Takes a Beating; Sustain Teaser
March 30, 2010
This is the latest teaser for Sustain. It was first shown at our grant presentation last month, and now it's time to unveil it to the rest of the world.
"Sustain: The Travis Bean Guitar Movie tells how one great idea changed guitar history. Born of the motorcycle and hot rod culture of Burbank California in the early 1970s the Travis Bean guitar was fused from gear head sensibility and rock and roll creativity. The innovative aluminum neck that Travis Bean invented created a guitar with a tone and a story that sustains forever. When it was new, the Travis Bean guitar complimented a variety of musical greats from The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead to Heart. Rediscovered after percolating in the underground through the early '80s Steve Albini, jazz virtuoso Stanley Jordan, and Sonic Youth picked up and amplified the Travis Bean Guitar Story. Sustain tracks this musical instruments lasting sensation through stories shared by Travis Bean, his team of guitar builders, and the musicians who play the guitars."
Travis Bean Documentary "Sustain" Trailer
September 06, 2009
Here is a look at our latest trailer for the upcoming Travis Bean documentary titled "Sustain". We are currently asking for donations to help defray the costs of transcribing audio files, any amount will help. Please donate by clicking on the "Make a Donation" badge to the right.
Vintage Guitar Magazine
May 15, 2009
We have a article in the July 2009 issue of Vintage Guitar magazine (First Fret section) titled "File to Document Travis Bean". The article was written by Chris La Tray who also wrote the piece in the Missoula Independent a few months back. We're all very excited to see this in Vintage Guitar! Thanks Chris for putting together another great article about the project!
I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words and support during this project and a special thank you to Vintage Guitar for printing the article! I hope you enjoy the piece, it made it on the shelf today.
Side note:
There appears to be a editorial edit made by Vintage Guitar that I'd like to address - "They organized a reunion as part [of] the documentary project, and during it, conducted 19 more interviews". We actually conducted the 19 interviews prior to the reunion spanning over several months. We did not conduct the 19 interviews at the reunion as that sentence suggests.
Stay up to date with the movie's progress using social networks.
May 09, 2009
Along with this site, you can follow our progress using a few of the popular social networks out there. Please join these pages to receive updates and to see what's been going on with the project!
- MySpace - Become a friend of the project. This is a MySpace page dedicated to the Travis Bean Documentary
- FaceBook - We also created a FaceBook fan page just for the documentary
- Twitter - We're also updating our status via Twitter
If you'd like to be notified of updates relating to this page, you can subscribe to our RSS feed using feedburner!
Thanks everyone!
Thank you Chicago!
April 09, 2009
On March 24th to the 27th we officially started our Phase II interviews with a great line up of musicians in Chicago. We would like to say thanks to Steve Albini and the crew at Electrical Audio for giving us a home base during a few of our interviews while we were there. Of course we'd like to say thanks to everyone that let us enter their practice spaces and giving us an opportunity to talk with them on camera as well as the people that made it to Chicago from out of state.. and out of the country. We feel that the interviews and footage that was captured were outstanding and will be a great addition to the project.
We received a lot of emails while setting up the Chicago trip, and it became obvious soon after arriving that we'd need to make a return trip. So if you're in the Chicago area, please keep in touch. We're not sure when the next trip will be, but we will be returning!
Currently, we're trying to generate funds for our next trip, which will be to Tennessee or New York. Please help with the project by making a donation, every bit helps pay for plane tickets and hotel rooms.
Thanks everyone for the kind words and support!
Travis Bean "Sustain" Teaser Available
February 23, 2009
The crew from Salty Snack put together a small Sustain teaser for you to enjoy. We'd like to say thanks to Arma Secreta for helping us with music for the piece!
(Song: "Undressing Underwater" from the album "A Century's Remains").
We're still working on scheduling trips for 2009, but everything seems to be falling into place. I'd like to personally thank everyone for their support and encouragement regarding the project. I will also to thank everyone that have donated. These funds will help us purchase plane tickets and pay for travel expenses while we're out on the road.
Missoula Independent Article - "Encore"
February 05, 2009
Photo by Chad Harder
The Independent is also planning on doing a follow up article when the documentary is complete. We will be sure to post news about this when it happens.
You can read the full article here.
I would also like to say a special "thank you" to Jodi Shapiro for creating the first Travis Bean site (lexiconoclast) that started it all.
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We need your help to complete this project. The Travis Bean documentary has been completely self funded, but now we are looking for help to pay for some of the production. We have multiple trips slated in the next upcoming months (Chicago, New York, Nashville and Los Angeles) and need help getting to those locations. With your help we can get this project completed!
Donations are through PayPal. Thank you for your support!
Bruce and Toni shooting a Travis Bean guitar (TB1000S) summer 2008