It’s been three gigs in as many weeks with the nefarious Mis-Spelled Band, due to my former partner in crime, Captain Jules T. Hairy, having assorted musical and matrimonial antics demanding his attention.

A somewhat hurried – got the call on Wednesday, gigged on Friday -  trawl through their hundred plus song repertoire yielded a healthy catch of forty or fifty tunes that I could still remember well enough to play without a rehearsal and, as an added bonus, I was able to coax an actual set list out of them_¹.

High Wycombe, Palmers Green and Ealing where to be our destinations – an O’Neills, The Fox and a function at some sort of posh sports club respectively.  I know what you’re thinking – who needs New York, Los Angeles and Brixton Academy when you have locales like ours on the back of your tour t-shirt? Well let me tell you, it’s not all glamour. Behind the crusty, vomit-caked public face of these venues, there is a crusty, vomit-caked behind the scenes bit that you don’t usually get to see.

The Wycombe gig was an absolute blast. The band - with both a new bassist and ivorytickler since last I played with them - was on stellar form and my almost entirely untested rig sounded enormous. I was expecting to play like utter ham-fisted toilet and was therefore understandably pleased as the proverbial punch when I did, in fact, rock my socks off.

Sadly, this was tempered by the all round “meh” of the second and third gigs. Not that they were awful – lord knows I’ve played worse – but they were nothing to write home about. My playing at said shows was still better than expected, despite a tendency to over-play my improvised stuff a little, like a dog that’s not been let off the leash in a long time, but I was still operating very much in a “second guitarist” mindset. We didn’t have keys at the second gig, and a stand-in keyboarder at the third, and I largely failed to adjust my playing accordingly and fill in the gaps.  Not insurmountable problems at any rate.

Cocking up the intro to Sweet Home fucking Alabama during the second gig was vastly more unforgiveable.

¹ The ability for a band leader to adjust a set as they go is all well and good, but nobody enjoys a lengthy pause in front of a couple of hundred people while you have to unexpectedly change guitars and/or retune a floating trem.

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Many moons ago, back when the main purpose of my guitar "practice" was to master the intro riff from "Eat The Rich ", I stumbled across an article in Guitar magazine - entitled "Pentatonic Mapping - Fretboard Geometry in Action " by Jon Finn. It was to become the shiny red convertible that got me into the knickers of the pentatonic scale.

Since then, most people to whom I have mentioned said article have decried it to be nothing more than soul-less boxfoolery and, to a certain extent, I can see their point; learning to improvise by visually bolting five different shapes together across the fretboard is hardly the most musical of mindsets, but without doubt I owe much of my familiarity with the scale to that one article.

I was reminded of this formative stage when I was rummaging around the YouTube channel of recently mentioned chopmonster (and Guitar Idol 2008 winner), Gustavo Guerra. In several of his lesson clips he adopts a smilar approach of bolting together a couple of "shapes" and then repeating them on each pair of strings.

The main difference I find now is that I am considerably more swift at playing through these shapes than I was in 1995, so they are altogether less exercise like and rather more useful for fretboard safari.

Here I’ve drawn up five exercises, each one starting on a different shape of the minor pentatonic scale. Sadly I couldn’t keep them all in the same key (which probably would have been clearer) as my dinky fretboard diagram isn’t capacious enough to contain a single key example of each lick.

Here’s the first one:

Ex. 1 - G minor pentatonic

Starting on the most common shape that people tend to know, we’re going up through an alarming FOUR shapes by the time we’re surfing the high E string. For your comfort, I have highlighted the pattern that repeats. After the first pair of strings you simply repeat the pattern. After the second pair of strings you move up one fret and repeat the pattern again - thanks to that dratted guitar tuning business. Jon Finn referred to this as the "Warp Refraction Princple " but we don’t have any of whatever he was smoking, so we’ll just say "up a fret" for the moment.

Here it is in high def:

Got the idea? Good. Here are the others:

Ex. 2 - Em pentatonic.

You should of course pick these, and arrange the notes, in whatever way pleases you. I am tending to play them as sextrumpets with (fairly) strict alternate picking.

Ex. 3 - Dm pentatonic

Ex. 4 - Cm pentatonic

Ex. 5- Am pentatonic

You can use these as either swift licks in your improvisation, to zip about the neck like those travelator things that they have at the airport, or just as exercises to improve your familiarity with how the trusty old pentatonic shapes link together.

It should go without saying - but I’ll say it anyway - that you’re not limited to going up and down in the way that I have tabbed. Once you know the patterns you can noodle about all over the place.

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I’ve been working on this sequence of notes in various forms for absolutely ages, switching between strict alternate picking, economy picking and even hybrid picking, finally settling on legato with a sort of half-assed directional picking action. I did try all upstrokes but somehow the initial downstroke anchors the lick to the beat and helps me keep more accurate time.

Now that I’ve established my preferred way of playing through it, the speed has increased alarmingly. Playing along with a metronome I can now just about manage a comfortable 110bpm, which makes for some fairly zippy legatious sextrumpets, if I do say so myself. It sounds really smooth too - not quite as forced or aggressively Zakk Wyldian as the other methods.

The only trouble is, playing it the fast way involves wrapping my thumb over the top of the neck and it doesn’t feel like it’s doing my wrist any favours at all. Playing it "correctly" (thumb more towards the centre of the neck) slows things down a fair bit: I’d say 90bpm is about my tidy maximum.

I almost did myself a mischief playing it for ten minutes this morning, so I think I may revert to the latter thumb position and work the tempo back up again.

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In a moment of Googlemooching, I found myself curious as to what former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony is up to. Aside from his personal web site, I also stumbled across this (very recent) headline:

"Sammy Hagar to hit studio with guitar hero Joe Satriani and ex-Van Halen bassist "

The Canadian Press

Whoa. Oft have I wondered what Satch would sound like in a band. I really love his stuff but can’t listen to more than a few tracks of instrumental guitar before getting bored.

Hopefully the rumour is true and something album-flavoured comes of it.

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Joe Bonamassa’s new live album "From Nowhere In Particular" is set to be released on 19th August as a 2 CD set, with fourteen of the tracks recorded on the autumn 2007 tour.

Pre orders should apparently be up on Amazon.com by July. There’s also a new studio album in the works, tentatively due for release in early 2009.

Joe’s limited edition signature Les Paul is also due to go on sale in July.

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It’s been quite a while since I visited GuitarShredShow.com, and I see that Mr. Fastfinger has got himself some new toys courtesy of his corporate sponsorship - t.c. electronic no less - and some nice new (2007) content: "The Magic Carpet Tour ", a lesson in modes.

If you are yet to visit Sensei Fastfinger’s dojo, I stongly advise that you head over there and benefit from his sage advice and phearsome chops. The site is a triumph of illustration, Flash design and shred guitar, created by Finlandian multimedia producer and designer Mike Tyyskä.

If that weren’t enough, Fasterfinger is also a Hughes & Kettner man. Nice.

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Following up from that last post on Alter Bridge, I stumbled upon an interview with Mark Tremonti on Ultimate Guitar.

"Since I’ve matured a little bit as a guitar player, I’ve gotten more into blues guys. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Joe Bonamassa. "

Yay! The fan-boy circle is complete! There’s actually some interesting chinwaggery about the Blackbird album too, and you can read the full thing here.

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The last time that I played an album this much, all of the lettering rubbed off and the tape wore out.

It was probably either "Appetite for Destruction " or "Pornograffiti ", and it would’ve been the early to mid ninetees. There have been plenty of other decent albums since then of course, but nothing that I’ve been happy to listen to, pretty much exclusively, for the better part of a month.

The record in question is "Blackbird " by Alter Bridge, a band made up of Mark Tremonti, Brian Marshall and Scott Phillips of Creed and Myles Kennedy, formerly of The Mayfield Four.

As I often am with these things, I was quite late to the party. I’d heard of Mark Tremonti, but only in so much as him having something-or-other to do with a guitar made by PRS. It’s possible that I just didn’t hear about them, - surprising, as the album got to #2 in the UK rock album chart - or I assumed they were some sort of "Nu Metal" outfit.

I’m rubbish at writing reviews of things. I generally only critique stuff that I really love, so end up slobbering and drooling on about how wonderful it is. All I will say is that my standout tracks are "Buried Alive ", "Coming Home ", "Before Tomorrow Comes " and the absolutely enormous title track "Blackbird ".

If you like epic rock tunes, with monster guitar parts and some serious vocals, you should give it a whirl.

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It’s been mentioned before that I’ve never really been one to name my guitars. Even the sunburst Les Paul that my parents bought me for my 21st birthday, at a time when their ability to afford it was about as questionable as whether or not I actually deserved it, and which is undoubtedly my most cherished material possession, is just called "the sunburst Les Paul".

However, after the genesis of seeing the body on eBay, during the time it has taken me to acquire all of the necessary giblets and accouterments, the name "Flaming Blue" seems to have stuck.

So anyway, here she is. Click an image to see a larger version.

The body is American ash with a Canadian hard rock maple top and, as would seem obvious from the name, it has a gorgeous blue flame finish. I honestly don’t remember who made it, but it’s your standard Stratocaster body as far as I know.

Once I’d succumbed to flame lust, I had to decide what I actually wanted to attach to it. For my sins, I already own three Stratocasters of various quality and, although admittedly none of them are genuine USA models, I’m all good in the twang department.

After three years in the Mis-Spelled Band, something that really appealed was a workhorse guitar, versatile enough to put out both great, sparkly clean strat sounds and the raunchy rock riffs that I get with humbuckers.

After tinkering about on the intertubes for a bit, I discovered that what I was actually after was an Eric Clapton Stratocaster. Rumour has it that E.C. asked Fender to make him a guitar that would be able to play his Strat flavoured tunes and the older Les Paul (Cream) stuff, without taking an actual Les Paul on the road with him. Given the entourage that a Clapton tour surely entails, I can’t imagine that a Gibson or two would make all that much difference, but it’s a good idea at any rate.

So I got my myself the guts of a Clapton strat - a trio of Vintage Noiseless pickups and the electronanigens required for active mid-boost and TBX circuits, available as a kit from Fender. I’m such an utter boob that I didn’t even know how the hell to work the boost and TBX (which is supposed to mean Treble/Bass Cut - I guess they thought "TBC" wasn’t as sexy). It wasn’t until I asked Paul (we’ll come to him in a moment) why the middle pot had a middle "sticking point" - the neutral position - that it all became clear. I’m such a tool.

The TBX allows for some great tonal options and the pickups sound enormous. If you engage the treble cut, step on your wah and plug into a meaty amp, it’s instant "Bad Love". The mid boost seems very effective but I’ll probably get the most out of that as I start to experiment with the guitar live.

The trem is a Wilkinson somethingorother. They have model numbers I believe, but they are about as individually memorable as those given to Ibanez guitars. It’s a Wilkinson Wang Bar anyway, and was bought completely blind based upon the recommendation of my trusted strat advisor Ian Minogue-Corps. I was sat on the couch at my in-laws house in Maryland last thanksgiving, marveling at the magic of the crappy dollar exchange rate and how dramatically it can empower a pound-wielding, eBay explorer who has at his disposal a U.S. shipping address. Ian was awake at his customary stupid o’clock back in the UK, and gave me some invaluable advise - saving me an incredible amount, (you don’t want to know - it’s sickening) on the trem system, pickups and tuning pegs - thanks buddy!

Lastly on the body there’s the pearloid pick-guard and matching cover on the wang bar spring compartment - which also houses the battery for the Claptronics. Time will tell how often that needs replacing, although the impression seems to be that it’ll last quite a while. I would like to know what happens when it goes flat mid-gig though - do I lose sound altogether, or just the Eric flavours? Oh, and it’s also got a set of straplocks, but I have those on all of my guitars because, well, I’m clumsy.

Now, that stuff is all lovely and shiny, but the thing that makes this guitar is the neck. I asked Paul Creedy at arrowheadguitars (there’s no space between "arrowhead" and "guitars", and I’d advise you against suggesting otherwise), to build me a neck from "the nicest flame maple he could lay his hands on". Apparently his hands have far better maple laying-on abilities than I had imagined.

For some reason I’ve always had a terror of asking friends to do work for me. I don’t know if it’s some crazy idea that a highly skilled person that I actually know somehow isn’t capable of producing better results than an anonymous Mexican production line or - and I suspect this is more likely - a subconscious terror that I might not like what they do. This stupidity is compounded by the fact I’ve had work done by Paul before and it’s always been exemplary. In any case, when I walked in to collect the guitar I was completely stunned by how nice the neck is. People always "big up" their mates in posts like this, but the photos that Paul had sent (in which the neck looked pretty damned sweet) hadn’t come close to doing it justice.

It’s a 22 fret affair, (21 fret Strats are so last century people) in yum-grade flame maple upon a bed of stoic maple chunkiness. I’d have to turn to its creator for information regarding the "profile" or any of that caper. Due to my legendary inability to know jack about the chunk of wood n’ wires that I spend so much of my life attached to, I had absolutely no clue how to describe what I wanted without taking my existing Strat neck - which I love - along for Paul to measure and whatnot. Same goes for fret wire.

Topping all of this off is a set of six, staggered height Sperzels (negating the need for a string tree) for string locking convienience, and a logo decal that I chucked together in Photoshop using Paul’s existing logos and a vector outline created by Nige Eastmond.

It plays incredibly smoothly, has thunderous tones and first rate hardware. The only thing that I’d improve given the chance would be to make the finish slighly lighter, so that the blue flame is more obvious in low light. My blue Les Paul also suffers from this "looking black unless you shine a light on it" condition.

I was going to record some sound clips, but so far haven’t got around to it. I’ve been too busy playing it to even write this blog until now.

One thing is for sure - it’ll be hard to justify needing another guitar after this.

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