Re: loop device endorsement - was Santanas looping bassist

[Travis Hartnett <tiktok@sprintmail.com>]

On a related note, I was paging through the new issue of Guitar Player
today, and came across a Dean ad.  It was typical Dean, a busty woman in a
sheer blouse, cradling the guitar between her breasts, mouth half open as 
if
she's thinking "Gosh...something sure would taste good right now..." and so
on.  This has been the Dean advertising model for some time, but I remember
reading an interview with the company owner, Dean Zalinsky, where he said
for the first few years, his ads were like everyone else's--famous
guitarists with their bitchen' Deans (and these were guys who really did 
use
the guitars).  And sales were so-so.

Then he took a cue from the rest of the business world and started using
sexy woman in his ads, and things took off.  "I sold more guitars with a
girl in a bikini than I ever did with a rock star" is how I remember him
putting it.

>That's the whole point here. Big figures in pop culture are what moves
>things. If we are interested in what will make looping more than an odd
>niche, that's what it takes. A big shift in popular music culture that
>somehow includes looping. Fringe artists and a few guys from decades ago
>don't do it.

On the other hand, there's a John Scofield article in the same issue that
shows his pedalboard which features a Boomerang and a Loop Station, and he
discusses how groovy the Boomerang is.  About 18 months ago it seemed that
every issue of Guitar Player had at least one article with some guitarist
going on about looping in their playing, it just doesn't get headlines.


TH