This most hallowed of eves saw the first deployment of Got Carter, my current covers band of choice, upon the festively dead and decaying folk of Chesham, Buckinghamshire.

We were top of the bill at the "The Cock Tavern" - a name to test a chap’s juvenility, if ever there was one - for their 2008 "Pumpkin Bash".

The Tavern was exactly as I had hoped: packed with friendly, hairy folk in possession of interested ears - the perfect cure for the cynical hangover brought on by three years of playing to indifferent, drunken chavs in some of the South East’s clammiest vomit emporiums.

The Halloween theme had been adopted with gusto, with monsters various very much in the majority. The costumes were excellent - cats, wizards, dead nurses, strange lizardmen, aliens, people with horrific things through their faces, (possibly not in fancy dress) and a Ghostbuster outfit that looked like it could have actually come from the film.

Our drummist himself was zombified superbly, with the other Carterites displaying various degrees of piratitude, witchiness and demonica.

I myself had absolutely no costume - I hate fancy dress, due in no small part to the fact that everyone else’s level of dressed-upishness is always exactly the opposite to mine - but had, in circumstances somewhat befitting the date, come straight from a funeral. As it was, the entirely black ensemble ended up being not a bad "costume" at all.

I don’t remember much about the first three acts, but they seemed to consist mostly of songwriter, acoustic-guitar types ranging from the (intentionally) ridiculous to the furrowed brow sincerity of those more serious. In any case, there was a pleasant atmosphere building up by the time the Metallica covers lot got up to do their bit.

I have to say, they were superb. Sadly, a lot of people left due to the dramatic increase in volume and the inevitably Metallicalogical theme of their material. As with many bands, once you get past their hugest of huge hits, I suspect that your average Joe doesn’t actually like Metallica as much as he thinks he does.

We were though, somewhat intimidated by the very much upped ante of RAWK that we then had to follow, even though we knew that our more mainstream material was likely to go down favourably with the weary revellers. We had initially opted to start things off with No Doubt’s "Just A Girl" but, at the final pre-gig rehearsal, decided to swap this for "Beat It" in order to kick off our set with a great big guitarosaurus of a tune.

With just a short (45 mins) set, and a fixed song order, I had in my mind a fairly well rehearsed plan for which guitar to use on which tunes: my blue strat for the majority of them, with a dash of Les Paul thrown in for bumhucker flavoured riffing. Imagine my annoyance then, when the strat’s bass string bought the farm, midway through our first song.

As a craggy veteran of such logistical fly-in-ointmentia, I spent the closing chorus of "Beat It’ - doubtless wearing a Winnie the Pooh "pondering face" - going through the rest of the set to figure out if I could manage everything else on a Les Paul or if we’d need to pause to replace the treacherous low E - knottier than you’d think, as the Strat’s back plate holes currently don’t line up, so the whole thing has to come off to change a string.

In any case, despite an unfamiliar feeling when playing Strat-practiced songs on a Les Paul, it all went approximately according to plan after that.

Our set list ended up as:

• Beat It (Jacko & EVH)
• Just A Girl (No Doubt)
• How You Remind Me (Nickelback)
• Misery Business (Paramore)
• Going Under (Evanescence)
• Harder To Breathe (Maroon 5)
• Valerie (Winehouse/Ronson version)
• Bad Love (Clapton)
• Livin’ On A Prayer (Bon Jovi)
• Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns N’ Roses)

All of which seemed to go down very well with the tavern-dwelling damned, and the singist’s boy toy commented that he had never seen me smiling so much at any Mis-Spelled Band gig.

It was by far the best maiden outing that I’ve ever been a part of, and a huge boost to both confidence and motivation for all of us. The next stage is to get our songcabulary up to fighting weight, and then hit the pub circuit with a vengeance.

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This time next week, I shall have two gigs, on consecutive nights, that will each be the maiden outing of two completely different bands.

I say "completely different bands" but actually, in a moment of freaktacular cosmic coincidence, it’s actually the exact same band but with different singers. One of them is a covers band, the other a vehicle for a singer / songwriter, and my first jaunt into the murky world of "originals".

Now, personally, I couldn’t give two hoots whether I’m playing a cover or an original, as long as it’s fun; but to many, playing covers will always seem a bit naff. This is probably more true of function work than the pub circuit, where the former involves stiff, be-suited renditions of "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Stuck In The Middle With You" for the 300th time.

However, I recently heard the following quote, which is a nice retort to such musical highhorsery:

"Playing a Christmas party for 250 drunk accountants may not seem like rock n’ roll, but it’s better than being a drunk accountant."

There is also the standard reply that the leader of the Mis-Spelled Band used to give to people who asked why we didn’t "play yer own ****ing stuff?":

"Well, we’d like to, but we just get paid too much for playing covers."

In any case, at long last, when quizzed about my musical endeavours by somebody who looks like they spend just a bit too much time reading the NME, I have an original club in my sonic golfbag, with which to phwap them over the head until they leave me alone.

So the covers band is called Got Carter. We’re on facebook if you want to look us up, and a web site will be birthed out onto the interweb just as soon as we’ve got our act together.

Yes, that’s "Got", not "Get", although I still keep using the latter by mistake - a crushing irony, given the mis-spelling of my last outfit: couldn’t spell the last one, can’t even remember this one!

The set list is all fairly mainstream stuff, ranging from Kelly Clarkson to Guns N’ Roses and Zeppelin, Clapton and Hendrix to Paramore.

Our first gig is on Halloween, at The Cock Tavern on Chesham High Street. Mixed reports lead me to believe that it’s either a cozy, small town pub … or possibly the Star Wars cantina. We’re also on after a Metallica covers act, so I’m glad we’re not doing "Brown Eyed Girl".

The singer / songwriter is Ashley Dawes and the gig is playing her song "Electricity" at the Festival4Stars International Songwriting Competition, one of the judges for which is notorius Bee Gee, Robin Gibb. Apparently we’re the only actual band there - with everybody else singing over a backing track - so hopefully that’ll work in our favour.

I have no idea if this gig will lead to further work down the line, but it should be a fun experience regardless; an expensive function at a posh hotel, with luxury nom and a room full of "industry types".

Anyway, fingers crossed for a successfull weekend of maiden voyages.

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Some new acquisitions recently, and a somewhat profound change to my rig after an amp-related epiphany.

First of all, there was a need to replace the effects - primarily delay and chorus - lost when my G Major kicked the reliability bucket. It might seem odd to show any brand loyalty towards a manufacturer who produced something with as much digestive dysfunction as the G major, but I went with t.c. electronic for both effects.

The Stereo Chorus Flanger (SCF) pedal is an established classic and sounds jaw-droppingly fruity. I’ve not bothered using the flanger or pitch shifter all that much, as the chorus is really what it’s all about, and it has already established itself as something I would definitely replace if it got lost. It’s quite subtle - the kind of pedal that a more youthful me may well have discarded, wondering what all the fuss was about - but it adds a huge amount of depth, especially to a sparkly clean sound.

For echo duties, I opted for the Nova Delay pedal. I’d also looked at the Eventide TimeFactor but the price was just a little too high and I didn’t like the look of the readout. I already have a Boss DD-3, which is a great sounding delay, but I prefer the "digital approach" of being able to set millisecond or bpm delay speeds, especially for covers work where a delay effect might need to be really specific.

Having rigourously tested each - a generous description for five minutes with a badly tuned, shitpiece strat with rancid pickups into a buzzy amp sim and the kind of hi-fi headphones that they give you on aeroplanes, on a t.c. electronic demo stand strategically located in the very loudest spot in the London Music Show - I established that they might possibly do what I needed.

Being the astute consumer that I am, instead of wasting precious time trying to find a way to demo them each in more suitable circumstances, and/or researching and trying out alternatives, I immediately purchased them both. Fortunately they do the business - no great shock with the SCF, but the Nova also kicks some bouncing about the place and repeating oneself ass.

Okay, so I’m not a total chump. I did check out reviews on Harmony Central, in Guitarist magazine and various other web sites. However, the sad truth of it is that I just though that the Nova looked bitchin’, and it was just lucky that it turned out to be a great sounding unit too.

So that was that sorted. Then was the sudden crisis of amp tone.

The Hughes & Kettner Trilogy is an awesome amp. In a variation of the above theme it looks simply stunning. Plexiglass front panel with blue LEDs lighting up the H&K logo etched into the centre. It almost always illicits "ooohs" from the moment it is switched on, even from people who clearly have absolutely no idea what it is.

Even without the eye candy, it’s an amazing sounding beast as well.

So how is it, you may well ask, that I suddenly find myself about to put this stunning specimen up for auction on eBay?

Probably the best way to sum it up is this: The H&K’s front panel features no less than 27 individual knobs, including channel switching, excluding power and standby switches. The JCM 800 head has 6.

When someone comes up to me in a loud pub and tells me that I’m not cutting through the mix, I turn around and 27 shiny blue knobs look back at me helpfully. I usually try to tweak the channel volume, master volume, or maybe up the mids a bit if I’m feeling daring. At best nothing much happens at all. At worst I get screaming feedback or an absolute tsunami of volume - enough to make even the drummer pout.

With the 800 head, you’ve got your usual EQ knobs, a pre-amp knob and another that specifies how hard we stamp on a Tyrannosaurus Rex’s testicles to get our desired sound. It works, big time, and there’s no feedback and a tone that doesn’t so much cut through the mix as push it up against a wall and steal its lunch money.

In short, the 800 wins on simplicity of use, and outright hairiness of rock kahunas. Given that there are a couple of expensive months coming up around here, and despite the stunning blue looks, the H&K has to go.

Finally, I’ve added a ProCo Rat pedal. I’m still experimenting with up front distortion, but so far it’s a TS9 and/or a Blues Driver with the Rat kicking in for the gnarly stuff.

There will probably be a little bit more tinkering in the coming months. I want to add in a compressor and my Chicago Iron Octavian - when I figure out where my daughter has hidden it - and longer term I might add in an H&K Rotosphere.

Maybe then I’ll finally be content to leave my rig as is for a while.

Yeah, right.

UPDATE: In a fit of financial lunacy I, in fact, decided to keep both amps! My logic being that to sell a 1,200 quid amplifier - for probably nothing close to its actual value, in these credit crunchable times - when its only crime is that I can’t cope with how many knobs it has, would be foolhardy at best.

I have therefore resolved to use the 800 for the time being, and try to improve my knob-wrangling skills (steady) with the Hughes & Kettner.

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It’s been three gigs in as many weeks with the nefarious Mis-Spelled Band, due to my former partner in crime, Captain Jules T. Hairy, having assorted musical and matrimonial antics demanding his attention.

A somewhat hurried – got the call on Wednesday, gigged on Friday -  trawl through their hundred plus song repertoire yielded a healthy catch of forty or fifty tunes that I could still remember well enough to play without a rehearsal and, as an added bonus, I was able to coax an actual set list out of them_¹.

High Wycombe, Palmers Green and Ealing where to be our destinations – an O’Neills, The Fox and a function at some sort of posh sports club respectively.  I know what you’re thinking – who needs New York, Los Angeles and Brixton Academy when you have locales like ours on the back of your tour t-shirt? Well let me tell you, it’s not all glamour. Behind the crusty, vomit-caked public face of these venues, there is a crusty, vomit-caked behind the scenes bit that you don’t usually get to see.

The Wycombe gig was an absolute blast. The band - with both a new bassist and ivorytickler since last I played with them - was on stellar form and my almost entirely untested rig sounded enormous. I was expecting to play like utter ham-fisted toilet and was therefore understandably pleased as the proverbial punch when I did, in fact, rock my socks off.

Sadly, this was tempered by the all round “meh” of the second and third gigs. Not that they were awful – lord knows I’ve played worse – but they were nothing to write home about. My playing at said shows was still better than expected, despite a tendency to over-play my improvised stuff a little, like a dog that’s not been let off the leash in a long time, but I was still operating very much in a “second guitarist” mindset. We didn’t have keys at the second gig, and a stand-in keyboarder at the third, and I largely failed to adjust my playing accordingly and fill in the gaps.  Not insurmountable problems at any rate.

Cocking up the intro to Sweet Home fucking Alabama during the second gig was vastly more unforgiveable.

¹ The ability for a band leader to adjust a set as they go is all well and good, but nobody enjoys a lengthy pause in front of a couple of hundred people while you have to unexpectedly change guitars and/or retune a floating trem.

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Many moons ago, back when the main purpose of my guitar "practice" was to master the intro riff from "Eat The Rich ", I stumbled across an article in Guitar magazine - entitled "Pentatonic Mapping - Fretboard Geometry in Action " by Jon Finn. It was to become the shiny red convertible that got me into the knickers of the pentatonic scale.

Since then, most people to whom I have mentioned said article have decried it to be nothing more than soul-less boxfoolery and, to a certain extent, I can see their point; learning to improvise by visually bolting five different shapes together across the fretboard is hardly the most musical of mindsets, but without doubt I owe much of my familiarity with the scale to that one article.

I was reminded of this formative stage when I was rummaging around the YouTube channel of recently mentioned chopmonster (and Guitar Idol 2008 winner), Gustavo Guerra. In several of his lesson clips he adopts a smilar approach of bolting together a couple of "shapes" and then repeating them on each pair of strings.

The main difference I find now is that I am considerably more swift at playing through these shapes than I was in 1995, so they are altogether less exercise like and rather more useful for fretboard safari.

Here I’ve drawn up five exercises, each one starting on a different shape of the minor pentatonic scale. Sadly I couldn’t keep them all in the same key (which probably would have been clearer) as my dinky fretboard diagram isn’t capacious enough to contain a single key example of each lick.

Here’s the first one:

Ex. 1 - G minor pentatonic

Starting on the most common shape that people tend to know, we’re going up through an alarming FOUR shapes by the time we’re surfing the high E string. For your comfort, I have highlighted the pattern that repeats. After the first pair of strings you simply repeat the pattern. After the second pair of strings you move up one fret and repeat the pattern again - thanks to that dratted guitar tuning business. Jon Finn referred to this as the "Warp Refraction Princple " but we don’t have any of whatever he was smoking, so we’ll just say "up a fret" for the moment.

Here it is in high def:

Got the idea? Good. Here are the others:

Ex. 2 - Em pentatonic.

You should of course pick these, and arrange the notes, in whatever way pleases you. I am tending to play them as sextrumpets with (fairly) strict alternate picking.

Ex. 3 - Dm pentatonic

Ex. 4 - Cm pentatonic

Ex. 5- Am pentatonic

You can use these as either swift licks in your improvisation, to zip about the neck like those travelator things that they have at the airport, or just as exercises to improve your familiarity with how the trusty old pentatonic shapes link together.

It should go without saying - but I’ll say it anyway - that you’re not limited to going up and down in the way that I have tabbed. Once you know the patterns you can noodle about all over the place.

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I’ve been working on this sequence of notes in various forms for absolutely ages, switching between strict alternate picking, economy picking and even hybrid picking, finally settling on legato with a sort of half-assed directional picking action. I did try all upstrokes but somehow the initial downstroke anchors the lick to the beat and helps me keep more accurate time.

Now that I’ve established my preferred way of playing through it, the speed has increased alarmingly. Playing along with a metronome I can now just about manage a comfortable 110bpm, which makes for some fairly zippy legatious sextrumpets, if I do say so myself. It sounds really smooth too - not quite as forced or aggressively Zakk Wyldian as the other methods.

The only trouble is, playing it the fast way involves wrapping my thumb over the top of the neck and it doesn’t feel like it’s doing my wrist any favours at all. Playing it "correctly" (thumb more towards the centre of the neck) slows things down a fair bit: I’d say 90bpm is about my tidy maximum.

I almost did myself a mischief playing it for ten minutes this morning, so I think I may revert to the latter thumb position and work the tempo back up again.

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In a moment of Googlemooching, I found myself curious as to what former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony is up to. Aside from his personal web site, I also stumbled across this (very recent) headline:

"Sammy Hagar to hit studio with guitar hero Joe Satriani and ex-Van Halen bassist "

The Canadian Press

Whoa. Oft have I wondered what Satch would sound like in a band. I really love his stuff but can’t listen to more than a few tracks of instrumental guitar before getting bored.

Hopefully the rumour is true and something album-flavoured comes of it.

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Joe Bonamassa’s new live album "From Nowhere In Particular" is set to be released on 19th August as a 2 CD set, with fourteen of the tracks recorded on the autumn 2007 tour.

Pre orders should apparently be up on Amazon.com by July. There’s also a new studio album in the works, tentatively due for release in early 2009.

Joe’s limited edition signature Les Paul is also due to go on sale in July.

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It’s been quite a while since I visited GuitarShredShow.com, and I see that Mr. Fastfinger has got himself some new toys courtesy of his corporate sponsorship - t.c. electronic no less - and some nice new (2007) content: "The Magic Carpet Tour ", a lesson in modes.

If you are yet to visit Sensei Fastfinger’s dojo, I stongly advise that you head over there and benefit from his sage advice and phearsome chops. The site is a triumph of illustration, Flash design and shred guitar, created by Finlandian multimedia producer and designer Mike Tyyskä.

If that weren’t enough, Fasterfinger is also a Hughes & Kettner man. Nice.

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