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Please go to Rick's new website at http://www.rickparkarts.com/ for the most recent updates, gigs, blogs, prices, etc. or to email Rick! Please update your links to reflect new website name and do any ordering from the new website, to get most current pricing. This older site will be offline by the end of 2010.
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| Gen-U-Wine Bottleneck guitar slides are made from recycled materials (wine bottles) in four main varieties: Curved, Straight, Single Cut, and Double Cut. Our best seller for the past several years has been the so-called "Martin/Taylor" model, a very subtly curved ("so subtle you can hear the "b" in the word") Gen-U-Wine Bottleneck slide, designed to accommodate today's fine hand-built steel-stringed guitars. Available in Single or Double Cut. Lately there has been quite a fuss over our "Cobalt blues" model: available in all the same styles as our other models, but made from hard-to-find cobalt blue glass! Cobalt blue ring slides are readily available. Contact Rick for availability of other styles of cobalt blue slides before ordering. Lately, Rick has been getting "smoky blue" (a dark blue glass) and occasional "powder (pale) blue" bottles. He is planning to fix a separate new price for those, in between the regular colors and the cobalt blue.See a photo of 4 colors of bottleneck slides: pale green, pale blue, cobalt blue, and traditional dark green. |  |
| Many steel-stringed guitars have a curved fingerboard and hence a curved string-plane, with the middle strings upraised. The Curved Gen-U-Wine Bottleneck guitar slide allows the simultaneous playing of all six strings by compensating for the fret board "radius". It allows the player to produce true chords, without distortion and buzz, and to fingerpick while sliding. |  |
| The Straight Gen-U-Wine Bottleneck guitar slide may be used with flat necked guitars or when the guitar player wants only one or two strings to sound, as with lead guitar styles, whether in open or standard tuning. It may also be used for chordal or multi-stringed applications on guitars with flat string-panes, e.g. classical (nylon-stringed) guitars, some Dobro-guitars, and 20's parlor style guitars. For lap-style guitars, you'll need a Gen-U-Wine "Long Boy" guitar slide to span the wider neck. Contact Rick for price and availability of long boy guitar slide before ordering. |  |
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Any Gen-U-Wine Bottleneck may be either Single Cut (i.e., with lip still attached) or Double Cut (with both the lip and the container part of the bottle removed). Single-Cut users must practice to avoid playing with the lip of the bottleneck. Double-Cut users pay a a little extra to avoid this learning process. |  |
| One of Bonnie's Raitt's teachers, Mississippi Fred McDowell, used a ½ - inch "Ring" guitar slide. We can make them short, too, whatever length you request. As for the width, most bottlenecks are slightly bigger around than a cork, with the lower end a little bit larger around. Some bottle openings, especially European bottles, may vary due to irregular glass thickness. If you have a special style guitar slide in mind, please ask, and we will try to accommodate you. |  |
| Meanwhile, just crook your finger inside your Gen-U-Wine Bottleneck guitar slide, and it isn't going anywhere. Or if you're totally hard-core about the fit, try a bit of cotton wadding and some double-stick tape. |  Other Leading Brand. |
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BOTTLENECK
GUITAR SLIDE TIPS: 3. "Damping" means using a trailing finger to mute
scratches, string-buzzes, and unwanted vibrations, especially at
takeoff and landing of the slide. Properly matching your Gen-U-Wine
Bottleneck guitar slide to the fret board radius is the other major
factor in avoiding excess noise. Rick Park enthusiastically recommends Mark Hanson's books The Complete Book of Alternate Tunings and Alternate Tunings Picture Chords for detailed information on a great many possible guitar alternative tunings. Mark lists Rick Park as a source of 3 unusual open tunings: G minor, G major seventh, and CGCGBflatD, which might be a C7plus9 or a Gminor sus4, depending on how you use it. |
| SLIDES ENDORSEMENTS: Gen-U-Wine is privileged to have cultivated at least two celebrity users: Chris Proctor, a National Fingerpicking Champion, uses the double-cut Martin/Taylor Gen-U-Wine Bottleneck guitar slide. Bonnie Raitt, the Grammy Award-winning singer and guitarist, uses a single-cut straight Gen-U-Wine Bottleneck guitar slide to produce her unique slide style. Vintage Nationals Guitar website has a nice little entry of Rick's slides, with a nice photo: http://www.nationalguitar.com/guitar-slides/GenUWine June 2010 Email from musician, Eric Hartshorn, who wrote "I meant to thank you for the slides- I LOVE THEM ! The Cobalt glass really adds to the entire experience, but the weight also provides just the right amount of substance I felt sorely lacked in all the other slides I have tried to date. I can honestly say it is one of the most enjoyable things I have ever stuck my little finger into!" June 2009 Watch a video of David Reo playing a slide guitar composition entitled "Relax" on a wood body Johnson dobro guitar using his favorite blue Gen-U-Wine slide made by Rick Park. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dtlc2iiVjw. April 2009 Rick received a nice note from Two Street Music in Eureka, one of his long-time customers: "Thanks, Eric, Your slides are the best we carry!!" - John Mrotzek, Store Buyer. May 2008 Rik Elswit, of "Bananas at Large," a music store in San Rafael, plays lead guitar with a Gen-U-Wine Bottleneck guitar slide. His band, "Gayle Lynn and the Hired Hands", is set to release their self-titled CD soon. April 2008 Email from musician, Ray Porter, who wrote: "Just wanted to say hello and thank you for the great slides. I have been playing them for years and have made gifts of them all over the world. Whenever they are in stock here in Ashland, Oregon, I buy as many as I can as I don't always know where I can find them elsewhere. I have tried other slides by other makers but I always come back to the ones you make. I play a 1934 National Trojan and I use the basic green (or blue) ones with the smooth ends (Double-cut.) and they are consistently the best slides I have ever played with. You can hear me using them on the album "Freedoming" by Free Dominguez, on the first track. Everyone who uses these loves them which is why I cannot keep them for very long." August 2005 In a second email, Ray wrote: "Incidentally, one of your slides is in a movie. I am an actor and a few years ago I was working all summer long on a movie. I went to Nashville and bought my 1934 National and brought it back to L.A. with me. When I played it the first time with your slide it was heaven. I was playing a roadie in the movie and asked the director if I could have the guitar be in one of the scenes and he said yes. If you watch "Almost Famous" and watch the scene between Billy Crudup and Patrick Fugit where Patrick is interviewing Billy on the bus while he plays slide, you will see a genuine Gen-U-Wine slide making it big in Hollywood." Rick Park added that "The slide used in the movie 'Crossroads' was also one of mine." September 2005 Rick Park received a call and a CD and card from a musician named Steve White out of Leucadia, near San Diego, CA. He's a blues guy with some reputation in that area. He wrote, "Taking your slides to Europe... Great gifts. Great product." June 2005 Seth Stimson, aka Slidecat Royale
said that "His Gen-U-Wine slide feels like family to him." May
2005
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