This Friday, August 27, marks 20 years since Stevie Ray Vaughan’s tragic death. Fender has posted a nice retrospective about SRV with quotes about Stevie from his family and friends, including this quote from Double Trouble drummer Chris “Whipper” Layton:

“I didn’t meet him that night, but the first time I heard him play was at a place called Soap Creek Saloon in Austin, Texas,” Layton said. “Drove up, got out of my car and I could hear the band playing, but I heard this piercing guitar. It was like outside, not even coming from inside; It was just like drilling right there in the walls of the building. I thought, ‘Wow, who is this guy?’ And, it was Stevie. I thought, ‘He’s remarkable.’ He just was.”

Read the full article here.

I’m excited to welcome Joe Bonamassa as a new sponsor of Guitar Lifestyle. They are offering Guitar Lifestyle readers a free download of “Blue and Evil” from Joe’s Black Rock album. To receive the free download, all you have to do is click here or click the ad in the sidebar and then select “Free MP3 Music”.

The second annual Nashville Amp Expo is coming up on August 21-22. I couldn’t make last year’s show, but I heard that it was a lot of fun. A long list of exhibitors have signed up to show off their goods for this year’s show.

I’m glad to see these types of shows starting to gain popularity. This looks like a great opportunity to hear a lot of musical equipment that isn’t carried by most retailers. It’s also a good opportunity to actually speak to the builders themselves to get some deeper insight into the products.

Jon at Guitar Noize is launching another excellent contest, this time a blues solo competition he’s calling Blue Noize. There are some great prizes to be had, including a PRS 25th Anniversay SE Custom guitar, a Big Muff Pi pedal, a Suhr Riot pedal, a POG2 pedal, Dunlop Max Grip picks, and BMF leather straps. If you think you’ve got the chops, check out the rules of the contest over at Guitar Noize.

Gibson has recently opened a forum where anyone can sign up and submit a question to Gibson’s CEO Henry Juszkiewicz. Mr. Juszkiewicz has taken quite a bit of flack over the past few years about how he is running Gibson. I think this is a smart move and will hopefully provide a more human face to the company as well as provide some answers to many users’ questions. He’s already answered a number of questions on the forum. He even responded to a question about the Hendrix Strat-style guitars that they were going to produce.

Pedaltrain have recently added a new, smaller pedalboard to their list of products, called the Pedaltrain Nano. This board seems to be targeted towards those using the “micro”-sized pedals or only need a couple of pedals on their board. The included soft case can be attached directly to a gig bag, thus making it easier to carry your pedals into a gig.

If you need a larger pedalboard, check out my review of the Pedaltrain Jr.

Guitar Center’s King of the Blues grand finals will be held this year on September 2 at the House of Blues in Hollywood, CA. Kenny Wayne Shepherd will host the event with Derek Trucks and Honeyboy Edwards performing.

Gruhn Guitars, which features a large collection of vintage instruments, survived the recent Nashville flooding only to suffer water damage due to a burst pipe on the second floor of their downtown Nashville location. Dozens of instruments sustained damage including some vintage instruments. News station WKRN reporting on the damage:

“Some of these were very good instruments,” [Gruhn] said. “This was not a couple dozen cheap, student model guitars. This was a couple dozen good ones.”

Some of those guitars are irreplaceable, vintage instruments.

“It’s emotionally tough,” said Gruhn. “These instruments are things that I view as though they were alive. They have soul and personality, and they have history.”

Very sad to hear. Gruhn’s has a well-respected staff of instrument repair technicians, so I hope they are able to return these instruments to their prior glory.

Five years ago when I started Guitar Lifestyle, there weren’t very many other guitar blogs around. In the last five years, I’ve seen a number of guitar blogs come and go, but Guitar Noize has been one of the few that has stuck around and provided consistently good content. Jon, the creator of Guitar Noize, is celebrating the 3rd anniversary of Guitar Noize with a huge giveaway. He’s giving away a ton of stuff, including effects, strings, software, instructional material, and more! You can see what he’s giving away and sign up for a chance to win on the Guitar Noize 3rd Birthday Bonanza sign up form.

Last year, I had the chance to see guitarist Andy Wood perform with his band Down From Up. They were performing at a small venue in town that was hosting a showcase of sorts for some local Nashville talent. I had not heard of Down From Up before the show, but I knew Wood was a serious gear hound when I saw him load in his Suhr guitars and his Diezel amps. I was doubly surprised when Wood started playing. He is a phenomenal talent.

However, because most people had come to see the local acts they knew and hadn’t heard of Down From Up, they were playing unfamiliar songs to most of the audience. After a few songs, they began losing the crowd. Upon seeing this, it looked like Wood went to each band member and suggested they switch to a Led Zeppelin medley they had obviously worked up in the past. It worked! The crowd got back into the show and seemed more receptive to the tracks that followed.

If you have  a band that plays original music, take a tip from Andy Wood and have a popular tune or two within your genre to fall back on in case you start to lose a crowd. It could help turn a bad gig into a good one, or at least a positive one!