that is too cool....
by the way, alittle tidbit on the ktob comp,
the winner of the 1st round played on a squier w carvin pus, a bad monkey pedal, and some others i didnt get to see on a peavey hs.
his tone and talent was amazing.
he may take it all the way.

Congrats to all that entered wither you won or not..You gave it your best and thats all that can be expected..As some of you know i was going to entire in fact i signed up ..Then some of the guys around town complained saying i wasn't an amateur..I consider myself an amateur as i am unsigned..With that said oi have record and sold a few LP's locally..But what has gotten me a little upset was the two guys that were hollering about it play the same gigs and stages as i do..Come to find out the guy that had me Xed out of the KOTB.Ended up winning the local store competition...
The rules say you can't make over $25,000 a year as a guitar player or something like that..I do make a few dollars more a year over that and playing music is my full time gig..But here is my question how much of the money is made as being a Vocalist and how much is made as a guitar player...
If have no problems with guitar centers ruling as i was hesitant when i signed up as to my status as an amateur or not and even asked on this forum of what people thought..What bothers me is the two guys that made a fuse are just as much of a non amateur as i am according to the rules ..The guy who won is a far superior guitar player to me anyway so im not sure what his motive was...I have always claimed to be decent on the guitar but well rounded due to my vocal ability and voclas have nothing to do with this contest...
Sorry to rant just wanted to get it off my chest..

That's a bummer. Are you going to tell on those other guys or let it go?

The other guitar player in my band is playing at KOTB this week. Unfortunately I can't be there since our band has a gig that night and it would be really bad if both of the electric guitar players couldn't make it. I hope he does really well, even though competing in the finals with a friend and band member would be sort of weird. It would still be fun though, and neither of us are the type to hold a grudge.

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Texasguitarslinger.....I'm pretty good friends with the manager of the guitar center that i signed up at and he's aware of the situation..I didn't feel like it was worth my time to raise a big deal about it...I was truly entering just for the experience of doing so not really caring if i won or lost.I enjoy spending time with other guitar players..I think the whole problem came in with me in the competition is the band i play with does play some pretty big gigs and is well established as a long term band ..I just signed on with them less than a year ago..
Neither of the other two that complained have been with a band for more than a couple years .Although both are excellent guitar players..So that may be the difference that was figured in..The bottom line was they were excepted i wasn't ..Rules must be followed and the manager went above his head to a district manger to make the decision so if feel they did do there part as judges..
My problem with the whole thing isn't that they got to compete and i didn't..I felt as if i was soloed out and accused of being a cheater by people that i have known and jammed with for awhile now..The way they made it sound was if i was looking for easy money or gear..I have never been a money orientated person...Or at least not enough to be accused of cheating something or someone..I think thats what bothers me the most.

As far as you and your band mate playing against each other i think that would be fantastic and a benefit..As i know for myself i feed off of others playing and my ability goes up with the ability of the people im playing with..I would think after you are up there you would find it is just like when your at a gig and pushing leads back and forth in some ways thats a competition in its own right..Best of luck to you and it would be cool if you made it to the finals..I do still plan on going to the finals just to watch and learn...

It's kind of hard to be a musician and a money oriented person at the same time, isn't it? My friends all make more money baby-sitting and my gigs are just as long.

But I guess if I was in your position I would have done the same thing. It's not worth getting worked up over.

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Congrats to all. Texasguitarslinger, where can I find you on youtube? I read a while back that you have a channel? I looked for you on there last week with no luck.

I think that most of what's on youtube of me is set so that only friends and family can see. I have one song on there that's public, but that was a hard rock song I did a couple of years ago. I will post the King of the Blues videos up there later though. And maybe I'll do one of those watch-me-wank videos to demo some of my gear.

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Well, I didn't win first or second. The Lakeland judges picked a head banging rocker and a Chet Atkins country style C&W player. Neither played blues. But .... it was fun, and I have me playing what I played in the competition on MySpace ( http://www.myspace.com/wallydow ) and I named it fittingly "Shaken But Not Stirred".

It is the first song on my player. It was my last recording of me practicing what I put together against A Minor Affair track 6.

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2007 American Deluxe Strat
'65 Deluxe Reverb RI
POD X3 Live
PreSonus FSP
Studio One Pro

http://soundcloud.com/wally-dow/sets/w
http://reverbnation.com/artist/artist_songs/371830
http://classicrockersnetwork.com/profile/WallyDow
http://facebook/wallydow

Wally i enjoyed your grove on that shaken not stirred demo good stuff..Sometimes the Blues is a subjective thing and what others think is the blues isn't what exactly you and i would call the Blues...Don't let it get ya down....You've got good enough chops to cut some heads...

Well, the store finals are tonight. Anyone else going?

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Good luck! We have faith in your ability to win!!

Anyone playing tonight at the Pasadena CA store? I'll be there to check it out. I've seen the last three rounds. Tonight is the finals at that store.

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2009 Fender Strat MIM
2002 Squire 20th Aniv. Strat
30 year old Les Paul copy which is currently in the process of being rebuilt.

Ya'll aren't going to believe this, I don't believe this, but I won! The competition was stiff, everyone was incredibly good. The judges took me aside afterwards and told me what the main things I need to work on are and they also told me the reasons I won.

In a couple of weeks I have to compete in the District Finals. That includes pretty much all of South Texas and Louisiana. I can't imagine how good the people are probably going to be there. The winner of the 2007 King of the Blues was from the same store I just won at. Playing in a blues guitar competition in this region of the country is like cooking in a competition in France.

After they announced me as the winner I had a ton of people come up and shake my hand, ask my name, where I was from and ask to take pictures of me. It was really weird. One person even did a mini video interview, in which I sounded really stupid. One person I met was a concert promoter and part of his job is looking for guitarists to play around Houston. He asked if I'd be interested in getting some real gigs, and I really am. So I'll definately be calling him back sometime soon. It would be really nice to actually get to play some blues with a real band outside of my bedroom and the occasional Church BBQ. Right now I just have to sneak as much blues as I can into the music with my Praise and Worship band. It actually works pretty well.

I won a few T-Shirts (all of them were extra large, I'm size small so I gave them to my Dad and brother), a Boss Tuner/Metronome, a pack of ten sets of strings (.10s, but I'm going to trade them in for .11s) and a $25 gear card. The only thing I've ever got for playing before was a meal at a rest home. I'm really glad I got the strings, since they're about $5 a pack and I'm running low on them. And $5 per pack is a lot right now since my Dad has been unemployed since July.

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First in with the "I told you so!"... heh. Congratulations, TGS! It seemed inevitable from this end, but you'd be a very different person if you had thought so yourself.

WOW! That's awesome TGS. Congrats and good luck at the District competition.