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 ...

So a long and convoluted target mission of mine has at last come to a delightful conclusion! Readers will recall that back in 2023 I launched a mini campaign to get the Blakemore Effects Deus Ex Machina Fuzz revived and reissued. Blakemore Effects had been officially shuttered in 2018, and Blake Hickey had returned to the financial sector.

Here are the two articles from that somewhat fruitless endeavour :

• Blakemore Deus Ex Machina Revival Campaign
• Ex Machina Campaign Follow-up

It ...

After my earlier Dirty Birdy overview article - where I complained of the seemingly excessive international shipping fees. The very genial Pete from Airline Guitars reached out to me and asked me for advice on what the shipping costs to the UK should be. I shared with him the shipping costs of the last 4 pedals I had acquired from North America - where those ranged from around $25 to $50 - with the median values mostly around the $50 mark.

Shortly afterwards Pete replied that they had ...

May has been a little bit of strange month - lots of delays really, and waiting for pedals to land.

As inevitably happens most months - much was delayed this month, and I was unable to complete some of the larger articles - they will need to wait until next month, there’s certainly lots of projects in progress. Where new and imminent arrivals kind of scuppered several intended projects - hopefully they can be completed in June.

The first event I’m attending this month is tomorrow - as a micropub ...

This was the second pedal I picked up from JSA Effects at the recent Leeds Pedal Show - and it’s even better for me than the already exceptional LNS Overdrive Modded OD-1 that I rushed to the stand to secure!

On the day of the show I came away with just those two JSA pedals. I later secured one of Blue FX’s oddly shaped Pillux Fuzzes, and should really have picked up a Holy Island Spectral Fire at the same time - which I also sorted out post-haste - shortly after the show! Those two pedals ...

A slightly uneventful month in many ways - just the one event - the excellent sophomore Leeds Pedal Show - where I ended up picking up 3 pedals.

Some killer releases during the month, with a strong final flurry to make up the 10 notable article highlights. I’ve been very busy all month - and plenty of work has gone into this as usual, while there was somehow fewer large-scale rundowns and marquee features - more of that next month for sure.

HIGHLIGHTS for APRIL :

[Click on Images for ...

I was all et to get the Big Talker Modulator next in my ongoing coverage of the complete Empty Head Effects roster - but Nick tweaked his The Lover 2-Stage Transistor Drive & Fuzz - which was initially in Zvex-style Landscape format, while nearly everyone positioned the pedal vertically in Portrait mode on their boards. So Nic decided in the end that he should relocate the jacks to the top edge and shift some of those elements around for a more elegant control topology the the more pedalboard-...

For me - these Dealer special White Light editions - are some of the prettiest varieties Spaceman has released to-date - with the white-out / snow-blind livery and striking cyan / teal LED’s - just gorgeous. I was missing the Atlas IV and Apollo VIIb - and Cream City Music and Axe and You Shall Receive were enormously helpful in getting those shipped to me in short order. I then spotted that my friend Scott at Axe and You Shall Receive also had a White Light Rumblefuzz II remaining - and I just...

I’ve been on friendly terms with Oleg from Russia’s Shift Line electronics for a number of years now - mostly on account of his killer original Termofuzz - first released in 2011. I’ve championed that super versatile fuzz for years, and long advocated for a reissue - which finally happened around the middle of last year. Obviously there is understandably no way to get products out of Russia to the UK these days - I’ve no idea how the Australian I bought this off managed to get one - possibly ...