A Bit About Strings

Hawaii is a brand name state.  Folks here consume Bud beer, Best Foods Mayo, Libby's Vienna Sausage and a host of other brand name products.  Most would rather fight than switch.  This gets even more magnified, if you will, on the small neighbor islands of which Kauai is one.
Coated Acoustic guitar strings have caught on in a big way and like most brand loyalty one manufacturer in particular has capture the elusive guitar players.  I get asked all the time if I can get EXR coated strings.  I can but I don't stock them. One company in particular has been experimenting with micron polymer coatings for a long time now.  Anthony and his crew at DR Strings.  DR's product is of excellent quality and they are actually having fun with making strings.  They have rainbow colors, neons and even Zebra acoustic electric.  They are widely available and sanely priced.  I have a repeat customer that swears they last forever even in the harsh tropical climate here in the islands.

I like underdogs and even though DR's says they are doing great on Maui and Oahu, breaking the brand barrier here on Kauai is a tough battle.  Check out the DR web site for their complete product line.  Most of my bass playing friends swear by their Lo-Riders.

 A partial list of DR endorsees includes Sting, Marcus Miller, Jeff Healey, Adam Clayton of U2, Warren Haynes of GOV'T MULE and THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND, Jonas Hellborg, Bo Diddley, "Skunk" Baxter, Victor Bailey, Steve Kaufman, Percy Jones, Darryl Jones of THE ROLLING STONES, Rick Derringer, Mick Karnes, Andreas Kisser, Max Cavalera, & Paulo Jr. of SEPULTURA, Birelli Legren, Trey Anastasio and Mick Gordon of PHISH, SMASHING PUMPKINS, Gary Tallent, Tony Franklin, Ty Tabor & Doug Pinnock of KING'S X, Dimebag Darrell of PANTERA, Scott Ian, Paul Crook, & Frank Bello of ANTHRAX, Stefan Lessard with THE DAVE MATTHEWS BAND, Peter Rowan, Shawn Lane, Paul Pesco Matt Freeman with RANCID, Per Gessle of ROXETTE, Sharlee D'Angelo of MERCYFUL FATE, and VERUCA SALT.

Web Retailing in Kauai

Web-based Retailing on Kauai

A long over due post.  Time of late has be transversing a bog only to find yourself in another swamp.
I'm going to be revamping my web site:  streamlining the retail end and focusing more on guitar and amp repairs, and custom builds.
I am also taking a limited number of orders for:  custom F style T, S and P Bass assemblies (with a load of options,) a custom mini amp lunchbox head and cab one offs and presentation quality guitar and bass builds.

"Night Marcher" assembly from our custom shop

  

You may also order hand made cables with Mogami and Canare wire in any length with a wide range (and price) of connectors.  These will beat anyone's price and match or exceed anyone's quality.  I'll be new offering new over seas lines of high quality guitars at excellent prices and I will offer upgrades to these if a customer wants.

I'll continue to distribute all products from all my distributors.  I will link you to their site (A big "No No," in E-commerce) and let you view and select a product.  Then send me an email or call and I get you a quote. If you don't buy from me and use me as a resourse so be it.  What goes around, comes around.  Shopping carts don't work on Kauai,  I've tried for 2 years now.  I'll give you a very competitive price. However you must order and wait.

I will be selling all the strings I distribute and can offer many more through my affiliates. They will not be displayed individually  or available by shopping cart.  I will only be taking Professional 1 case minimum orders.  If you only want one set there are othe vendors who will comply and charge you accordingly.

I am not going coporate on you all, infact my day job hours have been cut again, I am 80% disabled and I am just getting by.

A heart felt thanks to all of you who hav supported me from the beginning.  I wish I was younger, richer and had more time.

Blessings from the Garden Island.

T.Dogg

Vintage 47 Amps: Contemporary American Classics

Vintage 47 Amps: Contemporary American Classics

While I was growing up and playing music in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California, certain guitar amps dominated among my peers.       In High School, Brand snobbery ran fast and thick and “new” was an essential criteria.  It was as if there were gear police always watching and ready to humiliate a non gear compliant young musician.

Most of my musical peers were from upper middle class families and their parents doled out the cash to indulge their kids fanaticism and quiet the requisite teenage nagging.

Fender dominated in first place and the garages,  Rec centers and school stages were cluttered with Twins, Deluxes, Supers and Bandmasters.  I saw very few Marshall or Voxes.  Occasionally I would see an Ampeg, Standall, Silvertone or Gibson.  The only imports were an occasional Teisco Chessman or a St. George Piggyback.

All was new and shiny.  The old amps were what Uncle Don hauled out when he was drunk and played some country on his very uncool old Valco and  L-5.  In the pawn shops you could trip over Supros, Valcos and Magnatones and totally ignore them.

The first time I ever heard the Blues played live was at the Santa Monica Pier.  An elderly black man had set up his Valco, a wooden crate and was playing an Epiphone Wilshire.  He’d preach a bit of his own fire and brimstone gospel, then continue playing the blues.  His tone was exquisite to my ears, that octal tube tone hooked me for life.

    

It was with great pleasure that I discovered David and his creations.  He is handcrafting contemporary tributes to these classic amps of the past.  A recent write up in Guitar Player Magazine is an indication of the quality of his work as well as an acknowledgement of a budding of interest in the revival of these classics.
David has this to say about his undertaking:
“A little bit about myself and how I got here.
Way back in the early sixties folk music years before the Beatles hit the shores of America we lived in a very different world, pre psychedelic, pre Vietnam, before Watergate and Woodstock. Cars and gas were cheap as were most other things relative to their proportional share of our incomes. Life was good!
So I bought a cheap acoustic guitar (Harmony) and started learning songs by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, early Dylan, Bias, and Collins, songs popular for our generation at that time. Then came my electric guitar years, assistant roady for a couple of our high school garage bands, from which a few would make the pro cut into the the big time, like Timothy Schmit (Eagles) and Ed Robels (Ambrosa).
Before long I was working for Carico Lights, a subcontractor for Bill Graham, and doing psychedelic light shows for the SF Bay areas Dead, Quicksilver, Big Brother, Airplane and the likes. In the fall of 67 and a quick hitch hike out to Greenwich Village I found myself doing light shows for the Electric Circus, AKA the DOM/Bohemian (Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground). I was front row for some of the biggest selling musical names of the time.
But it was not the big hip top of the bill names that left their mark, it was all those way down on the billing opening acts that impressed me the most. Names like Lighting Hopkins, Sonny & Terry, Big Mamma Thorton, Bo Diddly, Mississippi, John Hurt, Blind Lemon and dozens of others. They had a different style and that different bluesy tone unlike all the big name bands, I got hooked, I wanted that blues tone sound!
Now what did my Grandfather have to do with all this?
When I couldn't duplicate that bluesy tone on my Fender amp it was my Grandpa Ralph who pointed out that the bluesy tone was created because those small cheap tube amp circuits broke up and distorted with just a small amount of drive! I started shopping my amps from junk stores from then on. He taught me to fix about anything electronic, and later I even got the ham radio license (NO6M), sort of following in his footsteps.
But the junk store amp supply is running out and old amps seem very overpriced. I decided to start building replicas of the best small amps of the past (now called vintage). These are the amps that Leo Fender copied for his first amps from back in 1946-47, but he wanted to change the sound, and he did, and with that change we lost a bit of important  music history. (Fender focused on television for ideas while those going before him looked back at radio design for their influence).
Today when I think of vintage guitar amps, I don't think of old Fenders, I think about the amplifiers of my Grandfathers generation and how they influenced Leo Fender way back in the 40's. Vintage to me is not another copy of an old Fender amp, the world has quite enough of those. Vintage to me is all the non Fender amps circa 1947.  
My goal is to preserve a bit of that 40's era blues tone look and feel, paying attention to the pre 50's non Fender vintage tube circuits and cabinet designs! To make it affordable and fun. My simple reproduction Valco amp/cab combos meet those goals!
Sincerely, David Barnes”

I spoke with David and hope to bring his creations to the Islands in the near future.  We also discussed the old silkscreened Hawaiian motif amp grills found on old Valcos, Oahus and Supros and he is open to experimentation. Check out his site and the Guitar Player Video.
Blessings from The Garden Isle
T.Dogg @ Guitars Kauai

Revisiting a Friend’s Previous Work

Millicent Cummings

  Watch and listen

I met Millicent several Christmas seasons ago and ended up compiling her Christmas CD from various old Porta Studio cassettes and a CD or two.  A little audio clean up, some mixing, editing and burning and she had a nice family gift that met her deadline.  She left me some cookies a card and with a kiss and a hug vanished out my rickety old door and was off.  She struck me as one more of many women artists I’ve met.  Hell bent and  undeterred from her creative dreams and goals.  It was almost as if I was supposed to liken her presence to a historic personage. 
I always thought her work would go over better in Austin, Texas.  She plays and sings with full roof rattling dbs and then dynamically drops to a whisper,  She plays her big-bodied guitar as though she were striding; a pilgrim getting close to their destination.  She also has the East Coast thing going on.
I’ve recently had the chance to give her CD, Island Rose some serious listening.  I have become rather fond of several of the tracks, finding her lyrics quirky but with a unique sense of relevance to living on a rock in the Pacific Ocean, what we want and what we need. She expores relationships and uses skillful analogies and lush imagery in many of her compositions.
Give her CDs a listen and hear what I was missing.
Blessings from Kauai.
T.Dogg