Posts Tagged ‘my bloody valentine set up’

Earplugs at the ready…

Friday, December 4th, 2009

This weekend, I will be leaving the safety and warmth of the IWOOT bubble and flinging myself into the dirty, noisy, sticky and exceptionally well-heeled world of ‘alternative music’. That’s right: I will be joining several thousand other like-minded nerds at the ATP Festival in Minehead, Somerset.

The event is being curated by My Bloody Valentine, a band whose leader, Kevin Shields, we waxed lyrical about on this very blog a couple of months ago. That guitar set-up is proper-sick. As you might expect, given the uber-nerdiness of such a festival, My Bloody Valentine’s aural assault looks set to destroy my tiny little eardrums (and not for the first time – a previous encounter last year left me almost deaf for a day or two afterwards). What makes me so sure of this? The following sentence taken from the festival’s website:

“Earplugs will be provided for my bloody valentine sets.”

Can’t wait.

As a result of this whimsical music rubbish, we may have to delay the result of the iPhone competition until Tuesday morning – hope that’s alright! The deadline for entries remains 10AM on Monday morning though. See you (not hear you) Tuesday!

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Posted in Cool Stuff, Geek Stuff, Music Stuff, Office Stuff | 3 Comments »

Kevin Shields' Guitar Set-Up

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

This picture has done the rounds once or twice before, but it’s always a good time to stand back and marvel at the geek-overload that is Kevin Shields’ guitar set-up. To the uninitiated, Kevin Shields is the guitarist in seminal shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine, and a man to whom all modern electric guitarists owe a considerable debt. It’s not often we get bogged down in nerdisms (honest…), but Shields is a technical and aural whiz – thick layers of distortion are treated to endless groaning tremolos, whammy pedals, pre-amps and samples to create his signature sound, and it’s a true guilty pleasure to see exactly how he manages it:

shields-set-up

As you can see, it’s a mite more complex than just sticking a distortion pedal into your Squier practice amp. I was lucky enough to catch My Bloody Valentine on their reunion tour last year – it’s the only gig I’ve attended where earplugs were handed out on the door. Like the purist (or fool) that I am, I didn’t bother using them and couldn’t hear for three days. It’s great to suffer for your art, eh? And, following in the footsteps of EddyWoot (last seen trailing through the skies over Brick Lane), I’ll be heading to the ATP Festival in December to do it all over again. Some people never learn.

Anyone who wants to hear what such clutter would sound like, have a listen to this Spotify link.

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Posted in Brainy Stuff, Cool Stuff, Geek Stuff, Music Stuff | 6 Comments »