Happy Birthday to me

I'm 43 tomorrow. Bit of a crap age, 43.

However, to make up for it, after working at the school for three or four hours and then picking up my daughter from school, we will be rendezvous-ing with my wife for a birthday burger and chips at The Diner in Camden. (Stylish - Ed). After that, I'm off out to rehearse with Mike and the Phantom Limb.

As I am making some money again, I recently treated myself to a couple of new Boss guitar effects pedal to add to my Boss collection of Chorus, Flanger, Digital Delay, Compressor, Overdrive, Distortion and Acoustic Simulator. So I am looking forward to trying out my new Dyna Drive and a Phaser pedals, both purchased on E-bay for 60 quid a piece. (Not bad - Ed)

Being that it's just me and Mike again for a while, I recently dug out my old pedal board in a flight case that my mum and dad bought me 25 years ago. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work. It use to hold and power 6 pedals. Shame. I could have got it fixed - probably still will - but in the meantime, and as I am making some money again, I bought a new 6-way power supply, and a canvas pedal bag/board thing (See below), which is great for stage use and for transporting in my bicycle pannier when I cycle off to rehearsal with my guitar on my back.

When I discovered the Boss Dyna Drive, I had to have it. Basically, it's the overdrive pedal I should have invented. It's one which reacts to the intensity of your performance. It will perfectly suit my playing, I am sure. I tend to need a clean sound when I pick and strum through verses moderately hardly, and a over-driven sound when I strum harder through choruses and so on. I want this, without the glaringly obvious switch from clean to fuzz which sounds so clumsy, even when Cobain did it.

I bought the Phaser, just cos I've always fancied one.

To add to this, I dug out an old Zoom multi-effects pedal unit that I had stored away, and I've stuck that in the mix so I can utilise it's wah and volume pedal, and tuner, and whatever else isn't covered by the Boss department.

Expect to see my pedal set up in Pedal Power next week.

I have also done a bit of admin. on the Phantom Limb's drum tracks and deleted any obsolete patterns and songs, to make way for new ones. In the process, I have also reminded myself how to use the blasted thing. This is fits in pannier number two.