnier, aka Alice Cooper, with the plastic knives and forks..

The "to do" list today included removing a tyre, washing the racing gear with a view to sell and of course finally the most fun job, stripping down the gasgas 450 supermotard engine.

Cutting a long story short, sometimes you understand why pneumatic airtools were invented..

deadline for the start up after the camchain snapped, is the end of the month.However, I found what looked like the end of a shifter fork bangin around the bottom of the casings..we shall see, I'm borrowing an air tool tomorrow.

The Now:

So it took me around 3 hours to get home. The irony of carrying a wheel along and getting a bus, it got more attention than I did anyway. The evening ends with the usual Volteraine suppository before the back seizes up and suddenly I wake up from a 3 hour daze to the whistling of the old fashioned tea kettle, realising that old age has finally caught up..but thats the next blog, read on..

"rarer than hens teeth"...he said..

Down at the old muzak shop the other day and asking about the Ibanez ts808, or actaully more was the point of the just as hard to get unmodded ts9. The TS808 and TS9 are both called "tube screamers" and basically the most well known players to use them are too numerous to mention.

Looking around and it was gonna be tough to find a TS9 , original and not RI for under 2000kr. If I was lucky that is. Then the techy mentioned the pedal to the left, not a ts but a st9 with a mid boost and two chips to ensure the tubes would indeed scream. "forget the rest, thats the pedal you want, but you'll never find one...etc...)..Never say never, thats what I've heard before..

So I did some research and right enough there are even websites with every link around the planet looking for these pedals. So, I went to ebay germany as if it aint in the uk or Us your next best bet is the Fatherland.. and lo and behold...an original, unmodded TS9.But the shipment was only marked down as Germany , hence the fact it hadn't made the Ibanez fetish club sites..

So I asked the seller if he'd send it North.

The rest is history.

Probably due to the Germans being so efficient and wanting the latest ST9dx with digital chip etc, the old 80's original went for a price that was cheaper than a standard ts9 and under half the price of a new reissue ts. Difference is, next week the rocking horse crap, unicorn horn , fairy dust etc..arrives by mail.

As the A Team finished on...

" I do like it when everything goes according to plan".............

"Is my Siberian Hamster Mr Fawlty"....

...not quite, an albino hedgehog actually which could walk up to you in todays snowy conditions, steal your wallet, watch and shoes without you even seen it...

Thank God there are still some good guys out there...

Jeez, think I came closer to sweating 38 bullets and a heart fibulator padel than ever before....
Just "accidently" send some cally dosh thru me 'ol matey Paypal but only after it was sent did I realise I'd sent euro as opposed to dollars...
Now, if you've ever managed to do this at midnight when the call center is at home sleeping and the help page consists of telling you only how to spend your money and ll the great opportunitys...well , you can imagine. So, basically, all I had to rely on was the decency of a bloke sitting in a log cabin around the Great Lakes in the US (with broadband...) to read my plea in a mail and deny the payment..And he did, take a bow sir! I was already at DefCom 4 and the two keys with the code to start nuclear brain meltdown was well on the way...
..funny that actually...whilst at sat staring at the laptop at my kitchen table going thru every worst case scenario I suddenly has this remarkable thought go through my brainchip....no shit, suddenly out of the blue the following came through the visual reciever...

"what would an astronaut do if he was in this situation...would he stress out and lose control..."

err....pass me the mushroom Dipsy...

suffice to say my resting pulse is down to 174 now so I'm much better...

Well, what can I say, apart from the fact that the winter seems to finally arrived, maybe we'll have spring in august. There must have been around 20cm of snow over the past four days and its a very strange sight to see the colours that had been shooting up all over the shop, now wilting under the heaviness of the snow and been raped and freezin by the ensueing thaw (all typos are deliberate for Bombi to count and point out in another lifetime).
Not much to do but plod on, literally, and my boyz have not been too unhappy staying in and playing pc games and relaxing from their arduous life of been taken care of by a så kallad "curling föräldrar" who does everything for the wee buggers due to a guilt factor that will hang around my head and has since i left their nest...but we have fun, lots of it.

Life has been a breeze and a breath of fresh air since my resignation as an FK in what one could call the "little leagues" of the puddles surrounding the large ponds. Looking at certain cancer cells growing amongst the new victims and the reality show of just how many are there to make your grade shows in the aftermath we call resignation land. More and more, I feel so very content to get out of what couldn't even be called Dodge as that would have been more fun and honest. So new things beckon once I have a clear bill of health, the kidney stone has to go and back to some training without worrying.


The weather will extend the "indoor music sensation" as I would call it, when you dont have any anxiety about being indoors with a guitar. The sun will change that and my idea is to get a Tascam MG TG1 , a guitar trainer which is the size of a box a fags, and get out there turning the Sami Mk1 into a relic within a year.

Right then,
back to the new white paper I'm writing regarding ruggers to present next week in my new role as Tech Dir.

all change...the Holy Grail is found...

If you've been following the scribblings regarding Project G's, you'll know that the whole concept was to use a 95 as a basis and add 59 to 63 parts to ensure the tone and sound would be awesome..The only thing that could improve the lot would be somehow to get the old wood and guess what, the holy grail Les Paul Black Beauty above has been residing somehere around the Great lakes in the US awaiting a recon.
You see, Reissues are fantastic, but even if Tom Murphy gets his aging process on new wood, you still have "new wood".. hence the huge costs of 50's and 60's G's..
In 93 I bought a Les Paul Custom in Nashville Tennessee whilst there on a trip for 6 weeks as a body/money guard. I sold that guitar and always regretted it, so when I came across this relic I simply had to get the calculater out to see if there was any way I could purchase it.

With the original parts arriving in the post including a Burstbucker #1 and rewired paf for the bridge, the only thing missing are pots and knobs and some plastic..but this so called "fretless wonder" simply had to be had...

Plus ca change...

well, not really..

Christ, the plastic keys on this work pc just leave a hollow echo in the room...well, once again, not really but one can use the old "little grey cells" to believe they're made from brass or something exotic..
The place is of course more than 90% empty and it's only the one's that put the "L" in oozer that are left behind pretending that they (see I) have something that just can't wait till next week bla bla...yeah..whatevvaaaaaa (raise head at end to get the nasal sound on the aaaaaaaa..)

Quick questioni, just wondering if it's only me or if other people loop songs time and time again until they get sick and tired of them? Don't mean Radio style where you don't have an option, but like, you download a song you've not heard for years but spotted on the itunes shop and then play it over and over and over and over (etc..) again? I tend to do that more often than not, thing is I don't get bored with the song for several weeks.
of course, nowadays I go home and try and play them if they're easy enough.the buck dropped dead with a 12 guage when it came to Bron Y Aur.....

Back to the echo echo...and it's "something"thursday, which means that everybody has been really smart and gone away for an extended weekend with their family, or something.
Of course, those who have read my blog understand that this is of course a nonsensical due to my planning skills...hence the fact that I just wasted several hours looking at sistaminuten only to finally realise that getting a Vuxen (??) and two boyz on a sistaminuten , like today or tomorrow, for under a couple of hundred quid including taxes, hotel and food is not gonna happen. Bugger..
The Johnson Ligan land in GoaGubbar land tonite. Awesome, been a while and always ends up looking like an MC Escher etch by the time they leave.
The only trip available at the mo is a trip to Glasgow with RyanAir..Scotland for a week may do the boyz and myself some good, sun and sangria and....oh, wrong destination. Not Beige, but grey all day.But we shall see, we always get on so well that we don't have to run away from our everyday reality which seems to be the in thing at every red day..

I just recieved an sms from South Africa regarding a bunch of baboons who have been in a friends car, shit all over the place including her jacket and ate all her fruit and food before leaving out the window. My reply was short, if the Baboons had pissed in the car before they left they would have replicated a rugby bus trip to Stockholm and we would have been one step closer (or further away?) from our DNA Ancestors...25 degrees and sun...jealous as one can be without the crap and babs of course..

So, lets take a wee wander down historys lane and ask what does Jezuz leaving chicago(he just left for u ZZ fans..) on a big block Donkey swathed in the latest Versace cloth and pants duo,,,what has that got to do with yellow hens and multi coloured feathers?? Did he order chicken in a basket on the way out of soddom and gmorre..did the donkey get a feather caught in the back of the throat or indeed are we missing something here with the dead sea scrolls mentioning something about "tar and ...."
There has been a HUGE misinterpretation regarding this period, palm trees , could we be in Trelleborg? Tyres, Trelleborg tyres...the word Tyre comes from Tire, which is what the donkey was? davinci code stuff here..but those of you who have made the trip to Trelleborg have realised that "tar and feathering" would be an oddity down there where "Best of blue grass banjo" has a higher audience than even the Pope..u c, another da vinci thingy whatever special handshake , or was that mikshake?..they DO have a mac a dds...

Anyway, where was I? Right, office is just about dead and buried 'till next tuesday.Even if you push stuff out here the other offices send an auto reply.Sweden works less but on average live longer than any other country..Or..ironically Japan actually has the highest life expectancy and nobody could call them as busy little bees.Strength and Honour in work etc...all for the emperor who is devine etc...wonder if he has a Nissan Donkey?

Well, news in from the family J senior and my bro is gonna head over to Austin, TX for a year. Sounds like a good reason to head back to the states.. on the other end of the scale my Sis who is an officer in the british army is currently circulating around Kabul...think that Austin texas has a nicer ring to it, although if we are to believe the Yanks there is more oil in Afganistan than Texas, hence the invasion..(You would have thought that somebody, somewhere, at some big important "Special Opps" meeting mentioned under his breath, "hey guys...didn't those guys beat the crap outta Rusky Red?"...)

At the same time I've promised another a trip to Singapore..decisions decisions... no public chewing gum or spitting in the street..there you have it, the Triad, Austin TX, Kabul and Singapore..

Wonder how "she" is doing over in Mex... memory glides off in a tangent now and again...I'd better catch it up and write back at ya then..

the guts...

So, apart from becoming Edward scissorfingers cousin, Brian Solderfingers, life is moving on and I'm gonna cover some more GonZo stuff. It's 02.30 in the morning, Magnum just started...nuff said...so I'll write up 2 morrow..

all in all, we're talking Kidney stone blasting in april, a virus and swollen glands as I type, a fall back in the abyss of tobacco and nikotin, a friend in South africa for 10 days of 25 degrees..another friend in Mexico on the beach who actually remembered my birthday or saw it on facebook...projects at work taking off on an international scale..etc...harley racing, gasgas supermotards, tag heuer stopwatches...list goes on.

So, keep your eye open and I'll write 2morrow..

back to magnum?errrr....no

Davoli baby...what the fuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A mate dropped off a freebie, said it was a small valve amp from the 50's...

So, I plugged the EJSRV Sami mk1 and bugger me the neighbours cat must have flown out the window!

It basically looks like an air conditioning unit from the Baltics, but it delivers a great sound , even though i just can't push the sound up or I'll get evicted..I mean, there are no reverb or gain knobs, just volume which ends up distorting anything within 30 meters..

So, just waiting to see if I win the Ibanez Tube screamer Ts9 and then see what happens..

Blues, blues and more blues with some Chuck Berry mixed in...

The Univox got the Dp110 back

As I was home with the deadly Sweden Late Snow virus I got bored and gaving looked around the shop I call home , I picked up my Ramones anthology tab book and regretted the day I removed the dp110 and made the Univox original again.

Johnny Ramone was famous for a few things, and believe it or not he also shared the same passion for a pickup that was released by Dimario as early as '72 and guitarists like Gilmour, Knopfler and the Edge from U2 also liked the overwound and dirty sound of this classic pickup.

So unless you have a shed of cash to buy a mosrite from the 70's and then start to "modify" a la Ramone the next best is to try and find a pawn shop classic like the Univox Hi-flier , mid seventies, and wire in the DP110. One of the problems now is that since Kurt Cobain picked up a Univox and made it his own to get that famous grunge sound even these 80 dollars in 1976 guitars is becoming harder to source.

So I made sure the convert is kept to be able to "back to the future" it and just to get that massive sound from something which is made from a wood that nobody can put a name too.

Kurt nicknamed them "Plywood beasts" which is what they become when a DP is wired up.

Slab plywood with a fretless rosewood neck which can be used as a whammy...

I restored the strap buttons (replaced) and wired in a genuine s/h 3 way switch as well as soldering up the earths. Good as new, probably better and of course, "Sheena is a punk Rocker" now sounds the way it should do.

Part !!! of project Authentic as possible JP signature is nearing an end and I'm running to my letter box everyday nowadays.

As she started as a first run production 95 les paul standard jimmy page signature (mouthful..) she the eliptical neck and gorgeous light honey burst finish with matched and bookmarked mahogany body and neck. But thats the end of what I consider good enough for his name.

hence the 2006 custom authentic made by the custom shop and retailing at high bucks. However, they dont really cut the crust unless you get one of the first Tom Murphy aged versions and they will cost around 20k..pounds and upwards.

And to put that cost into perspective, a genuine 59 Gibson Les Paul standard which the guitar is based on , just now on ebay..$450,000. So..my plan is simple.

The body, neck are spot on and already older wood than the latest offerings.

The stuff on the way though aint.

60s original patent pending Grover gold and word tuners...words can't describe

60's lightweight original tailpiece- tone maker and under an ounce

63 Gold and aged original ABR-1 bridge complete...hard to find, I found one..

used and aged 65 Gibson M8 Cream humbucker rings...just to add that authenticness

Gibson Historic truss rod cover, the standard is replaced by a thicker white rimmed cover

And to finish off , the pups which are over the counter 90's T500, T496 ceramics have to make way for that vintage sounding unpotted burstbucker alnico 2 or 5 sound..However, plans are afoot for me to undertake the insane idea of turning the 59 burstbucker unpotted alnico2 into a 4 wired conductor..meanwhile though, a custom made will be put in the bridge and hopefully by friday another 4 wire 59 classic seymour Duncan NJ (believe it or not, my initials) will be taking care of the sound. Ohm neck will be 7,65 and bridge around 8,9. but I suspect the tone and sound will really make the difference.

I've decided not to attack the caps or pots as they are all specials from Gibson USA for the JP signature.

pics will follow as well as soe sound files when its done.

Tinker taylor soldier spy...

Always been a tinkerer..

Nowadays its guitars, as you've probably read.

The guitar in question is my Jimmy Page Les Paul Signature from 95.

Now, most people would be happy and keep her as she is, but I'm not most people.

Just like Jimmy Page, I'm not satisfied with the t500 ceramic pickup in the bridge, or the abr tunamatic or the very heavy and tone destroying bridge.

Otherwise , the 59 light honeyburst has the lot, 4 pots with phasing, tapping, single coil tap and the only guitar that can join the buckers together to make one massive sound.

So, what's the guts? Well, basically I wanted some vintage pups, as page would have had when he got the original from Joe Walsh, and the ceramics are way too much. The T500 has the same Ohms output as a dirtyfingers/Iommi humbucker, and that on a 59 replica? Naaa

So, how to find a 4 conductor non potted alnico 2 or 5 humbucker?

I was very lucky to find another luncatic in the world in ebay who had exactly that, a Gibson 57 burstbucker which had been rewould to 4 conductor, unpotted and an alnico 5 polished magnet stuck in, final result was 8,6 on the readout.I'll update when its fitted.

8,6 is okay as a neck pup, even back then, but I'm gonna use it as a bridge and stick a modified Burstbucker 59, reound to 4 OR a Seymour Duncan 59 which I just found on ebay.

This is only a start to try and get to that Holy Grail sound for under $450 000 of an original, I found bits and bobs which I'm adding and which will make the beast a relic looking and sounding monster. (I do realise its in the wood, but 95 is 95 and it has the correct JP neck with eliptical mod).

So, 59/60 original Grover Patent Pending tarnished gold tuners on the way

60's original gold (but worn) under an ounce lightweight alloy tailpiece

68/69 Les Paul custom gold (worn) Pat Pend Tunamatic bridge

I spend some of my birthday cash on cleaning gear for the guitars and they all had their rosewood and pau ferro frets cleaned as well as Martin wax on their nitro finish. Take care of them and they take care of you!

(Even the Univox hi-flier worked better after some juicy lucy on the fret board)

So, can't wait to get all the parts together, solder up the pups and put it through the onloan Davoli baby Valve amp that just can't be described...I'll upload a pic at some point...the sound is..clean and 50's..

Speak soon

it's been a while, hasn't it...

...are the days of chain smoking and masi, sitting alone in the kitchen over? probably...
..or the phone bills that reached disproportional levels averaging 3500kr per month..unfortunatly..
oh, and lets not forget the fact that I would wait from 12 to 0300 in the morning ,looking and waiting for the phone to make that dreadful noise that is indeed NOT a ringing sound as advertised...most definitly..

and yet life goes on and with it we take some memories that are special in one way or another.

Sunday will once again be a day of mourning nostalgia, which is to say i once again take one more step towards the grim reaper.And as usual life around me is going at 100 miles an hour and its all fine in one way or another.

Sometimes you need to make a call, a change in direction that takes you off a path you've been walking down a while...in my case a long while. And sometimes you have to bite the bullet and really try hard to play the game of politics or brown nosing, or indeed say nothing at all, whilst all the while you rot inside and like the famous Edvard Munch 1893 painting of "silent scream" bursting out.
So finally one day you can actually look in the mirror and decide enoughs enough and live happily with the decision. I had to make that kind of decision so I could simply live with myself and basically be happy. The shitstorm I was living in was imposing too much anxiety and despair on my personality which after all I don't actually have a problem with. Not anymore anyway.

So things have become clearer and I smile a lot more which is a clear indication that I made the right decision. And so life goes on.

Over the past weeks some names have popped out from the past and I may be taking a trip down to Barcelona to play some guitar and enjoy the Spanish way of living. My days as a guitar tech have caught up and since my decision to get out from the clutches of International Rugby I have turned back to my roots and the love of not only listening to music but writing and playing music. Three guitars now litter the living room and the long nights are taken up by playing simple riffs and rythm and blues through a roland cube with headphones.

There has been a long period of pain which has finally been diagnosed as a stubborn kidney stone that may have to be blasted. April 1'st and judgement day. Can't wait.
With my project at work going as well as ever and the music as well there has been little time to train anyway, and it's showing. So I will have to get motivated after the blast and try and get back into shape.

Just thought I'd drop a note on the blog, its been a long and sorry empty front page for too long and I will update on a more regular basis.

Aye

shhhh...

bloody echo in here.....

så sant, så sant

Not often I would suggest that some text are spot on, despite being in Swedish, but the guy who wrote these knew what he was scripting about...

Jag har hört att du träffat nån,och jag hör att han är allt jag inte var Och jag hör att du är säker nu, och jag vaknar med den tanken varje dag Och jag hör att han är den rätteJa, dom säger att du verkligen menar det Och jag hatar att jag älskar dig,och jag älskar dig så mycket att jag hatar mig...
Och jag skäms för att be, jag skäms för att gråta Mitt hjärta är ditt att förstöra, låt din vän få vetaOch jag skäms för att säga att du är kvar i migskratta åt det för då kommer jag kanske över digHur kunde du falla när han sa: "Jag älskar dig, jag älskar dig så mycket att jag hatar mig..."
Mina vänner säger 'vakna upp' och 'sluta tänk på det'Men vad vet dom, nu är nån annan än jag närmare Livet innan dig kunde jag, utan och innanJag kunde haft det så för alltidMen jag föll för dig,och du förtjänade en nominering för rollen du spelade...
Det kommer alltid finnas en hand för dig nånstansDu kan sluta dina ögon och aldrig känna dig ensamOch alla vill väl ha dig nu,dem har ju väntat på det härOch jag hatar att jag älskar digoch jag älskar dig så mycket att jag hatar mig...
Det var en gång, det var en festoch jag gick med nån för hon påminde om dig Men sen kom gryningen, och jag reste mig och gick ut genom dörrenJag gick genom den tidiga morgonenDen rena, tidiga morgonen
Och jag visste inte varför jag gjorde såÅh, jag visste inte varför
Jag har hört att du träffat nån,och den här gången är du riktigt säkerOch jag hatar att jag älskar dig,älskar dig så mycket att jag hatar mig...

Dylan and a mushroom don't equate to liberate....

... and with that title who knows what I'm on about today.

basically the word of 2008 is change. As in, all change. Pathways have been looked down and fingers crossed I may be looking at a bright future if the 7 month project that I've been working on actually hits home. And as they say in Sweden, I'm half in..

Since the game of golf and indoor football the climb back from injury has been long, as well as all the weinerbröds and over lashings of sugar , thats right folks, its a short and ugly trip to the sugar fetma town and its my bus stop. So, a couple of sundays ago, having eaten 8 buns and 8 weiners as opposed to any real food, I decided to make the call and run to an indoor football training and not look back..and to date , despite having a potgut like a gorbys, I've managed 5k runs at least twice a week and some rugby sessions. They say that there isn't a miracle pill to help out in these difficult situations, but of course there is and hopefully the Stackers will be turning up at some point..
haven't made it back to the gym yet as the gym owners have decided to spruce the place up for Joe average which entails removing every decent peice of equipment out and replacing with modernized shitty machines...so motivation isn't there yet.

Yesterday saw a usual face in the street, for those of you who are familiar with the ins and outs, I saw that infamous "bus" girl walking down the street with a guy who was familiar to the honey monster...she was unmistakable and indeed dwarfed by the laddie. I hadn't seen her for at least half a year and always wondered what her story was. I suppose I still don't really know. Cracking though, has to be said.Well done the honey monster.

So many things have happened since the last retracted post, which is now being held in the dungeons with the dragons. Thats what happens when wee lassies collect their pennies and have too much gander time, its the old klipp o klister baby coop.This wont happen again as the blog that takes care of these subjects has been setup and those in the know have taken a shine too.

Have you noticed sometimes the scripting becomes almost too personal and you not only have to read between the lines but also need to be fluent in the same language as "Yoda".All adds to that personal touch, hihi...thats about as confusing as things get around here, you need a degree in "yoda" to cut through the hidden agendas and mental disorders that seem to fill the vacuums which are filled with string theorys anyway..Vacuums are not empty and devoid of everything according to the latest theories in quantum mechanics..as annoying as those people who don't script themselves but are quik to pik up on spelling mistakes..on the blog haha

okay, lets get back on track. It's usually at this point I can detect those with and without a charisma by-pass and those who believe they have an iq versus those who wish they had a higher iq.As I don't even know what IQ stands for, or indeed equates for in todays society.
If that's getting back on track I'm a runaway train.

Thinsg to do list has become less and less but there are still some toys in the attic that require a polish and serious look at, for a start my bike is still in a bucket somewhere and needs fixin'.Better plan that in. With the Guitar projects finished I will refrain from anymore and I may even offload the JP signature Les paul as my EJSRV which just aquired an EJ neck PU is becoming my favourite despite the large neck profile. The vintage string distance seems to suit my purposes more and the echo bell sound is simply amazing. With a trip to SA on the cards it may be a sweet idea to offload the JP but its not an easy call. The right wrist is stronger and with a supermotard in the building phase and the worst part of the weather over it may be an idea to get the two wheels on the road again.

Ok, losing track of everything just now, important emails coming thru, fingers crossed..

Back later, hope the Gibberish makes some yoda sense...as opposed to loda sense...

dooooooooooo

I ain't lookin' to compete with you,Beat or cheat or mistreat you,Simplify you, classify you,Deny, defy or crucify you.All I really want to doIs, baby, be friends with you.
No, and I ain't lookin' to fight with you,Frighten you or tighten you,Drag you down or drain you down,Chain you down or bring you down.All I really want to doIs, baby, be friends with you.
I ain't lookin' to block you upShock or knock or lock you up,Analyze you, categorize you,Finalize you or advertise you.All I really want to doIs, baby, be friends with you.
I don't want to straight-face you,Race or chase you, track or trace you,Or disgrace you or displace you,Or define you or confine you.All I really want to doIs, baby, be friends with you.
I don't want to meet your kin,Make you spin or do you in,Or select you or dissect you,Or inspect you or reject you.All I really want to doIs, baby, be friends with you.
I don't want to fake you out,Take or shake or forsake you out,I ain't lookin' for you to feel like me,See like me or be like me.All I really want to doIs, baby, be friends with you.