"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.

in another part of Köping-i en annan del av Köping

A quick trip to Stockholm then back again to Orust for some serious work. It was then easy to make a detour to the little town of Köping for two reasons. 

 Number one this time was a wisit to the Guitar Doc and his exellent shop, and also to get a cup of coffey with my dear freind Sten.

So I found the guitarshop crowded with customers wich gave me time to take a good look around the premesis. The owner GuitDoc Rainer was as usual customer freindly and show off with his special buildt Uckulele. 

Leaving the shop with a lot of different gadgets, 2 scrapped guitars, yet another guitar, a piezo microphone, a Bigsby unit and some other stuff. Payment was a 50 yar old boatmotor....

arriving to Orust meant a lot of work to be done. the Bigsby unit was supposed to be fitted to my ES175 guitar, the old EKO guitar was taken to its pieces, and cleaned out. then put together again and set up. After a couple of hour of work it actually worked as a guitar, it even was good now looking almost as new.

1964 EKO 290 2v

more born to be alive

 "pbp-band"

There is almost a magic feeling when you start a project like forming a band. In my case not a new band, thou Im trying to give new life into an old project. A project that always starts with an almost insane dream. A dream of once again entering a stage and entertaining the crowd.

A way to bring life into your bag full of songs that has been written-composed.

A one man band may be a hit in the street corner, but thats not apart of my dream. So I started my search for wannabee members in this project band for oldtimers.

And as you all could read in my last blog I found "mrs amimna" a talented woman with a grat voice. During the time of me last blog contact was establish´d with a man who actually could play the drums. 

So I was invited to a rehersal in Haninge south of Stockholm and there I met with this wonder man. 

The rehersal proofed that he is the right man for my project band. So instead of beeing just a guitarplayer with a load full of music and a female singer the "pbp-band" project was suddenly a building project that showed some kinde of future. "Builder Bob" showed in every way that he 

wanted to be a part of the band.

A three man band was on its way, when I discovered that the bands former lead vocalist "Mrs Paddington" showed some kind of interesst. Checking the YouTube-Facebook I found out that she had made a link to our earlier songs. 

Could it be that she was interessting in once again be a part of the band? As far as i knew she was fully occupied living on a small Swedish island. Still its almost 20 years that have passed since the band made its last performance.

A young talented bassplayer is known by me, and its about time for me to ask him if he might be interessted in this project. With a bit of luck the band will be at least a 5 man band.

So if things seams to work out my way with this mad bandproject. A female singer who also know how to play keyboard would be great. Then the chanses of bringing life in "pbp-band" could be a reality.

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This morning gave me the opportunity to listen to web-radio. Followed a link on Facebook and there, suddenly i was listening to CKUA radio network i Canada. Clearly to me a very different radiostation and maybe one responsible for Sarah Macdougalls sucess all over the world. Latest news tells that She now is on Top-5 list in Roots-Country in Canada with her album "the greatest one alive".  Sometimes You loose-sometimes you win. 

Shes the best import from Sweden since ABBA says many musiccritics who heard her album. A dear freind of mine fell desperatly in love with her music and ordered both her albums. He keep them in his Audi TT and plays them round the clock where ever he is...

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Tomorrow "dare-studios" once again move´s to Orust meaning that the car will be filled with instruments. My old Galson-Fender Jazzbass is still going to be sold, and as far as i can see it I will get pay´d for it in a way that makes it possible to buy the Burns Shadow bass. I would have prefered a Bison bass, but they are at the moment sold out.

This great Burns Shadows Bass will fit perfectly in me collection of Burns Guitars.

           

born to be alive

After hours, days and month´s I made an attemt to give my project band a new life. The main problem is to find members who is interessted with this particular type of music. Not that the music as such is extremly difficult to bring to life, but rather that it takes some kind of guts to perform it the way its supposed to be performed. 

Earlier constellations of the group has been / Drums, Bass, Rhytmguitar, Leadguitar like rockbands from the 60-ies, Plus three girls performing the vocals but also acting partly as trademarks for the band.

Research for members interessted in the project gave a nice female voice nick-named "amimna". To her I sent by email backingtracks to a song, and later on it was returned. The result was in my point of weiv great, so one of the gaps in the band could be filled.

After hours of finding and recording the first tune in a proper key it was sent by email to her, and a while later she returned it to me. the result can be listen to at Youtube following the link below.

Im a bad bad Girl

During the last days I also found one of those rare guys that plays drums, and is able to keep the rhytm!!! So at this very moment the "pbp" is a trio....He calls him self "Builder-Bob"


Search goes on to find the more members of the band, it would be real nice to have both a bass and a leadplayer and also hopefully two more female voices.  
If you who read this find this Band-project interessting please let me know.


New subject:
After using my 1972 Galson-Fender Jazzbass, I realised that it can be sold for quite a lot of money today, leading to a swap to a new Burns Bass. In that way I will add an extra Burns guitar to my collection. Yet I have to decide what kind of bass I want. The Marvin styled one or a Bison.

 

More coming up.

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.

Not to often, still it happens that a few words in my mind beguins to form the lyrics to a song in just a matter of a few minutes. the lyrics below is one of those things that just happens. The song complete with its music was written - bad or good in a matter of less then half and hour.

The main part of all songs I ever have written is a story taken from the BDSM-Fetish scene as I know it. This song is also telling its small story about a couple who meet for the first time in what is supposed to be a long time bdsm-relation between the two of em.

HE - SHE

She - was standing in the corner of an empty street

She - waiting for a man, she was supposed to meet.

He - Was he the one

He - Was he the one

Will he make her shiver

can his touch make her cry out loud

will he make her go insane

take her to the skye above the clouds.

´Will he give her the love she need,

give her pain and pleasure.

Give her all, her hungre feed.

In chains he hold her life, a treasure.

Can he make her dream come true

will he be her man and master.

The one he stands right by her side

she hopes, now and for ever after.

As usual the next thing to do is to record it and then listen to the song over and over again in hope to find things inte the music or in the words that doesnt fit in. As soon as the recording is ready it will be found on my YouTube account.

"dare studio´s"

in other words my musicroom

Any complains in regards of my own singing capability is rightful, unfortinutly Im not the best singer. But at least I try and maybe with the help of some electronic gadgets I can make my own song sound if not good so at least poissble for someone to listen to.

playing the almost new ES-175

In my last blog-attemt I wrote about the interesst show at Youtube for my songs. Looking into the statistics once again today to my delight I found that ap 35% of those listening to my songs is female! Also that theres been almost 15000 weivers on all of me songs... things that with ease could make me happy.

To all of you, thanks.

New songs will be added and new recordings of earlier songs will also appere instead of the old ones.