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Aaron Thomas was in the showroom this week from Washington, IN and was kind enough to try out one of the new Sullivan Historic Vintage-35 Banjo Prototypes. We debuted this Banjo at IBMA and will have more information on it in the coming weeks – for now, the sound speaks for itself! He’s a great picker and in the video below performs a wonderful and unique version of “What a friend we have in Jesus”. Thanks for stopping by, Aaron!
Today we had a few friends of ours stop by and, like many other days, a little impromptu jam broke out in the Banjo room. I was handy with a camera this time, and thought I’d share a little bit of what goes on at First Quality Music every day. Here we’ve got Malcolm Moger, an excellent Banjo player from Springfield, Virginia, and Shari Mabe from New Haven, Kentucky. Shari is a teacher at New Haven School where she tells us she’s formed a Guitar Club for 6th, 7th, and 8th graders that’s been operating since 2006. We weren’t able to get the information of the other guitarist before she left, but we thank them all for dropping in and letting us record them! A group of great musicians, check them out in the video below!
Our friends and First Quality featured artist Balsam Range have topped the Bluegrass Unlimited single chart with Last Train to Kitty Hawk. Congratulations guys!!! You can hear a Sullivan banjo on this tune picked by our pal Marc Pruett. Be sure to catch a performance by the group at the upcoming IBMA fanfest, or visit their website for the latest news and tour date information.
We’re gearing up to launch the new sullivanbanjo.com ASAP, but we thought we should share a bit more banjo news with you in the meantime. Eric & Co. have been working on this tone ring for over three years, when we began by acquiring a pre-war flathead, and we’re nearing the ‘end’.
We’re preparing to send six of these instruments out to professional pickers to gather feedback before we begin offering the final version. Much like the prototype seen in the videos below, we’re building these banjos to extremely tight pre-war standards. Everything from the neck profile to the finish are as close to matching the pre-war style as possible.
We won’t be offering these until they are finished, and we’re generally not talking about them – we just thought we’d give you a sneak peak. Stay tuned here, and at the new Sullivan Banjo site when it launches, to learn more.
Hey folks! Just wanted to drop by with a quick update on several happenings here at First Quality Music. We’ve had a lot going on the past few days, some of it pretty significant!
1) Twitter!
First Quality Music is now on Twitter! Check us out at http://www.twitter.com/1stqualitymusic – we’ll post things that don’t quite merit a full blog post, but are interesting nonetheless! We’re also looking at other endeavors into Social Media – feel free to give me an email at travis@fqms.com if you have any comments or ideas. Stay tuned!
2) The Laser
We’ve purchased a laser engraving system from Universal Laser Systems. As you can see, many of us are taking a little break to watch this thing in action. There are a ton of implications for us here, from engraving instrument parts (Truss Rod covers, Banjo name blocks, etc…) to creating wooden or glass plaques. From what we’ve seen today, we’ll be able to make a huge assortment of new, customized products for our customers. We’ll keep you posted on our progress as we learn how to use this thing, so stay posted!
3) Custom Color Matching
Also thought that we would share with you some of the custom work being done in our shop. Today when I went back to see what was going on, Tim was working on a fairly interesting banjo neck. A customer sent us an imported resonator and asked that we create a banjo around it. Check out what Tim has done so far, having matched the colors and the shade of the pearl inlay.
4) The Banjo Room
Friends of First Quality Music know that we were originally founded as a banjo supply company, and create the Sullivan Banjo line here at our retail showroom. So, what happens when you combine First Quality Music with an empty room in our building? Something amazing. We’ve collected many amazing banjos and artifacts through the years(Such as our sizable collected of pre-war banjo necks), and have decided to create a haven for the many banjo players who visit us every day. Again, stay posted for more updates on this project!
5) And of course, the same ol’ thing.
So much more to mention, a pre-war tone ring project, our old-growth mandolin, the new Sullivan Banjo site… the list goes on! But, we’re keeping ourselves busy with our true passion: serving our customers. I managed to catch a spy shot of Murrell tuning a guitar while speaking with some customers today – stop by and see us!
We’ve been asked on many occasions to shoot some videos of our Sullivan Festival Banjo line, well Murrell and I finally got around to shoot some on the Festival Jam in both Mahogany and Maple, the Festival Deluxe, the Festival Custom and the Festival Pro. Hope you enjoy.
Here is the Festival Pro:
To view other video please clink link below.
Pete Webb with the group Late for Supper stops by and visits us on a regular basis. He was checking out one of the new Sullivan Clawhammer Jam banjos and he picked us My Old Kentucky Home. Thanks Pete.
Daniel Martin stopped by for a little tune up on his Bill Sullivan Recording King model banjo. I got him to pick one for us before he left, burn it up son! You can check out the “Bill Sullivan Recording King” tribute banjo on firstqualitymusic.com.
Have you ever wanted to get a Gibson Mandolin, but wanted a little wider neck? A little larger frets? Maybe a scooped fingerboard or a pickguard added. For our banjo playing friends maybe a Granda Flying Eagle but in a Tenor or a Plectrum or maybe a Walnut neck instead of Curly Maple. Now you can! Gibson Original Instruments have opened up their Custom Shop and now you can custom spec your favorite Bluegrass Instrument. Give us a call and let us help you build the instrument of your dreams. Ask for Jeff or Murrell at 800.635.2021
Cliff and his friend Alan Tompkins were visiting family in Southern Kentucky and drove up to hang out at the store for a visit. Cliff took a moment to check out the Martin 000-18 Authentic in the Vault and I talked him into sitting down and pickin’ a tune with me. You can check out Cliff’s banjos at his website.
This is me, Cliff, and Alan picking the Fire Ball Mail.
