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Just chillin' with my guitar and showing how sweet the 12-string patches are on the VG-99, especially if you mix a little of the Godin Multiac ACS SA tone in with the sound.

One of the instrument cables in my guitar rig packed up the other day, which meant that no recording could be done with my FX loop. New cables were purchased online - and took longer to arrive than necessary - and were installed. Of course, it takes a bit of time with my rig because all my pedals and mixer are housed in a flight case (this was a direct result of the accident because after the crash, I decided that all my recording gear was to be housed in a way that they would be protected and mobile en masse). But to do any work to the rig involves removing the back panel, scrabbling on my knees, removing housing panels, unsnaking cables, undoing securing cable ties and then installing the new cables and working in reverse until the whole flight case is back to normal. It was a short job, but the recent hot weather made it a little unpleasant. But now everything is restored, in fact, the new cables are an improvement on the old ones and there is a noticeable improvement to the signal chain with the FX Loop. A lot cleaner and clearer.

This little noodle I did last night/early this morning - it was just me playing around with the harmonic delay on the Timebender, but now the cables have been replaced, the tracking on the harmonic parts seem to have improved. This is not a work of great genius, just a twat dicking around in the dark:

And so another backing track arrives and I have to find new ways to attack the dense drone delivered to me. This time I decide that bass is the place and attempt to put in a performance so ugly that it might pass through to the other side and emerge a beautiful bass-flavoured butterfly. But I don't know - this is certainly the least beautiful thing I've ever recorded. A real bastard off-spring - will anyone out there love it? I don't have an answer.

Maybe I'll feel better about it after I've slept on it...

Anthony Bloxham sent me another file to improvise over. This time around I wisely decided to listen to the track before recording and noticed that this was a much more droning, dense affair than the previous one. And so I sat and thought how I could attack this sonic smear and force myself upon it. So here you have me using plenty of delay and an steel acoustic guitar patch in order to cut through the low frequencies. Not sure if it is successful or not...I am in two minds over it.

Keep your eye out for Alex The Wonderdog who makes an appearance in the background...

Via the wonder web and YouTube, Anthony Bloxham contacted me regarding a possible collaboration. As someone who has no qualms with getting his feet wet and doing the fandango with complete strangers, I said "Yes!"

Anthony Bloxham sent me a backing track this afternoon which seemed to consist of a drone, some birdsong, ambient outdoor noises and thunderstorms. Of course, I didn't know this until the piece had ended as I just strapped on my guitar, loaded his track into Sonar and pressed "Record".

And so this is my attempt at doing something very live and improvised with a complete stranger. I'll let you all decide whether or not it is a success or not!

Oh dear, reader, dear faithful reader, forgive me for I have done something very naughty. Don't worry, I haven't been drowning kittens in the local river again, I promise. No, instead I found myself buying a new guitar - a guitar I can neither afford, nor really need.

I can only describe my purchase as "an impulse buy". The story goes back to last year when I managed to secure a Godin Multiac Nylon guitar for a very reasonable price and used it to record on my "EchoNET" recordings. After I was done with it, I was scared of my credit card bill and sold it on again via eBay, the total cost meant that I'd actually "hired" the guitar for nine months for the cost of around £50 - so that was good, I guess.

But since then I've had the itch for my own Godin Multiac nylon guitar and every so often I check out eBay in the hope that one will fall in my lap. Well this week such an event occurred and I made an offer on a guitar on the site. I don't know what made me do it - I just felt a compulsion, I guess. I didn't even think my offer would be accepted by the seller, but it was and now I have a new Godin Multiac ACS SA nylon strung guitar at a saving of £400 off the list price. I am very pleased and the guitar is very inspiring. I'll be selling some of my other gear and toys to fund it, but there you go. I call it my "Father's Day" gift from the kids - because I like things that I can use and won't sell on.

When I checked out the serial number on the Guitar Dating website (yes, I know it sounds like some bizarre online dating site for guitar owners, but there you go!) it told me that my guitar was manufactured on the 5 September 2008 - the 5 September is an anniversary date beween myself and The Missus when we first stepped out all those years ago. I knew the guitar was special (though I really just love these weird coincidences that fall across your life)

So I plugged in last night, got fiddling with my various pedals and electronical gubbings and recorded the following improvisating. There is something about these guitars that I just love - though it might be that the nylon strings feel easier on my fingers - and I don't get the shooting pains in my left hand/fingers after I play it (don't worry - it's the onset of rheumatism I think because my mother has the same - this is one of the reasons I feel compelled to record, record, record because I fear that one day I won't be able to use my left hand to play guitar anymore but I am probably just being a hypochondriac).

This little musical noodle is called "Fantasia One" and is just me with no overdubs, with all the other notes you hear being created by the harmonic delay effects I use. So I play one note and a multitude of harmonics are initiated, which is great for a crappy guitarist such as myself as I do very little work. Anyway, it's all about soul and feeling and knowing how to program these electronical gubbins, no? Surely that is a skill in itself?

Enough of this, here is "Fantasia One" featuring my new Godin Multiac ACS SA, my Roland VG-99 and Digitech Timebender:

Of all the sing-songs that Brian Eno recorded, I think that King's Lead Hat is my most favourite. There's a couple of reasons for this: firstly, the title is a clever anagram of Talking Heads and secondly because it is the only song to feature two of my favourite guitarists (as far as I know) - Phil Manzanera and Robert Fripp.

So for my next Bad Cover Version I decided to make an attempt to ruin this song. It certainly suited me vocally and I think that of the handful of covers I've recorded this is my best. And to make this an extra special Bad Cover Version, I made a video to accompany it. Yes, while I was recording I had my cameras at the ready and made this little doozy:

Of course, the master did it much better, but seeing as there is no performance video of Eno with this piece, here is a rare outing of the song as a backing track to a little-seen TV advertisement advertising the Russell Mills' book about Eno: "More Blank Than Frank".