Here is a small video clip in which I play the Southbound Again riff, this time the studio version (I put another video online with the completely different live version a few weeks ago). I played it in standard tuning. A few years ago I read an interview where Mark said that it was open G tuning (which somewhat surprised me here). Anyway, it works fine in standard tuning I […]
I recently made a backing track and started to rehearse Southbound Again (live version, not an easy one I think) from Dire Straits’ first album. In fact the live version they played from 1977 to 1979 (often as an encore) is a totally different song than the studio version. Unfortunately not one single video exists of it so noone has ever seen how/what/where Knopfler played exactly there. The only complete […]
This blog post was written by Jean-François. Thank you J.F. ! 🙂 [some comments by Ingo in brackets] Mark Knopfler has always been associated with fingerpicking. His totally unique right hand technique has become his landmark since the first Dire Straits album in 1978. However, Mark also sometimes plays with a guitar pick – not only but mostly during his solo career. Among his childhood guitar heroes, Chet […]
I found this in the AMIT forum and thought it might be very useful info for us guitar players. The author – nickname foma – allowed copying it, so here it is, a list of all keys with the songs in that key. It even included the songs of Privateering, Mark’s coming album (to be released September 2012). Thank you, foma 🙂 Quote: >>>>>>>> It’s the statistics of almost all […]
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 […]
Contributors: Jean-François Convert, Ingo Raven Guitars There is hardly information available that tells us anything about the gear on the famous first Dire Straits album. Amps and effects on this album It seems likely that the brown Fender Vibrolux – an amp that originally belonged to Dire Straits’ bass player John Illsley – was used on this album. Mark Knopfler used this amp on stage before and after recording the […]
Jean-Francois wrote in a comment: I didn`t know where to post this : Somme years ago, I remember you talked on mKnews forum about Six blade Knife on 17/02/1979 in Cologne that has a longer solo in the middle than usual. I`ve never heard it. It would be very nice from you if you could send it to me, or at least put it on your blog. Also, I`ve never […]
Have you ever tried to transcribe a solo from a recording and you wished you could hear that guitar better in the mix than you actually did? Or did you ask yourself if there is chorus or not, or any other effects? Instead, the vocals, the bass, the drums, everything is louder than what you are trying to listen to, and for this reason you have no chance to hear […]
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 […]
Today the Orange Squeezer compressor by Dan Armstrong is an almost legendardy guitar effect. An essential portion of this fame is probably due to the fact that it is often named as an ingredient for the early Mark Knopfler / Dire Straits sound. Ironically this goes back to my old Dire Straits Guitar Page which was the first site in the web to mention the Orange Squeezer as part of […]