It was announced Tuesday that Best Buy, your big box destination for DVDs, crappy CDs and home electronics, will soon be selling guitars, drums, amplifiers and other musical accouterments…you know, things young people used to care  about. I personally don’t see myself buying some shitty Jay Turser SG knockoff from a guy in khaki slacks and royal blue collared shirt, but hey, I’m probably not their target audience (which is presumably kids coming into the store with their moms and all of a sudden deciding that they want a Fender Strat instead of whatever video game they were initially after).  Guitar Center is probably really, really stoked at this announcement.

From the Associated Press:

The nation’s largest consumer electronics retailer will announce Tuesday that it plans to open as many as 85 of the music centers inside its stores by the end of the year and could add even more locations in the future, executives told The Associated Press.

Each site will use about 2,500 square feet of retail space and include roughly 1,000 different products with well-known brand names such as Fender, Gibson, Drum Workshop and Roland.

“We’re not just extending the shelf space in the store, we’re creating a designated area specifically for this experience,” said Kevin Balon, the company’s vice president of musical instruments. “And we’re trying to create an authentic and genuine musical instrument store look and feel inside of Best Buy.”

For the guitar geeks out there, this one is a treat: Fender is announcing a September 22nd release date for Pink Floyd’s axeman David Gilmour’s signature Stratocaster. The original guitar which is being reproduced, the legendary ‘Black Strat’, has been used heavily on classics like Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall. The original has been heavily modded since its original purchase by Gilmour in 1970, and the re-release is set to contain reproductions of all the upgrades. The press release is kind of TL;DR, but I’m stoked on it so I’mma post it in full.

For many years, guitarists have clamored for and indulged in much wishful thinking about one guitar in particular—a David Gilmour signature model Stratocaster® based on Gilmour’s famous “Black Strat.” They’re about to get their wish.

In a most eagerly awaited musical event, the Fender Custom Shop and Gilmour will at last make available just such an instrument on Sept. 22, 2008—the David Gilmour Signature Series Stratocaster® guitar—which coincides with the release of Gilmour’s three-disc Live in Gdansk CD/DVD set. The instrument is based on Gilmour’s beloved Black Strat and was created by Fender Custom Shop craftsmen to mirror the look, sound and feel of the original instrument.

Gilmour’s original black Stratocaster has become the stuff of legend among guitarists and discerning Pink Floyd fans. Heavily modified and experimented on over the decades—often by Gilmour himself—the guitar became a cornerstone of Pink Floyd’s surreally psychedelic sound as soon as Gilmour got it, and it was featured prominently on seminal chart-topping albums such as The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977) and The Wall (1979), in addition to Gilmour’s acclaimed solo albums David Gilmour (1978), About Face (1983) and On An Island (2006).

Gilmour bought the stock original at Manny’s Music in New York in May 1970, in time to use it on Pink Floyd’s fifth album, Atom Heart Mother. It quickly became his main guitar onstage and in the studio, and, famously, he and longtime guitar tech Phil Taylor were constantly modifying it and experimenting with its neck, hardware and electronics. The black guitar acquired a black pickguard in summer 1974, thus assuming its darkest and most famous incarnation, plus an enduring nickname—the Black Strat.

The Fender Custom Shop worked closely with Gilmour and Taylor in recreating the Black Strat as the new David Gilmour Signature Series Stratocaster guitar. Main features include an alder body, black over Three-color Sunburst finish, a black pickguard, a one-piece straight-grain maple neck, custom pickups and electronics, and a shortened vintage tremolo arm. The guitar will be available in N.O.S. (new old stock) and Relic® treatments.

Further, the guitar comes with a custom case, an Evidence high-end guitar cable, the Live in Gdansk CD/DVD set and Taylor’s 2007 book about the guitar’s history, The Black Strat. The first 500 sold in either finish option will include a limited edition copy of The Black Strat autographed by Taylor.

Anyone who read my last post about this knows exactly how I feel about stolen band gear and what I think should happen to the culprits. Jodi Hates The World, whose music I didn’t really like at first, but has since grown on me (think Jane’s Addiction meets the Smashing Pumpkins), recently got their tour van stolen in Oakland, CA. If you frequent pawn shops and seedy neighborhoods, be on the lookout for this stuff:

1994 Doge ram 1500 17 passenger van WA lic 808 SVT

1976 black Gibson Les Paul Custom

Worn finish on neck, star decals, ink drawn “SAI” on back of body where finish has worn off..a big ding right behind the tailpiece…it’s hard to miss this guitar….serial number starts with 001…will get the rest as soon as I locate it

1979 Natural Finish Gibson “The Paul”
Large Chip in headstock. Charlie Brown decal on body..if you look close at the headstock you can see where someone had placed some little heart stickers under the Gibson logo….lots of wear just under the pickups, and where your arm would rest on top of the body…..again, pretty hard to miss…

1970’s Fender Bassman 100 Amplifier (master volume)
Blue powerlight, post-factory power cord with a big yellow plug, hum balance pot has been removed from the back of the amp..has an airplane decal with JHW on it just under the power light…also the faceplate is a little dented under the power light

1990’s Fender Tonemaster 4×12 Speaker enclosure
Lots of duct tape over torn tolex cover.
“JHW” stenciled on the side..it has also been modded to run on 4 ohms instead of 8….

90’s six string Ibanez bass guitar
SR series maple wood body, light brown/tan finish

2003/04 six string Ibanez bass guitar
SR series, mahogany wood body, dark brown finish

3 blue Garcia custom drums (seattle drum shop. jerry garcia. hard to miss)
18×22, 16×20, 18×16

1 Mac Book (white)

2 cymbal bags
1 large black case of drum hardware
1 Kepplinger custom steel snare (holy shit these are amazing snares)
1 Fender Roc Pro 1000 amplifier
1 Marshall 2×12 speaker enclosure

::PEDALS::

2 Boss DS-1 distortion
1 Boss GE-2 qualizer
1 Ibanez Toneloc Phaser
1 Boss DF-2 Distortion/Feedbacker
2 Digitech PDS1002 2 second delay samplers/didital delay…pretty rare to find…one of them has some scorching around the power jack
2 Digitech XP-100 Whammy-wah(both have JHW printed on them)
1 Digitech XP-300 Space station(has Jodi Hates the world printed on it)
1 DOD analog delay..missing the battery cover
1 Electro-Harmonics “Holy Grail” reverb
1 Boss RC-20 Loop Station
1 Boss Tu-2 Tuner
1 Boss flanger (80’s, made in Japan chipped paint…REALLy rare to find nowadays)
1 line 6 delay modeler
1 ART A/B/Y footswitch
1 Hartke head HA5000
1 Hartke cabinet 15xL
1 Hartke cabinet 4.5xL
1 Boss bass overdrive pedal (yellow)
1 Boss DD 3 digital delay pedal (white)
1 Ibanez Toneloc bass distortion pedal (grey)
1 Ibanez Toneloc bass synth pedal (grey)
1 Boss bass pre-amp multi effects
processor (red)(GT6B)
1 BossRC 20XL loop station (red)
2 Shure microphone SM58

Please anyone call me if you hear anything.
CHRIS VANDEBROOKE
415-336-2698
CARGO@EMOCORE.COM