The 2010 Brookdale Guitar Show

Well the show is over and everybody has packed up and gone home.

It was an interesting day. This morning I was running a bit late because I was editing some video from a DVD that Larry had sent me featuring an interview he'd done for local access TV up in New England... a show called "Far And Wide" with host Dave Davis. I was glad that I had spent the time because it ended up being a very helpful tool during the day to show people more about the "leather guitar" and how it and it's other family members came to be.

After hurriedly setting up my table with the Rue Du Royale on a stand, Atelier Du EL Welker literature, my business cards, my MacBook Pro with the QuickTime video I'd prepared, and a pair of powered speakers(which turned out to be necessary equipment due to the oftentimes high noise level on the show floor), I was ready to go.

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First person to stop by was Chris Buono, who I'd met a couple months previously at a local Ableton Live user group gathering at the Downtown in Red Bank. At that time I'd mentioned I'd be attending the show with the Rue and now he had a chance to see and play it for a bit. He was slated to do a couple of clinics today, so he headed off after trying out the guitar and chatting a bit.

By now the show floor was open and the room quickly filled with guitar enthusiasts:

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Quite a few people stopped by to see... and talk, often at length, about the Rue. It's unusual look made a few people do double-takes. As I mentioned earlier the video was a huge help. Using iMovie '09, I had put chapter markers into it which allowed me to skip rapidly around rather than trying to scroll through a DVD, which more often than not is frustrating... and would have been even more so in a situation like this.

My iPhone rang and it was my friend Barbara, Brookdale colleague and vocalist for the Brookdale Big Band, who was going to sit with me and was also bringing a couple of five-string bass guitars to sell, a Pedulla Thunderbolt and an Ernie Ball Music Man Sting Ray 5 from a collection of equipment that I had been working at selling for her due to some difficult circumstances. We finally found each other and realized that we had no stands for the basses. What better place to buy a guitar stand than at a guitar show?

Happily the Sting Ray 5 did sell, leaving the Pedulla to keep the Rue company.

On the left in the above picture is Jimmy, one of our booth mates. He had been checking out the Rue during the day and I eventually handed it to him to take it for a spin:

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Was a little difficult to hear it unamplified, but we made a note to try it out later plugged into an amp. The video was very helpful in giving an impression of the Rue's tone, as one of the segments was of Larry playing the Rue's close cousin.


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This dude(Alvin Harrison) had a couple of SICK basses he built. When he had first stopped at the booth he really seemed to be into the video I was showing. He was checking out Larry's shop's wide assortment of wood and metalworking tools and the best words I can think of is looking transfixed! When he took his basses out, all you could say was WHOA!!! This bass was done in a snake motif, with a snake head with a working mouth and flashing red LED eyes on the headstock.


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Later on in the day when the show started to wind down(along with the noise level), Jimmy plugged the Rue into that little amp down in the corner. Initially the tone was crunchier, more of a rock sound, but I think it was a hint of the versatility of the Rue when electrified. Jimmy mellowed the tone and brought the guitar to life!


It was time to pack up and head to Valentine's Day dinner but on the way out I ran into Stu Coogan who is one of the on-air staff at WBJB. I'd been promising him a crack at the Rue and off he went:


I got the impression that he liked it...

All in all there was a lot of interest in the guitar. A lot of people really appreciated the video which offered a closer look at the work Larry and his staff put into their guitars... and I appreciated it because it made my job easier.

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EL Welker Guitars

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