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

Pictures of Dire Straits, Live at the Zirkus Krone, Munchen, May 29, 1979

For your enjoyment, here are a few rare pictures of Dire Straits. They are from a concert in the Zirkus Krone building, Munchen, Germany, on May 29, 1979. After February 1979, they returned to Germany in May, still on the Communiqué tour.

The gear used on this part of the tour has changed slightly against February: Mark still played the #80470 maple-neck Strat (see also this article on his two red Fender Strats) and the black Fender Telecaster on Water of Love over the Morley Volume pedal, and the MXR analog delay, but now he played two of the Music Man HD 130 amps, David played a Peavey T-60 guitar, David’s black Strat was used by Mark for Setting me up now, John played two Ampeg SVT amps.

While watching these pictures in the slide show, you might want to listen to a sound clip from this concert (date and venue are probably this concert, it is sometimes denoted as Frankfurt, Loreley, June 23, 1979, which is most likely wrong). As this recording runs at a wrong speed (many shows that were recorded on cassette recorders in those days are +/- 5% wrong speed), I corrected the speed.

 

Dire Straits 1979 Munich

Mark Knopfler gear, Misc, Misc, MK guitar style and licks

Mark Knopfler on Bob Dylan’s Slow Train Coming

In May 1979 Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits drummer Pick Withers were invited to play on Bob Dylan’s new album, Slow Train Coming. This was not the first session Mark Knopfler was asked to play on (he already played on the   Steely Dan song Time out of Mind and with Mavis Staple before), but it was the first session for a complete album.

The idea came from Barry Becket and Jerry Wexler, the producers of Dire Straits’ second album Communique, which was recorded in December 1978. Becket and Wexler were als the producers of Slow Tran Coming and suggested the Dire Straits lead guitarist and drummer to join the band for that session (Becket himself played the  keyboards, and Tim Drummond was on bass). Dylan saw Dire Straits first on their first US tour in the Roxy, Los Angeles, in March ’79. He was deeply impressed and agreed.

Slow Train Coming was Dylan’s first album after his conversion to Christianity (he was Jewish before), so “all songs were about God” (quote Mark Knopfler, who seemed to be puzzled a bit by this circumstance). The sound and the arrangements of almost the whole album are not too far away from Dire Straits’ first two albums. The 9 songs feature some superb guitar playing by Knopfler, and Pick Withers creative drumming adds a lot of colour and underlines his importance for the Dire Straits sound of that time.

The album was recorded at the famous Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama.

Guitars on Slow Train Coming

Knopfler took the following guitars to the session:

1) A red Fender Stratocaster (my source does not mention which of his two, but since his maple neck Strat (# 80470) was much more used around this time, I would vote for this one)

2) his sunburst Telecaster Custom (the same that is today used for high G-tuning , picture courtesy of Guy Fletcher))

3) a National (he had two at this time, the Style-O of Brothers in Arms fame, and a Tricone from the late 20ies, both are possible)

4) three Ovations ( a 6 & 12 string Adamas – see picture, from the Love over Gold recording session in 1982, and a Custom legend)

5) He also played a Gibson 335 on at least the title track, which was suggested by Barry Becket for a different sound and was borrowed from someone down there)

There is no information on effects and amps available. Knopfler used the Music Man HD 130 212 on stage at this time, from what the ears can tell us, the Music Man might be used on Slow Train Coming, if not then a Fender seems likely.

The songs

1. Gotta serve somebody

A rather simple tune with just the chords Am, Dm, and Em. Knopfler plays a subtle rhythm riff with the neck pick-up of possibly the sunburst Telecaster (the red Strat should sound fatter due to the DiMarzio FS-1 it had in the neck position around that time). This guitar part features bits of Knopfler’s typical staccato picking on two or three strings and is worth a listen.

2. Precious Angel

This song in the key of Eb (chords are Eb, Ab, Bb, and Cm) features two acoustic rhythm guitars, both strummed with a pick. I guess Knopfler played both, or one is played by Dylan (he is credited for guitar as well in the cover notes).

There is a wonderful two-string riff that opens the song and appears between the single verses. It makes use of the Memphis Scale. It is one of my all-time favourite guitar sounds. For a long time I thought it to be the red Strat with the neck pick-up, but meanwhile I tend to believe it is the Telecaster Custom (same argument as for Gotta serve somebody, also a friend once came up with a beautiful 1967 Telecaster in Candy Apple red which had exactly the same sound). Besides the riff and Knopfler’s typical licks between Dylan’s vocal lines, there is a great solo before the last verse, and another one in the outro.

3. I believe in You

Again a strummed acoustic rhythm guitar – I guess it is Mark Knopfler, the timing is close to perfection so it must be him ;). Just like in Precious Angel a lead guitar with the neck pick-up position plays fills and a few wonderful solos. To me it seems to be the same guitar and amp as on the song before. Obviously a volume pedal is used on both songs.

4. Slow Train Coming

The lead guitar is a Gibson 335. The sound is a typical blues sound a la Albert King, but there is just a bit of subtle distortion. The song is in the key of Am and has the chords Am, Dm, Am F, Dm, Am (you will hear when the changes are, it is a really simple song). The rhythm guitar on the left channel is surely Knopfler, here it seems to be the red Strat.

5. Change your way of Thinking

This song build on Mark Knopfler’s three-string riff (over the chords Am, Dm, Em, however, all are played without thirds, see this article about the no-thirds business). Possibly this guitar is the same as on Slow Train Coming (the Es 335), however, a Telecaster with some distortion seems possible as well. The lead guitar has a similar sound, it might be the same guitar as well. Much great lead guitar, many blues and rock licks.

6. Do Right to me Baby

This is a rather hidden diamond on this album. Knopfler’s picking on the National is superb, listen to the way it blends with Pick Wither’s tasteful drums. Chords are B, E, D. The National might be open G with a capo at the 4th fret.

7. When you Gonna Wake up

Not too much guitar in this song with – again – the chords Am, Dm, and Em. The refrain-like part has a few nice D, C, G, F chords thrown in. Knopfler plays the rhythm guitar – I vote for the red Strat – on the left channel, that nicely counteracts with Becket’s keyboards on the right channel.

8. Man gave Names to all the Animals

This one sounds like a children song with a nice reggae groove. Knopfler plays a strummed acoustic reggare rhythm on the left channel.

9. When he Returns

Just piano and vocals here.

Just for the record: Three more songs were recorded on this session and made it to a single b-side or to some bootlegs. These were Ye shall be changed, Trouble in Mind, and Ain’t No Man righteous.

The CD Slow Train Coming has been available in the CBS Nice Price series for a long time, and still does not cost much. If you like early Knopfler guitar work and don’t have it, it is an absolute must have. You won’t regret it. You can follow these links to buy it directly at Amazon.

Amazon.com  . . . . . Amazon.co.uk . . . . .  Amazon.de

Misc

How to hear more on a recording than normal ears can hear

Have you ever tried to transcribe a solo from a recording and you wished you could hear that guitar better in the mix than you actually did? Or did you ask yourself if there is chorus or not, or any other effects? Instead, the vocals, the bass, the drums, everything is louder than what you are trying to listen to, and for this reason you have no chance to hear what you want. Wouldn’t it be great to have a tool with which you can only hear that guitar alone, without the other instruments?

In fact this would be a dream for me, but such a thing does not exist, and despite all new technology maybe never will. But still there is something that sometimes does at least a bit of this and might help you to hear those things better – or at least to hear completely different – than you normally do: the Ingo Raven Super-miracle-transcriber-eliminator…

OK, let’s stop kidding, but in fact some years ago I accidentally came across something exactly like this: my headphones were damaged and for some reason I randomly heard everything completely different: some instruments totally disappeared, others were much louder, and I could hear guitar parts or notes that I didn’t really hear before. I examined what had happend and found a way to do exactly the same with any non-damaged headphones. What does this sound like. Well, listen for yourself:

 

Ever heard that over-dubbed guitar playing those chords in Southbound Again? – And that phrasing of the rhythm guitar in Skateaway? – A flanger on the reverb of the vocals in Calling Elvis! – Some notes never heard that clear on the riff in Setting me up – Listen to the thumb of the rhythm guitar on In the Gallery, and a Chorus in that “he couldn’t be” part

I guess this should be similar to what some karaoke machines might do – but I have to admit I never really tried out one of these myself. Actually all signals that are exactly in the center of the stereo panorama are cancelled out – often just their reverb cloud remains because this is normally stereo -, while instruments that are rather on only the left or right stereo channel become much louder.

I tried to achieve the same with software plug-ins, I was sure that it should be posible, but the results I got so far did not convince me (however I admit I stopped after a few attempts). My tool is simply a headphone cable adaptor. Plug it into your stereo or mp3-player, your headphones into the adaptor, and you will hear it exactly like on the sound clip above.

If you want one of these, I can send you the adaptor for 9,95 € + postage (2€ within Europe, 4 € for the rest of the world). There is a version for large (1/4 ” /6,5 mm) or small (1/8 ” / 3.5 mm) phone jacks, or versions with mixed jacks (large to small or small to large jacks). Please email me at ingo(at)mk-guitar.com to tell me which version you want, and your address. I will send you a Paypal request then. If you don’t want to use Paypal we can try to find another solution.

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

Amps and Gear on the Dire Straits Bootleg Leeds 1978

The bootleg Dire Straits – Leeds – January 30 (31?), 1978 is one of the earliest Dire Straits live recordings (actually the only earlier live recording is  only one song – Eastbound Train from the Hope & Anchor pub, London, December 1977). This bootleg concert was recorded about one week before the recoding sessions for the very first Dire Straits album. This gig was the last of a short England tour, where Dire Straits played support for the Talking Heads. For this reason they did not play a full-length concert set.

The bootleg is from a soundboard recording on a tape cassette and contains the following songs: Southbound Again – Eastbound Train – Down to the Waterline – In the Gallery – Water of Love – Setting me up – Me and my friends – Real Girl – Sultans of Swing

Unfortunately the original tape  was damaged in the solo of the first song – Southbound Again – the reason why the last part of this song is missing. It continues with Eastbound Train (first seconds also missing), but we don’t know how long it took to fix the tape problem (or even to notice the problem) so we don’t know whether there have been any other songs in between or not.

There are no pictures or videos of this concert, but there are a few pictures around from the concert one day before, January 29, at the Roundhouse in London. These pictures are all black&white, but on some you can see a part of the backline gear, which has been very likely the same for all concerts on that tour. The best picture is the following, a rather small picture from a story in Q magazine from 1987.

It is rather hard to see any details. What you can see are three amps. The one in the middle (behind Knopfler’s head) is the brown Fender Vibrolux (he still owns this amp and uses it in his British Grove studios). The square-shaped amp on the left of it is also a Fender, as it seems a black face, and according to the proportions a 4 x 10″ combo. I first suspected it to be a Super Reverb, but meanwhile think it is a Fender Concert Amp (no reverb). The amp on the right is a Music Man, and is probably played by Mark’s brother David. It is not the 212 Music Man that Knopfler used later this year because this would be higher than the Vibrolux. It must be a 2 x 10″ combo.

The guitar is Mark’s maple-neck Fender # 80470, with its white non-original pickguard (see this article for more information on the pickguard issue). The guitar behind Mark seems to be his rosewood Fender # 68354, I suspect it is still bare wood finish here, I assume it was painted red not before summer that year.

As it seems David plays his Fender Strat, the one that later was black, but here it is also still wood finish (possibly both were refinished at the same time). Unfortunately you cannot see any effects or other details.

Vintage guitars

Guitar portrait: 1983 Squier Stratocaster JV pink metallic

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 repeat these things and concentrate only on this particular guitar.

It is the only one in metallic pink I have seen, and before I did not even know that this colour was available. In fact the first Squier Strats were all sunburst, and in 1983 fiesta red, black, and white were added. These were all the colours those Squiers for the world-wide market (the export models) were produced in, but there were a few more for models for the domestic (the Japanese) market: California blue, candy-apple red (CAR), and pink metallic (which replaced CAR in late 1983). There are a few rather small differences between the domestic and the export models, with the most striking beeing the pick-ups which were not the US made Fender pick-ups but Japanese pick-ups called SQ-5 which are excellent and should not be considered as inferior.

The finish is thick glossy poly, just like on the export Squiers. Another difference however is the fretboard curve which is probably 9″ as compared to the 7.25″ of the export models or a Fender vintage Strat. I personally like that 9″ radius because it allows a lower action without string buzzing but still feels like a typical Strat. It seems most CAR Squiers had a shorter scale but this guitar has standard scale length.

It sounds great (like most of these JV Squiers) and I like it a lot.

1983 Squier Stratocaster pink

MK guitar style and licks, Vintage guitars

Romeo and Juliet on National Style-O

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 really nice. I had a steel-body Dobro before I got this one, it was the closest thing you could get in the late 80ies but it was nothing compared to the real thing. It is everything but easy to play, the neck is really huge, and you need a lot of left-hand pressure. It has many dings and dents, and the finish has been totally worn on some places. It is in much worse condition compared to Knopfler’s, and for this reason is not as valuable as his, actually it was comparingly cheap, less than one of those new Nationals.

With exception of the plastic tuner pegs it is all original. Unfortunately the resonator had some cracks and tiny rips. I prefered to fix these with clear super-glue or tiny pieces of adhesive tape, instead of replacing the resonator. The sound on the video is recorded by the camera so it is not the best quality, and without a/b comparision it is probably difficult to judge, but everyone who played it liked it.

Here is the video in youtube high-quality, if your internet connection is not fast enough, click here to watch it directly on youtube in standard quality. Unfortunately my high-quality videos have some sound artefacts (which the file I uploaded doesn’t have), no idea why (any help or suggestions are appreciated), it seems youtube uses some denoising algorithm that causes this.

MK guitar style and licks

Mark Knopfler licks using the Memphis scale

This article is about a “two-strings scale” sometimes called Memphis Scale. Normally these two strings are not adjacent strings, instead you skip one string and play licks e.g. on the D- and B-string (as in the video examples below), or on the G- and high E-string.

With the help of these licks you will increase your vocabulary on the guitar. Whenever you are in danger of running out of ideas or feel chained to a standard (e.g. the pentatonic) scale, these melodic, two-voiced licks guarantee a sudden change and a new colour in your way of playing.

Examples of these licks can be found in a great number of  Mark Knopfler / Dire Straits  tunes, surely to many to name them all. Some nice examples are:

The intro of In the Gallery
Sultans of Swing
Down to the Waterline
Wild West End
Single Handed Sailor
So Far Away
Precious Angel (Bob Dylan featuring Mark Knopfler)

How do these licks work?

First, have a look at the following chord, in this example a G major chord at the 7th fret (the video examples  start with a C chord in the open position). We will build licks that are played on the D and B strings. The notes of this G major chord on these strings are coloured red (the note B on the D string, and a G on the B string).

Below you can see a second way to play a G major chord, it is at the 10th fret position. Again, the notes on the D and B strings (this time a D and a B) are coloured in red.

These four notes on the fingerboard:

The next logical step is to add certain “connecting” notes to create smooth transitions from the first position of the lick (8 and 9th fret) into the second position at the 12th fret. These notes are the C (D-string 10th fret) and the A (B-string 10th fret) – on the picture these notes are green.

This is a typical pattern (here for G major) and many licks in the video are based on it.

Which Fingers of the Left hand?

As a rule, always use the second (middle) finger of the left hand for the notes on the D string, and the first or third finger for the notes on the B string here: use the first finger if the B string note is on a lower fret than the D string note, the third if it is on the same fret. Both fingers stay in touch with the strings whenever possible.

Video

If your connection is too slow to watch this video in high quality, go to youtube and watch it in normal quality.

Tabs for some licks from the video

Intro of In the Gallery

Chicken picking (from a live version of Skateaway)

Notting Hillbillies – That’s where I belong

Bob Dylan – Precious Angel

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

Mark Knopfler’s Rickenbacker of Portobello Belle live in 1981

On the Making movies tour in 1981, Mark Knopfler played a Rickenbacker guitar on Portobello Belle. To my knowledge only one single picture exists with this guitar which is the one below.

Since I have this picture at a rather high resolution, I also put in an enlarged version with just that guitar.

I would be lying if I said I am an expert on Rickenbacker guitars, so feel free to suggest which model it is using the comment function.

Guitar in general, Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

Pickguard wiring of vintage Schecter Strat

Here is an original drawing from Schecter Guitar Research showing the wiring layout of a vintage Schecter Stratocaster pickguard with those F500T pick-ups. I found it in an old German book about guitar electronics from the 80ies, and it seems to be pretty rare so I want to share it with you. It is the same layout that should originally have been in all of Mark Knopfler’s Schecter Strats.

Schecter Strat pickguard wiring

An interesting little detail is the little capacitor and an additional resistor at the volume poti. The capacitor is 0.001 uF (= 1 nF), the resistor is 150 kOhms. The 0.001uF cap is the same value as you can find on a vintage Fender Telecaster. Its purpose is to prevent treble loss when the volume is reduced. With the cap alone you will even get some treble boost when rolling back the volume poti. The resistor equalizes this effect, something you might want to try out since it costs only a few cents. You have to solder the cap and the resistor in parallel from the wiper (middle terminal) to the input terminal (the one with the cable from the pick-up selector). That’s all.

Also note the value of the tone cap. It is 0.01uF. This is much less than Fender (Fender vintage would be 0.1uF, later Fenders had 0.05uF). For this reason rolloing back the tone poti will give you more of a midrange sound compared to Fender.

Easy stuff for beginners, MK guitar style and licks, Understanding music

Some Mark Knopfler licks using double-string bends

What I mean with double-string bends are licks that are played on two or more strings and one or more of these are bent. Such licks appear in countless Mark Knopfler or Dire Straits songs.

The following video clip demonstrates how to use such licks, and their relation to the chords they are based upon. Note that the last licks (Once Upon a time and Sultans of Swing) were covered in one of my former articles.

Most stuff in this video should be self-explaining, so here it is.

This video is in high quality. If your connection speed is too low, click here to watch it on youtube in normal quality.