Hello all and a big thanks to Chris for a great week of reports and for nominating me to be the lunch reporter for this week.
I’ll start by introducing myself – My name is Jamie, I’m 28 years old I’m studying Electrical Engineering. In fact, I had my last exam for the year on Friday and am now on my summer holidays! It’s been a long, hard year! I live in Melbourne, Australia. For those of you unfamiliar with Australian geography, Melbourne is in the south east of Australia at the innermost part of a large bay. It’s the second largest city in Australia, behind Sydney. It has an incredibly vibrant and varied music scene and is the music capital of Australia. On any given night you can go out and see some fantastic musicians playing jazz, blues, country, Latin, soul, metal whatever music you wish. The surrounding countryside produces some of Australia’s best Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (I enjoy wine immensely!) as well as a lot of great fruit and vegetable crops. Has anyone ever visited Melbourne (or indeed anywhere in Australia) or does anyone else live here?

I play a lot of different styles of music. I started out playing heavy metal, like most kids do, when I was 14. Nowadays my tastes are somewhat different with a lean to what has been branded as roots music – blues, country, soul, jazz etc though I still thoroughly enjoy rocking out to some metal, alas I must do that by myself through headphones these days as nobody I hang out with likes it! I play in a soul band doing covers of some fairly obscure but great ‘northern soul’ and jump blues songs in a band with some very talented musicians. I also play in a Country duo that will become a trio once the pedal steeler gets back from his European jaunt. I’m really happy to finally be playing country music with other people, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but have never met anyone else interested.
To the report! My lunch today is going to be a chicken Waldorf salad roll - an invention I claim as my own. You get some left over bbq chicken, cut it up into little bits with a stick of celery, some apple and a few walnuts. Sprinkle with a little cinnamon, add some chopped fresh mint and bind it all together with some good mayonnaise. Generously fill a nice, fresh crusty roll with it and enjoy. Leave the grapes out as they’re too watery to go in some bread. I’ll wash it down with a cup of tea. Deee-licious.
G&L Topic
Seeing as this is my first day as LR I'll ask a first based question - Do you remember the first time you played a G&L – where was it and was it love at first touch?
I remember the first time I played one vividly. It was a red Japanese built ASAT Special. I’d wanted a tele type guitar for a long, long time and found a G&L in a shop in the middle of nowhere. It felt and sounded fantastic! I had to have it but had no money to my name. I immediately asked for a credit application slip, filled it out and had to wait a couple of days to see if I had been approved. As 19 year old with only a part time job I was refused. It would be 8 long years before I’d own one! I didn’t even see another G&L at all in those 8 years until I received the one I purchased on ebay. An American made Classic S in Old School Tobacco Sunburst. Upon opening the case and picking it up it immediately felt right. It is such a handsome guitar that it deserved a name. He is called Juan Carlos Montoya (I think I’d watched ‘The Princess Bride’ earlier that week).

Non-G&L Topic
Modern music. I seem to only listen to older music. I had a bunch of people over last week I was asked if we’d be listening to anything that was made prior to 1985! I made no apologies – I’ve been to enough parties to know that the music at mine was better

I look forward to reading your responses. I hope you haven't been too bored by my first lunch report!