We make no nice secret that even the essentially the most perfunctory merch stalls can get us scorching and bothered. The very sight of T-shirts, haphazardly organized on a wall, is sufficient to drive some Guitar World staffers wild – assume Carrie Bradshaw on a Black Friday pillaging of Fifth Avenue.
Through the years we’ve got marvelled on the electrical guitar ephemera produced by the gear industrial advanced, the branding chops of Kiss, and nonetheless have sleepless nights enthusiastic about Cory Wong’s method to increasing his income potential; sure, his T-shirts are on level, however having your individual signature Fender Stratocaster on the merch stall? Energy transfer.
As with licks and approach so it typically is with commerce. The large weapons know what they’re doing. However is there any guitarist with a greater merch sport than Joe Bonamassa, the Mayor of Nerdville himself?
When you are a pop-cultural underdog, as all blues guitarists are lately, it pays to get artistic, to interrupt out of the pentatonic field of black T-shirts and branded beer Koozies. Bonamassa has finished that, making use of punk’s DIY ethos to the blues and founding his label, J&R Adventures.
What actually will get us, although – and, okay, tickles us too – is the opposite stuff: these objects filed below ‘Collectibles’, which vary from the chic to the ridiculous.
With the festive season upon us, what higher time to get your vital different that Jazzmaster backscratcher they’ve at all times wished? And there’s no higher place to begin than with our JoBo collectibles present information.
Jazzmaster again scratcher
Sure, different fashions can be found. That is Nerdville, folks. You may ease your dermatological travails with the help of a again scratcher common after a Stratocaster (out there in sunburst or blonde finishes), a Gibson SG Customized à la his 1963 mannequin (lately minted as an Epiphone signature guitar), and a alternative of Flying Vs – Pelham Blue for the customized shade fanatic or pure korina for that Donny J/Amos vibe.
This run wouldn’t be full with out a Les Paul, and as such there are two: a sunburst choice and one commemorating the 2022 KTBA Cruise.
However there’s one thing a few Seafoam Inexperienced offset that’s so pleasing. Might these long-scale therapeutics even be used to toss competition-sized salads? At $19.49 we see this being hard-working merchandise – one which Rufus Thomas might have finished with again in 1972.
Bona-fide bathe curtain
Right here it’s, of us, the reply to that age-old query of what to get the blues fan who has all the things: it’s a Joe Bonamassa bathe curtain. What higher to option to present your love for the blues, certainly. The design is unmistakably JoBo: there he’s, in a half-crouch, shouldering the burden of a Gibson Les Paul Commonplace.
It’s humorous to assume that this image might need been taken on the Royal Albert Corridor or Purple Rocks Colorado and now hangs in your toilet, aware of all that entails there. Lordy.
That is just about the subsequent smartest thing to showering with Joe Bonamassa. Because the music goes, ‘Water down the drain/flows to the ocean…’ However, crucially, not all around the toilet flooring.
Guitar chopping boards
That is one other merch merchandise out of left-field that makes excellent sense, as a result of few issues are higher for working up an urge for food than enjoying the blues – or any guitar, for that matter. These chopping boards are available Strat or ES physique shapes, the bigger footprint of the latter making it a extra sensible alternative for making ready your blues guitar feasting menu.
They’re out there as a set, which ought to assist you preserve the meats and the veggies separate. What’s to not like? And, lastly, someplace for Booker T and the MG’s to take these inexperienced onions of theirs. A superb julienne, if you will, gents.
Flying V salt and pepper shakers
Staying within the kitchen (as a result of we’re now scared to go to the lavatory lest we discover JoBo gargling that nitrocellulose mouthwash Tom Murphy despatched him for Thanksgiving), you’re going to want to season that meals. And that’s the place a pair of hand-painted ceramic Flying Vs come in useful.
Colour-coded (white for salt, black for pepper) these free-standing shakers received’t take up an excessive amount of room. Right here’s hoping subsequent season’s drop introduces a Dumble salt pig, although within the meantime the culinary-minded guitar participant might at all times use Bonamassa’s ES-shaped guitar cookie jar for storing the Diamond Crystal Kosher salt.
Amp humidor
The Sears catalog has nothing on Bonamassa’s on-line stock. Whereas deliberating over our ultimate gift-guide choose we’ve got chanced upon and regarded a Joe Bonamassa backyard gnome, some very good neon clocks, varied commemorative cash, yard indicators that received’t offend your neighbor, mouse pads (our favourite: “Simply what number of guitars does one man want?”), kitchen towels, headphone amps, watering cans within the form of a Fender Telecaster, varied bottle openers and ashtrays.
However none can prime a tweed-covered guitar amp that’s secretly a humidor. That’s proper: a limited-edition tweed guitar amp humidor. This cedar field, with a pure matte-finish inside, can maintain as much as 100 cigars and features a divider for maintaining on a regular basis and vacation smokes separate, and there may be the all-important humidifier and hygrometer.
Magnet closures will preserve the lid on secure, and every unit is numbered and restricted to 100 models worldwide, COA included. Record value is $199 however is at present discounted at $149. Perhaps you will want that ashtray in spite of everything. If you need JoBo’s suggestion, he goes along with his double-neck “Huge Horny” ashtray and favors the facet with the Bigsby B-5 ($29.24).