Big Muff

When Dan was starting out learning guitar, he would play along with Green Day. At first it was quite dreadful but he quickly mastered a few barre chords and with a bit of help from the distortion on his amp, he sounded OK. And then better than OK.

It was when he started playing along to Muse that I began to realise he might be going to make a thing of being a guitar player. Of course he was terrible initially but he stuck with it and I can still remember the first time I went upstairs and couldn't tell whether the accomplished playing of a tricky riff coming from his bedroom was him or the recording. 

Over the years, he's lost interest in playing rock and mostly enjoys jazz and classical guitar but then, a few weeks ago, he was asked whether he could step in and play guitar in the Lancaster Amateur Dramatic And Operatic Society's performances of 'Jesus Christ Superstar', as the original guitarist was moving away.

Amazingly, the band only has two rehearsals before the run of shows, so Dan had to learn the score on his own and combine the parts for the two guitarists that are usually required. He did the first rehearsal on Sunday, another on Monday, and the first show last night. 

I went along, this evening and I was amazed not only by Dan's ability to play rock guitar - something I never hear him doing, usually - but also by the actual sound he manufactured from his pedals. He barely, if ever, uses them anymore, but tonight he'd got a perfect rock sound, varying it from song to song.

I popped down after the show and took this photo of his pedals. 

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-10.9 kgs
Reading: 'How Art Made Pop And Pop Became Art'