Joe's guitar strap

Someone hinted this topic might be better off on it's own, so here it goes.

For a few years I've been listening to Joe's music and as soon as tickets nearby were available I got in for two shows in 2011. In May I was at the Antwerpen show and I was very inspired after seeing Joe play. I remember thinking, here's a guy I'd like to shake hands with.

I've been playing guitar since the age of 4 and have worked in the guitar business for some 20 years now. In those 20 years I've seen many amazing players, both local and international. I've met Gary Moore, Eelco Gelling, Slash, Steve Lukather, Carl Verheyen and many others and even jammed with a few of them.
So when the Carre ticket went on sale, I couldn't wait to see Joe in that wonderful venue.

A couple of days later the Dunlop rep was in our store and I told him I had some tickets and jokingly asked him for a meet and greet with Joe. He told me, he'd look into it. A couple of months went by and Oct. 7th was getting closer when Erjan contacted us and said he talked to some guys at the Dunlop HQ and the meet and greet was on. Wow!

This summer I started making guitar straps, purely out of frustration. I just couldn't find a comfortable and nice looking leather strap for my Les Pauls. So I went to a leather shop and started building some for myself. When I showed the first couple I made to my friends, it blew their mind and they told me to start a business doing this. That's still a little out of my league but since then I have made a couple straps for friends.

When we got the green light for the meet and greet, I knew I just had to make a strap for Joe. It's my way of saying, thank you for the music and thanks for keeping me inspired.

After a couple of emails and posts overhere, I found out what length Joe likes his straps (turned out to be the same length I use myself, 49 inches). I had about 20 days from start to finish. The design of the artwork took me about a week, building the strap about 8 days.

The artwork was inspired by a recent Guitarist interview. Joe talks about the old days (10 years ago) when he wasn't sure he'd get through the year without going out of business and BB King told him to just grin and bear it, and keep doing what you're doing and never give up. To me that sounds like great advise and reminded me of the japanese Koi fish. The Koi never gives up, swims against the stream and turns into a mythical Dragon when it reaches it's peak. So that's the theme for the strap.

Here's a video I made from the images I took when building > http://youtu.be/qX268sf0a-w

Step by step build on my website http://www.gewoongitaar.nl

I finished Joe's strap late wednesday oct. 6th. Next day was the meet and greet day in Carre, Amsterdam.
Joe was super nice and took the time for everyone there. Joe liked the strap and I had the chance to explain the design and straplock system I came up with. Later that night, it appeared on stage for the first time with the Goldtop with Bigsby that was used for Dust Bowl. I've seen some other video's from the tour and it's still on there

Here's a video of our meet and greet > http://youtu.be/uk81V8Rbglw

The show was great, Joe and the guys were having fun and so was the audience. It blew my mind to see Joe using the strap during Dust Bowl, it took me a few days to get over that!!