Signature Guitar´s ! ! ? ?

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What´s going on in the world of guitar´s? You as well as I may ask. For year´s your favorite artist have been playing a certain brand-style of guitar. that make´s you walk in to the shop to buy a similar. 

Fender Stratocaster / 

Buddy Hollie, Hank B Marvin, Eric Clapton, SRV, Yngvie Malmsten, 

Gibson LesPaul /

Les Paul & Mary Ford, Gary Moore, Billy gibson, Randy rhodes, Jimmy Page, 

Gibson ES345 / 

BB King, Chuck Berry, Larry Carlton, Alvin Lee, Dave Grohl, 

Gretsch country Gentleman - Gibson Tennesee Rose /

Chet Atkins,  George Harrison, Duanne Eddy, Eddie Cochran, 

Gibson Barney Kessel / 

Burns Marvin / 

Hank B Marvin, Bruce Welch, Mark Knofler, Elvis Presely, 

As a Burns freak - lover we connect the Signature Burns Marvin model´s with the legendary Hank B Marvin, who unfortinutly also play´d a fiestared Fender Stratocaster. But will this mean that the musicstyle of the early 60´s is about the only kind of music you can play on a Burns Marvin? or a Fiestared Stratocaster?

Guitar magasin´s produce articles and print revues of all kind of guitar´s. Telling what´s good or bad, but one thing that strucks me is as soon as a Burns guitar is revued they write about the typical Marvin twangy sound. something they dont do when revueing a Strat.

And what about the Gibson LesPaul? LesPaul himself playing 40-50´s evergreens not to forget Mocking Bird Hill. Together with Mary Ford. The LesPaul guitar has been used by hundreds of popular guitarplayers around the world, mainly a Roch´n Roll Blues guitar.

Chet Atkins will forever be connected to the Gretsch Country Gentleman guitars, but not long before he went to guitar heaven was sign´d to Gibson with a couple of signature guitars.

 Barney Kessel, yet one more legendary guitarplayer used several different guitar´s but mainly Gibsons. So  there was a signature model called the Barney Kessel. Only a few have ever seen him play that model?

BB King famous with his Gibson ES 345 named Lucille, a blues-player.

Weird Guitar

So I got me self a guitar that was really weird in me eye´s many years ago. Was about to buy a second hand stereounit, ended up with a guitar.

Painted white with a paintbrush and with some flowers on to it was a bit mad. Somewhere down the line the neck had been taken of and refitted but not as it was originally. No its fingerboard was now sett flat on top of its body. 

Somehow I fixed it and it wasnt that bad at all. In fact a cheep rather nice guitar. It didnt take long before I knew it was a 40-50´s Harmony Master. Built to be a cheap but fair guitar. 

In my ownership it didnt take to long before I fitted a pair of humbuckers that was in me scrapbox.  Years goes by, and every now and then that guitar is play´d.  Often with a new idea in mind. So one day it was sanded down, and did get a new metallic paint. spraycans made the job easy. Still I had the homemade wooden bridge, but one day - I thought.

Still it was a rather nice guitar to play, but not perfect in any sense. A new bridge might do the trick and make it an even better sounding guitar.

Finally e freind of mine show´d up with some kind of tun-o-matic bridge, and late the same evening it was fitted to the guitar. Tuning it properly took some time, then the result was amazing.

This cheep guitar was suddenly a real players guitar with a sound that was great. Must have been something like this that the great Les Paul when he tried out his first buildt electric guitar in the 40´s. Even if his first guitar containd a huge piece of railroad steel. 

Just realised that in total it had cost me 35,oo pound. Next step might well be a Bigsby!! But then again it might be to expensive.

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.

More thoughts about Guitar´s

Burns guitars will always be number-1 for me no doubt about that and you may even realise I hate Fenders. Well not all of em but most. In my so called collection of guitars I then keep a couple of Burns guitars but also other guitars not at all related to Burns.

Some of them cheap guitars bought just for the fun of trying another guitar or as spareparts for some mad projects. Some of those guitars have proved to be real good one´s. Not to be compared with me Burns but still useful tools for making music.

As I do  runt the Burns forum on Facebook, I do me best to keep non Burns items out of the forum. I dont post pics of me non Burns guitars and amps, if I do post them I´ll do that in a more proper forum. 

Here I´m going to show some non-Burns gear in me so called colelction.

Akustika Western bought at fleamarket 20,oo euro.

sounda good - tuners are crap

CORT also a fleamarket guitar 30,oo euro

after some adjustments a really nice guitar.

Dare-burns bass. Hmm me DIY 4-pickup bass that sounds good

but still in need a some modifications.

Dare-Vibraslim 5-pickup DIY not bad at all but HEAVY and more 

then 30 different sound patterns.

Dare-Bison. Long term project that started in 1975. Honduras mahogony 

and Gibson Studiopickup.

Fleamarket Telecaster that aint bad at all for its price.

Harley Benton fretless bass. Fleamarket package including 

a huge Bass combo

Rämje Strat, one of the best Strat-type guitars I ever play´d - owned.

Fleamarket Strat at 15,oo euro. ok.

REd metallic Strat. impossible shit

ES335 copy that both sounds good and is a real nice player

all at the price of 120,oo euro brand new, excluding tremolo.

Nice violin copy, cute little bass well worth its money

Levin school guitar from the 60´s. Extremly nice guitar.

Lincoln - Vox organ from the 60´s. such a great old organ.

The Hagström Echo, sound of the 60´s and 

was in as new condition when I got it.

A set of Pearl with Paiste cymbals and not to forget

the Slingerland steel drum.

Washing board for skiffel music

CASIO syntheiser saxofone with a couple of nice sounds buildt in.

found in a toybox at fleamarket.

Yamaha mixer o poweramp

AUDEX mixer and poweramplifier

a pair of Dynacord´s