Besides being the finest in their field, there is a very real connection between this Continental GT and the RB Continental case.
It’s the exhilarating attitude, the rewarding experience of stepping up to undisputed quality… and the prestige that comes with it.
That exhilaration is shared by both the buyer and the seller.
Reunion Blues booth #5968, Hall B.
Thanks to Newport Auto Center!
When I go out on Saturday night, I like to dress up for stepping out. I put on my leather jacket and hit the town with a confidence and verve that only comes from looking good. And, like most people, I like the smell of leather. It’s the same type of thinking I have in taking care of my instruments. On Saturday night, I want my instrument to put on its Reunion Blues leather gig bag and be ready for action. When I walk into the club or venue, I have verve.
But I don’t wear my leather jacket all the time. Sometimes I go a little more casual. The same with my Reunion Blues Continental guitar case. Super protective, lightweight and still totally fashionable. Day in and day out, I can help my guitar absorb the bumps of life in a Continental and not worry about it! Sort of like an insurance policy but with a lot more style! And I still have verve.
If you love your instrument, you deserve Reunion Blues. If you don’t love your instrument, you are in the wrong game. May I suggest Tiddly Winks?
*American Heritage Dictionary and Collins English Dictionary
FEATURES:
• Ballistic Quadraweave™ exterior
• 1″ thick shock-absorbing Flexoskeleton™ with reinforced impact panels
• Unique bell area suspension system
• Velvet Neck Sock
• Zero-G palm-contoured handle with weight distributing foam core
• Quilted “Double Helix” Velvet interior
• Rubberized foam “subway” grip on back
• Interior key guard protection pad
• Knurled Abrasion Grid on bottom resists scuffing
• Large Front panel pocket with additional interior mesh pockets for accessories, including easy access cell phone pocket.
• Large zippered “quick-stash” pocket
• Adjustable shoulder strap
• High-strength corded edges and seams
• Double stitched with high tensile thread and reinforced at tested stress points
Ah, the difficulties of living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Two of the biggest living guitar gods are playing on the same night: March 2nd, 2011. Both of these guys got a lot of spin time on my old turntable back in the days of my youth and they still retain a special place in my heart and ears. Jeff Beck is playing at The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco; the historic, legendary Fillmore. Robin Trower is playing at the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma CA, 35 minutes north of SF and hometown of Ace Products and Reunion Blues. Life can be hard, but this is too much.
Jeff Beck is arguably the greatest modern guitar player and I have never seen him perform live. With his supersonic approach, he gets sounds from the guitar that can be more alien than human. As fellow blogger Brett Paley noted, Jeff Beck gets musical notes that are sometimes unfamiliar to our ears as they can be in between the 13 western notes. (wham that bar like a sitar!). Or he can play a melody so sweet that you want to cry.
Robin Trower is one of the Hendrix disciples that carved his own style out of the psychedelic blues movement. He wrote songs of intrigue and imagery that still stand the test of time like “Bridge of Sighs” and “Too Rolling Stoned.” He started with Procol Harum but quickly moved on. Trower is less known than Jeff Beck, but still very powerful in his own right.
Can I get a time machine and witness both? I think that is the only way I will be satisfied. Anyone have an opinion on which guitar god I should see that night?
(Jeff Beck photo by flickr user MandyHallMedia, Robin Trower photo by flickr user Carl Lender, licensed under Creative Commons.)
Euphonium players will be happy to learn there is an RB Continental case coming your way soon! The unveiling will take place at the Anaheim NAMM show, January 13, 2011.
While we are waiting, take a look at this NEWS release out of New York.
For 37 years, hundreds of tuba players have gathered here to play Holiday music.
We thought this was pretty crazy until digging a little deeper and discovered “Merry Tuba Christmas” events going on all around the country! Baltimore, Colorado Springs, Kansas City, and Toledo.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS from Reunion Blues!
Banjo players deserve the best.
Our own Dave Andrus recently sat down with BanjoHangout.com member Craig Evans, aka frailin, to talk about the upcoming Reunion Blues Continental case for banjos.
Banjo players, there’s an RB Continental coming for you!
As an example of the fun stuff you can do on an individual level, I recorded an original song in my simple basement studio with a rhythm guitar track, bass, drums, harmonica and vocals. I downloaded in the MP3 format and emailed it to my former college roommate 2000 miles away. He uploaded it, added a lead guitar track and backing vocal and emailed it back to me. How cool is that!? We haven’t seen each other in a few years but it was like being together again.
You should also record others. In the project “Playing For Change-Peace Through Music”, 2 guys traveled around the world with only a laptop computer and 2 microphones (and probably a change of clothes and a toothbrush). They recorded street musicians and then mixed the tracks to produce an incredibly moving project, showing that we all have a lot in common when it comes to music. Many of us have seen and heard “Stand By Me”. It starts with a street performer in Santa Monica CA and then goes to distant parts of the earth to add other street musicians into this incredibly linked version of people, voices and instruments that will make you feel good. To check it out, just go to www.playingforchange.com . Technology bringing people together through music…Heavenly!
I’ve been really enjoying the new Warpaint record over the last several weeks and was pleased to stumble across a photo of bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg wearing one of our über-comfortable and pinstriped merino wool guitar straps.
Warpaint's Jenny Lee Lindberg sporting the Black Pinstripe strap
If you get a chance to check out “the Fool” I highly recommend it. The band is touring the US and Europe over the next few months so if they’re in town the live show is not to be missed! (If you’re interested in where you can find one of those sexy straps, click “How to Buy” from the Reunion Blues front page.)
This power-trio consists of Carl Palmer on drums, Paul Bielatowicz on guitar, and Simon Fitzpatrick on bass. They were all simply out of this world and, yes, yours truly had the great honor to work as their monitor engineer at the Petaluma Mystic Theatre.
Watching Carl during sound check was a real treat… to see a master craftsman set up and design his tone. First he went through his entire stick bag to test the tonality of each stick for consistency of tone and quality. Then to watch him tune each drum head, and not just bang on each corner and make a few turns with the drum key but to go through each hit with different dynamics to get the right tone for attack, punch, and bottom end creating a nice round sound. Not only does Carl Palmer sound check his kit, he then sits out in the middle of the theatre and has the bass player and guitar player indivdually go through each of their amp channels of clean and distortion, and all the floor effects dialing in their levels and effect modulations.
Carl’s ear is so good he could be the next greatest sound engineer. He even knew which frequency that he prefers to have notched out of his kick drum for his monitor feed. I mean, I never get drummers knowing engineering terms, it’s usually “My monitor is making a ringing sound can you make it go away?” I would then go to the channel with the particular drum with the “ringing” and remove the frequency that is causing the feedback. Carl knew the frequency just like a piano player would know not only the note but also its frequency of a single key that was struck on a piano. He probably learned it from Emerson while working with him all those years!
The entire band was insanely remarkable and each player’s solo performance was like no other… with Paul and his lightning fast sweep picking, chord tapping, up and down the guitar neck leads that just had folks staring so hard you swore their eyes were going to pop out. Then Simon and his ever-so clever remix of Queens ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ finger tapping and slap bass thrown in here and there for the heavier parts was amazing to watch. Seeing one person play that song and all instrumental and vocal parts simultaneously on one instrument, I guess if you are going to play with Carl Palmer, you better know how to play better than the rest to keep up with this living legend. It was all an awe inspiring performance that I was not only glad to watch but also to help be apart of the making.
In an interview on the Dick Cavett show, Jimi Hendrix said that he believed that music and arts were the things that would save the world. Not military power, not economic might, not politics…in fact, these things tend to divide people. But, what works better to bring people together in a spirit of joy and harmony than music and arts? To begin, we need special places to foster the creative process. Get in the zone and let the brain and heart become one.
As funding for music programs in schools suffers from continual budget cuts, look to your local music store as a valuable community center and resource for young people of all ages. It is a proven fact that kids that participate in music programs score higher on tests, learn social skills and build confidence. By supporting brick and mortar music stores, you help to retain all the advantages that we desire from music programs. You may pay a little more for an item in a local store, but remember that this puts money directly in the pocket of the businesses that build the foundation of music in every community. Look for stores that have active youth programs with lessons and a place for them to play. These are the stores that are making a difference. Most of these stores are not making a huge amount of profit, and the employees are not pulling down executive salaries. These are good people that are doing what they love because they believe in it. Especially in this difficult economic period, these folks have made big sacrifices to keep the doors open and the music flowing.