Stew Mac DOTM

Design Of The Month

My design, or more specifically design company for this month is Stewart-MacDonald. Through my project at Uni all I seem to be thinking about is guitars, guitars, guitars and more guitars so this company has been burned into my brain. They are based in the US and seem to produce every tool under the sun that can help luthiers produce excellent guitars.

Most recently I have been looking at some of their guitar jigs that aim to make doing certain tasks easier and give greater control to the builder such as the Tuner Pin Drill Jig (below) which makes lining up the tuner screws a cinch. I also bought a set of pickup templates from them recently and they are very high quality and should last a few decades fingers crossed.

The delivery of products from the US to the UK may be extortionate but when getting a job lot of goodies like I am going to do in the near future, it is well worth it.

Amy Macdonald

Yesterday night I went to see Amy Macdonald at the Symphony Hall in Birmingham. As you can see, my seat location was brilliant, right up in the grand tier a few rows from the back. It was my first visit to Symphony Hall and it is quite a classy affair. I felt a little under dressed when near enough everyone was in formal attire and I was in scrappy jeans and a T-shirt.
As a general rule I do prefer the smaller venue and due to my seat location I was dubious about what kind of sound quality I would be able to hear. And as it turns out, Any can fill the room with supposed ease. She has a much more powerful voice than I expected, and I don't think the quality diminished over the distance at all.
Most of the concert was with her full live band, but just after half way through she did a slightly more stripped back few songs with just a drummer on a smaller kit. A couple of covers were played, Higher and Higher and an acoustic Dancing In The Dark which she sang beautifully. I think there are a few videos on You Tube if you're particularly interested.
Supporting Amy was a chap called Ben Montague who was an artist along the same kind of lines. He performed with just a drummer and him playing acoustic guitar. He came across as a pretty friendly guy, chatting to the audience after each song and even hanging out by the merch stand after the show for signatures, which is a lot less common than other gigs I've been to.

Great gig, definitely recommend her!