It was quite the deliberation - deciding which image should be the cover shot for this feature - on balance I think I made there right decision by picking the very first photo of the day - where Hello Sailor Effects certainly delivers that Technicolour Rainbow which looks so appealing. Moreover I snagged a one-off pedal from that stand - a few minutes before the show was officially opened - but more of that later!

I say the Rabea Sabre is fully available - while noting that the Limited 30 Run Frenzied Flame Burst Edition sold out in just a couple of days or so. The Standard Vileblood Burst will be available at all Music Man Dealers, including at Andertons - where it’s priced @ £4,299 (Music Man = $3999).

My upper ceiling for guitar acquisitions is usually at £3.5K, but I would most definitely make an exception for this fantastic guitar. It’s designated as a Sabre Model - but there are so many cool ...

These are simply the most attractive and appealing 16 Guitars that I came across through the NAMM guitar coverage.

I alas seem to mostly have expensive taste - as some of these models cost as much as $22,000, with the PRS SE Swamp Ash Special a somewhat lonely outlier @ $849. The majority here seem to be between $3,000 and $5,000.

I’m not sure I will even acquire any of these - while it’s of course nice to dream what you would do if / when your lottery numbers come through!

The ...

It’s tricky to know where to start when Boss springs this big a surprise on you! With literally last minute notice for two top secret projects that Boss has quite evidently been working on for a while.

The guitar is something rather more unusual for Boss - so perhaps I should start there. I’m not sure many of you recall Boss’s last foray into guitars back in 2017 - as a collaboration with Strandberg Guitars - for the Boss V Guitar - a heavily customised and evolved ...

For me, this turned out to be the best The Guitar Show yet - where I pretty much managed to round off all my pre-show goals - in terms of seeing what and whom I wanted to / needed - as per the following highlights. I caught 2 great lunchtime showcases - first by Mikey Demus of Skindred / Redbeard Effects fame and then Rabea Massaad of Andertons, Chapman, Dorje, Toska, etc. fame - and D’Addario as it turned out - albeit people were really just there to see Bea play.

I must have circled the ...

I spent the whole of yesterday at the Islington UK Guitar Show - which turned out to be quite a different experiences for me compared to last year’s somewhat haphazard inaugural event at Olympia - this was much better organised, and I really enjoyed attending the many breakout events at the show.

For Pedal fans it was really quite a simple show with relatively few Pedal purveyors - and with one stand having most of the action - i.e. the Audio Distribution Group - with 16 brands -...

Readers of this blog will know how much I love PRS Guitars. And for the longest time I considered a PRS 513 my ideal guitar - in terms of combination of tones, features and looks. Yet Paul never sits idle for long and he has concocted his finest alchemy yet with some really smart switching options - that pretty much put the Modern Eagle V in a class of its own.

It comes with all the usual superior PRS Private Stock appointments you would expect - Mahogany body, Curly Maple ’10&...

At heart I’m very obviously a Strat-type or double-cut guitar shape fan and have been so from day one - I feel these instruments are just better ergonomically balanced and aesthetic-wise much more favourable than their single-cut brethren. That said I tend to get hung up on headstock shape, tuner alignment and type, perpendicularity of string pull etc. - and have tended to therefore gravitate towards those designs from PRS, MusicMan and Schecter - typically 3+3 or 4+2 variations.

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As posted on this site - I spent yesterday/Saturday at ’The Guitar Show’(poor SEO) which is actually the UK’s most significant guitar show - but still relatively compact and bijoux and with lots to notable absentees. No Fender or Gibson, and strangely no Chapman Guitars either - they seem to have an odd approach to their own domestic market!

In any case there was plenty to see at the show - still nothing really compared to what takes place in Germany or the USA, but enough for a day out. I ...