SESSION SHENANIGANS
The guitarist’s guide to happiness and fulfilment, as told by session ace Mitch Dalton. This month: I’ve Got A Luvverly Bunch Of Coconuts.
Ithink it’s about time (or more accurately, long overdue) that I confronted the inner child in me and the outer anorak in my loyal readership, and treated you to a rundown of what future historians will fail to call, ‘The Mitch Dalton Electric Guitar Collection’. And what one fine day eBay will doubtless refer to as, ‘Job lot of assorted fretted instruments for sale - opening bid £5.’
To be scrupulously and unusually fair to myself, I’ve never been much of a collector of guitars per se, purchasing instruments during my career solely on the basis of ‘fitness for purpose’ (or any other hackneyed media phrase that you may care to insert here). My theory as to why I drool not at gold-plated pickups, fail to salivate at the sight of florentine cutaways and generally fail to become aroused by the plectrists’ pornography disseminated by the likes of Gibson, Gretsch or Fender is based upon a scarring childhood experience.
And I speak not of that dark day at the Hackney Schools cricket final at Eton Manor Sports Ground, where I was clean bowled for four runs after five minutes in my capacity as alleged star opening batsman for Craven Park Primary.
I refer instead to the acquisition of a lovely blonde Levin Goliath acoustic guitar, the purchase price for which was assiduously saved over many months with my weekly pocket money, odd jobs around the house and courteous nagging.
However, the harrowing nature of the problem resided in the price, not the amount. Or vice versa, if you see what I mean. I will try to explain. Fifty Seven And Half Guineas. I repeat. Fifty Seven And Half Guineas. Try working that out when you’re aged 10, let alone retaining the information.
For those of you who reside at the fringes of the Mensa waiting list rather than with full membership, that’s fifty seven pounds and fifty seven shillings (a guinea being twenty-one shillings) plus a half-guinea, which is ten and a half shillings (or ten shillings and sixpence), obviously. A shilling was what you cuttingedge early adopter types might know today as five ‘new’ pence. Which as any fule kno is equivalent to twelve ‘old’ pence in the duodecimal system of yore. Easy Peasy. So - that’s fifty seven pounds plus two pounds and seventeen shillings (£57.00 + £2.85) plus the half guinea, 52.5 new pence. A grand total of £60.37 plus half a new penny. As I say, Easy Peasy!
Of course, today it would be necessary to round this figure up to £60.38, the new half penny having been done away with as recently and as appropriately as 1984.
Understandably traumatised, I was never the same again when it came to poring over guitar brochures. Of course, in hindsight it’s clear that it was the abolition of the groat (a long defunct silver coin worth four pence) that marked the onset of the slippery slope to this monetarist chaos. But at least we got our country back*. (*Correct as we go to press.)
I guess that we should commence our Mitch-elin guide to recording and broadcasting bass covering (sorry - it had to be done) with that go-to axe, the ubiquitous Fender Stratocaster.
Or in my case, I Saw Three Strats Come Soloing In, by way of goin’ seasonably Yule on you.
The first gigbag into the boot would have to contain an ’80s Eric Clapton iteration suitably modded to within an inch of its life. Out with the original active electric circuitry complete with battery and Lace Sensor pickups. In with a two-position rotary switch in place of one of the tone controls (which still looks identical). Turned clockwise, all yer favourites are present and correct when used in conjunction with the five-position pickup selector switch. However, click back to anticlockwise and you’ve dialled up the bridge pickup (identical to the clockwise position) but then bridge and neck in parallel, middle and neck in series (rather like a Telecaster with both pickups on), bridge-middle-neck in series-parallel (sneaky!) and finally bridge and middle in series. As even the most primordial picker will confirm, series wiring confers fat, warm and dark tones while parallel offers up bright, wiry sounds - think Knopfler or The Sultans Of Strat if you must. Top off the ensemble with a pair of Bare Knuckle pickups front and middle and a mini-humbucker in the bridge position, a set of 11s for maximum but still bendable metal and the lovely (original) C shaped maple neck et voila! That should get you out of trouble whether it’s a cat food or a Catatonia job.
In next year’s Referendumistic issue (probably) - the two remaining Strats, the Paul Reed Smith, the Fender Telecaster, The Gretsch 6120 with Bigsby, the Parker Fly, the two Gibson ES-335s and the five jazz guitars. And let’s not mention the acoustics, the amps or the pedals. Yet.
As I said. I’m not a collector. Honest. I just buy a lotta guitars. There’s a difference, innit?
A musical Yuletide and a gig-filled New Year to both of my esteemed readers.
THE FIRST GIGBAG INTO THE BOOT WOULD CONTAIN AN ’80S CLAPTON STRAT MODDED TO WITHIN AN INCH OF ITS LIFE