Nick the gardener came round to ours last night for a jam and it was a great wee night. He brought his Fylde mandolin and Lowden O32 guitar. He’s been playing mando for about a year and has some serious chops. He plays often with a fiddle player so usually gets to play accompaniment with little chance of knocking out some melodies, so playing with me gave him that opportunity. He also showed me some basic chords on the mandolin, something which I’d just never got around to learning. He played a 3-tune medley that I recorded so I could learn to play along, but I did attempt to accompany him while the recording was under way, so I’ve included that recording on this post.

We played a good few tunes and I enjoyed playing his Lowden for a while. It recently had a refret and proper set up and it plays like buttah. My only complaint about it is its lack of bottom end, but that’s only really noticable from the player’s perspective; it sounds great from out in front.

I hope we get to play together more often as I think we could work out a few things together and have some real fun.

It’s also nice to meet a fellow sufferer of guitar acquisition syndrome! He’s off down to see Roger Bucknall of Fylde to see about getting a new guitar. There is, of course, no cure for GAS!