clivemurray.com

What’s the most played and most common soundbite of classical music?

What, that you say? The intro to Beethoven’s 5th? Computer says no.

It’s from a piece called “Gran Valse” by Francisco Tárrega, and it’s the tune that comes as the standard ringtone on Nokia phones. Yep, that one.

Bit dull, though, n’est-ce pas? Well not any more! Now you can download a short MP3 of me playing those 13 notes in a rock styley, and use that instead!

Rockia.mp3 [113Kb]

As always, you’re welcome.
–c.

By the way, “Hi” to everyone linking through from Blackmachine guitars (Hi Doug!). I’ve noticed in my referrer logs that I get quite a few hits from there, and people probably arrive here, take one look around for any evidence of shreditude, and bugger off again.

Yes, I do own and play a Blackmachine guitar. It’s a 6-string B2, and I was in fact Doug’s first official customer (That’s what he said when I bumped into him recently, anyway!)

Check the guitars page for evidence of my guitar, and if you want to check out my playing or my band then the music page will be of some interest. Some photos of my B2 being played live pop up in this photoset, although it appears I don’t play for Claytown Troupe any more.

Also, if you’re into rock music, and if you came via Blackmachine’s site you probably are, feel free to check out and maybe even subscribe to my podcast, Bucket of Rocks. It’s rocktabulous.

Cheers,
–c.

Reluctantly, but I need the money for something specific.

Ibanez RG750 for sale on ebay.

It’s an awesome player and I’m going to miss it awfully, but it has to go. This is the third listing – please pass it on to anyone who might be interested.

–c.

I am, as many of you know, rock incarnate. If the sound that Slash’s guitar makes was formed into a sentient biped and sent swaggering up to the bar, you’d get me. That’s a given.

What some of you possibly don’t know is that before Crashstars (formerly Little Monkeys), I was a solo instrumentalist and I released an independent solo album entitled “Earthman“.

Well yesterday I uploaded the whole thing to the excellent Last.fm, mostly to test the service, but have had some favourable reports since then so I thought I’d publish the linky here.

“Earthman” on Last.fm. Take a listen.

–c.

I’ve now added all the guitars I own and all the guitars I’ve previously owned to the Guitars & Gear page. Hoopy.

Amp and pedal details plus recording setup still to come.

–c.

In a moment of downtime at work, I shoved the first few guitars onto the guitars page! Look you!

–c.

WARNING: GUITAR/AMP TECHY POST.

A couple of years ago I was still using my ADA MP-1 preamp with a Marshall power amp. Then at a UKMG gathering, the excellent Wide Open were playing, and I was highly impressed with their sound. Vinny Burns leant over to me and said “You’ve outgrown that ADA, you know. You need what Justin’s playing through. You need a Cornford.”

He was right, and within a month or two I had one – a nice shiny MK50. And it’s been great. I’ve had no complaints (aside from the fact that the handle has broken).

But.

Having thought I had that whole amp situation handled, I was suprised this weekend at the London Guitar Show to find myself starting to fall in love again – with a new amp. Across the way from where I was demoing was this big stand with a whole load of impressive looking amps on. I wasn’t really taking much notice of them – the noise in that place is incredible, and after a few minutes you block things out and everything starts to mush together – but eventually I wandered over and had a play.

Boy, was I impressed. They had several different models, all with differing specialities, but all great. And here’s the keyword: versatile. One thing my MK50 just will not do, is a nice clean sound and a great dirty sound. If you were to set it up to do a good clean sound you’d lose the signature drive that it has.

But these amps could do it all – from lovely punchy clean tones through great chucky rhythm sounds to full on screaming guitar-hero lead sounds, all coming out of the same box with just the tap of a footswitch.

Damn, I sound like a sales brochure, but I was impressed. Mightily so.

But what are these wonderful amps called?, I hear you ask. They are Koch, hear them roar. Edwin, the main guy, is a nice fellow too.

I can’t get these amps out of my head at the moment. Stay tuned for possible tone-changing developments.

The London Guitar Show 2005 starts today – opens in about 20 minutes, in fact – and continues tomorrow and Sunday.

I will be demoing tomorrow and Sunday on the Arrowhead Guitars / Tipton Amps stand, playing tracks from my album and selling CDs at the reduced show price of £10.

At least drop by and say hello!