The Melbourne Guitar Show.. Wow!!

This was an amazin' wow and the experience of a lifetime never to be had again. Yes, that reads never again. This had to be the most horrendous musical experience I've ever experienced.

The Bend

The thought even gives me the bends.

The Bend or the Bends, there's plenty of them, or the bends, the decompression sickness, take your pick. This is the new South Australian race track built at Tailem Bend where much racing will take place and hopefully they will get full houses every race day. It is located a 100k south east of Adelaide and about a six hour drive from Melbourne.

Music music music.

So things have been a little dull on it with guitars and cars and who really cares where Hairy Dan will end up in the 2019 F1 season or will Alfonso retire? I have been busy at the grind stone shaping a little music for a change.

It's been a while..

Say no more..

And it certainly has been a while. No, I haven't been on holiday. To be blatantly honest I've been bloody bored with what has been going on with both electric guitars and racing cars. The Gibson saga continues and Fender have gone completely nuts remodelling their entire range of Strat's and Tele's in a last ditch attempt to stave off the creditors, well lets hope not but I do see signs of desperation.

One for the rich and famous.

CAUTION: Zebra crossing.

South Australia not only gets to build the submarines but the Brabham BT-62 track car will also be built in Adelaide. A French company will build the subs for the tidy sum of $50 billion however PM Turnbull is chuffed that it will generate 2800 jobs.

Aussie's do well at the track.

Where there's a Will there's a way..

A great weekend for Australia in world motorsport this weekend with Danny Ric winning (read cleaning up) at Monaco and Will Powers winning the famed Indy 500.

How hard is this?

Is this a good example of over-engineering?

I have seen a couple of re-inventions of the wheel this week but this one takes the cake. Yep, it is a hard tail bridge but just how 'hard' is it? First there are no strings through the body, instead the strings are locked by the key holes and actually pull upwards putting pressure on the steel mounting plate.

To reveal where this rare bird has been spotted read on..

Gadinga duck, gadinga duck..

Is JP a crackpot of a genius? What ever we think, it saves us a job as guitar players.. strumming. I'm sure Jimi Hendrix could have made this little steel reinforced Squier speak in tongue's particularly when JP makes his mains-powered Mark 2 model. I just love mechanical inventions.

Kelly wins for Nissan at Winton

L - R: Bob, Brian, Larry, Funky Dan, Moses, Maurice, Barry, Robin....

The Supercars tore it up at Winton on the weekend in what turned out to be quite a race. On the same week that Nissan had announced that it was withdrawing its support from the Kelly brothers Rick Kelly drove his Nissan Altima to victory in Race 13 or the Supercar Series.

Is this Gibson's archilles' heel?

Yep, it gets my wow!

I watched a YouTube video yesterday of a guy that had seven of these fake Chinese Gibson Les Paul's and that got me wondering just how many of these Chibson's, Chender's. Chickenbaker's, and P.R.S.CN's are around and how they are affecting the real guitar market.

This could be a winner?

Nice but..

It seems Nissan have given their Supercar program the flick stating the Altima is no longer being sold in Australia as the reason. Whether or not the Kelly gang will keep running the Altima's without factory backing is yet to be seen but pretty much doubted.

F1.. fun and games?

Same circus, different clowns.

Is Formula 1 the most expensive sport there is? Most teams employ hundreds, many hundreds of mechanics, tyre changers, designers and computer nerds so there are a few million in wages, not to mention the aerodynamicists, or the guys that brew up the fuel. Each team would have a budget in excess of what the Melbourne City Council has. So why is it that Red Bull employ a couple of crazy go-kart drivers?

Why is it so?

Why is it so... Fender?

So, why is it so that Fender use their best sounding Strat pickups in their entry-level made-in-Mexico Standard Stratocaster? I have been looking around at Fender Stratocastsr's and all their variants and of the seventy six I've tried, that I may be able to afford, my findings seem to always go back to the Mexi Std. There isn't much wrong with this out of the box other than a badly cut nut but that's not uncommon for most Fender's these days. What ever happened to QC as we knew it?

The table turns for Dan.

Yes, we know you're excited Dan.

Hairy Dan comes up trumps in Shanghai for what was looking like an all red showing for the Ferrari's. After what was a shaky week end for the Red Bull ace, poor practice times, being out qualified by team mate Max, come race day things just got better as the laps went down.

The A B C of F1

Australia, Bahrain and today it's China. Here we are in red China and it's an all red front row with Seb going off pole for the a hat trick with Kimi alongside. Valerie Bottas out qualified Blingy so that will be interesting to see if he lets Hamilton past. Then Max out qualified Hairy Dan and there is no love lost between those two either. It will be a spectacular start.

The controversial 'caster.

The Silver Sky.

So when is a Stratocaster not a Stratocaster you might ask? Well, when it has birdies up the neck and a three-tuners-aside head stock. It's shock horror for the guitar world aficionado's when serial endorsee and groovy guy and not a bad player John Mayer and Pauls Reid Smith tooled up The Silver Sky. That is The Silver Sky with a The.

Cam Waters wins speedway title.

Supercar driver Cam Waters bags himself a national speedway title taking out the Octane Alley Speedway Sedans Australia National Modified Sedan Title and quite a lengthy title too. It's obvious that Cam loves his dirt track racing from what he had to say after the race. You're certainly not going to get that grass-roots feel about your racing in Supercars. Good one Cam.

No rain in Bahrain.

But it was raining cats and dogs for the Red Bulls. Hairy Dan popped a cork in his power unit putting him out early only to be followed closely by Verstappen when he tried to take Blingy out and came off second best. From all reports it was an 'exciting' race and I just can't wait to see the highlights. Congrats to Seb on his second race win, two from two. Great for Ferrari and commise's to Kimi's pit crew member who apparently received a broken leg during the Iceman's pit stop. What ever happened to the five-over-the-wall NASCAR style pit stops where pit crew are real action men?

Lowndes wins.

A well raced race for Lowndesy.

The all new ZB Holden bodywork seems to be paying off for the Holden's, winning seven of the eight races so far in the tin-top series. Craig Lowndes, or Lowndsey as we all know him, is the latest winner taking out Sunday's race in Tasmania on the weekend.

Happy Easter (trail)

It's wind down time for the sprintcar season and time once again for the annual 'Easter Sprintcar Trail'. When I was a lad just a few years ago we would follow the racing on Easter weekend, pitching our tent in the car park and freezing our butts off. It was huge fun. These days it's a matter of logging in to Speed Hive and a little reading.

Clicky the READ MORE link for how the 2018 Easter Trail panned out.