PMT and Gibson Guitars - Big news and changes

nickb_boy

I know there was a trend for tie dye finishes at NAMM but if Gibson are hoping this unicorn vomit colour scheme is going to be their savior and the best way of helpng to sell a historic 1959 model priced  at £4299 then good luck to them.  



PMT probably saw they had 3 out of the 50 run of these already on their order sheets and thought they'd be better off out.

m_c

Whitecat said:

Guitars aren't dead, but the "guitar solo" sure seems to be...

Lots of successful-ish (or at least acclaimed) electro bands still have prominent guitars though, the two can mix really well.

I'd say that's pretty accurate. You've just got to look at some of the biggest hits over the past few years.

Guitars are still there, it's just that they're not as prominent an instrument as they have been.

darthed1981

m_c said:

Whitecat said:

Guitars aren't dead, but the "guitar solo" sure seems to be...

Lots of successful-ish (or at least acclaimed) electro bands still have prominent guitars though, the two can mix really well.

I'd say that's pretty accurate. You've just got to look at some of the biggest hits over the past few years.

Guitars are still there, it's just that they're not as prominent an instrument as they have been.

I doubt the guitar is under any threat as a musical instrument, it is too fundamental a part in how pop music works.

The discussion here spun off about the likelihood of another guitar-music led movement topping the charts like Britpop did, and I think we all agree that is pretty damn unlikely.

crunchman

The least unlikely area for growth is probably in Country/Americana styles.  Those seem to be really big at the moment.

RocknRollDave

darthed1981 said:

I doubt the guitar is under any threat as a musical instrument, it is too fundamental a part in how pop music works.

The discussion here spun off about the likelihood of another guitar-music led movement topping the charts like Britpop did, and I think we all agree that is pretty damn unlikely.

Early 90's, tripe like 2 Unlimited dominating the charts. Who knew a guitar-centric Beatlesy band explosion was just around the corner? The likes of Melody Maker and NME suddenly find that they are competing for coverage of the same music scene with The Sun et al. Anyone who says they saw THAT coming is lying.

So, who knows? Fingers crossed, anyway...

impmann

RocknRollDave said:

darthed1981 said:

I doubt the guitar is under any threat as a musical instrument, it is too fundamental a part in how pop music works.

The discussion here spun off about the likelihood of another guitar-music led movement topping the charts like Britpop did, and I think we all agree that is pretty damn unlikely.

Early 90's, tripe like 2 Unlimited dominating the charts. Who knew a guitar-centric Beatlesy band explosion was just around the corner? The likes of Melody Maker and NME suddenly find that they are competing for coverage of the same music scene with The Sun et al. Anyone who says they saw THAT coming is lying.

So, who knows? Fingers crossed, anyway...

Well, I'm not sure thats 100% true.

For a start bands like The Stone Roses, Blur, Ride and even the Charlatons were playing to big audiences their own style of "baggy" music. It was clear that all of the bands were developing away from that style and Blur especially broke away from that *massively* pretty quickly. Modern Life is Rubbish pre-dated Oasis by some margin and was hugely influenced by the Kinks, harking back to a gnarlier 60's vibe. It was also universally liked by students and us young 'uns at the festivals of the time - the "Starshaped" tour was the first time I got to see them and they were fabulous.

Suede were the darlings of the music scene - with NME and Melody Maker falling over themselves to say that this was the best band in the world.They were getting pretty heavy coverage in the inkies by the time Gary Crowley played the video to Supersonic for the first time on telly. I saw Suede's first London gig supporting some naff indie band that we didn't bother staying for... it was clear from the first song that they were going to be MASSIVE.

Frankly, for someone like me who was establishing an originals band around that time these influences were HUGE. The Supersonic video was a standout moment for me, likewise hearing "For Tomorrow" by Blur blasting out for the first time - not  the least for the fact that Graham had ditched his Les Paul for a Squier Tele with EMGs... Seeing Oasis swagger around making *that* noise was a moment... and I remember a gig at the Astoria where Noel got up and "jammed" (I can't remember the circumstances/band etc) but Oasis hadn't broken the big time, yet everyone was talking about them and having them involved in your scene gave you credence.

So whilst we "didn't see it coming" its fair to say that for those of us that were playing in and around London in 1992-94, it was clear that something was going to explode as there were a lot of bands coming through with 60s influences, loud amps and a particular attitude. 

TBH, I'm too old to comment on the current 'scene' - I do hear *lots* of abrasive "Djent" metal in rehearsal rooms (some good, some... not so), but don't hear a lot else. I'm not feeling the same vibe as back then, but like I say... I'm too old.

Whitecat

^^ - plus that all happened when there were more mainstream/central consumption channels.

Now TOTP solely consists of 40 year compilation episodes on BBC4 and a Christmas special, MTV doesn't play any videos anymore, NME is a free weekly rag whose existence seems to have been in doubt in general for some time, covermount compilation CDs for free with newspapers and magazines are almost completely dead, and the tastemakers don't have nearly as much sway as they once did.

With fragmented consumption via digital and album sales on the decline, it's more likely that things will happen as niches only... finding your way onto a weekly Spotify playlist may now be the goal, rather than having your video on MTV.

guitars4you

impmann said:

TBH, I'm too old to comment on the current 'scene' - I do hear *lots* of abrasive "Djent" metal in rehearsal rooms (some good, some... not so), but don't hear a lot else. I'm not feeling the same vibe as back then, but like I say... I'm too old.

I think there is a danger of getting old and out of touch - I remember similar chats with my dad when I played him bands I liked with 'listen to this dad it's great' - and when The Beatles arrived my Granddad (ex pro muso and a fine player) told my dad that it won't last as they can't play very well - So it is  a factor as we grow older and miss the next or current trend

Yet I don't see a major mainstream vibe that makes players want to pick up a guitar today and play, then join a band - I'm taking acoustic guitars out of the equation at this stage - the buzz that was created by Blur/Oasis, Punk, New Wave, Jam, The Police, Clash and Cult when they arrived was felt in many areas - It is almost as though today's buzz is 'hidden' underground on facebook and youtube, unless you know where to find, yet I don't see such acts selling out on 20/30 date tours of UK venues and certainly not filling larger O2 venues or sport stadium - So I'm not denying the metal scene exists, certainly in the UK, but I think it is low key in comparison to what we saw 10/20/30 years ago as mainstream radio, TV, live etc - If I walk in to a certain pub in town at the weekend what I see and hear on the video jukebx is all 10-30 years old and the talk in the pub is of those bands - Not the metal scene

What will come next and when I don't know

english_bob

Strangefan said:

drippycat said:

It'll never die. Not while teenage boys still cotton on to the fact that girls look at them when they play the guitar.

They  don't anymore, that stopped around 
1996, 

Exactly. And without new pop music (it's all pop music) that prominently features guitars it'll be roughly as cool to play the guitar as it is to play the trombone. Girls may still look at you, but it'll be for the wrong reasons, or it'll be the wrong girls.

darthed1981 said:
The discussion here spun off about the likelihood of another guitar-music led movement topping the charts like Britpop did, and I think we all agree that is pretty damn unlikely.

Ed Sheeran has three singles in the top 5 as of last Friday. James Arthur- another moody young man with a guitar- has two singles in the top 40. Ryan Adams (another moody not-so-young-anymore man with a guitar), Ed Sheeran and Elbow all have albums in the top 10. The top 40 has albums by James Arthur, The 1975, Coldplay, The Shires, The Rolling Stones, Kings of Leon and friggin' Thunder. Bestselling albums of last year include James Bay and Radiohead, as well as all the artists still currently in the top 40.

When Britpop was around, every band that label got applied to denied being "Britpop", and most of them had fairly little in common. If anything, the current trend for moody boys with acoustic guitars looks more like a "movement" than Britpop did, but music featuring lots of guitar is still out there, and selling as well as anything. 

It seems to me that the people most convinced that "guitar music" is dying are the ones with the narrowest, most regressive view of what guitar music is. Shit, they use terms like guitar music at all, as if basing entire styles of music around a single instrument was a good idea in the first place. They seem to be the ones stuck in the 80s, who love self-indulgent, meedly-meedly guitar solos on luminous pointy axes played by men who dress like women, and a subculture that fetishises fretwank above all else. That shit is dead, and I'm not mourning it.

andyp

The whole way this Gibson deal seems to work seems like the tail wagging the dog to me.

Surely they should just supply and sell what the customers want, rather than tell the customers what they want and nobody buys them? I know it's not that simple but it must be a better business model to supply and sell as many of the ones that people are buying as possible over trying to manipulate people into buying something.

Jez6345789

PMT is just another dealer to say hey I started my business to sell in the musical instrument industry, I am a business man and now I get more corporate do this for the greater good than when I worked at xxx PLC. 

In most business models over time the prescriptive model adopted by Gibson and others always fails. 

Cutting out the grass roots mum and pop stores who are nurturing and growing the next gen of guitarists is the first mistake and putting all your eggs into big chains like Guitar Centre and Guitar Guitar and Andertons. Is an over head cutting exercise its easier to have 20 big customers than manage 200 mum and pop shops. 

The number of dealers leaving Gibson and Fender continues to grow the fact that PMT is mentioned here is as that the company wanted people to write about it and say hey we are sticking a finger up to the man. 

Others have quietly not restocked and developed their business in other ways. Without the fanfare not just here but in the US and other countries. This will lead to upping the pressure on the superstores to shift product till they also squeak there will also be a bit of leveraging of margin to offsets loss of sales but to pep up profits. 

This is just the early stages of a long demise, think we are away off from seeing the big two crumble. 

Talking to friends that play in the US there certainly seems to be far more talking about Suhr over Fender and PRS over Gibson along with people picking up a lot more of the small builder brands. The PRS 594 has been a very specific pitch at the Gibson Historic market (one of their cash cows) "a new vintage guitar" "a guitar with an old soul but modern build quality."

PRS is on record a couple of years ago that he cant build those guitars as he does not own the trademarks but we know how to and we could do a way better job. Usual guitar shop meeting gaff from Paul. Couple of years later along comes 594 their biggest hit for a good while. I would expect them to revisit the DC3 in a more new guitar with an old soul and dig into Fenders custom shop market at some point. 

The loss of dealers and more focussed competition from Suhr and other will all add pressure. 

But neither of the big guns has played all their cards out yet. Gibson could easily reverse the strategy of only endorsing million dollar dealers. Or if Henry's corporate control ideas damage the company too much then he will simply be made lifetime president a symbolic role in retirement, sidelined and in will sweep a new saviour as is the way with corporate america.

Liking a good business story as I do,  we live in interesting times .

Jez6345789

This is almost the Henry J doing the Hitler Bunker scene rant.

"PRS have finishes that look like the sea" "They have guitars that look like Rainbows"  and all you can give me is Cheery Sunburst. "we must make a guitar that has all of these things for the sake of the reich" LOL

RocknRollDave

Jez6345789 said:

This is almost the Henry J doing the Hitler Bunker scene rant.

"PRS have finishes that look like the sea" "They have guitars that look like Rainbows"  and all you can give me is Cheery Sunburst. "we must make a guitar that has all of these things for the sake of the reich" LOL

For all his faults, I'd like to think that even Hitler would be disgusted by a Les Paul with the scratchplate left off.

darthed1981

RocknRollDave said:

darthed1981 said:

I doubt the guitar is under any threat as a musical instrument, it is too fundamental a part in how pop music works.

The discussion here spun off about the likelihood of another guitar-music led movement topping the charts like Britpop did, and I think we all agree that is pretty damn unlikely.

Early 90's, tripe like 2 Unlimited dominating the charts. Who knew a guitar-centric Beatlesy band explosion was just around the corner? The likes of Melody Maker and NME suddenly find that they are competing for coverage of the same music scene with The Sun et al. Anyone who says they saw THAT coming is lying.

So, who knows? Fingers crossed, anyway...

I hope you are correct my friend

UnclePsychosis

english_bob said:

 

. Shit, they use terms like guitar music at all, as if basing entire styles of music around a single instrument was a good idea in the first place.

This is a sentiment I've held for a long time but never been able to articulate.

Those who like "guitar bands" might just need to look a bit harder for them than they used to in the 90s. Big deal. Some of us have never liked (many) bands that were in the charts. Doesn't matter---mainstream success is not necessary in order to make great music.

BloodEagle

There's shedloads of bands/artitsts around, and theyre easier to find and listen to than at any point in history - just because theyre not being pushed by mainstream culture and so arent on your radar doesnt mean they dont exist. Peoples idea of what success and popularity in music look like and how it is measured is so outdated. I cant think when there was ever more new 'guitar music' to get into than now

darthed1981

UnclePsychosis said:

Those who like "guitar bands" might just need to look a bit harder for them than they used to in the 90s. Big deal. Some of us have never liked (many) bands that were in the charts. Doesn't matter---mainstream success is not necessary in order to make great music.

No of course it isn't, but you will struggle upthread to find anyone who has said that mainstream success was necessary to make great music.

It is of course also not necessary for music to be guitar based to be great, I've heard that Beethoven was a talented chap for example.

There was a pretty golden period in the mid-late 90s though when great, guitar based music was at the top of the charts, and it was a great time.  Music does culturally and (as society notices) come and go in movements, from Rock and Roll, through the Beatles, Psychedilia, Blues Rock, Prog Rock, Punk, New Wave, Grunge, Britpop - these usually involved commercial success, even if it is just something to react AGAINST, how many great bands of the late 90s spent every interview talking about how they were NOT Britpop.

So sure there is great music across all genres and types of musician, but it isn't rising to the top.  What is rising to the top is IMHO mostly Sierra Hotel India Tango, and this makes the charts pretty grim.  Wouldn't it be nice if those talented people bubbling under while pap makes millionaires actually got the recognition they deserve, and blokes with guitars and a bad attitiude made the 6 O'clock news?

bobliefeld

BloodEagle said:

There's shedloads of bands/artitsts around, and theyre easier to find and listen to than at any point in history - just because theyre not being pushed by mainstream culture and so arent on your radar doesnt mean they dont exist. Peoples idea of what success and popularity in music look like and how it is measured is so outdated. I cant think when there was ever more new 'guitar music' to get into than now

yeah you think so do you? yeah ?

look.  no ones made a big splash like say a Gary Moore or even a Mark Knopfler.  

that's what we're talking about here buddy.  

i'm sure the guitar players in Suffer Index or Vortex of Hatred are very good in their own way but they don't have the cultural impact or relevance of bonafide guitar heroes like Richie Blackmore, Bernard Butler, the fat kid that replaced Bernard Butler, or Jerry Cantrell.

</schooling>

UnclePsychosis

i'm sure the guitar players in Suffer Index or Vortex of Hatred are very good in their own way but they don't have the cultural impact or relevance of bonafide guitar heroes like Richie Blackmore, Bernard Butler, the fat kid that replaced Bernard Butler, or Jerry Cantrell.

Who gives a shit? I certainly don't. 

UnclePsychosis

darthed1981 said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Those who like "guitar bands" might just need to look a bit harder for them than they used to in the 90s. Big deal. Some of us have never liked (many) bands that were in the charts. Doesn't matter---mainstream success is not necessary in order to make great music.

No of course it isn't, but you will struggle upthread to find anyone who has said that mainstream success was necessary to make great music.

It is of course also not necessary for music to be guitar based to be great, I've heard that Beethoven was a talented chap for example.

There was a pretty golden period in the mid-late 90s though when great, guitar based music was at the top of the charts, and it was a great time.  Music does culturally and (as society notices) come and go in movements, from Rock and Roll, through the Beatles, Psychedilia, Blues Rock, Prog Rock, Punk, New Wave, Grunge, Britpop - these usually involved commercial success, even if it is just something to react AGAINST, how many great bands of the late 90s spent every interview talking about how they were NOT Britpop.

So sure there is great music across all genres and types of musician, but it isn't rising to the top.  What is rising to the top is IMHO mostly Sierra Hotel India Tango, and this makes the charts pretty grim.  Wouldn't it be nice if those talented people bubbling under while pap makes millionaires actually got the recognition they deserve, and blokes with guitars and a bad attitiude made the 6 O'clock news?

Your whole premise seems to be based on the idea that having guitars makes the music better somehow. My premise is that music is music and I don't give a toss how you make it. 

For me, I'd rather the guys with the killer songs and the bad attitude made the news. Whether or not they play guitar is entirely incidental. 

The idea that we "need" guitars in successful music is just an ego trip by guitar players.