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Cole Citrenbaum is 12 years old and lives in a small, rural California town. He started with a Johnson electric guitar and took lessons for about three years. With money he received for his 10th birthday, Cole bought a Boss Roland BR-864 multi-track recorder, joined an on-line independent music community, Dmusic, and started posting songs, jams, and collaborations. His experience with Dmusic provided important and meaningful feedback.
Unbeknownst to Cole, Cartoon Network had decided to dip into reality television by doing a talent search called ‘Props.’ A producer affiliated with the Network spotted Cole’s video and told her staff to “Find this kid.” They found him and sent a film crew to his town to film Cole for two days, putting together a short video of him that they then aired on TV and the Internet along with 16 other finalists.
The final Cartoon Network show for ‘Props’, which aired September 1st and 2nd was great. After the on-line voting, Cole was chosen as one of the six winners of the “once in a lifetime” fulfillment and the one hour TV special of ‘Props’. His prize was the opportunity to meet and play with one of his biggest influences, Jonny Lang, at the Fillmore in San Francisco. Also, Jonny Lang presented a Fender Showmaster guitar to Cole.
In one of those “full-circle” experiences, the icing on the cake was that in the days after the Fillmore concert in San Francisco, videos, photos, and comments began popping up on the web - unrelated to Cartoon Network. Cole’s performance at the Fillmore captivated the audience and word spread quickly. That catapulted his web presence. His My Space and YouTube pages have received thousands of hits.
YouTube remains strong today for him, still generating 1500-4000 views per day. Combined with Yahoo!, the “11 year olds blues guitar jam” is approaching 1 million views to date.
Cole plays a Les Paul Limited Edition Standard that he hopes to fully pay off in the next year. He also enjoys the Fender Showmaster given to him by Jonny Lang. Cole still plays and practices with the guitar that he used for the blues jam, an Ibanez S470 DXQM. At home, Cole practices with a Roland Cube 60 amp. For recording he uses the BR-864 with a Sennheiser e835 microphone and recently started mixing with Audacity.
He’s 12 years old. This should be a testament to what a lot of hard work and talent can do. Now he’s being written about in Singer&Musician Magazine! Did I mention I met him when he went to my My Space page and asked to be my friend? Enough said!