MK guitar style and licks, Vintage guitars

Down to the Waterline on 1961 Fender Stratocaster Sonic Blue

When I had the opportunity to play on Mark Knopfler’s sunburst Schecter Strat some weeks ago, I could also try out some other great guitars over there. Here is a video of a 1961 Fender Stratocaster in all original sonic blue that really impressed me. Some slab board Stratocasters from the very early sixties can have a rather dark or even muddy sound, that’s why some players prefer Strats after summer 1962 when the transition from the fat slab board of Brazilian rosewood to the thinner curved fingerboard was. Not so this 1961 Strat, it rang like a bell and sang like a bird (IMHO)! But listen and decide for yourself.

The guitar was played through an Ernie Ball volume pedal into a Tone King Metropolitan amp. The strings on the guitar were 09-42. Recorded with the mic of the camera, that’s why you hear that much compression (almost all cameras have a built in compressor to avoid distortion).

Misc, Vintage guitars

Brazilan rosewood and German authorities

Brazilian rosewood is one of the greatest woods for fingerboards. Unfortunately this tropical tree – Dalbergia nigra – is  on the CITES list of endangered species so that strict restriction were put on trading this wood in 1992, the reason why Brazilian rosewood was found on many vintage guitars but hardly on new guitars (which often use Indian rosewood as a substitute).

 

Carrying such a vintage guitar on a tour requires a lot of different papers – acording to German authorities

 Vintage Guitar Show cancelled

Germany’s biggest vintage guitar show which was planned for the coming weekend (November 3/4) has been cancelled for legal reasons that have to do with this wood. What happened? German authorities (the Bundesamt für Naturschutz) released an anouncement (German language) about Brazilian rosewood last year that explicitely explains how to deal with any items, like guitars, that contain parts of this wood: if you want to travel with such a guitar from e.g. the US into the EU, you need a paper from the US authorities that allows exporting, and another one from German authorities that allows importing it. This is true for new instruments (which makes sense), but also for any instruments that were built before this wood was added to the CITES list (1992). It also requires another special paper (Vermarkungsbescheinigung) to display such an instrument in public on a non-private event.

This means: if you are an amateur musician and own such a guitar, you are not allowed to play it on a local gig in a pub, or to display it on a guitar show, theoretically not even to play it in a youtube video that includes advertizing, unless you have such a paper from the authorities.

This paper however requires a (sometimes expensive) certificate that your guitar was produced before 1992, and that you bought it before this date. If you bought it after 1992, you need papers that prove when and where the guitar was imported into the EU. If you bought it in e.g. 2005 on ebay, you might not got such papers from the seller, who also maybe had bought it from somwhere else without these papers, and you cannot prove legitimacy of the EU import.

This theoretically also applies to touring bands. Mark Knopfler’s Les Pauls, his ’61 Strat, his sunburst Telecaster, some of his Pensas and Pensa Suhrs, and possibly some of his Martins, have fingerboards of Brazilian rosewood. If after the US leg of a tour he continues the tour in the EU, the customs office might insist on an export paper from the US, an import paper from the EU, plus the licence to use it in public, and this for each guitar. If he does not have these papers, they might confiscate the guitar, or finally even destroy the wonderful 1958 Les Paul  “due to public interest”.

This has not happened to any touring artist yet (and hopefully never will), but it has been officially confirmed that this is law (or at least the way German authorities interprete some EU laws), and it is thus a theoretical threat for any musician.

Violin confiscated

The following however has happened, and it shows the way  German authorities can act: A Japanese star violin player carried a violin worth about 7.6 million Euros on a tour. German customs insisted on her paying 19% VAT (about 1.4 million Euros) to get the instrument into the EU, and this although it was clear that she did not want to sell it there but to play it on a classical concert (the violin was not even hers but a loan of some cultural institution). The violin was confiscated. It took an argument between the Japanese and German government to get it back some time later.

It is good to control trading with endangered species, and thus to protect the rain forest, but it is crazy to make playing an instrument illegal which you might have for years and that was built when the wood was legally available everywhere, unless you can provide a bunch of  difficult to get papers.

Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos, Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

Clips from Guitar Stories

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Update: Soon after Sky Arts aired  Guitar Stories, the full video appeared on youtube:

 

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As most fans will already know,   Sky Arts 1 will broadcast Guitar Stories on October 16 at 10pm  (some more info on Guitar Stories’ facebook page). Presented by John Illsley, Mark talks about his most important guitars.

In addition to the first trailer, a few more preview clips appeared recently which I put together for you here:

Trailer:

Clips 1 – 4:
The National Style-O

1961 Fender Stratocaster

Hofner V2

Another clip, with the 1958 Les Paul, cannot be embedded. You can watch it directly on youtube.

Misc

Talking Heads live in 1978 – Encores with Mark Knopfler and John Illsley

It is always a nice surprise to see “historic” pictures or recordings appear from the very early Dire Straits era. This time no pictures but a recording from the Talking Heads tour in early 1978  – to be precise ,  from February 5 at the Greyhound Croydon. This was the last gig of the Talking Heads tour on which Dire Straits were the support band, 5 days after the gig in Leeds which is – with the exception of the song Eastbound Train that was recorded live in 1977 and released as b-side of the Sultans of Swing single –  the first existing Dire Straits live recording.

On this Talking Heads recording, Mark appeared on two encore songs It seems a third one – Gloria – was played on that concerts but it is missing on the recording, too bad. John Illsley also appeared on one of the two. So it is really a very early diamond that was dug out (the full recording is available at the Spanish City tracker – thank you guys for your great work over there).

The first song with Mark is called I’m Not In Love. Unfortunately he is rather low in the mix, and as it as an audience recording )of course …) plus the fact that Talking Heads already had two guitar players on stage, it is hard to identify what exactly he is playing, and what the other two guitar players. The bright rhythm guitar should be David Byrne, but the second guitarist Jerry Harrison has a similar sound and makes identifying a bit difficult.

Here is an excerpt of the song I’m Not In Love, the first solo you hear is probably Mark (as said very low in the mix), while the second solo (starting at 0:50) might be Jerry Harrison. Another solo, starting at 1:56, is IMHO Mark again.

 

The second song is Psycho Killer (one of their hits, so you might know this one). Interestingly it was played before on that concert, and then again as an encore with Mark and John Illsley. Comparing both versions makes it easier to tell what is Mark – probably the guitar parts that were not there in the first version (in which we hear also a guitar solo, but much louder). I think Mark’s solo starts around 0:40, while another guitarist plays the riff starting at 1:00. Then Mark plays the licks and solo parts during the rest of the song.

 

Talking Heads on stage a few weeks later (May 1978)
Guitar in general

Crazy – J.J. Cale’s Harmony guitar – pictures and video of the inside

These pictures are nothing new neither secret, I saw them for the first time so many years ago in a J.J. Cale songbook. I stumbled upon them again today, and just thought that these are simply worth to have a look at (and I know that J.J. Cale ranks high among us Mark Knopfler fans). Just to make it clear: this is not what the guitar looks like from the back after removing some backside lid, this was the way he played it in the studio and on stage.

Crazy, isn’t it. Note an even crazier detail: What you can see in the red circle is a coin which he put in to adjust the action of the guitar (it bends the top a bit so that the action becomes higher)!!

This is the matching picture of the front side:

And here is one showing him on stage with the beast:

To even top all this, here is a video in which J.J. shows his guitar – he made a hole for a mic with a hammer !!!! 🙂

Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos

Mark Knopfler surprise performance at the Range Rover event

In the evening of  September 6/7, Mark Knopfler and his band played a surprise performance at the Range Rover event at the Royal Ballet School in Richmond Park, where Land Rover revealed the All-New Range Rover, the fourth generation of the world’s most capable and luxurious SUV. The audience consisted of  leaders from business, film, television and sport. Many of these were long-standing Range Rover owners and enthusiasts keen to get the first view of the All-New Range Rover.

The dramatic reveal culminated in a surprise  performance by  Mark Knopfler with his band. They played seven songs: Walk of Life, Sailing to Philadelphia, Romeo and Juliet, Sultans of Swing, Money for Nothing, Brothers in Arms, Local Hero, So Far Away. With the exception of Sailing to Philadelphia, the set included only Dire Straits hits, and not a single track from Mark’s new album Privateering. The band consisted of   MK, Guy Fletcher, Glenn Worf, Richard Bennett, Ian Thomas, and Nigel Hitchcock on saxophone (Edit/Update: Nigel Hitchcock played sax on Walk of Life, Sailing to Philadelphia, Romeo and Juliet, and Local Hero, no sax break in Sultans).

At the moment there is the following video of the event on youtube. You can see a few snippets of Mark’s performance starting at 1:56.

Two pictures can be found here. You can download these in high resolution, don’t miss to open the first one which shows Mark playing his signature Strat in an astonishing quality (the thumbnail does not show the guitar at all).

The band is probably rehearsing for the coming US tour with Bob Dylan, so they might have taken the opportunity to play there. It is not clear at the moment why they Played almost only Dire Straits songs, and none from Privateering. Maybe Land Rover asked for these, or the DS hits seemed better for a random audience that is not necessarily into Mark’s current music.

MK guitar style and licks, Understanding music

The opening lick of the last solo in Bluebird

In the following you will find a tab of a lick in the song Bluebird from Mark Knopfler’s last album Privateering. It is the lick the last solo starts with (2:40 – 2:43). I like this lick because I thought it sounds unusual and thus interesting  when I first heard it. While I often immediately know on what scale or idea a MK lick is based when I hear it, I was lost a bit with this one. I was assuming something chromatic and was curious so that I figured it out today. Now looking at it, it does not  really seem unusual anymore, it is based on the same scale as the lick in the break of Calling Elvis, but it is nice anyway.

The song Bluebird is in the key of Ebm / D#m (both Ebm or D#m have the same number (6)  of sharps or flats,  to my humble knowledge it is a matter of taste which one you prefer). The blues- scheme like chord progression consists of the chords Ebm , Abm, and Gb (or D#m, G#m, and F#). The lick runs over the last chord (Ebm / D#m) of the chord progression.

The chromatic feel I refered to is on fact only because of just one note, the flattened fifth (b5, here an A) that connects the Bb and the Ab (the blue note in the tab, in fact it is a “blue note” of the scale), all other notes are simply notes of the Ebm / D#M scale. Note how laid-back Mark plays the high Eb (the 11 in magenta)!

Make sure not to play too loud, play rather very softly but accentuated. I cannot say for sure if there are pull-offs or not (e.g. between the two first notes), when played with such soft attack it makes almost no audible difference. Lay your left hand index finger over  all four strings, just like you do when playing barre chords, and keep it pressed down during the whole first bar. This helps to make the lick sound more legato.

Have fun!

Guitar in general, Misc, Understanding music

My Privateering review

This week Privateering was released, Mark’s new double-CD album. As there will be a lot of reviews anyway, I will focus on some particular aspects like guitars, sounds, songwriting techniques etc in my review. Likewise, I will not discuss anything related to lyrics. I will tell you what I love but also what I personally would have liked to be different. The album is still very fresh for me after listening to it for only a few days so I might see some things a bit different after some more time of listening.

The album consists of 20 songs, 10 on each of the two CDs.  Mark always wrote a lot of songs for his albums, even the  Love over Gold album (1982) was initially considered for a double CD. It seems that he writes more and more these days so his first double-CD had been overdue for some time. Like with all his last albums, Mark focused on his musical roots so that we find a blend of Irish / Celtic melodies, rock, jazz, folk, and blues again. However, it is namely the blues that is much more dominant on Privateering than on any other MK album before. I think I heard Mark saying that one day he will record a blues album for the first time back in the 90ies –  Privateering is not just blues but maybe the outcome of what has been in the cards for some time.

Song for Song

1 – Redbud Tree

This one has been played on the radio for some weeks, it is not the single (there is none yet) but was called the ‘focus song’ for the radio (although I don’t see it as the most typical of the album). A strummed acoustic guitar leads you through the song, the chords and chord changes are typical MK  (Dm, C,  Bb, F…  a la Sultans of Swing, or the change from D to Dm a la Six Blade Knife or Telegraph Road). And we have time-signature changes all over the song, mainly half bars, as in countless other MK songs (in fact I consider these time changes as THE typical element in his songwriting).

The middle section of the song consists of something I am sure many of us love to hear: a long solo on a clean Strat – I heard it was a MK signature Strat – not played with a pick like Mark often did to get the Hank Marvin sound in the past but fingerpicked).

I love the melody of the verses, the chorus is catchy, too, but somehow “too much” for my taste. Also I wonder how the song would sound if the other instruments – mainly the drums – were not mixed so low?

All in all a great song.

2 – Haul Away

Here Mark opens the “Irish folk tunes” drawer. He has always used ingredients from here but I think the first time we heard him singing such a tune was Lily of the West with the Chieftains, or All the Roadrunning a bit later. This song is really beautiful, it has a strong melody, and the blend of violin, accordion, and whistle sounds nice. Nothing to dislike here.

3 – Don’t forget your Hat

Here the blues comes for the first time. It is closer to tradtional Muddy Water blues than anything we heard from Mark before (although You can’t beat the House  from the last albums was already a hint in this direction). We have the blues piano, slide guitar (the Danelectro?), a shuffle rhythm, and … the harp (played by Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds).

Luckily it is not the standard 12-bar chord progression but something on its own, again including time changes. If you like the song or not has probably to do with if you like blues or not. I was surprised a bit when I heard the song for the first time but got used to it and like it. I think it is fair to say that it proves that Mark can play authentic blues (in case anyone doubted it).

4 – Privateering

The title song is one of the strongest songs of the album. The mix of vocals and guitar lines with a unique melody and lots of fancy rhythm is really cool, and it catches you (I notice it plays a lot in my head these days). Major parts of the song rely mainly on vocals and acoustic guitar, the drums did not come in before more than two minutes in the song. Unfortunately they are restricted mainly to the instrumental ‘chorus’ part of the song, I can imagine some nice groovy stuff over the verses as well.

5 – Miss you Blues

Another side of the blues, going back even more in musical history. This song would have fit on the Notting Hillbillies album perfectly. The slide solos are beautiful, so is the acoustic guitar intro. A nice little song for me (the melody is based on a traditional by the way).

6 – Corned Beef City

Here the rocker of the album comes. Throaty guitar riffs (wah boosted?) and melodic slide licks over a straight rock rhythm. Not bad, nevertheless this one is not my cup of tea yet. It reminds me a bit of Gravy Train (which I like but don’t see as Mark’s strongest song either). I guess many will disagree with me on this one which means this song has its right to be there as well…

7 – Go, Love

This one is one of my favourites of the album at the moment. Especially the melody of the verses is wonderful. Also the way the chorus resolves into the guitar solo. The chorus itself seems a bit weaker to me than the verse but it “destroys” nothing for me (as the chorus on Je suis desolé did for me) so I am happy with the song as it is.

8 – Hot or what

Blues again, all I wrote about Don’t forget your hat is true for this one, too (the key – C – is also the same, however no time changes this time). Some nice guitar solos.

9 – Yon two Crows

This song seems like a mix of Celtic sounds and instrumental parts with a rock song a la Silvertown Blues to me. It has a ‘spooky, foggy  mood’ and I  must admit I like it much.

10 – Seattle

A slow ballad with lots of hidden beauty. I love the first line of the chorus (“Seattle, you got to love the rain…”). There are some nice low guitar lines that sound like the ’54 Strat with  a pick with some pedal steel sound floating above in the outro, really nice.

11 – Kingdom of Gold

Kingdom of Gold is another example of Mark’s approach to write folk songs. It would have fit on on the previous albums, but at the same time I hear that melancholy of e.g. Sands of Nevada in it. It is not one of my favourites of the album, but it might grow on me a bit more.

12 – Got to have something

This is the third song of the album’s blues set. It starts with a cool guitar rhythm and has more of a rock song. The key is not too far away from the other two mentioned so far ( B now instead of C), and we have time changes again (a half bar before each vocal like).

13 – Radio City Sereneade

Another slow song, with some nice melody lines. Not a bad song but very slow so you have to be in the right mood. I like the horn hook starting at e.g. 4:29. Did you hear the Down to the Waterline fog horn at 0:04?

14 – I used to could

Another one of the ‘blues session’, starting with a great Walk of Live riff (also in E), not too fast, not too slow. The vocal melody sounds ‘traditional’ but has something special that I like. There are various harp and guitar solos, this time not slide guitar but some ‘open strings’ stuff over E.

15 – Gator Blood

Still bluesy but more rock on Gator Blood.  The guitar lick is abit similar to the one on Do right to me, Baby from Slow Train Coming (I guess open G tuning with capo at the third fret). I can imagine that the breaks in the middle where Mark plays those slide quarter-note triplets on the high e string will blow us away when played at high volume live on stage (like the break in Calling Elvis). The rest of the song is really simple (which is not meant in a negative way), only few chord changes, a time change in the chorus, only a few instruments (which is something I must say I like as a contrast to the growing number of  instruments during the last years).

16 -Blubird

This song seems like a mix of Fade to Black and  the Argentinian tango approach of e.g. El Macho. It might grow on me a bit more but up to now I find myself skipping it often. I don’t like that harp-sounds-like-accordion solo in the middle but the guitar solo at the end is not bad, especially how it starts (click here for a tab and an analysis).

17 – Dream of the Drawned Submariner

A beautiful song again, just listen to the line “far away…… on the water”. The acoustic guitar is great that comes after the clarinet solo. And I like the synth string sound that creates a nice mood, with the Les Paul (?) licks between the clarinet at the end of the song.

18 – Blood and Water

Another side of the blues, more jazzy chord changes. Is it Paul Franklin on pedal steel guitar who plays those wah-wah chords occasionally? Lots of guitar solo stuff. Maybe it is because the song is towards the end of an album with 20 songs, I still am not sure what to think about this one.

19 – Today is Okay

Again a bluesy song, with harp solos, guitar riffs, blues piano, shuffle rhythm… . This time we have a true 12-bar chord progression for the solo sections. If you love blues and love MK, you should love this one.

20 – After the Beanstalk

The last song might be a skipper for some. It reminds me of a Ry Cooder song (still wondering which one, should be from the Boomer’s Story or Paradise and Lunch era). The instruments (e.g. the mandolin) also remind me of Cooder. Not one of  my favourites (not yet?).

All in all

After writing this review I notice that some of the words that appeard many times were “nice”, “blues”, “beautiful”, so maybe these sum up the album. With 20 songs at such an early stage some things might grow on me a bit more so it is too early for a final conclusion.

The strong emphasis on blues is  new, gone are folk waltzes (compare the number of songs in a 3/4 meter with the last two albums). I like that Mark avoids the traditional 12-bar blues scheme. And – no surprise – many songs are the continuation of what Mark did over the last let’s say two decades.

I think there is more cool stuff on Privateering than on the last two albums, this is something  I like because  the cool sound is what I  love so much about  the very early Dire Straits stuff.

One last word about something I do not like at all: I bought the limited super deluxe edition which is great with the additional DVD ( A Life in songs) , a  CD with three bonus songs, the vinyl LPs, and the artwork. However, it does not include the bonus CD of the normal deluxe edition (5 songs from rehearsals), and there is another bonus song (Your perfect song) if you buy the mp3 album at Amazon. I must admit it is not too important for me to have these as well, but if it was I had to buy the deluxe edition in addition (nice pun) to the super deluxe edition – and this is simply ridiculous. This might have to do more with a decision from the record company than from Mark but still it is a no-go I think (and there were similar complaints about the Get Lucky deluxe box before).

Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos

Pictures from Dire Straits gig – Hamburg, October 28, 1978

I recently wrote various blog posts about ‘new’ pictures from some early Dire Straits gigs (e.g. here or here). Normally it happens only rarely that such new pictures appear – we are talking about a period more than 40 years ago, a time before digital cameras existed –  but these days again someone pointed me towards another set of nine pictures on Flickr, this time from the gig in Hamburg, Musikhalle, October 28, 1978. The photographer is Heinrich Klaffs.

Years ago I already wrote a blog post about a set of pictures from this early Dire Straits gig, in fact the first gig they did in Germany at all. However, with the help of these new pictures I must correct myself and state now that the pictures in that other blog post seem rather to be from the gig on the next day, October 29, in Berlin (in fact the photographer credtited on one of those pictures –  (Jim) Rakete – is associated with Berlin). Back then I also wrote a few words on that black Music Man guitar strap and I assumed that Mark got this strap in Hamburg (Europe’s Music Man distributor , No. 1 Music, was located in Hamburg) and used it from the Hamburg gig on. Now I still think that he got it on that day in Hamburg but did not use it before the next day. So again, all pictures with the thin brown guitar strap should be from a gig before October 29, 1978, all the ones with the wider black Music Man strap are from later gigs in 1978 or 1979.

Now, here are the nine pictures:

 

Here is a sound clip from that gig. The full concert is available on a bootleg recording, which unfortunately is in poor sound quality. It also runs way too fast so I corrected the speed of this clip. They already played some of the Communique songs on that gig (they recorded Communique about two months later). Mark’s was on a top-notch concentration level once again and the recording captures some of the magic of their sound back then.