From: bt979@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeff Preston)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Subject: Re: holdsworth
Date: 30 Sep 1992 06:00:29 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: bt979@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeff Preston)
NNTP-Posting-Host: thor.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU ("") says:

>  Now that I've got your attention, Jeff, could you run down what sort
>of equipment Holdsworth is using these days?  I'm sure a fellow gearhead
>like you must have spent some time lusting over his stuff...

  Hey, you even took your time and spelled it right, too.  ;)

  It's entirely hilarious that you'd ask this, Russ, 'cause believe it
or not, I didn't pay much attention to what kind of gear Allan was using.
It'll all be mentioned in next month's Musician interview anyway, if I 
know Matt Resnicoff. As a matter of fact, I was getting my jollies before
the shows watching all the "obviously serious musician" types who had
turned out to have their perceptions utterly destroyed and reconstructed
in the span of two hours (oooh, ask Shawn Lane about this!). My buddy
Gary Wells was givin' me a hard time for making fun of the motions of
these guys: approach the stage, lean forward... *whoosh!* goes the hand,
sweeping the hair from the eyes! Yes!  :)  One guy in Columbus even jumped
onstage after the show, sat cross-legged in front of Holdsworth's racks,
produced a pen and paper and began *furiously writing as if his life
depended on it* (or as if a roadie were about to hurl him across the 
room, one). Laugh, laugh, laugh. Gary was right about one thing: these
guys were there, and for that, they can't be faulted. I was right about
something else: if you ain't got it here (wiggles fingers), all that 
stuff in the racks is only makin' some firm in Japan rich, and not much
else.
  Okay, okay... so what did I notice?  He had a Mesa/Boogie .50 head on
top of his racks, and behind him were 4 Ampeg combo amps (each with 2x12"
speakers), and oddly mic'ed up, too! He had two full racks, with one full,
and the other about half-full of gawd knows what... I know he had his
homemade "juice extractor" in the top of the half-full one, and he tweaked
on it quite a bit. One of the (assumed) delay units in the other rack had
a display which read "LONGISH" for the most part. On the floor were two
volume pedals and a footswitch with two switches (the latter obviously
another homemade device). The thing with the long LED-bar on it had to be 
noise gate, since all the LEDs would light immediately whenever he stopped
playing. As for guitars, all he played were these custom jobs made by a
SoCal luthier to his specs (I can get the name later, if you wish), and 
they all look a lot like the "normal" Steinberger design (the double
cutaway type played by Reeves Gabriel of Tin Machine, etc.)... very small
bodied guitars. He also had the baritone guitar, which has the same body
style, but has a 30 3/4" scale length, 30 frets, and is strung with
regular gauge electric strings, and tuned down to A. Talk about a 
religious sound... whew. And the doubleneck I mentioned, with the one
neck tuned in fourths, like a violin. I think it's hollow.
  But this was all at a glance, y'know... I wasn't that concerned with
the small stuff.  ;)

  Jeff ("n.n.")

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