Michael Watts

It has been a busy month that has seen me complete the writing process for my next album HYLAB (Have You Left Anything Behind). With all the pieces demo'd to some extent I met up with producer Jack Vasiliou of…

Ben Walker has been one of my favourite players for a while now and it was a pleasure to finally get to meet him at his studio in Brighton this week. 

Ben's beautiful new album Echo has just been released…

It's funny, archtop guitars have been much on my mind of late. Maybe it was performing on Linda Manzer's Iceberg at the closing ceremony of the Group of Seven exhibition in London...

Or discussing the joys of good archtops with…

Luthier Jason Kostal is rightly recognised for his attention to detail at all stages in the guitar making process and during my recent visit to his workshop in Phoenix Arizona we had a chat about the importance of string choice…

Over the past few years Rory Dowling of Taran Guitars has been working on a very special new design with legendary UK guitarist Martin Simpson! Yes, really!

Taking inspiration from a 1930's Martin and Rory's Tirga Mhor design this…

I recently spent a wonderful morning at the Tate Modern in London catching up with a dear friend of mine, guitar collector and musician turned luthier Howard Feng. 

We met at The Tate Modern to get some inspiration, there is…

Nick Branwell is a London-based luthier who is perhaps best known for his beautiful Torres style classical guitars. Recently Nick has turned his attentions to the steel-string acoustic instrument and he invited me to visit his workshop this week to…

I spent a wonderful morning at ATB Guitars in Cheltenham this week and amongst the frankly superb (even for someone as jaded as me!) inventory I found this beautiful Gibson Super 400 from 1935, the first year of production.  

It…

The desert is a weird place. And there's a lot of it. Especially in-between Phoenix and Spring Branch... 

It was this desert that Jason Kostal and I would traverse in an epic 1000 mile road trip through Arizona, New Mexico…

Have you been keeping up with my reviews in The Guitar Magazine? If not then all is not lost, you can read them online too! I've looked at some really exotic kit recently, some of it is useful for…

Well, that's a very good question! As the buying public's appetite for exotic woods (especially post-CITES Dalbergia alternatives) has increased, there has been something of a rush to find the next, greatest, coolest, rarest, oldest, etc woods possible. One choice…

I'll just leave this here... I hope you enjoy it!

Do please share, comment etc. Your support means a lot to me. If you'd like a closer look at the mic set-up, well it's two pairs of Gefell M300's and…

So here's the thing, I know nothing about tangos, literally nada. My only real tango experience was that scene in Scent of a Woman where Al Pacino dances with Gabrielle Anwar. Maybe that hit me at a formative age, who…

As far as I'm concerned there are few things in life as pleasurable as playing a new guitar for the luthier who made it. In this case the instrument in question was a beautiful small body TS model in Bog…

If you haven't heard the name Emma Tricca then where have you been? Obviously not at one of Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets European concerts where Emma supported the band in historic venues like London's Roundhouse, Berlin's Tempodrom and the…

Massive congratulations to filmmaker Jessica Savidge who won not one, but two Telly Awards  for this short film showcasing the work of the Kostal Guitars! It was a great honour to hear that she had chosen my piece Celandine…

This week was London Craft Week, a celebration of the UK's exceptional hand-made heritage brands. One of the world's finest knitwear companies John Smedley is celebrating their 235th anniversary this year and as part of the celebrations they invited…

It will come as no great surprise to many reading this that the prospect of an afternoon spent with some of the finest microphones in the world triggers a Pavlovian response in me. As such I always look forward to…

I get a lot of messages from lovers of fine guitar tone asking me to recommend guitar music and players, so much so that I have decided to branch out into record reviews! 

Some of my favourite writing (I'm a…

It's a real honour to have been asked to feature in the first #asktheartist section for Tony Polecastro's wonderful Acoustic Life YouTube channel. In this episode of Acoustic Tuesday you can learn about my favourite guitar (no prizes for guessing…

It's always a pleasure to spend time with luthier Tom Sands and in a recent trip up to Durham I finally had the opportunity to visit his workshop in Yorkshire. While there we recorded an episode of The Interval (The…

I firmly believe The Fretboard Journal to be one of the gold standards for printed guitar journalism worldwide and the magazine itself is truly a thing of beauty. One thing you don't get in the hard copy, of course, is…

I'm very happy to announce that acoustic stenographer to the stars Mark Grover has just completed transcribing my piece The Unfair Funfair* and it is now available for sale in limited edition prints, hand-signed, numbered and dedicated by Yours Truly…

I've been a fan of Tony Polecastro's work for many years now and I've enjoyed his Acoustic Life YouTube channel with it's weekly Acoustic Tuesday show since the first episode. It was therefore a wonderful surprise to hear that my…