Feedback
BEST BAR NONE
Nev Marten raised some familiar grumbles about the decline of pub venues in his column in issue 441. Fortunately, there are still a few places trying to reverse the trend. One such venue is Filling Factory No. 1 in Buckshaw, Lancashire. From the outside it’s a modern factory unit and during the week it’s a beer-bottling plant. But at the weekend it morphs into a bar. The locals love it and the place is buzzing. Each Friday and Saturday night a stage is pulled together from pallets and the bands move in. Okay, it has the acoustics of a warehouse, but it has atmosphere in spades.
The funk and soul band I play in gig there a few times a year and we love it. Hopefully there are still venues near you that are keeping it live, too. Go and find them, play your hearts out and you’ll reap the rewards. Bill Coulshed, via email Thanks for the tip, Bill – if we’re ever passing Buckshaw of a Friday night, we’ll be sure to look in for a beer or two at what sounds like a great music venue. As you say, the success of such venues throws into sharper relief the decline in pubs hosting great live music. It’s an incredible shame, although the law has relaxed a little from the draconian rules of a few years ago, when venues needed an expensive entertainment licence for anything more than duos. These days, according to the Gov.uk website, a licence is not required to stage a performance of live music, or the playing of recorded music, if it takes place between 8am and 11pm… at alcohol-licenced premises and the audience is no more than 500 people. For many former music pubs, it’ll be too little too late, however. When the ‘no more than two’ rule was brought in, many venues switched to DJs or karaoke outfits that didn’t require an expensive licence (and have since never gone back). The smoking ban, though justified on health grounds, also hit turnouts to pubs in general.
So, as guitarists, we really should support our local venues so we can regenerate the grass-roots gigging circuit that has been so important for guitar bands over the years. Tell us about your best local gig venue, explaining why it’s a must-visit for guitar music, and we’ll print the best recommendations here. Who knows, maybe we’ll start a Music Pub Of The Year award?
CUSTOMS CHARGES
I read both Mike Barnard’s letter [Feedback, issue 441] and Dave Burrluck’s reply with some amusement.Yes, on the one hand, building a shiny new guitar and then bashing it about is an odd thing to do. On the other hand, so what? No-one is forcing anyone to buy a relic, and Fender make almost everything else you could wish for. And lots of them are super-shiny, if that’s your thing…
Surely, however, the point of the exercise that prompted Mike’s letter was ‘show us what you would grab for a gig on a Friday night?’ in order to gain an insight into what makes the Custom Shop team tick?
Anyway, horses for courses and all that, there’s a lot of great guitars out there – old, new, shiny, battered, etc – and it seems to me there’s never been more choice.
Keep up the good work! Pete Saxby, via email
MORE CUSTOMS CHARGES
Reading Mike Barnard’s Feedback [issue 441] regarding the Todd Krause ’56 Strat, I was hanging on his every word, in total agreement – I mean, why would you design it like that? I almost could not wait for your reply – which was, of course, brilliant! Not only did I howl with laughter but the other side of the story shone through. Each to their own, and thanks for mediating! Ed Kragh, via email Thanks Ed and to Pete Saxby who wrote in on the same subject. What works in the live environment, gear wise, is an interesting topic. Often playability, simplicity and durability can weigh in the balance more than outright tone when it comes to what guitar we choose to gig with, though we have to say all the Custom Shop Guitars we tested sounded great – as they should for nearly four grand apiece. To join Mike Barnard’s side of the argument and play devil’s advocate for a moment, we might add that replaceability is often a desirable quality in a gigging guitar – as guitars do go walkabout when unattended in venues from time to time and accidents are far more likely on a dark, beery stage than at home. At least the CS guitars are
Relics, though, so you needn’t worry about dinging ’em. Anyway, those interesting considerations aside, it’s using them that matters most, regardless of the spec.
ACE OF BASS
As an avid reader of your magazine and sister publication Guitar Techniques, Adam Goldsmith’s meeting with Nile Rodgers [Session Diary, Issue 441] put me in mind of my own experience. After a 50-year study of Bert Weedon’s Play In A Day, but a crushing fear of public performance, a noticeable improvement in learning guitar has definitely allowed me to stay at the top of my game.
I spoke about this with a chap I sat next to on a plane some time ago. We chatted freely for most of the two-hour flight, mainly about music, although I realised eventually, when he told me he lectured in music at the Royal Academy in London and New York, and was on his way to a gig with a 100-year-old double bass in the hold, that I was out of my league.
He asked if I was coming to the gig later in the week, gave me his phone number so he could get me in at the back if the tickets were sold out, and politely refused my offer of a lift to the venue as he was already being met.
When I got home, I googled ‘Dave Holland’ [Miles Davis’s bass player in the late 60s, as well as many more top-flight gigs! – Ed]. After the gig, I introduced him to my wife and daughter, but now knowing who he was, tongue-tied and twisted (as Dave Gilmour sings in Learning To Fly), all I could think of to say was “Great gig” and politely withdrew to concede my place to the throng of jazz aficionados behind me. So, the moral of my story is clear: don’t talk bollocks to strangers. Mac McGregor, via email Thanks for the story, Mac, and what a pleasant if unexpected privilege to talk music with one of the greats of bass, Dave Holland. Have any other readers had chance encounters with their musical heroes? Tell us your stories and we’ll print the best.
LACQUER MYSTERY
Hi folks, thanks very much for this lovely 2019 calendar which came with my copy of issue 441. The picture of the 1966 Telecaster in the month of July raised a question with regard to the lacquer used. The Tele has the same kind of finish damage as compared to my 1966 Strat. I never saw this kind of damage on other Strats since I bought it used in 1972 for 800 Deutsche Mark (less than 200 GBP in these times – sigh!). Also important to mention: this damage was already present in 1972. My question is simple: what happened that this finish got all these lines and also so short after production? It was the time of transition from Fender to CBS, so did they change the recipe of the finish or wanted to save money by choosing a cheaper solvent? Thanks for any insight. Bernd Langer, via email Thanks for writing in with a surprisingly deep question, Bernd. By ‘damage’ we’re going to assume you mean lacquer checking, or to the uninitiated, the ‘crazy paving’ style hairline cracks visible all over the finish of the gold ’66 Tele that featured in our recent 2019 calendar. While there are some broad rules of thumb regarding checking – some will say that Gibson electrics typically exhibit horizontal checking rather than vertical, for example – there are plentiful exceptions. A quick poll of finish experts of our acquaintance yielded the opinion that complex, multiple factors, including temperature and moisture levels, influence lacquer checking, though a polyester base coat did start to come in at Fender during 1966… Look out for a special feature on the subject next issue.