this and that in smojos cigar box guitar world

It's been a bit of a frustrating time here and an exciting one too. Still a bit quiet on my CBG front. Much as I love 'em, there are many other interesting distractions going on in my life. First the frustrations - I bought some cool looking lipstick pups, cheap, with the intention of building myself a super duper CBG with frets and a proper magnetic pickup. Got as far as cutting the neck from a piece of old shelving when my bandsaw blade snapped. So that one went on on hold.

As you will have noticed, I've been heavily into the electronics side of things. Not a million miles away from the cigar box guitar ethos of making something cool and musical out of junk or stuff that was never meant for that purpose. So I started "bending" an old casio keyboard. Found a cool distortion bend, drilled holes and mounted the switch and two pots. Working one minute - the next it was just making a horrid buzz. Messed about but can't seem to fix it. Maybe I burnt out something. So that's on hold too. Moved on to a new electronics project - making an envelope follower from the Nic Collins book. You can connect a sound source like a guitar or CD player and it's supposed to light some LEDs when the signal peaks or dips. Got the preamp part made but can I get the LEDs to come on when they should? - no, on hold too.

So what are the exciting bits. Well I had an great weekend in Manchester with my mate who had organised the Hollowbelly gig at his local pub. Great atmosphere and the whole thing went down well. Hollowbelly belted out his excellent punk blues material whilst entertaining us with some funny stories in between. The support act was great too, three local people who got together with slide guitar (and CBG), african drum and cigar box bass to play some nice bluesy stuff. Lot's of time to chat about music stuff and do a bit of jamming back at my mates too.

I bought an old ex-forces bakelite communicator set which is a chest mounted microphone and headphones. I was looking for an old telephone receiver to make a distortion mic and I found this. Might be ww2 but if not, will probably be at least 50 years old. I dismantled the set to make three mics, the chest mic I'll keep for myself, the two headphone mics I might eventually sell on. They look so cool and make fantastic hand held mics for vocals or harp where you want a bit of an old-timey, mildly distorted sound. If I get time I'll post a photo or two.

Finally (please forgive me but let me explain) I'm about to build a solid body electric 6 string guitar. As I said I do love CBGs but I suffer from GAS (guitar acquisition syndrome) where I have to keep getting a fix with a new guitar. I see something cool and I want it! Yes my friends you know what I mean. The explanation will justify the diversion from 3 strings, a stick and a box guitar. For some time I've wanted the personal satisfaction of building a "proper" guitar. Something really cool and unusual. Also to take my luthier skills a little higher and get to grips with the more complex elements of guitar building. There's a local guy who runs courses on guitar building on a one-to-one basis. I went to see him this week to talk about starting with him. My initial idea was to make something based on the old guyatone solids of the 50s/60s. They look so cool with their simple retro shape and colours. But I do have a really nice Harmony Stratotone reissue that fits the bill so what to build instead? Then the bulb lit up in my head. A solid body reso similar to the National supro reso guitars. A bit of research showed that they make a modern version still. So my design will be based on that but with a bit of the guyatone look about it. It will have an under-saddle piezo and a single coil neck pickup. I've done a very rough photoshop job to get some idea of what it might look like and here it is. I'm starting the build this wednesday. We're going off to a timber yard to chosse the wood and then back to cut it up and glue the two body halves - can't wait! I'm gonna keep a record of my progress and put something on here so if you're interested, come back and take a look regularly. It might just get me inspired enough to get cracking with my lipstick pick-upped CBG too.

Hollowbelly Manchester UK gig

OK I promised some more info on the Hollowbelly gig in Manchester so here's the official poster. The gig is held at the Cheshire Ring pub but the music venue is known as The Verge. You can buy tickets online, check out the website here. http://www.the-verge.co.uk/

This is his first Northern gig and should be a belter. If you haven't seen anything of this guy you should have a look at some of his videos and listen to some tracks. You can see his facebook here. http://www.myspace.com/hollowbelly

and you can see more of his stuff on Cigarbox Nation here http://www.cigarboxnation.com/profile/HOLLOWBELLY17?xg_source=profiles_memberList

life after Boxstock 2011

So I think I've finally come back down to earth (and the mundane) after a cracking weekend at West Brom and the UK cbg boxfest. What now, to stop me from topping myself every time I see the news or look at my ever-increasing bills? Well I understand plans are already underway for next years Boxstock so that's got to be good but it's a long way off yet.

Well Hollowbelly is doing a gig at the Verge (The Cheshire Ring) in Manchester on 26th November. My mate Mark C. is organising that one, I'll put the poster on here when he sends me the file so watch out for that. It's the first Northern gig HB will have done and coming originally from Warrington, it's something of a special event for him. Looks like being a popular gig so if you fancy it, get your tickets early. I'll give you details soon about booking.

Nearer to that in time (this week) and only a few miles down the road from me, Catfish Keith is appearing in a local wine bar. I've heard a lot of good things about this guy who is a superb slide player. Can't wait for that one, I'll let you know how it went later this week.

So what am I doing with my time now? Still making electronic stuff. I have a couple of those nand oscillator machines to make for friends so I'm part way on with those. No cbg making in the offing yet but the Boxfest did stir my enthusiasm for more playing and recording. Haven't done anything serious for months now and am raring to get experimenting again. I'd love to get something bluesy going on a cbg along with the oscillator drone box I made. Just need some time to get on with it. Got a busy month ahead with this 'n that but hope to find some time for music making. Be sure to call in here again for more news soon.

June and a little cigar box guitar news

Just heard from my mate over in Manchester that he's planning a CBG gig at his local pub in November. One of our top uk CBG gigging men - Hollowbelly will be playing. He describes himself as punk blues and it'll be a great gig. Provisionally it's gonna be 26th Nov but I'll confirm nearer the time. If you're in that neck of the woods, be sure to come along for a brilliant evening. I'm gonna be there!

I'm having trouble with bloody Youtube again. Taking forever to load the page, then it's all screwed up and I can't get into it to upload anything new or answer any comments. So my apologies if you are waiting for a reply or looking for new material from me. Can't figure out what's wrong but they probably changed something in the name of progress and my ageing laptop can't handle it. Hoping to get a new one soon, then I can spend more time being creative with it rather than trying to fix it.

I'm still not making any new guitars as I'm fully immersed in holidaying, decorating, running around after old folks and when I do get some time to be creative, it's a bit of electron-trickery/circuit-bending rather than CBG building. Just completed my NAND gate oscillators in the old box and it's a pretty wicked machine. I'm hoping to get to grips with it's music making potential and somehow weave it's manic pulsey noisies into something listenable, ideally a bit of CBG palyed over it. Watch this space.

I do have a couple of CBGs for sale. If you want details just email me.

A side benefit of CBG playing for me is that it pushed me toward fingerstyle playing to the point that even when playing standard 6 stringers, I hardly ever use a plectrum now. In fact it feels quite awkward. The limit of three strings to play with on a CBG made it fairly easy to get into fingerstyle plucking. You just need a thumb and one or two fingers. Glad to say I still have all four fingers which I was trying to use when I first attempted fingerstyle in pre-CBG days. I realise now that two are plenty, in fact many of the old time blues players just used thumb and one finger. I think Blind Gary Davis did and he often played a 12 stringer! So if you've tried and failed fingerstyle on 6 strings before. Try getting to grips with it on a 3-string CBG, you'll find it falls into place quite easily.

Bye for now, enjoy summer, it's gone quicker than you think.