Mandolin Cafe Blog

O Brother.

No, no, it's not me moaning about something I read on the forum.

Surely we all know it's the tenth anniversary of the release of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Cause for celebration! All hail! Time to remember this moment in music history, the bluegrass and traditional organizations and acoustic web sites rise up to...

Knock, knock. Anyone home? Hey, does anyone ...

iPhone owner? There's a new way to connect to the Mandolin Cafe thanks to mandolin player and ace programmer Steve Smith who makes his home in Florida. Meet v1 of the Mandolin Cafe iPhone App, available for free from the Apple App Store, developed by Steve as his first steps into programming for the iPhone. We think he did a terrific job.



What's in it? For starters there's a mandolin chord finder, a simple hook into the MP3 of the Day, a search ...

Awhile back we asked Colorado Case Company to digitize a Mandolin Cafe case sticker for embroidery onto one of their case covers we were purchasing, and it arrived today. Alas, as things go, when we asked them about this we had a nifty old case to put it on, but sold it recently.

... and of course you know what that means.

We'll just have to find an old 23 snakehead plus period case to put this thing on. What's a fella to do, otherwise?

...

Didn't lose you last time? Let's try harder. We had fun in a previous post presenting some tips and tricks to navigate this site more effectively, but let's get a little more involved.

11. Search the Mandolin Cafe from your browser's default search bar, from anywhere on the web.

Proof we wilfully engage in stupid web tricks.

Example: observe the screen shots of Microsoft's Internet Explorer and FireFox below, the two most widely used browsers on the ...

... and may not care about after reading them all.

1. OK, first, let me get this off my chest. It's..

Mandolin Cafe
not
Mandolin Café

The acute accent at the end of Café might look good if you're a French restaurant, but this place is a diner. Customers here put their elbows on the table, belch, wear their ballcaps and wipe their hands on their jeans. Just like I do. Now, I like a fine 6-course, one-seating dinner where the menu is selected ...

We tried. In spite of having five different interviews in the works (with clear communication and requested deadlines), it appears there won't be one in July. You can't do an interview without answers, and you can't expect working musicians and business owners to drop everything to work on your project.

Not the end of the world, and quite frankly, July is just about the slowest time of year for the Mandolin Cafe visitors. For working musicians, it's the busiest time of the year and ...

Had quite a few requests for a red version of the ball cap in a post I made about new ball cap colors coming next week, and here it is. One note: red can be fussy on monitors and I'm not sure this is exactly the red tone captured in this image, and each monitor will see it differently. This is a bit bright I think. All I can add is I do like the way it turned out although the idea of it didn't grab me initially, but if the feedback is good on this may order some next time I restock.

...

We want to give our visitors a preview of the new Mandolin Cafe ball cap colors. In addition to our original Khaki (center), we'll soon have options for Olive Green (left) and Charcoal (right). The samples we just received from our supplier are outstanding and we're really happy how they've turned out, and glad to offer different colors to those that have inquired. We anticipate receiving and then making the new colors available approximately one week from today.

Pricing will remain ...

I've always thought it a good thing to avoid talking browsers and software systems on this site. And quite frankly, I don't really care what people use as long as they're comfortable. Macs rule! PCs drool! Less filling, tastes great! Kentuckys are better than Eastman! No, Eastman is better than a Kentucky! Pegasus over Calton, no, other way around! If it ain't Gibson, it ain't ####! That ain't bluegrass...

But once in awhile, in musician terms, it's good to try out a new pick, a new ...

Last month the Mandolin Cafe marked 14 years on the web, and the fun is just starting! Here are a few things on tap for 2010:

We're estimating the launch of the next generation of message board software from our current provider some time in late January. This is a total rewrite of the software with existing and new and improved features. To date the software is receiving rave reviews in beta form, and some web site owners are already using it. We prefer to let others work out some ...