If you want to make money, avoid the music business

[patentcad]

As the executives @ Fender will tell you.

 

[maaxFlux]

Interesting article! I love that they mention the bass I modified for Rick Barrio Dill getting stolen, and Fender giving him a new one, which he promptly brought over to me to do the same mod to! I almost felt as if I were in the article too!

 

[TeleFromHelly]

10 posts below yours https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/1148899

I feel like it's not any information any of us didn't already know. What do kids want to do, click buttons on a laptop, or spend hundreds of hours learning a stringed instrument? Every industry is trouble, guitar more than any

 

[patentcad]

Yeah, well just keep your friggin day jobs. If Fender is having a hard time making money in that business (and they are the largest guitar company on the planet), what chance does anyone else have? Maybe you're almost better off being a small high end builder like Knaggs.

 

[rob2001]

If Fender is having a hard time making money in that business (and they are the largest guitar company on the planet),

Maybe thats the problem. Too friggin big. The 00's were loaded with business' and individuals getting way too fat. They are not the only huge corperation facing trouble and/or downsizing.

And culture is changing too. The idea of the guitar god has faded. If I built a business around a cultural phenomenon I would not expect it to last forever. Fender and the 'guitar god' had a darn good run though. I'm not saying it's all over, or that the guitar is no longer relevant.

 

[patentcad]

The idea of the guitar god has faded.

Hey, maybe if my bar band gets off the ground I can resurrect that.

 

[Hawking]

Maybe thats the problem. Too friggin big. The 00's were loaded with business' and individuals getting way too fat. They are not the only huge corperation facing trouble and/or downsizing.

And culture is changing too. The idea of the guitar god has faded. If I built a business around a cultural phenomenon I would not expect it to last forever. Fender and the 'guitar god' had a darn good run though. I'm not saying it's all over, or that the guitar is no longer relevant.

Doesn't help that being famous is becoming less and less appealing everyday.

I wanted to be a rockstar when I was a kid. That was before internet; twitter, camera phones, facebook, gossip blogs, TMZ, 24-hour news cycles, etc. Just look at Green Day - Billie Joe smashes a guitar and the band has to issue an apology and BJ goes to rehab. I'd like to see someone try to tell Pete Townshend to go to rehab in the 60s


You think in 2012 that Led Zeppelin would get away with what they did with that mudshark without being forced to publicly apologize?

 

[Kmaz]

I thought the mudshark was a myth?

 

[Hawking]

I thought the mudshark was a myth?

Haha well if it happened today, someone would have taken a phone pic and posted it all over the internet. Look at Prince Harry

 

[rob2001]

OK, I read the article now. Duff Mckeagan is a wimp if he can't take out a Jazz bass in 20 tries!

 

[THebert]

Interesting read and I do wonder about the future of electric guitar. Sometimes companies try to get too big, loose a core direction, etc, that is for sure. But at least Fender will always have the strat and Gibson will always have the Les Paul.

 

[DRS]

I know how to make $10M dollars in the music business . . .










Start with $20M

 

[rspencer]

I thought the mudshark was a myth?

Not a myth, just inaccurate. A red snapper, not a mudshark. Not the band, but the road crew (although Bonham was present).

Haha well if it happened today, someone would have taken a phone pic and posted it all over the internet. Look at Prince Harry

Cellphone? Some guy from Vanilla Fudge filmed it.

 

[sunburst79]

You think in 2012 that Led Zeppelin would get away with what they did with that mudshark without being forced to publicly apologize?

Greenpeace and PETA would circling the Edgewater Inn.

 

[Cylon]

fenders prices are too high for this economy, who can afford a 1000$ strat/tele mia nowadays.

 

[Five Horizons]

fenders prices are too high for this economy, who can afford a 1000$ strat/tele mia nowadays.

And still just as affordable as their competition. Fender makes fantastic guitars.

 

[patentcad]

And still just as affordable as their competition. Fender makes fantastic guitars.

I agree. Nothing wrong with Fender's offerings, and their cheap guitars are outstanding.

 

[Shiny McShine]

I didn't read the article but it does astound me how many companies are literally pumping out guitars right now. It's like the late 1800's was for pianos. Basically, everyone had to have a piano back then and there were hundreds of companies making them. I wonder if in 50 years, guitars will fall out of vogue and there'll only be a handful of companies making them just like what happened with the piano industry? Of course, the difference is that anyone with marginal machine shop skills can make an electric guitar. Pianos are way more intense to create.

Of course there's no money in making consumer guitars what with the quality stuff coming out of the orient for much less. They're probably still into their old growth woods without even having to go out of their way to get them.

 

[catpeople]

Fender may be huge, but they have a similar problem that Microsoft has--they are their own biggest competitor. Their old models are plentiful and work just as well as the new stuff, so why get a new one?

 

[Jon C]

Not a myth, just inaccurate. A red snapper, not a mudshark. Not the band, but the road crew (although Bonham was present).



Cellphone? Some guy from Vanilla Fudge filmed it.

That supposedly happened at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle IIRC? If so, there are no red snappers in Puget Sound AFAIK.

See http://www.gamefishin.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=25137&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

The legend/myth continues with biological ID still unestablished, lol.