i bought a used guitar back in the 80's and had them put a pick up in it. i was fairly regular there, and they were great people, so occasionally they did stuff for me that was above and beyond. the guy told me a i could pick it up at the end of a drum seminar with niko mcbrain from iron maiden. it was a paid thing, so not just anyone could get in. they were otherwise closed that day. they knew i was just coming in, picking up and leaving, so they told me when i see people begin leaving i could come in. i had my little brother with me that day who is a huge iron maiden fan. he was about 10 at the time. i thought maybe he could get a peek at him while i waited for them to bring my guitar from the back. while i was at the counter, my little brother walked up to look at the drum set, and have a look at niko. niko saw him, and sat him down at the kit, and gave him a private lesson for at least half an hour, until the staff and niko's people drug him out the door. my little brother isn't a drummer, he plays guitar. he walked out of there about 8" off of the ground that day. i said "are you gonna switch to drums now?" he said hell no, but who says no to niko mcbrain? hahahaha
Many years ago when I was a broke young man and was interested in an expensive guitar I asked the shop owner if they had a payment plan. He told me "Yeah, you pay for it and take it with you."
I have been there before also that's why I just drive by them or walk by them and shake my head, or they help a rich kiss ass person and ignore the poor people total joke
That's a good plan... Funny thing is that most big companies would PREFER you use a payment plan because they can get a kickback from the finance company, and/or end up charging you more that double the original purchase price of the guitar by the time you finish paying it off!
As a customer in a music store, I use to sometimes see what I now refer to as the "flash mob band". Usually it's a group of teenage friends stopping off at the music store on a busy Saturday afternoon. They walk around together checking out the gear they lust for. Eventually they split up. The guitar player who was quietly noodling around while plugged in, suddenly cranks it up and starts jamming on some riff. Low and behold, another friend starts playing bass along with him good and loud. On a couple occasions, the drums started in from that portion of the store. Low and behold! The band come out of the garage or basement for what might be their first live performance! lol I remember one particular "performance" where the young vocalist was singing along as loud as he could, complete with his mildly contained front man, rock star, stance and moves. Depending on the mood, sometimes this "flash mob" stuff is a bit funny. Sometimes I'm actually happy for them getting their brief bit of fun. More often it's a bit obnoxious; made obvious by a patient store employee soon busting it up by offering some assistance & feeding young egos with kind words about how they sounded. Years ago, one such local store (with the space to accommodate it) had a small stage that they'd use for demoing their PA, riser, and light gear. Due to these "flash mob" Saturday afternoon shows, they got the idea to put together a small typical band setup on the stage supplied by their used gear inventory. With a sign right there promoting it, on one particular slow day each month, they'd let people come in during the evening and play ONE song to the store. For a few years, it turned into a hugely popular event. People carrying guitar cases, drum sticks, etc, would continually filter into the place. That slow night turned busy as people breaking into the local scene would meet each another, talk shop, and listen to the varying talent. I don't know how significantly it affected store sales, but it was certainly a way to promote music in the area and encouraged some people to get out of the basement.
No joke. It's been so long since I've actually bought a new guitar, it's nerve racking just getting used to new string spacing let alone playing well. I've played the same Flying V for nigh on 20 years, so anything else is a huge adjustment. Easier for me to adjust to different acoustic guitars and basses, but it's still not a performance. I play loud enough for me and my wife to hear it well, and that's about it.
I had a spontaneous accoustic jam with a guy I loosely knew in Denmark St London and this younger guy said "That sounds great!" I was really concentrating on playing so I completely ignored him and I felt terrible afterwards : still do, decades later.
@@RideAcrossTheRivernope! A guitar is an instrument that should sound good. It’s not a platform for tricks. I’m all for dive bombs, pinch harmonics etc but they need to be done on an instrument that sounds good on its own merit. Tone is in the hands might be true but nobody is good enough to make a razor blade neck with bass frets and banjo strings and 20 something output pickups sound good. You might be a great player with great technique and that tin can your playing might make it easier to play fast on but it sounds like a 2007 Honda with rims and a big muffler. Buy your electric guitar based on how it sounds acoustically. Don’t plug it in
I was selling a guitar out of my house a few years ago from a locally placed ad. The guy shows up, I plug the guitar in for him and he starts to play/try it out. Next thing I know he is full on singing as loud as one can, not very well either. Just him and I in my living room while he's playing my guitar and singing, OMG. I almost lost the sale due to laughter, but managed to contain myself until he left and then my family joined me in mass laughter. Funniest music related incident ever.
LoL very cool...I put some stuff on the FB Marketplace in my area A single sale and ended up selling 9K worth of stuff I could only list two items because of being a new user and WOW....not a funny story but just goes to show you never know I had a bunch of things to sell because needing a new set of wheels but couldn't list all of them My GF freaked out when she came home LoL I left a butt load of hundreds on the dining room table Ya neva know
@@qua7771 It was just tough to keep a straight face. He had the cash and left with the guitar. It WAS entertaining as I still talk about it to this day. Hahaha!!!
John Entwistle signed my first bass a 60s Vox.I wanted this one signed because I know he played them early on.He did get a kick out of it when he saw it.He was a very friendly person and I treasure this bass because he's a hero to me.
That's worth more than all the money in the world. RIP, John. I am jealous that you were able to meet him, and get a permanent reminder of that meeting. It must have been wonderful. I adored him as a child, and still do. What a great memory to have!
Those early Vox basses had such skinny necks. My friends brother had a s16 rack tape studio and some old crappy gear and I was given this incomplete bass. I took the neck, made a simple body of Red Oak in the shape of a comma and would bring it out on gigs. No volume, no tone, all bass.Unbelievably skinny making a Jazz neck seem large in my memory.
@@9999plato Yes, we had pencils in 1st grade bigger.I'd bet my Vox Panther is the slimmest.It's kind of comical.One tone,one volume for one pup.But it has the Ox's signature on it making it a great bass! Also I played a Vox Phantom IV and it had a thicker but weird neck that seemed to have the same dimensions at the nut as the joint.I do however think it's very cool looking.They go for crazy money now. Fun Fact; The bassist for Paul Revere and the Raiders Phil "Fang" Volk, played one retro fitted with a P bass neck.I believe it sits in the Idaho HOF.
I was at Sticky Fingers soon after it opened in London and heard a commotion as a bunch of guys was yelling "Bill, Bill Hey Bill Wyman! Hey!" It was John Entwistle and he looked all innocent and confused.
I used to work as a Sales Engineer for a great company, that we'll call CandyHydro, and after having a great conversation with a customer, he decided on buying this exquisite Memphis-made 335. I called him a few weeks later to see how everything was going and he proceeds to send me awkward photos of him and this guitar. I got a picture of him shirtless with it, a picture of his wife holding it provocatively and even a family photo with it as a centerpiece. That was the oddest sale I ever had.
My mom just came out of having an emergency brain surgery last night... they found inoperable cancer... i havent said it out loud yet. I feel ya. Keep your head up.
@@randa4382 Sorry to hear that, horrible. Same mate, look after yourself. Guessing you're US, wish we were the first families to have these problems but we're not. Do try and find support lines to find someone to talk to when you're ready. A UK resource is Cancer Chat where people whos lives are touched by cancer, they're good people.
The singing bandits are always in our shop. Puts my stomach in a knot with cringy embarrassment:) They should get together and open their own chain of stores that feature singing customers who never buy anything:)
In my 6 months of working retail and teaching at a guitar store, I have met no less than five different guys who claim to have developed the 5150 with Eddie Van Halen.
Yeah, right. They didn't help Eddie develope that guitar... I did. There was this time when Eddie and I were walking down the street and... hey, it could happen!
Several years ago I was shopping for a bass. The young salesman at the national guitar chain was very helpful as I tried a lot of different basses. I finally settled on a great used American J bass. It played the best of all that I tried. Meanwhile the manager must have been tired of the kid spending time helping me and took over halfway through the transaction. He was a real ass. And seemed to be in a big hurry to get rid of me. Somehow between retrieving the case and printing my receipt He forgot to take my money. I walked out to my vehicle with one of my band mates with a fairly expensive instrument and a receipt without paying a dime. After deliberating for a minute I didn't feel right about it. I went back in and grabbed the young kid and asked if he would like to take my money since his boss was far too busy. That branch of the music "center" has since closed down. But I still chuckle when I think about it....and my good karma stayed intact. Not sure it was funny....but it is my best guitar shop story.
As an extension on the partscaster experts,as a guitar maker I get a lot of assembler Luthiers. You know the guys that have assembled 1 or 2 partscasters, maybe going as far as routing for a humbucker who are now your kindred spirits, who will try and share their vast experience to teach me about guitar making. Nod and smile!!!
Now that it's possible to buy cheap Chinese parts on Ebay, EVERYONE is a luthier. I took my big 18" archtop into a music store to see if I could find a case. The kid behind the counter flipped-out when he saw it, and began to give me a detailed history about the guitar, who made it, the age... on and on. When he was done I said, "Are you sure about all that because I don't think that's accurate." "Yeah, why?" "Because I built it."
Lol! Hey! I resemble that comment! Only kinda, I took one I put together that I was particularly proud of down to a local luthier for an honest assessment of my work. It was an ES335 kit, and sorta replica of Clapton’s Red, but with a dot neck. He complimented my work, and components choice. The neck and fret work, while not perfect he was particularly pleased with. I got some pointers, and some advice on how to improve. Great day! 👍
Haha hey it’s Zach! The traveling “circus” dude. My face looks even worse but that daphne blue custom shop is distracting me from my goonies monster face😂 no one else I’d rather die listening to hahaha
This happened in a pawn shop, but you probably get this in your shop: Customer wants to try out a guitar, so they plug it in and then turn on the amp without bothering to check the volume knobs first or mute the strings, so of course out comes this noise that sounds like Hendrix getting hit by a dump truck. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to shout "Rock and Roll" as soon as they got it under control, to spare them any embarrassment..
I went to a local guitar shop which I love and as a bassist you can always tell when there’s no bass players that work in a shop by how the new basses are set up (or not). There was a decent selection of about 15 basses (mostly fenders) and it was like they went right out of the box up on a hanger. Lapsteels, and I forgot to bring my slide. Just a tip to shops, please PLEASE do an initial set up on your basses to drop the actions. Just a little truss rod tightening makes a world of difference. Make them playable. They were all horrendously bad and if I were a new bassist I’m not sure they’d grab me and make me want to learn the instrument.
Did not happen to me but a guy I went to school with now owns a well known vintage guitar store in Cincinnati. He noticed a guy showing a lot of interest in a guitar modeled after 1 Peter Frampton supposedly played. He was telling the guy that it's a great playing guitar and a great buy the only problem is Peter Frampton never owned one. The guy was pretty adamant about the fact that he did but Mike is very knowledgeable and just kind of blew the guy off. Later he met the guy at another event and at that point realized that it was in fact Peter Frampton. So he says he learned that no matter how much you know about guitars you can always learn more. Because I'm pretty sure Frampton was correct on this one.
We have a few others... "Monopolizer," who has a lot of questions, and needs a lot of help, only to buy a pack of strings and walkout. One type I love, is "The Old Guy Who Used To Play A Lot Locally." They have the best stories. I had one of those guys change my entire approach to guitar. He said, "Don't practice til you get it right. Practice til you can't get it wrong." Mind-blowing, at the time. Muscle memory plus heart. Talk to them, they know things.
The autograph devaluing the guitar is always funny to me. I have a John Petrucci Musicman that I got a great deal on because it had been autographed by Jeff Loomis. So it sits in the guitar stand next to my non-autographed Schecter Jeff Loomis signature guitar.
"Do you have something that will give my guitar more disdain?" "Oh, is that maple walnut?" "How do you build an amplifier? Do you just select the diodes for the frequency?"
This is great stuff guys! 🙂🙂 It happens the other way around too actually. When one day a person running the shop tried to make me look ridiculous in front of everyone there just cos I asked him about Mosrite guitars. "What's that kid? A motorcycle brand you idiot? We're a serious business here!!" Only to get corrrected by one of his trainees.... Ah the magic of guitar shops.... 😃😃
That was cool you knew who sister Rosetta Tharpe was sooo many old school guitarist have claimed her as an influence led zeppelin even re did one of her songs
So, the other day Paul McCartney and I were hanging out, doing some casual noodling. Anyway, he told me the first guitar on earth was made out of a hollowed out pumpkin and some fishing line. There’s a rumor that Lefty Frizzell wrote Stairway to Heaven on it, but that’s unconfirmed.
I heard about that guitar! The neck was hand carved from a branch off the magic bean stalk and it had ivory inlays fabricated from the whale bone of Captain Ahab's prosthetic leg. However, I think the strings might have been made from the intestine of a dodo bird.
The spoiled rich kid in New Orleans who'd come in, grab a Les Paul and start ripping Slash licks. Then recruit other customers to jam G&R songs, and yell at them if their playing wasn't up to his high standards. He told me one day he was moving to LA to found Guns and Roses. He was very upset when I told him they already existed.
As a newbie to the industry I died laughing because some of these are not specific to music stores but can be overheard in many retail locations. LMAO all the way to work. Thanks guys!
Everyone knows that Paul Reed Smith guitars were designed by a compilation of three legendary musicians. Les Paul, Vernon Reid, and Patti Smith were all equally involved in the creation. Duh!
Guitar Center in the 90’s, this older guy playing his heart out on a Gibson Jazz Box, while his wife watched him, sounding awesome, and I walked around; all the sales guys talking behind his back, what an idiot, he was and sounds shitty. That always stuck with me, how awful people can be.
Yep I was 11 or so in guitar center and heard an employee talking crap behind my back and it hurt like hell. Still play 15 years later but to this day don’t like playing in stores for longer than 10-15 minutes to get a feel for a guitar I’m interested in
I don't play a single note in stores for similar reasons. No matter how good you are, some employees will talk smack. It's like, you guys sell guitars, right? Or are you here to humiliate and discourage customers? I'm not talking about the people that have no business picking up a guitar of course.
as a 20 year old building their first partscaster, this was humbling LOL i’ve spent the year or so researching so I don’t end up like those in the video 😂
I have a soft spot for parts casters. And you’re right, some are really quite good! People dump their hearts and souls into these things. Not everyone knows what the hell they are doing though.. lol! If you are building one for yourself, knock yourself out. It’s a lot of fun! Hell, buy a kit! There is a lot of satisfaction in doing one, and a lot of pride in playing something you made. Don’t expect anyone else to place any value on it though!
"for yourself" is the key here. Problem is most people think that the sentimental value that the parts caster holds for them is something that equals a dollar value.
I am a customer. I hate it when I know what I am looking for but the seller thinks I am fool and wants to push something on me that they are stuck with or have a higher dividend on.
The one that always makes me laugh is the 'most natural sounding...' when referring to effects. Apart from reverb (echos are a variation on reverb), NO guitar effect occurs in nature. They are ALL manufactured effects.
Partscasters!! I'm building one right now I've been doing it for 5 years, I've changed my mind several times on what I want to do with it, but it will deff be a strat with either a maple or Rosewood neck. Paula Dean approved. BTW I have about $1500 invested in a $500 guitar so far.
My observation over the last 35 years of frequenting guitar shops: Just because someone works at a guitar shop, it doesn't mean they are a subject matter expert. I've had plenty of laughs at the stuff salespeople say to try to get a sale.
I had a customer ask for a set of Fender 150R because he thought the Fender 150L was for left-handed guitars. I didn't laugh and explained the difference.
Then there were the guys who had an electric guitar, and cut the plug off one end of the cable and installed an ac plug. Which of course they plugged into the wall.
Might be controversial but the “I have a strat, the maple neck makes it just too bright for me, I’m looking for something with a rosewood neck” person.
I used to go to a guitar store where the same guy would bring in his own electric guitar and jam for a long time and sometimes he'd try to get us bystanders to join in. I always wondered what the guys that worked at the store thought of these unplanned jam sessions 🤣
Hey guys. I can certainly relate to all of these stories. I worked at a pretty high profile place in Florida and have experienced all of what you talk about here and like you, much more. Something you didn't mention are the non player parents who bring their small children in and let them run wild. We had a few of those and it was the most stressful thing that could possibly happen. I/we would politely ask if they could get their kids to be more careful. More than a few would turn around and ask "oh what's the big deal, aren't these are just floor models?" as if we were Rooms 2 Go. 😑
I asked to play a floor model that I had heard good things about. Back then I was more broke than a commission only salesman at Radio Shack, but I was buying if the floor model lived up to the hype. It didn't. It was a Citation. Could you imagine a kid knocking over a Citation? They would have to empty her credit card, then sign over her car just for the down-payment.
I worked in a store where we got in something new , The Mesa Boogie. At the time it was the only amp that had a switchable clean to dirty channel. Add to that any other amp only got anything close to dirt without being dimed. It was also twice the money the average guy bought even if he was pro. So a guy came in wanting an amp that gave him a dirt sound who had no idea it was not a normal feature of all amps. Anyhow with more than a bit of persuasion I sold him the top of the line Boogie. A week late he came back bringing the amp and said it didn't have enough distortion. I could see my boss cringing that this guy was wanting to return it but left and went back to his office. A half hour later he came back out and asked where did I put the Boogie. I told him the guy took it home and then showed him a receipt for a Big Muff, lol.
So your life a used car salesman. Instead of doing the right thing and selling the guy what he could use for his skill level he talked him into buying a high dollar amplifier Way Beyond his capabilities just wrong
@@Allguitarinfo those are the guys you don't want in a music shop. As time goes by and that customer learns, he will realise he got fleeced. He won't go back, and will tell others. I'm sorry for him that he got ripped blind.
I worked at a music store many years ago. Once, a kid took a sucker and ran it over the top of all the electric guitars, which were in a line, low to the ground. They had to spend an afternoon getting sicky sucker marks off the guitars. Then there was the opposite kind of mother and child. The little kid was running around, acting up. She went to the counter and pulled out a drum stick from the storage bin, and proceeded to wail on his butt right there. At another music store, a mom came in with about 3 rowdy kids. She finally rushed them out of the store. Not because of their behavior, but because they had broken the head stock off a Gibson guitar. They had put it back on the stand, and balanced the broken part on the stand. Fortunately, it wasn't the best quality model, but still.
Here is unfunny guitar story. My uncle is a guitar player, did some session work, got sent to prison. Great guy. His step children hated him, because they are dicks. Uncle had a bunch of guitars, basses, ukes... The mean stepson, based on what I can figure, dumped all into a garbage bin. Most were basic guitars. But the collection consisted of: Spanish made acoustic with beautiful mother of pearl inlay. A Taylor acoustic from 1974 or 5, great time. An actual Les Paul, beautiful, 1958, I think that was year. Gone. He did give me, before court, a Gibson US custom ES335. The quality is amazing, to cheap guitar me. Uncle wanted me to hold his guitars for him. That was important to me as he is down not dead. So all guitars gone but the one I have, the son put his elderly mother in a home and we can't find her and the son made sure uncle could not contact her, he doesn't know where she may be. Evil.
Oh no! I'm a partscaster ranger. I find soldering the guts to be soothing and an anti-anxiety activity. My local Sam Ash gets some business for the final setups.
You have hacked the process! After building a few, I’m getting to where I’m pretty good at doing setups. I did a set up for the neighbors kid, he had a Squire bullet that was almost unplayable. And he was trying to learn. I spent a few hours sorting out the neck and the frets.. adjusted the pickup heights to match a standard I’ve been playing for years. Gotta say, some of my best work. There really was a decent guitar hiding in there!
I used to have a guy that bought expensive $4-7k+ guitars. He would take them home all happy and then return them a couple weeks later. He did this periodically for about 3 years. I spent hours upon hours catering to him, trying to get him into his perfect guitar, but never made a single commission because he kept returning them . After a couple times it became my mission, but I failed. 😂 Every time he left with one, it was “the best guitar he ever owned.”
As a sole guitar trader, i cant tell you how many funny stories i have of driving round the country picking up guitars. Some genuinely sad, some outright funny af 😅
Worked at a store that stocked Martins and other high end acoustics and once had a guy come in wanting to play a Martin but it looked like he’d just changed the oil on his car. I asked him to wash up first and then I would be happy to help him. His reply: it’s just a ******* guitar, man. He stormed out. Well, just a $3,000 guitar but okay.
I'm glad you mentioned Mosrite guitars. Like ALL guitars in general but the Mosrite is my no.1 weapon of choice because not only does it have an incredibly awesome classic sound but looks darn sexy TO BOOT. To me it has to look right AND sound right too. The Mosrite fits that bill PERFECTLY ! As does the Fender Stratocaster Jazzmastet and Jaguar.
I like Mosrites because of The Ventures. We were just kids leaning to play and didn't have a PA (or anyone who WANTED to be the singer) so we just did instrumentals . We decided to copy The Ventures . "windy and warm" was the first tune in our set for YEARS.
I had a Mosrite copy by Univox as my first guitar and it played great but I could not appreciate it because I always thought the guitar was a mistake because the longer horn was on the bottom. I was 15 at the time. Duh.
I just bought my first guitar in January of this year. I did my due diligence to research exactly what I wanted, had narrowed it down to a few different choices. I was living on the Texas coast at that time, and so my choices for guitar stores in the area were limited. But I did go into one store, (I won't say their name, but it rhymes with cigar vendor) and I started looking around at their inventory. Not a big store, I think they had about 18-20 used guitars on the wall at that time. But the kid who came up to help me was clueless. In retrospect, it had to be his first 2 or 3 days on the job... it had to! I can't remember all the things that I thought he should know and did not, but at some point when I started explaining some basic things to him (like "this one has smoother fret ends than this one") I realized that he really had nothing to offer me in the way of looking for my first guitar. I eventually found a very nice, fairly new, but slightly used PRS SE custom 24 online by a private party and actually got what I consider to be a very fair deal. I went back to that store about a month later to get a small practice amp, an amp cord, some picks, a tuner, etc... and guess who helped me? And guess who was still just as clueless about everything in his store?
You guys have mentioned the Partscasters a few times recently, and I am compelled to chime in. I took a Jimmy Vaughan strat and essentially made 2 patscasters out of it by adding other parts. I have 3 extra bodies now from my experimentation over the past couple years or so. Conclusion, while both are good, maybe very good, they are not quite as good as my 94 AVRI 52 Tele or my 2001 AVRI 62 Strat. So basically I agree with you guys on this whole partscaster thing!
So you guys are all kinda right except we all know from Ozzy's autobiography that the song was originally named Stairway to Holloween, and was about buying candy. But where candy is bad for you, they decided to change the name and make it about drugs so it would be acceptable.
Worked and owned guitar shops most my life. One day got a call from a guy wanting left handed drumsticks. Sure. Next call a different guy wanting left hand harmonicas , Shure ,just got some in.
This is from a recording studio, but it applies. We're tracking this guitar player and he dials in this monsterously great tone with his Strat. He tracks a rhythm part and wants to do a solo. The tone he has is a great lead tone so I get the song cued up to the solo section and ask if he's ready to go. He says, "Just a minute, I'm tuning up my Les Paul." I say, "Ok, you sure you don't wanna use the strat again, it'll sound incredible on this lead section." His answer was priceless. "Na man, a strat is a rhythm guitar, you can't play a lead with it, you need to play solos with a Les Paul because that's a lead guitar." I cut the talk back, hit record and everyone in the control room just loses it. We start making jokes about SRV, Clapton, everyone who has played a single note melody on a strat. It was awesome.
I see that the opposite way. Les Pauls make for excellent rhythm guitars because of the thick tones you can get that cover a lot of sonic ground. Strats compliment that perfectly due to their thinner, piercing tones cutting through the mix. Switch them around if you're looking for something different, of course, but Les Paul as rhythm with Strat as the lead is a combo that always works.
My dream is to drive up to you’re shop (from Canada) with a wad of cash and just be like “pick a guitar for me oh great masters”. Literally you guys are the best thing in the internet…much love ❤
I had a guitar store owner, that I knew belt out an Eagles song at the top of his lungs. I, at that moment, realized that I would not try to do that at the age of my own vocal cord’s. He was trying to sell me an acoustic guitar and I left a bit embarrassed by this outburst.
When I worked in a bike shop, some big ginger guy in ripped clothes who smelled like 1000 wet ash trays would come in head straight for the mountain bikes. He would then get on them and bounce on the things like a pogo stick! Also groups of philipeno men dressed in tactical gear would come in and always ask if they could finance a $5000 bike with a $100 down payment. The world is a circus!
Great episode guys. I’m tempted to insert typos so I don’t get exterminated. I used to work at a motorcycle shop in Montreal East. A prostitute that was always dressed in pink with a pink umbrella, rain or shine would circle the block all the time and disappear for a bit and then reappear as business transactions were fulfilled.
