End of the Month: March 2011

The end of the month and tackling payables and receivables made me think of attaching the above image of Ray Liotta from "Good Fellas" to my balance due invoices.

The new site is finished and I for one am glad to be paring down for these wonderful, Old Testament, economic and otherwise globally cataclysmic times we are living in.

Purple Van Guitarist, Rich Guinn, told me the St. Pat's crowd was awesome at Trees Lounge March 17th.  I don't go out on St. Pat's anymore.  Too many amateur drunks out and aboot.

I just took delivery of Sean Michael's New Amp 11 pedal and I think it is one of the most elegant and sonically outstanding pedals it has been my good fortune to play.  It may be too subtle for the younger head bangers, but for old school curmudgeons like myself it is an outstanding piece of work.    

Speaking of Love Pedal I am cleaning out my shop.  I started ripping apart my demo pedal boards and am offering a white case COT 50 and a FUSE (pre-dates The Eternity Fuse) for sale on the Specials page.  Check it out if you want some Church of Tone History on your board.

Now offering speaker replacements from Celestion, Eminence, Mojotone and Weber.  Also available are OEM FenderTM and Gibby replacement parts and selected pickups.  In addition now offering off the shelf selected pick ups from Duncan and Lindy Fralin.

I hope some of the recent death and destruction comes to an end.  It sure would be a help to Life on this Planet as well as our pathetic economy.  Think of all the services that could be restored and payed for.  Maybe we could bring back Music Classes to public schools.  Maybe we could give kids an alternative to alcohol, ice and texting.  Ya never know!

Love and Music,

T. Dogg

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

The "Vintage Machine"

F/S 1953 Fender Telecaster Blackguard, Ex Cond. $385.000.00

No I am not selling the above listed guitar. This listing is fantasy...but not that far from the truth
I have been putting off my rant about the vintage instrument market for some time now. Recently however, I received an email reply to an inquiry regarding the price of a piece of gear posted on my local Craig's List. I 'll quote the opening email and follow up with my usual long-winded response.

" I'm suprised I haven't bumped into u already if u r in Koloa & r into dealing electric guitars. I currently have 2 pre-CBS vintage Fender Jazz Basses for sale....the original sunburst '63 is currently for sale on Ebay, & the refurbished '65 ( faded robin's egg blue) I haven't listed yet. I'm not sure what I am willing to sell the '65 for yet, but it will soon be up for sale."

My Reply

I don't really deal guitars. Having come up in what the consumer-driven industry experts refer to as the Golden Days of Fender and Gibson I find the "vintage" market, its inflated prices and the obsessive phenomenon of enshrining pre-60s slab instruments in display cases as though they were religious relics thoroughly repugnant. As a composer and musician I believe instruments should be played not pinned to felt boards and encapsulated in glass like sad, rare butterflies.

If a client insists, I have and will locate and negotiate the purchase of a "vintage" piece but will first attempt to steer them in the direction of purchasing a contemporary instrument crafted by one of several small production luthiers I have the privilege of knowing and working with. There are many artisans building innovative and quite exquisite pieces right now that are playable and realistically priced. Mr. Fender was first and foremost a repair man and I do not intend to impinge on his genius by stating this. It is my guess that he would be appalled at the cult status, the hoarding and the skyrocketing prices of instruments he intended to be played by working class musicians not locked away and masturbated over by the cigar and cognac neo-con crowd.

I recently did a repair and appraisal on a 64 Strat. Due to the refin the piece was only worth 12,500.00. In my opinion this is an obscenity. This amount of money would put a lot of instruments into the hands of school kids, perhaps offering them an alternative to the self-destructive, violence-driven pathway to ignorance, enlistment and a potential military funeral. Music was my way out of depression and despair so I am adamant regarding the importance of its exposure to young people.

You have not bumped into me because we are on different roads my friend. I have a small business which I feel is fair and honest. I am shooting for what the Buddha called right livelihood. I don't work with any of the big boxes and all my products have a face, heart and soul behind them. Even GHS has no plans to take over the world and they are the largest company I rep. I just picked up Thomastik-Infeld which as a bass player, I am sure you are familiar with their Jazz Flats; outrageous old school jazz tone and they keep getting better.
I will have the lowest price in the islands on these.

Many mahalos for getting back to me and please forgive my opinionated long-windedness, but it's kind of who I am. If I can be of service to you in any way please feel free to contact me directly.

Sincerely,
Tyler J. Barnes

Update
New Lines
Now representing Everly, Aquila and Thomastik-Infeld Strings, Exclusive Hawaii rep for Lock-It Straps and Wilson Effects, handmade in the US of A. Many items are now in stock or on the water. Email or Call for an up to date inventory. info@guitarskauai.com 808.652.0952 808.742.1755 We deliver free on Kauai cash or personal check purchases only. Thursdays Lihue, South and Westside, Fridays Lihue and points North.

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