Another Wampler pedal has arrived today. The Clarksdale Delta Overdrive is a tubescreamer type pedal, but with lots of flexibility. I’ve not had this type of drive pedal for some time, so I’m excited to see how I get on with it. Tone report to follow…..

Here is Riff of the Day Part 2, a sample of my new song “Octave Boogie”

I know I’ve already done a few videos featuring my TC Electronic Ditto Looper, but I enjoy doing them so much, I thought I’d start a regular series.

So here is “Going Loopy – Part 1” There is so much you can do with the Ditto, I’ve only scratched the surface so far. I picked up the idea of playing a drum beat on the strings over the pickups, from Guthrie Govan. If only I could pick up the rest of his technique….

Enjoy!

This is the first of an occasional series of videos, highlighting one of my riffs. This first one also shows that you CAN use a delay pedal, in front of a high gain amp.

I might find a song out of this 😉

I recently purchased a Wampler Euphoria Overdrive pedal. Playing drop D riffs with a “natural, transparent overdrive” pedal, is probably not what it was intended for. But what the hell, I liked the sound!!

The video for this was filmed on my iPhone, with the audio from a Shure SM57 on my amp.

The Nightwires had a stonking practise this week. I’m so priviledged to be able to play with such great musicians as Russell, Rob and Dave. I think we get better and better and that makes it more enjoyable. I think we’ve pretty much accepted that after playing for 10 plus years without getting where we want to be, we are playing still because we love playing and because we are great friends. I still personally get quite annoyed when I see other acts getting great support slots etc, but we get over looked, but I’m sure lots of artists feel like that. I’m trying to not sound bitter, but the shit you go through as an “unsigned” musician, gets worse over time, as the struggle becomes more and more futile.

But, and its a big but, when you can write songs that make you smile when you play them and when listen back to them, you have to keep playing. I’d provided Russell with 5 new songs and he’s worked his magic on 4 of them. When we played them with the band this week, after a couple of runs through of each one, they are already sounding incredible. Definitely a bit of a Tom Petty vibe going on with a couple of them and the fact that we enjoyed playing them so much, bodes well for them getting into the set.

This was also the first opportunity I’ve had to really fire up the Morgan Amplification AC 20 Deluxe. My god, its incredible! I set it for a clean but dirty sound, so play softly and its clean but dig in and attack the guitar and it hits you with a beautiful blues rock sound. Its perfect for the rootsy sound of the Nightwires songs. I bloody love it!

So, these 4 songs we have are about ready to gig. And I’m hopeful that we could produce a new EP soon, as I feel the need to rock again 😉

I’ve done a little update of my pedalboard. The Wampler Euphoria has finally been added and I’ve taken the Phase 90 off. Its the first time in years I’ve not had the Phase 90 on my board, its really because the TC Electronic Shaker sounds so lush and lovely and I only want one modulation pedal on there.

The footswitch is for my Victory head and it needs a block of wood under it, to raise it up and make it easier to reach. It also looks like there will be space on the board for my Ditto looper, which is nice!

Well it was my birthday…

This thing is incredible. Very touch sensitive, very responsive to pick attack and can achive that beautiful “clean but dirty” tone.

At 20 watts, its loud and will be able to gig no problem. For home use, it has a power scaling feature, which means you can get a lovely overdriven sound, at low volumes.

Many thanks to John at Peach Guitars for looking after me.

There will be a full review when I get around to it, and videos will be done!!

I used to be in a band called 3 Ring Circus. We started out as a great band no body had heard of, and ended as a band of nobodies. Hey ho, we’ve still got our health.

Anyway, in the spirit of getting the music “out there” if you email me your name and address, I’ll send you a set of our 3 albums FOR FREE! That’s gratis, buy 0 get 3 free. This has nothing to do with me wanting the storage space back, under my stairs. Honestly…

A quick blast of the Euphoria, boosting a drive sound on my amp