The past several days have been full of musical activity wrapped around a wicked late summer cold that knocked me down for a couple of days with lingering effects. Mostly back to normal now.

I received the Fernandes fretless on Friday and managed to get in a couple of hours of quality time with the instrument. The glass fretboard is amazing to work with and the Sustainer System on a fretless is sheer genius. I am amazed at how playing the instrument is different than my Pearl River fretless; a startling lack of visual guides across the fretboard changes the game a bit more. Expect to hear both instruments all over the next release.

I've also been working on Steve Ball's The Airport Exercise, a beautiful piece of music. The song is in NST and also serves as an exercise for both the left and right hand for my Guitar Craft work. One could spend the rest of one's life seeking perfection in understanding and executing The Airport Exercise.

We continue to execute our marketing plan, about 60% complete on Phase I. We'll continue that focus and begin our preparation for Phase II. We've identified the network relationships between all of web presences and put analytic capabilities in place - yep, just like a real business. And we keep making postal runs, too!

I had a wonderful conversation this morning with one of my musical heroes, Kittyhawk's Randy Strom. Kittyhawk knocked me for a loop in 1980-ish, with stunning music realized on, among other instruments, touch guitars and fretless guitars. I feel the impact of that music yet today. Randy and I discussed Kittyhawk, his current music projects, One Feather Shy, the music business for independent artists, and the internet's role in distribution. It was a thrill for me and I look forward to seeing Randy on my next visit to LA.

Hollis and I spent Friday and Saturday evening at the Paramount Blues Festival, 15 minutes or so from our house. We saw Zac Harmon, California Transit Authority, Bryan Lee, Watermelon Slim & The Workers, and Tab Benoit. Watermelon Slim is brilliant on lap steel and Tab Benoit is an amazing guitarist.

Now playing: Ned Evett, An Introduction To Fretless Guitar