Sweetness Follows: Approaching The Anniversary of An Unremarkable Event

Please forgive the cryptic and slightly pompous title for this blog post; I assure you that this is an FLB news post and not one of my 4000 word epics on a loosely related subject that you're probably not interested in. I have this weird thing where I try and match every piece I write with a song title that has some bearing on its content and I can definitely forgive you for rolling your eyes at this one, but bear with me and don't check out just yet...

So it might surprise you to know that the "Unremarkable Event" of the title is in fact FLB's first birthday; which you might consider a strange thing for me to describe in such terms. However, if you take an objective look at things, the beginnings of yet another second hand online music store is, in itself, a pretty unremarkable thing. 

For those that don't know (you can find the full story in my first ever blog post on here entitled "Everything in its Right Place") my obsession with guitar pedals came about as a coping mechanism for what turned out to be a long, slow mental breakdown throughout a particularly tumultuous time in my life. This turmoil reached a peak in March of 2020 when I got my marching orders from my job as a maths tutor and found myself staring down the business end of a gun loaded with penury and ruin. Funny Little Boxes came about as the purely pragmatic solution to the very real problem of needing to pay the bills and not having an income with which to do it. So I just went for it and on May 1st 2020; Funny Little Boxes officially came into being. All in all, a completely unremarkable event. 

What is remarkable though is the response my little shop has received from all you amazing pedal head players and the builders who create these amazing little boxes; for whatever reason, you guys have taken FLB to your hearts and the support I have been shown has been truly phenomenal and I am beyond grateful. It's you guys that have made FLB the success that it is and have seen it through to its first Birthday, which is not something I can honestly say I thought would happen when I started it up. To make it to a year is a big deal; but to be able to look back on that year and see the number of successes FLB has had is quite mind blowing when I sit down and think about it.

That's not to say that it has been plain sailing the whole time; to quote Mr. Freddy Mercury, "It's been no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise". There have been more than one occasion when I thought I was sunk, as in not just out of business but out on the street with no home sunk. The fact is that no sales equals no income and due to be being such a tiny little operation there's definitely been more bust times than boom times; but that just makes the boom times all the sweeter. Learning my lesson from how badly I screwed up the promo for the Bad Penny Littlebox release and getting it bang on for the JSA Post Teen Angst release (which sold out in minutes) is one of the best feelings I've ever had. I grin from ear to ear just thinking about it.

And here's where the title of this piece comes into play; sure there are dark times, life is unpredictable and has a nasty habit of throwing particularly vicious curve balls right when you're most vulnerable and least equipped to deal with it. The turmoil that lead to the creation of FLB has by no means gone away; in this year alone I've dealt with more harrowing shit than I could shake a stick at, but if there is one thing that running FLB has proved to me, it's that wherever darkness goes; the sweetness surely follows. 

As such, I plan to make rather a big deal about Funny Little Boxes turning one and to do so, I've roped in some of my lovely pedal builder friends to make a ridiculously cool bunch of pedals and related gear, much of it exclusive and not to be repeated. All of this glorious stuff will drop on May 1st and be available for you guys to snap up. I have got as many of the builders I have on my books involved as possible and also managed to rope a couple of newbies into the equation to boot! Anyone who knows me will know I can't help but give sneak peeks of things to come so throughout the week I'll be dropping little hints of what you can expect from the drop as a means of getting you excited. 

The first of these hints are the awesome boards made by Stompkins that you can see in the pic above.These are available on the site to purchase as of now; everything else drops May 1st, so, keep your eyes peeled and your ears to the ground and save your pennies for the weekend; because you won't want to miss out!

And finally, a huge thank you to you all for a wonderful year of pedal madness!

See you at the party!

Andy