Sat 7/6/02

Thanks to everyone who entered the guitar give-away contest last week. I'm so sorry that you didn't win! (Unless, of course, you're Frank Moone... in which case, congratulations!) Of the hundreds of people who entered, many of them said. "I've never won anything..." so, we'll try to have more contests in the future...

Next weekend, July 11-13, is the annual South Side Summer Street Spectacular. We're going to have an Indoor Sidewalk Sale. ("Indoor" because they won't let people drink on the street anymore...) (I'm gonna try to make some of those blue martinis like they have downtown at Olive Or Twist...) (Or at least a decent Panglalactic Gargleblaster...) My plan is to go thru the attic and the basement and sell some of the wacky stuff laying around here, at fabulous prices. Some of it will be used, some new. Some of it will be a mystery to both of us.

And now, on to this week's email special:

Our best selling small amp is a fine sounding 15 watt-er. Let's just say it's made by company X. (Well, you could pick any letter, really. Like F, for example...) We LOVE their guitars, the S___, the T___, and even the J___, or the J___.

Well, they also make a reverb version of this amp. It sounds great. And the reverb is nice sounding for a small amp. It has a list price of $160, and for this week's email special we're offering this fabulous amp for a mere $85.

And we can legally say that because you couldn't possibly know what company we're talking about...

See You Soon,
Carl

Sat 7/13/02

Hey! It's South Side Summer Street Spectacular weekend and we're having a great time. (You should have seen Mandy's wedding in front of The Beehive last night!)

Below is a list of some of the Summer Street Spectacular sales that are under way. They all end tomorrow (Saturday, July 13), but if you bring in this coupon before next Friday (July 19), you can still get some great special deals!

See You Soon,
Carl

This Week's Customer Web Site:
Rusted Root

Sat 7/20/02

Yesterday, as I was leaving the house, my neighbor walked over into my driveway and asked if I had a stereo "Y" cable. At night he likes to play his Cordovox, which is a an electric accordian... It has a 1/4" stereo out that he plugs into two amps, so he needs a cable that splits into 2 mono 1/4" ends.

I said, "Of course!" (I like to hear the smooth sound of a distant Cordovox late in the evening.....)

This week we're featuring guitar cables.

See You Soon,
Carl

PS: Accordians were really big throughout the first half of the 20th Century. But in the 1950s electric guitars and rock & roll changed everything. In an attempt to keep up with the times a Farfisa technical team led by Gianfelice Fugazza, with the collaboration of accordion virtuoso Gervasio Marcosignori, put the first transistors into an accordion. The outcome, in 1962, was the electric "Cordovox". It still looked like an accordian, though, and never caught on with the rock generation. (Though one was used on the Ed Sullivan show in a quasi "rock" band, Gary Lewis & The Playboys. Gary was Jerry Lewis's kid and had a few hits in the 60s, including "This Diamond Ring", "Count Me In", and "Everybody Loves a Clown" *and* he had a Cordovox player!)

PPS: This Week's Customer Web Site:
Weird Al Yankovic

Sat 7/27/02

I was in Nashville last weekend at the NAMM show (National Association Of Music Merchants.)

Here's my report:

-Fender is coming out with a bunch of new models and they're lowering prices on some older models. So I ordered $25,000 worth of Fender stuff. (A truckload is coming next Tuesday... so if you need any cardboard boxes gimme a call...soon.)

-I'm continually shocked at how *few* basses Hofner makes and how many we sell. It's hard to believe that a little shop like ours is one of the biggest Hofner dealers in the country. (They don't make very many because it's a tiny German shop with three craftsmen, one of whom is 75 years old and has been making Hofners since 1956. And as you know, we're Hofner fans: http://pittsburghguitars.com/collhofner.html )

-I couldn't help myself... I ordered a Theremin! I'm not sure if it belongs in a guitar shop, but it's so much fun. The Theremin was invented in 1919 by Russian scientist Leon Theremin and was actually the first electric instrument. It has two antennae... as your hand approaches one you change the pitch and moving your other hand towards the other antenna changes the volume. You'd recognize the sound from 1950s science fiction movies, or "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys. It goes "wooooo-eeeee-oooooo".

-At the show there were at least three new companies trying to market new guitar picks. Either new shapes, new materials, or contoured to curve around your thumb...or whatever. I looked at them all... but it's really hard to improve on something that's so simple to begin with. All you can really do is make it more complicated. I'm sure there's a moral in this story somewhere...

-Speaking of Nashville, you should really visit there sometime. Downtown, on Broadway, right around the corner from the Ryman (the original location of the Grand Ole Opry), are at least 6 bars in a row that feature non-stop live bands. Each club has the stage in the window, facing in towards the bar. Bands start at 10AM and change every few hours until 2AM. There's never a cover charge, and everybody is friendly. And they play both kinds of music, country... and western! The typical line-up: bass, drums, pedal steel, lead guitarist on a Telecaster (I think having a Tele might be a law there) and a good lookin' lead singer with a white hat, square jaw, tight jeans, big belt buckle and a Martin guitar. (Unless the lead singer is female, in which case everything's the same except the "square jaw".) And, always, on that Martin guitar: a Kyser Capo.

See You Soon,
Carl

PS: This Week's Customer Web Site:
Joe Grushecky