Guitar Pedal X Merch Store Launching Soon-ish!
Avid readers will have noted that my Custom Hawk ToneBird 7 Jazz III Picks have already landed. In fact I’ve handed out a fair few to some lucky souls at the last 2 events I attended - Kempton Park, and the Witney Pedal Party 2. Pictured above is the actual first sample of my X-branded trucker cap - and I must say it looks very decent up close.
The above visual is a picture of the first sample hat - from when I first unboxed it - colours / textures highly accurate to real thing!
I’ve been wearing it since it arrived on Friday - and it’s turned out pretty much exactly as I wanted it to. Actually - I wanted the logo to be a little bigger - but as with everything there are practical manufacturing limits which typically require some final tweaks to designs.
Further details of the hat below. I’m ordering in a reasonable quantity of these as several people have already requested one - and I will have some sort of Merch Storefront in place on the site right at the start of next year!
The hat is specifically a Yupoong FlexFit Trucker Cap - with one-size-fits-all snapback fastening.
It is made in Bangladesh for FF Headwear Europe GmbH of Germany, with the front, peak and trimmings made of 60% Cotton / 40% Polyester, while the rear Mesh is 100% Polyester.
Really high quality, well-made and most importantly good looking and comfortable hat with pretty immaculate finishing - custom embroidered and supplied by Design By Creative in Taunton - funnily enough where I attended secondary school!
I've still to work out a final pricing for these - more will be revealed soon.
This will be part of the 'uniform' that I wear at forthcoming shows and events - to make myself more easily identifiable - as some people still find it hard to pick me out in crowd!
I get a sort of 1989 Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation feel / vibe when sporting the hat! Which is all good for me!
The perfect hat for hair-taming purposes,and musicians, truckers and golfers everywhere!
Note that as with most hats of this nature - these cannot be washed in the regular way - you need to deploy lightly damp sponge, rubbing alcohol and similar to remove marks and grime. Cannot be dry-cleaned or washed in any conventional sense - more like brushed and wiped clean - but very delicately so!
I thought I should probably post a photo of me in said hat - apologies that it's a Monday morning one - and I'm not at my best - but the hat looks good though!
Custom GPX Hawk ToneBird 7 Jazz III Engraved Casein Picks
Readers should have picked up by now that my Custom GPX Picks have landed and are in decent circulation following the Kempton Park and Witney Pedal Party events.
I ordered an initial quantity of 50 - and about half of those are still remaining. Where they will go on the store for £12 each - the exact same price as the standard editions from Hawk Picks.
As it states in the visual these are 1.4mm thick Jazz III ToneBird 7's with a standard bevel - made of a 60's thermoplastic called Casein / Galaith - and which is derived from milk proteins in part.
Rob at Hawk Picks | www.instagram.com/hawkpicks/ - did a truly magnificent job on these. Of course fully hand-made and finished in Leyland, Lancashire, UK.
They really look amazing up close and personal as you can see from these 2 pictures - taken from Rob's Hawk Picks Instagram Page.
Further zoomed-in!
T-Shirt Rough Ideas
I've been working on the T-Shirt ideas for a while - where the initial two 'Pedal Guru' and 'Pedal Wrangler' prototypes did not go down so well - so I've gone back to the drawing board to put some further ideas together.
Where the aim is to make most of these available on a Print Farm - most likely CreatorSpring - but still considering Printify and Shopify too among others. If anyone has some insights / recommendations on those please let me know!
The purpose of the t-shirts is 2-fold really - for me to have an easily identifiable uniform when I attend shows and events - Hat + Shirt - but also obviously from the community / tribe perspective - where I touch on various motifs related to GPX and Pedals in general - alongside some more personal designs.
I will be doing at least one of these as an embroidered design for me to wear at shows - most likely the 'Noisemaker' one which is usually what I describe myself as. I also really like the 'Gainiac' one currently - while the (X) treatment/s and text may change. Once I decide which varieties to proceed with - I will hand over to my designer for refinements!
These are all just my own 'scamps' currently - just rough drafts really - partly for myself and partly for you - to see what gels!
On this first visual we have :
- noisemaker
- stomper (Box-Stomper / StompBoxer!)
- gainiac (Gain-Maniac portmanteau - also 12 degrees of saturation)
- 12 degrees (of saturation)
The rationale for the above 4 designs is as follows :
- goes to 12 (12 degrees of saturation / Spinal Tap+1)
- air supply (pushing air!)
- sustainer (effect and attribute)
- agitator (punk attitude!)
The rationale for the above 4 designs is as follows :
- BOSSTONE (Conflation of Boss-Tone and Jordan BossTone - with a close-ish font)
- pathfinder (signal path finder - creative pedal positioning!)
- 12 degrees (of saturation)
- 12 degrees (of saturation)
The rationale for the above 4 designs is as follows :
Note that 3 of these are based on associated Red, White and Blue Flags
- íslander [note accent on í] (conflation of islander and Ísland (Iceland in Icelandic)
- united (kingdom)
- united (states)
- pedal fiend / fuzz fiend
To those that don't know I'm half English / half Icelandic as the hybrid offspring of an English Mother and Icelandic Father. Born and bred in Iceland for the first 10 years of life, and then displaced to boarding school in England at age 10 - where I have thus far remained!
I'm sometimes referred to as a pedal guru or fuzz king and similar - which are all far too grandiose really - when someone calls me a Fuzz King - I typically say - more fuzz-fiend! Sort of tongue-in-cheek to a degree.
These designs will evolved and for sure we will have further deviations and variations along the ways - many won't make it into production one way or another - I like to let things stew for a while - before I decide what's in and what's out.
Note that once I'm decided on the designs I will probably do versions / variations on grey and dark-red tees too - all in good time! May add dark navy too at some stage!
Your own thoughts and suggestions are of course very welcome ...
