R.I.P. Tom Ames ll

His final lap.

It's always sad to hear the passing of a friend, even if he was just a faceless internet friend from the other side of the planet. Tom ran with us in my computer simulated racing car series of a few of years back. A few of us race nuts started oval speedway (style) sim racing back in 1996 which was when Tom came along and raced with us. R.I.P. Tom

http://www.dirttrackdigest.com/racing-mourns-the-loss-of-thomas-c-ames-ii-1976-2012/

Why do I need two Strats?

The single and the fat.

Here's an often asked question by the wife. So why do you NEED two Stratocasters? It's all about tone. It was simple back in '56. The Strat was born with three pickups, identical triplets you might say. Mellow, Bright and Twang or in the case of Strat guitar terms bright, brighter and brightest. This was the case for 40 years until some bright spark at Fender inverted the 'Fat' Strat by replacing the single coil bridge pickup (Twang) with a humbucker.

Here's one smooth jazzer.

New from Ibanez for 2012

I had a noodle on this beautiful Chinese Ibanez jazz guitar today. The Artcore Jazz series of archtop guitars just keeps getting better and better. The AKJ85 is a major jump up from the regular AF and AG series with many more deluxe features such as a superbly flamed top and back and sides with multiple white/black/white binding around the body and f holes. It was nice to see Ibanez actually recognise these archtops a jazz guitars and not just hollow bodied semi acoustics in giving them real jazz flatwound strings.

How about them's apples ??

Oooohhhh Yeaaaahhh !!

I came across this pair the other day. I believe they are called Nashville Telecasters though I did see somewhere they were called Tennessee Telecasters. Either way I could never afford one or these juicy custom shop apples, just thought I would share them with you. Great use of a non-trem Strat body with a Tele custom bridge and modified Tele pickguard, a Tele bridge pickup and a Strat puppy in the neck position all attached to a nice lookin' Strat neck. Yum !!

Honey, I shrunk the car !!

No, you drive. I don't fit.

From the country that gave us roundy roundy racing and made it into the biggest spectator sport in the world.. NASCAR, we have Arena Racing. The familiar oval racing stockcars have been halved in size, lost a few hundred horse-power and race indoors on a portable aluminium banked oval race track. The track is a 1/10 or a mile (around 160m) and these little monsters can howl around clocking up 8 second laps. Behind the venture are some prominent racing identities such as Joe Gibbs and Tony Stewert. Tony had this to say.. "I've raced Midgets and Sprint Cars indoors, and there's definitely an added level of excitement. When I found out you could do the same thing with a half-scale stock car, but on a banked track with 14 other cars around you while making laps in 10 seconds, I was in."

Read more at: StockcarRacing.com

RIP Jim Marshall

The younger Jim in his prime.

Sad news this morning to hear of the passing of Jim Marshall (88) the 'Father of Loud'. Quite a successful career for a drummer, sorry drummers:) At a guess I would estimate two thirds of the world's electric guitarists have or have had a Marshall amp at one time. I know I've had two. Of course the success, or should I say the 'loud' was in the quad box. After all, the actual amp wasn't anything that different from Leo's famous Fender Bassman but the long grey box with the gold panel and brown knobs certainly had a distinctive look and sound made famous by thousands of legendary guitarists such as Jimmy, Eric, Jeff, Huey, Dewey, and Louie to name but a few. One 'Father of..' that doesn't get much of a mention is 'Father of Hernia' and the fact that Jim was responsible for creating a whole new work-force.. Roadies. Now if I could have invented a SOUND as recognised as Jim's I would die a happy man too.
The net is flooded with tributes, here are a few paragraphs from the BBC.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17625335

Goodbye and thanks Jim.. long live the 'Marshall Sound'