Electric Guitar Miscellany
Introduction
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The Pensa Strat
I bought this guitar from Rudy’s on 48th St, NYC, in 1992. So it’s older, now, than the 1961 Gibson 330 I bought in 1984, which felt SO OLD! And it’s almost as old as the 1952 Telecaster I lusted after in Vintage And Rare Guitars (Earl’s Court, London) in 1987.
I distictly recall buying the Pensa and a Rivera 50 watt combo amp at the same time. I was trying them out in the store and getting a really good Get It On type sound when some idiot customer commented “You’re losing definition in the low end.” Damn right, I was. Ha!
This combination is all over Bad Vibes and most notable, I think, on the intro to Fall Together. I got a great sound, IMHO, for those sessions, and I was playing pretty well. We tracked all the guide vocals live with the band with me playing rhythm. Mostly we’d go back and overdub, but in more than a few cases the live take had a vibe I couldn’t get playing alone…
The guitar was sold as a Pensa CLASSIC by Rudy’s. It wasn’t cheap, but not anywhere near as expensive as a vintage strat. Pensa was for Rudy Pensa, the shore owner. He already had the Pensa Suhr line, made famous by Mark Knopfler, and others. Suhr was his luthier John, who went on to design custom shop guitars for Fender and now has a line of his own.
The strat has been around the block, now.
After Bad Vibes I’m not sure if I touched it for a decade or so. Why? I don’t know. I focused more on my acoustic playing in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and in The Negatives I played Tele and 335.
I think I remembered how good it was when my son William started playing and this was his guitar, for his lessons (lucky boy) until he got his own (SG). Since then it’s been the go to utility guitar in the studio if I want chimey, or T.Rex style crunch.
I almost sold it, maybe ten years ago. I sold a few guitars I wish I still had, but times were not always easy. I’m glad I still have this one.
I thought it might be useful on the current project for Nile Rodgers type rhythm sounds, so I dusted it off. The lacquered finish on the body has aged beautifully
but I noticed that the scratch plate had not fared so well, and was a nasty bright white. Especially horrible when sitting next to my Healer, which has a lovely ivory / off white plate. So as asked Trevor (Healy who built the Healer) if he could make me a new one. I picked it up today. It’s is lovely.
Over the years the pick-ups have been changed. So many times, in fact, that I couldn’t remember what was on it today. The first time was in RPM studios, making Bad Vibes. That studio was terrible for guitars picking up noise, so I had, I believe, Keith Richard’s tech install some ‘stacked’ humbucking pickups. I was never quite sure what they were, but they sounded great so that was that. Why Keith’s tech? I don’t recall. He was just around. I think he knew Artie Smith the drum tech… When I thought I’d sell the guitar I had the original pickups reinstalled. I took all my Fender looking pick-ups to Trevor and asked him to figure it out.
The stacked pick-ups are by Anderson, he says. And it doesn’t stop there. The whole guitar is by Anderson! Rudy must have bought the unfinished guitars from Anderson and had Suhr fine tune them, then they painted, and lacquered adding their own headstock logo (which I had removed and replaced by the super understated ‘Pensa’ in the 2000’s - I thought the original was gaudy. Here it is, thanks to Google. I regret this move, but calling something ‘classic’ should be a no-no. If it says classic, it isn’t!
The Sessionette
March 24 2025
When the Commotions started out I knew nothing, as in absolutely NOTHING, about guitar amplification. In fact the whole time I was in the band I was not to be trusted when it came to amps. But in 1983, I got really lucky.
Neil, Blair and I used to shop at CC Music on Great Western Road in Glasgow and they started stocking these very compact, affordable, solid state amps by a company none of us had heard of called Session. Why did we try them, and subsequently buy them? I don’t know . Maybe the owner Steve Caban (who I saw recently at Justin Curry’s 60th birthday party) recommended them?
The Sessionettes were perfect for us. They were small, light and just about loud enough without needing to be very loud to sound good, as so many tube (valve) amps do. Neil bought the one with two 10” speakers and I bought the one pictured above with a single 12” speaker. I’m guessing with our publishing deal money. Maybe earlier.
It was not until late 1990 when I bought a THD Fender Bassman clone, at Matthew Sweet’s recommendation, that I finally realised that the sound I like needs a 12” speaker. I hated the sound of the 4*10 cabinet. THD very kindly took the combo back and made me two 2*12 cabinets and an amp head. I use the combination still.
So, in 1983, I was just lucky. The Sessionette was a great amp for my Tele and my Vox 12 string. I would have used this combination for all of the Rattlesnakes touring. In North America we just brought our guitars and rented backline. I got a Musicman 2*10 combo. I never managed to get a great sound out of it, but it looked cool and it was ‘tube’, so it must have been better than the Sessionette, right?
As soon as we had success I ‘upgraded’. I sold the Sessionette and started using Fender amps. Not knowing that most of the amps Fender released in the 1980’s were garbage. None of them sounded as good as the Sessionette, but we were on big stages and I needed more volume, right? As I said - I knew NOTHING about amplifiers.
Note - In the studio, making Rattlesnakes, all of my guitars were recorded directly into the Amek recording console. No amps were involved. And a soon as The ‘pro’ Rockman was released, which (sort of) allowed me to get that type of sound live I bought one. That was my ‘amp’ for the Mainstream tour.
The Gordon Smith 12 String
Jul 20, 2020
On of the reasons Easy Pieces doesn't sound as good as Rattlesnakes or Mainstream is the guitars Neil and I were using. I don't recall how or why but we got it into our heads that these Gordon Smith guitars were great and we bought two, I think - a 6 string and a 12 string. There are never many options for electric 12 strings and for some reason we didn't want a Rickenbacker (ironically, maybe, I bought a blond Ricky 6 string which I played on the Easy Pieces tour), the Vox was great for rhythm but to for Neil's arpeggios. So we had these two new lovely looking guitars in the studio.
I am now well aware that I suffer from GAS - Gear Acquisition Syndrome. The new gear is always the best, the most exciting. Consequently we used these Gordon Smiths quite a lot on the album.
By the time we were touring Mainstream Neil was back to playing Strat and 335 (same as Rattlesnakes) and I was playing a white Schecter Strat I bought in Paris because I saw Lou Reed playing one. That was actually a lovely guitar, but I eventually sold it.
Don't get me wrong Gordon Smith guitars are fine, but we didn't get great tones with them, for some reason.
Neil’s 2023 Touring Set Up
He used the Tele for just a few songs which required a capo in 2023.
In 2025 the Tele was purely the back up. He played Strat on everysong except Heartbroken? when he used my Santa Cruz.
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