Bespoke musical instruments from the North West of England

The Christmas party season is in full swing and the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science at the University of Manchester had their bash the other week at a very popular Turkish restaurant called Efes, in the centre of the city.

There were quite a few home grown acts for the revue and musical entertainment. We did half a dozen tunes, but keeping up with those electric guitars was difficult for us acousticians.

My colleague Jim Fearick came up with a very cheap solution, to the low volume problem. Those small clip on microphones that you use with your guitar tuners, the ones you clip onto the headstock. These can be plugged directly into an electric guitar amp, and the result is certainly acceptable for this type of rowdy gig. So for the princely sum of £5.95p and my trusty Fender 30 watt, I was well able to compete.

In the end we did punk versions of most of the songs and my ears are still ringing, but everyone enjoyed themselves and joined in with the choruses.

The revue has been going for over twenty years and in that time the Michael has been taken out of good, the bad and the ugly.	Electric Leo the punk influence and me with a mic in the eye.
From left to right big Simon , little Lisa, Leo, Arthur and Jim.	A very good session singer, Jackie, shame about the other two. Those Professors always want an audience.