Classic Guitars, Amps & Effects For Hire

Keiji Haino.  Not a household name. Not someone that fits  - or wants to fit - into any mainstream.  A performer that dedicates his sonic outputs to free improvisation, noise, percussion, psychedelia, minimalism and drone music - genres that again aren't going to make it onto mass playlists.  But to those that know, he's a maestro multi-musician and performer - experimental, innovative, challenging, sonically diverse, and a committed creator of his own rules.  And he's been doing that for over 50 years now - with influence, broadly unrecognised, across generations of sonic experimenters.  Which makes it even more of a surprise, perhaps more to Keiji himself, that he plays as one of Mark Knopfler's Guitar Heroes, on the 2024 reworking of Going Home (Theme From Local Hero).  More mainstream than you'd think.

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I'll be honest, I was not one of those that knew.  So it was a revelation to have Keiji hire Kimberley Rew's 1989 Gibson SG 62 Reissue for his March residency at Dalston's Cafe OTO.  Not just for the performance, but for the exact requirements Keiji had of the guitar to play it - a standard set-up, but very specifically with D'Addario NYXL 9 - 42s, each with three winds around the tuner post.  Harder than it sounds!  But it worked.  And if you have even a few minutes to watch the video from one of his nights at Cafe OTO, I swear you'll be drawn in.  If nothing else, the sounds he creates two minutes in, with a spare string stretched across bottom E-string and top horn is mesmerising - and makes you want to experiment yourself.  You will be influenced!  And all you need is the epitome of rock, a Gibson SG.  Amazing!