As a beginning guitarist, I really like to eavesdrop on chatter between veterans. The Guitar Shop Podcast, courtesy of Wade’s Guitar Shop in Milwaukee, WI, puts out a very friendly, fun to listen to podcast. Their podcast is in audio-only and video format. The video format is better, of course, because it’s hard to instruct someone on changing guitar strings by spoken word only.

There are three options to enjoying The Guitar Shop Podcast:

1. Through iTunes
2. Through Zune Marketplace podcasts
3. At their website right on your computer

Alex, Wade, and Dan deliverin' another not-so-Oscar-Worthy podcast, and I won't miss one minute of it.

I really like the three guys who put the podcast on, Alex, Dan, and Wade the owner. They say that they take pride in owning a small friendly neighborhood guitar shop - they sell acoustics and electrics as well as provide service and lessons. Sounds like a dream job to me!

The podcast, I will warn you, however, is far from perfect. First of all, I don’t believe there’s much postproduction editing. As emergency vehicles zip past the street just outside the shop during the podcast recording, the gang stop in mid-sentence and wait for the sirens to pass before completing their point. Pretty funny stuff, but… isn’t there a pause button, or gee, I don’t know, a way to cut that annoyance out? And a few times phone calls bring the podcast discussion to a screeching halt. Amateur-hour. But, the guys are 99% of the time, great to listen to. They have convinced me that I need to invest in a tube amp in order to really hear my *cough*mediocre playing.

The first podcast I checked out was titled, “Walgreens Sells Guitars?” and they delved into the issue of big box stores, like Target and Best Buy, doubting at all the ability of the minimum wage cashier to provide any actionable guidance on a guitar purchase. (We live within one mile of a Best Buy, and I’ll admit, the first time I saw their huge guitar/musical instrument section, I literally drooled at the wide selection of mass-produced fiddles stocked.)

And if you live in Wisconsin, go tell them the ‘Noob says hello!