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From today's NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/bu....html?hpw&_r=0
One of the more interesting tidbits is that the Guitar Center is controlled by Bain Capital. It was sold to Bain by Larry Thomas, who is now Fender's CEO.
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09-30-2012 07:53 PM
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Thanks for the link.
>>> Guitar Center is controlled by Bain Capital
I just hope this does not set off our more vocal political extremists.
EDIT: If pressed to guess, I would have pegged the GC share at above 1/6 of Fender's sales.
ChrisLast edited by PTChristopher; 09-30-2012 at 08:23 PM.
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Doesn't explain all the 47%ers who hang out at Guitar Centers.
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I keed, I keed!
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I think the article may have been a bit too Fender-centric noting both the growth of music styles that do not favor the electric guitar, and a wave of high quality instruments that are far cheaper. These are both challenges for Fender, but they are not necessarily of the same scope. Nor are they necessarily moving overall guitar sales in the same direction.
On notable thing in my opinion is that both the G brand and the F brand made guitars of very mixed quality in 1980. Today one of those companies puts out a very consistently high quality product while the other seems to be about the same as it was in 1980.
Ultimately this may not help Fender. Their high quality may be seen as a direct competitor to Asian high quality. In some ways maybe they will regret not building more of a high end market image while cranking out sticky guitars of mixed quality levels.
Who knows.
Chris
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A result of them trying to be all things to all guitar players. They flooded the market with gear and now the glut has bit them in the rear.
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The thing that was only briefly touched upon in this article that bears close watch in the near future is that Guitar Center has borrowed heavily to stay afloat and that note is about to come due. There is some speculation that Guitar Center's debt outstrips the worth of the company. GC is in arrears in accounts payable to its vendors with Gibson and Fender at the top of that list.
By adopting the Wal-Mart business model of underpricing their competition out of business they have successfully placed themselves in the position that their demise will wreak serious repercussions throughout what is left of the retail music industry as we know it. We can only hope that if GC does fall that Gibson and other manufacturers have the good sense to immediately rebuild the bridges that they burned with the mom and pop music stores that have managed to survive.
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Plus the business model of buying up competitors killing off competition and inovation. My day gig is IT and I worked for the #1 ISP at one point and that practice almost killed them. I worked for one of the large now gone banks same story buying of small banks. Software industry is full of this practice and it benefits no one.
Talking to someone who works for GC corporate they say the online businesses are doing good, it's the brick and mortar stores that are hurting. For those that don't realize it GC does business online under many different names.
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Not alot of inovation when everyone wants a slight twist on guitars that havent changed since the 50s or early 60s.
Originally Posted by docbop
If you buy your competitors.. and people buy those guitars instead of yours, is that not still a win win situation?
Personally, I think playing guitar is kinda like playing Mandolin in the 30s.. just soooo 10 years ago. I still do it, but I dont expect the kids to . In Montreal the dj's filled the gap a long long time ago.
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Back when his hit "Cars" was out (maybe early 80's or something?), pseudo-future weirdo Gary "Numan" postulated the imminent death of the guitar in popular music.
Pics of his enduring post-apocalyptic nit-wit persona show him playing a Les Paul in 2011.
>>> I think playing guitar is kinda like playing Mandolin in the 30s.. just soooo 10 years ago. I still do it, but I dont expect the kids to
I sure hope the guitar does not continue to define youth pop-music forever, but it does need something to replace its ability to provide basic chords and rhythm at once, AND the ability to be a prop for full-body expression.
When I see lots of kids playing "air MP3 player" then I will have learned something.
In the meantime, I expect the guitar to hang in there somewhat.
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>>>GC corporate they say the online businesses are doing good, it's the brick and mortar stores that are hurting.
Hah, I can just imagine the corporate accounting that burdens the stores with costs that the dozen versions of online GC do not have (stores and GC online all sell at the same price). But try closing all the stores then see how the corporation will do.
I live in an area with a decent assortment of genuinely good non-GC music stores still. Go figure.
Chris
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Not when the brands just turn into s shape and a label on low end clones. Sure someone who always want a Brand X guitar and couldn't afford one has one in name, but not in former quality. To me that's not a win-win. Originally Posted by SamBooka
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[quote=PTChristopher;258729]Thanks for the link.
>>> Guitar Center is controlled by Bain Capital
"Why Ike!! . . . What evva do you mean??"I just hope this does not set off our more vocal political extremists.
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Hee-hee.
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I don't believe that playing guitar is no longer cool.
I go to an open mic and I see several generations but mostly college kids.
This didn't start in the 60's with rock. It started in the deep south with one man on one guitar singing the blues and in the Appalachian hills with traditional folk music.
Guitar is not on the way out quite yet.
However, I don't see many bands. I wonder if the social infrastructure that used to create them has diminished. I also don't see a lot of businesses relying on live music.
IMHO, less live music and competition from Asia are challenges Fender will have to face and rise above to grow. Not sure how they will do this but I'm sure they are very aware of it.
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Haven't you heard? Air guitar has been replaced by air turntable. Originally Posted by PTChristopher
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Spook, Originally Posted by Spook410
It isn't that playing guitar is any less cool than it was in decades past. What has changed is how the public perceives music.
In the first half of the 20th Century most people who enjoyed music made it in the home generally with pianos. The ability to make music, even at an amateur level, was prized. Even during hard times people would pinch pennies and scrimp to afford lessons for their children.
Public schools from elementary through high school had band programs that provided lessons for interested students. Concerts were regularly scheduled throughout the year.
Elvis Presley and his contemporaries gave guitar its first big push followed a few years later by The Beatles and folk music. People saw that and wanted to be a part of it. They wanted to participate.
What has changed is that people have come to perceive music as a commodity rather than a skill. It's no longer something you do, it's something you purchase. It's easier to download music than it is to learn to play it. In some ways it has lost its value because it isn't seen to be something of lasting value but rather something to be discarded and replaced as soon as the next new thing arrives. During the late 90s, I worked part-time in a CD store and people would be standing in line with their purchases excitedly talking about how they couldn't wait for whatever was coming out the next week even before they had listened to the CD they were about to buy.
Music is no longer something that people do, it's something that they consume like soap, mouthwash and toilet paper.
At some point in the future, it think that the pendulum will swing back and people will rediscover the importance and joy of being able to make music.
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Yes all this and whaaaat? Maybe when they (the big boys who set policy in this Country) figure out how simple it is. IE figure out a way, any way, to put a lot more money in the hands of the American people then everyone's problems will be over.
I think most Americans would love to buy American quality if they could only afford to.
Yes agreed something went out of whack starting in the 80's, has continued since then and now the chickens are coming home to roost. Nothing political to say here except let's get America back on the right track, it can be done. VOTE in November.
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Don't feel like I'm seeing this in the local coffee houses quite to this degree however I do think we agree that there are issues. There is the question of 'what do American respect and aspire to?' I'm concerned that it isn't art and science and education and the fruits of hard work. Maybe we need a new TV series.. 'The Real Guitar Players of New Jersey'. Originally Posted by monk
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When the Great Depression ended with the outbreak of World War II, the United States experienced an unprececented economic growth that lasted almost 50 years. During that time, the business colleges turned out an army of suits who never experienced anything other than a favorable economic climate. There were dips here and there but they were temporary and not too severe.
Even as prices rose, so did wages and everyone thought that the good life would last forever. What they forgot or ignored was that in earlier times, businesses rode the rise and fall of economics like a ship at sea. When times were good, production rose. When times were bad, production was cut back. That was the way to survive.
Most corporations have been doing business for last 50 years with the mistaken idea that there is unlimited, infinite market growth. They have ignored saturated markets by increasing production. A look at a current Gibson or Fender catalog will reveal dozens of Les Pauls or Telecasters where there were only a couple of LPs and one Telecaster and one Stratocaster 50 years ago. Martin has done the same thing. In 1971, the entire Martin catalog would fit on both sides of a single sheet of paper, Today, anyone who has even looked twice at a Martin has a model named after them.
In medicine, uncontrolled growth is called cancer.
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We are organic, wet beings. No amount of technological innovation will change that for the forseeable future. The more we distance our senses from analogue experiences through digital manipulation, the more we will crave the feeling of simple analogue experience. Sight, smell, taste, sound and feel. The marketplace may swing for whatever reasons on the economic pendulum it rides, but I do believe guitar is here to stay.
Last edited by Hammertone; 10-01-2012 at 01:54 AM.
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Yes, we do agree that there are issues. Your "fruits of hard work" resonates strongly. When I was teaching in the 70s, kids came in with the understanding that learning to play guitar required an investment of time and work. Twenty years later, when I returned to teaching in the late 90s, it was not uncommon for kids to bail after a month. I remember one student who quit after the second lesson because "This is too hard. It looks easy on TV". It's a lot easier to play video games, text and tweet, watch cable TV or download music than to practice an instrument daily and slowly accrue the skills needed to play well. There are definitely more distractions available today. Originally Posted by Spook410
Obviously, your coffehouse observations versus my CD store experiences are two different segments of the population. I'm glad to hear that there is a thriving scene in your part of the world. I don't wish to appear to be a complete cynic because I do have hope. Even though I have seen the live music scene erode in my 40 plus years as a musician, I have hope that someday the public will again embrace music as they did when I first began playing.
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I wonder why George Soros didn't buy it? Originally Posted by PTChristopher
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good point. Fender, Gibson and Martin probably have built up unsustainable business models. it would not break my heart to see Gibson and Martin go back to being more focused, specialized companies. regarding Fender, I never cared and still don't. their guitars are unsightly and PRS has that sound covered now, don't they? Fender can concentrate on amps for all i care. Originally Posted by monk
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Fender isn't in trouble, its a good business, and their debt load isn't crazy. This story is about Wall street trying to cash out via taking the company public. Imagine Fender's margins on guitars when selling an American Standard, they must be through the roof.
Last edited by Al_F; 10-01-2012 at 10:09 AM.
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yes, it was disco, then rap, then hip-hop. at first you could at least dance to the crap. now, you can make angry faces and shake your fist to it. Originally Posted by Double 07
it's called cultural decay, folks. don't look for it to end anytime soon.
even if melodic and harmonic music make a comeback or renaissance of sorts, it will never be quite the same as before.
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WOW!! Good thing you had "Nothing political to say here . . . " Originally Posted by Double 07
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