April 2006 Newsletter

This month's newsletter is on auto-pilot as I am in Germany for the Musikmesse trade show. I hope to POST some pictures and info while at the show, look for a link on the main page. Yes, the new EASTWOOD website is up and running. However, some people are confused - our "store" is still the My Rare Guitars site - the new Eastwood Site is there to support the other dealers that carry the EASTWOOD line. So, keep your book mark at www.myrareguitars.com for your daily injection of all things guitar goofy... PLUS, we have only 30 days left in the My Rare Guitars LOGO contest. Keep them coming, contest ends soon. Enter here

We are starting a new segment - "Dealer Of The Month". It may be a profile of the dealer, or a story from, or whatever. Just a little something to help introduce some of our dealers. Our first entry is from our "Dealer Down Under", - Ian Carter - who has submitted a great article entitled The Garage Guitarist that reminds many of us of our early love affair with the electric guitar. Don't forget to visit his site. Also, Joey Leone delivers another cool piece about Great Mistakes in the guitar world. Thanks guys, awesome stuff!

We have part two of the interview with Mike Stern written by Larry Payne. Also, the Different Strummer chimes in with a little story about Sex, Drugs, and, uh, what?... Michael Wright keeps introducing some wierd ones from days gone by. We'll revisit some insightful commentary from Kirk Lorange, claiming that Music is Math . And, uh, Free Steak Knives?

It was late 1969 early 1970; I was 13 years old and had been learning guitar for about a year when I was given what I considered to be the key to a world of freedom - Mum & Dad said it was ok for me to setup my room in a shed inside Dad's garage. The shed was the size of a small bedroom, about eight by ten in the old measurements. It was originally built from scraps of recycled building material from a 100 year old house and was initially used as a tool shed. Everybody deserves to have a guitar that plays well, stays in tune, and is in tune with itself. This is not just the privilege of globetrotting superstars, but everyone who owns a decent instrument.

Yeah, man, that's why we get into guitars, isn't it? All of which is evident in this cool Summer o' Love 1967 Fender Coronado XII Wildwood! Whether some cat took LSD, or anything lighter, while playing this guitar is also unknown. But there's NO doubt drugs were involved. That's because this is a Wildwood. And we're not talking JerseyShore here. Well, ok, we really don't know for sure about the sex and rock. This is a Fender electric guitar, after all, and I don't think someone bought it to play jazz standards. Or Kumbaya.

Well folks we all know what great guitars have been designed and created over the years, but there were some vessels of musical expression in the guitar world that were, lets say a stroke of mistaken genius. In this column I discuss some of the mistakes that we have more or less taken for granted, and I also give some of my own mistakes that might work out for you. The great Leo and his mistakes of genius.

Stern eventually began to feel he should leave the academic environment of Berklee and return to D.C. So, home he went, and before long he was playing rock and blues gigs throughout the region. "I'd studied with Pat Methany for about a year, before I went home. Eventually I went back to Berklee, and Pat told me then: 'School is great, but you gotta get out and play.'"

Awful as it sounds, it's the truth. But don't let it scare you off. The highest number I've ever heard in the context of music is 13, so you don't have to be a genius to figure it out. There are two basic numbering systems in music. One has to do with the scale, the other with the key. Let's look at the numbers relating to the scale first.