skankdelvar

Some are cooler than others:

badass = badass wild-äss = wild-donkey See? It's madness, I tells ya.

It would be hee-lairee-yuss. I really need to have a sit down with whomsoever programmes that filter. Wild-äss becomes wild donkey? When in the name of all that's holy did äss become a profanity, partickly when used in the phrase 'he's a silly äss'?

I think it's a lovely idea. Then I remember the BC blog and the difficulties involved in getting people to just write stuff, let alone get together, record and edit. Oh, and someone to sit through the recordings to check them for defamatory comments and - gasp - profanities. Great if it happens, won't be holding my breath, happy to be proved wrong.

The reasons Fender's management don't attract the same degree of 'vitriol' as Henry J: * Fender's - or more accurately FMIC's - financial woes were caused by decisions made far above their level by the company's owners - basically a cabal of hedge funds. The worst and most impactful deal was one with Guitar Center which was itself owned by - surprise! the same companies that owned FMIC at the time. The deal made a lot of money for the greedy finance boys but strapped FMIC into a difficult long term position. Henry's mistakes were all his own. * Fender's QC problems were of an order of magnitude less than Gibson's and they fixed it. Gibson just keeps making the same stupid mistakes over and over. Moreover, Gibson cods things up on a much bigger canvas. Bit of fret sprout or a hint of orange peel, well, that could happen to anyone. But sending out a $10,000 CS Kossoff replica with the pencil marks for the incomplete relicing clearly visible under the top clear coat then quibbling it about with the buyer while the whole sorry fiasco gets coverage on Les Paul forums? Or the LPJ I bought where the only bit of the wiring harness that had been soldered was the tone cap? The other wires had just been twisted on and left. Now multiply that sort of thing up a thousand times a year for 15 years... * There's nothing much wrong with Fender's range that a bit of judicious pruning wouldn't sort out. And while Fender might put out slightly questionable, wack-job range extensions like the Pawn Shop series or the Parallel Universe series they're not quite so violently puke-inducing as - say - the Lawn Dart V or the Zoot Suit SG. * One gets the sense that FMIC understand their buyers much better than Gibson and have their finger on the pulse of the market. That said, putting Bono on the board and flogging earphones is a bit Henry-esque. * Gibson went out and bought a bunch of music related brands. They closed down some / many of those that musos liked. IIRC, they made a massive hash of TE. Fender - by contrast - eschewed shonky transistor radios and - for example did a deals with Gretsch which has done much to popularise a pretty much moribund specialist brand. * When it comes to CEO's: Gibson has Henry who pushes himself up the front without ever seeming to know much about guitars. Moreover, he's privately made it clear for years that Gibson's 'heritage' doesn't interest him yet publicly asserted that Gibson guitars are the 'heritage' brand that supports the others. Go figure. By contrast, Andy Mooney at FMIC is an experienced marketer who loves guitars - seems he commissioned a bespoke CS job years before he even considered joining FMIC. In a rare interview here (FMIC have never been big on corporate showboating) Mooney explains his approach while digressing upon stuff like the power of a Strat and two Marshall Majors (tip of the hat to Blackmore, obvs). And he's a Scot, btw. Credit also to those who back Mooney, including Justin Norvell (Sen VP Fender Products) who made his name doing a stellar job with the Squier brand, elevating it from cheapie derivative status to a sort of Area 51 testing ground for wild ideas. * Perhaps the most important take out is this: Henry took over when Norlin had utterly debased the brand. At the time he was - to use the cliche - a breath of fresh air. And for half his tenure everything was fine. Kudos to him. But about 15 years ago things started to go iffy and the pace of decline has accelerated rapidly: basically, he's ended up back where he started. A company on the brink, dissatisfied customers and a product over which hang too many question marks. If I disparage Henry it's not because I hate Gibson; it's because he's gone crazy, demotivated his team, stiffed his suppliers, dissed his retailers and patronised his customers while selling them sub-standard, overpriced guitars. Should I give him a gold medal and a pat on the back? No, the main reason I excoriate Mr Juszkiewicz is because I love Gibson guitars and have ever since the first LP I played in 1979 even if it was - with hindsight - a bit of a dog (dome top, big headstock, laminate neck). I love the old faithfuls like the SG, the Firebird, the Explorer, the eb0; I love the idea of quality, entry level instruments like the LPJ and the original MM's; I drool over '57 Gold Tops. Gawd help me, I even kinda love the mutts like the Corvus and the Sonex. So when Henry puts that at risk he's going to get a pasting from me and - unsurprisingly - scores of thousands of other people who've never even heard of BassChat. As for FMIC - I'd love it if they took Gibson over but it's never going to happen. Where have you gone, Ted McCarty? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you...

A podcast is very useful in the kitchen garden on those occasions when one proudly surveys one's burgeoning crop of peas and / or legumes only to discover that one of the pods has prematurely split open. Nil desperandum! Simply mix four tbsps of baking powder with 3 tsps of dilute 50:50 PVA glue / water and gently form the resulting mixture around the split pod to hold it together. Allow to dry. When the pod has reached optimum fruition gently open the cast with a modelling chisel, remove the contents and Hey! Presto! you're ready to cook. Podcast. A cast for a pod.

That's the Romulans.

For the avoidance of further confusion: England Flag UK Flag Flag of the Klingon Empire

On eBay here for a tenner

G'nnn.

Sadly not. Quoted text as Gibson press release

Around the start of June the US Bankruptcy Court approved Gibson's application for a $135m dollar loan intended to keep the lights on while the company is restructured. It doesn't put them back on their feet but it buys them time to make changes. Henry still seems to be in charge though debtors have insisted there be a change of management team. Also, it's been announced that Gibson will be dissolving the consumer electronics division and terminating the company's 15-year lease at the old Tower Records building in Los Angeles. Sweat-beaded CEO Henry Juszciewicz said: “This is the next milestone for Gibson in completing our pre-negotiated Chapter 11. Our financing has the support of all of our stakeholders. Today’s decision assures that it remains business as usual at Gibson,” said Henry Juszkiewicz, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Gibson Brands. “Pursuant to the Restructuring Support Agreement and the Plan Term Sheet, this plan already has the critical support of our majority note holders. The transaction embodied in the Restructuring Support Agreement will, once approved, reduce our leverage, and allow us to quickly emerge from this process with a stronger balance sheet to support the Company’s long-term success, benefiting our valued customers, business partners, and employees in the years ahead.” To outraged cries of 'We want our money, you loser' and 'Why don't you offer Les Paul Studios with the long-tongue neck tenon?' Mr Juszciewicz was escorted from the press conference by three large men of Italian appearance, driven into the desert and handed a shovel.

Oh well, that's good news! Onward and upward.

Very true. A Gibson dealer I know (won't identify because I don't want to get him in trouble) was bewailing the fact that Gibson had recently insisted he take about 200 Epiphones when the most he sold each year was about 50-60. He was now considering ending his dealership, not least because about a third of the Epis that came in needed loads of work - well beyond a basic set-up.

and gamahuche

So could any further extension of CITES. Or currency movements. Or a contractual clause which enables Henry Juszkiewicz to stay in post. Or a blind shoot-out on Pete Thorn's YT channel where a $250 Chibson blows the ar5e off a real Lester. I could portentously observe that a series of rainy weekends this summer might play havoc with the UK ice cream industry; but it would be a dull-as-f*ck observation, being predicated upon the twin pillars of being both blindingly obvious and entirely speculative. But if I could somehow work Trump into it I suppose a few people here might wet their panties with affronted excitement. Anyway, you started the thread asking what people think; now you know

So what's that specifically got to do with Gibson's well-known pre-existing problems? If you want (as you clearly do) to make the general point that 'this trade war will hurt the American economy' and you want to fret about the jobless then - rather than wasting time wrapping it all up in a Gibson-shaped box - why not toddle over to OT and start a thread that directly addresses your concerns?

For myself, I estimate that no more than 14 individuals may be so alienated by a US / Europe trade war as to exclaim 'I desperately want a new Les Paul but I'm never going to buy one until the 25% US tariff on European steel imports is lifted and Trump's been impeached for crimes against tanning products' By contrast,should there be retributive EU tariffs against US guitars many, many people might indeed say 'Crikey, new Gibson's are well pricey since all this shɩt kicked off but I couldn't really afford one anyway and, besides, they're shonky out of the box. Best to buy a secondhand one that's been sorted'. You're right that the Mexican thing could be an issue

The issue of Trump's trade wars is about as relevant to Gibson's current position as one blow-fly on a dying badger that's been hit by a truck. The blowfly might lessen the likelihood of the badger getting back on its feet but to such a marginally microscopic degree as not to matter. One might just as meaningfully suggest that the unconfirmed possibility of increased tolls on the interstate highways might not help Gibson back on their feet. Or the unconfirmed possibility of a lack of bog roll in the Gibson factory karzi might 'impact workforce morale'. Frankly, it won't make a toss of difference to Gibson guitars if there's a trade war because the problems they face are widespread, deep-seated and decades-old and they'll have to prise the company from Hank's cold, dead fingers.

Frankly, I scent more than a whiff of wishful Trump Derangment Syndrome here. Let's face it: Gibson have been splashing cash on useless sideline companies like a drunken sailor on a toot and industriously f**king themselves up the ar5e with a decade's worth of QC issues under a deranged and hated CEO whose company enjoys quite the most appalling employee ratings on Glassdoor Gibson have moreover devalued their brand with a succession of unlovable cheapies, a gimcrack quality mid-range, $5000-10,000 custom shop jobs with hideous flaws and a succession of 'innovative' models that no one would touch with a sh!tty stick unless they got them off Amazon for £300. Gibson even managed to screw the pooch with an entire frigging model range year (2015). They've back-stabbed their distributors in the UK, held retailers to ransom with ludicrously onerous conditions and jacked their prices up like Ebenezer Scrooge on crystal meth. This year Gibson didn't even go to NAMM but trundled off to CCCES (Crappy Chinese Consumer Electronics Show) to boost Henry's prestigious - er - Philips brand and some of the other unloved, unwanted names he's picked up over the years like Wurlitzer jukeboxes, a product for which there is obviously limitless demand in an age of digital streaming. Hank's even managed to derail one of the only two bits of Gibson that are still successful (Acoustics and Semis) when he announced the sudden relocation of the Memphis plant a few months ago. When challenged about this litany of failure the Great Pumpkin himself blamed musical instrument retailers for not being laid out more like Apple shops and Gibson's core customer base for being ungrateful fanboi nostalgists who really should get more up to date. But according to some, this vortex of madness, hubris and commercial disaster must clearly be eclipsed by the possibility that higher import tariffs might be applied to export Gibsons and that - even if they aren't - Gibson's sales might be dented because some people might now stop buying Gibson's as a 'protest' against Trump and his trade wars. When Henry actually came out for the populist right freakin' Tea Party a few years ago? But maybe that doesn't count. Oh, spare me. For myself, I think Trump's a giant bell-end but the suggestion that the Orange One may ultimately be responsible for Gibson's demise is sufficiently wide of the mark as to suggest that some people know so little whereof they speak that they assume they can build some sort of ramshackle political debate atop the corpse of a guitar company which has been decaying from the inside for 15 years. In short, there are plenty of places to slag Trump off on the webz - I go there myself sometimes - but I'd rather prefer it if people didn't come hawking politically motivated utter bollocks round here when there's a better and far more accurate truth about Gibson's failure to be debated. That's not too much to ask is it?

Hopefully someone will buy Gibson and do what is needed to be done to restore it to its pre-eminence among guitar manufacturers. As for the impact of any trade wars; frankly, that's the least of Gibson's worries: paying their debts to their suppliers, restoring domestic US consumer confidence and putting Henry Juszkiewicz to the sword should be top priorities. More discussions here back in February: And in May:

Best learn all 11 songs; you'll probably have to show the other guys in the band which chords to play and the order they go in

Advertisement: Bass Player Needed Looking for a fun band? We rehearse on Tuesdays (except when we don't because of unexpected spousal emergencies, short-term amnesia or just because). We play the same two songs in different arrangements every time, the extent of the variations depending on whether the guitarist has taken his meds or not. The drummer can't keep time and hits his kit like an angry butcher hacking out pork chops. The keyboards occupy precisely the space where the bass would normally be so you'll have to play everything up beyond the 15th fret. The singer has his own music stand and a jokey hat bearing the embroidered motto: 'I'm The Star'. We might have another guitarist joining but no one's really sure because he's the drummer's mate and we haven't heard from the drummer for six months. We've been rehearsing for four years and have a charity gig possibly booked for July 2027 which will be great exposure. We don't play for money, just for sh!ts and giggles and artistic self-expression, so no bread-heads, ha ha! If you're interested, give us a call but only if you own a van, a PA, a lighting rig, have website building skills and are sufficiently incompetent that we can slag you off behind your back then fire you by email two weeks after you've joined. Ciao!

The BassChat Umlaut Owners' Clüb always welcomes new members.

'If you meet a flake in the morning, you met a flake; if everyone you meet's a flake, you're the flake'. after Dep US Marshall Raylan Givens