Dire Straits at the Hope & Anchor pub 1977 – new picture

I recently got an old Dutch magazine called JOEPIE from February 1979 with a two-page story about Dire Straits. It features two pictures that show the band on stage at the Hope & Anchor pub. Dire Straits played there several times in late 1977: on September 10 (in the evening after  they played the Clapham Common gig in the afternoon of that same day), on November 4, 11, and 18, […]

Loaded pickguards now available in black

The loaded Strat pickguards in the vintage Schecter style have been available in brass and white aluminium for a while now, but from now on they are also available in black aluminium. You can chose between two versions: with the VFS-1 or the F500T-style pickups. As both are tapped pickups (two different sounds for each pickup), you will get 26 different pickup combinations and thus 26 different sounds. The black […]

What are Mark Knopfler’s vintage guitars worth?

This week I visited the Frankfurt Music Fair, the world’s leading trade fair for the world of music. On one floor it featured a special vintage guitar exhibition where you could see lots of wonderful guitars, even most valuable guitars like Fenders and Gibsons from the fifties. I took many pictures of all kind of guitars, but with this blog post I would like to feature those which are similar […]

Mark Knopfler Gear Database: first pages online plus possibility to upload your own pictures

The first (today: nine) pages with Mark Knopfler guitars are online. I started with some Strats (mainly the most important ones) and also finished the ones about his 1958 and 1959 Les Pauls. I also included the option to upload your own pictures for each guitar at the bottom of the pages. If many will do, we might soon have a nice picture gallery for each guitar. After approval (to […]

They all look the same – How to tell Mark Knopfler’s different signature Strats apart

While working on the new gear database – especially on the pages about the different MK Signature Strats – I felt it difficult to tell from a picture which of his different signature Strats it is  (Mark used alone three of these on the 2008 tour, and generally seems to use even more here and there). So I had to dig a bit deeper into the numerous pictures and viceo […]

Mark Knopfler Signature Strat with lipstick pickups played on Forever Young (duet with Bob Dylan)

The recent Mark Knopfler & Bob Dylan tour ended with the show at the Hammersmith Apollo in London on November 21, 2011. The last encore played that day was a duet of both masters – the song ‘Forever Young’ (from Dylan’s 1974 album Planet Waves). A new guitar appeared on this song – a Mark Knopfler Signature Strat with lipstick pickups. The original lipstick pickup The lipstick pickup was the pickup […]