With this article, I want to feature my good old acoustic guitar: a Gibson MK-81 from 1976. I got this guitar more than 20 years ago. I was looking for an acoustic guitar and was trying out all the guitars in that shop. After a while the shop owner brought one more from some room in the back, saying I should try out this one, it was special. This was […]
I have my National for some years now but never found the time, money, and courage to install a pick-up into this sensitive instrument. But a few weeks ago I decided to order what is said to be the best available pick-up for single cone Nationals: the iP-1X pick-up from Highlander – the same model that Mark Knopfler has in both his beautiful 1937 National and his new National. I […]
Mark Knopfler owns two beautiful vintage Gibson acoustic guitars which he seems to play a lot on his studio albums these days. One is a 1953 Gibson Southerner Jumbo, the other a 1938 Gibson Advanced Jumbo which I would like to feature in this article. Both have a sunburst finish and thus look a bit similar at first glance. Besides the different body shape, the different fingerboard inlays tell you […]
I already wrote three articles about Japanese vintage Strats, an introduction and a portrait of the fiesta red and the pink metallic Squier JV. I noticed that a lot of people surf into this site because of these articles, so I want to release a fourth one, this time about the almost legendary Tokai Springy Sound Strats. Many years ago I had on of these myself. This was about 1980. […]
Have you ever wondered why Mark Knopfler’s Gibson Les Pauls (he has a ’58, a ’59, and some replicas of late 50ies models) differ so much in their colour? And what is the colour called, simply sunburst, or is it cherry sunburst, or tobacco sunburst? Have you ever heard the term ‘unburst’? The answer is simple: all those Les Paul Standards from that era (they were only built in this […]
After the portrait of the fiesta red 1983 Squier Stratocaster, today’s article features another Japanese vintage Squier, this time an ultra-rare model in all original pink metallic finish. Since all important facts about that great JV series that was available in 1982-83 only have been mentioned in two previous articles (the mentioned portrait of the fiesta red 1983 Squier Stratocaster, and the article about Japanese vintage guitars), I will not […]
This week was again a rather busy one, so not much time for the next article. All I have is a video of me playing Romeo and Juliet on that National Style-O (read style-“Oh”, the letter not the number, see this article for some detail pictures of this guitar), but there are no instructions or explanation. If you want you can check it out nevertheless, see below. This guitar is […]
I set up a poll about your wishes for future articles, it can be found under pages (so that it will be up for some time) or directly here (up to 4 possible answers). If you have further suggestions, please use the comment function on that page (click here) instead of the one under this article. Thanks.
Some general info about Japanese vintage guitars from the early 80ies was subject in one of the last articles. This time I want to feature my fiesta red Squier Strat from the almost legendary JV series. It was simply the overall quality of these guitars that left such a deep impact when they appeared on the scene in about 1982. These Squiers were copies of vintage Strats, to be precise, […]
When I started playing the guitar in 1979 (after hearing a certain Mark Knopfler playing Sultans of Swing) I wanted a Strat of course. At that time Fender made exactly one model – the “Stratocaster”, no Deluxe, Standard, Hot Rod, Super, Extra, and the like – only and simply the “Stratocaster”. On the other hand you had Japanese copies by a zillion of manufacturers it seems. At that time nobody […]