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It’s that time of year again when children make their way, often unwillingly, back to school.

Here at Playrecord we have compiled some great products ideal for children’s return to school and listed them on our front page Hot Product section, all at fantastic special offer prices!

Firstly we have 2 beginner guitars both at amazingly low special prices! One is a full size classical guitar, the other is a ½ sized guitar ideal for the young beginner.

Also included in our current Hot Products is the Pure Tone: Kids Descant Recorder. This is a great starter record for children available in 3 great colours. Traditional brown, pink and blue. To accompany this we have the Recorder From The Beginning : Pupil’s Book 1 (2004 Edition). This is one of the most successful recorder tutor books used by many teachers.

Other items in our back to school bonanza are some various musical designed stationary including the very popular amazing colour-changing mood pencils! Have a scroll through our gift section for all our stationary items.

With The Harvest Festival also approaching, We have include some of the most popular Harvest Festival celebration teachers books and accompanying CD’s, again at special discounted prices!

Cheers.

So, it’s been 40 whole years since Woodstock’s massive effect on the world. Thousands turned up to see some of the most famous acts of the time, such as The Who, Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and many more brilliant bands. The turn out was amazing, over 400,000 people traveled from all around the world to be a part of this life changing experience.

The festival was an idea to change the way our world thought, it was a free event, to get as many people as possible to attend. The subject as we all know was for more peace and love on the planet, and indeed it was a weekend full of love, peace and happiness. Amazingly, there were no more than 6,000 injuries over the whole weekend and three deaths, one accident and two drug related deaths. Which is pretty impressive to say there were over 400,000 people at the Festival.

In 1999 Woodstock had another festival, again to bring peace and love to the world. This time there were around 200,000 fans entering the three day event. The ‘99 Woodstock did not go to plan. In fact it was a disaster, but come on, what did they think would happen. You put 200,000 people in a field in front of the likes of metal gods Metallica and Rage Against The Machine.. not exactly going to have a loving peaceful weekend are you. On paper the line up was incredible, well if you have James Brown and the Chilli Peppers on the same stage it’s going to be pretty special isn’t it. The festival soon turned into a full scale riot including huge fires and big brawls. The reason being, Woodstock 69 was a free event full of peace and tranquillity, 99 wasn’t free and people were even getting searched to make sure there was no food being brought into the festival. To me it seams like it was a scheme to make a lot of money, not an event to change the world!

I personally blame it on the amount of hardcore, heavy metal acts supporting Woodstock. Such as Korn and Limpbizkit, two bands that are notorious for getting their fans to go crazy. Silly if you ask me. If your looking for a peaceful weekend then James Brown and Elvis Costello are perfect, Insane Clown posse and Kid Rock not so much!

Now we’re in 2009, forty years after the original Woodstock. There is a special anniversary taking place in both New York (August 15th-16th) and Berlin, Germany (August 22nd – 23rd). It was a fantastic success in New York and i’m sure Germany will be the same. Woodfest is free like the 69 weekend and has a lot more sensible choices of acts.

All of you lucky enough to enter either events have an amazing weekend and enjoy all the bands you see. Also don’t forget why you are going to this festival, to appreciate the brilliant music and to help put more peace in this world, I’m sure you all will have a great few days and I hope to see some reviews on how the weekend went.

Cheers, Tom Playrecord.net

The Saltburn Folk Festival.

This was the 12th such gathering and the organisation and set-up was very slick. It was a great time for lots of performers, jammers, and friends to renew acquaintances.

With over 45 varied performances there was something for everyone. If that wasn’t enough, the bars were open for more improvised renditions of songs old and new.

The weather was fine for most of the weekend but very blustery and this affected some of the out door events and there was not a lot of jamming in the streets!

I know that I missed some good performances, here are some comments…

Johnny Silvo accompanied by Tim the Timpanist on an improvised percussion set, performed some old classics with lots of participation and appreciation for the public.

The New Rope String Band entertained and amused with a range of unusual yet very musical songs and dances, highly recommended when things are getting a bit too serious, laughter is a good medicine and there was plenty to be had.

Edwina Hayes sang some haunting songs from her own pen. The audience were taking notes as Edwina talked us through her varied love life and travels.

Kerfuffle were suffering from illness and their set did not include any vocal work which features well on their CD’s. Even so the instrumentals performed by Tom, Sam, Jamie and Hannah and Hannah’s clog dancing were very well performed and received.

Leap to your feet Appalachian Clog pulled some good moves and were very entertaining.

There was a song writing contest which produced a variety of styles from a mixed group of talented musicians, the winning song ‘Whistling Joe’ being performed in front of an appreciative audience by the composer.

A last jam on Sunday afternoon allowed Kath Edmonds some time in the limelight, lets hope we see her on stage there soon. The lovely Sue from Sunderland sang some delightful songs. A couple of Irish contributors got peoples feet tapping accompanied by fiddles and banjos.

All in all a very friendly gathering. I did not see one ‘incident’ even though people were in ‘party’ mode.

Follow this link for more details http://www.saltburnfolkfestival.ukforum.com/
and watch out for next years bash!

John at Playrecord

Once again it’s that time of the year. You dig out your tent, remove the beanfeast that’s somehow got into the corner of your sleeping bag, and prepare for some weekends of music and hippy-ness out in some fields away from the buzz of modern-day living….ahh back to our roots!

So whilst your still in the modern-day mentality, taker some thought into what your going to need for those late night camp fire drinking sessions. We have recently taken on a new supplier of authentic hand-made African percussion. From small egg shakers, to some thumping full-size djembe’s, we now cater for all. So before you hike off into the country this summer check out our new ‘World Percussion’ in the Drums/Percussion category and I’m sure you’ll find something suitable for the camp-fire entertainment.

Happy Festival…’ing

We have some new additions to our catalogue, the PLAYRECORD PACKS.

These packs have been put together for great value in price and for your instruments.

Each pack is for different purposes and consists of all the necessities you will need.

The first set of packs are the GIG PACKS.

The two variations we currently have are the DRUMMERS GIG PACK and the GUITARISTS GIG PACK.

Each of these packs come with all the essential components for the gigging drummer/guitarist. Here at playrecord we know just how frustrating it is when you are setting up for a gig and you break a string and you have no spares to replace it with! Well, now there is no need to worry. Take a PLAYRECORD GIG PACK to your every gig and you will have all the spares you need for any possible hick up.

The next pack we have is the GUITARISTS MAINTENANCE PACK.

This is a pack especially designed for the guitarists who takes pride in their guitar and want to keep it in pristine condition. Within this pack are all the essential ingredients you need to do this.

Each pack is now available from our website and in stock. We have each pack on a special introductory offer price and located on our websites home page.

Keep a look out on our website for new PLAYRECORD PACKS coming soon….

There are enough guitars available to buy at the moment to make a… erm.. grown guitarist cry (yes, that’ll do). With China, Korea, Japan, Vietman, Korea, well pretty much the entire far east spewing out ever cheaper guitars and competing over quality, it certainly is a buyers market. Below I’m going to outline a couple of these brands and hopefully shed a little light over what you’re going to get for your money.

Encore Guitars

Encore guitars have long been the staple diet of the beginner guitarist, the low price and very well put together guitar packs as the main attractions. Also it’s worth mentioning that Encore are in the midst of an overhaul and are upgrading all the hardware on their guitars, but keeping the prices the same. Encore’s main sellers as far as beginner packs are concerned would be the Encore Playnow Packs, which are available in guitar and bass versions and also the classical guitar packs which are available from half size to full size. These guitar packs are perfect for beginners and bedroom players, though they are lacking in the quality of output needed for gigs, so if you’re thinking of performing you may want to jump up a notch.

Stagg Guitars

Stagg guitars are in a similar league to Encore, however it has to be said that they seem to be generally better finished than the Encore. A bit more attention has been given to small things like paint finish and seating the frets, which make the guitars a little more comfortable to play and easy on the eye. When it comes to guitar packs though the the Encore packs come with a good quality Kustom amp which are marginally better quality than the Stagg amps. So it’s up to you whether you’d prefer the better quality amp or guitar.

Stagg unlike Encore, does deviate from the Les Paul and Strat ’style’ guitars in their electric range, with semi acoustics and various shapes of electrics such as the flying V shape F300-MA.

Vintage Guitars

Not actual vintage guitars (as in old) but Vintage the brand! These are the next logical step up the ladder from Stagg and Encore, the most notable difference being the Wilkinson branded hardware. This hardware is generally very well machined and will definitely stand the test of time. Also that ‘quality of output’ needed for gigs I mentioned earlier is provided by the Wilkinson branded pickups, which give you that punchy more professional edge. So as the next level up, I would categorise the Vintage range as ‘entry level gigging guitars’. After this I think you’ll be entering a different realm of guitar price, which I will be talking about in the near future.

We’ve recently updated our catalogue, as a result we are selling discontinued items that we have stock of at great discount prices. You can see a range of instruments and accessories by clicking on the Special Offers’ button on our homepage.

As we update our catalogue we will be adding items to this list of great deals, so keep coming back to check on what hot offers we have to offer.

The guitar is one of the most popular instruments in contemporary music. Excluding electronic music and classical music (though not completely) the guitar is present in nearly all modern musical forms. Part of the popularity of the guitar is that it is relatively simple to play and with a little effort you can be producing recognisable music with your guitar within a few weeks.

Of course there are countless hours of practice needed to become a virtuosso guitarist, but for most people the dizzy heights of jazz improvisation or high speed shredding are not really what it is about. The ability to knock out a three chord pattern that you and your mates can sing along to is the guitars greatest strength. Combine this with the portability of the acoustic guitar and you have the perfect instrument for taking to festivals, holidays or just round to your mates flat.

The electric guitar offers easier playability than the acoustic guitar but does require some kind of amplification which makes it less portable. However it lends itself much more readily to playing live gigs or playing along with a band where any kind of guitar is going to need amplification to match the volume of a drum kit etc.

The other great thing about electric guitars is the plethora of different electronic effects you can apply to the sound of the guitar. The most popular is undoubtedly distortion or overdrive. Some people might not even regard that as an effect it is so ingrained into the conception of the electric guitar sound. Other very popular electric guitar effects include the wah wah – the signature sound of Jimi Hendrix, tremelo – Beach Boys et al, Pitch Shifter – Rage Against the Machine… to name but a few.

To conclude, playing the guitar is definitely an excellent life choice and is well worth the minimal investment in a suitable beginners guitar. If you take to it fully then you will probably aspire to owning something a bit more special but that is all part of the pleasure.

Here at PlayRecord we love our lunch time sandwiches, so when we found the NEW Way Huge Fat Sandwich Harmonic Saturator pedal we had to add it to our site for other sandwich lovers to take a look.

The Fat Sandwich represents a new era in pedal design for Way Huge. In addition to carrying on the Way Huge tradition of amazing tone, rugged construction and cool names, the Fat Sandwich delivers heaps of crunchy distortion goodness via its innovative multi-stage clipping circuit.

If you are not a sandwich lover could we tickle your fancy with a pork loin?!

Make room for one more Way Huge original! The Pork Loin incorporates two distinct tonal pathways that are blended together – a modern soft clipping overdrive and a modified classic British preamp for clean.

If this still doesn’t quite do it for you take a look at the Swollen Pickle!

The Swollen Pickle Jumbo Fuzz The most sought after and corpulent Way Huge pedal is back! The Swollen Pickle MkII surrenders super high-gain fuzz with copious amounts of smooth low-end to all who dare plug into it.

Yes, it is possibly one of the most heart breaking times of the year for anyone of school age. The sickening smell of new school shoes, forgetting how to write, sitting there regarding your new pencil case with nothing but razor sharp contempt, the list of badness could go on for ever.

However at least the parents accross the land parents are collectively breathing a sigh of relief, not having to entertain the little angels 24 hours a day. But there must be a way to keep them occupied in the evening… there simply must!

The answer has just arrived and it’s very inexpensive! Get them a guitar and make it perfectly clear that if they don’t practice for at least one hour a day they’ll never be famous (which is pretty true).

The Encore Classical pack is an ideal way to get introduced to the world of guitar playing.

Complete with gig bag, pitch pipes, spare set of strings and  a tutorial DVD. The guitar itself is a Classical guitar and is perfect for the little beginner, with nylon strings (kind on the fingers) that have slightly higher action than the average steal strung acoustic (great for getting technique upto scratch).

As you can see the guitar is very high quality for the price, quality machine heads, precisely finished frets and a solidly crafted body. This is perfect for the young beginner and a very prudent way to see if your budding Hendrix is really serious about committing before you shell out on an electric guitar and amp.