Attended a clinic with Rob Chapman and Dave Hollingworth
Aug 14, 2017 16:35:28 GMT -5
Post by asb on Aug 14, 2017 16:35:28 GMT -5
Attended a clinic with internet guitar guy Rob Chapman and Dave Hollingworth at the newly opened Riff City Guitar in New Hope, Minnesota a suburb of Minneapolis.
It was highly entertaining and if he is doing something similar near you I suggest you go.
Interesting things were said regarding guitar endorsements among other things.
The funniest I think was that someone asked him if he felt weird about having his signature on the front of the headstock of all the guitars bearing his name - wasn't he worried about identity theft? He said that isn't his actual legal signature - he actually had to sit down at a table for an afternoon with a pen and piece of paper and come up with a plausibly legit signature that would look okay on the front of a guitar headstock - a harder task than it appears.
I asked how many Chapmans he has because he said that Gibson have sent him a Les Paul burst when he mentioned he always wanted one and that PRS sent him 3 ten top customs - both manufacturers more or less said "we know you have your own guitar company but when you're not playing your own brand of guitars we'd like it if you play ours too."
Something like that. He said he realizes he is an anomaly and extremely fortunate. It's all because he was in the right place at the right time and leveraged his personality into a social media thing. He formerly was an optometrist grinding lenses for eyeglasses and making them fit into frames. He did go to music school though so he's not completely ignorant of scales and modes though he had a funny story about that too.
He said 15 year old Rob would be freaked out by all the guitars he has - at home he currently has something like 85 Chapman guitars (warehoused mostly for shipment) but he actually has 15 examples of different models that are his alone and that he plays regularly on recordings, videos or gigs. He said that if he wants a guitar he actually has to pay his company for one just like you or me.
His signature model Victory tube amp sounded killer in person. He did admit he has a Kemper modeller but uses it mostly for studio recordings since he would feel weird gigging with it given he has a signature tube amp and bottom (and he does like them he admits).
He also said gigging with modelers for him doesn't work well because if he turns around and sees instead of an "amp like appliance" playing gnarly guitar sounds but sees a plastic box with lights there is something wrong visually that interferes with his ability to play well. For him it has to look like an amp to actually be an amp I guess.
A lot of people asked him questions I wasn't sure he was going to answer and he really did answer them all. He actually helped some guy configure a chapman guitar he bought a while back to play better, I thought that was cool.
It was highly entertaining and if he is doing something similar near you I suggest you go.
Interesting things were said regarding guitar endorsements among other things.
The funniest I think was that someone asked him if he felt weird about having his signature on the front of the headstock of all the guitars bearing his name - wasn't he worried about identity theft? He said that isn't his actual legal signature - he actually had to sit down at a table for an afternoon with a pen and piece of paper and come up with a plausibly legit signature that would look okay on the front of a guitar headstock - a harder task than it appears.
I asked how many Chapmans he has because he said that Gibson have sent him a Les Paul burst when he mentioned he always wanted one and that PRS sent him 3 ten top customs - both manufacturers more or less said "we know you have your own guitar company but when you're not playing your own brand of guitars we'd like it if you play ours too."
Something like that. He said he realizes he is an anomaly and extremely fortunate. It's all because he was in the right place at the right time and leveraged his personality into a social media thing. He formerly was an optometrist grinding lenses for eyeglasses and making them fit into frames. He did go to music school though so he's not completely ignorant of scales and modes though he had a funny story about that too.
He said 15 year old Rob would be freaked out by all the guitars he has - at home he currently has something like 85 Chapman guitars (warehoused mostly for shipment) but he actually has 15 examples of different models that are his alone and that he plays regularly on recordings, videos or gigs. He said that if he wants a guitar he actually has to pay his company for one just like you or me.
His signature model Victory tube amp sounded killer in person. He did admit he has a Kemper modeller but uses it mostly for studio recordings since he would feel weird gigging with it given he has a signature tube amp and bottom (and he does like them he admits).
He also said gigging with modelers for him doesn't work well because if he turns around and sees instead of an "amp like appliance" playing gnarly guitar sounds but sees a plastic box with lights there is something wrong visually that interferes with his ability to play well. For him it has to look like an amp to actually be an amp I guess.
A lot of people asked him questions I wasn't sure he was going to answer and he really did answer them all. He actually helped some guy configure a chapman guitar he bought a while back to play better, I thought that was cool.
