These are great looking amps with hand wired circuitry feature the usual Fender Tweed settings with a few extra features requested by the great guitarist himself. All of the models include built in output bias tremolo – creating a more throbbing tremolo that Fender’s later models and a single control for speed (with an additional control for intensity for the larger Twinolux™). This in itself is a rather unique feature for an amp.

The other feature consistent with all three models is the power attenuator switch. This feature allows greater control of the output volume without sacrificing the “crunch” achieved at higher amp levels. Simply dial up the amp to its sweet spot with the volume control and hit the power attenuator switch to maintain the sweet spot but drop the overall volume allowing lower level.

Unfortunately, for humbucker lovers, you may struggle to achieve the full spectrum of harmonic richness with the amps in this series. That’s not to say, there is reason to dismiss any of them outright. Experimenting with the tone pots on your guitar and the amp, altering your picking attack and avoiding use of the neck pick up will help achieve a blues-ier feel. In essence, a guitar armed with single coils or mini humbuckers is going to get the liveliest of sounds from the amps.

If you’re in love with the sound of ‘50s Tweed amps with that vintage Fender sound spectrum, then the EC Series is going to be something you wanna check out if you haven’t already.

For a full list of specs and a full picture gallery Fender.com

Posted by Dan Orr

If you can remember the 70`s then you`ll remember a time when Eric Clapton used to wear faded jeans and black waistcoat. He was still smoking, drinking and crashing the odd Ferrari – but in one biography I read he claimed to be given an envelope of cash for wages at the end of each week. Well those were the days…

Here`s Eric’s  croc skin $100,000 dollar case for his  signature Martin 00028 EC acoustic guitar with a rich matte-finish croc skin adorning the exterior of the case. The shell of the case is made from poplar wood source from Nazareth, Pennsylvania and is completed with a blue silk velvet liner. Estimates for the case’s cost are tabulated at approximately $100,000.  The guitar is only $4349.00.

GUITAR SPECIFICATIONS.

000 size body, rosewood back & sides, sitka spruce top with vintage toner, scalloped braces, ebony bridge, maple bridge plate, herringbone trim & rosette, ivoroid binding, 24.9″ scale, 1-3/4″ nut width, V-shaped neck with adjustable truss rod, open vintage style tuners, ebony fretboard with diamond & square inlays, EC’s pearl signature at 19th fret, standard saddle (not long), 2-1/4″ string spacing. Vintage “Geib” style archtop wooden case.

If youve a little less to spend but still desire the quality and protection of a case that can tough it out at the airport or on the road then have alook at ROCK HARD CASES.

Well, That`s all folks,
Cheers…

Jake Edwards

After finding an online video teaching the two-fret (whole tone) string bend as a fundamental blues lick, there has been a certain degree of disagreement around the office as to whether this simple bend can constitute a blues fundamental.

Does the simple two fret, tone long string bend qualify as a lick? Well I think it does and Dave thinks that it can`t.
So, we`ve grabbed an acoustic and tested the hypothesis.

How can something as simple as this elicit so much passionate debate?

Well, it`s all about emotion, passion and technique. A simple string bend is, although fundamental to guitar playing, nothing, without emotion. This emotion comes from experience. Some people claim to move the molecules rather than the strings and at the end of the day the TRUTH about guitar playing is that it`s in your hands… in every sense.

For me the ultimate blues lick would probably have to consist of only one note and some might say that maybe no-one has played it yet. On Texas Cannonball Freddie King’s “Pack It Up”, and “Shake Your Booty Baby” King takes this simple single bend technique and pushes it to its emotional maximum. The Album Freddie King 1934-1976 proves just exactly what a master guitarist can do with timing & expression and exactly why  Eric Clapton has always considered Freddie the true master of Blues Guitar.  Both Eric and Freddie get together on this album on “Further on up the Road” and this track is worth the price of the album alone.

The instrumental “Hideaway”, Clapton`s tour de force with Mayalls Bluesbreakers  Beano Album is actually Freddie King`s track and you can hear more of the three King`s and Buddy Guy’s, wonderful influence on Clapton`s phenomenal Just One Night Album.

The ultimate blues lick consists of just one note, your hands and ensuring you`re on fire every time you play.

So Drink petrol.

Cheers,

Jake Edwards

Call me old fashioned but the only thing I`ve ever thought was a great romantic, gothic and truly bluesy use for used guitar strings involved a tall tree, and a precariously balanced stool to dance with the devil upon…for a short while. Emo huh?

Or maybe I`ve just been listening to too much Beck Hansen…for awhile there he was definitely throwing down some Dylanesque skills both lyrically and instrumentally. I draw your attention here to Beck`s rough house cover of Dylan`s Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat in all it`s steampunk lo-fi, harp-dog magnificence. It`s great but covering Dylan is a bit like trying recreate Picasso with your local painter and decorator…scruffy!

With the rerun shows
And the cocaine nose-job
The daytime crap of the folksinger slop
He hung himself with a guitar string…

Anyway if you head over to Wear your music.org you can help out a large range of charities whilst decking yourself out in the old guitar strings of the famous.

Some of the guitar playing artists featured include Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks, Gregg Allman, Keith Richards, Les Paul, Pete Townsend, Peter Frampton, Steve Vai, and Slash. Let`s presume they clean these things first. I completely dig Clapton and all, and I grew up in the same village – you can read alot more about him here, but I`m not sure I want his microbes.

IF on the other hand you think this kind of thing is just a little too emo or skater boi and just not damn bluesy enough then why not throw your strings in the trash and give some money to charity anyway.

You have to ask yourself though what really happened to PUNK and ROCK and did Sid Vicious really have to die so the bourgeois could listen to Fall Out Boy?

Are you feeling the fluidity inherent in a particular view of the universe? Or the united states of consciousness? I am.

Back in 1983 Eric Clapton released the Album Money and Cigarettes supported by the stellar backing band of Ry Cooder, Albert Lee, Donald Duck Dunn, and Roger Hawkins. Duck Dunn`s contribution to popular music beginning with Booker T and M.G`s and the Stax label in around 1965 is absolutely phenomenal and he must be one of the greatest unsung heroes of the popular music cannon. Here is his discography.

Anyway I digress, it`s a great record, and I managed to get my hands on an A1 hardboard copy of the cover album art which features a very heavily modded stratocaster appearing to melt in Dali-esque fashion from a table.

What a fantastic guitar to own – a bit of a dog to play unless you`re built like a paralellogram though -  Salvador Dali meets Eric Clapton for a cup of rhythm and blues.  It`s a tight band-  no shadow of a doubt – on this album, but, Clapton`s efforts  songwriting in the Stax genre just don`t  compare to his earlier 461 Ocean Boulevard efforts or the subsequent Behind The Sun album where the guitar playing re-enters the limelight and Clapton`s songwriting takes a backseat. It`s interesting to note that the absolutely stellar drumming of Jamie Oldaker appears on both 461 and Behind The Sun.

It might even be pertinent to suggest that Clapton`s career fluctuates heavily between his role as songwriter and all round musical explorer and that of guitar hero and blues pioneer. What you like about E.C. will determine exactly where on this spectrum your favour will fall, but it is perhaps healthier to consider the length of Clapton`s career and the broad depth of his contributions to music.

From the groundbreaking sounds of the Bluesbreakers, Cream, and The Dominos together with prescient cover choices such as JJ Cale and Bob Marley , Dylan and Martyn etcetera through to his highly emotional songwriting capabilities evidenced on such great songs as Layla, Bell Bottom Blues, Let it Rain, Easy Now, Presence of the Lord together with tour de force guitar pieces such as Blues Power, Double Trouble, Slunky, Crossroads….and the rest Clapton proves again and again that he`s got the mettle, the daring and the skills to pay the bills on all fronts.

Anyway the fact of the matter is YOU CAN own a dali stratocaster courtesy of the wild mind of Brian Eastwood guitars. Brian makes a series of highly unique and visually surreal but playable guitars in the form of his Bender series. Check them out here.

Smooth! Leopard skin throughout.Brian makes some even crazier pieces than these so check out his site here.

Keep it real;

Jake Edwards.

What kind of guitar player would you like to be?

A shredder?

A melodic guitarist?

A rhythmic, percussive jazz fusion master?

A groovy funkmeister?

A country hot shot?

I`ve been to plenty of great gigs since back in the day and I`ve seen some hot guitar players – Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Alvin Lee, Carlos Santana, Jeff Healy, Johnny Winter, Jennifer Batten, The Edge, Joe Satriani, Ron Wood and Bob Dylan,  Keith Richards and The Rolling Stones, Pete Townshend and The Who, Martin Barre (Jethro Tull), Joe Satriani, Zappa, John MacLaughlin, Jack White, and those are just the guys I can remember.

What actually makes them great guitarists, in my humble opinion, is the levels of individuality and personality in their playing – yes there is a certain degree of technique in their playing styles, with Satriani definitely being very highly accomplished. But of all these acts although Satriani was undeniably good his show was the least engaging. If you want to communicate it`s all about feel and in this sense substance above and beyond style. That`s why Neil Young really cooks on the guitar.

Have a read of my post on unique guitar players here

Cheers,
Jake Edwards

Are you with The Jets, The Sharks, or the Hawks?
1960 the year in which the Studebaker Hawk I saw this morning was manufactured, was a big year – the U.S. sent troops to Vietnam and Elvis returned from Germany. The Beatles earlier incarnation hooked up with Stuart Sutcliffe and left to play residency spots in Germany. Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Sam Cooke, Chuck Berry and Duane Eddy all released records. Also featured in 1960 was the great Chester Burnett, or Howlin`Wolf who had been making records since 1951. 1960 saw Wolf release four records including Spoonfull. Wolf had a great ear and since `55 had been working with the awesome guitarist Hubert Sumlin.

It`s likely that Hubert Sumlin`s electric playing brought Chicago across the Atlantic and into the hands of the Great British Blues Players & bands like The Rolling Stones, who made their first recording in 1962, The Animals, or the incandescent guitar trio of Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton – all members of The Yardbirds. In between, Elvis Presley walked into Sun Studios. If you haven`t already heard what he did there in 54-55 with guitarist Scotty Moore then get a copy of the The Sun Sessions immediately – the guitar on that`s alright Mama is off the hook.

Cheers,

Jake Edwards.

1. Eric Clapton `Eric Clapton`
2. Eric Clapton `Just One Night`
3. John Mayalls Bluesbreakers `Beano` Album
4. Eric Clapton `Behind the Sun`
5. Eric Clapton `461 Ocean Boulevard`
6. The London Howlin` Wolf Sessions
7. Cream `Wheels of Fire` although all 3 albums are good
8. Eric Clapton `Sessions for Robert J`

This is what happens when you take Memphis – (Chicago) – to Surrey in the U.K.; man are King`s phrasing and tones bell like and sonorific?…but I`ve got a soft spot for Clapton cause I`m from the same village and used to bump into him when picking up the papers on a Sunday morning. He`s a great bloke.

There are ways to burn on the guitar that far surpass the egocentric simplicity and slavery to technique of that whole guitar school, speed focused, sweep picking, notes for notes sake playing that occurs in a vacuum devoid of taste, subtlety and emotion. A while back I posted here about tasty solos and in a way all of these are shredders in the following sense:

The guitar as an instrument is emotive, not mechanical, slick or polished unless it needs to be as part of the expression – e.g. a Freddie King Lick, an Albert King bend, a Clapton phrase, the Leslie West tone, Hendrix` sustain etcetera…..What makes these kinds of players special is the integrity and honesty in the ability of their playing to communicate something very human and powerful – emotion, character, experience and individuality.

it`s a combination of melody or lack thereof, timing, timbre, attack, tone, technique and more; imperfection, humanity, frailty, strength, ambition, fear and glory. It`s ALL FEEL playing the guitar, nothing else, especially if you`ve a great song to do it with! J.J. Cale is a great example of a musician whose delivery, content, songwriting and even message seems to consist almost entirely of feel, and feel alone – incredible.  Then again someone like Paul Gilbert really, really cooks up  storm! Find what you like and mix it all together.

SO, it IS up to you entirely – there is an entire genre of speed/technique worthy of admiration ranging from neo-classicists such as Yngwie Malmsteen or Gary Moore (try the album After the War) – who has incidentally “reinvented” himself as a blues player – to the insane dexterity and sweep picking of Batio below….one day it`ll be so fast you can’t even hear it!! Mark Knpfler always seemed fast enough for me….

But if you feel good shredding, get down to it and have look at the video below especially between 1.40 minutes and 2.20 minutes. Michael Angelo Batio fast, very, very fast; or J.J.Cale…very, very slow…..mmmm

Cheers,

Jake Edwards

I`d like to post a video here in which Eric Clapton talks about Robert Johnson and plays “Stones in the Passway”. It`s a great place to start exploring what Robert Johnson has to offer and why he is who he is. It also illuminates the sheer technique, the impact of the unusual, that is often confused with something arcane, mythical, metaphysical, divine and otherworldly and more specifically in the blues with superstition, an encounter with the Devil. It`s also interesting to note that the cross tempo section Eric Clapton discusses is a technique that Johnny Winter has used in varying degrees throughout his career. Johnny Winter`s Progressive Blues Experiment album from 1968 is chock full of blues.

A longer version of this post is available on my blog www.jakeedwards.net. it`s worth reading if you want to begin your search to play blues from within a context of initiating an understanding of the history, the language and with some interesting links.