We already knew from Guy Fletcher’s forum that on stage the band plays some songs to a click track – a metronome only the musicians (or at least drummer Danny Cummings) could hear on their inear monitors – but we could only speculate which songs these were. A click track means a steady beat at a 100% constant tempo while without there are normally little tempo changes going along with […]
This blog post is not about guitar, not even about music, instead it is about a piece of art – Alchemy by Brett Whiteley, the painting that gave its name to Dire Straits’ first live album in 1984, and appeared on the cover. Brett Whiteley (1939 – 1992) was an Australian artist who is represented in the collections of all the large Australian galleries. Paintings For your pleasure, here is […]
The Dire Straits concert from the German Rock Pop in Concert TV show in December 1980 was indeed a very special concert for me. The reason is simple: it was the first concert of my life. I was 15 then and had been a Dire Straits fan for one and a half year. Dire Straits were still a new band at this time, but were already big. Their first two […]
I recently found this picture showing Dire Straits on one of their probably earliest gigs – I guess 1977 or early 1978 at the latest. Not the earliest picture, but I think a nice one which I at least haven’t seen before. It is only b/w, but Mark’s ’61 Stratocaster should still have the bare-wood finish it had when he got it. I am almost sure that it got the […]
Here you will find an alternate take of the Sultans of Swing first solo from the recording session for the first album at Basing Street Studios in February 1978. Unfortunately the quality is more than poor, you might guess where it is coming from… It is not so much different, but it is for sure not the take that was released. This can maybe heard best between 0:15 and 0:22 […]
I recently watched a few Youtube videos by Tomas Dolby about recording for his new album. One track – 17 Hills – features Mark Knopfler on lead guitar. There is one video in which Thomas tells about recording the guitar at Mark’s British Grove Studio. Mark recorded various guitar takes for this song, and Thomas explains how the recording session developped – “and how to give direction to a demigod” […]
I am proud to announce a brand new product which will be available exclusively on this site in the very near future. For a long time those vintage Schecter pickguards, loaded with the sought-after F500T tapped Schecter pick-ups, have been the ultimate tool to convert your guitar into something similar to the legendary Schecter Dream Machines, or as a start point to build a high-end custom Strat. With those three […]
Some of you might already have noticed that this site has its own shop since a few days. You can enter the shop with the MK-Guitar.com Shop button on the right side of the header section. After some initial beta testing I am proud to announce that you can buy stuff like * Gear (partly vintage stuff) Ernie Balls, Morleys, effects, instruments … mostly used, ocassionally new stuff Not too […]
A few days ago I jammed a bit with a friend of mine – Thomas Schwarze – in our little home studio. Thomas is a great guitar player and also plays fingerstyle, using a technique similar to the MK style. Our first idea was to play “something” and upload it to youtube. We tried out a few tunes and then attempted to play a rather complex tune – a song […]