JoEllis
Hi All!
My buddy Alan Ratcliffe told me to check this forum out, so here I am. It's great to have a SA guitar forum! Just thought I'd introduce myself. I live out in the lovely small town of Ladismith in the Klein-Karoo, which is about 100km from Oudtshoorn/300km from Cape Town. I have a recording studio here where I do lots of work for various artists, usually ones that are "financially challenged", which means that I get to give people who might not be able to record otherwise the oppertunity to do so. This has given me the oppertunity to work with some great talent all over the musical spectrum. In the last couple of months I have actually gotten work in from outside of SA and even that is picking up, so I'm very pleased.
When I'm not busy in the studio I'm usually on the road all over the country with my 3-piece hard-rock band, the Jo Ellis Band. We've been gigging LOADS lately, which is great. We play mostly hard-rock, but with a wide variety of influences. I recorded a solo album called "Fear And Science" in 2006, after which the band was formed. In Feb this year we released 2 new songs that will be a part of our upcoming album. We give away all our recorded music for free as MP3-downloads as a means of promoting the band. You can check us out on www.joellis.co.za or www.myspace.com/joellismusic. We're on Facebook too.
My influences range very wide: Metallica, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Ben Harper, Neil Young, Led Zep, ACDC, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Hendrix, Slash (GNR and Velvet Revolver), The Ramones, Buddy Guy, Mark Knopfler, Richard Thompson.
I really love custom/hand-built guitars. This bug bit me while I toured parts of the UK with 2 bands after school. The one band's other guitarist's father builds custom guitars and it got me completely hooked. I actually love it so much that I've started building my own electrics as a hobby a couple of years ago. It's an expensive hobby with a steep learning curve, but nothing comes close to these guitars in terms of mojo. I currently have a Les Paul, a Flying V and a fretless Jazz Bass (although I've got all the parts to start building it a fretted neck too). I also got a Gordon Smith Gypsy 2 Semi-Solid from a friend in the UK as a birthday present last year. Awesome guitar! I also have an old Epiphone acoustic that has been modded A LOT, and a 70's Ibanez Concord 12-string that I rebuilt. It arrived at my house in pieces in a box. Someone who has more sense would've binned it, but I wanted a 12-string and I couldn't bear to see a guitar like that.
My amp is a non-master-volume Marshall JMP Super Bass 100w head, which I love. Cab is a 2X12 loaded with 70w Celestions that I had built a couple of years ago because I didn't have enough space to tour with a 4X12. My pedal-board is set up like this: Boss AB-2 Selector > Dunlop Original Crybaby Wah > Monte Allums Sustainia Tri-Gain MT-2 > Boss BD-2 Blues Driver* > True-bypass loop switch for a Korg AX1G that I use live as a tuner and for the odd bit of delay. * I'm seriously considering getting this pedal modded with the Monte Allums H2O-mod. I also use my E-bow a lot.
Nice to meet you all!
Spyke
Welcome to the forum, hope you find it helpful and informative
LMinnie
Welcome!
Awesome tracks there mate.
Listened to Waste you and really like it.
dirkv
welcome to the forum, i love it that you have listed Ben Harper as one of your influeneces, the guy is amazing
JoEllis
Thank you for the warm welcome guys. LMinnie, really glad you like songs!
Yeah, I love Ben Harper. He's one of the guys who really got me into slide guitar. Wish I could see him live...
NorioDS
Yeah, I love Ben Harper too.
I first heard the live, unplugged version of "Alone" and that got me hooked. That song is just FULL of emotion.
He's been called the Bob Marley of today and I like the analogy although I much prefer Harper's music to Marley's. (Marley's a legend! I love him)
AlanRatcliffe
Yeah Hats Off To...
Tom Tiddler's ground was the first thing I heard of Harper. BTW... it's Roy - Ben Harper is the Dentist in "My Family" ;D
Riaan
Welcome, Jo great to have you here! Would like to have a look at your studio setup sometime!
AlanRatcliffe
Oh, There is a muso called Ben Harper. My bad.
Deaan-Vivier
Welcome JoEllis. Is there some pics of the guitars and the studio gear. I would like to see the 70's Ibanez Concord 12-string. Sounds like a beauty.
JoEllis
I'll try and post some pics of everything sometime soon. I'm starting to build an extention on my house to have more studio-space and I'm waiting for some outboard gear to arrive from the US.
The Concord is nice. I should actually have added that I'm not completely done restoring it. I just got it in a playable condition for now because I needed to use it for a recording, I still wanna refinish it sometime because it doesn't look as good as it can yet. There literally were holes in the sides of the guitar that I had to fix and the back was cracked very badly. Someone also spilled some wood-glue (white glue) on the top and didn't bother to clean it up. The previous owner decided to chuck the whole thing when he realised the that he couldn't fix a broken neck just by screwing it to the other part THROUGH THE FRETBOARD ? .
Riaan
Hey JoEllis - good luck with the building...just done that, in my case to convert the old double garage into a small studio space. Won't do that soon again! I'm new to recording, studios and equipment so I'm keen to learn especially in terms of gear - keep us posted! Gear...gear....gear! ;D
