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Mandolin Cafe Blog

Official blog of the Mandolin Cafe

  1. Dear Southwest Airlines. About That Guitar...

    Never, never, never throw a guitar case. Ever.

    It wasn't mine. I wished I'd been filming it, because what I saw made me damn angry, and had I been filming it'd be on YouTube already.

    The details:

    Flight 614 out of Kansas City, MO to Nashville arriving 11:10 a.m. this past Monday. I'm seated behind the wing with a direct view of the baggage/luggage being unloaded. My friend Glenn Bradford and I have arrived in Nashville for a couple of days of vintage ...

    Updated Feb-20-2014 at 10:15am by Scott Tichenor

    Categories
    General Mandolin Comments
  2. Status of the Mandolin Cafe Ball Cap

    A quick update on the status of the Mandolin Cafe ball caps we offer from time to time. We'd been telling people January, 2014 but missed the deadline and then some.

    First, we decided to move on from our previous supplier for reasons that don't need to be discussed. That meant a new stitching template from scratch and locating a new source of raw product (hats). We were looking for better quality, more appropriate size (there were issues with the last 2013 batch running small), and ...
  3. Mandolin News that didn't make the Cafe home page

    Some news or information just doesn't hit the Cafe home page and of late there's been a fair amount worth sharing. With a hot cup of java in hand and the current temperature 8 degrees, here's our shot on a Friday that might interest you:

    If you're on Twitter you may have noticed someone promoting the hell out of Avi Avital's Between Worlds. How many of these promoted tweets have we seen? More than we can count. Assume Deutsche Grammophon is funding this (we'll watch more closely ...

    Updated Feb-07-2014 at 2:38pm by Scott Tichenor

    Categories
    General Mandolin Comments
  4. Is 2014 The Year of the Mandolin in Classical Music?

    We howled with approval when UK-based author, novelist, broadcaster, cultural commentator Norman Lebrecht observed on his popular blog that 2014 could be The Year of the Mandolin in classical music.

    inline imageHe might be onto something, and he's clearly no stranger to the instrument.

    "Classical music needs new voices. In 2014, the big noise could well be the mandolin," he wrote, posting links to ...

    Updated Dec-22-2014 at 10:25am by Scott Tichenor (correcting some broken links)

    Categories
    General Mandolin Comments
  5. Mandolin Cafe 2013 In Review

    January - Gruhn Guitars of Nashville announced they were moving out of their famed downtown Nashville location, a change that would eventually involve long-time mainstays Walter and Christie Carter leaving and opening Carter Vintage Guitars in direct competition with their previous employer.

    inline imageWe celebrated the three Grammy nominations for our friends in the Modern Mandolin Quartet and their groundbreaking recording Americana ...

    Updated Dec-16-2013 at 2:49pm by Scott Tichenor

    Categories
    General Mandolin Comments
  6. You've Got Mail!

    Looking to increase your knowledge of what's out there in the retail arena in the stringed instrument community? Ever wonder why we have access to a lot of information you read about here first? Do what we do and subscribe to the e-mailing lists of some of the top vendors in the industry. Most of these are infrequent with a weekly mailing being about as aggressive as they get. All have an opt-out link (or should!) in case it becomes too much for you.

    Here's who we keep on top of and ...

    Updated Oct-30-2013 at 12:54pm by Scott Tichenor

    Categories
    General Mandolin Comments
  7. Why is my picture turned sideways?

    Ever wonder why some images uploaded to the web appear sideways, clearly not as intended? That picture of the instrument you wanted to sell, you were so proud of the photo and it looked great and suddenly it's on the Classifieds or the Forum, or on Facebook or elsewhere and... "wait, that's not right! That's not the way my picture is supposed to look! Who rotated it?"

    Example from our Classifieds:

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	imagerotation.jpg 
Views:	2234 
Size:	92.0 KB 
ID:	107730

    Here's the problem: it's ...

    Updated Oct-07-2013 at 8:53am by Scott Tichenor

    Categories
    Mandolin Cafe Site Information
  8. Three Things We'd Like To See for the Mandolin Community

    No harm done in wondering how things could be improved in our little corner of the stringed instrument world. Here are three scenarios we'd like to see.

    1) An abbreviated mandolin line from the C.F. Martin company.

    No, it's not an April Fool's subject. Isn't it time for another U.S. based company to step up and be great, and what better choice than the legendary Martin? No need to engage in model sprawl (hint, hint, your guitars, Martin). Gibson? Sadly, limited to ...

    Updated Oct-12-2013 at 8:32am by Scott Tichenor

    Categories
    General Mandolin Comments
  9. What didn't make the Cafe's April Fool's cut

    OK, so The Onion probably won't be hiring us, but that doesn't mean we didn't have some fun. Some of the ideas we had that didn't make the final cut, left here for inspiration for 2014. So many ideas, only one April 1.

    North Korea/U.S. tension subsides after Dennis Rodman delivers Deering Good Times 5-String banjo and copy of Mel Bay's Getting into Bluegrass Banjo to Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un. If ever there were two oddballs begging to be Photoshopped together with a banjo... ...
    Categories
    Uncategorized
  10. Mandolin Cafe 2012 In Review

    January - No surprise here as industry sales analysts announced that digital sales topped physical sales of music for the first time in history.

    inline imageMatt Flinner Trio released Winter Harvest on Compass Records. Matt is someone always working but not always on the press radar. One of the really important jobs he performed in 2012 we'd like to highlight was his work as a proof-reader for Don Julin's blockbuster Mandolin For Dummiess. ...

    Updated Dec-12-2012 at 7:16am by Scott Tichenor

    Categories
    Mandolin Cafe Site Information
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