Mark Knopfler’s “Sultans” Strat (ser.-no. #68354) is from 1961. The second red Fender Strat he played with Dire Straits (ser.no #80470) was from about the same period (apart from the question in how far it was original Fender at all). For this reason I put together a table to give you a survey about the distinctive features that are different on a 1961 Strat compared with earlier or later Strats. […]
Following on from Ingo’s excellent article on the stolen sunburst schecter used on Tunnel Of Love. I (Dermot O’Reilly also known as strat61 on some forums) have been invited to write a piece on my Schecter come fender strat inspired by that guitar. Inspiration Although I followed Dire Straits from 1978 with Sultans it was only Christmas 1980 when I started to play the guitar myself that I really locked […]
*Note: As there was an issue with this guitar – the neck warp was too big to play properly with 08 strings – the guitar was returned. For this reason, I removed all names – of the builder and the client. XY* – a reader of this blog and singer / guitar player in the band XY*- recently sent me an email about his latest guitar: a clone of the […]
Those early years of Dire Straits are still a very special period for me. 1979 was the time when I first heard the band and became a fan of Knopfler’s guitar style and sound. For this reason I still have a deep interest in any live pictures from this time but more and more I got the impression that I meanwhile have seen most existing pictures from those early years. […]
A red Stratocaster has always been one of THE rock’n’roll logos – something that started with Hank Marvin, guitarist of the Shadows, who had the first red Strat in England. He started a desire for exactly this guitar among thousand of English kids in the early 60ies, one of these was a kid named Mark Knopfler. In fact it was rather coincidence that Hank Marvin got a red Strat: he […]
According to an interview with Guitar Player magazin from 1979, Mark Knopfler played a DiMarzio pick-up in one of his two red Fender Stratocasters that he played around the time of Dire Straits’ first two albums: On one there’s a DiMarzio pickup for the bass, and I like it because it just seems to give a fatter, louder sound, with more clout than the standard pickup Fender uses. DiMarzio has […]
I already wrote three articles about Japanese vintage Strats, an introduction and a portrait of the fiesta red and the pink metallic Squier JV. I noticed that a lot of people surf into this site because of these articles, so I want to release a fourth one, this time about the almost legendary Tokai Springy Sound Strats. Many years ago I had on of these myself. This was about 1980. […]
Let’s feature another artist today: besides Mark Knopfler, I admire the work of Richard Thompson. Richard played with England’s folk-rock band Faiport Convention in the late 60ies, and started a solo career afterwards. His first records were with his then-wife Linda Thompson who is a great singer. Thompson has a lot of similiarities with Mark Knopfler: he is a great song writer, he is British, he has strong roots in […]
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 […]
After the portrait of the fiesta red 1983 Squier Stratocaster, today’s article features another Japanese vintage Squier, this time an ultra-rare model in all original pink metallic finish. Since all important facts about that great JV series that was available in 1982-83 only have been mentioned in two previous articles (the mentioned portrait of the fiesta red 1983 Squier Stratocaster, and the article about Japanese vintage guitars), I will not […]