Mr Wilson goes guitar shopping

guitarz.blogspot.com:
I recently decided to put some of my savings into a couple of vintage guitars, as I don't think much of the interest rates on savings schemes that the banks have to offer at the moment, and at least with guitars I can enjoy having them and playing them (got to treat them carefully though). The Eko bass is already on its way, but I wanted another interesting vintage piece without going down the Fender and Gibson paths. So today, I took myself into London, and more specifically, to Denmark Street, which is THE place to go for guitar shopping in the capital.

Musicground in Denmark Street, which is where I took these photos, had an astonishing collection of weird and wonderful guitars. I wish I could have photographed them all individually. That would have have been blog material for a whole year!

Anyway, I'm pleased to report that I ended up buying one of the guitars pictured. See if you can guess which one. (Regular readers should be able to work it out pretty quickly).

While I was in London, I also visited the Barbican Centre because I wanted to see the art installation by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot in which flocks of zebra finches play electric guitar.

It was absolutely delightful, and seemed to bring a smile to the faces of all the visitors. What I hadn't realised from viewing the video (which must have been on ALL the guitar blogs imaginable by now) was that you actually enter the birds' enclosure and get up close and personal. At one point I had three zebra finches happily trying to make a nest in my backpack whilst another was on my shoulder whistling in my ear.

The guitars provided for the birds to "play" are five white Gibson Les Paul Studios and three black Gibson SG basses. They seem to have been tuned to chords so that when the birds land on and take off from the strings, it can actually be surprisingly musical. (I noted some pretty hefty strings on the Les Pauls - some of them were bass strings, for sure). I don't think I've enjoyed an art exhibition so much since the Tate Modern had those scary slides installed in the turbine hall a few years back. Sorry, photography wasn't allowed, but here's a still from the video:

G L Wilson

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