10 Great Guitar Blogs: Red Dawg Guitar News

By: Dr. Matt Warnock

The "Red Dawg," Inspiration beyind the site's name

Guitarists love gear, well that’s an understatement to say the least. Guitarists flock to new gear like moths to a flame, it’s in our blood, if we were born to play guitar we were born to love everything that makes that guitar sound louder, fuzzier, give it more tone and manipulate its signal in any myriad of ways. For this reason, guitar blogs that focus on gear have sprung up all across the web, with various levels of success with most being veiled attempts at selling readers gear through affiliate programs.

One of the best guitar gear blogs out there today is Red Dawg Guitar News. Mixing solid writing with reviews, interviews and news stories, the site provides gear lovers with their fix of breakdowns of the latest gadget, but also goes beyond the typical Amazon/Musician’s Friend overview of each product. Christopher Bigelow, owner and operator of RDGN, writes in a way that draws his readers in, that connects to them on a level that can only happen when someone is writing about something they love, and not just doing it for the money.

When choosing our list of 10 Great Guitar Blogs, Red Dawg Guitar News was at the top of our list for gear-based sites. Check it out, but be warned, once you’re on the site, it might be very hard to leave!

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Matt Warnock: How did you first become interested in running your own guitar website, leading you to launch Red Dawg Guitar News?

Christopher Bigelow: I was searching for some information related to guitars, and I realized that I had to search all over the place to find what I was looking for, which became kind of time consuming. I started Red Dawg Guitar News to organize guitar related information all in one place so that guitar players of all backgrounds and tastes could easily access it all in one place.

Matt: How did you come up with the name Red Dawg Guitar News? Is there a red dog in your family?

Christopher: I thought hard and long about what I was going to call my blog when I first started out, and all the ones I could think of were taken. My dog was lying on the floor next to me while I was at the computer trying to find a name. So Red Dawg Guitar News was born. The Red Dawg is Cinnamon, my Australian Shepherd. You can see her picture in our logo.

Matt: What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as Red Dawg has grown since its inception?

Christopher: Gaining return traffic was a challenge at first, as well as finding items to review. I started reviewing items I already owned, but then companies started contacting me to review their products once they had read some of my articles.

Music Doggie Site Logo

Matt: Is there any topic that you love to write about, a certain genre of music maybe, or a certain artist, or are you drawn to the world of guitar rather than to a specific entity within that realm?

Christopher: The hard part is trying to vary the content enough to have a little bit of everything for everyone. I’m not into writing about artists. I prefer to play with guitar gear and write about it instead. If I were to write an article about an artist or band, it would probably be David Gilmour or The Eagles. I love their guitar solos and the sounds that they’ve both created using a guitar.

Matt: What have been some of the biggest highlights you’ve experienced, as a writer and guitarist, since you started Red Dawg?

Christopher: An exciting moment occurred a few months back when we were selected as a runner up for the 2010 Guitar Blog Awards. I’ve also been able to meet all kinds of wonderful people in the music industry and interviewed many of the companies that make some of my favorite products.

Matt: Have you found that writing about guitar has had an effect on your playing and vice-versa?

Christopher: Actually, between my full time job and Red Dawg, I don’t have as much time to play as I used to. Running a Blog can be very time consuming. My main job is in Information Technology, the blog allows me to use my IT skills to share my love of playing the guitar with readers from around the globe.

Matt: What are some of the innovations in technology that you think have had the biggest impact on your site and how you reach your audience in today’s internet climate?

Christopher: It takes a while to generate an audience even over the internet. It’s still a learning process. Between writing articles and promoting the web site, it takes a lot of effort to keep the site growing. Organizing the blog has been both easy and complicated.

I tried to create the site in a way that is structured in an easy to follow flow, so that users understand where to find things. While at the same time, there were many instances when I decided that parts of the blog would look better if I tore it apart and put it back together, so that it is easier to manage in the future.

Technology is constantly changing. It creates better and easier ways to do things in the online world, so when I find a new script that does something I like, I’ll often integrate it into the web site.

I wanted to do a classified section for guitar players, but put it on hold for the longest time because I wasn’t sure how I wanted to structure it. Then, one day I came across some cool software and decided to create a marketplace dedicated to music instruments. Now I have the birth of my second site called Music Doggie.