… to my website. It’s been up for more than a decade now and has had well over half a million views and no signs of stopping as new people continue to find me, not least via recent videos on YouTube. Many, many thanks for being one of them and I hope you enjoy.
It features a UK-based collection of guitars and associated kit accumulated over my 40-odd years of as a working guitarist. Some vintage, some classic, some more recent, all excellent. Also a few rants/words of wisdom.
Some of the gear pages work as reviews, and there are now quite a few videos on YouTube of my gear too. I’ve involved some other players so you’re not exposed to my same old two licks again and again.
There are some rough videos of me playing some nice old guitars now on Rockbeare’s YouTube channel here. And some much better playing courtesy of Stefanos Tsourelis here, now in glorious HD. Also a demo of the versatile Mooer Mod Factory micro-pedal here. And most recently, my contributions to Ramon Goose’s The Guitar Show and our shared channel, The Bob & Ramon Show.
The site has no motive beyond sharing with other enthusiasts and like-minded souls. I’m a player first and became a collector, so I buy instruments for their sound and playability before their collectibility. I’m not into having multiple examples of things, for example vertical runs which evidence an instrument’s gradual evolution.
Some of these instruments reflect lifetime ambitions to own, others are just good guitars. They live at an offsite secure location, but all get used and gigged – some regularly, some very carefully! All have been bought out of income and I haven’t tended to trade much – at least not thus far.
There is a feedback mechanism, but given the value of some of the items, I need to protect them and am therefore unlikely to enter into personal correspondence off-site. That said, I hope you enjoy it, and look forward to reading what you think. I would particularly welcome any factual comments/corrections so I can keep improving the site.
Apart from being a tonehound and a fairly serious collector, I’ve also become an expert in complex multi-amp rigs and their control – click on ‘rigs’ in the main menu above.
‘Rockbeare’
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Rockbeare’s guitars now feature in numerous videos on The Guitar Show’s YouTube channel, for example here
I write the Vault section on vintage guitars in each edition of The North American Guitar’s Connoisseur e-zine. Past issues here : issue 2; issue 3: issue 4: issue 5
Rockbeare guitars in December 2010 web issue of Premier Guitar magazine
Rockbeare guitars were featured in June 2012’s Vintage Guitar magazine
Rockbeare co-funded the Turn It Up! guitar movie hosted by Kevin Bacon
Rockbeare’s personal 633 amp gets 10/10 & best amp ever from Guitarist magazine
Rockbeare’s second personal 633 amp also gets 10\10 from Guitarist magazine