The Groundhogs – B.D.D. / Cherry Red (Live)

McPhee used an Add-A-Sound that he personally modified, as known from the following sources:

ZigZag, March 1971, "Tony McPhee... Groundhog" by John Tobler

What about records? You’ve never thought of bringing in Moogs and what have you?

No, I’m not really a weird noise freak. I think it’s much better and cleverer to get a strange sound out of an ordinary instrument, which is why I admired Hendrix so much. He could make Moog noises with a guitar, and though I don’t consciously try to copy him, I do sometimes get similar effects.

Yes, and the wah-wah pedal often accentuates the similarity...

Well, a lot of people don’t realise about wah-wahs....I mean, every little step you bring it down is a different tone, and you can get all sorts of noises from it. I’ve also got an octave splitter which sounds great through the Laney gear — it gives you an octave above and an octave below. Hendrix uses one on ‘Machine Gun’ — it gives a sort of modulated note, where you have the note and other frequencies with it which aren’t really related, so you end up with a weird sort of dischordant sound. And I’m just discovering exactly what you can get out of this device.

Melody Maker, June 5, 1971, pg. 34, Any Questions?

I use a Laney 100-Watt stack, plus an Arbiter Add-A-Sound octave splitter, which adds higher harmonies, producing a "violin" sound and also lower octaves, which used [sic] on "Cherry Red." I modified this unit and built in a pre-amp with high-pass filter which acts as a treble boost. I also use a Shcaller [sic] wah-wah pedal. On "Thank Christ" we had completely different equipment, so the sound is different on "Split", plus the fact that I also used a Fender Stratocaster for many of the numbers on "Split," notably parts 2 and 4, using a combination of wah-wah and tremolo arm to get "whizzing" effects.

Sounds, March 18, 1972, "The Groundhogs: Tony McPhee At The Talk-In" by Jerry Gilbert

Since Thank Christ For The Bomb you've started to get into sounds and effects which you can obtain by using the studios and also by modifying your guitar and amplification.

Yeah definitely. Studios are weird things, you know you can get a sound on stage which suits you but you can't get it in a studio so you have to muck about with it quite a bit and in doing so you get a different sound. I use a wah-wah pedal which I'm using less of now – it got a bit tiresome after a while – then there's a new thing called an octave splitter and that just sort of gives you a rough octave above and below.

You can get sounds like a bass and sustained sounds with a weird quality and in effect it's like an electrical Rory Gallagher – you know this ability he's got of striking harmonics, well in actual fact that's what it does, so you can cheat quite well on those things. Also playing two notes at once it gives you the same effect as a ring modulator which is very trendy these days... notes which are the subtraction and addition of the two frequencies and this sort of thing which gives you a bubbly sort of sound. That's all I get along with really but I do feel now that I want more – not simply from gadgets because I don't use these as gadgets, I use them as separate instruments really.

The whole point is I knew I could imitate things like strings on the new album but I wanted the actual strings sound for some reason otherwise it makes it another freaky album which I didn't want to do. When the mellotron comes on stage we are going to have to re-think quite drastically – not that we do much thinking; we'll probably just slide along like we always do.

July 8, 1972 photos from Carl Dunn of The Groundhogs performing at Concert 10, posted to Facebook by McPhee on September 12, 2011 (Photo 1, Photo 2) (visible)

Hogwash liner notes

Dallas Arbiter Octave Splitter

Sounds, May 5, 1973, "Mac’s Home Cooking: The Groundhogs" by Jerry Gilbert

For having exploited the full range of guitar sounds via the various echo and wah-wah pedals and octave splitter, he turned to the electronic keyboard instruments just as a duck turns to water.

"I only want to use a synthesiser to synthesise — nothing more. I synthesised a drum kit and got an amazing brass sound. I want to use a brass sound on the new album, but brass musicians are a pain in the arse so this is ideal. You can never mistake a synthesiser for the real thing, though, because it has characteristics of its own".

Andrew Liles website, Discography, "Split-Up" (2015)

In 1971 when ‘Split’ was originally released, there were {a few} guitar pedals, mainly wah-wah, overdrive & chorus (with a bit of phasing or ‘flanging’). I had an Arbiter and a sound early octave pedal but I was keen to find ‘new’ sounds, like ring modulation. Some of the 70’s bands have re-done their most popular albums but I never thought I could improve on Split, with Martin Birch engineering at De Lane Lea studios, it had it all!

When Andrew Liles (regarded by some to be the funniest man) told me he’d like to re-do Split I thought he was having a laugh, but he has done what I would have IF I’d had the modern pedals.

Andrew has done me a great service by bringing my recordings into the 21st Century.

Tony (T.S.) McPhee – 2015

McPhee used at least four Stratocasters, which are known from the following sources:

• 1969 photograph, posted to Facebook by The Groundhogs on January 12, 2010 (visible)

• August 15, 1970 photograph of McPhee at the Krumlin Festival, which became the cover of Split (Source 1, Source 2) (visible)

• Claudio Hosquet's footage of the 1970 Isle of Wight festival (Part 2 of 5) (@ 2:38)

• Melody Maker, June 5, 1971, pg. 34, Any Questions?

I use a Laney 100-Watt stack, plus an Arbiter Add-A-Sound octave splitter, which adds higher harmonies, producing a "violin" sound and also lower octaves, which used [sic] on "Cherry Red." I modified this unit and built in a pre-amp with high-pass filter which acts as a treble boost. I also use a Shcaller [sic] wah-wah pedal. On "Thank Christ" we had completely different equipment, so the sound is different on "Split", plus the fact that I also used a Fender Stratocaster for many of the numbers on "Split," notably parts 2 and 4, using a combination of wah-wah and tremolo arm to get "whizzing" effects. I use two other guitars, a Gibson SG which I've had for ten years, and recently I bought a Zemaitis, which I used on Top Of The Pops. This guitar was custom built for me by Tony Zemaitis and has an engraved metal front. It has one Fender and one Gibson pick-up but any could be fitted. Cost of similar guitar would be around £250 from Tony at 19 Laitwood Road, Balham, London SW12 (01-675 1342). On "Junk Man", the wind sound is transistor noise from the wah-wah pedal and the other effects were obtained using the Stratocaster with tremolo arm, wah-wah pedal and volume pedal simultaneously, and then playing the track through a speaker at one end of the studio picking it up with a mike at the other end, panning this against the original track in the mix at the same time varying the speed of the 8-track machine! All the other effects were obtained with pedals and channel panning. I played the organ which happened to be in the studio that day. I sang to a pre-recorded backing track on Top Of The Pops, but it would have been a lot easier to have done the whole thing live!

• July 8, 1972 photos from Carl Dunn of The Groundhogs performing at Concert 10, posted to Facebook by McPhee on September 12, 2011 (Photo 1, Photo 2) (visible)

• Hogwash liner notes

Fender Stratocaster

• Solid back cover

Instruments used :

Gibson S.G, Fender Stratocaster, Yamaha Acoustic, Zemaitis Bass, Ludwig Drums, ARP 2600 Synthesizer, Mellotron

• WWA press kit for Solid (1974), profile for McPhee

INSTRUMENTS: Gibson SG, Fender Stratocaster, Zemaitis, Yamaha, Harmony Acoustics, H/H Amplification, ARP 2600 synthesizer and EMS Sequencer

• Beat Instrumental, March 1976, "Tony McPhee: The Hogs Return" by Chris Simmons, pg. 25

Tony had already defined himself as a "sounds rather than notes" man, and we discussed his choice of equipment bearing his definition in mind. On the guitar side he has both a Gibson SG Junior and a Strat, enjoying the variation that two such different axes offer. "I've had the Gibson about fourteen years," he enlarged; "at various times I've thought about buying other guitars, but I'm glad I didn't. It's an all-round guitar, and the wide neck suits my style of finger playing. As well as the thinner, harsher sound the Strat gives me, the main advantage there is the tremolo arm. Actually, I also have a Zemaitis fitted out with humbucking pick ups so that it's quite close to the Gibson sound, but have never really found it fits."

• Footage of The Groundhogs performing "Your Love Keeps Me Alive" at the Marquee on October 28th, 1976 (starting at 0:10)

• Beat Instrumental, June 1978, "Don't Mention the Gr**ndh*gs! says Tony 'T.S.' McPhee. Peter Douglas apologises" by Peter Douglas, pg. 18

"I thought what I needed was a total change all round. I used to use the SG almost totally, and I've still got the Zemaitis — it's hanging up on the wall, been there for years! The trouble was that the metal front tended to oxidise with the sweat, and I thought it was just going to get ruined. I thought I'd rather wait until I could get some sort of coating put on it. I've been trying to figure that out. Nobody's come up with a good answer. I've always liked the raunchy sound of the Strat, and towards the latter part of using the Gibson I fixed a Strat pick-up in the middle between the two Gibson pick-ups, but it still didn't react the same — the density of the body and all that sort of stuff obviously had something to with it — so I decided that I'd have to get used to the Strat.

"I used to play finger-style, and the Gibson strings were further apart, and the neck was wider and flatter, so I thought, well, with the Strat I'd have to get used to a pick again because of the heftier fingerboard. But now that I have got used to it, it was a good thing because I had to totally change style. I've also put on heavier gauge strings. I used to have ridiculous strings — started off with a .007, went on to something like a .009, .011, .018 . . . I used to have an unwound 4th sometimes! Well, playing finger-style that's fine, but with a pick they annoyed me after a while — too floppy. So now I start off with a .009, .011, .014, .022, .032, .042 — something like that, usually Rotosound. I find that they work OK. I've never been a great strings fanatic ..."

• The Yelping Hounds, Issue 17 (Spring 1998), "Split" by Paul Freestone

The front of the album featured a striking image of Tony McPhee split into circular segments. The guitarist is playing a white fender stratocaster which is one of the two guitars he used for the recording sessions for Split. The white strat didn't belong to McPhee - it was borrowed from his brother-in-law who refused all offers to part with it. [...] Both of the two guitars McPhee used on Split have disappeared without trace. The ex-brother-in-law (from McPhee's first marriage ) who owned the white strat is now deceased. The guitar was sold before his death but to whom is unknown. (It's odd to think that the the current owner of the white strat has probably no idea of its true historical & financial value.)

• Facebook, Tony McPhee, September 12, 2011

Pooconos festival looking towards stage, Me playing my grey 1963 Strat( later stolen in Wales, bugger it!)

• Interview with Tony Bacon for The SG Guitar Book: 50 Years of Gibson's Stylish Solid Guitar (2015), excerpted in Guitar, "The oral history of the Gibson SG" by Tony Bacon (September 3, 2019)

“I got my SG Standard from the Selmer shop in Charing Cross Road, central London, in 1962. I chose it because it had a tremolo arm like a Stratocaster, which was my first choice – Hank Marvin had a Strat and I loved the single-coil sound of its pickups.

“I also loved the sound of Gretsch guitars and the look of their Jet Firebird. But the SG had the side-action vibrato – I hate the term whammy bar. And the clincher was the position of the pickup selector switch, similar to a Strat’s – but not a Goldtop’s, which was in the wrong place, ergonomically, as far as I was concerned. And the Goldtop was a heavy guitar.

• The SG Guitar Book: 50 Years of Gibson's Stylish Solid Guitar (2015) by Tony Bacon, pgs. 33-34

"I chose the SG Standard because it had a tremolo arm like a Stratocaster," McPhee recalls, "which was my first choice – Hank Marvin had a Strat and I loved the single-coil sound of its pickups." The Selmer shop had no Strats, so his attention turned to other possibilities. "I also loved the sound of Gretsch guitars and the look of the Jet Fire Bird. But the SG had the side-action vibrato, and the clincher was the position of the pickup selector switch, similar to a Strat’s – but not a Goldtop’s, which was in the wrong place, ergonomically, as far as I was concerned."

• strat-talk.com (Fender Stratocaster Guitar Forum), March 3, 2017 reply by simoncroft on "The Fastfingers pic thread." by Fastfingers

Even in the early 70s, you could get a '60s Strat for around the £100 mark if you were lucky. Usually, they'd be a bit tatty/amateur refin for that money, but I knew a guy in a C&W group who was lucky enough to bump into some guy called Tony McPhee. Eddie Green had barely heard of The Groundhogs, but he had a certain 'gift of the gab', so Tony sold him a white 60's Strat for £95, from memory.

• strat-talk.com (Fender Stratocaster Guitar Forum), May 31, 2019 reply by simoncroft on "Pre-CBS Values In The 80s???" by mikej89

stratfan said:

Strats were worth nothing in the early 70's. I went around all the music shops in Birmingham, England, to sell my white '62 and was offered generally £60. I sold it for the only offer of £80, virtually mint. I bought it used (private sale) around 1965 for £35 - from someone who must have been desperate for the money (it was offered at £70)! Obviously, I wish I had kept it, but nobody knew then that the vintage Strat market would take off so spectacularly. I still have my Fiesta Red '62 which I bought used in 1963 for £130. New price then was £172 - a lot of money in 1963 for a 17 year-old!

Check out @Alan Crossley's post ^. I'm sorry to say it, but you were robbed, mate. Unfortunately, dealers have to charge VAT, pay all the overheads of their business, and make a profit. £200-250 would have been closer to market value, although I occasionally saw them go for a lot less. (I know someone who bought one from Tony McPhee of The Groundhogs for £99 around that time!)