GEAR 23_COVER - JHS

O
ne thing with any new album
from blues stalwart Gwyn
Ashton, is to expect the
unexpected. Gwyn’s hi-energy approach
to the blues will always be present on
the tracks of course, along with his
trademark gritty bar room vocal style -
and plenty of driving guitar, naturally.
But even by Gwyn’s standards, this is
definitely taking a gamble. The new
album is called Two Man Blues Army,
and a two man blues army is what it
is, no mistake. As you line up
the CD for the first track, you’re
thinking, “Will a duo have the
firepower to do what’s expected
...?’ Will it ever - the album
simply roars into life with a
raucous onslaught of soupy,
swampy, scruff-of-the-neck,
revved-up Hendrix-y electric
guitar, as the appropriatelytitled
‘Meltdown At The Hoo’
hits top gear and hammers
away at your senses!
This we like - in fact, the
whole album of killer tunes
Vintage Advance AV6 £379.00rrp
Veteran blues-rocker Gwyn Ashton returns
with a Two Man Blues Army to launch a new
attack on the blues!
represents a definite melding
of traditional blues-meets-the-21st
century. Not just in the stripped-down,
guitar and drums power duo approach to
the songs, but the fact that the album was
also recorded at Hoo Farm Industrial Estate
in Kidderminster, on Gwyn’s Apple Mac laptop,
before being engineered and mastered by
David Mitson, whose CV states that he
was the chief studio engineer in Sony’s
Mastering Suite in Los Angeles for some
15 years and worked with the biggest
artiste names in the world.
RECORDING TWO MAN BLUES ARMY
“We used three mics on the kit, two on
my amp and a DI for the octave pedal,”
recalls Gwyn, ”and recorded most of it
live with my amp baffled off by a desk
but still bleeding into the drum mics.
I guess that gave it the big guitar
sound we got,” Ashton reports on
the recording process. “After recording
in studios all my life it was kinda
funky to be doing something like this.
We weren’t, like, trying to beat the clock
to get it done quickly. It’s the most
relaxed I’ve felt recording, with
virtually no pressure to get out of
the building because someone else
had booked the studio the next day.”
An extensive playing history
includes opening for blues
legends such as BB King and
Buddy Guy to sharing the stage
and recording with members of
Rainbow, Black Sabbath and
Danelectro DC59 £229.00rrp
Whitesnake, Gwyn needed to call on
all his experience to make the power
duo format work - especially as the
first performance with the duo
inadvertently took place in front
of 14,000 festival goers in Germany.
Why ‘inadvertently’? Well, his bass
player had disappeared the previous
day, so Ashton and his drummer
appeared as a duo, finalising the
song arrangements in an onsite
caravan 30 minutes before their set!
Having amassed quite an arsenal of
working guitars, Gwyn’s a big fan of
his Laguna Blue Vintage Advance
AV6 with its 3 x stacked P90
pickups, and his
Danelectro DC59.........
Gwyn on his Danelectro
DC59 "I love old guitars and
this one feels as good -
looks the part, too.
Great sparkle from
the lipsticks when I
hit the strings with
a bottleneck..."
Check Gwyn out on his
My Space page at
myspace.com/gwynashtonmusic
and at www.gwynashton.com
Gwyn on his Vintage AV6
"This guitar goes from Junior ® to Strat ® in a split-second, with a bit
of extra obtainable growl. By cranking the bottom tone control you
can actually blend the coils and dial in more windings, making the
pickups humbucking. Cool!"
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