Blogs

Although the ideal day to turn 42 is probably May 25th, January 15th was OK.  New year, new age, new look on life and new twist (get it?) on guitars for me.  I've had more guitars come out of the workshop in the last few months than ever before and I love them all.  I've made some of my best instruments and most inspired creations lately.  Still may not compare to other people's work in some ways, but this is my best stuff for me personally so far.  And honestly, that's all I care about.

All the guitars I make now go up for sale on my website badfingerguitar.com.  If they sell, great.  If not, then I've built guitars that I love and will love to keep and play.  They all get adequate "testing" in the shop during my breaks and I'm not compelled to rush them off the bench so if I need to spend time getting them where I want them, that's OK with me.

The CBN website hasn't been kind to me uploading photos the usual way when I use my Google Drive storage.  For some reason all the aspect ratios get screwed up during the upload.  I decided to add some of my recent stuff as a Blog instead.  If you want to see more pictures, surf around my website.  I promise there won't be a furniture store salesman following you around.  If'n you just wants to browse, that's fine with me.  Any ideas you get there are up for steal except my twisted headstock (please).  Otherwise, if you see something that inspires you, give it a try.  I've certainly taken at least my share of inspiration from countless others who are generous here on CBN.  

I sold two guitars to my friends at Wicked Parrott Tattoo in Kill Devil Hills, NC a couple weeks ago.  They hang on the wall over the client computer station with a cool blues painting.  Clients sit here with the artists going over images as inspiration for original work.  I don't believe the shop has these two priced for sale, but I will put a couple more guitars on the wall as consignment by the Spring.

On the left is Black Scorpion and I carved a scorpion into the headstock.  On the right is the Royal Cardioampliphonic Recompensator with a built-in Honeytone amp and speaker.  I like really unique sound the way I mounted the speaker inside the deep MDF box.  I preserved all the Honeytone connections and hardwired the Humidor Guitars Thinbucker directly to the amp PCB.  The guitar can double as a speaker cabinet if you plug a different guitar into the 1/4" input jack.

This is Black & Blue.  I dyed the maple neck to match the Camacho box and added some pearl dust to make it sparkle.  Sealed up with Tung Oil.  Humidor Guitars made the 5-pole Thinbucker pickup for me.  These are great pickups.  Nice and hot with great tone.  I love this guitar.  I have a dozen or so of these Camacho boxes in different colors.  I started painting the headstock of these black and I love the look.  I have a cool plan for the next one.  :)

This is a Farmyard Relic that I really enjoy.  The story behind this guitar is that I found it floating down the crick.  It had a decomposed hand attached to the neck, but it cleaned up real nice. Its name is "The Old Hand."  I used a zero fret and it has beautiful low action and I love to play it.  Tuned GDg with 42 32 24w gauge strings.  Just enough tension that I can slide even with the low action.  This is a hammer-on machine!  Individual volume control on each pup and a 3-way LP style switch.  Take a closer look at the tuning machines too.  :)

The control knobs are from a piece of wood I pulled out of the ground behind my house.  I thought it was just a stump spike, but it is probably an old fence post from when my neighborhood was a cow pasture.  On the drop-off behind the house is some of the old farm dump with rusty metal and broken glass around.  Probably some guitar treasures back there.

I put up a Workshop Videos page on the website.  There's a nice long one there on how I make my necks.  

Here's some new stuff that is in progress:

I'm making sort of a sweetheart, pinup, peepshow, steampunk mashup guitar and I decided to make some custom control and jack plates for it.  I'm using a Deco style rod piezo bridge from Mojobone Works and one of Elmar's Original Flatpups that I've had in a box since 2013 just waiting for a guitar.  Dual volume and a LP style 3-way switch.

I am also making yet another Sawzall Box Guitar.  This one is a metal body resonator version.  You'll drool over this when it is finished.  I'll bet.

Hope you enjoyed that little tour through the last few months of my CBG life, universe and everything.

Working on a license plate resonator. Using some wormy oak that I split (rived) in wedges along the radials of the log. I got the idea after I split some for firewood and saw how cool it looked. It will go well with the 1969 Yazoo Mississippi license plate. I plan on using a P90 style handwound pickup with a top carved from the same wood.

 Still shopping but probably going to order my first kit soon.5 string Banjo, 4 string guitar or uke.Wish me luck,this will be entirely new to me.

What does this rather tricky and ambiguous title mean? All will be revealed in a minute. Firstly, allow me to describe a spectacular musical instrument called the Kania*. This is a 17 inch cigar box guitar, with a neck made of linden tree wood and nut tree wood fretboard, all of which are attached to a Brazilian cigar box – Pequena Flor Bahia. Believe it or not, this cigar box is the only part of the guitar not linked with its place of origin- the Odra river.

“Odra Guitars” is a concept invented and brought to fruition by Michał Zygmunt, a polish guitar player as well as a composer of contemporary acoustic guitar music. Check this

Making instruments from wood that is available regionally, in this case from the Odra's river banks, is the main goal of the whole project. Michal Zygmunt has decided to prove that professional guitars can be built by using local materials. This is why, apart from the aforementioned Kania, there are two more instruments being made. Both are of the unique variety; an electric resonator guitar called the Karina and a baritone electric guitar called the Odra. In their construction, a luthier - Mirek Fejcho from lootnick.com, used only wood from Odra river. The results of his work are simply astonishing.

This precious electric dobro - style “spider” resonator is fitted in a shallow body that generates a smooth sound when heard on big stages (using a tube overdrive) which also allows for acoustic play with the use of a mircophone.

The concert-type Odra guitar has a hollow-body 26.5 inches in scale, a Bigsby tremolo bar and TvJones Filter'Tons pickups. You can listen to the sound of this guitar particularly well on the cd of Punkt Eklektik Session vol.1 and vol.2 http://www.eklektiksession.com/index.php?page=home-2

Now, let me go back to the cigar box. It is not a coincidence that this guitar has found its place among professional instruments such as the Karina and Odra. It proves that the idea of playing a musical instrument is at one's fingertips. It sets an example illustrating that anyone can built their own instrument and learn how to play it. It proves that everyone can find a joy in playing music and share this joy with others. It proves that it only takes a weekend to create an instrument and only few weeks to learn how to play. Moreover, each and every one of the cigar box designers admit that one benefits from an immense amount of satisfaction from a personally made instrument. This vibe we see in photos and videos from the workshops on cigarboxnation.com, as well as social networking sites YouTube and Facebook. The concept of the Odra Guitars is not merely another few words about local activities in the DIY movement, but an attempt to bring the construction of musical instruments in Lower Silesia to life – in turn bringing back the customs that Lower Silesia was previously famous for.

To learn more about Guitars grow on the riverside project go to: http://odraguitars.pl/

• (Kania [Milvus milvus] – is a large bird of prey often nesting in the southwestern part of Poland)

I read the conditions being sold as opinions on media related sites.
I love to keep it positive. I like building instruments and sharing with friends. I hope we are not a clique or even snobs. Let us define what it means to be a cigar box guitar. They are boxes that once housed cigars that have been converted into stringed instruments. We all know that. However, with the cigar box guitar comes its many cousins. It is hard to define because there are so many varieties of homemade instruments that can be created limited only by imagination.
Here’s comes the conflict that seems to drive a wedge between a community that supports diversity on all levels of experience.
Do we have the freedom to build with any material from anywhere, be it China or US?
Does it matter the shape or density, originality?
Is it completed from scratch or salvaged from cheap knock offs?

Do we police the post on a CBG build site by ostracizing those who fall short of build criteria?
I’ve heard the sermon on the mound about purity and rite of passage from those who have paid their dues or came before us.
I really hope nobody buys into that!
For if you do, we will alienate ourselves from a unique opportunity to connect with people whose interest for the most part is to share all related subjects that have sprung from the Cigar Box Guitar.

Remember this blog is a response to other media sites that use their association with friends on here as leverage to support their ideology. I personally am open to discussion on definitions as long as I’m not attacking another member while expressing with them my views.

I not only respect but appreciate all the hard work and giving from all that have come before and are still providing us with service. There are many types of leaders, those who dictate, use fear and those who encourage though positive influences.
I see the latter here on the Nation and admire his restraint and experience at knowing when to step in and calm things down to keep the peace

I’m a firm believer in the no rule build policy but strongly encourage the traditional CBG build and respectfully share it’s roots. I build everything from canjos, 1-2-3-4-5-6 string CBG’s, Whamolas, bases, Ukuleles CBU’s, salad bowl banjo’s and vintage ironing board lap steels! “If it’s dead and laying around, I will build it and string it”. Stay positive!
smilingdog

As for the ancient history that is the year 2014, It was good to me overall..

Got the home studio up and running.  As a result, I managed to release not one but two CDs of three string CBG mayhem.  Twenty two songs in all.

As for this year, I have something bigger planned.  The goal is to have it finished by my birthday at the end of November.  

As for my previous two efforts, feel free to check them out (or purchase them) here:

http://urbanbill.bandcamp.com/

Hullo all, Eddie Tuleja (native and former resident of New Jersey) and myself recently released an album of 5 original songs all about significant events and places in Tasmania. The album is available for download from most online music retailers. I would be happy if anyone could have a listen to the songs ..even if it is just previewing them...and give me some feedback (sorry no CBGs featured..yet).  If I was clever enough I would have attached one of the songs for a free download. Anyway, cheers to all and merry Christmas

Well, technically it's not a cigar-box guitar because the (new) box was made for 3 small sample bottles of booze, Port to be precise. The name Amália has everything to do with a Portuguese Fado-guitar being the inspiration for this build.

The neck of the CBG is made out of an ax-handle,the fret-board and the head-stock out of a piece of some reclaimed Brazilian hardwood that used to lay on the floor at a Portuguese mansion. The frets are just steel nails and the tuning pegs are 4 mm threaded rod with little aluminium blocks that came of a front-door security rack. The nut and bridge just a few old bolts. T

                                                        

                                                        

The hand-rest came from a drawer of an 1930's Art-Deco cabinet and the sound-hole covers are 80 ct's kitchen-sink strainers. The string cover on the back came from a suitcase handle. The only real guitar part are the strings, which are re-used once that weren't broken on one of the Bluesbarn Studio guitar's. The picture of Amália was contact printed on the wood, other detail are glued on and the whole body was stained with "Nilzone" and covered with a few coats of "Glitsa" varnish. 

Hi folks,

I thought I'd share a few of my tricks and techniques which I employ on my builds to make them sound and play better. Obviously to some of the more experienced builders out there these may seem obvious, but that aside these are all things I wish I knew when I began making these.

1. The nut

The nut is an extremely important part of any guitar's construction, and has a huge impact on the intonation and the clarity of the tone. All of my guitars are fretted so I set up my builds to play with fingers rather than slides. Some of these steps are unnecessary if you intend to only play with a slide.

My tips for nuts would be:

• Use a hard material. I always use bone these days but a hardwood/corian works fine too
• When you file the slots, do so at an angle down towards the headstock so that the string rests on only a tiny area right where the nut meets the fretboard. I use the same size small triangle file for all the slots and it works just fine.
• The 'break angle' at the nut is important - the strings need to slope downwards towards the tuners. This will help open strings ring true. Where possible wrap the strings around the bottom of the tuner shaft a few times before feeding them through the hole
• When setting up intonation, use your tuner to ensure that if the open string plays a G, the first fret plays a G#. If the note sharpens when fretted, you need to make the slot deeper. Be careful not to go too far of you may get buzzing on the frets, which would effectively mean a new nut
• When you are happy with the intonation at the nut, take the strings off and sand down the nut so that the strings are resting in a shallow, rather than deep, groove - I tend to find they ring out a bit better this way

2. The bridge

Much like the nut, the bridge is very important for both intonation and allowing the strings to ring out as they should.

I use a floating bridge for all of my builds, as they are super easy to set up and I like the way they look. There is good information on setting bridge intonation all over the internet so I won't go into that here. My tips for bridges:

• As with nuts, hard materials will transfer sound better than soft ones. I use bone and hardwood for mine. I made a blog post on how I make them here
• I make the slots for the strings to sit in using a small triangle file. They are very shallow, with the break angle towards the tailpiece holding them firmly in place
• I sand my bridges to a point at the top - this way the string is only resting on a very small area at the top. If the string is sitting on a flat surface this can cause buzzing
• I tend to find bridges with a smaller amount of surface area contact with the soundboard (or cigar box lid) sound better (but please don't ask for the science behind this!)
• You may have noticed my bridges are rather high (this one is 3/4" tall) - see number 3.

3. Back angle

I started using a back angle on the neck on roughly my 12th build. The difference in playability compared to a straight neck is huge. It is actually quite easy to achieve and well worth a try.

As you can see, using a back angle on the neck allows for a much higher bridge, and the action stays nice and low all the way up the neck.

• Imagine that the neck is resting on 2 blocks, which are at either end of the box. Make the block at the front of the box slightly lower than the one at the tail, and you have a back angle. Easy! The tail block on this guitar is 10mm taller than the front one.
• If you're a bit more of a perfectionist you can cut the blocks at an angle to the neck rests flat on them (recommended)
• Coupled with having the fretboard sitting higher than the box, you will achieve low action and a good amount of clearance between the strings and the soundboard, making the guitar easier to play with fingers or a pick.

4. String gauge

Although it is standard CBG building practice to use strings 3,4 & 5 from a 6 string set, I have found better result using strings at equal tension, which is probably more important on instruments without truss rods to prevent the neck warping over time. I also find equal string tension easier to play.

• I use the MPUSTC String Tension Calculator to work out which strings I need for a particular build. It's easy to use; just enter your scale length and tuning and it does the calculation for you
• For this build I used GDG tuning, and went for 44,28 and 20w, with each string having a tension of between 10.4 and 10.8kg over the 630mm scale length. I tend to find anything below 9kg to sloppy, and over 14kg too tight
• I also find that using equal tension makes setting the intonation at the bridge much easier. I usually manage to achieve close to spot on intonation at the 12th fret
• If you want to give equal tension a try, just go to your local guitar shop and ask for the individual strings you need. If anyone's going to understand your needs, it will be a fellow guitar geek!

Well, I hope this is of some help to those of us just starting out with this rewarding hobby. I suppose my best tip would be not to think too much about it, otherwise you'll end up like me :(

Cheers!

Richey

Mr. Key is a super nice guy who generouly has let me care for his lawn for the last seven years. About 1 1/2 yrs ago Mr. Key asked me to remove some rather large limbs from his roof that had fallen from his poplar tree. I sugested removing the tree before something landed in his bed.  He agreed and I convinced the tree company to let me have the trunk which I took to a sawmill and had sawn up and waited paitently for it to dry.

I knew that the Poplar was destined to be guitars and the Mr. Key would appreciate something made from his tree. So when it was ready I started building a guitat completly from the Poplar, upon completion I delivered it to him. At first I just let him look at it and strum it. He knew I built intruments and always liked seeing what I had done. This was just before his birthday in September, so after a few minutes I told him "Happy Birthday".

Mr. Key smiled really big and began to giggle. He then stummed even more, Itried to show him a couple of things and thirty minutes later he was still giggling like a school boy. I asked if he had ever played before and he said that this was his very first instrument and he had never played anyhting before. Mr. Key was 96 on birthday in September. It is sad that someone could live this long and not experience music, but he was surely enjoying his music that day.

When I would speak with Mr. Key he would tell me that while watching the Cardinal baseball game he would sit and strum the guitar during the game and anytime he walked by it he would pick it up and stum it a couple of times.

I got the call that I hate to get, the Friday after Thanksgiving Mr. Key passed away. I am grateful to have had the opportinity to share music with him before he passed, and to know that he enjoyed playing on his Poplar guitar. no one should walk through this life without experiencing the joy of muisic.

After a recent forum discussion got side-tracked by an online vs face-to-face teaching argument I thought I'd present some actual evidence. Some may not be interested, if that's you then I'd suggest you move on, it may get a little dry. If not however, or if you think I've just got a barrow to push.......

I've studied this for a number of years now, it was a major focus of my undergrad music ed degree and since then I've learned a whole lot more, through studying the research and then actually making it work.

The assumption is that you need a teacher in the room to show you the right thing and tell you when you get it right or wrong. The journal of the Royal Northern College of Music:

"Even music educators have shunned a systematic approach to teaching methods, preferring to rely on habit, instinct and the master-student model that has been perpetuated for centuries (Richter 2001)"

Sound familiar?

An important aspect of learning is knowing when you're on the right track and is what most people believe they need the "master" for. This extrinsic feedback is not the only way that you can guage your progress. Intrinisic feedback is the feedback you get when your own senses tell you that you're doing something either right or wrong. This  paper describes a number of studies that showed intrinsic feedback more beneficial for college music students in both performance and in how they rated their teachers. Interestingly choral students were the only ones to report better results from direct feedback from their teacher. Anyone who's ever learned to sing will know that what you hear is different to what everyone else does. It's like your senses are lying to you and so the intrinsic feedback is less reliable.

No one suggests that having a teacher in the room is a bad thing of itself, as long as the teacher understands the importance of different types of feedback and when and how they are given. Wollf and Marnell (2008) discuss different ways that feedback can be managed to produce optimum results and along the way point to one of the problems with extrinsic feedback in a traditional setting.

"However, [extrinsic] feedback also has negative effects such as the student becoming overly dependent on it, and subsequently by-passing their own intrinsic feedback. In this scenario, learners fail to develop their own error detection and correction techniques."

Online educators design learning tasks that deliver and hence develop the capacity for intrinsic feedback. The student learns to assess his or her own progress and respond accordingly, an inherently valuable skill that extends far beyond any one particular course of study.

The thing with playing guitar is that there is no one correct position, or style, or technique. You don't need, or indeed want, anyone else telling you that you're doing it 'right'. If you can deliver a specific outcome for a specific task, and if that task is correctly designed and placed within the context of other relevant tasks, then you're away. When instructional design is coherent and learning tasks are relevant you will get results. That's long been established and these things are entirely possible online, in fact it's often easier online than in a traditional setting because the student has so much control over the process.

This compilation on research around online study is unequivocal. It's been proven time and time again that it works. A few highlights:

• "Students who took part or all of their course online performed better than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction"
• "Effect sizes were larger for studies in which the online instruction was collaborative or instructor-directed than in those studies where online learners worked independantly."
• "The effectiveness of online learning approaches appears quite broad across different content and learner types"
• "Elements such as video or online quizzes do not appear to influence the amount that students learn in online classes"
• "Online learning can be enhanced by giving students control of their interactions and prompting learner reflection."
• "This analysis demonstrates that students engaged in DE academically outperform their F2F counterparts."

and it goes on and on and on.

All of these studies point to the effectiveness of evidence based, intelligently designed online learning programs. Some of that evidence shows that online learning can bridge the gap between face-to-face teaching and more traditional distance education with access to an experienced teacher through email, video links, chat, social media, online seminars etc.

Common sense might tell you that you need a 'master' at hand to guide you, it might also tell you that man can't fly, AG Bell never thought the telephone would take off, they probably thought the wheel was a passing fad. People often assume that their own experience is universal, the fact is that it isn't. For everyone who's had a positive experience someone else has had a negative one. That's why you research these things, to find out.

Although there are not only cigar box guitars, but the idea of ​​hand-made instruments appears at the first place.

Małe Instrumenty (Small Instruments) are a band exploring new sounds using a wide array of small instruments. The instruments used in their sonic experiments feature an ever expanding array of professional instruments, sound toys made for children or naive in nature, strange musical inventions as well as a whole array of small items that aren't really instruments but do make a sound. The music created in this way reveals unique colours of sound sometimes beautiful and fine, sometimes surprising and insightful, sometimes exposing the incomplete nature of the sound created and allowing ears to feast on this restriction. All this means that the band is constantly faced with the need to look for new creative solutions.

    The group was started by Paweł Romańczuk in 2006, he is joined in Małe Instrumenty by Tomasz Orszulak, Jędrzej Kuziela and Maciej Bączyk, Piotr Łyszkiewicz. In July 2007 the band made its debut at Era New Horizons Film Festival in Wroclaw/Poland and has since worked on many music projects under the name of Małe Instrumenty. The group has collaborated with many prominent art organizations and artists in Poland and Europe and has perfomed at many festivals including:

Era Nowe Horyzonty (Wrocław 2007,2008,2009)
Unsound Festival (Kraków 2009)
Ferlitizer Festival (London 2009)
Kody (Lublin 2009,2010)
Skiff Festival (St. Petersburg 2010)
Animator (Poznań, 2010)
Supersonic Festival (Birmingham, 2010)
Unidram (Potsdam, 2010)
Open'er (Gdynia 2011)
Festival d'ile de France (Paris 2011)
Nancy Jazz Pulsation (Nancy, 2011)

Male Instrumenty recorded music for documentary films, animated movies, advertising spots. More: HERE

I am still trying to figure out the notes on an open D, 4 string in relation to reading music scores.

Does the first D string note fall below the position shown on my chart?

Where is middle C on an open tuned 4 string CBG on the chart below?

So where do the high notes occur on a music score then or are the duplicates ?

If this was chromatic this would be sequential but as it's open tuning its surely not?

I'm not quite getting the translation to music score notes can anyone clarify?

Well that just about wraps up the touring schedule for 2014 for me and Mr Belly..a quick trip over to Belgium and the Netherlands for 3 gigs and 2 workshops, and a mere 1300 miles under the wheels. Huge thanks to Ozzy VanDer Loo of Chulahoma Music and Hans Siongers of Cafe Pallieter who arranged things for us, and for all who came along to make guitars and to listen to us. It was, in the words of Mr HB's song, a Long, Long Road, but worth the effort and time taken to drive through 4 countries and back for a weekend's work. Things didn't start too auspiciously, after a 4.00am start from the Hollowhaus, we had to drive cautiously through Stygian darkness and thick mist...with Mr HB feeling increasingly groggy and car-sick...then hammering round the M25 with him hanging out of the passenger window until we managed to find a stop. Fortunately the rest of the day wasn't too bad..apart from dreadful traffic at Antwerp, this time the satnav tried to avoid the worst of the ring road...but we were still about 1 1/2 hours behind schedule when we arrived at our promotor's gaff in the Netherlands, So with only the briefest of breaks, we transferred some gear into Ozzy's van and headed down the megacity 6 lane motorway to Rotterdam for what seemed like an interminable stop-start trip. We were booked in at a really nice place, Dizzys jazz club and had a wonderfully warm welcome from the lady who ran the place (having learned the correct etiquette  in the Netherlands of the three kisses  always works well when greeting a lady). We managed to shoehorn Ozzys long wheelbase van into a parking space right outside the venue, but this is one of the problems with big city gigs - the difficulty of finding a parking space can be really stressful, and fitting in a 2.7tonne Merc van into a regular car parking space required nerves of steel and a lot of to-and-froing.

Still, ensconced in the bar with a slap up feed of excellent local grub, we had a cracking gig...a fairly small audience (yes, there was a big football match on that night...and last time we were up against  a Seasick Steve concert), but to their credit they all came right to the front of the room to hear us play. A steady drive home saw us back at base at 2.00am...600 miles covered and a 22 hours working day to kick off the tour.

We had Friday off..so a we went to see the the National War and Resistance Museum at Overloon, the scene of one of the largest tank battles of WWII.  I found that parts of it reduced me to tears, particularly the sections about the "hunger winter" and the forced labour factories, as I have connections thru' my wife with Dutch family members who suffered dreadfully during this terrible period of conflict.  Ozzy also has direct family connections with this time, as do so many Dutch people, as his grandfather was in the resistance, and climbed up the church steeple of Asten to watch the Germans advancing towards the town across the flat terrain. We finished the day with a quick shopping trip to stock up with all those foodstuffs that I can't get in the UK, but which my family love. I'm sure most of it will seem unpalatable and weird (apart from the strong Dutch and Belgian Trappist beers)...fritessauce (sweet mayo for putting on French fries), salt licorice drops, oyster flavoured prawn crackers, hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles for putting on bread at breakfast), sweet & spicy "ketjap" soy sauce, extra hot chilli "sambal" paste, syrup waffles, Spekulaas ginger biscuits...basically, loads of sugar, salt, fat and alcohol...Dutch health food, that's what makes them the tallest people in Europe!

So off to Belgium early next morning for a small workshop held at the local folk music centre. They have a whole building devoted to promoting folk music and traditions, and we were treated to a lovely impromptu recital at lunchtime on the hammered dulcimer and the Hommel, a short of short scale dulcimer. We also heard some cracking dance tunes during the afternoon played on accordian and spoons.

Trying out the instruments made by members of  Westelfolk - Hollowbelly with a diatonic diddley bow and me trying the Hommel - that's a hammered dulcimer in the foreground.

Learning to solder a pickup.

As soon as we had finished, it was off to Cafe Pallieter to get set up for the gig...although quite a bit of the bar was occupied by a brand new Ducati sports tourer and a beautiful vintage 500cc Royal Enfield, owned by Hans, the gaffer at the bar.

Bikes duly pushed outside, we set up for the evening...including our own PA, which we usually carry to cover these sort of small town bars. We got rolling, and by the time I was into my set, the place was pretty busy, with several people in the house who had seen us before, including some from Brussels, which is a fair step away. With another heavy day ahead of us, we got to bed at a respectable hour - we were staying in the attic room above the bar..so very convenient, apart from two flights of near-vertical staircases which are typical of these old buildings.

In the morning, it was easy hour's drive, under grey winter skies through the Flanders countryside back into Dutch Brabant, to met up with our promotor Ozzy at Cafe t'Spektakel, at typical traditional "bruin cafe" in Asten.

A full house for the workshop kept us busy all day, interrupted by the bizzare visit by Sinterklaas's (Santa Claus) little helpers, the "Zwarte Pieten", spreading jollity and handing out sweeties and gingerbread cookies.. In the Low Countries, Santa arrives earlier than in the UK, the 5th December being Sinterklassavond (St Nicholas' Night), on a white horse, by boat from Spain, accompanied by moorish black-faced helpers..."Black Pete", dressed in full renaissance get-up with silk doublet and feathered cap. In recent years this traditional character has been the cause of increasing controversy, as may well be imagined, so the days of this tradition may well be numbered.

With a lunch of sandwiches and a delicious homeade pumpkin soup under our belts, we carried on and got 22 guitars completed, and Hollowbelly then taught everyone how to play - all in all a tiring but very satisfying day's work. A quick sprint back to Ozzy's for dinner, then back to the bar to soundcheck at 6.00pm. 

Opening for Hollowbelly at Cafe t'Spektakel

Main set by Hollowbelly...playing to a good crowd...fans came from as far afield as Germany for the evening. We enjoyed a great sound both on-stage and in the room, due to a super PA, and most importantly a great sound engineer (top tip for budding performers...always thank the sound engineer, they are a vital part of your performance, so don't forget to tell them so). 

This Sunday night gig started at an early hour, so we were off stage by a very civilised 9.20pm. Here's Hollowbelly after the gig making his selection from the extensive range of fine beers on offer. I was drinking only coke (yes, it really is rock 'n' roll, but driving safe and legally are all part of the deal of being on tour), so we packed everything into the car and drove back to Ozzy's to wind down and relax. We did, I must admit, somewhat over-indulge ourselves a little after such a hard few days, one bottle of Jack Daniels having it's neck thoroughly wrung dry, and Ozzy asking me to make glass after glass of White Russians, but I reckon we'd earned it. So, after sleeping the sleep of the righteous, we were back on the road late morning and on our way...a smooth circuit of the sometimes appallingly congested Antwerp ring road, a quick diversion to a French supermarket to stock up on more Belgian beer and good French wine at excellent prices and we arrived in time for an early crossing thru' the Channel tunnel.

Our wheels hit Blighty's shores around 4.30pm, and we were again blessed by the traffic gods, having a very steady transit of the M25, and we were back at the Hollowhaus by 10.00pm. I stopped over and was on my way back to Birmingham, after fixing Mr HBs main stage 3 string guitar, and with the Pyronator 4 string resonator  left in my charge for a bit of an overhaul and repair...countless gigs, rehearsals...and a bit of contact with the stage and microphone stands takes their toll on a gigging instrument. 

So, 2 workshops, 3 gigs and 1300 miles in a weekend...."Doesn't it sometimes feel like work?" I was asked by a member of the audience at the bar of the Cafe Pallieter....damned right it does, but it's what we do. Prettige Kerstdagen en een Gelukkig Niewjaar! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

I went down to the local scrap yard for a license plate they said they never heard of such a thing and gave me a plate I brought it home put it on the box has been building took it back and played for them they were so excited they videoed it on their cell phone and send it to the boss.

Glenn Watt blog post on Spence's Rye

Spence's Rye blog post by Glenn Watt at glennwatt.com

http://glennwatt.com/spences-rye-better-living-music/

Hey Turkey eaters, I usually don't play the "like" game on the inter web, but in the Durango songwriting contest I'm a finalist in a portion of the winner is based on thumbs up on their you tube video. So if you feel like showing some support, click on this video and give it a youtube Fonzie thumbs up. The winner of the contest gets $10,000, a new wardrobe, a guitar and tons of other awesome stuff. On my normal budget I could record around 7 albums with that money. Thanks guys! If you want to spread this status around, by all means. Tis the season for giving!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhsaVwlNDE8

To view the finalist go here: http://www.americansongwriter.com/2014/11/announcing-20-finalists-durango-sole-performer-contest/