a trip to Burns land.

So me love together with Her daughter and I took of for Brittain. Off we went from the westcoast down to Malmoe,

passing the long bridge to Denmark and finally we arrived in Esbjerg where the ferry was expecting us.

Anyway 18 hours later we did reach our destination Harwich, a flip on the steeringwheel and we was driving on the lefthand side of the road.

This page is supposed to be about music, not a travel guide so I stick to the parts of our trip I can regard as music.

On our trip we  drove off to Bristol where rumours said there was supposed to be a Burns dealer.

Finding a spot to park the car isnt that easy in a large town like Bristol´s center. Anyway found a sign about a musicshop and used their customers parking. Inside I found an enormous Fender Stratocaster.

"BURNS Steer" 

at Ricaxxe priced:545,oo£ inc case!!

BURNS Bison basses

 and Marquee bass

BURNS Cobra at 265,oo£

RIC the man behind RICAXXE-Bristol

BURNS Cobra Sunburst

the guitar now living in Töreboda-Sweden

As I didnt see any Bison guitars at Ricaxxe I asked in regards of such a guitar. Ric told he expected a Bison-64 mkII the coming monday. So with that in mind and that the Ladies really enjoy´d shopping in Bristol we stay´d. With fingers crossed I wnet back on monday to find that the actual Bison had arrived. An hour later I was the pruod owner of a Bison-64 mkII made in 2013. In other words brand new!!

"the Legendary ELECTRIC LADYLAND GUITARS"

in Bristol, where the legend is kept alive with help of it´s legendary shop owner.

Last wisit app 15 year´s ago was interessting. Already by then entering thrue a sidedoor to the more the crawded shop. Back then after carful entering with guitars, amps that seamed to attack me I found the shopowner sitting on a chair in the very small space in the middle of the room. 

The same problems was stil lpresent entering the shop, the main difference that the small open space in the middle of the shop where shop owner sits, was if possible even smaller.

Denmark Street - London

Lot´s of interessting guitarshop where it actually was possible to walk inside the shops. 

Burns Marin in window display.

pic below a couple of Burns.

finally the Burns Bison-64 mk2 guitar that was bought at

RicAxxe in Bristol.

Couldnt resist taking a pic of the Cobra and Bison

outside the Hotel in London.

Rainy November

What to do with old recordings? As You may have read earlier I did exchange Me loudspeaker systems. My monitor´s - what a magic word by the way. With the new monitors I realise that most of My old recordings sounds like crap. The balance between each channels and the sound heard, seam to be out of order.

the B&O / Celestion speakers and the DDR made RTF-speakers is now acting as my main monitor´s. A fault in one of the RFT´s was a broken soldering that was easily fixed. they do sound GREAT.

Got this weird intention to produce a comple album and with the possibillitie´s of the new monitor´s with some weird intention to produce something looking like an album, Suddenly  I can hear my old songs in a totaly different way. 

The PHONIC mixer is used as a main recording mixer.

Starting with a long listening session. Each song should be judged and fault´s written down. More then 50% of Me songs is written with a female voice in mind, caused by this I had to record yet a couple of new tracks. Now using the magic of My "electroharmonix VoiceBox"!!

the Amazing VoiceBox 
who can make you sing in the right key.

Well it´s still very hard to make this unit sound exactly like a female voice but I´m slowly learning to use it and it´s getting better at every attemt.  A process that include´s learning how to sing!! I alway´s love´d to sing where ever and when ever, but to be truthful I´m not such a good singer.

That may include me playing on different instrument´s! As most players I know (and hear) is far better. This last part of my ability to use different instrument, I try to fix with getting more and more instruments and gadgets. Maybe those things still can make My recordings sound better if not great.

As far as I can see it, I should have rehears´d much more in My youth. the ability to learn new thing´s seam to be a huge problem when You grow older.

The latest addition to My gadget/instrumet collection is yet another guitar. Natuarly a BURNS guitar as this brand is my all time favorite.

The BURNS Double 6.
made in Korea and as far as I know, 
as good as the originals from the 60´s!

The new guitar is the famous "BURNS Double 6". In the good ole day made famous by big stars like Elvis, Beatles, Shadows,Birds, Honeycombs You name it. Everyone seam to use this guitar in favour of brands like Gibson, Rickenbakker and others.

Elvis Presley, with His Greenburst Double 6.

Hank B Marin - the Shadows with Double 6


the late Jet Harris and Mr Burns of today
Barry Gibson.

Why?? the Double 6 was a 12-string much cheaper then many others, but it was darn good. A heavy beast for sure, but its playability was to be compared with the most exclusive brands. That is a fact even today at different trials made by Guitar players and magasins. Actually the "Double 6" is one of a few 12-string guitars that you actually can use for a comple session, without acing fingers and hands. Only problem might be it weight.

Sharing the body with the famous BURNS basses it´s a large guitar. Natuarly "TriSonic" pickups and a load of diffent sound possibilities included. In all the BURNS Double 6" may well be the best 12-string electric guitar on the market today, as well as it was in the 60´s! At a price that You can afford.

yet another Burns player,
Mr Rob Taylor of "numubu"

regarding the modern line of BURNS guitar´s only one thing can be said. They are really as good as those made in the 60´s. Jim Burns original ideas still live´s. The Burns line of guitars can with ease be compared with brands like Fender, costing much more.

Sound

Where and when did this sound madness start? Possibly already back in the days of Adam & Eve. Dont know for sure. Anyway as a teenager Me and my band used a huge conference room for our rehersals. Guitars was plugged into rather small amplifiers, that also was used for our often cheap chrystal microphones. In once corner of the room a Taperecorder and some no good microphones (often tthose who was included with the recorder).

The latest hit was recorded, and God know it did sound great in our ears. With stereo recordes the sound improved even more. Reel to reel recordes was getting better also for amatuers. The 4 track machines was amazing. Later the Philips casett was used in 4 channel taperecordes. The music was then mixed (dont think the word Mastering even existed among amatuer bands).

the recordings was copied to a cassett who could be used at home, and in cars. Also the cassett was used to send to different Record companies in hope that they would love it and sign you up in a great record deal.

JAMO 120 B -  perfect for pop-rock-disco

Wharfedale - great allround system

the Colebox. CARLSSON OA5 type 1. (later SONAB)

Today its entirely  different. Band use equipment in their rehersal STUDIO´s that is so much High Tech that their own amatur recording are as good as those done at a proffesional recording studio. In my collection I do have one of those recordings on a CD made by  The Cardigans. The actual recording as as good as, or even better then the one made by pro´s!!!

So today it seams that artists, bands make their own recordings with a sound quality that with ease can be compared to proffesional recordings of the 70-90´s. And this with the purpose to make a DEMO for recording companies. The tape cassett belong to the stoneage.

This in run means that You need good speakers in your home studio. Good speakers that can be used as monitor, so you´ll get a proper balance in your recording. In hope to find that perfect sound, the sound that make My recordings sound perfect on a cheap Ghettoblaster, a car stereo system, a simple home system or a Semipro home sound system, You seam to need a couple of speakers to use as reference spekers.

On my behalf there´s been many different speakers that I used. Cheap one´s and expensive systems. It´s a difficult task to find the right monito  speakers. And maybe the best would be to arrange a wall of different speakers like in HiFi shops in the 70-80´s. 

LUXOR-SCANTIC Dirigents version of the Colebox

Yesterday, my old No:1 speakers was swapped for a new set of speakers. In the so called controlroom I already have 4 different systems. This time a pair of really nice Sonab speakers was disconnected in favour of a 1970´s  B&O 40 watt speakers. (Celestion Ditton 35).

B&O (Celestion Ditton 35)

RFT . DDR made system that was on top of my list, 

unfortinutly one of the speakers is brooken.

Suddenly the sound of some of my recordings was improved!! Anyway I will for sure go on searching for the perfect monitors.

Maybe the last three pics show the best monitors, as they are cheap and do produce a sound that can be used in different systems

Music madness

I once was told that the foundation to Our taste in music, is link´d tothose day´s when we were much younger. 

That may well be the reason why My own taste in music belongs to the 50´s - 60´s. I know and recognise that music, and its even easy to tell witch artist was the composer of a song. Even when its performed by an aother artist.

That may well be the reason why all those songs that I´ve written seam to sound the same. They could easilky be recognised as my song´s.



Yesterday a thought popped up in my mind, a subject to write a song about. Less then an hour later the lyrics and music was ready for a first recordning attemt.

Am I a composer? Well in some sense I might call me self that. On the other hand during my life I´ve only  written 4 songs in Swedish! And possibly a thousand songs in English!

The lyrics in my song often tell stories related to a darker world, for someone unknown world of HBTQ, Fetish & people with BDSM as a lifestyle. My intention is to tell their stories in a realistic way, instead of just using four-letter words.

In the recording process I´m forced to use my own talent both in regards of playing isntruments and to add the vocal´s on a recording. This is way to foten a huge problem for me, as I very often tend to write lyrics with a femnale voice in mind, and not a male voice. With that in mind i have to admit that I do love to sing, but as far as I know there may not be that many who enjoys me vocal performance.


Yesterday´s  song was once again written for a female voice, and I dont store such a sweet voice in my collection of instruments. 



Already a year ago I bought an electronic voicegadget. The blue box can perform harmonies, and even transform a male voice to something near to a female voice. Unfortinutly the use of it is not easy at all, I tried at least a hundred times to use it in hope to find something female!



 With this my latest song, it seams that I´m getting closer. There seam to be so much to learn in regards of how to sing, how to formulate each word, and how to make the Blue voice box perform the way I want it to do.



As usual I search among the drumsounds in my two keyboards, and finally when I found a suitible drumpattern I start the recording. The rhytm guitar in this case me Bison guitar, then the bass a Hofner copy thats really nice. Each channel is recorded until finally everything sounds almost like the song I can hear in my head.

"YOU LIED TO ME"

“you lied to me”

Music/lyrics by MJ

20131020

Chorus:

Am          Am       G             G

He, You lied to me, you fucking lied to me.

F                  G             Am       am

You sold me the dream, but you lied to me.

Dm           G             C            Am

You said I´m your Master, but now youre a slave.

F              G             A        A             

You need to be used, said you know to behave.

Verse:

E             E          Am        am

I cant go on this way with a man like you.

F          G            Am          D

Someone that told he need, a slut like me.

E           E           Am       Am

But you´re just a fake, it´s true cant be denied.

F             G             E         E

You can never own a slut me.

I know I am and always be a slut and a slave

In collar n chain for My man to use.

I am the one who need the love and pain He give.

A Master who know to play the blue´s on my back.

Break:

Dm                        Dm                    Am          Am

So pack your things and leave me while you can.

F                   F              Am          Am

Youre not a Master, not my man.

G        G         am       Am

just a fucking lier a fake of a slave

G              F             E         E

You´ll never be, my of man.

New recording of old song

Among hundreds of songs written I have to admit that only a few of them may be called good. Then sometimes a song that I written seam to penetrat my mind. I make new recordings of it in hope to get it better, or perfect.

So there it was, an idea of a song. Heard a song on the radio with a popular Swedish group. It made me wonder, why the hell could their sinple song with three notes be a HIT. So with the use of their three notes and two more I started to write me masterpiece!

Why not make a modern styled tune in the same manner as  Ravel´s - Bolero. 

So after an hour or so I set there with me guitar in hand and a song of no less then ten minutes. A song that was rather sweet and nice in the beguinning and reaching its peak during the 9th minute and ending sweet and soft.

As it seams to get colder everyday, working outside the house with cars can only be done at the afternoons while the sun is shining, so I used late evenings and even the hours before lunch to make yet another recording of this song.

S & M interlude

You can listen to the demo following this link.