Spun Stories

In support of the relief efforts Cottonwood Music Emporium will donate 100% of all profits from the sale of Asheville Music Tools effects to charities to support the Hurricane Helene relief.

This September, we talked with Greg Djerrahian — the founder of SolidGoldFX — about some of the things that he loves about being in the pedal industry. We talk about the in-house building process, the technical aspects of designing a new SolidGoldFX pedal, and the fabled search for the "golden tone."

September brings you an interview with the Beings of Interstellar Audio Machines, the founders of a new boutique pedal company with some really stellar pedal offerings. They have a ton of effusive endorsements from artists like Santana, Guns N' Roses, and Bon Jovi, and each pedal comes with a unique backstory from the Interstellar Audio universe. Learn a little bit about how they got started and how they create their extraterrestrial pedals.

For themonth of August, we have a Q&A with Philippe Herndon, the founder and owner of Caroline Guitar Company, which makes handwired boutique guitar pedals and just launched a new fuzz pedal called the CROM.

Our article offering for July features Doug Kauer, the founder of Kauer Guitars. Kauer makes beautiful boutique guitars, all custom-built in Sacramento, CA. We asked a few questions to try to understand his creative process and perspective on the guitars he builds.

Our Cottonwood Correspondent this month is Nick Greer, the founder of Greer Amps. For those not familiar, Greer Amps is a pedal manufacturer that hand-assembles some of the most esteemed distortion pedals on the market. We asked a few questions to get a perspective of someone who creates the gear that we're all interested in!

This month's Tech Tips will tell you how to make the vacuum tubes in your tube amplifiers last longer, given the current geopolitical situation in Ukraine that has led to sanctions being placed on the import of new tubes.

For this month’s Cottonwood Correspondent, we have Timothy Andrews from Holden Days, a Southern California-based dreamfolk project. Like always, we sent over a few questions that will get inside Timothy’s process and relationship with music. 

This month’s Tech Tips concerns how environmental factors such as dryness and humidity can impact the health of your guitars, as well as how to solve for this problem.

Tube amps aren’t without fault, and like many refined instruments and machines, need periodic maintenance to perform at their best and prevent failures - just like changing your car’s oil and giving it a tune-up. With our cars, we understand that changing the oil every 3-4k miles is recommended to keep the car running as it should. However, with tube amps, we don’t have regular maintenance intervals. Despite this, it’s important to understand that maintenance still needs to be performed eventually in order to keep them running smoothly. A lot of questions arise about maintaining tube amps, since we have all been told of the danger caused by their lethally high voltages. With this in mind, here are a few points to keep in mind about tube amp ownership and maintenance.

Delving creates from the heart of the human experience, weaving their orchestrated blend of electric guitars, psychedelic strings, and hypnotic drums into something both catchy and introspective. 

Songwriter Michael James spent his early days touring, performing, and recording with a host of West Coast artists including Caitlin Jemma, Jessica Malone, Jeremy James Meyer, and Justin King. He has featured on albums alongside members of Black Pumas, Delta Spirit, Josh Ritter, and Bon Iver.