Monday 24 June 2013

When did you last clean your guitar? Honestly?

Morning all,

This is Ben with my first blog for the new, improved and deliciously spangly new Cookes website. Welcome along, make yourself a nice steamy brew, take a nice comfortable seat and we shall begin.  Well, what a week it’s been!  I’ve finally managed to clear the huge raft of guitar repairs that all poured in through the door over the last seven days.  It seems that everybody has collectively decided to put right that dodgy axe so that it’s ready just in time for summer.

You know, S-U-M-M-E-R.  It’s when the hot yellow thing in the sky is meant to make us feel all warm and fuzzy.

Anyway, I’ve installed a pickup on an acoustic guitar, made two basses and five guitars playable again and cleaned bodies, polished frets and oiled the fretboards of everything else that moved.  String action and poor intonation is a big bugbear for most guitarists and, if you know you’re in for a disappointing jam on a guitar that fights you every step of the way, these things can put you off even wanting to pick it up in the first place.

Guitars can also get pretty disgusting when they get regular use or haven’t been used for a while.  If yours is looking manky and needs a good scrub, if it feels like you are playing a cheese grater or if the electrics on it make funny noises when you touch it in a certain way, bring it in a let me see if I can make it feel like the first day you bought it again!  A full service costs £35 plus a new set of strings; not prohibitively expensive and it could just inspire you to pick it up a little more often so you can finally nail that solo you’ve been trying to work on.  Yes, that one, where that bit is meant to go ‘bididdly doo wakka weeeyooo’ but currently just goes ‘meh’.

Hmm, I think I need another coffee.

Take care all, keep on rocking!


Ben. x
ben@cookes.co.uk

Friday 14 June 2013

It's been a busy week here at Cookes...

It's been a busy week here at Cookes.  In between serving customers and setting up guitars we've been beavering away at the website, adding more of the in stock products and everything we've got coming in.  Soon we'll have a comprehensive list of everything that is available to us, I'm even going through all our guitar spares and accessories, so if you need that spring or screw to finish off your axe you'll be able to tell in an instant if we've got it.

In the meantime please don't hesitate to get in touch if there is a particular instrument you want or need help sourcing spare parts.  This goes for the drum & PA departments too, being a 'bricks and mortar' store has it's advantages and our cache of spares will usually resurrect most items that are in need of a little TLC.  Tom offers a great 'Deep Clean' service for kits that have lost their sparkle & Ben can work wonders on that guitar that's been sitting in the corner of the spare room

If in doubt pop in and have a chat about it, we've nearly always got a pot of coffee on the go and a plentiful supply of teabags.

Steven @ Cookes
guitars@cookes.co.uk

Tuesday 4 June 2013

So finally, after months of waiting, our new website has arrived. After looking at a number of website providers and what they offered, we have settled with the same company that looks after our in-store Point-of-Sale system. This means we can integrate the two quickly and easily. However, although the foundations of the website are in place, our team now have a big job on their hands.

Every item that we sell online at Cookes Norwich has to be furnished with extra information to help our online customers find it. From pictures of the product (in the correct format of course!) to weights and dimensions, the team are currently trawling through pages upon pages of stock to ensure all of the details are available for the customer.

One of the many additional benefits from our new website is that we can now put product videos alongside product descriptions. So if you want to see the latest Pearl drum gear or Tama drum pedals, demonstrated by our in-store drum salesman (and stand-up comedian) Tom Toggle or the latest Boss multi-fx pedals or Fender Telecasters, being used and explained by our guitar specialist Ben Homan, keep an eye out for these videos on the product pages and on our Facebook page.

All of this takes time though of course, so please bear with us, have a look around the new site www.cookes.co.uk and let us know what you think could be improved. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for product reviews, latest news and general music chat.

Simon @ Cookes
drums@cookes.co.uk