The Essential Guide Magazine Culcheth May - June 2014 | Page 78

Essential Feature

Diary of a Rock Band
I have been playing the guitar since I was
13, which is a long time ago. My first
guitar was a gift from my older brother
who had an old Futurama electric guitar
that he’d been playing for a few years but
no linger found the time to play. The first
hurdle for me to overcome was that he is
right handed with a right handed guitar
and I am left handed. I simply turned
the guitar upside down and re-strung it.
Next I had to learn to play! I’d watched
my brother playing many times both on
his own and with his band and thought
to myself that it couldn’t be that difficult.
I bought a book showing 500 different
finger positions for playing chords and
spent the next few weeks learning all the
majors and minors.
Most kids of my age who were learning an
instrument had lessons, either in school
or privately, but for me having previously
had piano lessons and hated it, I decided
that I would teach myself. I knew from
an early stage that I wanted to play lead
guitar like my heroes Jimi Hendrix and
Eric Clapton, so after mastering as many
chords as I could I started copying some
simple lead guitar solos. In these days
there was no You Tube to visit to observe
tutorials by players showing how to play
a particular solo, it was a case of learning
by ear and trying to figure out not just
which notes to play but where on the
fret-board I should be playing them.
After much practice and many mistakes I
became reasonably proficient.
My old Futurama guitar was not reall y
up to the task any more, especially as it
was re-tuned for a left-handed player.
The pick-up switches and tone control
buttons were in an awkward place and
it was difficult not to knock them as
I was playing, and the tremolo arm
78

also kept getting in
the way, so not long
after joining my first
band I bought a new
guitar. I had previously
trawled round the local
music shops looking
for something that I could afford. In
one shop I saw and fell in love with a
vintage Fender Telecaster, but at £325 it
was out of my price range (remember
this was 1978 and at today’s prices that
guitar would be somewhere in excess
of £1500). I eventually decided on an
Ibanez Les Paul copy, it cost me £212
– more money than I had but the shop
offered me higher purchase for £12 per
week. It was a great guitar, and lasted me
for years. Ibanez at the time were making
really good quality copies of the famous
Gibson Les Paul and I was now the proud
owner of one.
I’ve now got three electric guitars that I
use on stage, as well as two acoustics and
a bass that I potter around with at home.
When I joined Black Thursday I had a
Fender Stratocaster which I acquired new
in 1999 and as we started to play more
gigs I added an Epiphone Les Paul and
an Ibanez 190 to offer a bit of versatility
of sound. The single coil pickups of the
Strat are great, but both the Les Paul and
the Ibanez have humbuckers which give
a really powerful and full tone which is
great for the type of music that we play.
I’ll be using them all in the coming
weeks at our forthcoming gigs in Newton
le Willows, Horwich, Warrington and
Preston.
Don’t forget that you can book Black
Thursday for your event, be it a birthday
a wedding or for whatever reason you
want to party! Check us out on Facebook
at www.facebook.com/blackthursdayuk
or contact me on 07881 521150 for more
details about booking or forthcoming
gigs.

Eight issues in Culcheth • Lymm • Great Sankey & Penketh • Chapelford
Stockton Heath & Appleton • Thelwall, Latchford & Grappenhall • Birchwood • Lowton & Golborne.

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