Just back from the Big Kansai in what is becoming an annual excusion to avoid the hell that is Hiroshima’s ghastly ‘Flower Festival‘.

Amazingly, although I’ve been to Kyoto dozens of times and even lived there for a while, I still found numerous new bits to explore, and the photographic proofs will be up on ardle.net just as soon as I can be arsed.

And again I find that I rather like Osaka, most probably because (a) nobody knows me there, (b) I know a secret ‘Starbucks‘ where you can always sink into a nice deep brown sofa, and (c) it has shitloads of well-stocked guitar shops.

‘Twas in the latter that I had another little wallet-emptying incident. Well, I was in the market for one of the following: a Rickenbacker 330 or 620, a semi-acoustic or something with a tremolo. No Rickenbackers showed up, which was kind of a relief in a way, since the loss of ¥220,000 tends to offend.

Next, I clapped my peepers on a browny Epiphone Casino semi-acoustic with a rare add-on Bigsby tremolo. Aha! Kill two birds with one plectrum, eh? I didn’t like the shitty colour much, but I plucked the little fellow off the stand and plugged it into a huge amp. Hmm. None too impressive tone-wise, crappy action, and the Bigsby was a big ungainly monster which quite frankly, blew.

I then noticed a red Fender Jazzmaster. Now I’m no stranger to these puppies - I’d actually used one in a real recording studio in Berlin circa 1991. It has a tremolo. It has that cool twangy Fender sound, and yet is not a cliched crappy-looking Stratocaster. It has underground music kudos, being the axe of choice of folks like J.Mascis out of Dinosaur Jnr. Only one problem - I hate those dark-wood Fender fingerboards. Now your Strat and your Tele have light varnished maple alternatives, but not your Jazzmeister.

Casting my misgivings aside, I plugged in and ran through a few licks, and blow me if I wasn’t blown away, not only by the cool grungy sounds, but by the slick and speedy neck and fingerboard! Of course I bought the darn thing immediately, dragged it to my secret Starbucks, and sat there nonchalantly sipping a Coffee Jelly Frapuccino while a whole succession of birds eyed my red instrument appreciatively.