Is Henry listening to Gibson fans?

[Pilgrim]

She had to take time to respond to Tinder posts?

Gibson is much better off without her.  She has no sense of priorities or business.

Granted, the day before is too late to spring a 3-hour test on someone, but if you're not willing to stretch yourself a bit to get a job, I don't want you working for me.

[Dave W]

Maybe he has nystagmus, maybe he's just shifty. Either way, it's unsettling.

It's Gawker. Some of it is probably just anonymous ranting they picked up off the web. But this woman apparently contacted them, and her description has a ring of truth. She was flown in from the UK, so it wasn't a low level job, and from the content of her questions, it sure seems apparent to me that that the questions she asked pertained to the position.

Too much smoke there to ignore or write off.

[Granny Gremlin]

She had to take time to respond to Tinder posts?

Given the publication context (it's Gawker), how do you not get that that was facetious.

[westen44]

Another Gawker article.  Guitar Center doesn't want employees to be sharing the negative article about Gibson.

http://gawker.com/guitar-center-employees-may-not-share-very-negative-g-1713949083

[uwe]

That GC email is perfectly ok - of course you should not participate in one of your important business partners having bad media. Never bite the hand that feeds. Gibson's reputation is currently such that it doesn't need GC employees to chip in as well to create greater credibility.

[westen44]

I also see nothing wrong with GC doing this.  But it's likely to fall under the category of the Streisand Effect that Dave once talked about. 

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Speaking of GC, I had some time to kill in the local Guitar Satan where I worked over a decade ago, and they had not one, but two actual new Gibson basses, a 2015 T-Bird and an EB-0. I think that EB- 0 has been there five years, maybe longer and I doubt it will ever sell, even at the $1499 price because there's also a vintage slothead EB-4L for $1199 that I played when it belonged to another music store that scratches that itch MUCH better. The '15 Thunderbird? Henry ought to be ashamed to put out such a POS with the Gibson name on it!

The EB pickups are awesome, giving a great woody tone that gives the passive T-Bird tone a different dimension and much more like the Nordstrands equipping the adjacent high end Ibanez basses (I love those, but they feel like toys in my hands) than the MM soapbars they resemble, and the bridge were great, but the bass itself, it was terrible. The body wings were visibly differing thicknesses and the finish was flaking off the neck/wing joint on both sides of both parts as well as the outer wing edges, exposing the wood. The oversized headstock with the ultra-skinny body made for terrible neckdive even by Thunderbird standards, and the tuners were crooked. I guess the one positive for others, but not me, would be that holding the neck up all night wouldn't be a problem because whatever kind of "mahogany" the bass was made of, its overall weight was way south of ten lbs, and felt even lighter than the toy-like Ibanez instruments. T-Bird are normally heavy because of their size, but this one felt like it was in the 6-7 lb range, no joke.

For that bass, Gibson's price of $2349 is ludicrous. After tax, Henry expects to have someone pay over $2500 for a bass that looks like the Korean off brand reject junk of the late 80's.  Even the shittiest low end $200 import had better fit and finish. Maybe Henry is trying to make some kind of point about lazy labor producing sub-par instruments because that bass was clearly not built for a player with any kind of attention to detail or appreciation for sealed wood.  (The older EB-0 had none of those issues; it just sounds like a modern EB-0, blah.)  Gibson can't blame it on climate or handling either. Nashville and Knoxville have essentially the same climate and I remember from my time working at that store that all Gibsons are drop-shipped from the factory, and any blow heavy enough to damage the finish to the degree this one has would have taken a corresponding chunk of wood with it, which was not the case. It still played great, but for that price, hell no would I buy one. Especially not when the Epiphone version is much cheaper and has the traditional T-Bird tone, something this one couldn't do.

Seriously, even though the EB pickups are great, a Thunderbird still ought to sound like a Thunderbird at least some.  I know Uwe finds the new combination a refreshing update. but he also has an entire stable of T-Birds that SOUND like T-Birds. My suggestion would be to have a TB+ in the neck with the EB working its midrange magic in the bridge position, which I know is aesthetically mismatched, but I think a bridge EB could have a black plastic cover, or heaven forbid, chrome on both. If someone gave me that bass, I would hesitate just because I know a substantial investment is required just to make the instrument able to age without shedding its finish even worse and crooked tuners, while functional, are completely inexcusable on a modern instrument. Re-drilling mounting holes on a new bass is ridiculous.

The test amp was a vintage GK 800RB into a vintage EV-loaded Mesa 2x15, far and away the best amp in the place. I played several basses today, and my favorite was a black Epi Jack Casady, followed by a 5-string Peavey G-Bass that thought it was a Ken Smith. I would love to have the money to bring those home. I also tried a vintage Baldwin hollowbody with an Ampeg scroll-esque headstock. It was junk. There was also a 70's Guild JS II that was fun, but I don't care for medium scale. The pickups didn't impress me either. I was REALLY hoping to try one of the new fan-fret Ibanez basses since I'll probably never see a Dingwall in the wild. I played, but didn't plug in a new Fender Jazz V Deluxe; it had a wide, but comfortable neck.

I also appeared to be the only person in the bass room who could actually play and/or was not high on meth. No, I'm not kidding. There was some bald tweaker beating the shit out of every bass he held "slapping" it (thankfully he favored Schecters and Squiers tough/cheap enough to endure it) and his homeless-tramp looking buddy drinking vodka out of a Mountain Dew can kept commenting about how he wanted to have sex with a poor Epi Beatle bass. I know I was tired and irritable over heaving to come into work during the day for a benefits seminar that I can't afford even if wanted to, the only reason I was on that end of town during daylight, but those guys would have been kicked out, probably by me personally when I worked there. There was also some guy who didn't work there who kept coming in the room and then leaving every time I swapped instruments to watch me play but wouldn't talk to me; WTF?  That store is just a corporate cesspool of suck now. Henry ought to visit. I think he'd like it.

[nofi]

if gibson folded there would be a lot of sad guitarists, not so many bassists.imo.

[uwe]

Uhm, you didn't like it then? 

[Dave W]

No chance of Gibson folding.

I understand at least one of the local GCs has been completely remodeled and looks nice.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

There's a Facebook group dedicated to former employees of this particular store. We keep tabs on old friends and sometimes enemies too. It has been remodeled recently. All the huge standing displays bolted to the floor are gone now, probably because they made for too many blind spots for theft. . They were added long after I left anyway.  The store looks very empty now

Surprisingly, the number of basses is probably the most the store has seen since its Musician's Friend (it was one of three stores GC converted) glory days, but most of them were cheapies that had been VERY abused, knobs and pots were missing and broken, massive finish scratches, basically pawn shop-condition, "new" instruments. The T-Bird was up higher than the others and looked like it hadn't been handled very much: no greasy fingerprints on the pickguard or tuners. It it hadn't been for the QC issues, I think I would have shared in Uwe's feelings about the 2015 changes, but seeing it built like import junk- nuh-uh. I would LOVE to hear the EB pickups in an actual EB; they sound great, just nothing like a Thunderbird, which is sort of the reason most folks would buy a Thunderbird.

[Dave W]

Back to Henry's vanity project.

Gibson Says Self-Tuning Guitars Are Here To Stay, Even As Purists Fret

We'll see how long this lasts.

Gibson has already started to retreat on the guitar front. They're now offering a $699 Les Paul CM with a standard nut, the former standard neck width, and the old familiar Les Paul script -- unfortunately the G Force is still standard, and it's really just a 2014 Les Paul Melody Maker with a bridge HB instead of two P90s, but it's a start in the wake of disastrous 2015 sales so far. And in light of the problems with the soft brass zero fret wear, in the past few days they have started offering some new prototype nut to buyers who complain.

[westen44]

This is just common sense.  Not too many people are ever going to get excited about a self-tuning guitar.  George Gruhn's comments were relevant, too.  Nobody cares.  It's a bad idea, IMO.  I honestly wish Gibson would find a way to move beyond this. 

[Dave W]

They're just now offering another 2015 with the G Force but without all the other improvements, it's the Gibson Les Paul Traditional Classic ABR 2015. Henry seems to be determined to force the G Force on everyone hoping they'll still buy since the other crap has been ditched. It will probably improve sales some, since the G Force can be replaced with conventional tuners, but what kind of megalomaniac tries to force something that prospective buyers have overwhelmingly rejected? Talk about hubris!

[TBird1958]

Damn it Dave! That's pretty feckin' creepy!