Without further ado, let’s do lunch. Let’s fire up the grill today and throw on a few skewers of marinated shrimp, scallops and veggies. When they are done to perfection, let’s lay them on a bed of basmati rice, with some garden-fresh vine-ripe tomato slices on the side. Iced tea. Maybe some banana pudding a bit later when I get hungry again.
Okay, a couple of weeks ago, our good friend Will asked us to post music-themed photos of ourselves from days long ago. I didn’t participate, only because the couple of pictures I had from back in the day were not in digital format, and I don’t own a scanner.
Long story short, I had my neighbor scan these images for me, and here we go:
This one is from my high school yearbook and shows me in our Jazz Band (think Sammy Nestico, Count Basie, Hey Jude, Theme from Rocky). I’m the guy with the refinished ’66 Fender Jaguar. I think I’m seventeen years old here. This is the only photo I have of this guitar, which was subsequently stolen when the band room was broken into during Spring Break of that year. Some of you may remember me lamenting this theft a couple of times over the years. But I digress….

This next one is of me and my brother doing a Coffeehouse performance at the college we both attended. At 21, I thought it was cool to have a beard, apparently. Our original songs were all we played, and they were actually quite well received.

Here is another opportunity to post your old band pictures, etc. I think this is fun. Thanks Will!
I’d like to touch a bit on marketing today, more specifically, as it relates to BBE/G&L. Because I don’t get any guitar or similar magazines, I’m feeling a bit disadvantaged, but am I correct in my suspicion that BBE might not be doing all it can to make folks aware that G&L guitars are in a sense BBE products as well?
BBE (like G&L) has such a fine reputation, but I don’t get the feeling that a lot of folks know that the companies are related entities. I’ve felt for some time that fact this relationship might better leveraged, perhaps influencing guitar purchasers to give G&L instruments a go before pulling the trigger on a F*nder or other big-name bass or guitar.
Toward this end, I have in my head a rough outline of what I think might be a cool idea for a print ad – which I will share with you later today.
In the meantime, I’d like to hear from you about your sense of whether potential gear buyers are generally aware of the BBE/G&L connection, and whether you think that putting more emphasis on this relationship might be a good thing for G&L and BBE.
I am also hereby soliciting marketing ideas that you may have for G&L and/or BBE products. I understand that Darth pays handsomely for worthy ideas posted here. Ha!
So let’s see some more old photos and hear about some marketing ideas for G&L/BBE. Also, if you've heard a good joke lately, we'd probably appreciate hearing it after the way this week has been going ;+)
Thanks again for hanging in with me. - ed