We just recently endorsed the band A Dull Science out of California. They have a good blend of a punk/pop sound to them. With some really great lyrics, that everyone can relate to, like their song “Cheater’s never prosper”. This song has some killer lyrics to it, with a catchy chorus that I couldn’t help singing along to while looking over their press kit. Even better these guys seem to have a sense of humor which is refreshing to see since some bands can be so serious as they get more famous .

You can check A Dull Science out at the following links:

A Dull Science’s Myspace

JetSpeed Records

We have been making guitar picks for the company Cricket for several years now. Cricket provides wireless services to about 4 million customers in the United States. They are best knows for their flat rate billing methods for cellular phone use. We just got done with a project with them, so we wanted to show you the beautiful results. This year they went with new artwork, and it really is stunning. This pick is printed on our white promotional material, with jet black ink going all the way to the edge of the pick. Colorful dots form around their signature “K” logo. It was great to work with them again, and we look forward to working with them in the future!

We had a very fun e-mail come to us in our questions@steveclayton.com box on Friday. The e-mail was telling us about a photo of Steve Clayton located on a Ted Greene Site. The picture has Steve Clayton back in the mid 70′s. Usually when people send us pictures of Steve they are more current, so it was fun to see him from back in the day. You can click on the picture to see other photos from the party Steve was at. The album contains many other people from the early music scene (i.e. Mel Bay, Tommy Tedesco, Mel Taylor). There are also early pictures of the NAMM show. For anyone who doesn’t know who Ted Greene is, he is one of the most accomplished guitarists of his generation. Steve knew Ted back when Ted was teaching, and Steve himself was a guitar student of Ted. Steve says that Ted was so advanced with his guitar playing, he could get his guitar to bark and even crow, along with some other really bizarre sounds you never thought a guitar could make. Ted is probably best known for his chord book Chord Chemisty. It is a thorough book for guitarists that explains in detail the applications and understandings of chords. It is really a book that a guitarist shouldn’t be without. It is especially helpful to those who are trying to self teach themselves.

Ted Greene (1946-2005)

We’d like to welcome James Otto as our new featured artist! James cannot be really categorized with a single word. His music has a mix of country and rock and roll that almost anyone can appreciate. Upon reviewing his press kit I took an immediate liking to all of his music, though his song, “Just Got Started Lovin’ You” was already one of my favorite songs. James uses our Acetal Polymer material in the rounded triangle shape.

“I’m A big guy, I MUST have a big Pick! I’m 6 foot 5 Inches tall and built more like a linebacker than a Singer or guitar player. The Clayton Rounded Triangle Pick is the perfect fit for my hands and my style of playing. Whether I am in the studio or on tour, you’ll always find me using Clayton Picks to help make my music.” -James Otto

You can check James out on the following links:

James Otto Official Website

James Otto’s Myspace

We were so happy to see that iStockphoto placed an order with us this week. This is a truly amazing company that we ourselves often use for our own stock imagery needs. They have some of the best photography and best prices on the web. Plus their website is very user friendly. If you ever need graphics to design band logos and posters, they are a great place to look. Below are the picks they ordered from us for an event they are doing. This two sided design was put on our White Delrin pick .80mm. You can visit them at istockphoto.com

A lot of people love my Utlem Gold pick, and I get asked often how I came across this material. So, I will tell this story as my first official blog post.

After the success of my Acetal pick, I decided to research additional plastics that would serve well for a new line of guitar picks. My goal was to locate the stiffest plastic I could find. So obtained several plastic samples.  I cut each sample into a guitar pick. When I played the Ultem pick it really stood out amongst the others. It had an amazing clean, clear tone, didn’t wear, and was almost impossible to fracture.

Having a pick that produces clear overtones is essential to your music, it is what embellishes your playing. Plus, with such clean tones you get more longevity out of your strings. Which is an added bonus, that saves you some cash.

I called this pick “Ultem” which is the actual name of the true plastic. I don’t dress it up or pretend it is anything else but what the plastic truly is. Also, I use it in its pure form. I don’t put deadening additives to cheapen it and destroy sound quality so I can get it out on the market for a “seemingly better price”.

It has been many many years since I introduced Ultem onto the guitar pick market, but since then my competition has come out with various versions of it. People swear up and down ours still sounds better. Unlike many of our competitors we don’t injection mold our picks (with the exception of Frost-Byte and S-Stone). Others use injection molding because it is cheaper to produce. You melt down the plastic and then mold it into the pick shape, which creates no wasted scrape material. My picks however are extruded. With extrusion the plastic is extruded out as a sheet with its grain intact. We then stamp the picks out with the grain going vertical down the pick. This grain helps to resonate the sound down the surface mass of the pick. Similar to why the wood grain goes vertical down your guitar neck. This method creates a lot of excess plastic waste, but the maintenance of sound quality is essential for the player (the waste however is sold and recycled into other products). Keeping intact grain also make the pick more lively and snappy against the strings. Injection molding is very destructive to the plastic! It removes the grain and creates a random matrix pattern, thus preventing the telescoping of the sound.

Do you want to know a easy way to tell if your pick resonates sound well? Take an Ultem pick and different material such as Nylon. Drop each of them onto a glass surface. You will immideatly hear the difference. Ultem will have a bright loud ping, while nylon has a quiet thud sound. This simple experiment tells you that the sound isn’t resignating from the Nylon pick. I always encourage a guitarist to do this on the glass store counter-top to hear if the plastic is dead or alive. Try it, you will hear the difference, and so will the listeners of your music.

Steve Clayton, Inc. is a guitar accessory company that has been in business since 1975, and is located in beautiful Southern Oregon. We pride ourselves on making quality products for guitarists. This blog is intended to educate guitarists on using and selecting appropriate accessories to enhance their playing.  In addition we will discuss company news, new endorsed artists, and custom guitar picks. Enjoy!

Clayton, Inc. Factory