Saturday 23 February 2013

One Hundred Thousand Visitors - Thanks for dropping in. :)

Today is Saturday February 23rd and today my Blogspot visitor counter shows
the all time number of visitors to my Blog as 100058 visitors!

So, Hi to all those who have dropped in and out over the last few years and
welcome to any new vistors :)

The counter also shows the most visited posts, since I started - it is quite interesting
to see what has been the most popular.

The most popular today are listed below.

Yamaha SB500 

Westone Quantum X850 

Ibanez Blazer 

Ovation Magnum III 

Peavey T-40 

Ovation Magnum 

Jon Lord 

Ibanez ST824 

Ibanez Musician MC924DS 

Peter Cook - Gibson - Mighty Mite 

The most popular of all time are listed below. 

Fender Urge 1 

Ovation Magnum Bass 

Peter Cook FenderBirds 

Peavey T-40 

Peter Cook - Guitar builder and Musician 

Ibanez MC924DS 

Ibanez 2459B & Greco

Ibanez Old & New 

Ovation Magnum III 

Gordy Headless Bass 

Strangely, I no longer have the Fender Urge and yet despite being hardly
mainstream, it has had the most hits! I have no idea why!

The feature I did on Peter Cook has always been very popular and I'm
sure he will be pleased that his posts have been well read. :)

The Ovation Magnum has also had a lot of readers, I think mainly due
to the pics that I took of mine, which I am very pleased with.

Peavey T-40, always popular.

The thing that I find very pleasing, as a big fan of Ibanez, is how high some
of those have come on the list.

The Yamaha SB500 has had quite a few hits, as there is not much out there
about these fairly rare basses.

The Ibanez Destroyer/Greco has been well vistied - not many of either
of these around!

Well, hope you enjoy browsing through the most popular ones - I will
be wrapping up the Peavey T Series feature, over the next few weeks and
then I think I will do a few more of the Guitars.


So, to celebrate this 100000 milestone, I am going to make a blatant plug 
for one of my very favourite guitarists!
Yes, I play bass but am a great lover of guitar and love everything from 
Classical, through to Hard Rock, traveling through Funk, Prog and Blues.

For me, this guy just does it so well and I never get tired of listening to his
music and guitar playing.
He has played amongst so many of the great players and his piers and yet
is still relatively unknown.
His last album, "Coming up for air" was produced by no less than the very
talented Peter Frampton, another one of my favourite guitarists.

Coming from the Isle of Man and only around 25 years old, he is now living
in Chicago and spreading his music, mainly across the USA - although I have
been lucky enough to see him live, twice - a truly moving experience.

Readers, please give a big hand for Mr Davy Knowles!





Playing alongside Paul Reed Smith - Davy, is pretty much welded to a PRS guitar, these days.



Davy's album traveled around the the word, in a NASA spaceship - over 5 million miles!



Hope you enjoy watching these and check out his other work.
Any existing fans out there, drop in and say hi on the comments section.

Once again, many thanks to all of you readers out there - here's to the next 
100000 visitors.

All the best.
Cheers. :)

 

 



 



 

Friday 8 February 2013

Peavey T-60 and T-40 Cases, Part II. . . . .

I asked Chip a couple of questions - How did the moulded case design come about, 
in order to conclude this piece about the cases and just get get an insight into the 
musical side of him, what his musical experiences were and did they influence the
design of the T's.
















These cases show the two piece handle, so when it is picked up, it can't fall open.
There were also some unlined cases, as shown above. with one of my old 
Forty's in it.
So, there were three official cases - the Original Vac formed case, that was dropped in 
favour of the one Chip designed.
The earlier ones had three clasps and the later ones had four, adding another one at the
end, to ensure a tighter fit.
The Fender type ones, with the Olive coloured interior, I have seen with early T-40's
but never with the T-60's - these don't seem to feature as a factory option, so I can't
say how they came about.
One thing is for sure - there are enough of them about, all the same, to say that 
somewhere down the line, these were sold from some dealers in that case.
Perhaps they fancied the stronger cases for themselves??
Who knows?

Chip continues. 


"When I was a kid, I built several rifle cases for my father and designed the handles 
into it so that he wouldn't ruin the guns if he picked it up without remembering the 
latches. 
That was back in the early 50s, and Ive never made a case since then that had only 
one handle, except the vacuum-formed early Peavey cases. 
Hartley was quite impressed with the safety of the integral handle although it was 
done in other industries in the late 70s".

"I have not been a musician since I was about eight years old. 
I played violin well enough to be in the city's (adult) orchestra, but didn't take up 
music until I was 29 years old, when I went back to college for my mechanical 
engineering degree, ( I had a BS in Commercial Art). 
I repaired instruments the entire time I was in college and only learned guitar 
while in college the second time. 
I only learned finger-picking in the folk style because I was impressed with 
finger-picking. 
I was told to learn with a pick or I'd never do well with a pick. 
They were right.  
I'm not a musician at all. 
Because of a botched left hand operation to install two carbon-fiber knuckles, 
I can't chord the most simple chords, so I don't play anymore. 
I have taken up the short-scale basslets that I build and am having a good time 
with it. 
I don't play bass patterns; I play harmony to the lead and love playing. 
I have no desire to play on the stage or with a group.

The acoustic guitar was my only real guitar playing, so it had no influence on 

my designing the Peavey guitar. 
During my college days when I was repairing instruments, I did build a bunch 
of electric guitars, so learned what players wanted most.  
Hartley told me, "If you and I don't know what guitarists want, we shouldn't be 
getting into the business". 
This was in reference to having a marketing department. 
Even after he finally hired a marketing man, Hartley and I still made the guitar 
decisions until I left to go to Fender.

Back next time with the tail end of the story.

Cheers. :) 

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