Can’t believe it’s here but it is, and I welcome it as I embrace any new stretch of highway somehow there before me. You might say “Well, that’s what happens.” No, not always – and even those of us who make it this far don’t always embrace it. So here we are at mile marker two-zero-one-six, and it’s clear to put the hammer down and cover some ground. On behalf of the hands at Birdsong (and everything else we’re up to here at the Wingfeather Workshop), we’re so glad you’re here with us – all the best to you for the new year!
Those of you who have been on the ride with us a while know the beginning of the year brings site updates & shuffling around. You’ll notice some of this in the next couple of weeks. One of the main things will be I’m putting the Cbass back on the menu. What’s a Cbass? The best of a Pbass and the best of a Birdsong Cortobass in one delicious little morsel. It was really close when we first did it a few years back, but I tweaked the recipe and it’s going on the menu for 2016.
The main menu of what we offer is for our standard models – Cortobasses, the Fusion, Sadhana… and I’m always coming up with interesting variations and models to introduce, some which become regular builds and others which we build a handful of. Which is fine – we’re a workshop not a factory. It took us ten years to build our first six hundred instruments; that’s a day’s production in a big factory! So I love the variations, I love the lower-number builds, I love that a few will find their answer – their voice – in those. So to still offer a selection of those (and give you “Special Order Custom” folks plenty of ideas for your combination) the main stuff will show first and there will be a link to MORE MODELS. I’ll shuffle a few things around to make some main menu room.
I’m back in the shop early this year, there’s so much to do and I’m so looking forward to all the fun that’ll be working its way across the benches as the year rolls on. The workshop looks like some built a bunch of stuff in here last year and barely cleaned… so first order of biz has been organizing, both the piles of work in their various current forms of order sheets and planks and blanks and a few bodies to edge for routing, and sweeping up a bit. Clearing the surfaces. I already snuck in a good wood shopping trip this week and have plenty of maple, mahogany, walnut, poplar, Spanish cedar, and zebrawood for your basses-to-come (and a few surprises, and a handful of inventory builds). By this time next week we’ll be in full swing. As always, thank you for your patience with our home cookin’; we’ll make sure it’s well worth the wait.
On the side of Birdsong, there will be big tweaks & revisions in the SD Curlee line, some exciting little Texas lap steels, and a couple of D’AQUILA fancy “art deco” instruments are in process, all of which will be showing up on those pages (look in “Other” up top) very soon… along with some surprises in INVENTORY. So! You see, lots of fun going on, lots of things happening. Got to go do a layer on a list – we love you. Next week I’ll talk about some of the music of the past few weeks, including some of my own.
Stay tuned, play nice & here’s to seeding the garden of 2016 with music. I’m in for my part!
Listening to: Joe Pass, Motorhead (RIP Lemmy), chants from India… you know, the usual. More next Friday…