Mr Brightside (v2)

I've had a favourite old guitar re-fretted. When picking it back up from the shop on Saturday, I saw they had a couple of "partial capos" for sale, so grabbed those to play with as well. They say most fishing tackle is designed to catch anglers, not fish. The same isn't so very different with guitarists, I guess.

For the uninitiated, a capo is a clamping device you can lock across the neck of a guitar to change the key, usually to better fit a vocalist's range, but it can also change the tone of the guitar; it's not uncommon for flamenco guitarists to capo the guitar at the 2nd fret to brighten their sound, for example. They are conventionally designed to lock across all six strings.

I had been messing around with only barring certain strings with a capo towards the end of last year, but had indifferent results with a traditional capo as it applied uneven tension to the strings I was trying to adjust or interfered with the strings I was trying to keep clear.

I did pick up a "spider" capo on Amazon; a great idea but so poorly executed by the company that makes them that I sent it back and asked for a refund. A supposedly "universal" device designed to fit the neck of all guitars, for the sake of about an eight of an inch of bolt it wouldn't fit any of mine.

These are made by Shubb, not the cheapest, but a brand I know and trust and have been using for years. The one in the clip below caps off three of the six strings. Apparently (there were instructions on the back of the package. I wonder if their standard capos come with instructions? I've never thought to check!) it's supposed to be used at the second fret, either to emulate DADGAD tuning or invert it to emulate open A tuning. But before I noticed it came with instructions, I'd already found that if I locked it on at the fourth fret it gave an interesting harmonic twist to the chords of an old favourite Killers cover from the band's set. I've left a couple of bum notes in just to give it that authentic "live" feel and to try hide to the fact it took about the usual 57 takes just to get the one clip I was even part way happy to post. I've posted a version of this song up here before, on another guitar, thus the (v2) in the title line of this entry. So this is another version of "Mr Brightside" by the Killers, on my partially capo'd, freshly re-fretted Taylor.