Mark Knopfler started to play Music Man amps around September 1978. These amps were used for all live gigs from then on until the end of the Making Movies On Location tour in 1981. The Music Man amp was used on some studio recordings from this era, probably also on Making Movies, but it was most likely not used on the first album, and neither on Communiqué (here amps borrowed […]
The history of the Music Man company began about 1971 when Tom Walker, Forrest White and Leo Fender started a company called Tri-Sonic. Walker and White had worked for Fender before. Leo Fender himself had to sign a 10 years non-compete contract when he sold his company Fender Musical Instruments to the CBS Corporation in 1965, so he remained in the background until 1975. In 1974 the company name was […]
As promised in the comments on one of the last articles, I tried to find all pictures of one of Dire Straits’ first gigs – the one at the summer party for Charlie Gilett’s Honky Tonk Radio Show, on the Clapham Common bandstand, September 10, 1977. Unfortunately there are only 4 pictures it seems, not 5 or 6 as I hoped (the one on the sleeve of the Honky Tonk […]
I recently watched the video clips of Dire Straits performing Sultans of Swing and Lions live on the British Old Grey Whistle Test again. It is one of the earliest videos that exist, recorded in Manchester on May 15, 1978, about three months after the first CD. Sultans of Swing Lions Let’s have a look at the gear we can see in this clip. Knopfler plays his red maple neck […]
Mark Knopfler got his first Strat only shortly before Dire Straits were formed. Before that time he had played a Gibson Les Paul Special through a Selmer tube combo amp in a band called The Cafe Racers. It is not clear if he owned the Selmer amp or if it was borrowed. What we know is that when he got the Strat, he plugged it into a Fender Vibrolux which […]
A lot of people wonder how to adjust all the controls on the guitar amp or on effect devices to recreate the sound of song xy. Such questions are common in guitar forums all over the internet. Of course it is almost impossible to say which setting someone needs to recreate an authentic sound with his individual gear. Besides, even if you use exactly the same kind of setup with […]
In Guy Fletcher’s last recording diary he had a photo of Mark Knopfler’s old Marshall amp with the matching cabinet. This seems to be the same amp that was used on the original recording of both Money for Nothing and Brothers in Arms. Marshall’s first amps were basically copies of the tweed Fender Bassman. They had the same circuit and consequently the same controls, although they looked completely different. The […]
The bootleg Dire Straits – Leeds – January 30 (31?), 1978 is one of the earliest Dire Straits live recordings (actually the only earlier live recording is only one song – Eastbound Train from the Hope & Anchor pub, London, December 1977). This bootleg concert was recorded about one week before the recoding sessions for the very first Dire Straits album. This gig was the last of a short England […]