The Flying Blob

I think if you asked my Dad when I was young what he’d like me to grow up to be, he would’ve said “lead guitarist of a rock band ie.Michael Schenker” (Google him). My dad has a tattoo on his arm of Michael’s signature Flying V guitar alongside the letters MSG, which— for him—don’t stand for Monosodium Glutamate  but rather The MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP.

I have had two attempts at being in a band. The first, when I was 15, was called Cream Crackers. We were a comedy acoustic trio whose only influence was Flight of the Conchords. We had songs called things like “I’ve Got Piles (of Love for You)”, “Pube in the Wind” and “Wrecked’em” (Read: Rectum). Looking back, I stand by what we did and think that (although puerile) we were actually quite good.

My next band was formed at university and was meant to be a more serious musical outfit, but in retrospect focused too much on things like band image and band attitude and not enough on band ability or band practice. As a result, this meant that we were unequivocally shit. Snake Boy(2012-2012) imploded after our third gig when Joe Standish (Bass) drank a whole bottle of Malibu before we went on and I turned around mid-song to notice that he had put his bass down and was standing at the bar talking to his friend. At the end of the gig, the host came on and described what was meant to be an entirely sincere performance as “always hilarious”.

With it looking less and less likely every day that Fender is going to call me asking to create me a signature guitar for my dad to get a tattoo of, I've had to resort to making my own. The Flying Blob combines a custom Alder body and headstock with the neck and running gear from a squier bullet strat. It captures the musical style that I had as lead guitar player of “Snake Boy” in that it is all show and no go. The pearlescent blue paint job, psychedelic scratch plate and red volume knob that goes all the way up to 11 combined with its budget components and my poor soldering to create an instrument that looks the part but sounds like pure garbage.

Alder body, pearlescent blue paint, squier neck