Cat-o-tec in Stockholm

About time to write some more. 

Last week was spend´t in Stockholm, a town filled with the Eurovision song festival and loads of "Stockholmare!" Me Mrs and her daughters was i Amsterdam so what to do. Well lucky for me Stockholm is the home of some nice musicshop´s. 

First and close to where I live (when in town) is JAM-guitars and JAM-syntotec. Started at JAM-guitars only to realise that there was no guitar´s that could be bought with the money i had. Outside the sun was shining and outside the entrance of JAM-syntotec their staff was enjoying the sun and a fag.

Always freindly this is the shop for all kind of keyboard players.They have it ALL, and stuff´d in shelter I spotted a Casio Midi-saxophone! "That looks interessting" crossed me mind. Picking it up, and it did look the same as the one i already have in me music collection.

-It´s faulty!! I did´nt even got the chanse to ask how much it cost, before he told me. -If you want it you can have it, we tried to repair it but couldnt fix it.

-Thank´s!!!! a smile on me face, and the knowledge that this could be repair´d with ease. Exactly the same problem was found on the Sax I already had. So guy´s if you read this, a GREAT BIG THANKS!!!!

Next stop among the musicshops was Halkans, a dealer in vintage guitar´s of various quality. Sometime´s he also dig deep among old guitar´s, amp´s and part´s and find something special. This day it was two brand new never used Burns Flyte guitar bodies. 

And both a guitar and a bass neck to the same guitar. Here we talking about NOS part´s. Guitar´s that never was! He also hade two guitarneck´s that was used on both the Burns Bandit model and Hayman.

The next day I went to TWANG, but couldnt find a single guitar that was interessting. A month or two earlier they had a Burns Jazz Splitsound in stock. A guitar that was modified by Jens LeStrange some years ago with 18 different sound combinations in the selector.

A couple of week´s ago I found a Balalaika at our local fleamarket. priced at 3,oo pound it did look like a bargain. They may all look like a piece of art but most of them that I´ve seen is some shit made up only to fool tourist´s. Lucky for me this one was´nt. New strings and it did work fairly nice! But what a hopless instrument with only 3 strings!

Spring at last

Spring is on it´s way at last, even if it still might be cold during nights. Have to start with the Levin deal. a 1952 Levin archtop entered the premesis, but was in a hurry exchanged for a 1980 Burns Marvin guitar.

Per Gjörde´s cousin arrived with a faulty Burns Orbit Three amplifier, one that I will restore to former glory. At the same time a similar amp was wreck was bought just as spareparts. There is always huge problems today in finding the right components for those 60´s amplifiers but with this wreck some rare parts was found. It´s cabinet and one of the 12" speakers is now set up as a speaker cab and will be useful with me Orbit 6.

  

As usual we use Wednesday´s for rehearsal with our band "The Görans Garage Band". It´s satisfying to realise that we seam to be getting better every week. All the cover songs that we used to play is now long gone, instead we use only music that is written by our member´s!

To cover up for missing band-members Kjell have bought a nice gadget where drums and bass can be store´d and set up with ease. Natuarly that gadget will go to the bin as soon as a bassplayer and some skilled drummer show´s up. (Ringo we need you).

List of song´s that is rehears´d at this moment, and is about to find the final form-sound.

"Human memory" music/lyrics by Kjell J

a nice ballad

"50 fat & lazy" music/lyrics by Kjell J

have to call this one 60-80`s Rock´n Roll 

"Stay with me now" music/lyrics by Kjell J

"Dragons daughter" music/lyrics by Kjell J

some kind of weird music

"Is this Rock`n Roll" music/lyrics by Kjell J

well here it´s 60-70´s rock for sure

"Joke of a man" music/lyrics by MJ

weird ballad about ole man-young girl.

"What is reality" music/lyrics by MJ

blues-ballad

"Company Sale" music/lyrics by MJ

rockballad in honur of Jim Burns and Burns guitars.

"Butterfly" music/lyrics by MJ

sweet as honey ballad

Do I need more guitar´s? Well there´s alway´s room for one more, and for long I´ve been hoping to find a Burns bass. Either a Marquee or a Bison. Not one of the old one´s I rather prefer the new made by Barry Gibson. Suddenly a white Bison was on sale at Ebay, and with the help of me freind Bill, I was able to buy it. At this moment I´m waiting for the package to arrive. Not one package but two as Bill has taken the bass apart, in hope that it would not be ruinéd in freight.

For at least a year by now I tried to sell me nice acustic bass, but with no luck. A couple of days ago a freind told he was interessted in it if I would like to make a swap for his 12-string Höfner guitar. At this moment he have the bass on trial at his home, but I´m sure he will arrive at my place any day  now with the old Höfner.

Spent last evening trying to make a demo of a new song. At 2.45 this morning I gave it up, made a pre-Master on me Minidisc that I use in the Studio. Left the studio, went to the livingroom and started playing the disc on my HiFi system. Only to discover that the balance was´nt right. Next step will be to make a new  pre-Master with correct balance!

As often as possible me and me dear Mrs tend to wisit Fleamarket´s in hope to find some nice things. At the last one we wisited I found this nice Dinky Toy´s model car. Lady Penelope´s 6 wheel Rolls Royce. A little gadget with link to music, Burns and the Shadows.

A yesterday wisit to the scrapyard where this sound device was found in working order. Nice gadget to use with recording systems.

 3 x Burns Orbit Three. One of em with 3x10" the other two with 2x12"

Now back to the studio in hope to get a proper balance in me recording.

What´s up

Been a while since I last spent some time writing on this blogsite. Anyway things happens all the time and as this is supposed to be a music-site and I´m very much into music all the time lots have been going on.

Some instruments and gadgets have been swapped-sold and some new has come in their place.  Our great band "the Görans Garage Band" is going from strenght to strenght. We started off playing covers, and soon became bored to death. The only song that we actually was able to sound good was our very own version of "Ellinor Rigby". So we made a decission to stop playing covers and instead only play our own songs. 

As both me self and our keyboardplayer Kjell have written hundreds of songs we have lot´s of songs to choose.

Here we are, at least three of us. Man in bowlerhat- thats me, while Göran then man himself play´s the Burns Double-6

And so the man behind ebony and ivory. The one and only Kjell J.

As both Göran and me self just love´s Burns guitar´s and amplifier´s those is a must in our band.  Just the other day, I made a mad deal with the owner of a Chrysler Voyager. The car was parked for the last years and was intended for use by a band in Gothenburg. Well deal went well with me handing over an old Vinyl recordplayer and got the Voyager, that was transported on a trailer home. A few days was spent to get it in order. Somehow there was some nice Drumgadgets found in the car that was in the deal.

Here pictured with a niece weiv, and the Burns logotype on its door´s.

Was also lucky to be the first caller on an advert of a 1952 Levin Royal archtop guitar. Seller sent the guitar in it´s case, but unfortinutly it was badly hurt at arrival! And natuarly the transporter didnt have any kind of responsibility.  Still it was a nice old guitar to play and look´d nice.

After consulting a expertise guitar builder decissions was made that I should sell this guitar or maybe exchange it.  That problem lasted less then ten minutes and the deal was done on the phone. A couple of days later the buyer arrived with a Burns Marvin 1980.

In the late 70´s Jim Burns did yet another attemt to be back in buisness. He did it with a new line of guitars. The Marvin that was supposed to be a replica of the 60´s famous Marvin guitar´s, the Flyte, the Scorpion and finally the Steer. Those guitars was all considered not to  be compared to the earlier Burns guitars regarding quality. Some was really bad, but lucky for some buyers some was really good. The one that I now own is among the later group, even if it dont sound like a Burns guitar in my ears, rather more like a guitar made in USA.

 With the same seller we also did a swap where he got a couple of cheap Strat-copies from me and in return I did get the 60´s Akuset mixer and two tubeamp´s.