Our 30 Anniversary Fender Bash... a night with a difference!

Having just eclipsed the 30 years in business milestone, we thought we might celebrate by having a VIP Fender night featuring the amazing talents of Melbourne guitarist James Ryan.  A number of Concept Music "multi Fender" owners were there to watch, listen & enjoy some nice wines & finger foods.  Something guests were not expecting though was another "feature act" we had arranged.... an exclusively designed body painting I commissioned a friend of mine, Suzanne Mykolajenko of "Whereforart" Body Painting, to do for us.  Starting with the blank canvas, of a naked model, Suzanne spent nearly 3 hours to finish & result, as you see, was quite spectacular & it was actually remarkably hard to tell those jeans & top were not real... even standing next to her!  It was very enjoyable night & there was certainly plenty for everyone to talk about for some time to come!

"Clarisax Feast" organised by the Clarinet & Saxophone Association of WA

Recently the Clarinet & Saxophone Society of WA (CASSWA) ran their 2nd Annual "ClariSax Feast" at UWA & once again it was an incredibly popular day with registrations numbering over 100 & well up on last year inaugral event.  Concept Music was at the "Feast" with a vast array of instruments & accessories for delegates to try & and also joined forces with Rovner to donate a brand new Rovner Platinum Series ligature valued at $159 as a prize.  The winning ticket was drawn last Friday at Concept Music in Wembley by Allan Meyer who is the Principal Clarinetist with WASO (West Australian Symphony Orchestra).  Allan also took the opportunity to test some of the new Yamaha wooden clarinets for us... & he was especially impressed with the CX & 650 Series of instruments commenting particularly on their fine keywork.  The lucky & very deserving winner of the Rovner ligature was Adrian Galante who is a very fine young player from Sorrento. Congratulations Adrian!  If you are a clarinet or sax player why not sign up & join CASSWA today?!

Boxes boxes boxes....

Delivery trucks pulling up out the front are a constant source of excitement when you work in a music shop!  Today it was some new gear from Blackstar which included some new models we haven't seen before as well as a 12" extension cab (finally!).  We're not exactly sure what there is that is so exciting in the manual that Charles is reading but hey... maybe he's just checking out the ohmage - could that be exciting?! 

Tomorrow we are expecting a big shipment of new Fender gear! Bring it on!!

Is this the best Martin guitar ever?!

That would be a huge call (& would be a debatable claim anyway!) but it is most certainly of the finest & most exciting Martin acoustic guitars we've had come through the shop in a long time.  At almost $6000 it sounds like a lot of money for a guitar (and it isa lot of money actually!) but if you could say that a guitar for that price was "value for money" then we reckon this is it! 

It is one of the very first of the new Martin Performance Series guitars to come in to Australia & it's a ripper... built of solid East Indian rosewood back & sides with a solid Sitka spruce top, solid wood binding (ovangkol), and pearl rosette. Check out some more photo's on our website or go to Martin's special website to hear a clip. Yummy!

Careful, fake guitars really do exist...

I sometimes wonder if people think we are just scaremongering when we tell warn them to "be careful out there" buying gear off the internet... especially from people they don't know... but we see so many "dodgy" instruments we cannot stress enough that fake gear really does exist and you really DO have to be careful!  And the more popular the gear... the more likely you are to come across a fake: copies of the classic Shure SM58 mike are very common place but at Concept Music we have also had personal experience with counterfeit Daddario strings, Yamaha flutes and trumpets, pickups... and yes, guitars as well of course.

Here are some photo's of what appeared to be a Fender Custom Shop Telecaster guitar that came in recently for us to have a look at. We were asked to "check the electronics... 'coz it's making a kinda buzzing sound".  Did it ever... & when we pulled it apart we could see why.  Not only were the pickups fake, the pots tiny & wiring thin & unshielded... on closer inspection we noticed the neck, despite having a beautiful Logo on the front and the Custom Shop authentification decal on the back it was (not so obviously) a VERY cheap copy.

So... how CAN you tell a "fake"?  Well, without taking a giutar apart it can very hard.  On this the external "alarm bells" were the truss rod access is wrong, also it had an unusual laminated maple fretboard on a maple neck (you can just see the 'maple on maple' lamination just behind where the truss rod is accessed) and also the maple in the neck also looks very cheap and has many grain faults.. something you would never see on genuine Fender (or even a Squier for that matter!) but overall... easily good enough to fool someone who wasn't expecting to see a fake or if you only had photo's to go by.  Hmmm. 

MORE Ukuleles!

If someone had told me a few years ago we'd be selling ukuleles for $500 and $600 I would have laughed... but there you go - who ever knows what "the next big thing" is going to be?!  Concept has always sold a lot of $25 cheapy coloured ukes but the market has seems to have exploded since the Concert for George DVD hit the shelves a few years ago.  Now we stock a huge range incluind Kala, Ohana & Mahalo & they are increasingly being sought out & recognised as a "real" musical instrument... AND they are SO much FUN!  It's hard not to smile whenever someone comes in & starts to strum on one!

They call him Bruce! Bruce Egnater that is...

There's always some funky new model of something coming on the market & while Egnater amps are not  exactly "new" (in fact Bruce has been making amps for over 30 years!) the new Tweaker models are. They are an ultra compact and amazingly versatile little 15 watt all-tube amp that offers unique & seemingly endless tonal variations via the on-board “Tweaker” selector switches. They use a pair of 6V6 power tubes & sound is incredible!  And at around $1200 for the combo, the price is great too.

Bruce Egnater is currently on a National Tour of Australia & dropped in to Concept Music with his right hand man Gustavo for a chat & to check out the local music store scene.  Tony and I thought it was a good time to test out the new "retro lounge" at Concept!