THE FIRST BAILEY BLOG of 2014
Mark Bailey
Here at Bailey we are just coming out of festive hibernation, starting to reorganise and repair our well used workshop… and make our plans for 2014/2015.
Firstly we should send out a BIG THANKS to all those who joined the Bailey family over the last year, with Bailey models, customs or a BYO – and a big welcome to the latest of you to join…those who got their new Baileys for Xmas. Thanks to Steve Skelcher CA 021 for his ‘It ain’t Xmas without a Bailey’ quote…he should know as its his third…Look out for a blog about that one very soon!)
Secondly, it is still our 15th anniversary year and there are 3 months left until the Grand Prize Draw to win a Kithara Archtop worth £5000…we plan a series of countdown “archive” blogs (including catch ups of builds/events over the last 2 years that have yet to reach ‘The Bailey Blog‘ we have a bit of a backlog – if you been waiting to see yours keep an eye out!
2013 – that was the year that was…Who would have thought that Bailey Guitars would have reached its 15 year milestone birthday? If you remember the days without walls, a caravan wood store and the famous double decker workshop, it was probably hard to imagine, but here we are.
Its been a great anniversary so far – Our Workshop was featured in Acoustic Magazine, Bailey Roadshows at the Scottish Music Show and Live@Troon, amongst many others. Our first BYO Uke course kicked off in style as did our first attempt at live streaming from the workshop beamed across the planet- Luis Claudio came all the way from Brazil to come on our most popular course of the year – Build Your Own First Guitar
Our first placement student, the marvellous and beautiful Margaux Guennoc came from France to help us break into the Netherlands (thank you Marg); Marcel Besselink did us the honour of becoming our “Dutch sleeper rep” (we hope to be switching him on this year!); the most personalised and decorated custom bootlegger designed by our Woman of the Year, Mandy Green; the longest and most awesome custom design /built Left Handed electric for Aldoman Whittaker (his face made it worth the wait) and finishing 2013 with the first CLASSICAL guitar built on the BYOA and finally strung up on Xmas Eve by John ‘Bad Boy’ Boyle.
THANKS to all our players!
There is too much to say in this blog about all our great players (we’ll be featuring more of those in the coming year), but Preston Reed deserves a special mention in this roundup of 2013 – he had fantastic musical year after finishing his massive Masters tour going on to finally release his new Album – almost entirely using his unique Signature Baritone and Jumbo guitars. What an honour for us too. Watch out for his coming tutorial classes!
Bailey gets all 21st Century.. 2014 ..whatever next?
Yes, the hippies get with it and nerdy. wireless live streaming; using social media; digital promo; mastering Mailchimp; and… Mark has been studying the art of video and has been dabbling over the last year… brace yourselves for a visual/audio guitar feast in 2014. NEW models and new lower prices, streamlining and simplifying of courses and options; Robots replacing the office staff (that’s a joke…not possible. (Carol) We don’t make resolutions but if we did it would be to get better at all this (any suggestions welcome!)
So…all that remains is to look back on another year with fondness – special thanks to our endlessly patient Webmaster, Jamie, the entire McMillan family and thank all of you for contributing once again!
PS. Anybody want to buy a hat?