Going Bare Knuckle: Part 1

So in my last post I mentioned that my go-to guitar was my very much loved American Vintage '62 Reissue Telecaster which I bought back in May 2008. The things which attracted me to this guitar included the gloriously dark rosewood fingerboard, the white binding which framed the black nitrocellulose lacquered solid alder body and the dynamic, open sounding pickups that produced that satisfying Tele' twang. Essentially this was evil embodied in a guitar but as the months drew on I kept getting the feeling that it just wasn't evil enough...

I've always been a bit funny about changing the pickups in a guitar because I always felt that if it doesn't sound right when you try it out in the shop then surely it's not the guitar for you but now that I'm in the position where I have a guitar which I love dearly that isn't quite cutting the mustard I suddenly understand why pickup changes are so commonplace.

I first heard of Bare Knuckle Pickups when I was trawling the 'net for information about Matt Bellamy's custom built Manson Guitars (he's particularly fond of the Nailbomb Humbuckers or so I am led to believe.) The guys at Bare Knuckle make pickups the old fashioned way, by hand, right here in the UK and a quick google search will reveal that they are regarded very highly by many all across the Globe. It was this that drew me towards them, not that fact that many players from all over the world were choosing them but the fact that they are made in England.

The guitar market is dominated by products made in the US, Japan and more recently we are seeing a great deal of quality products coming out of Korea and China. I found the fact that I could customise my guitar with a home grown product immensely appealing and with that it was simply a case of choosing the set that was right for me. I knew that I wanted a bigger and fatter clean sound and be able to push my amp harder when I kicked in some overdrive and thanks to the great descriptions on the site I almost instantly decided that 'The Boss' set was the one that looked like it would fit the bill. My only qualm here being that I couldn't find any audio clips for their single coils on the site but there are plenty of great clips for their more popular humbuckers.

So now I have the pickups in my possesion and my friend Nick will be installing them for me tomorrow so that I'll be able to road test them at my next gig this Friday! I'll be bringing a full report on how many faces I melted with my extra melty solos this weekend.

The Trouble with Gibson

There was a time in my life when I disliked Gibson guitars, I found them clunky, unattractive and generally old hat. Mind you when I was 17 all I wanted was an ESP that I could tune to drop C but now my go to guitar is my '62 reissue Telecaster. So as you can see times change and as I've recently discovered, so have Gibson...

A couple of years back I worked at the Oxford Street branch of the now sadly defunct Sound Control and I remember finding the wall of Les Paul's and SG's distinctly unappealing and spent most of my time lusting in the direction of our Fender Custom Shop stock. Eventually I remember deciding to try out a couple of Gibson's just for the hell of it first plumping for a White Les Paul Custom that we'd had in stock seemingly forever. It was horrible, the intonation was so bad nothing above the 12th fret was in tune, and the sound coming through my go to test amp (an Orange Rocker 30 which I would later go on to purchase for myself) was dull and lifeless. Dissapointed I went for an Ebony Les Paul Standard which advertised itself has having a '60's neck but with it found no satisfaction and decided that maybe Gibson guitars were just not for me. Later investigation on a few Guitar forums soon led to the discovery that there were many dissapointed Gibson fans out there and talk of poor quality control in recent years that seemed evident in the instruments I had tried.

In the last 12 months there have been many changes, apart from entering a global recession which robbed me of my previous job it seems that Gibson have managed to completely restructure their entire European dealership as well as some of the key parts of their business. Choosing to go direct to a few select dealers that can make the most of their product rather than sell as much as they can to a UK based supplier whose telesales staff didn't seem to know their arse from their 335. A new spangly website has also appeared which has to be one of the most exciting guitar websites on the 'net. Pristine photos and audio demos of all their guitars are all present and correct as well as extensive, accurate write-ups for all of their instruments but that's not all, oh no! You can barely keep up with all the interesting, educational and amusing articles, posts and blogs that appear on the site daily that all seem totally relevant, a recent highlight for me being the well photographed tours of their Nashville and Memphis guitar building facilties. Plus their product line-up continues to expand and impress, the Dark Fire looks to be the most forward thinking instrument since someone first decided to strap a magnet to a piece of wood and I find myself waiting with baited breath for the next 'Limited Run' instrument to be announced, exciting stuff indeed.

I'm now fortunate enough to bask in the glory of working for one of these fabled UK Gibson dealers and stock is arriving thick and fast. True sometimes we have to wait a few months to get what we want but who cares when every single guitar you remove from that white fur lined case, as you are hit with the smell of nitrocellulose and vanilla is set up beautifully and screams at you to strum the living daylights out of it. It seems that Gibson have rediscovered their pride, oh and the PLEK machine which electronically simulates string tension whilst setting up the frets to perfection. The Les Pauls have been given new life in the form of the classic 'Traditional' and the forward thinking '2008 Standard' the latter being my favourite of mine for the record. The Archtops are as beautiful and versatile as ever, the specials and the studios scream like rock-pigs and a special mention must go out to the historically accurate 'VOS' (Vintage Original Spec) series as these truely special instruments sing like nothing else.

So I lay my hat down, I take back every bad thing I ever said about these guitars but just answer me one thing; How the hell am I going to afford that 1961 SG VOS in Faded Cherry?

Guitarism: Day One

Hello and welcome to Guitarism!

Guitarism is a new blog by me, Matt Curtis that aims to waffle, rant and pour a general stream of guitar related consciousness directly onto the Internet. The focus of this blog will primarily be on gear that is readily available to try and buy at your local music store and as I am currently the resident guitar geek at the Wembley Guitar Centre and I play guitar with London based indie pop botherers Brontosaurus Chorus as well as trying to pass off what I like to call 'music' with my side project Typewriter I feel vaguely qualified to write about what I love; guitars.

I'll be aiming to bring you the latest in guitar, pedal and amp geekery two or three times a week and look forward to lots of nice feedback and a little bit of hating to keep things interesting.

Happy Reading

Matt