Thanks Danita!

We spent the first few months finishing “Paradise Is Free,” our fourth CD and the first of all original music. The project took eight months and is, [...]]]> Despite the economy, H1N1, the loss of Les Paul and all the other dreadful news of the year, 2009 was actually a great year for The Fabulous Po’ Boys.

We spent the first few months finishing “Paradise Is Free,” our fourth CD and the first of all original music. The project took eight months and is, in our opinion, the best CD we’ve produced.

We’ve broaden the electronic distribution of it to include iTunes (U.S., Canada, U.K/Europe, Australia/New Zealand, Japan), Rhapsody, Napster, eMusic, IMVU, Amazon MP3, Lala, Shockhound, Amie Street and LimeWire Store.

We’re also being played on Jango AirPlay, so we’re being heard all over the world. We have Jango fans in China, Canada, Peru, The Bahamas, Egypt, Ireland . . . It’s great being able to get our music out there.

And the reception to “Paradise Is Free” has been very gratifying (thank you all so much).

This has also been a great year for live performances.

We started the year with a private holiday party for Lighting Group NW and kicked off the summer season with a return to Ronna and Steve’s party in Gig Harbor (always a great time — thanks for having us back). We also returned to the FareStart holiday party in December for our fourth year (thanks Megan).

We performed at several farmers’ markets around the area: Juanita Beach, Des Moines and Puyallup, and returned to the Magnolia Summerfest for our third year. Kent Station had us perform for their summer music series and we played our first winery gig (something we’ve been trying to do for a long time) at Vin du Lac in Chelan.

We think the average temperature for our outdoor gigs was 85 degrees, but we loved every one of them and hope to get invited back in 2010.

In the last four months of the year, we found a home base at Vino Bello, a perfect wine bar/wine store in the heart of Burien. We been there six times this year and are booked through March there in 2010. Michelle and her crew are perfect and it’s nice to have a place to try out new songs and get together with friends regularly.

In 2010, look for more of the same and we’ll be starting work on our next CD that should be done early in 2011.

Thank you to everyone who supports our little endeavor. This is a effort of love for us and something that really fills our souls. (And as we always say, it’s cheaper than therapy.)

Happy holidays to all and here’s to a fabulous 2010.

You can also listen to all our original tunes on Jango.

and from “A Feast For Your Ears, Vol II”

are available for download on iTunes.

Looking back on [...]]]>

If someone would have asked me 10 years ago what kind of musical equipment I use, theanswer would have been “I’m a Fender guy.” And while that would have been an honest answer (and I do love and own Fender guitars and basses), a more accurate answer would be “I’m a Carvin guy.”

Looking back on all the years of playing professionally, I have used more Carvin products than any other manufacturer.

My first Carvin was a sweet, blonde maple CM95 guitar. I was playing in my first post-high school band, Banana, still playing my very first electric guitar. Chuck, our lead guitarist in the band, gave me a Carvin catalog and said the company made really great stuff for cheap. I loved the look of the CM95 and decided it was worth the risk of buying from a mail order company I had never heard of.

When it arrived I couldn’t believe the quality of the guitar. The action was so beautifully low; I just loved it. Within a year, I also bought a Carvin ML212 guitar amp (like a Fender Twin Reverb, except solid-state).

I played it through my band, Alki (that’s us, left, in Bellingham, Washington. Gotta love the shirt!). That guitar and amp travelled all over the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. They were thrown on airplanes and bounced around the back of trucks with never a problem. (The guitar — in its case, luckily — was dosed with a huge bucket of beer in Boise with no serious consequences, too).

With that band, I was starting to play more bass than guitar and bought an SB60 bass. (That’s Alki playing on Alki Beach in Seattle — our namesake) Blonde maple again and a nice bass with a very thin neck. It played well, but never had quite the punch I got with the Fender Precision I bought later. (I think Carvin’s basses now sound great.)

After several years of not using Carvin equipment, I bought a Red Line series bass amp, which is nice and compact and really booms when I need it to.

When the Po’ Boys started playing again, we bought a small PA410 Carvin sound system, which a very helpful person at Carvin made sure got to us before our first gig.

With the band playing such a wide range of music, I was really itching for something more versatile than the Fender Telecaster I was playing. After weeks of research I decided on a Carvin TL60.

The TL60

This was my first guitar through Carvin’s custom shop and it was quite an experience. So many options! I knew one right off — the Fishman acoustic bridge pickup. The rest (again) a helpful Carvin person walked me through until I had the guitar I wanted.

Now the wait (Mr. Instant Gratification hates waiting for anything).

Eight weeks to the day of ordering it, the guitar arrived. It is simply one of the most beautiful guitars I have ever seen. And the attention to detail is amazing. The through the body neck is such an elegant touch and makes playing high up a pleasure. The action, as always, is perfect — a real Carvin trademark.

Even little things like the convenient little door for the battery in the back (versus having to unscrew the entire back plate like you have to on other guitars). The tuning machines are amazing. This is the easiest guitar to change strings on and it stays in tune very well.

It’s the versatility that I really love. Between the Fishman pickup and the active humbuckers, the TL60 does it all. This is the guitar I wish I had all those years of mic’ing an acoustic guitar.

This is not a great guitar for the price; it’s just a great guitar period. And as I continue to compare, Carvin equipment is consistently the best buy you can get in professional, reliable gear.

And now we’ve supplemented our Carvin gear with a new monitor system (DCM150 amp and two PB5-B speakers) and my SX300R pre-amp. We must be stopped!

The AC375

The latest chapter in my Carvin lovefest is my AC375 acoustic guitar with a Fishman Prefix Pro acoustic pickup. Another very-impatient eight week wait, but well worth it. Right out of the box, the guitar was perfect — and perfectly in tune (how do they do that?). Phenomenal action, gorgeous wood and inlays on the neck. It sounds good as an acoustic, but is stunning through an amp. Perfect.

So a big thank you from me to Carvin for doing such a great job for so many years.

Warren’s Carvin Gear History:

• 1973: CM95 electric guitar
• 1974: ML212 guitar amp
• 1976: SB60 electric bass guitar
• 1999: R600 bass amp
• 2004: PA410 sound system
• 2004: TL60 electric guitar
• 2005: DCM150 amp and two PB5-B speakers
• 2006: SX300R pre-amp
• 2006: PA620 sound system
• 2006: AC375 acoustic guitar
• 2006: PB100-15 bass amp
• 2008: DCM 600 Power Amp
• 2008: c844U Mixer
• 2009: AC120S AC Power Conditioner
• 2009: EM900 960-Channel Wireless In-Ear Personal Monitor System
• 2010: EM-DR rack mount for the EM900