Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The Horrors - Primary Colours (2009)

This album is great!

you can download the whole album here:

http://rs723.rapidshare.com/files/215559641/TH-PC.zip

and watch the video for the first single(?) (the last track off the album) here:

http://www.delmarrworks.com/gorges/video/K1lD5cE6Bwc/The-Hor
rors-Sea-Within-A-Sea-HQ.html


It's really different to Strange House. This album doesn't have any screaming, it's a lot more gothic sounding. and some of the first tracks have a wavey sounding guitar just like my bloody valentine :]

Monday, March 23, 2009

DhGate Guitars

So over the last year a few guitars bought at dhgate have gone through my hands. these are cheaply made counterfeit guitars. However they are easily spotted as fakes even by the n00b.

The reason I bought the guitars was simply due to the great value for money. Les Paul copies in hard leather cases for $310AU, pretty much any 4, 5 or 6 string bass guitar in a hard case for $270AU, decent acoustic guitars with cases for $300, fender copies for $260 in cheap cases...

Now that the Australian dollar has gone down it's not such good value for me, but the opportunity is still there for many.
The problems with the site is there are many scam sellers who will attempt to steal your money by taking your paypal money into a new paypal account of theirs, then emptying the funds before paypal can take the money back (in which case paypal will cover the costs... so you're pretty safe).

Also, the seller I dealt with would often tell me she had the guitar I wanted even when she didn't, then would send something similar. this was partly due to ignorance, but usually due to not wanting to lose the sale. despite this, the seller was still ok as other sellers on the website simply couldn't compete with the prices.

I'd just like to add a note that I mainly bought most of these guitars to experiment with different types of guitars... I don't resell these guitars as real instruments and when I play them myself I cover up the fake brand names. also anyone that tries to sell these as the real thing is an idiot because it is a bad way to make money and you will simply get caught, the guitars are simply not very good quality, sometimes with parts missing or paint fading.















This was probably the nicest copy I played... so smooth and great Les Paul tone...













Les Paul case... so nice.















wish I still had this jazz bass copy (even though it said precision bass on the headstock, lol)















Gibson 335 copy... this was heaps good besides the pickups getting a bit too much feedback.
















Nice looking unbranded headstock...














"MOURLLY From Italian and High Quality Protessional Guitars"... classy
















pretty nice bass overall... and it turns out they must of made a spelling error with the brand also, as I cannot find "Mourlly" Guitars anywhere...
































frank's "Made in USA" tele..











My main acoustic Guitar... apparently a fender copy.


If you are interested in buying from dhgate, contact xianglong (and say I sent you, haha). Even if the item is not in her store she will most probably be able to get it for you if it is on dhgate. However her prices are not always competitive with non guitar based items. Also be careful to check the feedback of any seller you are considering buying from, check the shipping rates (ask for quotes including shipping) etc...

Sunday, March 22, 2009

My new guitar

This is what i would of spent my $900 on if I was gonna get it. Instead I’m not in a few hundred dollars of debt. ahh! Youth Allowance system is shiiit! fix it please, kevin... anyways

It's a 1962 Fender Jazzmaster Re-issue; Made in Japan. $795 including a lame gig bag from cash converters with a three month warranty. who woulda thought, $200 cheaper than i woulda got it on ebay. it's the ebay-isn't-actually-such-great-value-wakeup call I needed. because we all know cash converters aint great value. I wonder how much the guy that pawned it got. probably $500, seeing they need to cover sales-peoples costs, the three month warranty they gave me on it etc etc.

Based on the serial number guitardaterproject.org concluded that it was made in the year(s) 1994 - 1995 at the Fuji String Instrument Production Corporation. This really surprises me, because after playing it I could barely find a scratch besides a couple on the back, the varnish was shiny, there weren't many playing marks on the pick guard and everything seemed to be in really good condition. So I guess the previous owned mustn't of played it too much.

I've played it a lot since I bought it. I really like the sound. Just what I wanted after listening to Rowland S. Howard and my bloody Valentine (among others) a lot recently. However i am considering getting new pickups at some stage, they sound jazzmaster-y... but just a bit too strat-like (i didn't buy this to sound strat-like).




The bridge which everybody complains about... really is worth complaining about. I've been trying to justify keeping the bridge, but there's just no getting around the rattling, the thread part of the saddle hitting the string causing buzz when the saddle is moved far back (the low e and g strings) [that was hard to explain and probably doesn't make sense] and the low e string jumps across the saddle on regular occasions, slightly altering the tuning and screwing the string spacings... to fixx this I think I’m just gonna go with the Mustang bridge. the buzzstop will alter the harmonics from behind the bridge and won't fix all the problems.

now there are pro's about the jazzmaster bridge, but in my opinion they're simply out-weighed by the cons.






the jazzmaster bridge:

  • can alter string spacing (useless?)

  • can alter the height of each string individually (good if you're too lazy to turn the truss rod or you want to control where the high and low e strings fret out when you bend them)

  • looks a bit cooler (but I’m getting a cover soon anyways)

  • buzzing makes harmonics sound a bit cooler? lol


So yeah, that's about it. Very happy with it... originally wanted a jaguar but this is great.

Oh and unlike all the other (cheap) guitars I've played, I like every setting. Bridge, Neck, both pickups- with varying tone; as well as the neck pickup through different volume / tone controlls which sounds a bit darker. Though my favourite would be 'the standard' both pickups with tone and volume on full... perhaps with tone a little under full at times. and the tremolo system... the best part!

(L) MBV

Friday, March 20, 2009

The Velvet Underground (1969)



The VU's third release, from 1969. By this time they'd developed a much cleaner sound. but its perfect on a morning like this when I'm pretty damn hungover.

I don't remember where i downloaded it so i advise using megadownload.net - it searches rapidshare and megaupload. the only problem with it is you sometimes come accross a file with a password, but sometimes its just blank, or one of the words in the file name...

http://megadownload.net/search/velvet%20underground%201969/all.html