Music and its tools - John Renbourn's Scarth "S" acoustic guitar

I've been a scholar and follower and player of John Renbourn's music since my youth and, forty+ years later, I always find sooo nice playing his tunes...

John has been an inspiration for cohorts of acoustic guitar players, known and unknown, around the world, from Japan to South Africa.

My first records I bought in 1972 was Pentangle's Reflection, with the FANTASTIC cover and Brian Shuel's pixes... I loose my mind looking at Bert Jansch and John  Renbourn's guitars... fabled guitars, expensive, sought after.

I was playing a nylon strings Suzuki classical guitar... shortly after I was mounting Pyramid metal strings, because nylon meant Sr and Giuliani's studies and I was completely gone with acoustic guitars!

"Omie Wise" duet on Reflection captured my musical attention... Bert's guitar was OK, but John's solos  were so... so... weird!

Later, I bought everything they made, solo and with Pentangle... and always, on John's Sampler 1 and 2, with Dorris Henderson or Bert Jansch, I was looking at a strange guitar...

John's first on Transatlantic... again this clear finish guitar...

Only a few years ago I learned it was a Scarth, an English made acoustic, a tail piece guitar, John bought in very early '60s for 5 Pounds...

The sound was punchy, responsive, unique and nasal and throaty and powerful... only Guild D55 and the Franklin OM and Ralph Bown's played more John Renbourn's:-)

Anyway... a Scarth was made in the '30s and used for jazz bands as a rhythm guitar... all English made and woods...

For me, it remains eponymous to John...

Apparently, this was John's "road/outdoor guitar"...

From "Reflection" cover...

George Lowden - forty years making SUPERB acoustic guitars

Best wishes, George!

Always enjoying my S-35 Rio!

J.C. Verdier strikes again! La Platine Verdier Magnum

Here is the beast in all its beauty and magnificience... an hefty 400 kilos turntable! Impressive!!!

Don't be fooled by the pix and size - arms are an EMT 997 Banana, an Origami and an Ortofon RMG 309, all 12 inchers... the disc is a 12",  as well... the platter is 50 cm diameter...  

Superb!

Roger Frisch - That's love for music: Violinist Plays During Brain Surgery To Help Surgeons Find Exactly What’s Causing Tremor!

Incredible... and moving.

Woodstock - it was 45 years ago

This year is 45th anniversary of the Woodstock festival, folks...

I still remember when, 40 years ago I bought the 2 records set with Jefferson Airplane's Eskimo Blue Day and CSN&Y, Guinevere and 4+20 and more and more... the three records-set was too expensive, so I bought the double...

WOW... it changed my life... when I got the three-records set, I still loved the double, as first love is never forgotten.

Then, the movie... saw it thrice in a row in a small cinema, with a friend... Jimi Hendrix, Country Joe McDonald, Richie Havens, Canned Heat...

The world changed in the meantime and only very seldomly such a collective dream of freedom happened again...

Now - more than ever - money, bankers, lobbies and BIG profits for a small percentage of people fucked the dream...

Anyway, we have the memory of the event...

A treasure.

A Lenco mat made in PaperStone

This is a preview, first pixes just after finishing... made by a friend for himself and for the Lenco's Community...

Good luck on this to Andrea... and looking for more coming.

Here are more pixes on Iacopo's Blog.

Cool the holes on surface... reminding to crop circles in Salisbury area...

... mmmhhhh...

All Horn at Horn Honks.com

Super!!!

Sound is recorded at 200 ft!!!

WOW!

Supertyfon horn from Kochum Sonics (Sweden)

Maybe we don't own a vessel 200m long or more... yet, these heavy duty horns are... intriguing?

No...  it's MUCH more:-)

... and this is... oh, oh... pretty right for home/studio horn system audio use... 

... mmmmmhhh...

R.I.P. Dept. - Frans Bruggen passed away on August 13th

Sad news from The Netherlands... ancient music without him and Maestro Gustav Leonhard wouldn't have been.

R.I.P. Maestro Bruggen.

Psych music from Thailand - Khun Narin Phin Sing from the Phetchabun Province

WOW... that's cool... lovely global tripping music... like MV+EE, Makoto Kawabata, Jerry Garcia and John Cipollina meeting.

Thanking Joey Zarda and Marc Campbell.

Oldgoodears

My elder bro...

Dated 10th Century... at The British Library...

The Proof - Tony Rice - Me & my Guitar (Rounder 1985)

Here I'm giving away a litlle, well kept secret, folks...

Beside the common plethora of audiophile recordings we all use to test our audio systems... you name them - Dafos, Casino Royale, Noye's Fludde, and hundreds more... - I also use a quite strange disc - Tony Rice - Me & My Guitar (Rounder 1985).

Mr. Rice was and is an acoustic guitar flat-picking maven, his tone, precision and speed are legendary... he plays a one-of-a-kind '35 Martin D-28 once the property of Clarence White, an awesome sounding instrument with its enlarged sound hole which - someway - further improved projection of sound... a cannon with a tone!

Back to the Rounder's disc... it's an ADA - i.e. the analog multitrack studio tape was digitally mastered on Sony 701 and then cutted on vinyl.

The overall sound is a bit cold, better - a razor;-)

The recording happened in three different studios, one in Berkeley, CA and two in Nashville, TN... the instrumentals REALLY sound amazing as the soundstage sounds natural and well-spreaded, more reminding to a live in the studio recording than a multi-miking recording mixer pan-potted.

So what?

When Tony  Rice sings with his nice, high pitched and quite metallic voice, the sound becomes razor-like, coldish, almost painful.

Only if you carefully do your homeworks on VTF, VTA, overhang and your cartridge and arm and turntable combo are performing as an unicum spinning machine, something happens and also the voice sounds smooth, throaty but natural.

The dynamics on this disc are really top-class and playing it randomly, after changing something on my Gotorama system is both a joy and a shiver.

The sound is reminding a good disk, but something of the analog recordings is preserved also after the Sony 701 digitalization.

A truly enriching aural experience as - it's my strong opinion - there shouldn't be audiophile records, but our systems should make more of the records special sounding... not an average, so-so, so-called "quasi-perfection", but a - say - 80% "WOW!" whispered when listening to our music of choice.

... and, hey, shit happens, pals!

The "good" recordings should be more than the "average"...

With "Me and my Guitar", you've the proof that's possible to improve also the listening awe and enjoyment to a difficult recording...  then, how Mr. Arthur Salvatore would say, there are Divinity and Semi-Gods records and recordings... but this is another story.

    

Time Capsule Kudos - Bill Graham's Music Award of Merit and more

With great footages of Grace Slick, Robin Williams (yes...), Jerry Garcia and many, many others...

... plus a great, little book about his life.

The Percussion Group of Cincinnati on Opus One 80/81 (1981)

Percussions and percussions music are a fave of mine... at first, drums and cymbals and marimbas or vibes only music seems to be boring, unvarious and limited in textures... yet, more you deepen the listenings more you appreciate the nuances and antique moods these instruments evoke.

Some years ago I bought a strange box, a 2-records set after the suggestion of a vinyl merchant I shop once per year, a very knowledged French gentleman with an huge experience in also the most elusive stuffs.

I remember that in that occasion I bought a pristine, canvas cover first stereo pressing of Archiv Fournier Bach solo cello sonatas for a veeeeery good price... a Vega Turangalila Symphony by Messiaen, also including a 7" with Olivier Messiaen himself explaining things and facts about his opus and this, above mentioned box-set: "The Percussion Group Cincinnati - Music of Brun, May, Mosko, Yoshika, Defotis, Kramer, Peck, Wolff, Udow" on Opus One # 80/81 (1981).

Track Listing:

Side A:

• More Lust - Herbert Brun (13:20)


• Para-diddle - Theodore May (6:08)


Side B:

• The Cosmology of Easy Listening - Stephen Mosko (8:56)


• Paradox III - Takayoshi Yoshioka (11:15)


Side C:

• Continuous Showing - William DeFontis (5:02)


• Five Studies on Six Notes - Jonathan D. Kramer (18:22)


Side D:

• Lift Off - Russell Peck (7:46)


• For 1, 2 or 3 People - Christian Wolff (9:18)


• Strike - Michael Udow (2:56)

The "Group" is Allen Otte, James Culley and William Youhass and they're playing all the paraphernalia a percussionist use, from litter cans to flower vase, VW brakes, tympani, drums aand cymbals of every size and shape.

Why for God sake am I talking you about this disc?

Well, cannot say, exactly... yet, yesterday evening when shot the four sides of this TRULY seldom heard music, I had the very sensation I was the only man on the planet to listen to this music... sure this LP wasn't pressed in large quantities, but the a.m. felling wasn't coming from such a thought, someway6 collector-tinted... no, all the pieces were composed with math (the only language able to try to explain creation and its misteries) in mind and the "message" I got from these layers of assorted percussions was stars-hinting...

Sort-of "Hey, we're alone in the Zero Kelvin Universe... only thing we can do is making some "noise" for our eyes blinking-long life... just to say "I'm alive!".

It's heart beating and variations... from caveman to XXI Century Man, we never stopped making noise on logs, drums, metal bars and the like.

Maybe that's the truest reason I so much love percussions...

The 2 records-set is half-mastered at JVC and carefully engineered and pressed and edited without compression and limiting... dynamics are EXPLOSIVE - a true tracking test for both my Lumiere DST and The Peak 12" arm - and music is really enjoyable and pleasant. 

Liner notes contains very, very interesting intros and footnotes about every piece by the authors and pieces were mostly composed for the Group, so it's a very short and close to the source musical chain.

I suggest you to browse the Web for this black cover elusive box-set, folks.

You won't regret.