Bike Drive & Harp Guitar Ramble
Spring cleaning? Shovel that snow off your driveway and clear a path to that garage so you can do some spring cleaning in there! We are hosting Denver based Lucky To Ride again this Sunday for a Bike Drive. Bring in your old bicycles and donate them so that they can be up-cycled to urban kids in need of some two wheeled fresh air. These guys help Denver's kids thrive through adventures and lessons on mountain bikes.
Trung and his team will also be offering free tune ups and free beer to y'all who donate. This Sunday from noon to 4 at our Louisville shop.
A few years ago I was playing roadie and merch guy for Trace Bundy in Santa Monica at the legendary McCabe's Guitar Shop. Sometimes I follow Trace to cool places where he's playing gigs so I can drink free beer and eat free nachos back stage and pretend that I am his guitar tech. We also do coffee crawls and food tours together while we are at it and generally have a proper good time. At McCabe's I noticed this bizarre and gorgeous instrument on the wall, it was an old Gibson Harp Guitar. I'd seen Michael Hedges play one before and had always been fascinated by them since that time. That set me on a national search for one of these strange creatures. A few months ago I got a text from my pal James of Barton Springs Mill near Austin, TX... "1912 Gibson Harp Guitar on Austin Craigslist- you need this!" And you know I needed that guitar, all 16 strings of it. James connected me with the seller, and after a quick chat I was setting up a money wire to some random fella in Texas. I started to roll through my list of friends that might be up for meeting a stranger in a parking lot in Austin to retrieve an antique guitar for their pal in Boulder...and Diallo came to mind. I shot him a note and he kindly obliged. That next morning the dude dropped the guitar with Diallo. After the street transaction I got the phone call from Diallo "man, this thing is a work of art, a thing of beauty".
Diallo then promptly fell into a harp guitar rabbit hole for the next month as he played that old Gibson and discovered the history of the instrument and masters who play it over the years. He has since bought his own 1949 Polish harp guitar as well as an old 1920's Gibson arch top during that month.
Last week another Austin friend Dani had to make unexpected trip to Denver and offered to bring the guitar along for me as her "carry on". I was so excited to finally get this big beauty into my arms that I giddily thanked her and casually mentioned that Diallo reported the size of the guitar to justify it's own seat on the airplane if not maybe even more.... Dani picked the guitar up at his house and immediately called me to report her anxiety in having to haul an enormous vintage instrument across the country (the old leather case is sort of dissolving as well and the bottom of the case is open). So we bought a seat for big bertha on the Southwest flight next to Dani. Yesterday before take off I got a text that read: you owe me big time with the below photo attached (note seat belt extension LOL). I about peed my pants that she managed to wrangle this gigantic thing through the airport and was heading our way. So, thanks James and Diallo and Dani..... I think my plan all along has been to get it into Trace's hands to see what sort of magic he can ply from it's old bones. Stay tuned (after we tune all 16 strings) for more on that front....
Here's Michael Hedges performing at the Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia