Wow, wow, wow! The Tode Hop last night was really hoppin'! The Bainbridge Island Brewery was packed with around 75 super enthused guitar music lovers. Twelve brave souls stepped up, plugged in and played like their life depended on it. Each player got a minute or two of coaching about the amp's controls and then played for three minutes, under the pressure of a giant stopwatch running on one of the brewery's big flat panel TVs. We heard some really sweet playing that left me wishing we could have given away ten Todes last night. But this was a contest where ten guitarists enter and one guitarist leaves, with a big box of parts.
In the spirit of the Hop the Brewery opened a cask of their special Bainbridge Bitter, a brew made with hops they grew right there at the brewery this year - YUM! Thanks so much to Chuck, Russell, Julia and the great crew at the Brewery for such awesome beer and great service! I can't think of a better neighbor to have as the official Bottlehead annex and watering hole.
OK, back to our story. Twelve players played. Twelve players were lined up, and I used my handy old sound level meter as an applause meter to let the audience judge the contest old school. And we had a three way tie at 107dB! No way out but a playoff. The three men standing turned it to 11 and played like they were possessed. Another round of cheering, and the winner won - by just a single dB over the other two players, at 112! Yeow, what an audience! That's almost as loud as a Tode can play thru a 4x12 stack!
Congrats to Brian Feldtman, the winner of the first (hopefully annual) Bottlehead Tode Hop! Brian walked away with the big box, and our two runners up walked away with growlers of Bainbridge Bitter, complements of the Brewery. Congrats to everyone who participated, you are all gutsy individuals who played with passion. And thanks so much to everyone who came to support the event, in particular thanks to my bud Mino Christante who worked hard to spread the word to a lot of the local guitar talent. Mino's reward for his efforts was to get to wear my Stetson fedora and some Wayfarers for his performance.
I just had the most ass kicking time last night. We ended up opening the shop after the show for a few visitors and thus we rolled into bed last night around midnight. I'm still working on my first coffee, but I will check when I get into the office to see if the video I shot last night came out. If it did I'll put up a little sampler of some of last night's hottest licks.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2012, 10:26:16 AM by Doc B. »
Dan "Doc B." Schmalle
President For Life
Bottlehead Corp.
