After running Accessory Fetish for a few months, I realized that it was actually a lot of work. Admittedly, I think I bit off a little more than I could chew with this website.

My vision for Accessory Fetish has been as a way to direct musicians to the gear they need to practice their art, and hopefully turn them on to some cool new products.

For instance, I think that the Gear Links section is a really strong resource and, for the categories I’ve finished, are by far the most complete on the web. I’ve also gotten a lot of great feedback about the Gear Pipe section, where you can find great deals on accessory products, as well as a way to find used gems with the custom eBay Searches.

That being said, I think the daily (or weekly…or monthly) blog is, at this point, the least useful section of the site. There are plenty of other sites (Electric Guitar Review, Harmony Central, and Music Gadgets are just a few) that do a great job of introducing musicians to new products. I want to continue doing this, but I feel I’m not really adding my own slant to product news right now.

Long story short….here’s what I have going on. I have just launched a new website - GearPipe.com - which expands on what I’ve been doing on Accessory Fetish. This site will feature links to sales, closeouts, clearance items, and contests for all product categories. This includes guitar, drums, keys, band instruments, pro audio, and recording gear.

With that site launched and able to run somewhat on autopilot, I want to concentrate on finishing up the Gear Links section of Accessory Fetish. Once that’s done, I’ll return to blogging, hopefully with the time to give all of you some really interesting content.

Thanks for hanging with me!

Jeremy

Jason’s Guitar Blogs Discovery Project is simply a one-stop resource for links to every guitar blog on the web. Now, considering I was left off the initial list there are obviously more out there, but that’s the cool thing about it. I noticed the list on IG Blog and am now reposting the list, so hopefully some of these other guys will send some readers my way!

Here’s the list of blogs. Please take a few minutes and check out a blog you’ve never visited.

Accessory Fetish | GearPipe |Guitar Noize | IG Blog | Strat-O-Blogster | Guitar MX | Mad Stratter | Guitarz | Building the Ergonomic Guitar | Guitritus | Musician’s Notebook | GuitarToyBox | IGUITARGOD | Mr. Blues Guy | markmcguigan.com | Acoustic Guitar Player | iFingers Guitar Experience | Play Like a Girl | Electric Guitar Review | Guitar Novice | Truth in Shredding | Thumbrella | Music Ramble | The Soul of Rock and Roll | Guitar Lifestyle | GuitaroJam News | Music Gadgets | The Guitar Channel | The Guitar Resource | Guitar Stuff | Axe Victim

There are always sweet treasures to be found in the Musician’s Friend Scratch ‘n’ Dent section. This week, they’ve announced not only that they’ve added 1,000s of new products to this area (maybe they should have been more careful when moving warehouses!), but they’re also taking an extra 10% off all of these items.

In addition, they’ve got their Clearance Items, Refurbished Items, and Stupid Deal of the Day.

BUT WAIT…THERE’S MORE!!! You won’t find this offer on their web site (I’ve got the inside track on this info!), but if you purchase $200 or more of in stock merchandise, you get an extra $20 off. All you have to do is enter coupon code:AF20 at checkout. They’re running this promo thru September 27th.

Click Here to start shopping!

Update: Looks like Musician’s Friend’s parent company didn’t want them to have all the fun. Guitar Center just annouced that they’ll be running the same $20 off a $200 purchase deal. Enter coupon code:GC20 at checkout.

Shop Guitar Center now.

For better or worse, it’s not a secret to me. During my first summer away at college in Kalamazoo, MI, my mother gave me an ultimatum to find a job, or I’d have to return home for a summer of mowing the lawn and doing dishes. I really wanted to work in a music store, but none in town were hiring.

After a quick flip through the phone book, I discovered that the Dean Markley string winding factory was in nearby Vicksburg, MI. I spent that summer winding bass strings, day in and day out. Let me tell you, even though I was making guitar strings, the fact that I was repeating the same movements 1,500 times a day, it was no cooler than any other factory job.

So, in addition to being interesting, the video below also gave me a shiver or two!

This video is actually from the Science Channel’s How It’s Made Series. Although it never mentions D’Addario by name, it’s obvious by the colored ball ends and D’Addario tee shirts that their factory was used as the model. I’ve heard that D’Addario has by far the most high-tech guitar string factory in the industry, so I find this video very cool

Check it out:

If you’re looking for a very specific item, it’s pretty easy to search eBay and find exactly what you’re want. Sometimes, though, you just want to browse and see which cool pieces of gear are out there. That’s where our eBay searches come in handy.

Our searches include the most popular search terms over multiple categories. Basically, we’ve filtered out the crap so you can get right to the good stuff. For instance, our Boutique Effects Pedals search combines nearly 30 of the hottest boutique pedals builders, saving you tons of time. When you get a sec, please check it out!

Here’s this week’s list of the hottest auctions currently on eBay:

Maestro Filter Sample/Hold - vintage and mint
Ends: Thursday Sep-13-07 17:13:30 PDT




VINTAGE MAESTRO OCTAVE BOX MODEL OB-1
Ends: Wednesday Sep-12-07 11:00:43 PDT




Vintage 1978 Fender Jazz Neck - Very clean & beautiful
Ends: Tuesday Sep-11-07 20:00:06 PDT




VINTAGE K ZILDJIAN ISTANBUL 20″ RIDE OLD STAMP
Ends: Wednesday Sep-12-07 20:12:28 PDT




AXIS DOUBLE BASS DRUM PEDAL
Ends: Thursday Sep-13-07 18:15:10 PDT

For years, you could hear it in the voices and certainly the words of many artists. Although there were certainly some deviant guitar tones before it, the invention of the humbucking pickup infused the electric guitar with the sounds from below.

Of course, the humbucker started as Gibson engineer Seth Lover’s quest to design a quieter guitar pickup. I’ll bet he no idea what he was actually creating!

Gibson has been kind enough to remind us that their guitars were first equipped with humbuckers in 1957, making this the 50th anniversary of the pickup. They have just posted a bit of history on their website.

To celebrate, Gibson is giving away a pair of ‘57 Classic and Burstbucker pickups. You can enter the contest here.

In honor of this momentous event, here’s a video clip of the man who harnessed the power (and evil) of the humbucker better than anyone else, Jimmy Page.

They state that they are “working with our valued dealer base,” which kind of sounds like products might ship from dealers. I’m not sure how else dealers might be involved, but this is just my hunch. They do say that product will only ship to US customers, although they are working on international shipping.

The store is laid out nicely and overall looks pretty good. The only downside is that much of the pricing appears to be higher than other online retailers. Manufacturer-direct sales is a hot button issue in the music industry, so it’s probably their strategy to offer these items for sale online, but at a price that won’t piss of Musician’s Friend and other online retailers.

Here are a few examples of Ernie Ball Online Store pricing vs. Musician’s Friend:

Super Slinky Nickel Wound .009-.042 (P02223)
Ernie Ball Online Store - $5.50
Musician’s Friend - $3.79

VP Jr 250K Volume Pedal
Ernie Ball Online Store - $100.00
Musician’s Friend - $99.99

2″ Poly Strap
Ernie Ball Online Store - $5.00
Musician’s Friend - $3.99

The other downside to buying direct is that there does not appear to be any free shipping deals, which you can often get with other webstores.

The musical instruments industry always seems to be a few years behind when it comes to trends, so it’s good to see that we’re catching up.

The past handful of years has seen an insane amount of cool electronics gadgets. It seems that there are two strategies that electronics makers use when designing new products. Either take an existing product and make it smaller, or pack in as many features as possible.

We’ve got manufactures doing both, and I love seeing it. It’s so cool to see that real strobe tuners can now fit into your guitar case (Planet Waves Tru-Strobe Tuner and Sonic Research’s Turbo Tuner) and a regular tuner can fit into your pocket (Seiko’s ST-01 and Fender’s speed-e keychain tuners). The String Master will even tune your guitar for you.

Now we just need a tuner that’ll pour a beer into your mouth in the middle of your solo!

I know how it is. Get into the office around 8:10. Grab some coffee and a bear claw out of the vending machine. Chat with your co-workers about what happened over the weekend and how it was way too short. Surf the web for a while. Finally around 9:15 you’re ready to get to work.

Hold on…you don’t really have to start until 9:30, do you? Give me 15 more minutes!

This is the first installment of the Accessory Fetish eBay Obsessions. The plan is to post these every Monday morning. I’ll spend the weekend scouring eBay for the most interesting musical instrument accessory auctions so you have something to distract you during the week.

Here’s my list of the hottest auctions currently on eBay:

1967 ECHOPLEX TUBE TAPE ECHO/DELAY ALL ORIG. NO RESERVE
Ends: Tuesday Aug-28-07 10:28:30 PM PDT




Analog Man Sun Lion Fuzz Face Treble Booster Clone
Ends: Wednesday Aug-29-07 7:03:05 PM PDT




A Pair of Vintage 1959 Gibson PAF Humbucker Pickups
Ends: Thursday Aug-30-07 6:28:05 PM PDT




VINTAGE A ZILDJIAN 22″ SIZZLE RIDE CYMBAL OLD JAZZ NICE
Ends: Monday Aug-27-07 7:30:00 PM PDT




K ZILDJIAN ISTANBUL 22 INCH
Ends: Tuesday Aug-28-07 11:17:26 AM PDT



If these don’t catch your fancy, check out our custom eBay auction searches.

A few days ago, Strat-O-Blogster reminded us that this week marks the 40th anniversary of the release of The Jimi Experience’s debut album Are You Experienced. Today, IG Blog has challenged us to get out this weekend and add to our Hendrix record collection.

This got me thinking about Jimi’s legacy. For an artist who was only in the public spotlight for a few years, the legacy he left us is astonishing. Of course, in situations such as these, there are countless people (or, more likely, corporations) who are more than willing to extend and exploit this legacy as far as it will go.

For instance, after doing a basic search, there are over 8,000 Jimi Hendrix-related products on amazon.com. This includes music and books, of course, but also items such as light switch plates and air fresheners.

I firmly believe that, although they surely love the effect on the bottom line, gear manufacturers who offer Hendrix-licensed products are honored and feel it is a privilege to preserve Jimi’s musical legacy. Although some of these products have been around for years, the past few years have seen an influx of Hendrix guitar gear. In no particular order, here’s a list of some of the coolest guitar accessory products that carry the Jimi Hendrix name:

DigiTech Jimi Hendrix Experience Pedal
Modeling pedal that includes seven classic Jimi Hendrix guitar tones

Dunlop JH-OC1 Jimi Hendrix Octavio Pedal
A clone of Hendrix’s classic Octavia “octave-up” pedal

Dunlop JH-1B Jimi Hendrix Signature Wah Pedal
Recreates classic late-’60s Hendrix wah tones

Levy’s Jimi Hendrix Design Guitar Strap
Polyester guitar straps with full-color heat transfers of Authentic Hendrix images

Levy’s Jimi Hendrix Electric Guitar Gig Bag
Levy’s electric guitar gig bag featuring Authentic Hendrix authorized images

IK Multimedia AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix Software Plug-In
Imagine what Jimi would have created with today’s recording tools…enough said!

Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Are You Experienced Pick Tin
A dozen celluloid Dunlop guitar picks adorned with Hendrix album artwork

Dean Markley Jimi Hendrix Guitar Strings
Pure nickel and nickel plated steel electric guitar strings