JENS & UWE KRUGER’S BANJO & GUITAR WORKSHOP – Lake Worth, Florida April 9-10th 2010
Time is fast approaching for what will be a wonderful banjo and guitar event in Southeast Florida. Jens and Uwe Kruger, in conjunction with Fretmentor.com are conducting there first of what may become an annual “Jens & Uwe Banjo & Guitar Workshop”.
David Jakubiak, an instructor, writer for Banjo Newsletter, and the founder of Fretmentor.com is coordinating this weekend event. You can see the details by going directly to his website and viewing the online form and registration process.
As if banjo and guitar instruction by Jens and Uwe were not enough, David has secured many exceptional sponsors who have donated items to be raffled. We at First Quality Music have donated a Sullivan Bluegrass Jam banjo. This will be the grand prize for one lucky attendee.
The Jens & Uwe Kruger Banjo & Guitar Workshop will be held on April 9-10 in Lake Worth, Florida. On Sunday April 11th, the Kruger Brothers will be performing a concert in Palm Beach. Fretmentor.com has reserved a block of tickets for those who desire to attend the Sunday concert. Tickets for the concert are only $10 each.
We look forward to seeing our friend and customers at this wonderful event. Good luck to the attendee who wins our grand prize.
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!
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!
The girls of Gold Heart and Dad Trent stopped into First Quality while on their way to the Bluegrass Festival in Henderson, Kentucky. Wow!!! Can these girls pick and sing!! It’s Analise on mandolin, Jocelyn on guitar and Shelby on fiddle. We appreciate Analise pickin’ a tune on our Old Growth Gibson Mandolin, I’m pretty sure she liked it! Heck they even let the me pick a tune with them before they had to go (I appreciate it). Thanks to the Gold family for sharing their wonderful music with us. Hope you enjoy the videos, be sure to check out these girls when they’re in your area you’ll love them.
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.
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.
A short time ago we had a young fellow from southern Kentucky seek us out to help him put together his very first professional banjo.Alex Covin and his mom Stephanie stopped by to share with us the completed banjo, his new customized case and pick a couple of tunes for us.We’re proud of Alex, enjoyed the visit, and are looking forward to seeing him on stage with that new banjo.Good pickin’ Alex!
More photos of Alex’s Banjo in progress, click link below.
Good friend and Customer Steve Richards was in last week checking out our Sullivan Banjo lineup, while speaking with him his Daughter In Law Chloe Richards came up in conversation as one heck of a banjo player. Today Chloe and her Husband Josh stopped back by with Steve to test drive the Sullivan Banjo prototypes. “Wow” Chloe sure can play. Her husband Josh is also one fine musician and a member of the Bluegrass Group “Blue River Bluegrass” which won the 2008 SPBGMA Band Championship. We sure enjoyed their visit and some really good Bluegrass music. I hope you’ll enjoy also!!
