Many ROCKIN' thanks to Michael Lederman and the Crystal Group

Michael Lederman is founder and president of the Crystal Group, one of the top rock & roll and pop culture merchandise sales companies in the nation. He and his key associate, Amy Bierly, have contributed hugely to the success of the Petersen Automotive Museum by carefully stocking their merch shop with the finest themed garments. These include my PHANTOM line (created with the Ames Bros. Design Group and produced by Mike Taylor's Headline Entertainment) and more recently Mike Ness' BLACK KAT CUSTOM line. Many in the crowd at the ROCKIN' booksigning were wearing PHANTOM and BLACK KAT.

Michael's pride and joy (besides his family) is his blown '37 DeSoto, portrayed on page 58. He brought the beast over to the Petersen so the crowd could be entertained with Mike Ness' music (via the car's state-of-the-art video screens) while they waited to go through the autographing line. The fact that the DeSoto was on the museum floor alongside Billy F Gibbons' CadZZilla and Chili Catallo's Silver Sapphire (known to the world as the Little Deuce Coupe was just . . . huge. A great honor.

Many of you know my life's work has been to bring rock & roll to the people, in part by way of merchandise created by companies including Winterland Productions, Sony Signatures, and Signatures Network. Crystal Group has been my right hand team for nearly 25 years. So I was proud to involve Michael and Amy in the ROCKIN' booksigning and here's my shout-out to them.

FYI, Michael is wearing a Throttlers shirt, from the PHANTOM line.

ps. here's what Michael had to say about the car itself:

"It's a '37 DeSoto coupe--the last year a rumble seat was offered in this car or in cars by any other manufacturer. It's been chopped and channeled, and sports a bored-out 440 Mopar big block. Depending on how much blower boost I run on the street, it can get nearly 750 horsepower.

"The car was originally built in '89 (and appeared that year in Street Rodder). I bought it because I'd never seen anything like it before. I'd been a street rod aficionado for quite some time, and always told myself if something unique came along I would pull the trigger.

"I purchased the DeSoto a little over three years ago, drove it for a week, and then proceeded to take it totally apart. Although it had all the cool things a hot rod could possibly have had in '89, you can imagine the advancements that came afterwards over the next 15 years. So . . . everything was upgraded down to the last nut and bolt, and now it's state-of-the-art by today's standards.

"The single most unique aspect is the audo and video capabilities. It has two 15-inch LCD flat screens in the rumble seat and two 5-inch LCD screens in the sunvisors. It has two DVD players that can play any number of combinations on the screens, so it's a great show tool for rock merchandising."

Thanks Michael for the update!