Blog Post Categories
- Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos (16)
- Guitar in general (59)
- Vintage guitars (28)
- Mark Knopfler gear (87)
- Misc (59)
- MK guitar style and licks (69)
- Recording (15)
- Understanding music (23)
Pages
- Contents – List of all articles
- Forum
- What is a blog and how can I use it most efficiently
- The idea behind this blog
- Support this site
- Poll: Wishes for future articles
- Gear on all songs for all albums – WIKI
- Privacy policy
- Live Chat
- Contact
Recent Forum Posts
-
Bridge state/height
posted in forum Gear by thomasfloss on 30. January 2012 at 20:00
-
Recommended gear for the MK style
posted in forum Gear by Ingo on 29. January 2012 at 16:41
-
Welche Gitarre und Amp fuer Anfaenger und Knopfler-Sound?
posted in forum Deutsches Forum - German forum by markus on 26. December 2011 at 18:38
-
Gitarre & Amp mit Knopfler-Sound für Anfänger
posted in forum Deutsches Forum - German forum by markus on 26. December 2011 at 18:20
-
St. Mark's DSP Effects Pickups Debuted At The Musikmesse Frankfurt Show
posted in forum General Guitar discussion by littlemustache on 19. November 2011 at 15:50
Recent Comments
- Installing a Highlander iP-1X – The best pick-up for the National resonator guitar (8)
- Dire Straits Water of Love guitar tutorial (4)
- Ingo: There is so little gain on the amp so that it is not louder than my talking (the amp was a...
- Jean-Francois: very nice article and playing Ingo, well, as always
I know it wasn’t your... - Ingo: The reel to reel – a 1/2″ Teac 80-8 made of wood and steel and only little...
- Fletch: Another wonderful instructional vid Ingo, many thanks. Do you ever use that reel to reel...
- Dire Straits Down to the Waterline explained: licks – chords – solo – no tabs (9)
- Alain: Ingo, thank so much for this lesson which give us a really knowledge of MK technics and...
- Mark Knopfler Signature Strat with lipstick pickups played on Forever Young (duet with Bob Dylan) (3)
- Music Man Guitar Amps (26)
- Ed Goforth: http://soundcloud.com/gof orthsound/david-gilmour-s olo-sorrow Modded HD-65 Bass head...
- Ed Goforth: Check out my Music Man mods here. I was on My space, but it was getting too much crap...
- How to avoid RSI, carpal tunnel syndrome, wrist pain etc. when playing guitar extensively (part 1) (8)
- Ingo: Pain seems often come from overuse, and overuse causes cramped and hardened muscles....
Archives
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
Links
Meta
Tag cloud
TOP 15 Popular Articles
- Guitar refinishing – nitro vs poly and how to remove a polyester finish
- Mark Knopfler’s Music Man HD 130 212 guitar amp
- Forum
- Mark Knopfler’s Sultans of Swing amp – The brown Fender Vibrolux
- Music Man Guitar Amps
- Mark Knopfler’s Amp and Effect Settings on the On Every Street tour
- Red – redder – the reddest: fiesta, dakota, candy apple, hot rod, and more Fender colours
- The King of Clean – Mark Knopfler’s Tone King Imperial amp – Hand-built vintage technology and sound
- Trying to recreate that Sultans of Swing sound - The gear I used on the Puresolo competition.
- New site shop launched
- How to get that Sultans of Swing Sound - Mark Knopfler played 08 strings?
- Mark Knopfler’s amp settings on Fender Hot Rod Deluxe (Boom like that promo, Germany 2004)
- The Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer compressor – Did Mark Knopfler really use it?
- Mark Knopfler’s 1938 Gibson Advanced Jumbo acoustic guitar
- Ernie Ball volume pedal modification to make the taper like it was with the old Allen Bradley poti
Top Comment Authors
- Ingo (297)
- Jean-François (116)
- Jeff - Anthony (36)
- Dermot O'Reilly (28)
- Erik (21)
- TheWizzard29 (21)
- Knopfleberg (20)
- zach (20)
- Philipp (19)
- Fletch (17)
- Morten (17)
- John (14)
- Jim (13)
- Ryan T. (11)
- thomas (11)
- liftedcj7on44s (10)
- Alex Mircica (9)
- danny (9)
- Jakehadlee (9)
- jude (9)
- Eduard (8)
- Antonio (7)
- Chris (7)
- Eric (7)
- Jeff (7)
Dire Straits Eastbound Train – Rhythm riff, licks and solo explained
Posted in: MK guitar style and licks by Ingo on December 01, 2008
Eastbound Train was one of Dire Straits’ first songs. It was recorded as a demo before the first album was recorded, and it is the song of the earliest Dire Straits live recording that exists (from the Hope & Anchor, London, December 1977). This live version was released as the b-side of the single Sultans of Swing in 1978, but with exception of the demo (that has a totally different groove) it was never recorded in the studio. Eastbound Train was an encore in most Dire Straits concerts between 1977 and 1979, but it was never played again later.
It is a simple boogie groove in the key of E major, and features not only a cool rhythm guitar riff played by Mark Knopfler, but also a superb solo. The chords are all E in the verses (only in the first verse it changes to D for four bars), and a chorus-like part over four bars A and four bars B.
The solo is over a standard 12-bars blues scheme (E E E E A A E E B B E E), repeated three times.
The following video explains basically all different parts and shows some variations for the solo. The way I play it is rather a mix of different live versions, a few details are possibly my own creations. There are enough videos on youtube showing Dire Straits playing the song if you are not familiar with it.
Since I still experience sound artefacts (a strange wobbling bass sound) in videos at high resolution on youtube (before I upload them they sound alright), I put in the standard video quality version. You can watch a high-resolution version directly at youtube (click here).
There are two more articles about Eastbound Train in this blog (see the list of related articles below) that analyze the opening chord and the ‘train chord’ in the solo.
"Buy me a beer" - donate for the site via PayPal. Or buy a backing track in my online shop :)

Hi!
Another good video, lesson and playing! A pair of questions please: Are you playing through the vintage Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer compressor and a Fender Deluxe Reverb Blackface? The sounds you get on your videos from the rosewood red Fender Strat and this Squier are really close to the MK sounds on the two first albums and live gigs from 1978 to 1980.
Which delay are you using? It sounds really warm. I used to play through a EH Deluxe Memory Man and now I am playing through the new Maxon AD999 but this one is really nice!
Thanks,
Eduard.
Comment by Eduard — 2. December 2008 @ 22:22
No Orange Squeezer here, the compression comes only from the digicam (they all compress the sound to keep the level constant).
I played through the Morley volume pedal into the green MXR analog delay, into a Fender Pro Reverb. The MXR is hard to get but there is a new one out (the 169 carbon copy), not really a reissue. I haven’t tried it, maybe it comes near, can’t tell. Fact is that the MXR sounds different than all others I have heard so far.
Comment by Ingo — 3. December 2008 @ 07:12
nice lesson but since im kinda of a beginner, i have problems doing the boogie sound, you think you can write down a small tab and perhaps post it here on the site?
Comment by Erik — 14. January 2009 @ 19:44
some licks of the solo in Eastbound are reproduced in the solo of Badges, stickers etc…and in the Real Roadrunning version of Sonny Liston.
A particular lick which sounds jazzy-honkytonk-rag-boogie, you know what I mean
Comment by Jean-François — 19. February 2009 @ 21:31
I prefer the studio version of Eastbound train (maybe because it’s the first version I’ve heard, the 2nd one was Barbarella’s)
It’s always interesting how a song can change so quickly : the demo version is recorded on 9/11/77 (according to TK) and just one month after (Hope & Anchor, 9/12/77) they’ve already decided to play it differently.
Same for Setting me up : there’s no so much time between the demo (I guess played on the LP special) and the Talking Heads tour in january 78, where the version was quite similar to the album one (the only we know is Leeds 30/1, but we can guess it was played this way all the month)
in Oldfield book, the author talks about “Wild West end with Mark on national steel”, so the 77 gigs featured this song with Mark playing the acoustic part which was later reproduced on the ablum (left channel), although the july demo version is more like usual 78-79 live versions, with lead licks on strat.
And last but not least : evolution of Sultans between july 77 to one year later. (I know this article is about Eastbound, but I don’t know here to post this):
july 77 :
- “chorus” pattern : the licks are inverted compared to later versions,
- first solo: the lick on the F chord is the same as on the album version (you know, this lick that imitate the pedal steel, which Ingo explained in the bending strings article)
- end solo : shorter as on the album version (less few bars before arpeggios)
Leeds 01/78
- “chorus” pattern: the licks in the same order compared to later versions, so change compared to earlier version
- first solo : no change, the lick on the F chord is the same as on the album version
- end solo : many bars added, but no the ones we usually know, he seems to search things
Chester 19/04/78 :
version quite similar to the album version (both first and end solos)
Pathways studios 20/04/1978 (single) :
- first solo : no change, always the same “pedal steel lick” on the F chord
- end solo : first time he introduce the few bars just after the “descending scale” and just before the arpeggios. He will keep this bars until nowadays. So they appeared on this single version, because they didn’t exist the day before ! (the date of recording the single came from diary on neck & neck.com I guess)
Barbarella’s 4/07/78
and then finally the “fast” lick on the F chord of the first solo ! first time I know he did it, because I don’t have boots between april and july 78, but maybe he did it before ?
I guess Ingo can tell us
Comment by Jean-François — 23. February 2009 @ 16:01
Stupid me !
of course he did this fast lick before july : on 15/05 at the Old Grey Whistle test
So he changed the first solo between end of april and begin of may 1978.
And so what ? yes nothing, only the kinf od détail that I’m interesting in….
Comment by Jean-François — 24. February 2009 @ 12:29
hallo,
Nice playing! I like Dire Straits since i was a kid and i really like this rythm. I play guitar for a year now and only understand tabs, so can you please mail me the tabs if you got them??
I really want to cover this song with the band,
thank you
gr danny
Comment by danny — 13. August 2009 @ 13:01
Sorry, I don’t have tabs, never use them since they are mostly wrong anyway. It is better to rely on your own ears and eyes. This becomes much easier with some practice.
Comment by Ingo — 14. August 2009 @ 08:30
wel this sounds very good, i would like to know, if you’re guitar go’s clean in to the amp..
i see a lot of people wou can create a real similar sound to MK.
myself i play a Fender USA Stratocaster, over a Fame T64RS amp (hybrid) but i never seem to get just the right tone…
Greetings
Comment by Reloader — 23. September 2009 @ 10:00
The guitar goes into a Morley volume pedal and an MXR analog delay
Comment by Ingo — 23. September 2009 @ 14:16