River Blues Band at LIBRA 2018 Vol 2 Langkawi

Event: Langkawi International Blues Roots Aseana (LIBRA) Vol 2
Venue: Laman Padi, Langkawi
Date: 29th December, 2018
Accomodation: de Baron Resort, Langkawi
Image/Video Credit: Azmi Alias
YouTube Videos: "Don't Let Me be Misunderstood" | "Blues untuk Aku" | "I Watch You"

River Blues Band - LIBRA Meet & Greet Jamming Sessions

Date: 4th December 2018
Time: 8:30 pm - 11 pm
Venue: The Bee @ Publika, Kuala Lumpur

The press was invited to this event, which was touted as a sneak preview of the bands that would be performing in Langkawi for LIBRA Vol.2 (29th - 31st December 2018). As it turned out, not all of these bands were able to make it. However, the bands and musicians who did made sure that the audience had a night to remember. Amongst those who graced the stage that night were Nan Blues, Tok Ghani, Halfway Crooks (Singapore), Voltage feat. Anis Kalisa on guitar, Sons of Adam, Zizi Blues, Karen Nunis Blackstone, Lord & The Boys, and River Blues Band. River Blues Band thanks the LIBRA organizers, most notably Dato' Ito; and the Bee Publika management for graciously inviting us to this event. Personally, I'd like to thank my best girls Nadia and Charmaine, as well as childhood buddies Steve Lopez and Looi Kok Kheong; for turning up to support River Blues.

Fender Custom Shop Todd Krause Masterbuilt Stratocaster

Preamble
The information I gathered for this post was obtained from the owner of this gorgeous strat himself, Matthew Chee of Singapore's "Halfway Crooks." The interview was conducted at 4:00 p.m. on December 4th, 2018 at the Bee @ Publika, Kuala Lumpur. According to Matthew, this instrument is a "one-off masterbuilt strat," crafted by none other than Fender Master Builder Todd Krause. Matthew wanted a guitar patterned after Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Number One," and believe me; he got exactly what he asked for.

Some Specs
Body: solid alder
Finish: "heavy relic" nitro sunburst
Neck: maple
Fretboard: Brazilian Rosewood, 21 medium-jumbo frets, 9.5" radius, rolled edges
Nut: bone
Hardware: "chemically aged"
Pickups: three Alnico 5 single-coils custom-wound by Abigail Ybarra
Tone Caps: Emerson

Notes
Matthew is not a fan of either jumbo or stainless steel frets. He prefers medium-jumbo nickel-silver frets, D'Addario NYXL1046 (nickel wound/regular light) strings, and believes that "tone is in the fingers." I noticed that a couple of dot inlays were missing from the fretboard. When asked about this, he replied that they'd probably "fallen off from playing," and he "couldn't be bothered to replace them."