After two years, hundreds of hours of interviews, and, finally, a trip to Santa Rosa to dig through the archives, the next book is on to the final editing stages. I can’t tell you how excited and honoured I am to add Rob Turner’s and the EMG story to the bibliography.
 
I’ve put together a little teaser page here.
 
Watch for more details as we work through the publishing process. Many, many thanks to the artists, the Turners, and Rob for sharing their stories. Can’t wait to share it with everyone.

The author and the subject - May 23, 2022.

Many thanks to Drew and the Frontiers for the call to fill in the bass chair for the weekend. We started with a warmup at South Block and brought it home as the house band for the Flames vs. Oilers game, complete with after party shenanigans. Here are a few pics:

If for nothing else, I'm grateful to Facebook for keeping memories alive. Here's a link to an interview I did in 2014 with Dan Chapman. We talked about all things Chapman Stick, most notably his documentary in progress about his brother Emmett. Take a few minutes and check it out. I hope you enjoy.

One step closer to the big time: ​https://www.writersunion.ca/member/jim-reilly 

I sure enjoyed my time at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. So many seeds planted. When Steinberger was released, I reached out to my old professor, Dr. George Johnson. His biography class led to StickMan, which led to Steinberger, which opened up even more doors. The TRU Alumni department got a hold of that story and did this one. It was great to catch up and go down memory lane.

"Jim Reilly’s book brilliantly tells a fascinating story of where music, industrial design and musical instrument sales intersect," writes Phil Ward in the February 2021 edition of Sound on Sound. You'll need to create a free account to read the latest issue online, or better yet, subscribe. It's the one of the industry's richest resources. Many thanks Phil for the thoughtful review and kind words.

The review is online here.

You can find more kind words about the book here.

The fun never stops. Happy and honoured to be featured on CBC radio's Homestretch today. They've also added a story to their national news page here.

It was great to be on the radio again. I had some flashbacks to many moons ago when I was doing freelance work for CBC in Kamloops.

I expect the radio feature to be archived soon on the Homestretch page. I'll update when that goes live.

True story: the book was done, I was doing the final read through and I found a date that wasn't lining up. I called Ned in a panic, he confirmed that I had the date right and I came down off the ledge. You see, my biggest fear, the one that kept me up at night was that Andy Yakubik would read the book and call me up to let me know what I got wrong. Andy is one of the world's foremost Steinberger instrument authorities. Thankfully, he loved the book. He connected with me and Ned over Zoom and we had a great time talking about the book. Here's the video:
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