Gifts For Your Guitar Lover

Gift giving is a time honoured tradition from holidays to birthdays, or a regular Tuesday to let someone know that you were thinking of them. Good gift giving is an art form, one that some have a knack for and others struggle with. Luckily we live in an age of many gift guides and lists online to find just the right thing for someone. Sadly, a lot of the lists can be all promoted items, affiliate links and such so weeding through them is essential. This guide is a compilation of things I have bought for my music loving and guitar playing child with the addition of a book I was sent for review that I truly enjoyed reading and looking through and cannot wait to share it.

Cheers

A classic rocks glass is a beautiful thing. A rocks glass with a twist is pretty, fun and thoughtful. The feel of the glass is good in hand and the touch of a guitar pick wedged in the side is just right for your guitar lover. The Ben Shot rocks glass is made in Wisconsin and has a real guitar pick wedged into the side. If a shot glass is not what you are looking for there are a variety of items with guitar picks: pint glass, rocks glass, wine glass, shot glass, beer mug, decanter or a set with a decanter and two rocks glasses.

Punch

The best thing a guitar player can do with their gift cards after they’ve been used up, is to turn them into guitar picks. The best way to do that is with a Pick-A-Palooza guitar pick punch. If your guitar player is anything like mine they are always searching for a pick. Meanwhile, if you live with said guitar player you are likely picking up picks everywhere you go. Not only will they have plenty of picks with the Pick-A-Palooza guitar pick punch, but they can also be creative making picks for themselves and their fellow musicians. The punch .71 mm strips with all kinds of fun designs to get started with.

Read/Ogle

The book Superstar Guitars by Photographer Eleanor Jane is perhaps technically a coffee table book, but that would be like going to a rock concert with noise cancelling headphones on and calling it a great show. It may have been a great show without sound just with the lights and set and showmanship of it all, but if you don’t hear the music, you are missing the point. Superstar Guitars by Photographer Eleanor Jane has gorgeous photos of guitars that are being used by musicians now or belonged to famous musicians who are no longer around to play, or both. Each series of guitar photos is accompanied by really interesting stories from the musicians life and career. It is probably the only “coffee table” format book that I will read cover to cover (probably more than once.)

I bought myself The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper and loved it. Since most of my rock critic exposure was from over a decade more than 20 years ago I was unfamiliar with Jessica Hopper. I was a teenager in high school and subscribed to Rolling Stone, I’m pretty sure most of the writing I read was written by men.

Store

I find picks in the car cup holders, on the kitchen floor, in pockets, and on counter tops, but somehow they can never find a pick. My solution is to have a few different places for the picks to be put away. I have a little zipped bag in the kitchen for downstairs picks and a set of these handy pick holders that can be affixed various places. I love this bag from Lexi’s Tree House.

Shred

If your guitarist has a record player, then vinyl makes a great gift too. Sneak a screenshot of their Spotify wrapped or see who they’ve been listening to lately. Here are a few favourite folks who can really make a guitar sing: Emily Wolfe, Julien Baker, Orville Peck, Drew Smithers and Marcus King, Christone Kingfish Ingram, Grace Bowers, Brittany Spencer, Katie Pruitt, Nick Lees from Moon Tooth, Jay Som and Yola