Hi there my friends,

2020 has been the busiest year of my life. I've just done the numbers and jobs this year are about 30-40% up on last year (which was also busy!). 

That might not sound like much compared to what many retailers experienced but, given that I only have a fixed number of hours in the week to do the work, it was a pretty big jump. I did a LOT of overtime!

The increase was spread across two "financial years" so hopefully I won't get hit too hard by the tax office! 

The increased business was, of course, Covid-related. The entire industry boomed as folk stayed home and played their guitars. I also got lots of people getting back into it after 20 years or more, lots of new players, and guitars that had clearly been in the attic or the shed for decades coming in for restoration.

So.

I always take two weeks off at the end of the year so that I can do the family stuff and re-charge my batteries. This year I'm going to treat myself to an extra week.

The shop will be back open on Tuesday 19th January.

Best wishes to all of you, take care, be safe, and we'll catch up in 2021.

Andrew

 

 Hi Everyone,

well, it's flood time again! Actually, from the weather bureau's predictions it doesn't look like we'll have another disaster like 2017 but if there's one thing about predictions it's that they are unpredictable. I just heard on the radio that Lismore has had 180mm of rain so far today - the bureau predicted 30mm...

But even that much rain, plus what we've received over the last few days, is still less than we got in 24 hours back in'17. So fingers crossed.

Just letting you know that all completed but un-collected repairs, all repairs yet to be finished, and all consignment guitars are safe and dry on higher ground.

I don't take chances - at the slightest risk of flooding I start moving stuff out of the shop. 

Every time this happens (and it's probably the tenth time I've emptied the place) I wonder if I should move the shop to a higher location. But each time I decide that the idea of being in the centre of town is SO convenient (for me as well as you guys) that I decide to stay. I like my little shop! And have a very good landlord, too.

Stay dry,

Andrew

 

Hi everyone,

it goes without saying that 2020 has been a weird year.

When Covid kicked off, and none of us knew what that would really mean, I had a huge in-coming of work. Lots of big jobs: major restorations and re-builds, lots of regular jobs - refrets, set-ups etc; and lots of guitars that had clearly been stored in the loft for 20 years or more.

During April and May I booked in more work than I have ever seen. At that time, the powers-that-be were suggesting that we'd all be "locked-down" for six months and that we'd all better find some kind of indoor activity to replace the outdoor and social stuff that we were used to.

Clearly guitar-playing was a popular choice!

I booked in work to cover the possibility of this extended lockdown.

But, as "lockdowns" were lifted, my shop went back to "normal". "Normal" for me is "constantly busy", and I've been at least as busy these last few months as I've ever been, so consequently many of those long-term jobs are still on the bench.

I appreciate your trust in me, and the acknowledgement that after almost 40 years doing this gig I’m actually pretty good at it, but this DID leave me with a big backlog of work.

Now I have two options:

Plan A: Take advantage of the situation, cut down on the work I take in, and charge a lot more for each job.

Or, Plan B: don’t take ANY new work in for a month or so and spend the time catching up on the backlog.

Plan B will take us through Christmas and my usual two week break. This break is essential for family and recuperation reasons, and is non-negotiable! Plan B is also the ethically and professionally correct option!

At this point, three weeks or so out from Christmas, the likelihood of me getting any but the smallest jobs done before the break is pretty small.

As always I will give priority to those of you who are working musicians or students, but all (or most) of you should have back-up instruments.

So, for the most part, we are looking at early 2021 for most new bookings.

If you have repair work that you require then please call me. I will have some time available before Christmas, but it will be limited.

Hopefully 2021 will be a bit more regular, predictable, and “normal” than 2020!

Andrew

 

 

 

 

LITTLE WING

Hi,

here is a link to a YouTube clip my good friend Alex sent to me. He called it "Bird Song" (after the Grateful Dead tune) and suggested that it would paste well into a version of "Dark Star" (the legendary trippy Dead improvisation). He's right!

Other folk have responded to the clip on YouTube with their own ideas.

Either way, for any of us that have found regular electric guitar playing to have become somewhat predictable this may be a new inspiration...

It's an "art installation" by a chap that clearly has no shortage of imagination, and there are related clips on YouTube if you want to follow them up.

I might try this on my next album - the noisy miner birds around here will gang-up and attack anything!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=89Kz8Nxb-Bg        

   

 

 

Hi Everyone,

I’d like to give you a glimpse into Guitar Repair World from a personal perspective.

Today I lost one of my favourite customers. He died after a long illness.

He was pedantic to the point of obsessiveness about string-spacing at the nut, to the point that he bought a Stewmac Spacing-gauge so that we could talk on equal terms!

During the fifteen years that I knew him he must have bought at least thirty guitars, and brought them all into me to make new bone nuts according to his own specifications. Sometimes he’d come back the next day and ask me to cut a new nut with 0.020” difference between E strings.

He had a collection of various 000-size guitars (Martin, Larrivee, Mills, Fylde, Eastman etc.) that he was forever getting me to tweak and modify. Eventually I realised that he was hoping that I could somehow morph them all into one single guitar, presumably the guitar of his desires...

He was in my shop at least once a week, always with some almost, but also perhaps not quite, sensible idea about modification or about a possible new guitar that he sought my opinion on.

He was what almost every other business on Planet Earth would describe as a "pain in the proverbial", and would send the staff scattering to the tea room!

It was mainly a dialog thing - he spoke in riddles and aphorisms whilst I tried to converse in elementary physics, so there was always going to be some essential disjoint there. But we somehow, always seemed to reach some kind of understanding.

He was hard work, but good work! At some point in the weird dialog would find common ground! And, importantly, after I did what we agreed on, he would then enjoy playing his guitar.

Very eccentric, individual to the extreme, but he always laughed when I pointed out any possible folly that his ponderings had uncovered.

This is an obituary of sorts.

I miss him already.

Farewell my crazy friend.

EWAN JAMES R.I.P

 

 

 Hi Everyone,

ok, my shop is back "open" again after two weeks "closed" catching up on the backlog of repairs.

I caught up a lot in the last two weeks, but I've still got a way to go before I'm back up-to-date. I'm going to have to either slow down on new bookings, or advise a longer time-frame until completion for the next month or two.

I'm not going to compromise and try to rush through the work- this has never been my way. I will work through the jobs as methodically as I always have.

As always, if you need a repair to be completed by a particular date, for a gig or an exam or similar, then I will jump your guitar up the queue past the ones that I've been given an open time-frame for.

I'll try to call you regarding completed repairs, but I tend to do this in a batch at the end of the week. So if you haven't heard from me, and you're thinking about your guitar, please give me a call or send me an email.

It's an unprecedented time.

I think I've also figured out how to update my website's "Shop" page, thanks to instructions from my dear ex-website lady. So, with luck, in a day or two you  should be able to see my shop's inventory of very nice and interesting guitars for sale!

Keep well out there, be sensible and cautious, and keep on playing!

Andrew

Hi Everyone,

following up on my last post - I'm so busy that in fairness to those folk who already have an instrument booked in for repair, my shop will be closed this week and next so that I can catch up.

It's this COVID thing. When it kicked off in March/April a lot of people brought repairs in to me - a lot of them biggish jobs that the owners had been putting off for years (such as gigging musicians finally getting around to that refret, given that they were no longer gigging). Some folk brought in three or four guitars, saying "won't be needing these for a while".

 

The government at the time was hinting at a six-month lockdown so I took on everything I could, figuring that I'd need the work. But then they instead gave us these semi-lockdown conditions, and indoor activities (such as guitar-playing) have boomed. I'm getting people who haven't played in years getting back into it, and guitars that haven't been out of the attic for decades coming in for refurbishment. The government stimulus money seems to be part of it - I'm sure they're paying for more than a few Martin and Gibson restorations!

I'm always busy, but this thing has sent it ballistic. I know a lot of folk have been adversely affected by COVID, and it certainly makes me feel a bit weird to be busier than ever because of it, but I've seen lots of people re-inventing (or re-discovering) themselves because of the limitations imposed. Lots of people getting back into playing guitar! So in some ways it's been a good thing, albeit in a strange way.

So thanks for your patience. I'll be back to "normal" in a week or two, but will still have to book most repairs in on a longer turn-around time than usual until I get back up to date. 

Andrew