I used to have a great big in-depth page about my guitars up here. Then when I moved to Wordpress, I took all non-blog pages down, but I still get hits from people looking for my guitars page, so I’m reinstating it here. 
Current guitars
Gibson Les Paul Custom
Some time in late 2003, I decided that I needed a Les Paul, and I’ve always liked the white ones. I knew this would draw inevitable cries of “Oh just like the guy in The Darkness!” (they were massive at the time) but I thought bollocks, I want it. So with the help of my good friend Paul at Arrowhead Guitars it became mine, and in no time it was my main guitar, as I had just joined Claytown Troupe at the time, and it suited the music perfectly. It was naturally the only choice for main axe in Little Monkeys too. See evidence of live usage here and here! This guitar is 100% stock, as I got it. I believe it’s a 2001 model.
Blackmachine B2
Custom built for me by the mighty mighty Doug at Blackmachine Guitars. I first encountered these amazing guitars at the London Guitar Show in May 2003. I was stunned at the construction of the things, and how thin they are! Check it out! The body is mahogany and the neck and fretboard are Brazilian rosewood. The sustain is amazing for such a thin and light guitar and the sound is monstrous. The pickups are Dimarzio Evolutions, and my guitar is (to my knowledge) unique in having 24 frets and no tone control. Woody!
Ibanez Jem 777LNG
And LNG stands for “Loch Ness Green”, no less. There’s plenty of information about the Ibanez Jem series and it’s progenitor, Dr Steve Vai, all across the Intarwebnet so I’m not going to drivel too much about it here, save to say that this is one of the very first production run of Jems. In 1987 they made 777 of these green beauties, and never made any more. There are lots of other colours that came into production from 1988 onwards, but the LNGs were only made once, and I have one of them It is number 407, and the estimable Mr Vai signed and numbered it on the backplate. It’s not just a collectable though - I used this guitar for most of my set at Jemfest UK 2002.
Ibanez Jem 777BBQ
This was originally a stock off-the-shelf Jem 777DY that a friend was getting rid of cheap to raise some quick cash. It found its unfortunate way into my care, and I started thinking about how to customise it. Ho ho ho.
See for yourself what happened in grisly detail over on Flickr.
Ibanez RG7321
I got this purely for those 5 extra notes, you know. Mostly the B, to be honest. I decided long ago that a couple of tunes on my second album (the first one took me 10 years, don’t rush me!) would feature some evil 7-string riffage, and then this little beauty turned up for somewhere around £250 off the shelf brand new. Amazing value! It’s Korean made, but it’s a quality instrument I tell you. I wouldn’t have a 7-string for my only axe or even for a whole set, but it does the one trick I bought it for superbly.
Encore P-Bass
I got this cheapo from a friend who wasn’t using it purely to put some low notes into some demos I was doing. £50, nuff said. My bass playing hardly merits a Warwick, you know.
Been & Gone
There comes a time when into every life a little rain must fall. And occasionally there comes a time when even a guitar freak like me must sell one of his prized beauties. Here are the ones that have gotten away…
Ibanez RG750
SOLD: July 2007. This was my first Ibanez and the one that probably the largest proportion of my solo album was played on. The neck pickupwas a Dimarzio Humbucker From Hell - the least aptly named pickup in the world, it has got a bluesy single-coil feel to it - and the bridge was a Dimarzio FRED, giving the guitar quite a range of available sounds. The neck was the ultra-thin Ibanez Wizard type, and this thing played like it was on rails.
This was sold for a very good reason.
Ibanez RG565
SOLD: November 2005. I loved this guitar. I loved it so much that in 2003 I played two solo gigs with it. Reverse headstock, maple board, cranky pickup configuration, Lo-Pro Edge trem, colour-matched dot inlays. What was not to like? Sadly it had to go in the end for financial wossnames.
Ibanez Jem 77FP
PXed: March 2004. This was my first Jem, and the first to go as well. It met with… some damage, and was PX’d to pay for the Les Paul above.
Washburn N3
SOLD: May 2003. Nice guitar, this. A pal of mine (hi Rick!) bought it second-hand and couldn’t get on with it, so I PX’d it for my old Ibanez PGM30, which I’d never really got on with since I bought some better guitars. He loves the PGM, so everyone wins!
I particularly liked the simplicity of it, plus the pickups - a Bill Lawrence L500 in the bridge and a Seymour Duncan ‘59 in the neck - rock very much indeedly!
This was sold to raise funds for a new guitar.
Ibanez RG550
SOLD: May 2003. Rawk! I got this guitar at a good price from ebay in Germany, and it turned out to be in fine condition. So then I whacked a couple of stickers on it, and ordered blue Dimarzios! The neck pickup is an Air Norton, and the bridge one is an X2N, and they both sound awesome. Fabulous rock tones!
This was sold to raise funds for a new guitar.
Ibanez RG770DX
SOLD: 2002. This was another ebay find, and what a colour scheme! Violet metallic… yum. Thing was, around the time I bought this, I’d bought 4 guitars that year already, and they were all pretty much the same - they were all Ibanez, all HSH, all locking whammy, all the same body shape… I just couldn’t justify keeping them all, so this one had to go. Fortunately it went to a friend who has had it refinished, and I believe it will get more use with him than stuck in my rack.
Ibanez PGM30
PXed: 2002. I forget what it was that made me get this guitar, seeing as I PX’D my rather superior 540PII for it. I can only assume I hadn’t had my weetabix that morning. Anyway, it served me well for a number of years as my only guitar, and very rarely let me down.
This was PX’D to my good pal Rick for the Washburn N3 above.
Ibanez 540PII
PXed: 1994 or 5??? Why oh why oh why oh why did I PX this guitar? It was absolutely wonderful, and I haven’t seen one since! It rocked so much. The neck was the widest I’ve ever played, the pickups were brutal, the styling was interesting, and though you can’t see it in this b&w picture, it was metallic purple! Of any guitar I’ve shed, this is the one I regret the most.
This was PXed for the PGM30 above in a fit of madness. Plus I didn’t know what a PGM30 was at the time, and some little stupid part of my brain kind of thought I was getting a PGM300. Doh…
Fender HM Strat
SOLD: 1992, I think. Yes, the HM did stand for “Heavy Metal”. Yes, I did cover it in polka dot stickers. Yes, I did paint the whammy bar bright pink. Yes, that was my bicep when I was 17. This was my first proper guitar, and it was fabulous. A nice wide, flat neck, a Dimarzio Super 3 and two Fender single-coils, a decent locking whammy system… I loved it.
I sold this to part-fund the 540PII above.
Other Gear
The amp that rocks my world is a Cornford MK50, and I love it. The one thing it doesn’t do too well is clean sounds, but to be honest I rarely use a clean sound live, and it does clean up well when you back off the volume, so it still covers all the bases I need.
On the floor I have a Digitech WH4 whammy, a Morley Bad Horsie wha, and several Boss pedals - a TU-2 tuner, a DS-1 distortion, an OC-2 Octaver, a DD-3 delay and a CE-5 chorus.
For home recording I use a Behringer V-Amp2 straight into my PC.
–c.
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