Sunday, February 05, 2017

Where the magic happens



I've spent a couple of days fault finding and eventually completely rebuilding this Strat set up. Some hair may have been pulled out in the process. Finally it's working, no hissing or cracking and now sounding good installed into it's host guitar body. I've also added a treble bleed resistor on the volume pot which, unless I'm mistaken makes a bit of a difference, even somehow managing to add (and subtract) elements to the five way selector switch. I'm going with it all anyway, the lofty peak of soldering and fiddling endurance has been reached. Understanding is for the wise and not for the likes of me.

Saturday, February 04, 2017

Almost based on actual facts


I can understand why some people might like being in hospital. Despite the negative Daily Mail/BBC type of hype and propaganda banded around about the NHS I find the staff and the service (?) good, that is once you get yourself in there. (Reminder, this is Scotland not everywhere and I've little actual experience of hospital managers). 

Lonely people must like the element of fussing (it actually happens, staff care), human attention, dialogue, gallows humour and camaraderie between patients and staff. I'm just out again, free and antibiotic'd up after a brief encounter with badly behaved bodily fluids. I walked out feeling listened to, respected and a bit better but still on a journey.

This was my final view, an empty bed, ready for the next lost, troubled and worried injured soul to find comfort in and use as a base for endless mobile phone texting and games playing. That's what everybody does, sitting on beds wearing muppet pyjamas, supping juice and waiting on the green coated experts deciding on their fate and then changing their minds. Outside the sun beams down on endless car parks and guerrilla smokers as we, safe and warm behind the glass reflect on what we have - temporarily. Free and functioning at the point of need, mostly, but an easy target for greedy bastards and contract lawyers to tear apart and transform (fucking Tories love that word) into some unfair and unworkable model of profit and inefficiency. 

Once in a while Britain does do some good things, things that don't deserve to be mocked, slagged off or sold to the most soulless bidder from the Middle East or god knows where. The NHS is the shining example, the last one, a cracking and bullied reminder of what those cloth capped heroes and corseted heroines fought for when socialism, welfare and emancipation actually meant something. 

I'm not quite well yet but I'm better, if I had to pay for my treatment so far the garage would be empty and my dreams set down a few notches, but then in 45 years of working I've probably paid my share for a few hospital beds and I know, and we should all realise and ponder; this is where we all end up come the day.

Friday, February 03, 2017

Celtic Conventions

(Warning: Awkward and predictable generalisations ahead) In my usual burst of late winter curiosity I sat down to watch some of Celtic Connections via the iPlayer. I'm trying hard to improve my taste and understanding and to gain greater appreciation for that broad church of Celtic sounds that are bundled together there. Of course the musicians are impressive albeit most guitars are assigned the role of silent strumming whilst the fiddles and squeeze boxes create a crashing wall of sound. Yes they can all play and they all dress and behave like reasonable people, it's very civilised for all of it's rough heritage. Rock music in reverse I suppose and goodish things will always find some natural order and an audience. 

The problem is that after a while what I call the "Donald" effect takes place where after a bit I hear Gaelic lyrics and melodies distorted into lines such as "Donald drove the Moomins out", I can't really explain it and I can't unhear it once it begins. Maybe it's the old White Heather club influence when every other song was some kind of Jacobite lament to various kings and moody, feeble chancers somewhere across the water. Very romantic and plaintive but ultimately depressing, designed to keep you in your place, longing for some conveniently distorted past life. It's nothing to do with made up Scandinavian woodland knitted sock creatures either. It makes no sense. I blame Andy Stewart and the Dixie Ingram dancers and TV that was made up of 425 lines of shades of grey, and of course my parents (these good folks below are neither parents or relatives).



Thursday, February 02, 2017

Headstock Shot


Trust me it looks better in real life. Something about the camera never telling lies (unless the light is bad or the photographer is worse). A design mix of pyrography, ink and acrylic paints finished with a clear varnish. So I had a few fun filled days putting this guitar together, they are stubborn things sometimes and generally it's the antique wiring and lining up parts that cause problems. Never the craftsman.




This isn't before and after, it's two separate projects, the Blackie finally coming together and another body getting a mixture of roasted, sanded and filled. Still a long way to go with this plywood marvel already dubbed as "Ghost Guitar". I hope it can survive.

Wednesday, February 01, 2017

Before the age of digits

The Dirty Dozen.
The Great Escape.
I love these old movie posters, hand done and generally a lot more exciting and dramatic than the film turned out to be, apart from these two anyway. Read and see more here, the artist is Frank McCarthy. 

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Not much La La left


Every year we try to catch up on popular culture and tune into whatever's hot in the awards and Oscars shortlists. We always fail miserably to a) see them all and b) fully connect, but it's almost fun making some half hearted effort to get there. Films, unlike pop music haven't veered off into another unrecognizable place. Funny that. Maybe it's still to happen. So we saw La La Land, a non-digitally filmed spectacular with dance scenes reminiscent of many a Cliff Richard movie punctuating a bitter-sweet story line. At any moment I expected Una Stubbs to prance across the screen followed by some jokey and clumsy posturing from the Shadows, stranded in Greece without their guitars.

Anyway I liked the colour and the feel, slightly grainy and full of references to some so called golden age that like all the others never really happened. The glossy friendliness and apple pie niceness of the USA seems very far away now, not much La La left. Unfortunately or as you might expect there's nothing in here that gets even close to Fred and Ginger at their best or touches Gene Kelly's almost frightening, madly grinning artistry, despite all the critics comparisons. The tunes were not so hot either, lacking the killer hooks necessary, strangely I did come away happily ear-wormed by A Flock of Seagulls "I Ran". I found Mr Gosling a bit too broody and unlikeable and surprisingly wooden but Emma Stone can move and act, she's the real deal, full of expression and very watchable. What I think hardly matters, I'm sure it'll win a few prizes come the day and the $$$s are in the bank.


Monday, January 30, 2017

Forming an orderly queue


Dissecting guitars for a kind of living is kind of fun, once you clean the dust, fag ash and crap away. Slicing them apart, removing the wiry innards to see what makes them hum or buzz or make no sound at all. To see the various deviant versions of switches and pots and layouts. Some components (Korean and Japanese) are solid and rugged and well made, Chinese variants are relatively cheap and feeble ( a last resort) but all parts are pretty much interchangeable, with a little persuasion and a file. Above is a chopped Korean Squire with and Ibanez neck and, once complete, a nice feel and tone, hopefully.  In the shop any day now.

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Sprouting Groot


A madly sprouting Groot, green and energetic, ready for anything that the galaxy may throw at him. Water twice a day for best results, prefers a sunny spot if possible.

Friday, January 27, 2017

Winter garden


As the weather has been made up mostly of cold but better weather I did a spot of mid-winter gardening. Peeking into the compost bin, re-potting the Christmas tree and repairing various bird feeders destroyed by over excited rampant squirrels. Dodging creepy crawlies was also high on the agenda. Then the ritual gathering of the logs takes place followed by observing cats eat grass and then (cats not me) peeing on shrubs. Next, time to top up the rat poison and of course measure the trampoline so that a new set of safety cushions can be ready and in place for the new season.  Then the shed roof, which remarkably still is in it's proper place, was also checked, no damage was reported. Whilst scrutinizing the lawn I rearranged some mystery pebbles, those that appear in clumps, long distances away from actual sources of known pebbles. A puzzle wrapped in an enigma. A bit like pheasant's shit. What do they actually eat that results in such a strange blue/grey sticky substance being spread all across their stolen habitat? Then time to "moss watch", that's watching moss appear in strange and inaccessible places, generally deposited by starlings hell bent on clearing moss from the roof to make nests, or stew or something else. Anyway great clumps land everywhere, at random and if left unattended...slowly turn brown and brittle, like humans.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Life and death in Australia



Not sure what I was doing or looking for but I came across these images of the gallows at Melbourne Gaol. In what's best described as a fairly spurious link I thought about my old (40+years gone) dad who'd worked as a carpenter in Australian jails at some point between 1946 and 1950. I recall him talking about some of the convicts awaiting execution, he said they were mostly "young lads" who looked like they didn't quite know why they were there. He'd have been in his late twenties at the time, battered and broken after five years serving in the navy during WWII. Well it's another world and a long time ago but these pictures, which may not be anything much to do with my dad's working history, gave me a brief insight into his past and amplified that awkward and barren list of missing things I'll never quite know about him.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Life's long struggle



We all know that life is a long struggle eventually ended by death, and so is guitar building. This one, known as Raven II has been tricky to the point of difficult to the point of bloody awkward. It's been apart, shimmed, filled, soldered, adjusted, screwed, re-screwed and checked umpteen times. Suddenly today, without any warning it all worked, electrics, notation, action, screws and fasteners all in place and guess what? It's a pretty good guitar to play. It's an instrument of contradictions and challenges and probably not to everyone's taste. The body is a patchy pyrograph mash up of bird and beast, a road-worn pleasing mess of colour and neutral wood and oil, the scratch plate a strange mixture of black and purple plastic and Viking dragons, the neck is just about perfect and pristine with a dragon tail motif in acrylic paint. It'll be up for sale as soon as I can get a decent photo job done.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Diploma in Star Wars


Just as I'm completing my (life long learning) course in the ways of the Force and the history of the Star Wars universe at the Open University of Life, along comes another tale to confuse followers and haters alike. I've been diligently studying YouTube clips, seeking out Easter Eggs, mapping plots and characters across a range of films, games, books and cartoon series only to find that, like any other universe, this one never ends and worse than that, it's now on a collision course with our own tiny universe. We are about to be invaded by more Disney clones, Imperial subterfuge and black magic from the dawn of time, or maybe it's all already happened and I failed to notice. My thesis may take longer than I thought. So what came first, the last Jedi, the first Jedi or the egg?


Monday, January 23, 2017

Howl's slow moving guitar shop


Another shot of Clint the cat observing the antics of a new visiting puppy on the floor below the staircase. The encounter (the first of many no doubt) seemed to go well with no unsavoury behaviour from either beast. 


Now that the "Slow Moving Guitar Shop" I recently set up on Etsy has actually started to move i.e. generating sales (something I never really expected) I need to think about my sales and manufacturing strategy. At the moment the "one of a kind" aspect of the shop seems to be a key part of the early success along with prices. I guess I always new that the more expensive guitars would be tricky to sell, for all the obvious reasons of choice and competition. So to what extent do I try to adjust this or do I let things just follow a natural course? The other matter for consideration is selling internationally. This much more costly in terms of shipping, customs and insurance but I'm faced with the problem (or opportunity) of knowing that many of the shop's hits are now coming from the USA and I'm not selling there at present.


Sunday, January 22, 2017

Happy Place

Cat with radar eyes. 
Puppy assaults hedgehog doorstop.
Groot returns to greet the Spring.
Following on from the unbridled infuriation that I've felt towards Trump and the UK Government over the past few months I've decided to declare this blog space a No Trump / No May location. After today's unavoidable name check for these two (and their like) I'm moving into a determined sort of happy place where political mentions will be few and far between. I'm not taking any drugs either. The current level of angst and protest (quite rightly generated) somehow needs not to consume so much of my waking hours. I don't mind a little anger and disturbance and I realise how important these are and of course things are pretty fucked up, I just don't want the political problems that are looming to encroach on every part of what I do all the time.  Let's see how long I can cope with this before I crack.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

The very powerful


Not a huge Doctor fan but this reads well enough. Tweeted by a few as it was Tom Baker's birthday yesterday. So like many non-Americans I felt compelled to watch Trump's inauguration as it happened, a start to a season of car crash events and garbled rhetoric  I've no doubt. What I saw left me disturbed; a flaccid, puffed up man, barely able to offer a credible argument for anything baying at a crowd who looked, for the most part unimpressed and grim faced. Money buys a lot but not everything i.e. good sense, taste, tolerance and kindness. This guy will be a handful. 

Of course God figured big time, Jews, Catholics, Baptists and all sorts of leaders standing there alongside their new leader speaking as if they and their God(s) might actually influence the next four years. Sad, we won't hear much about about God's guidance during Trump's reign of terror. It was a bankrupt and a chilling affair, cold and damp as the January rain showering down on Donald and his puppet family. I hope he's happy now, not many are and I'm pretty sure any Gods that happened to tune in wouldn't be either. Then and yesterday...


Friday, January 20, 2017

Difficult day


It's not happened yet but whatever it is that happens in the USA today, it's going to be a tricky one to get through. I hope that it's reasonably peaceful and does not escalate into some inflammatory embarrassment or worse a tragedy of any kind. Leaving it there I think.



Thursday, January 19, 2017

Thank you Mr AA Man


These guys are good (well they were good for me). A really prompt response to my home start request, about fifteen minutes. Quick electronic diagnosis, a check of all the affected components, a fix (recharging up the battery), a battery test, some good advice, no hard sell, no new parts needed and so back on the road. Vroom - Ker-ching!

In other news the slow moving guitar shop I began on Etsy is slowly picking up, as you might expect. Thanks to all the likers and supporters. New products coming soon. Actually the "Slow Moving Guitar Shop" is maybe a better name than whatever name the shop currently has. Hmm.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Pac-Man Cheesecake

Tips to enhance meal times, adding value and conversational meaning to ordinary foods and boosting your arty factor quotient: Number 1 in a short series. The simple addition of a single well placed raspberry turns any mundane cheesecake into a colourful tribute to that well loved computer game hero from the distant past (?), Pac-Man.
As per our regular early morning wake up ritual the cat decides that we will not be doing any typing for a short while.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

What cats want


Cat's require attention, most of the time but only on their own terms. They will also ignore you and hide, refuse to be friendly and will be repulsed by any contact, but will invariably plant themselves all over you if you intend to work, relax, eat, read or attempt to live any kind of independent life.

Monday, January 16, 2017

Calm down it's just a TV show


Too clever for their own good: Somebody rightly described last night's Sherlock as being what "talented people making shit TV" looks like. Yes, the writers are just a little bit too clever for their own good and maybe, in the case of this series have stretched any abstract or emotional premises that they thought they had some latitude with just a little too far. It may simply be that they really had just run out of ideas and decided to try to make an episode that paid homage to The Prisoner ( a TV series of the 60s). Puzzles and conundrums and mayhem, keep the audience guessing at all costs when all meaning is lost. The idea of rebooting dead characters doesn't help either, that's simply code for "why did we kill them in the first place?" Now we need their mystical gravitas to patch up scene after scene in order to seduce the dumb and needy viewer. It's gone now, along with the magic that the earlier episodes managed to generate. That's the curse of populist TV, not knowing quite when to stop, particularly when it's a cash cow.



Wow, another picture that in years to come will make Mr Gove as comfortable as taking tea with Hitler would. Two buffoons of the first order building a thumb bridge across the Atlantic. Makes you proud to be British. FFS.