El Cheapo is a rock & roll cover band from Atlanta, GA fronted by “Stuff You Should Know” podcast host Chuck Bryant. They’ve been known to tear apart a basement or two and wake the neighbors in the name of a good time. After years of working day jobs, getting married and having babies, the band formed in 2007 under the original name The Cox Project. After toiling away for a year without a rhythm section, lead guitarist Eddie Cooper, bassist Chris Cox and Bryant landed a score in drummer Jim Issa, and El Cheapo was born.

The guys use Fender and Gibson guitars and amps, and Tama drums. Their original Steve Clayton pick was inspired by their loud, fast and nasty brand of rock & roll, and love of cheap beer. They can be found in various basements playing for their pet dogs, or rocking the house of 40^th birthday parties around Atlanta.

I have been asked so many times how long our line was at NAMM to meet Kyle Gass.  We do know that it spanned a couple of isles and was extremly long. We were lucky enough to recently obtain some video footage that shows at least half of the length of the line. The other half of the line goes to the right, and was broken up in order to allow traffic to flow by. Click on the picture below to view the Quicktime movie.

After 3 hours of signing autographs at the Clayton booth at NAMM 2010, Kyle had a few words to say about his favorite pick company.

clayton_tend ( <—- Click here to see the video again)

You may have noticed we ship out our custom guitar picks really, really quick. We are the fastest by far in the business. Most of our competition takes anywhere from 2-8 weeks to ship a custom order out. So, why are we able to print our picks so fast? Well, we have been doing this for 30 years, and have managed to streamline everything down to a quick and efficient process. Also this is our full time job and we have lots of dedicated professionals working at it.! A lot of our competitor websites are individuals working out of their home/ garage, and most of them have a different full time job. So, since they have so much other stuff going on, they tend to have long lead times. So when you are looking for a place to buy your picks from, taking a look at their lead time will let you know how devoted to their company they are.

A lot of our competitors also have a long turn-around time so that they can charge your card and hold onto the funds for that whole time… which is less than ideal. So basically if they take 4 weeks to ship your picks, that is 4 weeks that you have paid for those picks. At Clayton, Inc. even though we don’t take long to ship most orders, we don’t even charge your card until the picks have shipped. So you never have to worry about that!

There are some exceptions to our 48 hour shipping window though. It does not include weekends or holiday. Also, if we have to contact you regarding your artwork, then the 48 hour window starts over again once we are able to place your order into production. We will not rush your order through to make the time window if it means hurting the quality of the final product.

Here are the most common problems that can slow your order down:

#1: Too small of text – This by far is #1! When you are designing your pick in our designer, there is a small replica of your design in actual size in the lower left area of the window. If you can’t read it there, then you don’t want to submit the artwork, because you won’t be able to read it on the pick. If we think your text or graphic is too small, we will contact you and put your order on hold status because we want to make sure your text or images are clear and visible on the pick.

#2: Wrong selection of pricing – If you accidentally upload a full color graphic, but select single color pricing and submit the artwork as single color, your order will often get placed on hold so that we can verify with you if you want a graphic artist to turn the image all to one color, or if you want to upgrade your pricing.

#3. Complex artwork - If you haven’t already noticed we deal with a lot of complex artwork. It takes work to make it look good. We may do a run of your picks and decide they don’t quite look right, so the graphic artists will revisit the image, and order a re-print of the job until it looks good. Artwork like this may take up to a week to ship out. Also some-times artwork that contain over-bleeds can take a little longer as well.

#4. Out of stock material- This is really rare, but on occasion, we will be out of stock on a certain gauge of material, which can cause a delay. We notify our customers of this delay and always offer that they can switch to a different gauge or material if they are in a rush.

#5. Specialty Picks - We have a few specialty picks that don’t fit in the 48 hour time frame. These include Black Raven (4-6 weeks), Just Text (10 working days) and Colored Pearl (3 weeks). So if you are in a rush, we don’t recommend ordering these materials.

Hope that helps educate you on how we are able to ship fast, and how you can help ensure your order ships out fast. If you want to read more reasons on why you should choose Clayton Custom as your company of choice, please visit Why Choose Clayton.

Currently our Ed Hardy picks are selling like crazy, so I thought I would take a moment today to talk about the pick line.  If you don’t already know about Ed Hardy, once you know you will start seeing it every where, especially on celebrities and musicians.  Their clothing and other items feature colorful classic tattoo designs by Don Ed Hardy.  Clayton, Inc. started making Ed Hardy guitar picks over 3 years ago. When we started the brand wasn’t that strong, but we really saw the potential for it, and since then the brand has really exploded!  Our Ed Hardy picks are printed on our premium pearl celluloid material. The bright pearly white really sets off the colorful Ed Hardy images.  You can check out many of the Ed Hardy items on their website here: Ed Hardy Website.

Don Ed Hardy (pictured left) the artist behind the design is known as “the godfather of modern tattoo”, for his sophistication, depth and sense of experimentstaion. His art is really amazing and I encourage you to take a look at them.  The artwork got turned into a huge success by designer Christian Audigier (pictured right). Christian is the designer of other popular lines such as SMET™ and Von Dutch™. Christian has built a fervent following for his Ed Hardy® and the eponymous Christian Audigier™ brands. Celebrities such as Madonna, Britney Spears, and Kanye West, among others are frequently seen wearing his unique designs.

To find out more info on the guitar picks we offer click here: Ed Hardy Guitar Picks