What about ????

Here in Sweden we just finished the Swedish version of Eurovision Song Contest. Millions on people watching and sometimes wondering how the hell could that song - artist be the winner. During the existance of this program that started already in 1959 I´ve been a faitful veiwer. My favorites seams to lose most of the time. 

So how come some of the songs win, or even is among the songs in the competion. I cant tell, must be someone in the management. Years ago both You and I hade the possility to write a song, that might have a winning ticket and be among the other songs in this competition. Today the team that arrange this program is dicatators. They decide who will be offered to partisipate as composers and artist. No use for me and You to send our super hits!

Year´s ago a Swedish jury and the people shared the possibility to wote for each song. Today this jury is to be found among the compiting countries. Witch song will be the next HIT-song in Europe.   This year I had two favorite´s. In fact the best of them was a Heavy Metal singer and a Grand piano set on fire! While the other favorite was some kind of Japaneese Manga doll. The song performed by this "doll" was far from the best Ive heard with that artist, but still it felt like something new!

Talking to me teenage daughter I realised that Her favorite was a Justin Bieber clone, a cute boy who might well be a great artist one day, but he may also follow the crowd of new artist and become forgotten in a short while.

It´s kind of fun to ask the younger generation in regards of their taste for music! Taking a huge step back in time, it stands clear to me that nothing have changed.

In those days it was for a young boy like me, stars like Elvis, Tommy and not to forget Beatles and Stones that was the big Idols. Those artist was our dream. We wanted to be exactly like them, and did almost anything in our struggle to be some kind of copies. 

Among the girls, the situation was different. They dream´d of the same artist as their wannbee Partner in life. The perfect MAN! was number one. their music might have been second.

Talking to youngsters today (worked as a music teacher a load of years) it seamed to me that all of them did listen to the same music. But it also seam´d that the girls was hade a liking to the Boys-music. Asking them as a single person their favorites was totaly different. In regards of songs the girls often prefered female artist singing sweet ballads.  hope you readers understand what I try to say. There is a differance in male and female music for sure.

Back to the competion where the jury woted for one of the boy-artist, and my favorite was placed way down on the list. When finally the Swedish people woted this manga doll suddenly did get the main part of peoples wotes. Without the foreign jury he-she would have been the winner, not the first runner up.

To be a Rock´n Roll artist seams to be extremly dangerous. If the artist doesnt die and a airplane - car crash He-She seam to become a drug addict. Some of em die young, some survive but dissaperes from the Scene.  Reading the news the young Justin seam to have found the joy of drugs. A bit early in my oppinion. What will happen next?

"love at first sight"

Sometimes I wonder what really makes one single guitar so special. 

What make´s it stand out in a way that cant be compared with its competers. Is it caused by it producer, its brand. Or maybe its more important in wich country its originally produced.

How is it possible to compare different guitars in a wide different price range. Is it even possible in regards of the Electric guitar.

Caused by economic retrictions, custom-rates and other taxes a fairly cheap guitar in its orgin country might end up extremly expensive in Your own country. Even if those extra cost today seam to be minor.

Les Paul & Mary Ford in the early 50-ies

With the use of famous guitarplayers, bands different guitar-makers can make their product more popular. They can even add an air of exclusivity to their brand.

with the Japan revolution we realised that they was not only able to build great motorcycles, cameras, hi-fi equipment and more. They also started to produce electric guitars, often exact copies of guitars made in countries like the US. 

Gibson Les Paul-Playboy edition.

the "LOG" Les Paul´s first electric guitar

Back to the roaring 50-ies n 60-ies.

In USA the late Les Paul in need of more sound from his guitar constructed one of the first electrified guitar using a Gibson Archtop. Later he constructed the famous Gibson Les Paul guitars. 

Fender Telecaster

During the same time Leo Fender started with his guitars, the Telecaster and Stratocaster. Guitars wich all is famous world wide today.

Fender Stratocaster 1960

In Europe and in my country Sweden we was forced by the economy to use European made guitars. Even if we dreamed of a US built guitar. The line of Fender guitars was more expensive then similar guitars made in Europe.

Gibson L5

Its not totaly wrong to say  that noone went out to buy the extremly expensive Gibson L5 just because Elvis Presley´s main guitarplayer Scotty Moore used one. It all changed with bands like the Shadows, the Beach Boys, the Beatles.

The Shadows started with some different Fender guitars but started to use the UK produced Burns guitars. The Burns company even had models named as signature Shadows and Hank B Marvin. The Beatles entered the scene with a US made Rickenbacker, a US made Gretsch and not to forget a German made violin bass from Höfner. Not a Fender or Gibson in sight.

the Beatles 1964

Especially Beatles made every youngster to shop for a Höfner, the two other guitars was a bit to expensive.

Levin Archtop 1964

All over Europe guitarmanufactors pop´d up like springflowers. In Sweden we already had the Levin and Bjärton factories who made high quality acustic guitars. Soon their guitars was fitted with microphones and became electric archtop guitars. The Hagström company started to make electric guitars, and later acustic ones. all of them was top quality instruments with a price range from fairly cheap to extremly expensive.

Hagström-KENT guitar of 1963

Around western europe several guitarmakers made: EKO, VOX, Elite, Dynacord, Klira, Höfner, Hohner, Framus, Burns and many more. The VOX guitars was mainly made in Italy by other makers, then branded VOX. Main part of the other European made guitars was in the low and middle pricerange offering good value for the money spent.

Höfner 1965

While guitars from the US often was priced higher then the European they also did have their fair amount of cheap guitars. the fact is that the Fender company´s guiars was mainly sold at supermarkets in the US. With this in mind many European musicshops didnt want to sell those mass produced guitars. Still Fender is today regarded as a top of the line guitar. 

Harmony 1965

Harmony was yet another company that sold their products with the help of postalorder and supermarkets. Often Harmony guitars had a different brandname, connected to the shop that was about to sell it. 

Among those companies in Europe as far as I know it only two of them made guitars in the top pricerange. Well buildt handcrafted guitars for the serious guitarplayer. Levin and Burns.

Burns replica made in 2010

Even if they was fairly unexpensive guitars in the 60-ies, they can often be compared with much more expensive guitars of today. The quality of those instruments might be low compared to other guitars from the 60-ies. 

EKO 290 2V 1964

Most of the guitars from the 50-ies and 60-ies is today regarded as colelctors items and sold at prices that seam to reach the skye.

With Japan producing eact copies of great guitars, the US suddenly found their selfs in a competition. Ibanez produced copies of every Gibson guitar made and sold em at extremly low prices. the guitars was of similar quality as the originals. This as the now famous and saught after lawsuit models.

Ibanez Barney Kessel lawsuit app 1970

This competition made almost all of the world renown companies to start procution of copies with their own brand names. Countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India was among the contries were guitars now was made. A Fender named Squire, the Ephphone compande bought by Gibson now became the asiatic brand for the company´s procuts made in Asia.

Epiphone ES175-3 Bigsby made in Korea by gibson

The Swedish copanies Levin and Hagström went out of production, but is now produced in Asia.

Levin archtop made in Korea 2005

Guitars if fashion, guitars is love at first sight. With this in mind You could always find your dream guitar. And if you try to test your guitar blindfolded without looking for its brandname, you may end up with the perfect guitar to your collection. 

That wasnt entirely true. Among those guitarplayers that I know, they always have a small or a big collection of different guitars. The reason seam to be that every guitar does have its own very special quality. A quality that can be found in an expensive brandname guitar as well as in a lowcost one. 

Is your love to a guitar similar to the feelings you have for a the woman in your life. Would  you like to take the guitar to bed? I dont think its wrong at all to compare a guitar with a sexy woman. 

To start of you like the way it looks, next step is to touch it and later its playability. The last part can alter but there is also huge possibilities with abit of work to make a not so good guitar become something great.

Rock n Roll gadgets

Auctions on the net seams to be the new perfect place to buy and sell old worn things, and natuarly websites like ebay is an important website for me. Is there a possibility to find and buy a nicce old Burns guitar, an amplifier from the 60-ies or some of the other things that still is to be found om me wishing-list to Santa.

In Sweden at least theres a saying, not to cry over spilled milk (not to cry over things that you once owned) but then again maybe you could find them on ebay. Maybe the nice TEAC 4 track redorder?

Anyway to take a step back on memory lane i´ll sometimes start wondering why, instead of crying.

Hagström guitar amplifier with twin inputs,

made it possible to both use it for a guitar and a vocal microphone.

10 watts of tube power

As a youngster I started with a cheap electric guitar plugged in to the family old tube radio. Dreaming of a real guitar amplifier and more output power. On my behalf it lead to a 10 watt Hagström.

Family of 60-ies VOX amps,

a dream for most bands in the 60-ies.

Clips with the Beatles, the Shadows and all the other bands gave us the real thing. A VOX amp, and in the mid 60-ies I bought a VOX AC30. Half a year later it was swapped to the even larger AC50!! Top of the line in my world of guitar amplifiers. By this time noone wanted a Hagström amp, even the German Dynacord amps often used for the vocals was out of date.

Suddenly there was this new types of amplifiers, even VOX started to make solid state transistor amplifiers. All leading to the old tube amps was ready for the junkyard.

the Dynacord Jazz, tube amp with 20 watts.

common in Sweden by the time.

Those tubeamplifiers was never silent, there was always a disturbing humming sound coming from them and bad earthconnection. So everyone went for new state of art silent transistor amps.

Today those state of art, solid state transistor amplifiers are scrap and only sought after by collector who dont intend to use them, and top of the line is once again the tube amps with its sweeteer sound.

Burns Orbit Two,

transistor amp from the 60-ies.

20 watt solid state power, silent.

And so suddenly theres a 40+ year old Burns amplifier on sale at UK ebay, after a bit of struggle and help from an english freind we did win that auction and soon this old amp will arrive to Sweden. (maybe it even works).

Burns Bizon 1963 and a Burns Orbit Double Twelve amp.

50 watts of solidstate transistor power.

Mean time I found a nice old 8 channel mixer unit on a Swedish auctionsite, and suddenly became owner of that old useful gadget for the price of 90,oo skr. (the price of 2 packs of cigerettes!) It even works,,,,

the Wolfes with a complete Burns stack of amps and guitars.

Today extremly rare to find!!

So todays blogsite is about finding and buying back that sound of the 60-ies and hopefully recreate it in my home.

"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!

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...