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When I was a lad the 2 guitars that fascinated me the most were the Yamaha SG1000/2000 and the other was the Ibanez Roadstar. The Roadstar was Ibanez’s second attempt at an original design based loosely on the Fender Stratocaster. The earlier Blazer model was just a plain attempt, but with the Roadstar they really went to town.

By 1984 the design had evolved into a plethora of variations offering unlimited choices to the modern 1980’s player and boy people used them, a mainstay of the early 80’s working musician even some Pro’s like Steve Lukather had a signature model, Gary Moore,Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet, Allan Holdsworth. No wonder Fender were on there knees. In Back to the Future, Michael J Fox’s character Marty McFly owned an Ibanez RS440. for an all American boy to be playing a Japanese guitar in a Hollywood movie really showed how successful the Roadstar had become.

In the mid 80’s the guitar to beat was not even Fender anymore. Charvel and Kramers S-type designs were being used by both 1980’s metal types and top session guitarists. Ibanez realised that the key was too offer an S-type guitar with a Floyd type trem.
By 1986 they had managed to secure a license to make the floyd and rechristened it the Edge trem.

As 1987 became 1988 Ibanez had secured the endorsement of Steve Vai and a host of other up and coming widdlers such as Paul Gilbert and Vinnie Moore, The Jem 777 and legendary RG series exploded on the scene and became the must have rock guitar of the day.
However 1986’s Ibanez Catalog is perhaps the most interesting. Stuck between the traditional and the widdly era’s one can see some interesting guitars evolve. The Proline
managed to bring together the Roadstar body and RG series headstock design with some really odd mini button pickup switching options.

The final incarnation of the Roadstar actually had RG model prefix’s and the first year of production the RG/Sabre/S series were branded under the Roadstar series in America only.

I’ve spent the last 6 months trying endless Strat type guitars and have been dissapointed, when in January I tried a Roadstar RG440 (like the blue guitar at the top of the page) it was a black one and besides the Floyd type trem it had an oil finished neck that was quite substantial, yet easy to play. However good old Denmark Street had priced it at around £300 yet it had the shit kicked out of it.

However a good guitar is always easy to track down and I’ve just bought a Roadstar RG440 off Ebay and its possibly the cleanest 22 year old guitar I have ever played. The pickups are nothing exceptional however the neck is……probably one of the best necks I’ve played, fast, yet with enough mass to dig in. I’d say it was more like the excellent Ibanez Joe Satriani Guitars in terms of feel and the floyd licensed Edge tremelo system is like new.

A few days after I bought the guitar I was contacted by a chap called Nigel who missed bidding and wanted to buy the guitar off me, I was tempted for a black one, but relented.
Nigel is 41 and plays in a covers band, owns lots of guitars, Fenders/Gibsons/Yamaha etc. However his main axe of choice is a black Roadstar RG440, he’s pretty much sold on the the 1986 incarnation of the Roadstar as the ultimate gigging S-type. Well made, easy to play with a great tremelo and above all….cheap as chips. He compares it to an early 80’s Charvel. I’ve never played one, but I did play a Musicman Luke (Steve Lukather’s current signature guitar) last year. The quality and feel of this Ibanez reminded me of a Musicman.

These guitars are seriously undervalued right now. A good clean 22-25 year old Roadstar can be had for around £180-£300. Thats less than a used Mexican Strat and a much much better made all round instrument that I suspect will increase in value.
As usual beware of guitars with knackered tremelo systems and hacked up bodies, also an unfinished neck is much more susceptable to damage and dirt. The Edge tremelo is still in production,so spares are plentiful however beware the 1983 pro rocker tremelo, it doesnt work well, also the pre floyd locking system popular on RS430/440 models from 1984 is impossible to find parts for, unless one gets lucky on Ebay.

A weekly scan of Ebay reveals a good 6-8 Roadstars on the market at any one time, usually 2 or 3 1986 RG models. If one wants to do the high performance tremelo equipped Superstrat guitar on a budget and own a future collectable to boot, there really is no better place to start.

Of late I’ve been taking many trips down memory lane back to the 80’s to be precise, my formative years as a guitarist and the decade that like it or not shaped me.

My own personal 80’s influences can be neatly divided into 3 categories

The Texturalists: Will Sergant, John McGeoch,The Edge, Jamie West-Oram, Robert Smith, Johnny Marr – Non of these guys were known for soloing,but they created atmosphere and dynamics with interesting ideas and use of effects,with Marr and sergant alternative tunings were often applied, with McGeoch just really mad ideas. They taught me lots about applying the guitar in a group situation and about using my imagination.

The Shredders: Vivian Campbell,Jake E Lee,Gary Moore,Rhandy Rhoads, George Lynch, John Sykes

A lot of fans of the first group of guitarists would probably be horrified that someone who owns a Smiths album would listen to someone like George Lynch, but thats just silly. Music is a broad church and a real player will see the good in most things. In particular this later group taught me about playing with fire and passion and also the fact that its actually quite useful to know your scales and modes. They also gave me something to aim for technically.

The in betweeners: Alex Lifeson, Reeves Gabriels – These guys could do both equally well and frequently did.

The hardware of the 80’s was in the main Stratocaster type guitars, not by Fender you understand. But by makers who in many cases started out putting together high quality components for the proffessional user like Schecter,Charvel/Jackson, Tom Anderson, Suhr, Buddy Blaze etc. The top selling guitar in North America from the mid-late 80’s was Kramer, followed by Ibanez with its high performance RG guitars. Every guitar was much the same, the usual components were

Basswood Body: Cheap, tonally neutral and had little grain so applying a mad paintjob to it was easy
22 fret neck with Jumbo frets
Floyd Rose locking Tremelo System or sometimes a Kahler
2 single coils & 1 Humbucking pickup
Flashy Paintjob

Now I’ve been thinking about a Stratocaster for a while and I’ve yet to find a guitar that really has everything I like, which has annoyed me. Back in the late 70’s many guitarists felt the same and thus the replacement part industry was born, which then gave way to the 80’s definitive guitar, the Superstrat, and of course the biggest names who made those guitars. Charvel/Jackson, Hamer, Ibanez,Schecter,Kramer, Valley Arts etc etc.

Of course Fashions changed and with Fenders reversal in fortunes comes the Irony that they now own Charvel/Jackson as well as Hamer as part of the massive FMIC group. Gibson own Kramer, Valley arts and Steinberger.

Now I’ve been thinking that as I cant find my ideal Strat, perhaps the time has come to put one together, take a used unloved guitar with a good neck and body and add the rest myself??

Hmm

Watch this Space.

Its been buzzing on the Guitarist magazine forums of late, due to a post concerning the new distribution arrangements of Gibson guitars. One posting was even taken down in whole by the moderators on there, so its clear that even the bods at Future publishing are scared of offending the US behemoth.

Gibsons mighty name had been in the shit in the 1980’s when basically a decline in quality coupled with them being out of fashion meant that flash bolt on neck widdle machines by the likes of Charvel/Jackson/Ibanez/Kramer ruled the roost. In the early 1980’s a Les Paul was as desirable as Herpes and not quite as freely available. I remember no one really stocking new ones in the 1980’s, especially outside of big cities.

But what goes around comes around & since the arrival of Slash on the guitar scene in 1987 and the arrival of new owner Henry Juszkiewicz at Gibson in 1988. Gibsons decline in fortunes since the 1980’s has been reversed in some style. Like Fender they are a mighty global concern owning and eating up their once nemisis’ of the 80’s Kramer, Steinberger, and Valley Arts

However unlike Fender who had brought in new managers and efficient Japanese style quality control to their American factorys. I’d say Gibson were just lucky that they came back into fashion and had to do nothing Quality Control wise and like all good global companies they have expanded their range of brands at every price point.

However from April longstanding UK distributor Rosetti will no longer be handling Gibson’s brands. Instead this falls unto the hands of Gibson Europe. The biggest change is how they supply guitars to stores and from what I can gather they’ve imposed a few restrictions that may contravene EU competiton laws as well as pretty much write off the chance of any smaller retailers selling Gibson guitars in general. According to a very nice chap on the Guitarist forums the following rules will now apply:

1:In order for a chain store to continue selling Gibsons they have to have £75,000 worth of Gibsons in each shop at all times.

2: This must make up 50% of their wall space.

As an example if Soundcontrol with 25 stores wanted to sell Gibson brand guitars, the total MINIMUM stock of Gibson product they must have at all times is £1,000,000 worth!

3: Gibson products must represent 20% of their turnover!!!

The numbers are scary, but I also imagine this will make Gibsons own highly unrealistic and excessive “Manafacturers Suggested Retail Price” a grim reality once and for all.
For the last 6 years the dealers have managed to give us the sub £1000 Les Paul Classic, wheras the MSRP is £1749 last time I looked, and we’ve got used to a Les Paul Standard being nearer £1500 rather than the £2000 it is on Rosetti’s books.

However I suspect those days are now gone, which will be a big blow to the bulk buyers such as Coda Music and Peter Cook’s guitar world who’ve always managed to price guitars way below some of the loftier chain stores.

However I suspect Gibsons own tactics to generate sales on their terms will backfire on them in the long run. The biggest winners will be people selling used Gibsons, but also the grey import market will thrive and once it does its impossible for the manafacturer to control,however they scare the retailers.

For example, despite a forced ban by Fender on sales of their Japanese made guitars to retail customers outside Japan (they even have a warning label on the Ishibashi website). A quick study of Ebay today found 52 new stock Japanese Fenders available & all at sensible prices. In addition there are numerous grey importers on the web who will furnish you with your J-Craft fender at an excellent price. Some are even keeping larger stocks of the more desirable models such as the Japanese Clapton Strat and Yngwie Malmsteen guitars.

In addition, with the global credit crunch looming, who are Gibson trying to kid? The Dad who wants to buy his kid the £380 Epiphone Les Paul, will probably baulk at it being £500 all of a sudden and simply go for one of the excellent Trev Wilkinson ‘Vintage’ brand guitars or god forbid a Korean Tokai. Which will all doubtless be better made and really all this scary stuff is about that at the end of the day.

Given that they now have a disclaimer on the back pages of their catalogs proclaiming that as Gibson guitars are handmade, their will be production inconsistencies from model to model. Perhaps Henry Juszkiewicz, the investment banker who owns Gibson ought to cease this madness & pull his fucking finger out and just make better guitars!

If the modern Les Paul was as consistent and as well made as the Yamaha SG1000 I recently bought perhaps I wouldnt haver sold my Les Paul in the first place, after all theres no cop out on the back of their catalog about production inconsistancies eh Henry ???

Well its that time again, the smell of the crowds and the roar of a Ginsters pasty on the Motorway services at 3am.

Our first stop was the Lionheart Brothers gig at the Nottingham Bodega Social in January. Overall it was ok, but it didnt help that we had to set up on top of their backline, so I spent 30 minutes with a Marshall stack up my arse. It so close to me that I could feel it rather than hear it.

Overall things went ok, but it was shaky. We ended the set with a new song, which I’m not against, but it did seem a bit risky. The Christmas break had meant we needed to polish up a bit but the audience seemed bigger at the end of the set than at the beginning so that was something.

Next stop was Hoxton Bar & Kitchen to support Nottingham legends Six.By Seven. Unfortunately my amp had recently been faulty & allthough repaired the previos day….. a problem with noisy FX loops appeared in Soundcheck and I was thus forced to use our HoS backup rig consisting of my Sansamp TriAC preamp pedal through our singers old 1978 Marshall JMP head. The Sansamp is great, but it is reactive to the peculiarities of the amp your putting it through. Distortion was Ok, but the clean sounds just seemd too toppy and lifeless. As we’d arrived horribly late due to traffic, our soundcheck was a panic and…

Deprived of my usual tonal comforts I just played the gig as best as I could, but it wasn’t enjoyable for me. The SixbySeven audience was polite enough, but you could tell we werent really their cup of tea. We also decided to play 2 new songs, which was a risk too far. They seemed to love the first song and the last 2, the bit in the middle??

Then our next stop 2 weeks later was the Bull & Gate in Londons Kentish town. This time we were opening for Brazillian shoegazers Wry, who decided to have the longest soundcheck in the history of man. We even went out for dinner & came back and they were only just setting up the other support bands backline. As I sipped my Guinness & black I began to worry.

However my fears were unfounded, the gig went great, we’d been sensible and pulled back to playing our normal set with added discipline and aplomb. The one new song we played went down great and I even enjoyed playing the one song in the set I dont usually enjoy.

Compared to 2007, my 2008 rig remains unchanged, save for the exra delay line, A TC Electronics ND-1 Novadelay is being used for synchronous delays in “Wish It Away” and to add exta atmospherics in our new tunes.

I still havent forgotten about the £500 Stratocaster challenge, I’ll post an update soon.

Peace Out

Well well

Finally, and although a year behind schedule, today see’s the release of my bands debut album Comfort in Fear. Recorded in 2006, this album was originally planned to hit the shelves in April 2007, but a few label issues has meant it coming out nearly a year later.

Its a sigh of relief for the guys and myself to see it on iTunes at last, but also a sign of how hard it is to be an independant musician now.

In December last year we sent out our promo copies to the media via a respected PR agent. We’ve had some good reviews (Rock Sound) and some indifferent (The Fly). Buts whats interesting is by giving journalists a sneak peak of the record, it leaked onto the internet several weeks before its release date. Mainly on Russian MP3 sites.

Looking on Last FM, I can see that we have gained many new listeners through file sharing. In a way its a bonus and something that previously never would have happened.

For that I’m grateful, but at the same time I wonder how all these people with 400GB of music on their hard drives actually take in the music? Does it stay with them longer than a week, or is it merely a brief entertainment for a have now generation, who will soon revert to collective attention deficit disorder and be downloading the next new thing tomorrow.

Time will tell, so far the amount of London gigs has doubled over last year and we’ve had some pretty impressive support slots offered. Meanwhile we have the itch to create new music and to also play it live, whilst still trying to remain enthusiastic about 11 songs that we wrote and recorded ages ago.

Its a tightrope alright. But despite the difficulties its our album and thinking back to my past life 10 years ago, when I’d pretty much given up playing the guitar and never imagined recording or playing in a band again. It feels like a pretty substancial milestone and within that I feel a sense of personal victory.