I remember buying Queen’s 1975 album A Night at the Opera … obviously not in 1975, I was only four when it came out.
The stand out track for me on that album was never the one that hit number 1 for a total of 14 weeks.
Continue reading I always preferred The Prophet’s SongOver the years there have been only a few guitar designs that I have found quite beautiful and made me stop in my tracks and simply say, “Wow!”
The first is, obviously, Brian May’s handmade Red Special. The original was built by Brian and his father from various materials including a hundred-year-old mantelpiece and a knitting needle. The model below is the Super, made by Brian May Guitars, available for £2,950.
This is the perfect electric guitar, as far as I am concerned.
First produced in 1993, I first saw the Parker Fly in the pages of Guitar World magazine. Designed by Ken Parker and Larry Fishman and sold by Parker Guitars, the Parker Fly is made from various tone woods with a carbon fibre exoskeleton and a combination of both traditional magnetic and piezoelectric pickups.
There is still something that I find quite beautiful about this instrument.
And then this week, I first saw the new Fender Acoustamatic Jazzmaster. Versatile, combining rich acoustic tones and overdriven electric sounds, and quite beautiful.
Wow!
I’ve not been sleeping particularly well recently. Something to do with being in the middle of a global pandemic plus some other personal stuff going around and around in my head at night. I’d run out of my usual podcasts so went searching for something new and interesting.
Why did nobody tell me about The Queen Podcast? Hosted by Rohan Acharya and Queen archivist and documentarian Simon Lupton, the podcast is joined by Queen superfans (and comedians) John Robins and Sooz Kempner and tracks the Queen discography album by album, side by side, track by track.
Continue reading The Queen Podcast
While I’m working from home, I’ve set myself a challenge to have Isaac’s giant Jellycat bunny do something different each day in the background of my video conferencing calls.
So far he’s:
Tomorrow… I expect he’ll be playing a different model of guitar.
Queen’s News of the World (1977) album turned 40 years old this year. I was five years old when it came out. It would be six or seven years more until Queen were firmly on my radar, and so would begin a lifelong love of the band.
To celebrate the anniversary of the album’s release, Queen are releasing a box set on Friday 17 November that includes a number of recently unearthed out-takes and rarities.
Among the rarities is this hybrid version of “All Dead, All Dead” (side 1, track 4) featuring alternative lyrics and vocals from Freddie Mercury.
What I didn’t realise, all these years of listening to the song, is that the song was written by Brian May about the death of his childhood cat.
It’s a beautiful song, even if does have the ‘wrong’ lyrics.
The box set is released on Friday 17 November costing £109.99.