A new freind on line

Moses Oakland You Tube

So Im one of the members in a Swedish guitar forum, and a couple of days ago we was discussing my old Gibson guitar. One of those I do miss for sure. One member suggested me taking a look into a You Tube site with a certain blues musician with such a Barney Kessel Gibson.

Mr MOses Oakland & Gibson Barney Kessel.

Well soon I was deep into different Youtube screenings and started to write a fan.mail to the man. Today I got an answer from Moses Oakland.

Moses Oakland Quartet

He told about His guitar, his TR3 sportscars (two things in common) and his old bike a BMW. It was easy to realise that we did share a lot of interessts beside guitars and music.

In comfort style - Moses

So to all you readers take a close look at the Moses Oakland Quartet and their music at You Tube, this is really great music played by great musicians... would be nice to see and hear them in Sweden for sure.

"original Sound from the 60-ies"

Among musicians and collectors of today they tend to discuss and speak in regards of the sounds of the 60-ies. How an actual instrument or voice during the time was sounding with the equipment of that era.

With this in mind they wisit the local musicstore in order to buy a guitar and amp that has the 60-ies sound, now a days called a vintage sound. What I do find very interesting is that they with the vintage sound in mind mean a sound that is often distored almost like Jimi Hendrix.

They want a Stratocaster that doesnt produce a clean sound, and a similar amplifier! But during the actual 60-ies working in a musicshop I often met the problem with customers and their guitars.

- There must be something faulty with me guitar, it sounds like shit, they said and handed over a nice Stratocaster that acutally did have a distorted output and they wanted it to be rapaired.

What happened was the the lacquer insulation in the microphones had dryed and cracked causing shortage in its windings. This made the microphone produce a distorted sound, and not a clean one, as when it was new.

Those microphones was then partly dismantled and dipped in heated lacquer, after drying they was again working as new, producing a clean undistorted sound.

In a similar manner musicians began to dislike their tubeampliers. They alwas makinf a noice and especially at high output volumes they produced a distorted sound. The heat from tubes often made the capacitors dry out and partly break down causing unwanted sounds. In a matter of a few years companies started to offer the new type of amplifiers.

The new Silent Solid State amplifiers. On my behalf I swapped med nice VOX AC50 for a Burns Orbit Double 12 solid state amp. As many others did, well maybe the main part of musicians did that swap. (perfect for the upcoming to be collectors - a good VOX was at sale for peanuts).

In the late 60-ies early 70-ies everyone was desperate to have the sound of Jimi Hendrix and others similar in musicstyle.

With those new silent solid state amp´s they was forced to either crack loudspeakers with a razor(common) or in other ways electronicly force the amp into malefunction. The sollution of the problem was different gadgets, pedals that made the sound distorted.

Even manufactors of guitar microphones started to produce mic´s that produced a distorted sound alrady as new, calling them high output, or some other fancy names.

A new era in music was coming. Suddenly everyone was back searching for the vintage sound! But what was that sound, was it the sound from worn out microphones and cracked amps, or was it the clean sound this instruments did have as New?

So, was the sound of the the 60-ies like the clean guitars of The Shadows or the cranked out sound of Jimi?

By the way saw and heard the WHO on a conswert in Gothenburg, where they started to crash their instruments and amps. A guitar was smashed in the floor so it brooke down in pieces and guitar was smashed into the speaker of a huge Marchall mowing it to amplifier heaven. The hole performance made me sad, so sad that instead of enjoying their great music, I left the place with their expensive instrument distruction in mind only. It took me years to overcome this concert and once again starting to enjoy their music.

Output Hysteria! Just something about sound that came up in me mind, during me writing all this nonsense. As a youngster wisiting a concert with the Beatles in Gothenburg, I came to realise and look into what gear this popgroup used on stage at this arena event.

There was John playing a Rick thrue a VOX AC50, George with his Country Gentleman and a similar amp. Paul with His cute H;fner bass using a VOX 100 topbost. Plus their song microphone running thrue a VOX 100watt amps with a couple of speakers. Thats all in front of an audiens of app 10000 screaming girls.

Natuarly from my seat it was impossible to hear anything but the screaming. But still in mind, they used app a maximum of 700 watts.

At my bands last performance at a club in Malmoe 15 years ago, we used almost the same equipment. 700 watts, but all our amps including the drums was going thrue loads of microphones connected to a 6000 watt PA/system. This for an audience of almost 200 people.

Today using Our livingroom partly as a studio I use a VOX like the one pictured. There is all the power I might need, in fact much more thenI had om me first gig in the early 60/ies. It can also reproduce all the so called 60-ies sounds that I need.

Similar amps is today produced of lots of other manufactors. Amp´s with loads of sound gadgets buildt in. But still I do miss that real 60-ies tape echo!

Eurovision Song Contest

Its about time for the ESC in Dusseldorph/Germany. During the years since the whole competition started way back in 1956 Ive been a keen watcher. Hmm, I think I havnt missed a single program. The Swedish challange is over with a kid-boy as the winner. Will He make it to the top 5. No I dont think so and in fact I dont hope so.

Cliff Richard entered the competition with a nice tune, not the worst not the best. Still He was one of a few wellknown artist that entered.

With the old ESC´s in hopefully clear memory here has only been a few songs that actually made it as a Hit on my behalf.

I think my all time number one will be either the winner in 1963, when Jurgen Ingmann and His wife Grete won with "Dansevise" or it will be Irelands "Rockn roll kids" The first of those has been a struggle to learn how to play for the last 40+ years. On the other hand "Rockn Roll Kids" was a song that I did record in my very own version only an hour after I first heard it.

To listen and see ABBA take the trophy with Waterloo was natuarly great, at least it was a good pop-tune and for sure they did look great in their platform boots.

Among all songs in the ESC only a few have reached stardom outside their own countries. Maybe the quality of the songs isnt that good after all, still the ESC is a really great show, and I rather spend me time watching the ESC then spending a minute on fotball or hockey.

But whe the hell did the managment of ESC agreed to use loads of playback. No longer youll find a conductor and a band playing the songs. Maybe You cant even be sure of that the actual artists is singing? Or?

The ESc has went from strength to strength, the music has started to play a minor role in the program, instead the artist themself and their costumes has been some kind of Hit-ticket.

Why the hell use a former stripper, pornstar now a days renown as a burlesk artist world wide known. And as well as there was no Heavy Metal band winning (exept Finland) the show in the 80-ies when it was popular, why should a bad rapartist have a chanse to win.

Remembering the Beatles

Music, how to use a few notes to do magic in peoples senses. It may be tunes that make You happy, sad, wanna be dancing and even makes you cry. Ive already written about my first meeting with Bill Haley, the Comets and their Rock around the clock.

To be followed by Tommy, Elvis and loads of other artist´s, most of them Swedish copies of the US originals. A small country like Ours tend to produce its own artist, mainly caused by the fact that many of the greatest artists never wisited Our country.

Who was the greatest out of Elvis and Tommy? I think they was sharing the first place, just caused by the fact that Tommy Steele coming from the UK came to Sweden a couple of times. Elvis did not!

Every kid at school in Sweden is taught english today, but in the late 50ies and the early 60ies many of our wannabee artist didnt know english at all.

So in order to learn a song they listen to it several times from a record, trying to copy not the words but the sound of the words. When they finally entered the stage with their new song they used some kind of Swedish English SweEng-lish. Possibly impossible for someone from England to understand.

"the Shadows"

One way to solve this language problem was to make instrumental rock´n roll. Groups like the Shadows and Ventures wasnt hard to understand. In Sweden similar groups was formed. The Spotnicks even went to world wide fame. The Violents and loads of similar groups was formed localy.

At bargain prices Hagström sold the KENT guitar with 5 watt amplifier on postal order. Everybody could become a rockstar.

One day Our neighbours 6 year old boy in a happy mood started to sing a funny chorus in Swe-Eng-lish.

"SCHLAVJO JÄ JÄ JÄ" Late that night i tuned in Radio Luxenburg and there it was. The new group Beatles was playing She loves You. In the same moment my whole musicworld was turned over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoF-7VMMihA

A couple of weeks later The Beatles entered the swedish radio chart. As number one that saturday was the Rapiers playing "Father I cant open my coco nut" instrumental. As number 3 the same saturday was suddenly The Beatles to be found.

"the Rapiers"

The following week their singel and later their album was bought and played over and over again on me Philips recordplayer thrue an old radioset.

My short hairwas pulled to become longer and combed down on me forhead. I was dreaming about buying a pair of Beatles boots. To become a Beatles look-look-alike was the way to meet girls! I also was eager to learn how to play the Beatles songs on me guitar.

As a modern country at the time there was popgroups in rehersal in every garage and basement. Everybody wanted to be a part of the new revulotion. When foreign groups didnt come to our country, we did have our owns pop stars.

A year before the Beatles went from Cavern to world fame I had a penfreind in Liverpool. He told me that he was a cousin of Paul Mc cartney and sent me loads of Beatles posters, pics and other Beatles stuff.

In my own pop-band we started to play Beatles tunes, some of em successfully, some not that good. We tried to copy them all. The Beatles was like a music machine, producing album after album. One day the "Rubber Soul album was on sale and I was among those who bought it the very first day.

The very same evening there was at least 30 teenagers gathering in a garage. Well the family who owned the house didnt use it as a garage, rather a space to collect old things. On its floor a big carpet, loads of candles and in the middle of the floor.

A recordplayer with loudspeakers, in fac two of em, they called it stereo!

We all sat on the floor listening to the new album. At first in extreme silence, later as we learned the songs we sang along. As good as we could in some kind of SweEnglish, (we was just in the first stage of learning english and most of the time we tried to copy the sound of the words rather then learn how to pronounce em right).

Played it over and over again. Due to the extreme needle pressure of those old units the record was totaly worn out a couple of hours after midnight. A collection of money made it possible for me to buy a New copy a couple of days later when the album was back in stock of the musicshop.

Time went passed by, the Beatles broke up and wasnt anymore, well they still was very much alive as a group among us lovers of their music.

Natuarly I was sad when John Lennon was killed, but to tell the truth he was never my number one Beatle. No that place on my list was shared by George and Paul.

Making an attemt to become some kind of racecar driver I went racing in Germany a couple of times. Well I didnt do to well, I survied but at both events something for me unusual happened.

Having coffey with a freind of mine a couple of camping chairs and a table (later a Eurosport comentator) in the depot area someone suddenly called His name out loud. A few seconds later a longhaired and beardy man sat in front of us discussing racecars and not music.

George with His JAguar E-type,

to be followed by loads of fast cars.

Cant remember that I did say anything of importance, but at two different gatherings I was having coffey with George at the Nurnburg Ring. He was there with a couple of His own classic racecars and some freinds to drive them.

Already at that first meeting I asked me self why I didnt ask Him for an autograph, I didnt! And the same happened also the last time we met.

Cancer took His life and I felt as a dear freind had died. I do miss him.

But anyway the Beatles is still alive in my Music-World.

John Lennons, RR Phantom

my top ten Beatles tunes:

Norwegian Wood / what a great story telling the fact of love. Also perfect music.

If I fell / exeptional harmonies

Eleonor Rigby / Yet a great story, filled with loads of sad facts of life

Drive my car / hmmm

Ticket to ride / George guitar solo riff, so simple so great.

Faster / George tribute to F1 race driver Ronnie Petersson and others.

at place number 6, comes all the rest of Beatles tunes...

Magic Gadgets of 2011

Years ago I picked up me guitar and went to a freind of mine with a "State of the art" music studio in His very own home. Stacks of Big computers connected to a 32 channel mixer and loads of other magic boxes. All with the purpose of recording sound over and over again.

So much better then a taperecorder My freind explained and I was there to belive in His words.

Me guitar was connected and I started to play. After app 20 seconds My producer freind said its enough. A while later I played yet a couple of bars.

My part of the recording session was completed even before it had begun! An hour later My freind played the final recording. I sounded exellent, but in My sense it wasnt a real recording.

The bars that Ive recorded was used as some kind of LEGO-bricks to produce the final result... not fun at all in my oppinion.

I went home and was once again using me TEAC 8-channel taperecorder. I played the whole song on channel 1 and then went to overdubbing until I thought the final result was good enough.

Everything changes and after using a Fostex XR-5 kassett porta studio with 4 channels that was showing the sign of wear I started to dream of something new, a computer program that could be used instead of the porta. A freind of mine told about KRISTAL, a free studioprogram that in a hurry was downloaded.

http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

To start with I was amased about the soundquality, but soon I was about to realise that the channels didnt sync. It sounded like each new channel was delayd by a split second. This asummtion from me was right. Soon I was to realise that I also needed a special soundcard.

The use of this what I hoped, perfect and at no cost studioprogram showed to be much more expensive then I thought in the first place. So before I can start using this exellent program again I have to go back to my trust worthy ole Fostex Porta unit.

Lucky for me another freind of mine gave me a couple of Cro2 cassettes, to use with the Porta, reducing the tape noice a lot.

Next project at the moment is to either buy or build a speaker cabinet suiteble to my VOX AD60 amplifier. That caused by the fact that the Line 6 75 watt combo that I bought with intention of using only its speaker and the cabinet show to be in perfect working condition. By now I intend to sell it, as I dont have any use for it.

Testing Youtube

Suicide is painless

this is my first attemt to link a musicvideo from Youtube, hopefully it will work. It seams to be partly hidden on top of this text.

"BURNS"

As a serious suggestion to someone in need of My knowhow regarding Guitars I use to say that the potential buyer of a guitar shall never look for a certain brandname. The best guitar for You and Me can be totally different guitars.

Wich is the Best? Fender, Gibson, Ephiphone, Gretsch, Burns, Ibanez, Grecco, Martin.... to many different brands to mention.

In my youth MY dream guitar of all time was the Gibson Barney Kessel archtop model. A great guitar with double Venetian cutaways. (extremly expensive)

Will this Dream guitar, also make the other Gibson´s as good as? The Fender Jaguar/Jazzmaster range of guitars was top of the line in the 60-ies. Is the Strat and the Tele as good as? During the years Ive owned several guitars, Gibson´s, Fender´s You name it.

By the way, the best ever Stratocaster that I played and owned was´nt even a Fender!

Already as a teenager I fell in love with Les Paul. Not the guitar but the inventor - the artist. The Les Paul Gibson guitars was heavy, impossible to play sitting down and in my oppinion not at all a great Gibson!

So how come, someone like me still fall in love with a Guitar brand. I dont know for sure. Maybe partly caused by the fact that one of my idols used to play one. On the other hand, I never said that every guitar made from this producer was great. Not at all.(some was pure shit!)

Cliff Richard and the Shadows stared in the Summer Holiday movie. They used mainly Greenburst Burns Marvin guitars.

When as a youngster I worked in a musicshop I did have the opportunity to try em out. Leading to he purchase of me first Burns guitar. A thing called Burns Split Sonic. It was a true beuty and included various sounds that no other guitar could produce.

I really loved that guitar, but a while later I was offered to trade it to a Burns Black Bison. A swap that took me all the way to guitar heaven. No other electric guitar was to be compared with this beuaty. Me a rather thin youngster was soon to realise that the Bison and especially its owner-player needed to be a bodybuilder. It was extremly heavy especially playing it standing on stage.

Both guitars did have a similar microfon setting and almost the same tremolosystem. The later proved to be almost unbreakeble. Properly stringed and tuned the you could hang the guitar in its wammy bar. But it was Heavy!

How come I didnt go for the Fender´s? Hmm I dont know, somehow everybody was playing em in the early 60-ies. A Stratocastar was at that moment priced the same as the "Burns Split Sonic" while the "Jazz Split Sound" was app 25% more expensive. The "Bison" was more then 50% more expensive. The only "Fender" that got me was the "Jaguar & Jazzmaster" but only a few of those was imported to Sweden.

During the same years in the mid 60-ies Burns offered a transistorised Guitar Amplifier with 50 watts output, and no background noice. Something that forced me and many others to swap Our VOX AC30-50 to this new amp!

A couple more Burns guitars was joining me collection and in the late 70-ies My collection included 12 Burns guitars. Pics below show either me old guitars or similar with pics that Ive borrowed.

Burns Hank B Marvin 1965

Burns Virginian 1965

Burns Jazz Split Sound 1964

Burns Vista Sonic Bass 1963

Burns Jazz Split Sound Bass 1964

Burns Split Sonic 1963

Burns Bison Albino 1964

Burns Bison Albino Bass & Guitar

Burns Black Bison Bass 1963

Burns TR2 or Vibraslim

Burns TR2 1964

The Burns Flyte ca 1974

Well what about those guitars? The Marvin guitar was sold in favour of a couple of other Burns guitars, somehow I did love its design but never to play on it. My all time Burns favorite is still the Jazz Split Sound guitars and the Jazz Bass is possibly the best bass-guitar I ever played with its rubbercovered strings it did have a great sound.

Due to economical problems my complete collection of "Burns" guitars was sold. Instead I started to build me a Bison copy out of a piece of honduras mahogony. The guitar have since its birth been played frequently and also re-designed several times. Hopefully it will be ready in a couple of years. But 25+ years has proved its quality.

Iy contains a Floyd Roose tremolo unit and the bridge pickup is an original Gibson Les Paul Studio. Maybe the two other microphones will be swapped in the future.

Somehow Jim Burns also made the acustic line of guitars very heavy, why I dont know. The"Flyte" a guitar I bought only because it was a Burns. God knows it was a shitty guitar!

Years after me buying the Burns Orbit amp natuarly I did regret the deal. But on the other hand times was new and an old second hand Orbit was cheap to buy. One is still in my collection.

My interesst for English sportscars led me to Brittain where Ive got the idea to meet with Jim Burns, the former constructer/luthier of the Burns guitars. It was fairly easy to find Him and we did meet at a pub. I reccon that He wasnt feeling alright so it became a very short meeting, over a couple of beers.

A year or so later during a wisit in the UK, I was told about a very special car. A car that was supposed to be designed by the same Jim Burns. I didnt find the car then, but later I saw it for the first time at a car meeting in UK.

Somehow in 1967 Jim Burns wisited the Alvis Car Company to discuss the idea of a car that He dreamed of. He did like the cars produced by Alvis but wanted a stronger motor. Jim made his first down payment on the car and the company started to build it.

The car as You can see on the pics was a redesigned Alvis TD21 Coupe. With diffent lowered roofline, double Bently-ish headlights and under the bonnet a Chevrolet Corvette V8 Motor.

The car was ready for delivery in 1968 where it also went to various carshows round Europe before delivery. But at that moment Jim Burns didnt have the possibilities to pay the car. So in fact the car He ordered and designed was never to become His car. He didnt even get the chanse to take it for a testride.

Rumours tells that instead of letting Jim Burns borrow the car for a test, the car was lent by a guitar player who took Jim for a ride in the Alvis Corvette. Natuarly the guitarplayer was none other then Hank B Marvin.

Even if it aint a collection of old Burns guitars its still de start of a collection. At my 60-ies birthday My Lady-love gave me a Burns Marvin Marquee 2005. It has since then proofed it self as a really good guitar. The perfect substitute for the old Burns guitars.

Finding an advert with a as new second hand Bison-62 reissue made me jump and suddenly there was 2 Burns guitars on me wall. ( I do miss the original tremolo system)

Beeing a Burns-freak in my search I did find this Hard Rock Cafe guitar. Unfortinutly its from Mexico and it may be hard to get it to Sweden.