Little Dreamer

Van Halen Wristsband in its New Home, originally uploaded by Mr Atrocity.

I'm sure at some point in the past I must have mentioned that there is a small group of rock nuts with whom I used to work and together we swore that should Van Halen ever reform with Diamond Dave we'd go and see them in L.A? This all grew out of an institution formed when we worked on the squirrels for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory together. Every Friday afternoon was "Rock Friday" where proper rock music was played all afternoon culminating in Van Halen's Jump at 6.30 when we all went to the pub. That was almost the only rule (along with "no ballads") and it has spread to the company I now work for and to others.

My buddy Cosmo, who now lives in San Francisco took "Rock Friday" to Pixar where he now works. It's comforting to know that the "Rock Friday" crew is spreading the love worldwide. Cosmo was able to see the mighty reformed Van Halen last month in San Francisco and, being the kind soul that he is, bought a few of us merchandise treats, mine being a delectable Van Halen logo'd sweat band. I debated where I might keep it for quite some time but then decided that it should have pride of place on my guitar strap. I think it almost certainly adds to the playability of the instrument - a little more of the spirit of Eddie is with me now.

Guitar Heroes

Guitar Heroes, originally uploaded by Mr Atrocity.

It was supposed to be Tinseltroos and my Christmas present to ourselves but we'd both had very crappy weeks at work and decided Christmas had to come early. So we rocked out for a few good hours last night when I got home from work and I suspect a little more rawk may happen tonight.

I'm in work again today, but as I have a lot of simulations to run, and most of that involves a great deal of waiting I'm playing a lot of Zelda on my DS. Today has gone thusly. Kick off a simulation, wander round a dungeon in Zelda looking up every now and again to check on progress. Rinse and repeat. Boring but could be worse.

Zeitgeist and Me

I just don't seem to be part of the current cultural zeitgeist in stuff. Mostly this doesn't matter since I don't really need more stuff but occasionally it does become a bore. An example of former occurred today when I visited the Cycle Show at London's Earl's Court with my pal Wichie. He's in the market for a new mountain bike so he had his little eyes wide open and juicy nose was held aloft sniffing out the perfect down-hill machine that his hard-earned could get him. I was just there for the experience and to see what the world of new bikes is like. I am not in the market for buying a bike since I have just built one, a fact which has been recorded at seemingly unending length on this blog, somewhat in the manner of a very dull Norse epic. I am also not currently riding my new bike, a machine Wichie has described as being "like an Edwardian crotch rocket" thanks to the huge workload I currently have. I have had two days off in the last four weeks, and that doesn't leave much time, or inclination quite frankly, to go out and cycle.

As it turned out my pre-expo pep talk of "You don't want a new shiny bike, you don't want a new shiny bike." turned out to be utterly superfluous. 99% of the bikes were horrid. Thousands of gears, ugly, lumpy frames, enormous elaborate suspension set-ups and garish paint-jobs. If you cycle down rocky mountain paths at breakneck speeds I'll allow you all but the garish paint-job, it's necessary to not dying whilst pursuing that particular hobby. But I suspect that much in the manner of most 4x4 SUVs being sold to people who will take them no further than the local Tesco's, most of these mean down-hill dirt-bikes are more likely to be seen plying the North Circular than the South Downs. And it's a shame.

There was one exhibitor who did delight my tweedy old-fashioned tastes in all things cycling and that was Witcomb Cycles. Ernie Witcomb and his son Barry have been hand-building lugged steel frames in south London for over 50 years. Nothing has changed in the styling, the odd concession to modernity aside, they are pretty much indistinguishable from a road bike of the 1940s. They are beautiful works of craftsmanship, each frame individually tailored to the height, weight and riding style of the customer. Of course such attention to detail and bespoke design does not come cheap (upward of £1500 for a frame alone) but it is a pleasing sight to see someone making things on a small scale, with care and tremendous skill rather than shipping the whole operation off to a sweat shop overseas with an "it'll do" attitude.

So I left the cycle show only £4 lighter; I couldn't resist this Fullers London Pride water bottle. It's one of my favourite beers and I like the irony of the logo appearing on a container for water.

On my way home I stopped off at the last of the central London guitar shops I had to visit to see what the world of guitars has to offer me. And it was, once again, a very depressing experience. There were countless practically identical standard Stratocasters, plenty of 1960s pastiche guitars by Burns and Hofner and the usual none-more-metal, none-more-black heavy metal machines. In other words nothing that appealed to me. What I'm after, to replace the Flying V, is a 1980s style superstrat with perhaps just one humbucker and a Floyd Rose trem. I don't really want one of the modern styled Jacksons or Ibanez models as they're a bit too pointy, too Steve Vai and not enough Eddie Van Halen. Try as I might I have yet to find anything that comes close to the pretty basic, but solidly constructed, guitar I seek. I have had a tip-off that an out of town guitar shop may be getting one Charvel San Dimas style guitar in next week but if that falls through then I'm back to scanning the eBay listings. If anyone has any pointers to a not-too pointy superstrat type guitar in the Kramer Baretta or Charvel San Dimas tradition that are available in the UK then drop me a line will ya?

Dinner and a Why-oh-why

Last night, as it had been cold and rainy all day I made veggie burgers for T and me. Having made it up as I went and as I was quite pleased with the result, I'm recording it here for the benefit of my sieve like memory. I finely chopped a medium sized onion, half an aubergine and a red pepper and combined this with 2 burger buns worth of bread crumbs, a good sprinkling of smoked paprika, cumin and a large beaten egg to bind the whole shebang. Season to taste. I then pan fried them in olive oil before serving in a bun with salad, mozzarella, mayonnaise, basil and sliced tomato. I'll definitely be doing those again.

In other news, as I've begun the search for the replacement Atrocity Axe I've been reading a couple of guitar magazines, trawling some fora and so on to glean as much information as I can on the guitar state-of-the-union before making any purchases. I've been a little out of the loop in electric guitar and the dazzling array of shiny planks on offer has had me shaking my head a few times in disbelief. Here is my non-exhaustive list of "Things that an electric guitar does not need":

1. LEDs (anywhere).
2. A digital display (for anything).
3. A USB socket (Why, Gibson, why?)
4. More than two cutaways (Yes B.C. Rich, I'm still looking at you).
5. More than 24 frets (only dogs can hear those notes).
6. Automatic self-tuning (You again Gibson?)
7. More than 4 knobs.
8. More than 2 toggle switches.
9. More than 6 strings (Mr Vai, this means you).
10. Non-standard pickup shapes.
    

Band on the Run

Last night Tinseltroos invited a couple of like-minded chums over for a screening of High School Musical 2. I, not liking musicals very much, and positively hating the two songs I'd heard from the first one took the Flying V, my head-phone amp and a laptop and hid myself in the bedroom - as far away from Zac Efron (I had to look that up) as possible. I cannot remember the last time I just sat down and played guitar solidly for nearly two hours. It felt great and I managed to learn all of Running With The Devil which pleased me greatly. I felt I was restoring balance to the universe and natural harmony to the flat by counterbalancing the singing and dancing (and occasional hysterical laughter from the audience) in the living room. I also played Iron Man, as much of Eruption as I could remember and a little bit of Mr. Brownstone to honour twenty years of Appetite for Destruction. Rock truly is a gift that just keeps giving.

It also confirmed something for me. To whit, I'm still getting rid of the Flying V as my poor wrists are sore from supporting the whole weight of the guitar. When sat on the bed the guitar wants to slide down your leg because there are no contours to keep it in place. It really is very annoying, it's a very beautiful thing but it's so impractical and it will definitely have to go.

London Calling

A very long time ago I wrote a piece about my love of "proper" telephones. It remains one of my favourite posts but the motivation for writing - the idea that I might get an old telephone for the house has, until now, remained just an idea. Yesterday Tinseltroos got a modern update of the classic 500 series 'phone designed by Henry Dreyfuss in the late 1940s. It has buttons in the place of the holes in the dial so it's modern in the sense that it's touch-tone and works on a digital network. It is decidedly not contemporary in its heft, style (it has some), and the pleasing mechanical ring of a real bell is the best bit of all. I've had to 'phone home using my mobile a couple of times whilst standing next to our new baby just to hear it.