March always signifies the corner where we say goodbye to winter and hello to spring. Moods change, people venture out a lot more and the days are longer just to mention a few of the dramatic changes at this time of the year. As far as music goes, patios open, backyard parties start to happen and music starts to be heard again in the places where people gather. It's not that I would even dream of complaining about this past winter but it is always nice for us here at the store to be able to open the door up and let some fresh air in, literally and figuratively. For us, our year goes like this. August/September are very busy months, selling products and getting our school up and running, a big task given its size. October/November, continue to be busy with the school and we spend lots of time ordering and receiving extra product for the Christmas season. December is a giant blur as we all work a fair bit harder and longer to sell all of the Christmas product. January is a bit of a hangover month for us but by about half way through we are pretty much back to normal. Mid January we get to travel to LA for the Namm show which is always a nice break. January/February are usually pretty busy with sales and a bit of a second wave in student registration. So... By the time we get to March we are totally ready to relax a bit and dig back into what we like best which is promoting and selling gear. September til now this year has pretty much followed that pattern with the exception of the consistency of other years. About 60% of the time we have improved our business over last years recession and the other 40% of the time we have been the same or actually a bit down. All in all we are improving slightly but nonetheless, the inconsistency is driving us a bit nuts to be honest. However, we are improving and that is something that we are truly grateful for. Now, looking forward we are excited about our expanding video library and all of the new products slated to arrive in the next while. We are continuing to explore new ideas to expand and improve our business which if nothing else is fun for a nerdy entrepreneur like me. In our world like many others, March signifies the beginning of many more sunny days ahead. We're looking forward to a great spring and evening greater summer. We hope to see you soon.

Here at KAOS we are always looking for new ways to expand our business. An idea that we are currently working on is a new, guitar centric website that would cater to guitarists of all levels. The site would potentially offer product reviews, a user forum for people to discuss product and music in general, a section of instructional playing videos, a free classified section for people to buy and sell gear as well as shop for band mates and possibly a store that would offer hard to get guitar related products like play a long books, accessories and guitar swag. Before diving in head first, something we often do, we thought we would ask your opinion. If you'd like to contribute to this idea we'd love to hear from you about what you would find useful in a site dedicated to the guitar enthusiast. If you do send us your ideas, we'll enter you to win a $100 KAOS Music Gift card to be drawn next week. Click here to email us your ideas.

Hot off the press, the February edition of our KAOS Monthly newsletter is up on our website and ready for you to read. A few announcements, a request for customer input and a number of product reviews. Click here to view it online and if you haven't already joined our email list, click here to be notified about our newsletter, special sales and other cool things.

Another great Gear Review from Bill & Jay. In this review they take a look at the Godin 5th Ave Kingpin. Undoubtably one of the most interesting and popular guitars of the past year.

Click here to watch this video

Tags: Godin, Gear Review, Kingpin, 5th Ave

Despite going head to head with game one of the men's Olympic hockey, the KAOS Jam enjoyed a decent turn out and some great performances. Ryan and the house band entertained the crowd with a new assortment of tunes including an awesome version of The Ocean featuring who else but Lou on guitar. Performances ranged from some KAOS Jam regulars to a few new people who got up the nerve to plug in and perform for their friends and families. As alway, lots of fun had by all. We haven't scheduled the next jam but it should be sometime in May. To view video from last nights Jam, click here.

In the next few weeks, a new section will be completed on our website. The VIDEO section will consolidate a number of different types of videos for our customers. The first two series of videos will be: Phil X in a series of highly entertaining videos that he has shot for California based vintage guitar company Frettedamericana. In these videos, Phil shows the guitars off, explains why they're cool and does some amazing playing and singing. Phil is a Toronto Native and great friend of ours here at KAOS. These videos are awesome. The other series will be a new series of product demos by our very own staff. These videos will feature our guys giving you a quick 'live' look at the products that we sell. Both series will start to appear in about two weeks when the site update is complete. Other valuable and entertaining videos will be added as we discover them. We're pretty sure that you will find this new section of our site fun and helpful. Click here to view the Phil X Videos.

Bill and Jay take a look at the newest, low priced, high quality guitar from Martin. In fact, it's not really a new series rather a reissue from a previous series. Either way, the guys walk you through the reasons that we like this series so much.

To watch this video click here.

Tags: martin, acoustic, guitar

Having just been in Los Angeles for our industries "New Product" show there is a long list of new products slated to be released over the next 6 months. We'll endeavor to keep you up to date about these new products and when they are slated to arrive in our store. Keep an eye on this blog, our newsletters and your email in-box for details as they become available. We just posted some information on the new Martin Performing Artist Series of guitars and some big improvements to the already famous AC series of amps from Vox in our product section. Check them out.

Tags: new products

Bill and Lou take an in depth look at the Vox AC 4 combo guitar amplifier. Click here to view this video.

Tags: vox, amp, ac4, ac

Hi everyone, I just got back from the NAMM show in Anaheim, California and I have tons to report. This years show was not only fun it was very educational for business guys like me. There were lots of new and interesting products. By the end of this week I will have the January Newsletter ready which will be full of pictures and information about my trip. Watch for it and make sure you are signed up for our emails so you receive the notification. Click here to read about it.

This past Sunday, we hosted the first 'Music in the Kingsway' concert in partnership with Yamaha Canada and our friends at The Kingsway Conservatory. All of the performances were simply outstanding but our headliner, Heather Bambrick stole the show with her unique sense of humor and absolutely stellar vocals. As a special treat, Heather had Dave Restevo with her. Dave is undoubtable one of Canada's greatest Jazz pianist. All of the performances were carried out on the Yamaha Avand Grand Hybrid digital grand which performed brilliantly. With almost 200 people in attendance, the show was a full out success. We'd like to thank all in attendance and everyone involved with this production. We certainly hope to do more of these concerts in the future. Read more about this concert.

In the past year or so, lots of modeling guitar amps have been introduced. Despite lots of fancy features and a barrage of marketing, Roland's Cube series amps have continued to be perhaps the best sounding and most reliable. Bill and Lou take a closer look at the newest incarnation, The Cube 80x. Enjoy another edition of the KAOS Gear Review. Click here to view video.

Tags: roland, gear review, cube, amp, guitar

Yup, another year has gone by. As with every year since I became a responsible adult with actual responsibilities, it flew by in what seemed like a month or two. Looking back I'd have to say that all in all it was a wonderful year. Despite a world wide recession, our store was able to maintain our school business and only experience a slight decline in our instrument business. Everyone here at KAOS was healthy, happy and relatively prosperous as far as I know. From September 09 until now we have returned to our post recession sales numbers and our school is as healthy as ever. For all of this we are extremely thankful and happy. Coming up for us we have a couple of cool things happening. Firstly, this Sunday January 10th we will be holding our first ever 'Music in the Kingsway' concert which should not only be entertaining but also educational as it features the new Yamaha Avant Grand hybrid digital grand piano. Also, the following week I (Bill) will be traveling to sunny LA to take in the annual NAMM show which highlights all of the new instruments that are slated to be released in the upcoming year. When I get back I will get straight to work on a post NAMM trip newsletter to let everyone in on what I saw and got to experience.

On Sunday January 10th, we are pleased to be offering our community a FREE concert to celebrate some of our communities unique talent, a brand new and very innovative hybrid digital grand piano by Yamaha and most importantly our appreciation for many years of support by the good people of our neighborhood. The concert will be approx. 60 minutes in length and feature three separate performances. A chamber group, a solo piano performance and a jazz vocal performance will round out the entertainment. Attendees will be welcome to stick around after the performance to take a closer look at the piano and speak with representatives from Yamaha Canada. We are very excited about this event and hope to host more like it in the future. For more information and to request tickets, click here.

Tags: Yamaha, Avant Grand, Tyson Kerr, Sharon Burlacoff, Liza McLennan, Elyssa Lefurgey-Smith, Heather Bambrick

As you have already noticed, our website has been completely revamped. There were a few different goals that we hoped to achieve with this overhaul. Firstly, we wanted to make our site look better, more consistent and more professional. Secondly, we wanted to make it even easier to navigate then the previous version and lastly, I (Bill) wanted to make it easier to maintain. The previous site was based on the iWeb platform that while extremely easy to use, had some serious limitations that was making the upkeep of the site very tedious.

This new site combines the Blog and the Podcast of the previous site into this single Blog. Here you will find all of our blog entries and our Gear Review Podcasts. As well, our used and new product pages have been significantly improved with better photos and categories to make finding stuff easier. More improvements will come as we go after we finish porting all of the content from the old site into this one.

Hopefully, you will enjoy this newly improved site and will continue to visit. Thank you as always for all of your support. Feel free to contact me directly at any time with your questions or comments, billkaos@rogers.com.

Tags: Bill, Welcome, new site

There has been a lot of hype and buzz about this new guitar by Godin. The progression represents Godin’s first relatively inexpensive, production guitar in a strat type format. You’ll see from this podcast that we are pretty excited about it and for good reason, it’s pretty awesome. www.godinguitars.com

Click here to view the Podcast

On this episode of the Gear Review, Kaos veterans Bill and Lou look at the G & L Asat Classic Blues Boy Semi Hollow. This is by far one of the most popular guitars that we sell. Lou details why this guitar is such a nice instrument to play.

Click here to watch this podcast.

Tags: G & L, fender, strat, blues boy

One of the coolest products that we sell. The JamVox is so much more then a amp modeling computer interface. Kaos expert Jay Stradiotto walks you through why this little and very inexpensive box is so useful to almost any guitar player, young, old, new or experienced. Check out a more detailed video about the Jam Vox - click here

To watch this podcast click here.

Tags: vox, jam vox, effect processor, computer music

No doubt one of the most checked out and purchased amps of 2009, the Vox Night Train is awesome. Bill and Lou walk you through its features and explain why it’s so cool. For more information about this amp, check out the Vox website at www.voxamps.com

Click here to view the podcast

Tags: vox, amp, night train

One of our favorite guitars lines is the Nash Relic series. This Gear Review looks at one of our most popular models, the T52 based on a 1950’s Telecaster. Kaos product guys Bill and Jay take a closer look at this model. For more detailed information about Nash guitars, visit their website at www.nashguitars.com

Click here to watch this podcast

Tags: nash, tele, relic, electric, guitar

One of Martin’s least expensive guitars it still outperforms and sounds superior to most. The DX1R is one of our most favorite acoustics for sound and feel. Truly outstanding Martin quality at a very affordable price. Jay and Bill walk you through this wonderful value. For more information please - click here.

To watch this podcast - Click here.

Tags: martin, acoustic, guitar