Fresh Peanut Butter

I love opening new jars of peanut butter. Some normally dormant region in the depths of my psyche jumps for joy whenever I am lucky enough to behold the pristine and untainted surface that only a fresh jar of peanut butter can provide. Even though I know the perfection will be lost the instant I break the surface with a knife, that ever so brief moment before is pure bliss. Whatever psychological quirk I posses that leads to such a love reached hitherto unimaginable heights last Friday night when we opened a big jar. Instead of peanut butter though, it was a workshop. That's right, our blogging delinquency can be fully explained by the fact that the shop is done(ish)! Despite a few minor details still to be worked out, we are essentially up and running and back in the business of building guitars! To celebrate this momentous occasion (and because we like throwing killer parties) we held our first shop concert a little over a week ago with great success.

With a variety of guitars being made in the shop, we thought it would be appropriate to have the music reflect that diversity. To start the night, classical guitarist Oscar Salazar Varela performed a great set playing on one of Jeremy's guitars. Despite having cut his thumb earlier in the day, Oscar did an incredible job and clearly impressed the crowd.

It's always a little bit of a thrill to see a great guitar player play an instrument you've made, but when the next performer Mike O'Brien started playing Doc Watson and Leo Kottke tunes on my guitar, I was in seventh heaven. He had a great line in the middle of his set when he switched to one of Jeremy's instruments for a few songs. After he picked up and strummed the guitar a few times he said, "Wow -- I feel like I just sat down on an $8,000 couch."

All in all the night was a resounding success. Our current plan is to hold a similar concert on the first Friday of every month and next time I won't leave my camera charging in the dust room for the entire night...