Another Classic Street Photography shot, Waterloo Station

 

I really am starting to understand how those B&W guys took so many evocative shots.

In Which I Buy an Epiphone Les Paul Standard

Yep.

I am now a two-guitar household. I've been noodling on that steel-string acoustic since about 1972. I bought it from a music shop in Kingston that has long since gone. It cost the equivalent of £325 in today's money, which is bit more than half the price of the Martins it's a copy of. I never intended to play live: it was for personal pleasure. I never had (or never made) the time to dedicate to learning licks, chords and the like.

I'd been thinking about buying an electric guitar for some time. After watching a few YT videos on guitars, I realised something, and while looking up stuff for this, I found a Fred Frith quote that says it very well:

There is actually no such thing as an electric guitar. This [holding up his modified Gibson ES-345] is not really an instrument...it doesn’t become an electric guitar until I plug it in. And also send it through whatever I want to send it to [indicating his pedalboard]. It’s only this, plus that, plus that [pointing to amplifier], which is an electric guitar.

So if it's my first electric guitar, I have to buy the amp and some pedals as well. (Well, duh!)

Now here's the surprise.

The price of an iPhone 13 Pro with 256GB RAM is £1,049.

A perfectly acceptable, brand-name, entry-level electric guitar, and a perfectly-acceptable brand-name amp, can be had for less than that.

Epiphone (aka Gibson), Mexican Fender (aka Fender), plus a cheaper Vox or Fender amp.

Less than an iPhone. That you have in your pocket.

So towards the end of September, I boarded the train for Epsom, where there is a branch of GuitarGuitar.

What? You expected me to go to Chandler’s. You think I’m rich or something?

Having watched a whole bunch of YT videos, I intended to buy a Mexican (Fender) Telecaster. You know, the twangy one that country players use. Because I’ve always liked the look of Teles and with the right strings and pedals they can be made to sound not like a country guitar. I didn’t want a Strat or an ES335, as those are for people who are going to play live.

Here's the most important thing about buying your first electric guitar: if you know someone who knows their way round electric guitars, pedals and amplifiers, take them with you. This is not a something you can figure out from reviews. I don't so I couldn't, but you should.

Here's the second thing: don't sweat it too much. You might buy The One. But it probably won’t be. It’ll be good, or you wouldn’t have bought it, but it’s not going to be the only one. I may only buy one because of my mature years, but you youngsters are going to buy more than one. And you’ll maybe trade in the first and others.

When you buy the second one, you will have a much clearer idea of what you want in terms of feel, tone, interaction with your amp and pedals, and all that other stuff. The first time is an experiment.

I tried this Tele, that Tele, something else, I may even have tried a Strat, I nearly tried an ES335...

I came away with an Epiphone Les Paul Standard.

For those who aren't familiar, Les Pauls are at the opposite end of any guitar spectrum you want to construct from a Telecaster.

The Les Paul felt right, more comfortable than the Fenders: this is because Les Pauls have a neck length about the same as acoustics. So it felt familiar. Humbuckers have a fatter sound than single-coil (I knew that, but I didn’t know how much fatter it was.) and I was used to the rounder tones of an acoustic. And damn, Telecasters are twangy.

Delivered it the next day. Along with a 50W BOSS Katana (I don’t need 50 watts, but it gets me all sorts of electronic gadgetry), a 3m cable, a replacement set of strings so I don’t buy 11 gauge from sheer habit, and a strap with locking loops. I have picks.

Blatant Back-Fills of Missed Posts

A lot of catching-up to do. I've been doing stuff that it didn't make sense to talk about at the time, as you will see. Also it's that time of the year when my life / will-power / moral fortitude / ability to plan / anything else falls apart for a while. I get bursts of energy, and then days where I do a bit of this and a bit of that. Also it's been darn cold, coldest weather since 2010, according to the Met Office. So here's the first photograph to kick off.

Bruckner 9 at the RFH

This was the one I really wanted to hear. The London Philharmonic doing Bruckner. Big Band stuff.

I've heard a big ol' pipe organ, and some older and modern chamber music. I have not been amazed by the difference between live and my hi-fi. My generic memory from when I used to listen to live chamber music was that it was much better than anything I could get at home. That was a good few years ago, and my reaction now speaks to a) the vastly improved quality of digital sources, DACs, amplifiers and speakers, and possibly b) the deterioration of my hearing.

For Bruckner 9, I was two seats to the left of the conductor and two rows back from the orchestra. I could hear the cellos and violas on the right, the violins on the left, and the horns and winds in the middle. With a clarity that is simply not available on a hi-fi. Unless maybe one plays it at 80+ dBA, which would have the neighbours complaining. (I tested the bit where the orchestra comes out and everyone plays through the bits they find difficult one more time, and that was around 80dBA.)

When the orchestra was giving it the full triple-forte, even close up, it was an overwhelming wall of sound dominated by the cellos, violas, brass and woodwind. I could see the basses sawing away over to the right, and the second violins over to the left behind the first violins pretty much disappeared as well. When the wind section stopped playing and the cellos calmed down, then I could hear the basses and the second violins. This is pretty much the experience of listening to a CD as well: it's a function of the sheer volume that cellos, violas and wind can put out. It's why a lot of orchestral recordings seem to be biased to the right: because that's where all the noise is.

When the orchestra was playing at regular or piano intensity, the depth and quality of the sound easily exceeded anything I've heard on CD or CD-quality streaming over the speakers and certainly over headphones.

No comparison. Totally different experience. I have two more chamber music tickets left from this round, and next year I'm only doing Big Bands doing Big Band music. I will change up where I sit as well.

Sitting that close... no comparison between a live and hi-fi. Live was a real experience.

Royal Airforce Museum - Lancaster

Sis and I took a trip to the RAF Museum in Colindale (Northern Line and take the bus). It's free and it is well worth the visit. They have the bi-planes and tri-planes and jet planes and the WW2 stuff. And then there is this mofo. It's big. Nope, it's bigger than that. Only the Vulcan is bigger, but not even the Vulcan has the sheer presence of this beast.

If it was 1944 and you saw a sky full of these things, you would not want to carry on with a war. The Lancaster is brutal. It has no other purpose than to leave the target in unrecoverable ruins. Carrying on when those things were dropping bombs was just crazy. Read Len Deighton's Bomber, if you haven't already. It describes the havoc those things could wreck in unsparing detail. 

Tech note: not my finest shots, but doesn't blur look better in B&W?

More B&W - I'm Starting To Like This (Richmond on Thames)

Oh yes, I like these three. Impossible in colour. 

 Also, I use f4 as my default, since on an APS-C frame f8 gives way too much depth of focus. The first photo would not work if I used f8.

Black and White vs Colour (Richmond on Thames)

 Some subjects are better done in B&W, and others in colour. 

I think both of the table-photos have good points. Each has a different atmosphere.

Here the B&W looks a little self-conscious, whereas the colour one looks like a picture. 

Whereas these...

 ...are what B&W is for. You have to look for the person, but once you see them, there's nothing to distract you from them.