My Gear

In the absence of having any time to do anything better, here is a quick blog (rather than an in-depth rundown) of some of my gear, the most important stuff. I will at some stage write a real, full, interesting page full of stuff about each item…ahem…

My Gear

I’m not really one for grabbing as much gear as I can, constantly on the wheel of upgrading and getting the latest model of this or that. In fact, I’m quite blasé about it; as far as I’m concerned my gear is just a bunch of tools to get the job done. Now that’s not to say I don’t love my guitars, blasphemy!! I’m just not that precious about them, I’m not going to cry my eyes out if one of them gets a scratch or ding, but I wouldn’t be careless with them either.

I have had a few accidents though (well they have). One place we play quite regularly would appear to a reasonably safe place to have a couple of guitars on stands sitting on the backline, and right enough it had been for a number of years. However, one evening I decided to bring Priscilla (my gorgeous Cherry Burst Westone Prestige 250) out of retirement to sit in the wings just in case a string breakage would call for a quick replacement. It looked lovely resting on the sturdy stand, with a red spotlight shining on it, gold hardware very tarnished, giving it a proper vintage look appropriate for it’s 25 years of age. Towards the end of the set, some very drunk young ladies were doing their best to dance. Funny how dances used to have a name, like a waltz, or tango or whatever, but nowadays it’s just ‘dancing’ and that is generally a loose term. During a particularly energetic bout of ‘dancing’ one of the drunk young ladies fell onto the stand (normally quite a robust stand) that held one of a pair of very large PA speakers.

Now then. Sometimes you watch an accident happen as if it’s on TV, you’re a bystander. You would like to stop it but you don’t, you can (well, not if it’s on TV), but you just don’t. Instead you freeze, and watch like any other frozen bystander as the mighty PA speaker tumbles earthwards, crashing and crumpling and cracking all in it’s path. That’s what I did, I watched as the PA Speaker landed fully on top poor Priscilla, her going from an upright, proud, vintage guitar on stand look, to an ‘ohhh crikey, lying flat on the floor’ look with a big PA speaker on top of her. Sigh. I had actually managed to grab one of the handles of the cab on it’s way down but even still, once I righted the stand and cab, and said ‘No worries’ to the embarrassed drunk young lady who I could have quite happily jabbed with the sharp end of the guitar I was wearing, I expected the worst. And the worst was…a slight lacquer crack at the neck joint. Wonderful things ‘Through necks’ on guitars, a nice bit of mahogany that goes all the way from the headstock right into the body of the guitar, no bolts, all glue and perfect cut. When I lifted the cab I actually saw the neck spring back into place, love springy mahogany necks. But I digress. Here’s my gear (and is likely to be my gear for some time, cos a) I don’t like spending money and b) they’re tools (nice ones).

Guitars
Fender American Series Strat, 3 colour sunburst, Kinman pickups

Brian Moore iGuitar, i2000, Flame maple top,

Ibanez rs 430 ?

Westone Prestige 250, Cherry Sunburst

Epiphone ES335 dot

Aria Acoustic

Amp

Ashdown Peacemaker 40, 40 watt, self biasing Class A valve amp

Modelling and effects
Line 6 PodXT
Line 6 Pod2

KeeleyCompressor
Barber SS Drive pedal

Recording
Macbook
Logic Studio

PC
Sonar 4 PE

Wishlist
Nothing

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