Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
Highlights and High Jinks from the inaugural Norwich Fret Fest / Sweat Fest - at St Mary's Works
At one stage there was a 50/50 chance as to whether I would make the show - as there were significant disruptions on the Liverpool Street to Norwich line - which meant a bus replacement service between Colchester and Ipswich. Some of the journey times quoted were up to 4 and a 1/2 hours each way! In the end the door-to-door was closer to 3 hours in total! The journey up including the coach was actually more fun that the journey back via Cambridge. Cambridge has obviously sinned grievously as ...
US-Hawaiian Corporate Entity Wages a War of Attrition on the entire Electric Guitar Industry and against its own best interests!
There’s been quite a lot of nonsense spouted and written about this recent legal skirmish - which amounts to massive judicial and jurisdictional overreach by Fender’s European Lawyers Bird & Bird.
’Standing, Default Judgement and Jurisdiction’
Essentially Fender won a Regional Dusseldorf court case against a Chinese Importer of essentially Counterfeit Stratocaster Guitars. Said entity had no corporate assets in Europe, failed to turn up to court, and Fender was awarded a win by default ...
The first 100 Units of Josh Scott's Signature BilT JHS Relevator Guitar are now available - actually probably sold out already!
So this has been on the cards for a long time - as Josh has been sporting this intriguing guitar for a few years now, and interest has been steadily growing. All in all - a quality South Korea import guitar for $1600 (World Musical Instruments) is actually a really decent price. The guitar has high quality components and materials. While I have some ergonomic challenges with some of the details!
I’m not a fan of Kluson style tuners - I will always favour more modern locking tuners - by ...
Manson Guitar Works finally deliver limited editions of Matt Bellamy's favourite and fully-loaded 007 'Blackie' Guitar - in New Era Standard and Relic Editions, alongside the Signature Exact Recreation Edition
The ’Blackie’ Guitar is Matt’s favourite weapon of choice - and his main studio tool as such across so many albums. It features at least 3 different pickups - as listed below, I feel the original version of this guitar also had a Piezo pickup in the Bridge. Also onboard are a Kill-Switch, MIDI Control Strip (for Digitech Whammy etc.), an FL Wah copper control pad and further controls, and a Zvex Fuzz Factory. The core guitar features 3-way Pickup Control with accompanying volume and tone knobs....
Inaugural Woking Boutique Guitar Show Highlights from Fiery Bird
Maybury Guitars - Jason
So here are the highlights from the very first Woking Boutique Guitar Show - which took place this past Saturday at the Fiery Bird venue - just 5 minutes walk from the train station / town centre.
The show was organised by my good friend Jason Snelling of Maybury Guitars, alongside John Smith of JAS Guitars. The venue was perfectly centrally located, and was spacious - with a lot of natural light - which did make some of the photography somewhat...
The most innovative and interesting guitars featured at NAMM 2025 were the latest evolutions of Circle, and Verso Guitars
I first clocked Verso’s Folded Sheet Metal Guitars (Steel) late last year, while I’ve not paid to much heed to the Circle Guitar up until now. There was an earlier iteration of the Circle Guitar back in 2020, where that design has been massively refined and honed in the interim. Originally the spinning disk had 128 slot for different styles of picks / plectrums, while the newer model has a sort of modular system of 16 slots and 16 controls - including those 6 individual string faders. I believe...
Fender ramps up its Sanrio Hello Kitty Kawaii Collaboration - celebrating 50 years!
Who doesn’t like a bit of Japanese Cutesy Kawaii Culture. Fender certainly does - and has been onboard with Sanrio and Hello Kitty now for half a century.
This latest release obviously comes just in time for the Christmas season - in fact I would imagine a few princesses will be waking up to one of these guitars on Christmas Day. And Japanese princesses have even more to be excited about - as you can see in the overview video below - with some unique product available in Japan!
While ...
Alternative Guitar Show #2 Highlights - from Paper Dress Vintage in Hackney, London
It was quite the deliberation - deciding which image should be the cover shot for this feature - on balance I think I made there right decision by picking the very first photo of the day - where Hello Sailor Effects certainly delivers that Technicolour Rainbow which looks so appealing. Moreover I snagged a one-off pedal from that stand - a few minutes before the show was officially opened - but more of that later!
Rabea's Superb Signature Music Man Custom Sabre is finally fully available!
I say the Rabea Sabre is fully available - while noting that the Limited 30 Run Frenzied Flame Burst Edition sold out in just a couple of days or so. The Standard Vileblood Burst will be available at all Music Man Dealers, including at Andertons - where it’s priced @ £4,299 (Music Man = $3999).
My upper ceiling for guitar acquisitions is usually at £3.5K, but I would most definitely make an exception for this fantastic guitar. It’s designated as a Sabre Model - but there are so many cool ...
16 Cool Guitars from In and Around Winter NAMM 2024
These are simply the most attractive and appealing 16 Guitars that I came across through the NAMM guitar coverage.
I alas seem to mostly have expensive taste - as some of these models cost as much as $22,000, with the PRS SE Swamp Ash Special a somewhat lonely outlier @ $849. The majority here seem to be between $3,000 and $5,000.
I’m not sure I will even acquire any of these - while it’s of course nice to dream what you would do if / when your lottery numbers come through!
The ...
