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…